Incredible India- A Sham Democracy!

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high…

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit…

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”- Tagore

‘Exotic’, ‘vibrant’, ‘enchanting’, ‘the World’s largest democracy’, ‘the next superpower’ as we love to call it, today, like many other times I am made to feel that we live in a sham democracy where all the emancipation is limited to make believe. For who here is free exactly? While we may pat our backs on freeing our minds from the colonial hangover, sixty five years hence, the minds are still very much  entrapped in the shackles of archaic ideals and so called ‘values’ that do more harm than good.

I mean seriously, what kind of society have we become? The form of governance in India is lauded tirelessly, but what about the quality of governance? We definitely and abidingly look great on papers but how efficient are we when it comes to delivering? Every year, we get up in the chilly January morning to witness the republic day parade. I, myself do it almost every year unfailingly even though I am a late riser and hate getting up early but it used to give me a false sense of pride in our nation. This year I question though, why rejoice this celebratory parade? What exactly are we celebrating?

Be it corruption, inefficiency, lawlessness or the sheer mindset of people that borders on being disgusting at times, is this where we want to live? Is this where we want to raise our children where we are not sure if they will come back home safely from school in the afternoon? Can we really call ourselves free if we are living under the constant fear of being bombed in a terrorist attack? Are we a developing country if people still vote for the candidates on the basis of their caste or religion as against to a better candidate? What kind of an incredible nation is it that doesn’t allow its women to step out after dark because it’s almost certain that she definitely will face some kind sexual assault on the way?

If in a democracy, the will of the people is supreme, then why does the government need to impose Section 144 of Indian Penal Code on a peaceful demonstration of solidarity for a gang rape victim? If in a democracy, people have the freedom of speech, why are angry slogans against butchers of humanity and demanding justice are welcomed with water cannons in the chilly Delhi winter? Why is a cartoonist who rightly depicted the sorry state of affairs in his cartoon pressed with sedition charges because he is certainly not the most serious violator when it comes to offence against the state? The credit for that will have to go our treasured political class which has very efficiently preserved all those archaic laws which were used by British Imperialists to smother, target and imprison the freedom fighters and revolutionaries during the British Raj.

The recent and tragic death of the gang rape victim angered us all. The nation mourned as though she was their own daughter, sister or friend. The mounting public outrage is causing increasing pressure on the government to strengthen the law, but is really a change in the offing? Perhaps, the intensified public pressure and a strong case against the six accused, will hopefully mete out the harshest punishment to them, but will the state of affairs also change after that? We need to ask the government about what will happen to those MPs and MLAs who themselves have charges of sexual offenses against them. Will they be tried and punished or at least kicked out from heir respective parties in the meantime? I am sure even if some charges are found to be false later on, we will not be missing out a lot from our great pool of political talent. I am sure we will manage just fine. We need stronger laws and stricter measures against offences, sexual or otherwise  available for the taxpayer who gives his blood and sweat in hope of a decent and safe infrastructure for him and his family.

As the age old adage goes, the people get the ruler that they deserve. We all are responsible for electing rapists, criminals and murderers as our representatives because after all they are where they are after a ‘fair’ democratic process. We all our responsible for accepting the indolent justice system, which even if it brings us justice, its mostly very very late. We have lived too long and too much with the ‘chalta hai’ attitude.

Let us try make a change this time, because someone’s child lost her life. She lost her life not only because of inhuman acts of a few merciless animals but also because the system was inadequate. She lost her life because our democracy is mostly hypocrisy. Let us not forget her death like many others that we have forgotten already. Let us make it into a catalyst that drives us to uproot this national lethargy and incompetence that has lead us to this mess of a democracy. Let us make a better and real democracy for ourselves.

'

Ask me if I am asking for it

I liked to be out of the house in the evening. The glittering multicolored lights of my metropolitan city coupled with the cool breeze and a careless chattering with my friend used to give me a false sense of being out and about. Not having to worry about the pocket money or public transport anymore I felt I was so independent.

And then I got a wakeup call.

