38 posts tagged “personal”

Been a hectic few days, and unusually, not on the professional front as much as the home front.  Been pretty lax with Vox, but I guess the tide comes and goes all the time here. My next work deadline is a fortnight hence and I am anticipating a nightmarish period during then, for all my colleagues are away on personal crisis situations, and the burden of the deadline is pretty much on the onion.

 I need a break. And what's more..I am getting it.  Taking an impromptu, mid-semester, mid-term, mid-deadline vacation this following weekend, thanks to the spontaniety of a certain dude.  To Srirangam.  All three of us deserve it, we have been working hard and if we need to continue this pace of industry further, we need a change.

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What's up with the weather, I say.  Where is the trusted N.E. Monsoon that lashes our side of the world about now?  The sun god has shown no mercy on us this year, and every day is just as infernal as the previous, with no respite in sight.  If there are no rains in November as well, we are in for a tough summer next year, with water scarcity that can wreck havoc on our city.  It has happened before, and the memory of that period makes me dread what is to come.  Oh heaven, open up already. 

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Met two of my grand aunts this week. Both in their nineties.  Both dynamic women in the past, rag dolls now. One of them, the widow of the erstwhile GM of Southern Railways, who lived in a mansion in an arterial road, now lives in a tiny one bed room apartment with daughter's family, confined to a boxy room with no ventilation.  Repeats statements, very confused about people, senile, in short, but manganimous as ever.  Gifted me Rs. 100, despite her dependence on her meagre pension. But beyond the gift, what I would treasure is the affection with which she held in her bony, wrinkled ghost of a hand, mine. 

The other grand aunt, an enterprising businesswoman in her heyday; in an era where the woman's place in the house was the kitchen, is a broken old woman now, with paid servents to keep her company and home. The tasteful, expensive teak wood furniture she adorned her home with , now gathering dust in every corner.  She can't hear too well, but her memory is sharp. Her eyes clouded when I took leave of her, and she beseeched me to visit her more often.

Maybe I won't see them again, maybe I will.  They probably won't remember my visit.  But I made them happy for the time I was there. 

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End of ramble. 

Nutcase

-  I think on my fingers.  I cannot, unlike dude, just sit at one spot and think coherently.  Not even something as simple as the recipe for vatha kozambu. I need my keyboard, or at least a paper and pencil and only when I start writing, thoughts flow.  I am so weird that if I have to discuss something important with dude,  I send him an email, even if he is literally a stone's throw away. When I am sitting doing nothing (if that is even possible), my mind usually jumps between banal, mundane, unconnected thoughts at the rate of 1 thought per millisecond.  I understood my  research only when I wrote up the thesis.  I am amazed at people who can talk about some idea or a concept or an incident coherently without writing it down. 

- I love garlic.  The more garlic the better. The pickle I love most is garlic, where thousands of the most, ahem, aromatic pods are marinated in salt and chilly. I love garlic rasam, especially made by my m-i-l. I loved, what would probably freak you out, the dish of garlic boiled in milk, that I was given after delivery, to enhance lactation. However, I HATE the smell of my entire body a few hours after garlic has been consumed.  Nauseatingly hate it. The memory of the most offensive odour is the only thing that prevents me from succumbing to my cravings. 

- Everything about me flows in cycles.  Even interests.  There would be a phase when I would obsess about some hobby, belief, activity, whatever.  And then there would be a phase when I would not be caught dead doing that thing I did.  This will be again followed by the obsession phase and so on.  Which is alright.  But in my case, during the wean period, I impulsively get rid of all materials related to my earlier interest and so when the obsession starts again, I start from scratch.

- I can never exhibit my anger (not annoyance or irritation, but anger) by anything other than crying.  That makes me weak, and my case is lost even before it began.  Hence, I avoid like plague, any situation that could potentially anger me. 

- I am NOT a mornings person.  I am most crabby in the mornings, and only after noon does my mood pick up.  It is best around bed time. 

-  Do you know that little nylon tag that is sewn at the back of the neck on t-shirts and other ready-to-wear clothing that says things like "Made in Kodavasal" and "Don't ever wash this dress" and "Size XXXXXXXXL" etc.?  I am allergic to it.  Neither can I tolerate synthetic clothes.  I do have a few synthetic sarees.  They look good on me, but I feel most uncomfortable in them.

- I am very impressionable.  If I ate salad one day, I would instantly feel healthier. When I have had half-an-hour less sleep than usual, I feel crabbier even if l don't feel sleepy.  When someone tells me something nice, I float on many clouds. When someone critisises me, my self esteem plummets.  I would be a perfect candidate for placebo and hypnotic studies.

