Of Gloom and Mr. Bond

The last few days were tough, there were thick clouds of uncertainty, darkness of despair and gloom of loneliness. The feeling enveloped me soon after a fairly good Pooja, I hope it was not what I suspect it to be -- post pooja depression, for it will prove I that I have finally turned into a true blue Bengali, not that I mind it anymore. If anything, I would love to be born as one next time, in the land of love, art, culture and beauty. As a beautiful, intelligent, nonchalant Bengali woman. In this lifetime though, I find consolation in being married to one and being mistaken for one -- more often than not.

Finally the sun shines. There is nothing that a smile, a little love, a long heart baring conversation and some shopping for your loved one cannot counter. If by chance they fail, try seeking refuge in your favorite music and your favorite author's works. In my case, it happens to be Ruskin Bond.

I love Mr Bond. He is the reason I started to read, he is the reason I started to write. If you know him or about him, good for you - you belong to a minority, a small section of people who take pride in Indian literature. If you don't,  please read him, he is the best storyteller ever - God sent for people who love it short and sweet; who want real stories of real people and real places, of places they belong to, of people they belong with.

Story telling is both an art and a craft. Many people around me are gifted storytellers -- especially my brother and husband -- they can talk about a five minute incident for an hour and keep you engaged and often in splits. It however has always been my waterloo; I have the capability to destroy the best of stories, if I ever decide to narrate one that is. If you notice, none of my writings are done in third person. I usually write in first person only. 

So, to learn the art, I go back to Mr Bond, my absolute favorite and a completely undermined writer. Whenever I talk about him to people, I often hear them say "oh that children's writer !" I immediatly change the topic.

Unlike many other famous authors, he tells real stories of real men and women. In the introduction to one of his masterpiece collections -- Friends In Small Places, he says "Somerset Maugham liked writing about the people he met. So did Maupassant and Chekhov. That is why their stories are never dull. They wrote about real people. I find most people interesting, the dull ones are those whose lives are too orderly or those who are forever boasting of the ease with which they have succeeded in life. True that, what's the fun of a perfectly orderly life? It will be one long boring story.

That, most of his stories are set in and around Dehradun and Mussoorie, perhaps adds to the connect that I have with them. I was born in Dehradun and grew up listening about it from my mother who spent her youth in and around Dehradun and Mussoorie.

It is often difficult to determine if a writer's life is as romantic as the world makes it to be or as difficult as the writers themselves claim it to be. Thanks to the stories they tell, the many affairs they have or the underlying sense of unfulfillment that runs through all their tales, writers often earn a romantic tag. From what I understand though, a writer's life is often more difficult than romantic, what the world sees is the result of years of hard work, patience, loneliness and uncertainty -- the success. What the world fails to see is what goes into making them successful -- the hard work. 

Ruskin Bond writes about his hardships and his struggles too, but hardly romanticises them. They are beautifully entwined in his stories, making an appearance once in while, as a matter of fact and not as something he dwells upon. Almost all his stories are biographical, some are autobiographical too. Until, I started to write, I often wondered how did he manage to fall in love so many times? I soon realised that a writer simply tells a story while the reader often mistakes it to be his story. That also reminds me that most of my stories are in first person. Does that mean they are my stories? Not really, I am incapable of handling so much love.

The reality is, all of us, at various points in our lives, fall in love. Sometimes, over and over again, and when we do, the age does not matter, neither does the social standing or marital status. It just refrains and restrains us from its expression and often even acceptance. But one can fall in love many times over, with the same sincerity and passion. 

So, Mr Bond falls in love too -- when he is a teenager, when he is a young writer in England, when he returns to India and lives in shanty rooms on the roofs and even when he is forty three. Most of the stories are about women older or much younger to him, most of them of unfulfilled love, unending passion and abrupt ends - that's what real life is about.