A girl, very close to my age and who knows, she might have been like me in so many ways got raped in a moving bus as it  grazed the poshest of localities of our very esteemed national capital. These six murderers of humanity not only slaughtered her honor repeatedly and brutally but physically damaged her in ways that will be unimaginable to a sane mind. The girl is in coma and we don’t know if she will live or not, but even if she does, I doubt that the physical and mental trauma caused to her will let her lead a normal life.

I can’t stop thinking about her. It had happened before too. It will continue to happen again. It feels as if it’s only a matter of chance and time that one day it will happen to me, my friend or my sister. And the fact that I am so helpless against it makes a shiver run down my spine. It’s a little heartening to see that India stands united against such heinous atrocity committed on a girl who must have been someone’s daughter, sister and friend. The mass protests at the front doors of our symbol of freedom, the Raisina Hills and the subsequent attempt of the authorities to curb and regulate the protests leaves us with a certain sense of reassurance that perhaps the time has come. Perhaps, the people have awakened from their self imposed slumber where it went without saying that the girls venturing out after dark were risking too much and were to be blamed themselves if something untoward were to happen.

"What were you wearing?"

"How long was your skirt?"

"Were your jeans too skinny?"

"How tight was the top that you were wearing?"

"Did you say something?"

"Where you laughing too loudly?"

It makes me think, what am I supposed to do? Maybe I should apologize if my clothes or overtly pleased demeanor makes someone feel like a rapist.  Maybe, I should not step out of my house alone because obviously, I might get raped. But the chattering and giggling with my friend on the streets might make some men want to molest us, or just ‘harmlessly’ eve- tease us if we are lucky. Maybe, I should not step out of my house without some male company just like the medieval times. But the rapists on prowl would not hesitate in attacking my innocent brother or friend after spotting a girl on the loose. Perhaps, they would beat him up, kill him and then rape me. Maybe, I should not step out of the house at all. If Gods are with me, perhaps I will come across no rapist who will be audacious enough to break into my house and then rape me. Yes, I can sure live in that hope.

Our Society very enthusiastically teaches its women not to get raped rather than teaching the men not to rape. When I see all this anger, and I have a considerable share of it, towards the police or the government for not being vigilant enough, not being able to convict enough or not having laws that are strict enough, it brings me to the ultimate question- will the rapes stop from happening if there is more vigilance, conviction and laws? The answer is quite sinister.

Because it still remains unanswered as to who will vigil the psyche that has absolutely no qualms about seeing women as objects belonging to the bed and the kitchen? Who will convict the mind that has been fed from its cradle that women are inferior beings? What laws will prevent one from the having an urge to strip and tear apart every girl who might be laughing too loudly wearing a red lipstick?

I think we as a nation are all in favor of laws that will prevent, atleast deter some men from committing such monstrous acts that fails all imagination but also, we need to mend the fractured psyche that allows such gruesomeness to occur. We, as a nation need to respect its women because time and again, we have failed at it miserably despite the various glorification  And ladies, when your son tells you about his various harmless escapades with girls, please think twice before labeling them “loose” and considering your dear son some kind of Greek God because chances are, your adorable son is no better himself. And girls, please stop blaming your boyfriend/husband’s aggression on the butter chicken, and  take a reality check when he touches you without your consent. We need to change the mindset.

We need a change and  we need it now.

Because every time I wear a skirt, I am definitely not “Asking for it”!

Dear Insomnia,

“There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.

There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,committed or endured or suspected; there are worse thingsthan not being able to sleep for thinking about them.It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking inand stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.” 

I think I have insomnia.

I comfort myself with a false sense of superiority that I fancy having over those who are sleeping. For those who get a sound sleep, the night is too short, they can always sleep a little more. For me though, its as good as a decade. So much can be done. I read somewhere that an insomniac brain is like a conspiracy theorist that believes too much in its own paranoiac importance as though if it were to blink, then doze, the world might be overrun by some encroaching calamity, which its obsessive musings are somehow fending off. Come to think of it, it’s a disturbing thought. For me though, I am not so much as disturbed as I m restless, as though there’s a race against time and I am falling behind. I don’t know what I am reaching for but I want to keep running... towards…from…oblivious...

