As long as...

With some many incidents of rapes and rising crime against women, I begin to wonder has the world become a much worse place to be if you’re a woman. I could see many nod their head in approval and I wouldn’t have agreed more.
But then I saw a heavily pregnant woman being held firmly by her partner, waving at the traffic to make way for her to cross the road. The woman was moving with great difficulty yet she was radiant with pride being held by her man who wouldn’t hesitate to risk his life for her.
Then I saw an elderly couple, rather very elderly couple. The woman was in a wheelchair and her man was pulling her slowly. They were busily chatting with each other. Their bodies were old, not their heart for then I saw the man stopping at a florist and picking a huge bunch of red roses for her. Now, tell me how many young men would do that for their women?
The other day, I saw a woman getting down of the bus and smile at the man who was waiting for her at the stop. They were not rich by worldly standards yet they were happy. She quickly popped in the tiny passenger seat of his bicycle. All I overheard was him worrying about her extended hours at work and she worrying about what to feed him for dinner.
As long as we keep getting glimpses of these sites in our lives, the heart feels reassured. We will continue to believe in the goodness of life, love and our loved ones. We will continue to trust and know that love will heal all…maybe conquer all fears too…
And I will continue to feed myself on the happily-ever-after novels of Anna Jacob, which are becoming such a mood boaster for me. And which re-strengthens my belief in happy –endings.

Hi...after a long time!!

Have to admit that lately I have been on the lazier side with my pen…and apologies for keeping you waiting (the countable few who wait to read my latest entry).
Life is challenging with its newness for me…a new life, a new country…even the weather is new to me quite reverse to India. Can you believe it is chilling cold here right now? And I hate winters.
My sleep pattern is screwed up completely. My body stills thinks it is in India and I struggle tossing during nights. Sometimes I wake-up to the embarrassing sounds of lovemaking of the young neighbours who seems to be never having enough. It is good to be young and I wish I knew it when I was at that age. I wish I could worry less and stop the mind from racing thoughts. I worry about my job. I’ve never struggled to pick one in India but here applications after applications get no response, not even a phone call to attend an interview. Even for the entry-level position, nobody seems to be hiring me. Will I ever get a job in this country? I don’t know…the frustration levels climb high and then I tell myself “This too shall pass”.
But that hasn’t deterred my spirits completely. I did venture out to try new avenues. Finished a course in Hairdressing with flying colours wherein I came the longest way from being unable to hold a blow-dryer to mastering it. The course was fun every bit and I grieved after the finish. Why do good things come to an end so easily? I am better with managing my unruly curls as well as styling it and trust me the feeling is of triumph when people notice. I am hair-fully transformed.
One highlight has been the amazing neighbourhood library where I became a member for free. I feel blessed to be able to read plenty of books from the well-stocked library. It is a treat to me that there is so much to read and the government takes so much of care to maintain without charging a cent from the community. Enjoying every bit of it and hoping that somebody takes a cue from it in India too…life with books can be so much pleasurable.
(Just the random thoughts that came to the mind…no story to tell though, do let me know if you did anything interesting while my pen was taking a nap)

Sex and kids

The not-more than 16 something said, “The best way to keep your man is give enough sex because if you won’t then somebody else would.” The preacher had two more audience all of the same age group and still wearing school uniforms.
Now, my not-so-liberal upbringing hasn’t heard such preaching in my mid-thirties life, maybe, I wasn’t smart enough to have such smarter friends. Well, obviously I was scandalised. So much so that my mouth voluntarily opened and I managed to get some attention from my fellow passengers in the bus.
I couldn’t help eavesdropping for some more pearls of wisdom. She continued, “Honestly there are lots of women around you ready to steal your man if he has money.”
Oh my God! How come she had so much wisdom at such a young age when I was still in my diapers (when coming to relationships)? Every generation is smarter than the previous I am told but this generation Y is definitely wiser too.
I was impressed with her worldly wisdom but scared with the flooding of innocence at such a young age. Suddenly, I am petrified on the issues of raising a child and others issues attached with parenthood. I would like to intact my child’s innocence for as long as I can. Weren’t our parents lucky enough to be spared the worries of overexposure of the internet and mobile phones? They never had to wake up in the middle of the night and tip-toe silently to check on me about the content of my interest on the internet.
Like a friend of mine was worried about finding his elder daughter going through a social network site looking for the perfect way to kiss. It was a nightmare and he lost his sleep over the next few days till he could find an option to filter some sites. But then that isn’t full-proof.
On the contrary, I feel it was much easier for our previous generation to raise us kids with lesser intellect, made to live in our make-belief world. That is why they could think of having as many kids as they wanted while we plan, plan and have our handfuls with just two at the end.
Happy parenting to my generations!