But while he is love, it is all encompassing, in one he confesses to have ignored his typewriter and writing altogether. In another he travels all the way to Delhi to get a glimpse of the girl he wants to marry, who is less than half his age -- still in school. In the same story he goes on to say "What else can one say, I love you, I love you. There is nothing simpler; nothing that can be made to mean any more than that. And what else did I say, That I would look after you and work for you and make you happy; and that too had been said before, and I was in no way different from anyone. I was a man and yet I was a boy again"  and then later in the story "I may stop loving you, but I will never stop loving the days I loved you."

Then there is The Girl From Copenhagen, where he spends two days and a night with an unknown girl. He says "We made no promises - of writing, or of meeting again. Somehow our relationship seemed complete and whole, as though it had been destined to blossom for those two days. A courting and a marriage and a living together had been compressed, perfectly, into one summer night."  It reminds me of Walking in the rain though I had not read this story when I had written that.

There are many, many more beautiful stories and passages that I can go on sharing, but, for now, I must read and practice. The art and craft of telling stories, after all how can I call myself a writer, if I cannot tell stories.

Before signing off, one last passage from his latest collection. Something strikingly similar to what I wrote in my last post. "Falling in love is probably the best thing that can happen to a writer; it gives a certain spontaneity and intensity to his writing" and " My life has been one long love story, and I have loved people, I have loved flowers, the sun, the moon and stars, old roads, old trees, children, grannies, butterflies, seashells, fairies... And of course I keep falling in love, for where love begins, there is the border of heaven." 

No, I had not read this when I wrote That heady feeling called love.

But You Had Other Women To Woo

It finally went down the drain,

leaving me wreathing in pain;

The fruit of the pill was finally borne,

the only part of you within me was now gone;

I would have lived with it all my life,

but alas! you already had a wife.

Wonder why is it always the woman to bear,

the pain, the hurt, the despair;

A man can decide to stay or move on,

the woman however must bravely carry on;

I would have happily carried on too,

but then you had other women to woo.
 

That heady feeling called love.

Pardon me if the subject of the post sounds cliched but I am a die hard romantic and this is the season of love.

The air is fragrant, mornings chilly, days bright and evenings sensual. Just the right time to fall in love and make love. It is the time for Garba, Navaratri, Durga Pooja and according to statistics, also the time when most number of abortions are undertaken, which are but a result of overflowing love. Pun, totally intended.

The dictionary gives me five meanings of love. It talks about endearment, affection, tenderness, passion and desire. Love has always fascinated me, in its various forms - agony, envy, obsession, betrayal, possessiveness, lust, and longing - all negative, all dark - all pervasive. I once believed that love brings with it more negatives than positives, but if it does, can it be love?

Some months ago, I chanced upon an interview on TV, one of the many brilliant Brahma Kumaris was talking about love. It changed my perception forever. She talked about how love is giving and not seeking. It is not about you but the person you love. Love means surrendering yourself and not vanquishing the other. If you really love someone, you will not want him to give in to your desires instead you will offer all that you have. So simple, so true, yet so few of us understand it.

 

As far as I recall, I have always been in love, with someone or something. I have always had some intense passion in life, in phases that I did not, life was hard. It was not romantic love but love none the less - with my friends, with my kinetic, with a new dress, some song, a new pen, a pair of shoes... all random things but worthy of love.

Then, I grew up and like all girls, my idea of love changed. Love now meant boys and romance. To my disappointment, I never had any romantic alliance, not once. I had a couple of crushes though, so huge that I drove my friends up the wall talking about them, but nothing more than that.

Eventually, the idea of falling in love became all consuming. That is when I fell in love for the first time, or so I thought. Although I truly believed I was in love yet it was the darkest phase of my life. I waited to be acknowledged, to be talked to, to be loved. It made me feel small, insignificant, unhappy and uncared for. I soon realised that such a feeling can not be love.

If anything, love gives you wings. It makes you sing, dance, smile, blush, talk -- it makes you happy and I totally believe in it. Yet, somehow, the recurring theme in my blog seems to be unfulfilled love, whenever I finish writing something very passionately, it turns out to be about unfulfilled love. It is interesting to see that such posts get maximum reactions too. I guess it is close to every one's heart.