I just want to keep running.

“He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Clean Well Lighted Place

Its just one of those days when you are left wondering if its one of those lives...

The Prodigy of Faith

 “I grant we are apt, prone, and ready, to forsake God; but is God ready to forsake us? Our minds are changeable; is His so likewise?” – John Updike

Today, as I sat locked in my car in the parking lot of my building for 15 mins, it struck me that perhaps God has forsaken me finally. We have always shared a love hate relationship, even though we were not equals. I was arrogant, sarcastic, cynical, bitter, impostor and HE? Well, he was the God of course! We were like a divorced couple, me and god, who had started out as friends, fell in love, got married, fell out of love and got divorced amicably. And occasionally when we bumped into each other at a common friend’s, we shared a casual hello and talked about the weather. But then, he was someone who knew my deepest, darkest secret. He knew me for the person I was and one that I had become. In some strange pitiable kind of way, I could still bank on him. Why then, did he decide that he will disappear in the oblivion one fine day because it sure felt like he had done that?

He had been with me every time I was at the crossroads, identifying my lesser gods, being torn between faith and doubt. And today, I was in doubt and he was nowhere to be found. The fifteen minutes had begun to seem like fifteen years. The prospect of getting out of the car and walking into my home seemed such a difficult task that I preferred keeping myself locked in the iron box which wouldn’t let my crying out. Because people ask questions, they are always doubting, sometimes even hoping that something is wrong. It was only him that I needed right now and since he wasn’t there, it was rather a comfort being alone. Déjà vu’. Just like the old days.

Earlier in the day when I was driving, I almost wished that the truck would hit me. But that would make matters worse. No one would end up any happier, besides the car would be gone. So I gave the truck idea a miss. What could I do then?

The resemblance was getting uncanny and a very disturbing pattern was emerging in my life where I always ended up being let down and letting down where I expected the least. I fancied myself being a good daughter, a decent lover and a dedicated hard worker, besides my million flaws. And yet, it hadn’t quite worked out for me. I had never been the articulate kind, and had a made a habit of blaming all my emotional inadequacies on that. But today, I got thinking, was it just that? My friends and I used to laugh about my ‘romantically challenged’ status. Was it that funny though? My family had over the years, developed all kinds of private jokes about my being aloof all the time. Was it so hysterical after all?  All the patterns in my life had one thing in common- me.

 I wish I could find God. I had so many unanswered questions.

I was a self obsessed nerd –snazzy hybrid who slept in a double bed, was a cleanliness freak, who snacked in the wee hours of the morning, collected quotations and didn’t leave the house without kohl even when she was very upset. I was weird in so many ways. And yet I always felt that I deserved some respite. If only, he was here today…

 And now, it seems like such a loser thing to write things like these as if the world cares, but do I care?

Christmas in My Heart

Festivals are the time when I get really homesick.

 Even when I am home

Since I can remember the “festive season” has been given so much importance in our lives that I feel kind of sick of it sometimes. When I was little, there used to be this forced assignment in school every year (for at least four years in a row!) to write about your favorite holiday. Every bloody year, there was this same loathsome task of adorning our brainless essays with all the possible adjectives for lights and colors. It was not even considered a possibility that a child might not have a ‘favorite’ holiday where he/she would go absolute nuts and the parents would be on board with the whole insanity thing for it was the holidays of course!

Today, in the market driven world, the ‘festival season’ seems to have become a pathetic diminution of what else can be sold and how. I will never be able to understand why on this earth is a pack of pink heart shaped marshmallows  a better way of expressing love than the good old love letter? I do realize that I sound like a very bitter, anti- festival kind of a person but somehow I don’t derive even half as much joy from lighting a cracker as I do from giving an extra fifty bucks to the rickshaw puller on the eve of Diwali. He, I feel, might be a believer in the lights and color stuff and the fifty bucks may mean something to him.