Happy New Year

Born in this world after years of prayers

Nurtured with care and values of goodness

I was the daughter, you deeply loved

I was the sister, your trusted ally over the years

I was the friend, who made you laugh

I was the lover, you just couldn’t live without

I was the woman, the world would have been proud of

But the end came much before my time

Cut short by the atrocities of the criminal minds

Raped and abandoned, my cries went unheard

I fought really hard to survive

My body was violated yet my spirits rang high

I lost the battle yet I won

I forced you to raise one united voice against these crimes

I made you sit and agitate for a cause

And as you put me to rest, here’s what I pray


Hope that the world gets safer in this New Year and the years that goes by...

If...

The phone kept ringing, one call after another but he didn’t answer. Nor that he didn’t want to speak but he couldn’t bring himself to pick it. After last night showdown, the familiar number spelled trouble for him. And he had a good excuse to convince himself too, “I am in the midst of a meeting.” The fact that it was a regular weekly meet where he could have easily excused himself and taken the call was an option he often chose in truce times, but not today. She prayed, “Please God, let him take the call.” She kept trying and trying till her consciousness lasted and then everything went dark. Too dark to recover and too quiet for the mind to interfere. All she felt was odd, cold hands picking her up and taking her away, maybe far. She could hardly tell because she was too new to the place. He wanted to call her back after the meeting but something stopped him. Then one task, after another made him forget her. Finally when he did remember, it was time to go back home. Time to go back to her and time to pick up from where they left last night. The moment he turned the house key, he felt something wasn’t right. Everything was kept at its usual place. But she was missing. He looked everywhere and couldn’t find her. Her phone was missing too. That moment too he wanted to call her, but he dismissed the idea. Though he could read the unusually high number of times she had tried to get in touch with him during the day. “Must be trying to patch up, let me just ignore for some time, “he assured himself. To top it, the peace in his apartment without her presence was too tempting for him. Had been a while that he got all the time to himself. Ever since she had come, she had never left him alone. He was enjoying the solitude and started playing his favourite video game. Time flew at a fast pace and when he looked at the wall-clock, it was past 9. Suddenly the clouds of worries appeared in his mind. He brought the phone from his charging point and was about to call when another call from a friend diverted him. The call went long and by the time it ended, he got tired and went for another session with the game, he recently bought. The next time he looked it was past 10.30 and he panicked. Immediately, he dialled the all familiar number. It rang and was picked up by an unfamiliar male voice. He repeated the dialled number and asked for his wife. The voice said, “We have been trying to call you since a long time without any success. The woman carrying this phone has been hit in the afternoon…” His world fell apart and nothing made sense after that…