-  I cannot believe I am thrity-something years old, and an adult.  So, when I see my daughter trusting me unquestioningly about everything, it truly freaks me out and I want to run to the nearest adult in the house and hide behind him.

- I don't like talking.  I cannot make small talk, if I have nothing important to say. I am often misunderstood as arrogant, but the truth is that I really have nothing to say.  I am just plain boring. And the irony is that I was the school orator/spokeswoman in days of yore.  I cannot imagine how I could easily get up on stage and give a speech to hundreds out there. Extempore too.

- I love to peep into passing houses, huts and temples alongside the track when I am traveling by train and imagine what people would be doing/gearing up to do etc. Especially around dusk when the lights in the houses would be switched on. This is one reason I hate to travel by A/C coaches, for it insulates you from humanity.I sometimes have this urge to pull the chain, stop the train and just drop into one of their houses, and find out what they are doing.  And it is gratifying to know that I am not the only one in this world that feels that way.

Image source: http://www.gifthounds.com/UserFiles/Image/nutcase.jpg     

Counting

The humdrum of daily routine and the susceptibility of the weak human mind to negative emotions often makes us forget how blessed we really are.  I refuse to overlook my blessings any more.

My husband:  Seven years has taught me that this is the most honest (even if brutally so) man I have ever and will ever come across in my life.  A man with solid goals and dreams and whose goals and dreams do not blind him to life beyond.  A man with so many talents that sometimes I wonder if Lord Brahma had any left in his kitty after he created this one.  I waited thirty years for this fellow, many a times cursing him for not coming into my life sooner, but the wait has been totally justified.  All I can do is hum with Maria as she sings "Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good".

My daughter:  Today, as I lay on the bed, nursing a headache, this little five year old comes to me with a pain balm offering to massage my head. Which head-ache has a chance over her tiny fingers? This is the most gentle, sweet, intelligent, good-natured, cheerful, beautiful little jumping jack clut I have known.  I can only pray that God gives me the courage to be the mom she truly deserves.

My dad and grand mom:  The former in his late sixties and the latter early eighties.  Every aspect of senility cropping up.  Yet, they breathe for me.  They would much rather tolerate a degenerating spine or palpitating heart on themselves than hear of a paper cut in my finger.  I feel sorry that my mother is not around to be part of them. I hope God gives me the strength to be for them when they need me.

My in-laws: My father-in-law, in his mid sixties is thirty in spirit.  A handsome, incredibly neat, intelligent and funny person, who is as much at home in his easy chair reading Ananda Vikatan, as in the top of the corporate ladder where he rightfully belongs.  My mother-in-law, in her early sixties, is actually around six years old in spirit and her grand daughter's best friend.  Believe it or not, she is a queen of the stock market and Ambani and such like could take a tip or two from her about management. From the moment she wakes up at 4 in the morning until she gets to bed around 10, this woman hoards all the energy in the world for herself, scouring the stock market, painting, cleaning, socializing and running the show with aplomb. She calls herself "uneducated", but if she be uneducated, the rest of us are somewhere among the ocean scum.

My job: How many women have a job they like, are good at, can work at their pace and time, from home, AND get paid for it?  I have been with MMI for nine years now, have ridden the see-saw with the company that one year of downslide gets me down and one little proposal funded leaves me with a glow that rivals the aurora.  Despite my cribs during deadlines that I want to quit, I don't want to, and I hope MMI and I grow old together through good times and bad.

My finances.  I have a job that pays for the future, the husband has a job that pays for the present, we have a life devoid of excess wants, a set of parents on both sides that are not financially dependent on us and a child who can take a "no" for the expensive Dora kitchen set without much ado.  Is there anything more I can ask for?

My home:  I have a comfortable house, ground floor with a garden (that is right now languishing because I writing this post instead of watering it), tastefully done living room (with gorgeous windows, if I may add), a clean bathroom, a cool bedroom, and a kitchen, which although I don't particularly like working in, serves its purpose admirably.  My home makes me take for granted what millions lack out there.

My relatives: My sister-in-law, a beautiful, brilliant lady with infectious enthusiasm.  I wonder if she can rub off some of it on me the next time she comes here. In return I will babysit her two darlings.

My skills:  I write well, both on and off my job, have a mellifluous voice and intelligence to pick up any new skill with ease.  Just how unfair is it to waste the talent on unwanted thoughts?