Once, a friend was psycho analyzing me and he came to the conclusion that owing to lack of any ‘happy memories’ of my childhood with respect to any festivals and because I  once burnt my hand on Diwali and was thrown in a very big pool one Holi, these negative feelings have stuck with me. I was so gob smacked with his bizarre take on the whole thing that nothing but expletives came out of my mouth for a while. Firstly, I don’t like being psycho-analyzed and on top of that, try giving my story a Freudian twist, I will choke you to death! Besides, that pool was a fun thing and all the happening kids were there. As for the burn, I wasn’t a big fan of that but I like the smell of gunpowder. So much for Freud then!

I think about it every year and I can’t fathom why my consumption of chocolates and cheese increases manifolds during this time of the year. The mighty Beatles said that all  we need is love and I guess I have that in my life but I swear to God, the sugarcoated pleasantries of absolute strangers, the fireworks, the works drive me to my edge! Maybe for a cynic from the anti festival brigade, like me a little more something  is required. Maybe the little more something is a pint of vodka so that i can 'drown' myself in the festive spirits as the saying goes. Pun intended  Who can say? 

And I guess there has to be something that engages an entire community, an entire nation in the conspiracy of love. There is so much of hatred in the world otherwise. We all need to get a grip, have a common reason of celebration and indulge in some collective amnesia from our less than perfect lives. On that note I wish everyone a very happy festival season!

Winter Specials

“Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.” 
― Oscar Wilde

It hit me hard on the face as I was taking an almost forced walk in the driveway. The much illustrious Delhi winters had arrived. Oh, how I loved its stroke, its presence all around me as it engulfed my every step and my half bare legs quivered in its embrace. It was nostalgic. It had always been nostalgic for me. The winters in my life had always, almost unfailingly been the time when all the drama happened.

  

2005. It was the first winter out of home, sans any supervision. Montage, the college fest was soaring in full swing. All of a sudden the school ‘Socials’ seemed so much lamer, and this so much cooler! For the first time in my life I tasted the cocktail of makeup, heels and reckless abandon.  It was funny how a couple of us decided randomly to volunteer for the security cell of the fest one fine day. Though I can’t remember clearly, I think the only reason we did it was so that we could frisk the really cute guys with those fancy metal detectors. I know it sounds really gross and pathetic but it was good fun back then. And of course, no one complained. Come to think of it, maybe some nuns did, not the guys definitely!

2007.In the icy cold parking lot of the college, we sat there smoking relentlessly as if there was no tomorrow and as if we didn’t have to show up at our respective homes. Woolf and Beckett had gotten too much to us by now and everything had become too commonplace to raise our eyebrows. Nothing was too much that winter. The drama lied in the fact that we had raged a battle against all the drama that could exist. Nothing could satiate me. Not a smoke, not a book, not a man.

I don’t remember the year but I was a quite small then and it was freezing cold outside. I was sitting in my room with my chocolate milk and mom & dad were having a nasty fight in the next room. I swear to God, it scared me so much that I moved near the window hoping that the torrential rain outside would drown their voices. I finished my milk and fell asleep on the chair near the window that night. The next morning was one of the happiest mornings when dad came to wake me up from my bed for school in his slightly irritating monotone of ‘get up-get up’ and mom asked me what would I have for breakfast. All this as if nothing had happened! I was so ecstatic to see them all normal that morning that she could have given me snails for breakfast and I wouldn’t have cared!

 Funnily all my boy troubles have also centered around during this time of the year. I fell in love during one winter and fell out of it another. I got stalked by a maniac one winter and got kissed by a stranger in another. And now comes the most dramatic winter of my life, the last winter. If I so much as begin to narrate what transpired last year, my life would start to resemble a mixture of too many cinematic potboilers. So I will not get into that. Rather, I would hope that this year the frigid winds bring with it some happiness and peace to me and my dear ones. It’s been a tough year but hey, winters are here. So hopefully good times will ensue!