As human beings, we do not love anything more than ourselves. Saying that I love so and so is just a way of saying that I want to be with so and so - to feel good - about myself. Unfortunately, the so and so has some other so and so and the cycle continues. Therefore, the one who we eventually end up with is usually not the one we love, but the one who helps us love ourselves. Out goes the happily ever after and in comes the compromise.

Of course there is fulfilled love too, I will be sent to hell if I ignore the many lovers who have found a way to be together - hopefully forever. Most of the people around me are happily living with the person they fell in love with, me too. 

But there are those who find love many times over yet choose to live with someone they never loved. Whatever happened to love? or was there love at all? To be honest, I am quite old fashioned and my small town, middle class upbringing often makes me wonder why do people get into a relationship at all if there is no love.

I borrow the answer from The Ganga Mail. Mr Ghosh, hope you don't mind.

Mistaken Identity

A piece of paper
torn into two
One carried away by the gust of wind
the other is you.
And thus: the lifelong search
for the other half.
The search fails, but you pretend:
"Wow, I found my other half!"
What a lie!
Your other half is
stuck in the branches of a mango tree
so who is this man
you are flaunting?

and also a fitting response to this - wish I knew who wrote this one

And she asked God

"Whom shall I blame?

Father..Thou? the wind?

or the paper that was too fragile

to be torn?

God smiled at her

"Stop the search, my child.

Some come for a season

And some for a reason

But trust me, my child

He's the one I've chosen."  

Love, life etc.

The original name of this blog was Love, life etc. When I revived it two months ago, I found it a little cheesy, so I changed it. I wanted to give it a more soulful name than New Beginnings, but I was in too much of a rush to share it and had no patience to think. In any case, it was a fresh start for me as a blogger so I settled for this one. It seems to have worked, for, not only the blog but my life also seems to have started afresh - at least so it seems.

Intrinsically, I am a distracted person. I cannot do one thing for too long, I cannot be at one place for too long and I cannot follow a fixed routine. The only exception to this used to be my relationships, I like to be with the same people - forever. The other exception lately has been writing.

The thing about writing is, that you once begin, you can't stop. You constantly are thinking about what to write next. Then, to seek inspiration, clarity or just to rest your fingers - you read, the more you read, the more you think, the more you think, the more you write, phew! That sounds exhausting, well actually, it is very relaxing.

Two months ago, when I wrote my first post after a gap of four years, I had two reasons: One - I was lonely, I had a lot to talk about but no one to talk to. Two - I needed to tell myself that I can still think, beyond home, girls, husband and family. It began with reading a few posts, of an author whose book I had just finished. In a matter of hours I was hooked. The subjects were simple and articulation exceptional. I was inspired - inspired enough to write twenty posts in two months.

I write because it helps me let go, it helps me to talk to myself more clearly. It helps me to connect with the real me - the wanderer, the seeker, the thinker, the independent, the carefree and the wild, the Anubhuti that has been locked inside for years. All these years it has been the practical, the social, the obedient and the compliant Anubhuti that the world has seen, they like her more. I like the real one more.

Writing has also helped me go back to reading, I could never read long, boring books, I still cannot. I have, nonetheless, read close to seven books in two months. Each one has added to my thought process, clarity, articulation and in short - my writing. In fact, one of those even inspired me to go on a solo trip - my first but surely not the last. God bless the writer!

This blog has hardly fifteen readers, all of them close friends and all of them candid in their opinion and feedback. So when one of them suggested to look back at my old posts and see how much I have evolved, I did. There are a few things that I noticed, apart from the evolution.

 1. I suck at telling stories, I abandoned two midway.
 2. I cannot seem to describe anything.
 3. I can talk about longing very convincingly.
 4. I cannot use big words and flowery verse. If it is not simple, it is not me.
 5. I am not afraid to put my thoughts on paper, well figuratively.
 