My friends: My friends who are willing to give me the ear no matter how much I drivel, and not judge me for it. 

Everyday should be a thanksgiving for me, and I hope I will always remember to count my blessings before I ponder about negative things that do not make any sense whatsoever.

Edited to add: My maid Vijaya.  The lady does not sweep under the couch and table, clothes sometimes have stains AFTER she washes them and so on.  But when I return home on a Sunday evening after a weekend of revelry at the parents' houses, I find that she has thoughtfully washed the kid's school shoes and washed and pressed her uniform, so that I don't panic on Sunday evening for school next day.  Sometimes I wonder why I don't fire Vijaya for her shoddy ways. THIS is why.

Desperately trying to find something interesting to write about, so that the special area of the brain would light up and signal the endorphins to come out of hibernation and kick out this horrible mental lethargy.  Even the usual Vox Hunt question "Littering, long showers, not recycling... What's your biggest pet peeve about the way some people (mis)treat our planet?" is so bleah.

The house is unkempt, the computer lies in wait, the kitchen (which has never in the recent past been any kind of inspiration) has sunk to its lowest ebb, reverse glass work gather dust in a corner, music classes suspended temporarily, there has been no guffaw over the most un-funny things with family or friends in days now, the many craft work planned with kid, remains in the planned stage. Heck, I don't even have the enthusiasm to search for an apt picture for this entry, like I usually do.

Could this be the midlife crisis?
Or just temporary hormonal imbalance?
Or perhaps the body automatically shutting off to give a break from the tail-on-fire running around of the past year?
Or that kiddo's school starts in two weeks, and the body is subconsciously conserving energy for then.
Or has, as my grandmother would love to say, an evil eye been cast?
It could be that a work deadline is still two weeks away and there is no adrenalin pumping in yet.
Or just the heat (in terms of weather, that is).

Whatever it is, I sincerely hope it ends soon.  This is so NOT me.

Any woman can

A couple of things surprised or even shocked me during this vacation.  The primary of those being the many connotations of certain words starting with an m and ending with an o with a j and o in between that I used in all innocence in my earlier post. 

Another was a surprising book I found in dude's library in his child/youthhood home - a book on female sexuality, covered with news paper, which belonged, not to dude directly, but to his late grandfather. I was first scandalized at the idea of thatha having a book like that, but once I started reading it, it was fascinating.  The book is called "Any  Woman Can", with the tag "Love and Sexual Fulfillment for the Single, Widowed, Divoced...and Married", written by David Reuben, a psychiatrist and first published in 1971. 

If you are looking for various KS-ish poses or steamy stuff, look elsewhere, because this book is all about evolution, science and misconceptions (no pun intended) of female sexuality. For someone with sufficient science background, who has known the biological aspects of human reproduction, and has had, ummmm...practical experience, most of the stuff written are known-facts, but it has been well written, and I would consider it worthy of addition to the home library, especially when there is a little girl who before long will be maturing into an adolescent with confusing and conflicting views and experiences on sexuality.

But no, this book is not what I want to write about.  These are my thoughts that arose as I read the first chapter of this book on the train back home, having just met a woman during my vacation, who, despite having a family to die for - a smart and intelligent husband, two well-bred children and a comfortable home of her own, with all the associated paraphernalia, eats twelve and a half pills every day (no exaggeration) to treat her clinical depression.  That coupled with my own more recent insecurities and doubts about my part in the large picture, led to the following thoughts that were typed out as they formed in the mind. Don't look for coherence of thought, they have not been edited and are a mere long hand account of the thoughts, joint or disjoint that raced through the mind, aided by fast typing skills on dude's laptop.

The first chapter takes on a disparaging tone on the married woman, and her (and societal) apparent disdain for the "unattached" woman, irrespective of her visible sexuality. It seems so unfair that the married woman is made the soap-opera villain, directly or indirectly responsible for all the social discrimination towards unmarried women.  But what is conveniently ignored is the hairshirt that the married woman wears,that is most often ignored by society, or even worse, considered "natural".

The modern "wife" is under enormous stress from within and without, her time at a premium and priorities torn between home management, career (in most cases), child (or children, if she has been blessed with just that much extra tenacity) and relationships with  that special someone, and the extended family, all of which is tight rope walking, with even a small falter boomeranging into judgements about her inefficiency or impotence.  Add to this some female sexuality, which is more often than not, at least through her growing up phase in a society that prides itself as being the custodian of human morality, considered to be a myth.  Or worse, wrong.  So the years of guilt that has been carefully cultivated thorugh the crucial ages of  sexual maturation ("Don't stand at the gate and make an exhibition of yourself", "why did you give your phone number to boys?", "you cannot join an engineering college because it is co-ed"), on one night, she is suddenly given the license to open out herself and all the carefully cultivated inhibitions should just morph into licensed passion.  The struggle of suppression of sexuality gives way to the struggle of overcoming inhibitions and prejudices that have been inculcated hitherto.

