avii's journal

life's little issues

2008-11-11T17:10:56Z

I am having quite a bad time in terms of living arrangements. Not quite bad, bittersweet. I am living in my own flat. Then I am not quite living here, as much as sleeping here. The bathroom is not done, so every morning I have to go to someone else' home to take a bath. No wash basin, so I have to brush my teeth standing next to the commode. Kind of dislike it, but I have no choice. Then last sunday, I woke up to an inch of water in the house.

To top it all, I am feeling kind of depressed even otherwise. Not feeling good, no sir. Not at all. The withered heart is blowing away. I am trying to live my life without bothering people too much and without hurting myself too much, but can't do either.

avii @ 2008-11-04T16:15:00

2008-11-04T10:47:03Z

I am going crazy.
Then wasn't I always so crazy?
I wish life was different. I wish I was not losing everytime.I want to win. Once. Just once.

avii @ 2008-04-13T19:34:00

2008-04-13T14:06:43Z

Noone sees the tears I swallow.
Noone sees the tears I let fall.

avii @ 2008-03-29T14:27:00

2008-03-29T08:58:10Z

i feel so alone i want to kill myself.
yet i won't. i will drag on. i am a coward. the worst kind.

Ascetic

2007-11-09T10:20:47Z

“Avi, what’s with the bandage??”

I fell down.

“Hehe… I mean, so bad. How?”

Well, you know about Siddashram?

“Yeah. Isn’t it where people wear white clothes? “

They don’t just wear white clothes, silly. It is a community.All are swamys and swaminis or whatever. They sell their property and live together as a group, working there and all.

“So? “

I went there last week, with Shaila chechi and her husband.

“Really? They let people in? And you fell down there?”

Yes, you can go see all, meet their Gurus, and if you want to, go live with them. Nice people.

“Oh?”

We were just roaming around seeing people and all, you know. Then there was this young Sanyasi ploughing the fields. So Shalia chechi asked him why an able bodied young man like him was working like a water buffalo in there.And that he should be ashamed of himself.

“Oh my God! What happened then?”

That guy is not fit to be a sanyasi. Not at all. And boy, does he run fast!

The Woman

2007-11-09T10:20:08Z

There was once a girl in my life. A girl I loved, a girl I envied, my best friend in an age when best friends are the world.

She was a beautiful girl. Not pretty; we were not the pretty crowd, we were just the geeky know-it-alls. It was ages ago,in quite another life-time, an age before M&B and Sidney Sheldon, an age before I mourned my lost innocence. In fact, it was not me, it was a silly looking kid with a large head and larger uncombed bob who talked her into starting a Jane Austen club. Yet we didn’t know Juvenilia and Lady Susan existed. We were that young, that sheltered, and that silly. We admired Shakespeare and talked about uncertainty principle. There were dreams; dreams of greatness, ideal world, happiness, friendship, and dreams of romance and love even though we wouldn’t admit it. I envied her heart, and knew greatness would find her.

After years of oblivion, I come across her. She is as bright, as silly, and she smiles the same way. But we are different. I wonder if we were always so different, and in my heart I know we were. She has grown up into a beautiful woman, and I admire her smiling face, her hands holding the vodka. Looking at her, I am thinking of how she would look in my canvas, if I could paint her, before she went away from my life again. I am still her twin, her best friend from a world where everything was beautiful, and she takes me back into her heart. She laughs when she tells me she is the greatest hypocrite she knows.

All I know is that I still envy this woman, this child, and I envy the broken pieces of her heart.

The Guest

2007-11-09T10:19:16Z

My brother is sitting on the verandah reading newspapers, and he didn’t hear the little boy come in till he was spoken to in Tamil-Malayalam.

“Count this, will you?”

He looked up, or rather down, into a handful of coins, and an eager yet arrogant face of a six year old. The gate was open? How did this little person come into the happy world of wars and politics? (Back then my brother was mortally afraid of any humans less than a meter tall.)

