Venting some steam!

I have never been a people’s person and I have never been good at faking goodness and friendliness. When I am friends with someone, I am a good friend with all genuineness and when I withdraw, I do it completely. Quite a few friendships have gone kaput in the past few years. Some fizzled out naturally, some because they were forged for convenience and out of need and others because the wavelengths stopped matching somewhere along the way. Every time I have seen a relationship lose steam, I have wondered whether ego, expectations and lack of communication were its undoing. I have probed myself, my actions, my thoughts and why I felt in a certain manner. I am not without fault. I cannot be because sometimes I fail to see where I went wrong. But in many cases I have seen the other person turn into something I never thought they could be. Worst is when you know them a bit more than they think you know them and you can see them through the faked niceties, hollow words and the strained conversation. They conveniently forget what they did wrong or rather cannot realise it because they do not think they did anything wrong. Worst is when they feed lies about you to other people and you can see some people withdraw without any reason. And you can understand it all because you have been there, you have heard about someone too – but then you were too deep into the throes of a friendship to not believe it.

Post-dinner thoughts

The downside of expat life is that you never manage to have a permanent group of friends who grow old with you, get to know your quirks and accept you the way you are. You meet a wonderful set of people and by the time you are ready to do away with formalities and let the walls down, it is time for someone to move on. You see the potential of a friendship blooming and then sacrificed at the altar of the need to earn bread and butter. But so is life and so it will always be!

Doubts

There are days when my confidence sinks like an iron ball in water. I am tormented by doubts - Am I intelligent? Do I look good? Do I dress well? Is my home pretty Do I write well?

Answers to these questions are best not answered I suppose. Because it is in the doldrums and in the storms we battle that we meet life and grow. I am still anxious but I hope that tomorrow will be better.

Last evening...

The setting sun reminded me of my mother going through her daily tryst with the gods. The soothing, vermilion orb resembled the dot of orange carelessly put nearer to her left eyebrow. As the sun dimmed in the arms of grey clouds, it looked more like her teeka that faded in the creases of her day.

The way we go

Of all the stories Ma told me when I was young, I remember most vividly the one about the young man to be hanged. It was not dark and it was not tragic but it was pointless in its point then, as the culprit was not the boy’s bad deeds but his mother’s inability to stop him when he did wrong. Ma went on and on, upping the magnitude of the boy’s crimes, as he grew older.

Since then, I have often thought about the boy. Because as I think, as I have thought over the years, I want to tell Ma, and one day my kid, another story about two brothers who had a drunkard father. One brother adopted the father’s ills, spiteful and angry at fate for giving him such a parent; the other brother however, aspired to learn from his father’s example and be a better person.

The two stories have often baffled me for no reason. They have come back in the most trying of times and most placid moments. They are my deepest source of strength when everything else fails me. And they have come back to me, as I fight back tears and a lump in my heart, for no reason.

Thoughts on IPL Modi

Skeletons and corpses being pulled out of Lalit Modi’s IPL and earlier years appear like a joke. The BCCI, the government and the media are zapped at how Modi channeled IPL moolah to weave a royal, jet-setting life for himself. But the dirt that these conscience keepers are blowing into the faces of people like me, was it ever hidden, unknown or impalpable?

I admit I never followed state elections that led to Raje’s fall in Rajasthan, but why did I not get to read about her corrupt lackey, Mr Modi? Why did no newspaper or channel ever wonder aloud about Modi’s connection to the Burmans? Were overseas trips, a jet-taxi, the hotel suite and his brashness so discreet and sweet that they were utterly forgivable and forgettable until Sania did not fly off to Pakistan and leave behind a paparazzi gap that begun to see potential as soon as tweeting went overboard?

Before Modi spilled the beans on Pushkar and her sweat equity, why did she never bless the gossip columns? Why is Tehelka adopting a holier than thou tone in reporting an interview it conducted with the potential Mrs Tharoor with golden hair. Women move up ladders, strike alliances of convenience to benefit and in some cases lead to a man’s fall. There is nothing new about it all and there is no victimastion here.

For all the righteous frenzy that surrounds IPL at the moment, the truth is, this is no witch-hunt. It is a power game, where the current head is being cut off to re-grow a new head of mutual convenience and benefit. One day all of a sudden, Modi and his dark deeds would disappear from the media glare, and we will move on to a new blockbuster of love, sex, business, lecherous gurus, political alliances and dhoka. Business would be back to usual.

Face wash

It is said if it said that we grow with time. If we do then it is probable we put on layers of growth every time the “TIME” spins a new googly our way.

In my case, it seems, every experience is simply a cleanser that wipes some more black from my face. After every face wash I open my eyes to see a bit more of ME in the mirror. If so then many bottles of face wash later, I am sure to discover my true self san makeup.

But if life is to be lived, till the last breath, then during my last moments in this life, when I have nothing to lose, I may finally be rubbed clean to reveal that purest and truest of myself. But then I will promptly be signed off with canisters of ghee and the lick of flames and a blow to my poor skull that would all remain when the flames are done.

PS: watched The Ghost Writer (TGW) yesterday. Two thoughts!

1. Does an actor make a role or does a role make the actor? Wrong English? Never mind! Pierce Brosnan does not tug at my heart the way Akshay does despite the tragedy called “Singh is King”. I have watched Mr Brosnan in bits as Bond and hold on to my belief that Daniel Craig bought more sense and brawn to the role in his first tryst. I have watched Brosnan in “The Thomas Crown Affair”, “Mama Mia” and now TGW and beyond the good looks, suaveness and sleekness; I have failed to understand his style. His acting feels like my cooking skills that end up making every dish I concoct, taste the same.

2. I forgot!!!!!

Soch

A long-distant friend told me she was unhappy because she thought too much. I advised her to stop thinking and get busy like I am, in straightening cushions, smoothening creases out of the bed sheet, buying flowers, doing grocery, cooking in a while, bitching and other mundanities.

She asked if I ever gave in to thinking?

I admitted, I did, on weekends, when there were no omelets to be whipped, 8:30am trains to catch and office machines to be punched before 9am. And when this happened-that thinking and thoughts assaulted my mind, my self, bereft of a routine, I felt depressed.