The Gift

I gifted myself a book. Not bought, but “gifted” it to myself. It was perfect. All it lacked was the shimmering wrap that would rustle frantically as I would tear it open with the utmost excitement. But that I would handle. I opened the not so attractive brown cardboard cover and there it was, lying bare in front of me- “The Great Gatsby”.   I always wanted to read it but couldn’t manage the time for it among my various occupations of banking, having a heartbreak, cookery shows, being in love, obsessing over my wardrobe etc. Also, my loyalties had partially shifted to the motion pictures. The ancient figures in their splendid costumes, gliding like poetry, two sisters turning a crime scene spotless, an adolescent shifting continuously between the perplexing realms of sanity and lunacy; And then there was Meryl Streep who would make a devout out of even the most loyal cine-atheist.


But Gatsby, he had the charms of some old loves. You may realize after seeing him that the love that “was” was not dead but in hibernation and the imbecile was still very much capable of hijacking you. A book can open so many doors of reality and alternate realities for us. Sometimes, its just nice and comforting to read about a woman cheating on her husband, attaining some kind of poetic justice in the process. Or witness a family which can share a toothpaste but not their lives. Knowing that its not just me whose mad rush of everyday existence, compels him/her to give in to the lesser gods. And as the end approaches, seeing that love is capable of redeeming even the most vicious. And these are to name just a few.

 I gently grazed the cover with my hand and intently looked at those figures who resided the twenties of America. I took it to my room and carefully placed it beside the God of Small Things. I can’t wait to read it but it will be some other day Just like everything else, the vague, brazen, unfaithful ‘some other day’ will do for now.

Not a child’s play

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"

"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.

"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"

"A pit full of fire."

"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"

"No, sir."

"What must you do to avoid it?"

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.” 
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Ever since I can remember till a couple of days back, I always felt that I have always been living life like a pseudo child. I could attribute it to my tiny frame that I could still pass off as a college girl, if not a school girl! On the home front, I believe my folks really considered me a child what with my lack of any actual responsibility, flimsy life choices and attention span of a toddler. Things on the work front were sparingly different though. My boss wasn’t of the belief that I would choke myself if I was given a little extra push.  So one fine day I was given the mammoth task of talking to school children about financial awareness and even do the inglorious job of milking some business out of the unsuspecting lot. Of course the recipients of my knowledge were expected to go home and harass their parents about making that investment (we even had a goodie deal with the mobilizer of the largest business!!)

Oh god how my conscience twitched when my boss briefed me the details of my ignominious assignment! If not the hell, I sure had reserved my space in the purgatory. But like a true combatant I soldiered on with a straight face and hairs tied back like an archetypal banker girl.

How would I break the ice?  I kept wondering. I wasn’t even that good with kids. In fact I didn’t even know how I was with the kids. I had never given myself a chance to be surrounded by them. The only kid I had seen growing up infront of my eyes was my brother and sweet Jesus knows, that wasn’t really a bed of roses!

I reached the venue clueless as ever and was taken to a classroom brimming with children and adolescents screaming, screeching, making obscene drawings on the blackboard, throwing paper planes at each other etc. Boy, I missed my school. Their teacher banged the duster on the table and made the age old remark of the class not being a fish market. Its funny how every generation hears the same comment, I bet the remark is as old as the existence of ancient fish markets itself. Anyway, the children, if I may call them so (they looked way taller and stronger than me!) were asked to pay attention to what I said. The teacher then seated herself in the last row to mind any rowdy element from there and requested me to begin the session.

I had decided on starting with a joke. One never goes wrong with that.

So, how many would agree with me?

“Money is better than poverty… if only for financial reasons?”

Silence.

Pause.

A crackling laughter.

Nobody got the joke except the teacher in the last row. It was getting worse. Now they would team me up wit their teacher whom they evidently disliked. They would never listen to me. Never.

It was better to go back to the safe terrains. I would do what I had come here to do and go back. The idea of getting all pally was overrated, I convinced myself.  I dint care anymore if I could generate any business here. So I started with the importance of money implications of saving etc. As the session progressed I started getting what I had come totally unprepared for- smart questions from girls and stares from the boys, some of whom were even half my age! Sure I was too young for that sort of flattery. They asked the craziest questions and had opinions which could give a spin to the international financial markets.