“AMMME…. Some kid here.”

“Where did you get this money from?” My mother asked as she was counting it out for the boy.

“I begged for it.” The boy is proud. He is proud of the money. Proud of the earning.

“Don’t you go to school?”

“My akka goes. Sometimes. Will you give me notes for it?”

“Well, where do you stay? Where are your parents?”

“We stay near the quarry. My amma works there. I beg.”

“She sends you out to beg?”

“My father beats her up.”

There is something about the boy. Something winning. He is painfully beautiful, and young. Not yet ashamed. Not yet broken. And my mother is won over.

“Do you want to stay here?” she nudges him playfully. “We even have a dog you can play with.”

He contemplates. Everything about him is serious. He scratches Tintu’s head. He is measuring up. He stays. He is talking to my mother. Making conversation over biscuits. Fearlessly, spontaneously. What my brother and I cannot do as near-grownups.

“It’s very late. I am going then.” He announces suddenly.

“Not staying then?” My mother is smiling at him. I know she is disappointed at heart, even though she didn’t expect him to stay. She wants her grown-ups back into kids.

“Ngu-huh.” Vulnerable, shy and just a child. At that moment there was nothing serious about him. The child is back. That is how I remember him.

I wish he had stayed.

Holy Cow!

2007-11-09T10:18:28Z

“You can’t go if I don’t move.” The cow smiled.

Hey, come on. People are honking.

“Too much dust. Tastes weird.” She is licking the bonnet.

It was washed today morning. I am defensive.

“You have plastic mirrors? The ambassador on the right there has steel ones. It was cold.”

Don’t touch it. Go to the car behind. It is better. Honest.

“Want to get rid of me, do you?” She leans her neck over to the windshield facing me.

Hey, I like your eyes. But I will run you over, OK? So move. I hate the honking from behind.

“Hahaha. I am holy. And anyway, your eggshell of a car can’t move me.”

Don’t you dare make fun of my car.

“Oh, no. I rather like it. ” She kissed the windshield with her nose, and winked.

Pigs

2007-11-09T10:17:21Z

A creepy old man begging at the Marathahalli junction and gesturing obscenities made me think about Ix. And how they are everywhere. Ix was my manager in a previous company for close to two months. He was very helpful. The first day in office, he offered to help me find a house, and when I said I already found one, he offered any and all help in setting up the place. He also asked me if I needed a drop home, but when I said I drive, he was very unhappy that he couldn’t be of any help to me.

Of course Bee and S teased me about the manager’s interest in me. Having been brought up in Kerala, and being the paranoiac me who distrusts every man, I did not give him my phone number once I got it. He was to call S for anything urgent, and he would screen the calls, and give it to me. It helped that S wasn’t the sweetest guy in the world to him. He still managed to send me Happy Diwalis and Happy weekends and all that crap(to S’s phone!), and S told me maybe I am beginning to look like a girl after all, hence the SMSes. I had to pull off the haughty bitch act for him to leave me alone. Except for his not buttoning up his tee shirt in office, things were pretty OK. (Oh yes, this is something I feel strongly about. Why don’t majority of the men understand their convoluted bodies are nauseating? Don’t show off your legs and torso if you are not one of those handsome models in the ads. It is fat in all the wrong places. When it ain’t pretty cover it up.)

In two months he was chucked out of the office. Sexual harassment and all that. It was pretty serious too, he soliciting a woman who was in his team, and slightly touching a lot of others. They let him go without any legal action because they wanted to give him another chance and didn’t want to spoil his life. Spoil his life? I wonder whether he is pulling off the same stunts in another office. If a woman accepts a lift in his car, he thinks she is all ready to sleep with him the moment they reach his house or what? No wonder women don’t trust men in India. Unfortunately (or fortunately,people will say) women are not as paranoid as me. When a colleague asks them if he can drop them somewhere, they say yes, unless they distrust him to begin with. That is wrong ladies. I have had this classmate who couldn’t help touching me if he wanted to ask for anything. I used to trust that group earlier, and now that is gone thanks to that bastard. It is so sad we have to be not trusting.

