40 posts tagged “personal”

Living-in-the-moment

2008 saw me attain freedom from smileys.

2009 saw me try to steady the roller coaster.  Although you have not heard of the next Buddha yet,  perceptible progress has indeed been made.

2010 will see me work more on the roller coaster - watch out for that Halo. In addition, the mantra for the year would be - Live the moment.  

Right now, I live in (moment+1).  For example, as I type this out, I am thinking of the kid in bed and wondering if she has slept already, or is still waiting for me..she had better be asleep if she has to wake up in time for school tomorrow, talking of which, why the heck is it raining now? What if it rains tomorrow and V's school closes down?  I wanted to go to the Nedanuri concert in the morning which would go down the drain..but then, it may not be such a bad thing because I can sit and work on the next proposal..I really need to work on that metal coating on graphite fiber thing..

Oh sorry.  Where was I?  Yeah, I need to start living in NOW.  Which means, on   t h i s   s e n t e n c e   a s   I    a m   t y p i n g    i t    o u t .  Not on what comes in one second later, like switching down this computer and going to sleep..oops.. I mean..

It's going to be a lot of hard work, I say.

Have a great year ahead folks, wishing you early because new year eve would, God, internet and VOX willing, see an unrelated, but extra-special post here, as usual.

{Image from here}

Carnatic_music

Yesterday, after nearly three months of getting acquainted with the tip of the iceberg of "Naalaayira Divya Prabandam" set to music, I accompanied my Guru in a stage performance.  No matter that I only knew six of the twenty six paasurams she sang...still, a performance is a performance, what?

I started music lessons when I was in kindergarten.  The music class was held in a car-shed  that was generously donated by a gentleman who had sold his car.  The teacher, whose name I didn't know, was a thousand years old.  He wore the vibuthi pattai on his forehead and carried with him a silver box of beetel leaves and associated laagiris, that he would periodically stuff into his mouth.  I was the youngest of the herd and was never even given a passing glance.  Usually, by the time the sarali varisais were done, I would be fast asleep on the torn jamakkaalam, and my grandmother would carry me back home. 

Although 5 is too young an age to remember anything, I surprise myself by remembering interesting data from my first paatu class. For example, there were three sisters   - Kanaka, Durga and Malathi. Of which, Malathi, who was four years my senior was considered a protoge, since she could already sing gamakams and brihas.  I believe the old man had high hopes on this girl, but as of now, I don't know of a Malathi in the Indian Carnatic Music jungle. Perhaps she got married to an NRI and lives in Canada or Australia, with music long forgotten.  There was another much older "akka" called Uma, who asked the teacher to teach her something special to be sung to the bridegroom's party as they came to "see" her.  And the teacher taught her (and us in the process), "Kaamakshi, kaamakoti peeda vaasini" in Simmendhra madhyamam. I was in UKG then, but I remember that song today.  I don't remember where I put the shopping list an hour ago.

I stopped going to this class in a couple of years because much of my formative years were spent shuttling between Triplicane and T.Nagar.  During my tween years, we shifted permanently to T.Nagar, and that was when my music lessons took a more serious turn, and consequently became a chore for me.  That is probably why I am very wary about getting my kid to join a formal music class yet. Sri Vaidhyanathan, a strict task master, may his soul rest in peace, would teach me one-on-one in my blind grandfather's room - my grandfather loved music and was particularly thrilled to hear his only grand daughter sing.

Sri Vaidyanathan laid a heavy duty foundation and refused to let me proceed to songs until all sarali varisais, jantai varisais and 35 alankarams were hardwired into my system. I must have been one of the rare kids that even knew that there were 35, and not just seven, alankarams, let alone being able to sing all of them.  Considering what a dedicated teacher he was, and that I was blessed with a melodious voice, I could have enjoyed the process. However the enormous pressure from home to perform and the odd hours that the Guru would turn up - at 9 PM just when I would be nodding off - made me hate the whole concept of music class.  Peer pressure that my friends, who did not sing as well as I did, proceeded in their respective classes to ada-thaala-varnams and keerthanais, while I was still plodding along with jathiswarams and swarajathis demorlaized me.

And then my mother fell seriously ill.  I begged my folks to take me off the paatu class and given the stress everyone was under, it wasn't too hard to give in to me. Five years were spent struggling with an ailing mom, mourning her death and facing public exams that music was retreated into the dark recess of somewhere.

Once the dust of public exams settled, my mind slowly moved back to music. More to find solace from the wild, weird world of college I was thrown into. This time, I joined Sri B.V. Raman (may he R.I.P too), of the popular Raman-Lakshmanan duo.  I enjoyed three years of music lessons with him immensely.  I learned many many varnams and keerthanams, which, sadly, I did not write down because BVR believed that the moment you wrote down the songs, the compulsion to learn them by-heart is lost.  He may have been right, but two decades from then, I don't remember these songs, and I don't have them written down as well - double darn !

And then academics took over again. That was pretty much the end of formal structured music lessons. I did visit Sri BVR now and then when I returned home on holidays to brush up on music. I even gave radio performances on the youth section a few times.  But my own insincerety and laziness took me away from a natural talent.  My aversion to public display of myself was another reason.  People who heard me sing pressurized me to perform to a bigger audience, and although I did sing well, I didn't believe I had the skill to take my music to the next level.  Although these days I am beginning to doubt that since some so-called "popular" singers seem to have no more skill than I did at that point.  But then, no excuses for my own lack of sincerety of purpose.

Now my music is restricted to teaching a bunch of kids and more recently my Prabandam class.  Yesterday's performance made me realise something though.  I love to sing my daughter to sleep. I love teaching the neighbourhood kids.  I don't mind singing at someone's kolu. However, hand me a mike and a group of people watching my face, my voice gives up on me.  I am not sure if my Prabandam Guru would like agree to teach me if I say this, because she was banking on my vocal support to her programmes.  I find the spirituatlity of the whole thing lost when I "perform".

Such is my sound of music.

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.