Overall, it was not turning out so bad as I had deemed it to be. We even had a few good laughs. I wrapped it up fast, fearing the acceptance would soon turn into instant repudiation if I ate up their recess time. Also I decided that I wouldn’t in any way pressurize them. They were big enough to make the choice.

We got some good business from that school. It was a good feeling, not so much for the business generated but the fact that my words had made a difference. Also, being among so many children did take me somewhat to a place where there were many bittersweet memories to be revisited- my first best friend, my first fountain pen, my first stage performance, my first kiss. I had forgotten what fun it was to just keep spinning like crazy, how natural it was to greet a friend with an insult and how thrilling devising a game with secret codes could be.   

When I look back, there are so many happy images of my childhood but nothing surpasses the sheer joy of having an open doorway with an open mind. The best part being, everyone that I hung out with was blessed with an equally enthralling imagination.

 What happened to us when we grew up?

Surely being as free as a child is not a child’s play.

And then there was the madness..

He wanted to cook and clean for me. And he would have played the piano too if he knew nuts about playing it!

He entered my life when I was not even looking and changed almost everything that a person can possibly change. He said things that I would have brutally classified as sloppy and laughed my ass off with my girlfriends but as time passed, he became my girlfriend. Taking keen interest in what I could wear to a party to look hot and yet being a little jealous when he thought I looked ‘too hot’, he was the kind of guy for whom adorable was an understatement. He could be the baby girl who would demand undivided attention when she wore her pink dress for the first time and he could be the man who would hold me back from plummeting into some devious depression.

He would say the things that sounded like lines right out of “Casablanca” and I would feebly struggle  to say something nice, most of the time breaking into laughter, if not in front of him then deep down inside. He would sing for me without caring how he sounded (not that he sounded bad) and would ask me to join him. I, on the other hand would attempt to sing like I was reciting a poem and feeling idiotic all the while. And boy, I am not kidding but he knew ALL the songs!!!

Where did he come from? And why would he even so much as like the idea of having me in his life? I was the girl who liked Nietzsche. The good people for me were the ones who let me cross the street without running me over. That was quite sweet.

And love?

Love for me would be to just let me be and try not to hack my email account! That’s the stuff I would term as love. The flowers and the teddy were not really my thing. My idea of romance now wandered in a confused realm between the Petrarchan unattainability and Tzara’s irrationality. It was more comforting to be lost in your own country than a foreign land.

What could we even have in common- he, the old world romantic and me the quintessential cynic? But he was here, with his heart wide open, asking me to look into it. And I did, He was here and that’s what mattered. And come to think of it what could I loose anyway?

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

But then, there were these glaring discrepancies. I was the number churning banker (hahaha..that’s funny considering how I always lived the first quarter of my life in perpetual fear of the numbers!) and he was the creative guy. He glided with aesthetics while I manipulated the figures. Over the period of time, I had started wanting even my life to be like those ledgers which I could control for my advantage, manipulate it as I liked, and batter it when needed.  And here he was, offering a world I was reluctant to step in, a world so pure that the innocence of it could choke you. I was not that untainted after all.

Then I had a thought- why not give in? Why not take a chance that I have never taken before? It can be pretty hard to lay your soul bare but it’s a lot better than having a soul wrapped under so many layers that you forget its there. So I decided to let it go.

Besides, for how long can you complain about a pimple afterall without the other person snapping at you after a day and half? Or how many guys would willingly offer to hold and carry your purple handabag if you have too many carry bags already? A guy has to be man enough to let his girl “sort her issues” with the guy who preceded him, so what if he got jealous some times?

So I decided to allow myself fall in the trap. Sing in my horrible voice, baby talk with him and others (who have started thinking there’s something wrong with me, but who cares?), and pose for a picture every single day so that I can fish for some more compliments. He has made me into this person whom I have started liking. And the feminist alarm shouldn’t go on because he respects me and my choices.

So I thought I will let go.