Well, what I began to write about is sexual harassment. Ix surprised me, because I did not expect it to happen where it did. Not that I wouldn’t write it off in him, but I really did not think he would do something like that in office or to a colleague. Not because I think education induced some culture in him, but because of the repercussions. Multinational companies have clearly stated laws on ethics and harassment, and those with such a work experience would hold back their leering hands at least in fear of the consequences. Or so I thought. But apparently, he thought he could get away with it. (If fact he did.) He must have been a veteran, having pulled it off at the various offices he worked, and was never outed? It took the women in my office at least a couple of weeks to come out with the story. They were scared and embarrassed by turns. Why is it that we feel dirty when someone else does a lewd act? The woman is a victim, but the shame is borne by her. Sexual harassment is not caused by your fault, but because the other person is a moron and a criminal. It is not your fault if someone comments on your body. But when it happens at a place you are in constant contact with the perpetrator, you are sorry for all the times you dint tell him off. Why is it so difficult to differentiate the shame and anger and guilt?

I wish all these men would just die away and leave the world in peace. I hate it that these people are reproducing.

Morality - the Inddian take

2007-06-18T05:10:03Z

So you are not supposed to love?

‘Oh you should. You should fall in love with your husband once you are married. ‘

Well, what if I fall in love with my husband before he is my husband?

‘That is okay too. I mean, you are going to marry him for sure, then you can fall in love. ‘

What if I do fall in love, and I don’t marry him?

‘Well, then you shouldn’t tell anyone about it you know. If you pretend it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen.’

So you never crush, never flirt or anything?

‘Decent women don’t do that. And they don’t talk about these stuff like you do now.’

You do procreate don’t you? There seems to be a helluva lot of you.

‘Oh my god! chi chi…’

Vanaprastham

2007-06-15T07:59:11Z

I am in the traffic, foot on clutch, fighting for my space. The collective velocity of the city is somewhere near zero.

I see the old woman, hunched back, leaning onto her cane, walking slowly on the pavement. Her arms move mechanically even when no one is around. It is as if she has found the perfect pace, the perfect rhythm that is the least exerting to her frail frame; to seek alms from the ocean of humanity oblivious to her. So close, yet so far.

She is not like them. She is not like the women with young babies asking for milk money. She is not the old man I see smoking near the traffic-lights, and she is not the flood affected families from Orissa. She is not even the child-woman with the short blouse I saw leaning onto cars, who did make my heart wrench. She is an old woman, her silver hair tied into that knot we know so well, with a clean saree and blouse on her form and green bangles on the waving hand. The look on her face is inscrutable, and I weave my tales while I wait impatiently, indignant behind my steering wheel.

She has been young once. A youth that must have been happy, sad, jealous, joyous and everything that youth is. I see her daughters and sons telling her to get ready in the morning and to earn her bread by begging. I see her in a past when she dictated the terms of maybe not just her life. Or maybe she didn’t ever have a family. Whatever it was, I know in my heart she wasn’t always a beggar. She has led a life, she counted till she was no longer a part of this world. This world that rushes past her, this world of the new people whom she doesn’t recognise. It is not everyone of us who can manage to keep aside something for the long dreary winter of our lives.

I have mist before my eyes, and I am suddenly a speck in the Universe.

She has already reached her Vanaprastham.

Born to Dogs

2007-06-15T07:57:48Z

I am waiting at the bus stop and a creepy man stares at me lewdly.

Am aware of his eyes on me, and I feel the shame.The shame of possessing a woman’s body. The shame of being a target to the dirty eyes and dirtier minds because I exist.

And I am scared. I try not to see his stare. There’s a wee chit of a girl next to me. It is a deserted afternoon.

I tremble with shame and anger. I picturise a hundred ways to exterminate all of them. Wistful thoughts of extreme violence. Applied slowly and methodically. But I still fume.