Like all passions, this too comes with its share of troubles. For days, I have skipped lunch because that's the only time Pakhi sleeps and I can write. I have burnt food, kids have gone hungry, the chores have suffered and the sleep compromised, but, I have gained more. I got back the real Anubhuti, her confidence, her thoughts, her happiness and her fulfilment and I have learnt to keep her to myself. The world can have the one they prefer but here the real one rules. That can't be a bad deal!

When brown is beautiful

I am brown and I quite like it, it makes me, me. But it was not always so, there was a time, not long ago, I hated it. Just a wee bit clearer, just a little fairer would have helped, I thought. Being dark, in a country like ours and that too in the north is not a great feeling -- especially if you are a girl. People find ways to tell you that you would have been better off a few shades lighter and give you all possible tips to lighten your skin. Well wishers get worried about your matrimonial prospects and tell your mother to apply ubtan and haldi to ensure there are takers for her daughter.

Not so, if you grow up in a family like mine. I belong to a Kayastha family in UP where most of the people are on the darker side of the spectrum, none of them sees it as a challenge or a handicap and if someone tells their daughters otherwise, he/she is in for trouble. 

So, for me, it was more of a self inflicted wound (like many others), when I started to see my darkness as ugliness. In school, all my friends were fair, I on the other hand was not only dark but also tanned by the virtue of cycling to school. All I thought of all day was how dark my hands and legs look and how ugly was my face. By college, I was totally into all possible natural methods to lighten my arms and face. I wore only certain shades of clothes and hated looking at the mirror. All this, despite no pressure of being fair by my family or friends.

Finally, I am happy with how I am. Honestly, it could also be because I actually am now a few shades lighter than I was as a teen, but I think even if that was not the case I would have been cool -- at least that is what I would like to believe.

What worries me today is that Mishti, my five year old, has taken after me in every aspect - colour included. The colour of her skin has no significance for us and it never did for her, not until we moved to Delhi from Bangalore. In Bangalore, everyone looked like her while in Delhi, she realised that most people are a few shades lighter than her. 

All of four then, she walked up to me and asked me why was she brown when her best friend was pink. That day, I realised what my mother must have gone through every time I asked her this question. I used all my tact to explain the concept of skin color and that God makes everyone different but the damage was done. She would come back from school daily and tell me that she wants brown hair and pink skin. 

That her younger sister too was pale and all visitors commented on how fair Pakhi was, must have added to her woes. I told her everyday that she was beautiful and that since her parents were brown she couldn't be pink. Well, the smart kid that she is, her next question was, how could Pakhi be pink then, after all, we were her parents too. I wanted to kill myself that day.

She is a little more settled with her colour now, I am not sure for how long though. Given the number of advertisements on whitening, brightening and lightening that appear on TV and magazines, I don't know when and how her little mind will be affected and if I will be able to undo the damage.

Meanwhile, in Chennai and Pondicherry, where I recently went, I saw some very beautiful dark women and strikingly handsome dark men. None of them seemed to be bothered by the colour of their skin. After all, if anything, brown adds so much character to a face.

Durga and Puja

If signs are to be believed, I am sure I have pichle janam ka rishta with the bong land. No, I have not realised it in the thirty fifth year of my life, I realised it much earlier, when the first sign appeared but now I am totally certain about it.

It started fifteen years ago, when my father was posted to Calcutta. I had not only refused to move but had also influenced my brother and family not to, poor father had to live there all by himself for two years. At nineteen I was least interested in Calcutta. I detested the chaos, people, traffic, noise and the weather. Then came Durga Puja. I clearly remember arriving at the Howrah station after a very long and tiring journey that had lasted almost twenty four hours. My father had wanted us to see the  Puja. 

I can never forget how overwhelming it was to arrive in a city full of chaos. People and buses all over the place and buildings ready to collapse. The serpentine queues outside the pandals that went on for miles and the traffic that never moved. No space to walk and no place to stand. I struggled to breathe through those six days and promptly announced my hatred for the city and its people (I found them abnormally excitable and annoying).

My mother, amused by my strong dislike for the city, had commented that I sure will come back and might even have a life long connection with Calcutta. In the arrogance of my youth, I told her that could never happen and vowed never to return. As luck would have it, in just a few years, I was married to a certain Mr Kar and in another few years owned a house there -- my mother had the last laugh.