And let the madness begin…

Me and the City

We met ten years back. I was in that phase in my life then where you think you will become a rockstar one day because you have such a troubled life. It’s a different thing though that I never really wanted to become a rockstar really. Movie direction was “more my thing”, I would say in a detached manner to those who either bothered to ask or to the lesser mortals who were dumb enough to want to be a rockstar.

Anyway, the point is, I was very young then. Naïve, I wouldn’t call myself because I was never the ‘touch me not’ kinds. I was always belonged to the ‘get on with’ club even if it resulted in multiple troubles for my dismal existence in this big wide world. And yet, there was something, some innocence still preserved, some rawness still to be polished. All of fourteen, I came to Delhi with an Alexander-ish hope of veni vedi vici. Or that’s what I thought. It was only later that I got to know that the much popular tricolon was actually spoken by Julius Caesar and not Alexander!

So I didn’t know who I was following. Speak of rocky starts!!!

It was a different world from where I had come. So much more glitzy in its common appearance, so loud in the way people held general conversation, so ostentatious in the way people spoke about themselves as movie stars and yet the city had so much heart.

So much heart. So much heart this place had .One could hate this place instantly but you were bound to fall for it eventually. I myself had this little Elizabeth-Darcy thing going for a while. And then like Elizabeth, I did give up.

“It would not do, it would not do”…just like Darcy said it.

You could fall into its arms and it would be as comforting as an old lover.

After a while, once the initial days of fervent passions were settled (with mindblowing shopping experience and street food indulgence), we fell into the mould. Me and the city. It was love flourishing on the grounds not because the city itself was so great but because I had some of my “firsts” in its lanes and by lanes (this I mean literally- we quite a hunter for shady places in those days). My first vodka shot; the first time I discovered what thongs were; the first time I casually “picked” something up from a shop without paying for it; the first time my very explicit love letter was caught and shown to my mom by an overtly  nosy relative; the first time I decided I wouldn’t believe in god anymore. When I read what I have just written it only makes me sound like a prodigal daughter or in simpler terms the kind of girl parents would want to keep their daughters away from! But it was good for me. The firsts. Of course a lot of other firsts preceded and followed these but that’s a different story.

Today as I write this, I would just like to bring to notice that neither am I dying nor am I getting married to some NRI in Canada and thus leaving the city behind. I just feel in love with it and I want to pen it down. Like every love story though, there are few glitches too. It can get too claustrophobic here sometimes with every Sharma or Chaddha auntyji laboring too hard to know a little too much about you. The city I love so much is also the rape capital of India, if not the world. But right now I would rather not get into the filthy minds of the lechers who roam the city so freely.

To sum up, I would just say that the romance continues with its share of the good bad and the ugly. ..

“iske daayein taraf bhi dil hai
iske baayein taraf bhi dil hai..

Ye sheher nahi mehfil hai…”

Too much heart. Me and the City. Too much heart.

The Gentlemen and Me

A dash of love, a pinch of hate, a speck of sorrow and a lot of life..

Gentleman: I don’t know f you have seen Forrest Gump but you are like Jenny. You will always remain a mystery to me. I chase you like crazy, not even expecting a second glance in return and you keep eluding me. You are so strange and bizarre and yet that’s what I crave, very well knowing I can never have you…

I have to say it was one of the most heart wrenching thing ever said to me. Being a huge Forrest Gump fan myself, I knew what these words meant. Jenny had always been one of my favorites so it was flattering, just being compared to her ;-)

A friend had said it to me after a very amusing start to our friendship.We continue to be friends without any more "funny" stuff being said anymore..

Gentleman (To my mom): Your daughter, she dances like a dream! I couldn’t stop looking at her feet move as she moved so gracefully.

And as mom was reveling at a total stranger complementing her daughter’s dancing skills, the gentleman came up to me and in a near whisper voice he said to me..

“ You dance so well and your legs…they are so hot! Couldn’t take my eyes off them baby!”