Then I suddenly get it. The laughter was spontaneous, and I am almost ashamed of being so bad.

See, it is not his fault. Afterall, he was born to dogs.

‘What?’

Born to dogs.

‘Say son of a bitch?’

Nah. The mother was a human female.

‘Ewwwwww..’

Revenge

2007-03-20T06:59:46Z

“I wrote his mother a letter.” I tell Avi.

“What?”

“I even copied some of his lines. But I wrote in Malayalam. I don’t think she can read English.”

“You wrote his mother a love-letter?”

“Yes. I included the bit about flowers and honey and bees in it. You want to read it? Come over on sunday.”

“You are planning to send it? To his mother?”

“Yes. He wouldn’t stop it. And the bastard wouldn’t even sign his name.”

“Why don’t you just tell your father about it?”

“Cause I don’t have the proof. Except his ogling. But you know it’s him!”

“Of course I do. Read the letter for me!”

“I can’t. It’s, well… too literary. Come read it.”

*****

“You can’t send it.”

“How is it?”

“It is perfect. Too freaky. But how old is she? 45?”

“Must be. And I am sending it. The bugger didn’t mind sending me all those nasty letters. He is gonna pay.”

“He should. But maybe this is not the right thing.”

“God, Avi.. From when did you become such a chicken???”

“From when I became an adult? And maybe you should deal with this the grown-up way”

“Ha! I don’t want just to rersolve this, don’t you understand? I want him to be humiliated. I want his mother to feel the shame of reading this .. That’s what women should get for mothering such dogs.I want his fingers and arms and legs and ears and nose cut, okay? I want him to boil inwater and then skinned and then go under a train, okay? So, just go away if you don’t like what I am doing.”

“But why should you send such a letter to his mother?”

“Because.”

On love...

2007-03-20T06:59:11Z

“You not going to play Kho-Kho?” Avi asks me on the way to court.

No. Venu sir called us for correcting papers.

“Hmm. I saw you three yetserday in his room.”

We did the juniors’ papers yesterday. Today we are evaluating our answer sheets.

I say proudly.

“It’s his job. Why does he always ask you girls? Didn’t your warden say anything about going to his room?”

Why should she? It’s next to their staff-room. And it’s Venu sir! Aviiii….

“He never asks us boys to correct the papers..”
Coz we girls are the best. You are so jealous of us…

“Don’t go today. Ask him to do it in the study hour in class. Come to the playground.”

He asked us. He’ll be angry.

“You are not going. This is games time. Where’s Tessy and Maya. They are not going either. And even if they do, you are not. Hear me?”

Don’t you tell me what to do.

“Don’t go, kid. Please.”

Avi, I think you are in love with me.

I laugh.

“Phew. I will never love someone not pretty. Let’s have a throwball match between boys and girls.”

Hate

2007-03-20T06:58:22Z

“Uhh. I hate that girl.” Avi shakes his head disgustingly at Ashita.

You were talking to her..

“No no. Manoj asked me to give her back a library book. Manoj K of VIII A.”

She is pretty.

“Hmm. I don’t like her face. She’s fair, so everyone thinks she is pretty.”

She is pretty. And she is really nice.

“I want to slap her face when she smiles. Such a crooked smile.”

Hhmm? Why?

“You don’t understand. No boy likes her. She thinks too much of herself.”

I think every boy likes her. They all talk to her.

“OK. I won’t talk for others. But I plain hate her.”

Well, I won’t tell her anyway.

“I care two hoots if she heard me. You can go and tell her I said I hate her.”

I won’t. Tell her yourself if you want to.

The Letter

2007-03-20T06:57:30Z

It’s raining heavily, and the PT hour is off. We are in the mess hall, playing carroms.

Avi then has a great idea.
“Let’s write an anonymous letter to someone.”

What?

“It will be fun. My brother and his friends used to do it to someone. Oh god” He starts laughing holding his stomach. We are awed.