That aside, it feels stomping-leg-unfair to blame the "married" woman for her disdain for single status. Even if the disdain DOES exist, it probably arises from the little green monster that whispers that the single woman, is free to FEEL.  Emotions.  Something that the married woman has no time or justification to have.  For all the talk about sexual marooning in single, divorced and widowed women, and their social alienation from a society that prostrates in reverence before the women bound in holy matrimony, there is no talk about the emotional marooning of the married
woman.  The married woman, is, at least, for most practical purposes, unless we are talking strictly scientific aspects of sexuality, satiated physically and socially, and has nothing more to ask for.  But there is no mention of the emotional marooning of the woman, whether she is bound and gagged by licenses or not.  

Any emotional disturbance of a woman is, like everything else about her, attributed to the various chemicals running in her veins. In modern society, the emotional exhibition of a woman is condemned as vehemently as her sexuality. A woman who, in temporary rage of whatever- sleep deprivation, work pressure, or just plain boredom of routine, throws around a couple of dishes in the kitchen is menopausal.  An unnecessary snap is because it is "that time of the month again".  A wife and mother is the glue that holds the family together cannot afford to feel sad,  or angry, or even annoyed.  When junior has a scrape in school, when senior has a scrape at work, when superseniors have a scrape with their impending or imagined senility, the woman of the household, the Grihalakshmi, can just, by her charming and confident presence, kiss the boo boos away.  And if she cannot, it is HER fault that  she just has not that natural thing that binds the family and keeps it together.

And lost somewhere in these commitments, her emotions go into hibernation.  Or pushed into the overflowing suitcase, until one day, the lock breaks, when least expected and the contents spill out. And THAT is her fault too.  For having bottled up without release, and having brought it to the point of seeking clinical care. And then the dirty words come out - clinical depression, nervous breakdown, hysteria.  Eat twelve-and-half pills after every meal to get the darn "chemicals" under control again.

Woman's sexuality is not suppressed as much as her emotionality.

Management

Every day is the start of a new year.  A new era.  But since it has been customary to consider Jan 1st the beginning of a new practicing calender year (no, we do not practice the "Chithirai" or "Thai", according to newer political convictions in daily activities), I, in this post, conform to conventionality and consider this current year drawing to a close and the next, around the corner.

Lostnfnd

In the past years, I have lost touch with quite a few people due to the intervening thing called life. There were three people, in particular that I regret having lost  - Mrs. Renuka Paramanand, my English teacher in high school, who made me love the language, Dr. K. Lalitha, my biochemistry teacher at IIT, who inspired me by her enthusiasm and passion for the subject and all that she believed right, and a friend Gowthamram, who was my first "gender-free" friend, so to speak.

I ran into Dr. Lalitha at the local temple today.  I was sure she would not remember me, but I simply had to tell her how much she has inspired me.  I did.

Now for the other two...

Bored

When she has three projects running side-by-side and not a moment to breathe, she complains.  When two of her projects are over, and she has a few hours free per day, the first time in six months, she drives everybody, including herself up the wall. 

Sheesh. Some people are hard to satisfy, I tell you.

Athletics

It is "sports day" at my daughter's school today.  And as ever, it takes me on a trip to past.

Our school (Holy Angels Convent Hr Sec School, if anyone is interested) would have sports day during the end of February-beginning March. About the time when the sun rubs its hands together in glee, getting ready to scorch the earth in the following months. 

Preparation would commence a couple of months before the event.  The athletic types would begin to train under coaches recruited especially for the event. A few more of us with athletic aspirations but less skill (and no permission from home to wear shorts required for formal training "What? in front of the male coaches? What is the world coming to?") would watch them (the athletes, not the coaches) longingly, waiting for them to take a break when we could go into the high-jump (or long jump or javelin or discus throw or hurdles) field and try our luck with it.  Lunch break would be spent gobbling up the food in record time, and dashing off to the field to do what catches our fancy ("high jump" for yours truly - personal record being 2.3 meters).

