Wrong Side

I've grown up following the rules. Stayed on the right track as a child, in school, wanted to be approved by those I looked up to, those I studied under, and as I progressed, those I worked under. It's natural to seek approval from people around you - or so I thought. 


What I have realized on a day when I'm feeling the lows is that if you don't have your own approval, nothing you're doing means anything.

If you think you knew that already, think again. If your efforts seemed right to you when someone else blew them off, can you continue to believe your efforts were right?

Today, I woke up to rain, a dark room, stomach cramps, and an e-mail saying that I had disappointed someone. When they hit you all at one go, no matter how small the nails are, they make a sharp dent. 


You can't help thinking that your God woke up on the wrong side of His and Her bed. It can't be me getting out of the wrong side of my bed because it's up against a wall and only has one side; and if this is the wrong side then I'm getting down from it every day unless I move my bed to the middle of the room. 


And that's probably against Feng Shui principles.

Zeh ya'avor.

The Goddamn Movies

They can ruin you. The movies can ruin you because they romanticize everything - be it poverty, terrorism, the US presidential elections, diamonds, or sex - of which only the last two can be romanticized albeit marginally so, because you could be talking about blood diamonds and loveless sex, or rape.

Our minds are impressionable. Impressions are made far more easily than they are broken, and they are made on everyone. Impressions are like clay moulds that keep denting and reshaping themselves.

In an era where the ill effects of pornography are visible on the ogling faces of 13 year old boys, we've begun to think about our lives like movies, with our sorry selves being the protagonists and all the important people in our lives playing supporting roles (don't forget to include them in the credits). 


We make believe to feel better, which is an old strategy, but applied differently today: in the older days, make-believing meant fantasizing your hopes, and drawing them towards yourself by as much strength as your mind could muster. Today, it means conjuring up obstacles and breaking them down, and making tiny little things out to be so huge that unless there's a hero to slay the dragon, the helpless lady in the tower can hardly climb out.

It's easier to live in a romanticized world because it makes things seem less drastic and life-threatening. Perhaps that is a good thing to the extent that we don't go berserk and dysfunctional at every tragedy that hits; in fact, this romanticizing can actually be helpful in such cases. But as with most things, the curve dips at some point, and the benefits decrease as the cost grows - romanticizing important issues is wrong.

Take a chill pill, you'd think; movies are just for entertainment. I agree. I love watching them. I laugh, cry, criticize and roll my eyes to my heart's content. But I try hard to make sure I don't forget that they are stories. There are a lot of people out there who do.

Good movies, in my opinion, are those that leave a lasting message. Movies that convey a point, or remind you of reality, or that just stay in your head because you could relate to them so well. There are as many happy endings as sad ones, but not in the movies - in the movies, there are only (I concede, mostly) happy endings, and this can be a misrepresentation of real life.

And if our lives are indeed like the movies, then we need to know who to finally credit, when not to pull a trigger, when to wipe off hidden tears so that they don't show when the lights come on, and when to laugh at ourselves in the short lived saga that is this life.

'I...live my life as I would like it to be...like a novel.' - Isabel Allende

Things I Can't Write In My CV

My professor stopped me after I opened the door for her and asked me what my name was, and memorized the spelling. I smiled for an entire minute.

I gave $10 to an ex-convict and bought two key chains - one was rubber 8-ball and the other a big yellow smiley face.

My instinct about how my grandparents are feeling, even when I'm in another country, is always right.

My hands have a healing touch. It's not my fault. They can calm hysterical sisters and hysterical children down, and those are the two categories of people that get very hysterical.

I have clarity about how I feel.

Small things upset me far more than big things ever could.

I'm very good at moving furniture around to optimize space in a room.

I'm compulsive about cleanliness and organization.

I agree with Holden Caulfield when he says that movies can ruin you. They really can.

My sister is the most precious person in the whole world.

My decisions might be arbit, but I always follow them through, and they always lead to something good.

I've cheated and I've lied. Never meant to harm anyone, but still done it.

My Karma is unbelievably on the mark. Always.

I know Yoga.

I forget stuff pretty easily.

I can get along with anyone.

I'm kinky.

I will never steal office stationery even though stationery is my single biggest weakness. But I might overuse it.

I have a jealous side that never defeats my practical side.

I never put on weight on my legs.

I think size matters.

Hampi

It's a funny name for a place, but it sounds all right to an Indian.

This is not about Hampi- you can find out everything you want on the internet. This is about that odd experience which isn't odd per se, but makes you think. Anyone who loves to travel knows what I mean.

I met a strange woman in my travel to this alfresco museum of the world, this natural heritage site of everyone's most careful preservation - she was from Rajasthan, which is way up north of Hampi. She was a gypsy, trying to sell anklets for 800 bucks to passers by, especially the white (and mostly stoned) ones. I went closer and picked one up (it was lovely - with shells and beads running along its length) and I asked her how much. She said 30 bucks. I exclaimed, you were just yelling 800! And she said, you are from where I am, you see right through me.

And there began again the old introspection of life and how we're better or worse off though we all rise from the same ashes. Do we really? How has a lady from the deserts of Rajasthan, which is fast gaining its repute as a tourist destination, found her way to a little heritage village in South India, and made a living from rings and bells? Her childhood was spent in the scorching sun, learning to spin and sew and count money before she could write her name (if she could write at all); and mine was in the shelter of a home and school where the most menial task I ever performed was setting the table, grudgingly so.

And no, I was never out in the sun for longer than necessary - if I had, I'd have gone as brown as this wrinkled old woman...who was by now, tying a third anklet on me and saying how lovely it looked on my fair skin - something that must have been demanded of her by society that she couldn't give. North India's prejudice for fair people is so deep-rooted that it reflects even in my family, which claims to hold the torch of liberalism. It does, in so many ways, but not all. The ones who are actually liberal don't make a fuss about it because their actions speak louder.

I thought more than I saw in Hampi, and fell in love with Paulo Coelho again. Reading his book just added to the romance of this forgotten kingdom.

I bought 7 pairs of anklets from her.