“We’ll write a serious letter. To principal? No. Too risky. Who will we write to?”

“Let’s write to my father” Maya chirps in. “It would be fun watching him read it, and later on I can tell we did it.”

“Good. You write. If you write well, your hand wouldn’t look like a child’s” Avi tells me, and I pout. I am not a child, and I can write better than all of them together!

As the one chosen to execute so majestic an undertaking, I let go of the snub, and proudly writes the letter. As an imaginative eleven year old, I do not need much help from others. And when I hand over the ‘manuscript’ they almost clap.

Dear _____,

Hope you are doing good, and my letter finds you in perfect health and happiness. You must really be surprised at finding a letter from me now. I guess it has been close to 15 years or so we lost touch with each other. How time flies!

I am settled here now, and still work in the old School. I have had my degree later on, and now I am working in the UP section. I am doing pretty well. I was planning on writing you a letter from quite a long time, but unfortunately I did not even have your address. Raghavan Master managed to get it for me.

Tell me about yourslf. How are things? Do write to me about your family. I will be waiting to hear from you, and maybe we all can meet up once.

Yours,

______.

“Cool.He would be baking his head on this.” Maya is happy.

“Yeah. Good. Nothing to give away from whom or where. He might believe in it till he finds the postmark.” Avi says.

Oh, where will we say it is from?

“Remember my penfiend? He is from a place called Anandashram in Kasargode .We’ll just write Anandashram.”

Ashram?

“No, it’s a place. The post office name is Anandashram.”

So I write the invented name and Anandashram on the back of the inland letter, and Avi tells us the next day it is posted. “Moreover” he smiles brighlty,”it is posted in Vatakara.”

The vacation starts in a week and we are all back in a month, eagerly waiting for Maya.

“What happened? Did he believe it? What did he say later?” We bombard her with questions once she comes in.

“Well, it didn’t go as planned. He got the letter three days before I reached home”

And?

“He used to work in Kasargode before he married Mother. Before he got his current job”

And?

“It is a real Ashram. In kasargode. He used to go there always when he worked in Kasargode.”
No way. It is a post office.

“No. He has been there”

So?

“He thinks it’s someone he worked with then. He was saying he knew someone with the name, but he is not sure.”

She has a resigned look by now.

“Oh and he is going to Kasargode to meet him. He sent him a letter, but nothing came back. It didn’t return either. And he wanted to go last month, but couldn’t. Now is saying he will go sometime soon. He is kind of happy and excited about that letter. I don’t know..”

You didn’t tell him?

“No”

Tell him.Tell him, okay? Kasargode is like end of the world. He’ll go. Oh god. Tell him.

“I can’t. I am scared.”

She is almost crying, and we all sit there dumbfounded.

….

“Think of what he’ll say when he finds out you sent him that letter!” Avi tells me after a minute.

Anklets

2007-03-20T06:55:32Z

I am living with a ghost.

No, really. I do not believe in God, much less in ghosts or yakshis or other such silly supernatural things, but I know there is a ghost in the house. Why do you think my shower switches on at odd hours? The cupboards I close before going to office are invariably open by the time I come home. Wide open. Ditto with the bathroom and kitchen door I latch before going to sleep. Only thing I am kind of mad about is the gas stove. Leave it alone, can’t you?

But I do not have much of a problem with my ghost. I think it’s a little girl ghost with the pit-pat I hear when everything is quite, and there is the distinct sound of anklets drowned in laughter. All very subtle, and I have to strain my ears to hear it, but I know by the laughter it is a good ghost. Not the Linda Blair kind. And a laughing child is good to have around whether living or dead. Lifts you up, kind of.

But yesterday she really scared the hell out of me. I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, and hear the noise. Very weak noise, but with a rhythm. She wasn’t wearing her anklets now, though. And off it goes into the next room, and it is one ‘O clock in the morning. What happened? She never used to come so late! Is anything wrong? Can things go wrong with ghosts? I do not know.