Later that night, he kissed me as I stood dumbfounded. I was 18 then and he must be ten years elder to me. And boy, I could feel the confidence he had gained over the years!! I never met, saw or even heard from him again. I didn’t call on the number he gave me. In fact I don’t even remember his name today. It is better this way. It sounds like a story- a stranger kissing me on the new years eve… J

Gentleman: I do need you, but I think you need me more, considering how you are- lonely even in the most crowded places…So I will hang around, for your sake you know…

Outrageous. That was the first reaction and within seconds of this snide remark being made I realized the callous frankness and pathos of it. It was true. I found myself lost even in a crowd. And yet someone saying it to me like this almost pierced the heart, not to mention what it did to my pride. I didn’t know if it was sweet or malicious but it just flooded my eyes…

Gentleman: You’re a bitch!

Well, I might be one, who isn’t?

 (Also, you are not so much of a "gentleman" for saying it loud!! :P)

Gentleman: Among you and me, you are the dude!

Boy dint I laugh my guts out on hearing that one! It was like I had been waiting to hear that since forever. So obvious and yet never stated. Hell yeah I am the “dude”, being romantically challenged and all. But the dude in question here would like to keep her/his duties largely ceremonial. The actual dude will have to take care of the rest ! :P

The best part was that the gentleman made me smile, and still manages to do it every time and that is something..!!

Gentleman: You are my student and I shouldn’t feel this way about you. But when I teach and my eyes scan the class, it just stops at you...like the gaze belongs there...on you..

I wish I could do something about it but I can’t…

Fine, these lines were spoken in my dreams! So before anyone gets any idea of an unsavory teacher student relationship let me clarify, I had none. Whether that would have been a fortunate or an unfortunate incident will constitute a different debate altogether. To cut a long story short, I had a mad crush on this substitute physics teacher. With his lean frame, check shirts, Byron like hair and librarian glasses he wasn’t exactly the stud girls were crazy after in those days but I adored him. Whoever said love makes you do crazy things was right. And even though it wasn’t love or something even close, it was indeed crazy to do physics numericals just so that I could have more doubts..!!

LOL

In simpler times...

Those were the simpler times. When hanging out meant feasting at the roadside Chinese van; when five hundred bucks were a lot of money. When we thought we would find someone, fall in love, settle down. One smoke and all the worries disappeared because we had rebelled and gave the world a taste of its own medicine (or so we thought). And true love of course could happen only once. One never felt the need to be guarded. In simpler times.

 And then gradually we made this shift to this oblivious realm where the first and the foremost thing was to be cautious, on your guard, all the time. For who knows who or what might break your heart or bones. Always on the guard. Not living, just guarding. All the time. All the time rushing too, always wanting to reach someplace, always wanting to rush out from another. The overpowering monster of ambition always hovering over the head, poisonously whispering “do better”. All the time living in the constant need of conforming.

And today I had this thought. After a long draught, finally a thought!

Wasn’t this the very bourgeoisie instinct that I once resented? Wasn’t I falling in the same trap I so detested and vehemently protested against? Where was the free thinking, me? Where was the foolishly rebellious without a cause girl who read Dorothy Parker a bit too much?  I kept thinking about all this and a lot more as a razor moonlight coming from the gaps in the curtain split me into two. What had become of life?

I had veered from my course this time. But it felt good. There was an underlying guilt but sometime it seemed only fair. One could not wreck another human being’s life and hope for only happiness in return. Surely, there had to be a penalty. Surely. And it came in the form of guilt- a weapon so deadly that not even death could scare it away.  But what can one do. The heart wants what it wants.

And for one thing I learnt that love, no matter how overrated, is capable of bringing redemption. Provided one could find that kind of love. And if anything, that is one challenging thing to do. Sometimes, our fears are so irrational that only love can set it away. Some mistakes are so sinful that only love can help us make our peace with ourselves. Some things are so heartbreaking that only love could heal it. Provided one could find that kind of love and not loose it of course.

I had tried being guarded and I had laid my soul bare and yet found no perfect formula. It could lead to damages either way. It could damage not only you but many around. So what it finally boiled down to was to just live your life, the way you want, trying to hurt as little people as possible. Striving to do “better” in life and rushing for it was all very good but what matters is happiness. Provided you could find it.