At thirty four, I wait for the Pujas. Durga has become as much a part of my life as any other Bengalis. Year after year, I diligently perform all pre Pooja rituals: buying tickets in time, shopping for family and extended family and waiting for those four days. Given my love for the festival, the first few Pujas as a new bengali bahu, were hard. I could not appreciate all the hype and humdrum around the festival that, unlike Holi or Diwali, is not even celebrated at home. Then there was the noise and the crowd, it made me sick. The most difficult part however was the food: I could eat all the sweets and savouries but dreaded the meals. The elaborate preparations with unknown flavours, the huge mounds of rice, and the smell of fish wafting through every corner of the neighbourhood. Having been a staunch vegetarian all my life, adjusting to all the meat on the table was tough business (I am still not adjusted to that part, by the way).

Then one Pooja afternoon, I found myself in a relatives house without husband. They happened to be cooking husband's favorite -- the Hilsa and I spent the whole afternoon standing by the window, trying to breathe in fresh air but on the shashti afternoon, the whole world seemed to be frying Hilsa. That is the one time I thought I will die but I lived -- maybe to tell the tale.

The Pooja starts in a week and it is the third year I am going to miss going home. Chance or goddess' will I do not know, but I do know that this Puja surely has discovered her connection with Durga.

Oh, by the way, should you be interested in the signs:

1. I look like a Bengali or so they say. All introductions in my life have either begun or ended with a question about my non existent Bengali roots. 

2. Two out of three men I ever fancied have been Bengalis.

3. I am married to one of those two. 

4. My closest friends are either Bengalis or married to one.

5. The only piece of land I own is in Calcutta.

6. My mother is alive, thanks to a Bengali donor and to Calcutta.
7. I am Puja for my family and friends, a name surely connected to the festival I once dreaded.

Walking In The Rain

A,

It rained really hard today, the way it did when we were together. That was the last time I got wet in the rain. I did it again today, it made me smile, it made me sing, it made me happy.

Our relationship has always been complicated, no one knows what it was, I doubt even you or I understood it. Yes, I thought I loved you and I knew you did not. It was like a silent understanding between the two of us, a promise that we shall never talk about it. It would have worked fine had you chosen to tell me about her.

When you eventually told me, I was happy for you, but I felt terribly betrayed by the person I trusted the most, that killed our relationship. I have no complaints however, what you gave me was much more than what you took away, in fact you took away nothing at all.

The few days spent with you were and will always be the best of my life, most cherished, most memorable and the happiest. I lived my dream and you did all you could to make it true. That was the last time I was really, really happy.

The walking in the rain, the talking in the bed, the smoking in the corridor and the drinking at the bar -- all mundane, everyday things had elevated to another level with you. I know it made you happy too, just being around, reading, sleeping and talking. You never had a woman for company other than me, no one so close. I'm glad we never made love, it would have spoilt everything.

I had seen your eyes just as I prepared to leave, like you, they were sad too. Perhaps you knew that we will not meet again. Knowing that would have made me sad then, but today I am happy that we did not. I would rather live with happy memories than sad realities.

When I miss you, I look you up on FB and your smile brings a smile to my face. It does not matter that you are with someone else - so long as you are happy, and you do look happy.

I just want to know, tell me if you can -- is that the tie that I gave you, the one that you wore for your graduation? I hope it was.

Love,
P.

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P,

It was nice to hear from you after so long. It rains here quite often and sometimes, I too am reminded of you and how much you hated the gloom.

I know you always loved me and I never felt the same way but you were special and will always be. You were the only woman in my life for close to thirty years - that is a long time. I was never sure of what I felt for you, I still am not.

After you left, there was a vacuum. The rain, the bed, the corridor, the bar - all felt different and aloof. I had spent years alone at these very places but in two days they had totally transformed -- they reminded me of you -- all the time. I longed for you and you were way out of my reach. That is when I met her, she filled up the vacuum that you created. She even looked a little like you.