Then it occured to me that it maynot be her at all. Is there someone in the next room, a burgler? Wasn’t S talking about the burglaries and car-stereo thefts in the layout? Oh my! I snatch my mobile, and keep my fingers on the Call key, and sneak into the next room. Yeeehaaaaa.. No one. The next. No. Kitchen, No. Bathroom? She didn’t leave it open today, and noone is inside. Good. So it was her afterall.

I switch off the lights and fall to bed. My heart has quieted down, and I hear the noise again. Monsters under the bed? Can’t see any. Then who in the world is walking inside my house, without the anklets on?

Maybe she has a new friend. I think it was the other one playing with the plastic bag.

Hunger

2007-03-20T06:54:37Z

The bell for lunch rang, and we ran to the mess hall.

Oh! It’s that foul-smelling sambar yet again. Why in the world can’t they cut the vegetables a bit smaller, so it will be at least half cooked? And I hate cabbage.

I queue up with the rest, with my plate in hand. Tagore house has the mess duty today, and they are giving us the day’s wares. I do not like food. Ordinary, tasteless food. I eat to survive, always hoping somethingin my plate would turn into a juicy piece of fried fish.

I eat fast, put the rest into the overflowing wastebasket near the borewell, and wash my plate. That is when I first saw him. He was talking to some sixth standard boys. Not talking; he was begging. Begging for food. He was not old, not disabled, and neither was he in rags, but he was begging for food with a tired face. The boys called up the cook, who to us poor souls is the man who controls the food. And of course, he is a grown up.

“Give me something to eat”. The man pleads.
“I can’t. This is a school. And you are not allowed to be here”
“I am hungry.”
I feel lucky I had never known such hunger.
“I can’t. This is not my house. There are teachers here who will scold me. Go away.”
“A little bit. Some rice. Just some”
“No. Go away. I can’t. I will call someone.”

The cook goes back into the kitchen, we start to disperse, and the man walks away.

He goes and sits near the wastebasket, and reach into it.

avii @ 2007-03-17T16:53:00

2007-03-17T11:23:51Z

Test

Scratched!

2006-07-06T11:39:58Z

I once interviewed with Mindtree.

It was a pretty saturday. With birds singing and sun shining through the trees and all. And we, me and Bee, started out 2 hours early to reach the office.

Not our fault. Defintely. We were all for starting half an hour late, but the Boy made a snickering noise. “8.30! Have you ever seen the rush at Silk board at that time?” No Sir. eight o clock it is.

So we start out faithfully on eight(ok, maybe 8.10.)I drag her along as I need a navigator every time I venture outside the familiar home-office-home circuit. But as luck would have it, there comes a traffic junction. Huge junction with a flyover going above, and God knows how many roads. Now, noone mentioned this.

Where do we go? Where do we go? She yells at a biker nearby. “Excuse meeee… How do we go to Silk Board?”

This IS the Silk Board.

Of course. We asked just like that. Who doesn’t know that?

So this is Mindtree. Huge building. Not bad.

We drive in and there is the omnipresent security guy.

Vistor to MindTree. Where do I park?

“No. Outside.”

Hmm. It is a saturday. Dammit. Most of the parking slots are empty.

I am an invited visitor. Show me the MindTree parking.

The head of the security (or so I guess from the badge) is nearby and he asks. “Are you here for the interview?”

Yes.

“Then turn the car right now and park on the road.”

Ha. We turn the car. And park on the road side. Wounded ego and all that stuff. The building is not ours. It wasn’t a good idea to come after all. 30% hike. 40%? 50%? How much money is worth this? No ,letz go back. No. Afterall, we drove till here.

Bee sits in the car, I walk back. It is a loooong walk. And I see some ten to fifteen people, with files standing here and there. So, they are interviewing many more people today. Let me see…

I sign in and say I want to meet Miss HR. Go to the seventh floor. There is thankfully a lift I an not forbidden to use. Seventh floor and there is another security guy.