The fishy love affair

Now, I am a born Bong (slang for Bengali's born in the Eastern state of West Bengal in India). But the difference between me and my ancestors was the fact that I was raised in different parts of the country making me a cosmopolite (that is what I would like to believe about myself). We spoke Bangla (the mother tongue) only at home and amongst friends, even if they, belonged to our own place of origin, English was the unifying factor. Anybody who was vernacular always got a raised eyebrow from us. While our parents kept looking for people of the same origin, we, the younger generation always looked away. We hated to be categorized in a group, “we are all Indians”, we loved to proclaim. The endless talk of the elders about the latest fish they bought from a particular market, the gory details of choosing the right fish and the best way of preparation sickened me and my sister. Sometimes the discussions were so graphic that any vegetarian would die of a heart attack while I lost all appetite to eat afterwards. The love affair with these fresh water creatures never ceases to end in a Bong household. So much so that my Baba (dad) proudly proclaimed and I quote, “a man’s character is determined by the quality of fish he buys.” On the contrary the same guy had to give his two daughters to guys who were non-bongs. Both never ever purchased fish in their lives. One is learning slowly under his tutelage while the other has given up eating…but then that’s another story. Till date on Skype, my Baba never fails to ask the last time I ate fish, even if he might forget to ask how am I doing. Whenever I fall sick, his reaction is that I am not eating my fish. Honestly, I did lose my cool more than once with his enquiries and wondered what the big deal was. Fresh water fishes were readily available in India where I stayed alone for some time away from parents. I was not immensely crazy about my fish curry-rice (macher jol-bhaat) and whenever I missed it, I cooked. Lately with my new migration when my commuting has its own limitations, thanks to my sense-of-direction. I miss my fish more often than not. My vegetarian better half would never realise and it is difficult to explain because he is a non-Bong and doesn't know that fish is deeply embedded in my system of existence. It has been more than two months of my no-fish diets and my cravings were getting desperate. I decided to take action and didn't even hesitate to do some Googling on finding a Bangladeshi shop near my place. When nothing came up, I went to the extent of pinging a newly met Bong couple who were forthcoming in giving some address. They were far from where I live and if I told my better-half about my real intention of making him drive so far, he would start preaching of the attributes of becoming a veggie, which I don’t contend but am not so strong-willed yet. So the Bong blood in me took the better of me and I made him take me there all the way with some other pretext. The moment I laid my hands on those frozen packets of fishes, I was in nirvana. The shopkeeper became my long lost relative here with fish the unifying factor between us. We had some intense conversations over the wide varieties of fishes he stocked. My better-half looked surprised and all he could said was, “I don’t know what were so happy about? Much happier than when you see back home.” To which I didn't reply because in marriage it is better to avoid answering for sanity sake at times. My purpose was solved and now my fishes lay carefully ducked in my refrigerator and I haven’t had the chance to cook them yet. But the feeling that they are within my easy reach and I can cook my macher-jhol bhaat whenever I want is just so exhilarating. Maybe, the years of being raised outside Bengal haven’t been able to take the Bong away from me, what say? Do let me know if it has ever happened with you when the need to have the food you've grown-up with has overtaken all other sense of the world and you are ready to go the extra manipulative mile to have some?

Happy Diwali!!

Now since I am an Overseas Indian, I am supposed to think different. Think international, think big is what is been constantly bombarded on me. But, how do you take the “desiness” away from a “desi” like me? After all, I wasn’t born in this country and my language is different from theirs, including my English. And so does a series of things that comes quite naturally to me. To begin with, I don’t like the big unperturbed malls which miss all the chaos of a market or bazaar, back home. You don’t have the salesman too eager to please you and doesn’t mind bringing down the entire stock right in front of you. He doesn’t hesitate to keep showing you and even when you nod in disapproval or feel sorry for the mess you’ve created. All he does is flash his beautiful smile and say, “No problem, behenji (sister). Our job is to show you and just have a look at this exotic piece which I am sure you’re going to like. Please.” And looking at his salesmanship, you sometimes end up buying even if you were in doubt of whether to buy or not. “Dekne ke paise thori na lagte hain (It doesn’t cost you money to see),” says the sales guy politely and he wins your heart. Whereas, in this country nobody pushes you to buy. Take it or leave it is every shopper’s right. You can try all the things in the shop and not end up buying a pin because nobody tells you that “the pin looks awesome on you”. So people who need a little push to shop (like yours truly) go round and round all through the day without buying anything. Now, what a loss that can be to the sales worldwide! The other thing, my desiness, refuses to leave is the constant calculation that goes on the mind when you venture out. Everything and anything is in DOLLARS to which I unknowingly calculate in RUPPEES. The impact is devastating so much so that I end up depressed and sometimes waterless too, because water is far expensive than a can of soda! I miss my place of origin and keep looking out for Indian names on the street. Any restaurant reading Indian names makes me nostalgic and terribly homesick. The urge to barge in and hug my countrymen is immense. Wish the better-half wasn’t by my side to calm me down and do a reality check. And the food does the rest. Though Indian, if you go by the menu card, it taste everything else than what you are used to back home. And I don’t blame them either because they do have to cater to globalised palettes and hence miss its “desiness”. On the eve of Diwali, I miss India more. I miss the hustle bustle of the markets, the enlightening decorations of the households, the homemade sweets, the boisterous noise of the crackers, the loud make-up of the ladies and above all the fervour. Happy Deepawali…my readers and friends!