It was difficult to tell you about her, I was not sure of your reaction and I did not want to lose you. Had it not been for that emotional, semi-drunk outburst, you might not have known about her for many more months.

About making love, only I know how I resisted it. It would have complicated things further. But I wanted you -- badly.

You can at least look at me, I, on the other hand have to make do with the stuff that reminds me of you. When I miss you, I put on the black kurta and tuck in the red Sheaffer in the pocket - both old and worn out.

By the way, it was the same tie - I wore it for my wedding too.

Love,
A.

Pblished in Femina Fast Fiction : http://www.feminafastfiction.com/story/walking-in-the-rain/107/

Insecurity

It happens with strange regularity and leaves me completely helpless; helplessness is a feeling that I detest from the deepest pits of my heart and its in these deep pits that my insecurities reside. They live in such obscure corners that I fail to reach them in conscious state, maybe that's why they are manifested in my dreams so tenaciously.

In my family, I am famous for being strong, sensible, practical and independent but that is a mask that I have successfully kept on for years now. Only a handful of people know that under that mask lies a silly, insecure woman.

I encountered death quite early in my life when one of my uncles passed away all of a sudden, I was not even seven but I could make out what was happening around me, he was newly married and not even thirty. As a family it was hard on us and I often saw my grandmother getting into fits and then passing out, there were conversations at home that I was not suppose to listen to, but even a child's brain instinctively picks up things that are forbidden.

Next was the person I was closest to - mama, his death was not so sudden, everyone knew he was sick, and getting worse but I never accepted it, just like I did not accept his death. It has been twelve years but I feel he would walk in any minute calling out for me. Somewhere I hold myself responsible for his death -- I had dreamt of it barely a few months before he passed.

Post that death became a reality, when there was no death, its shadows loomed large -- in form of my mothers sickness, my lost child and several others -- such nightmares constantly haunted me, when I shooed them away, they hid in the cracks and crevices of my mind. They often play hide and seek with me since. If you look closely, you will often find me standing next to my kids or parents - while they are in deep sleep - making sure that they are breathing. I just did it with Pakhi this morning.

Throughout my first pregnancy, I felt unhappy, disturbed and unsettled, I consistantly had nightmares for those six months. I would wake up shaken in the middle of the night -- alone. It was just matter of time before I lost the baby. I did not mourn her as much as a mother is expected to, perhaps I was prepared. 

Not even a few months after that, before stepping out for dinner one evening, I casually told Debashish that I had a feeling about my grandfather not living very long - within minutes we got a call from my brother to inform us about his death. He passed away, just like that, he was not even sick. Premonition or plain co-incidence, I don't know.

Just as I have gotten used to the presence of the nightmares and the morbidity that enslaves me post that, people around me too have. They know that every now and then, I will wake up and wake them up. My husband is usually at the receiving end by the virtue of him being the closest. But he too, can not appreciate what I go through, like any logical person, he tells me that it's just a dream and I should not think too much about it. I have learnt to keep my nightmares to myself now.

Premonitions, Signs, intuitions whatever they are - they leave me uneasy, guilty and anxious. No sooner than the after affect of one wanes, the other one makes its way. It was just two days ago that I had a tryst with one of them - yet again. I try my best to shrug them off, not to think about them but they keep coming back - like a stubborn stalker.

I'm not sure what made me write this today. I realise that as a reader you should not be burdened by my fears and anxieties but as a I writer, I felt compelled to. I was actually working on a post about something else for the past three days but somehow its not falling in place, the sentences refuse to flow and thoughts are entangled. Its true that when you have many things to say, you fail to articulate them in a logical manner like it is also true that its easiest to talk about something close to your heart -- and death has been very close to my heart -- after all, I felt it in my womb.

A Rape In My Backyard

Just yesterday I wrote about being settled and today my mind's back to its hyper-self. Since last night there suddenly seem to be too many things happening, and the mind, my mind in particular, absorbs all -- sounds, sights, feelings, the said and the unsaid -- quite effortlessly and starts to work overtime.