But what we would look forward to, would be the last period, during when, regular classes would be canceled and we would assemble in the vast playground (most of which has been usurped now to build more classrooms, as I sadly noticed recently) in our respective "houses" to practice "March Past".  P.T teachers, Ms. Daisy, Mrs. Rao and Mrs. Anna Mary, with whistles hanging around their neck would lead us around the ground, bellowing "Left... Left.... Left Right Left..." into the microphone.   This is one event that would make the best of friends enemies, if they belonged to two different houses.  I remember personal amimosity between my otherwise good friend V who belonged to "School House" and me ("Assunta House").   Pep talks from house leaders (Geetha for my house, on whom I remember having a crush) would buck up the fighting blood in us and nothing, just nothing would matter than getting our house to the top.

And the much awaited D-Day would arrive.  We would pack off to Rajaratnam Stadium wearing our house uniforms ( divided skirts in house colors - Yellow for Assunta, Red for Teresalina, Blue for School and Green for Hermine and cream blouse) with a bag full of standard snacks - Bun-butter-jam, cream biscuit (reserved for the occasion, they were a luxury item, not meant for normal days - good old Marie biscuit would do otherwise), chicklets, and lots of water and lunch (invariably Thayir saadam, with mavadu, in stainless steel "Carriers"). The more affluent kids would bring Cadbury's five star that the rest of us would salivate at. There would be stalls selling cool drinks and "kuchy ice", and in the era when pocket money meant money in the pocket of the father, it would be a great honor to be given five rupees on sports day to spend on the ice cream.  You'd be surprised that it was as late as the eighties, although some of our families continued to live in the fifties.

There would be mayhem at the stadium.  Parents were invited and usually moms gladly came.  As a parent myself now, the only question that comes to mind is "Why?".  I mean, if the kids have to roast in the sun, it would build them character and what not.  But I thought parents had their characters built long ago.  The only reason I can think of is that moms were so stuck at home with kids that any opportunity to meet other people (if only moms of other kids) was more than welcome.  Maybe if blogging had been around then, we would have had less spectators ?

There would be events on simultaneously, out of eyeshot of the audience.  The P.T techers would run around in their caps and try to gather kids wandering aimlessly.  The English teacher would be at the PA system, with a commentary no one cares to listen to.  The last event of the day would be the march past that we had been practicing for months ahead.  Despite the heat beating down, and the exhaustion from participating in events, the clarion call would get us all  braced up for the final fight. We'd march around the entire stadium to a professional band leading us, and come to stand-at-ease at the middle of the stadium for the announcement of results.

Oscar and Academy Award winners could learn a thing or two from us when the results were announced.  Tears of joy and disappointment would abound when the march past winner house is announced.  And then, when the all-disperse signal finally came, the parents would literally scrape off the blackened pieces of us from the ground and carry us home.
 

Wise monkey

Do we, in general, prefer reading to listening?  At least over the internet? Or is it subjective preference?  The question arises from a couple of incidents that happened in the recent past. 

Vijay had forwarded a link of his podcast that I kept putting off hearing until he "gently" reminded me a week later. On the other hand, if he had written up a blog post and had wanted me to read it, I would have read it instantly and left a comment.

A couple of weeks back, dude had done a podcast on an issue close to his heart, and made me listen to it before posting it.  It was good effort, but it felt like a chore to me, to listen to it.  I never feel that way when he asks me to read any of his posts.  And a couple of weeks since he put up a transcript of the podcast online, his visitor tracker seems to indicate that more people read the transcript than listen to the podcast.

I wonder if that is true universally, or there are just some of us who prefer visual rather than auditory stimulation.  I can say from personal experience that matter sticks to my brain better when it is read than heard. I hate it when my boss telephones me to discuss some work, because usually by the time I put the phone down, the subject matter has evaporated from the space between the ears.  However, when he sends me an email, it makes an impact and sticks on.   It does not matter if I delete the mail soon after.  Even in school and college, I would more often than not, find my mind wandering through lectures, but once I sat down to "study", the concentration would remain unwavering.

Perhaps this is also why I communicate better by the written rather than the spoken word.   In fact, I am afraid of meeting my "blog" friends, because I AM a crashing bore in person (hint hint Terri).   My only wish is that more people who write well or intensively have a problem with oral communication, and therefore the crash would be mutual. 

Dude and I dated over the internet for three months before we met.  I had "seen" and rejected six prospective grooms before dude wrote to me.  I fell in love with his writings, despite (or because of) his first email to me that began with "In our ancestral village, we had a cow called Lakshmi" even before I met him. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had met him without the written prelude.  Would he have joined the ranks of the previous six?  Perhaps not, but I don't want to know.