Upon his return from work last night, my husband told me that a resident of our society has been accused of rape by his maid and that policemen in plain clothes had been waiting for him at the gate. It was midnight and there was no sign of him yet, the wife and the child were at home while the maid -- the victim -- had been taken away by the police to ensure she's safe.

Every now and then we read about such instances in the newspapers and turn the page, watch it on breaking news and turn the TV off but what do we do when it happens in our backyard? Do we shut the door or simply look away?

A man who has a wife and a child, who lives in a decent area, in a decent house and in all probability works in a decent office and makes good money -- why would he rape a housemaid? What transpires a rape anyway? I really don't want to know.

What I'm concerned about is the wife. In such a situation, what would she have done, would she have called the husband to warn him of the police, or would she have helped the maid go to the police? Does she believe the maid or the husband -- I assume that the husband will plead innocence as in most cases. There is one more possibility though, that she was a party to it.

What would any wife do in such a situation? If she goes to the police, supports the victim and gets the husband punished -- what happens to her and her child? If she helps her husband, trusts that he is innocent, blames the maid for framing him, what happens to her then? Does she live with the doubt all her life? It is a tough question and as a wife I don't even want to think about it. As a woman though, I'd like to.

What would I do if something like this comes up? I am an educated and independent woman who has been brought up to be at par with men. If the need arises, I can take care of myself and my children, yet there is an insecurity -- about what I cannot say.

There are so many women like me and most of them, if not all, attach their worth to their husbands. The moment a woman gets married, it becomes her responsibility to prove how happy she is in the marriage, how wonderful her husband is, and how grateful she is to have him. Such women would also hold themselves responsible for the husbands faults. I have hardly seen husbands do that. The ones who praise their wives are labelled henpecked and are a butt of jokes not only among other men but even among women, and the ones who hold themselves responsible for the woman's fault, umm I don't think such men even exist.

So, who is to be blamed or should we blame anyone at all? I don't know. I also don't know why am I writing this today. What I do know is that we -- the women -- the wives -- need to love ourselves a little more and not attach our worth to anyone. We need to stop taking the responsibility for all that goes wrong in the lives of our family members and bask in the glory of what all we help them set right.

Meanwhile, I wonder what that poor wife must be going through. I am assuming she is not a party to the crime, I am also assuming there is some truth in the maid's charge, and I pray she lives happily ever after. Somehow.

Settling in

So now its regulated, the posts are not as frequent, hopefully a little less irrelevant and a little more substantial.

Beginning a new activity/job/vocation is like falling in love, when you are newly in love, you want to revel in it all the time. According to something I read in the papers yesterday, falling in love releases oxytocin and serotonin, the combination of the two hormones make you more social and happy, it makes your skin glow and your eyes twinkle (the last two are my own observations). Maybe that's why new brides glow. Maybe that's also why people change both jobs and partners so often. But what happens after the love settles, when you are no longer on a high, when its a part of your being?

Most of my adult life I have been looking for something -- what I do not know yet. Imagine being in  a huge departmental store full of alluring stuff and not knowing what you want - I have been in this situation for almost half my life. Though I am yet to know what I have been looking for, my quest for the unknown has led me into many interesting discoveries and a little bit of self discovery too.

  

In our training sessions, we use the analogy of Alice and the Cheshire cat to bring out the importance of having a goal in our careers and lives in general. The story goes like this: One day Alice reaches a forked road and finds the cat perched on a tree she asks her for directions. This is the conversation that takes place between them --

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

I have preached the concept for a very long time but I myself have never been able to practice it. How can I decide what I want to do ten years from now when I don't know about what I would want a year hence? In the last few weeks however, the quest seems to have paused -- at least for now. Whether it is due to writing or getting older, or just being tired of looking for the unknown, or just giving up, I don't know.

There is no longer an urgency to write either, to blurt out the first thing that comes to my mind. As I make a slow but steady progress towards savouring every moment of discovering myself through reading, writing and just being, the optimist in me says "this is what settling in is all about" and the sceptic in me replies "but for how long?"