I want to meet Miss HR.

“Interview?”

Yes. I have an interview and she is the contact person.

“Oral or written?”

Hm. I don’t know.

Please let Miss HR know Me the Great is here for the interview.

“Oral or written?”

Can you please call her?

“Which discipline?”

Oh oh.

“Which discipline is the interview for you?” He is getting pissed off. So am I.

Fine. I guess I will just go back.

I press the lift’s button.

“No no. Miss HR hasn’t yet come.”

Great. Which discipline my foot.

He makes a call. A pretty young thing comes out — Miss HR isn’t in. Will you please wait till Miss HR comes. You can wait inside there.

No thanks. My friend is outside. I’ll wait with her.

Sure.

I go out, and tell the Girl the story.

These people seem to treat people real bad. Prolly treats the employees too like this. Remember our first company, where the BigBoss, little bosses and the securities ruled over us? I don’t wanna work here. Take meee hwome .

Or shall we go in? Both of us. Come. Let’s kick some ass, if opportunity presents itself.

We go in. The seventh-floor-security looks dazed. If he asks Bee to sign in, will we walk out? ‘Ma’am?’

She is with me.

He gives her the register to sign.

And thus it happened.

...

Couldn’t help comparing to one other interview where the HR sent me detailed instructions on how to get to the office, where to park my vehicle, and someone brought me tea while being interviewed.

I love being pampered. Took the job.

Shame...

2006-03-14T16:39:37Z

“Hey, pass me that brochure.” He taps on my forearm.

I really don’t like being touched.

“See this, this is rather pretty , don’t u think?”. He commands my attention by brushing my upper arm.

Please don’t touch me.

“Hey, let’s go see that.”

I don’t like being touched.

“What do you think of this?”

I hate being touched.

How do they manage it so that you can never move away before the touching? How do they time it when you never expect it?

“Hey, don’t you think it is rather silly?”

Son of a bitch.

Move away. Move to the far end of the room. Stop thinking about this. He is your friend. He is not supposed to do this. Maybe he isn’t doing this.

Someone touches your shoulder.”Can I have some some water, please? “

Don’t fucking touch me, you bastard.

All you have to do is say it out loud.
It doesn’t help at all when they make you realise it is all your fault.

Women's Day banter..:)

2006-03-08T08:00:56Z

What is the difference between men and puppies?

Puppies grow up.

================

2006-01-27T08:15:25Z

I shout and cry, but knowing
there is nobody there to hear me
I swallow the shame and anger
that lies beneath me

Himalayas II - Rafting in the Sindhu

2005-11-10T05:35:36Z

The Boy comes in and announces-

“We are going white water rafting tomorrow, in river Sindhu.”

I do a jig on the bed. The girls don’t seem that excited. The parents might not like it very much.

Tomorrow duely comes. I learn it’s 25 kilometeres of rowing, and my excitement is a bit subdued. We had decided if the guide comes with a vehicle we’ll go. He’s nowhere around. We’re almost happy.

But in half an hour we are kidnapped from the Hotels’s dining room. We leave a half-eaten breakfast, pack a pair of dry clothes and set out. It is a long drive to the starting point. The guide tells us what to do when we fall off, and I don’t like hearing it. Only one of us four can swim. After a rapid, I tell them with an evil smile that if we drown, their whole family is done with.

One of the girls is married to the Boy and the other is his sister. They growl at me. Well, people without sense of humor…:P

Half-way into it we no longer row. The river carries us ahead with her flow, and the guide navigates the raft for her. Sindhu is still the maiden here, finding her way forcibly through the rocks that is the Himalayas. She doesn’t look like any other river we have known. Because of the myriad curves through the majestic rocks, every single point looks like a lake surrounded by the mountains.

I no longer am the person I was yesterday. This is the Himalayas I wanted to see. This is a river that has nurtured civilisations, became a persona in itself, a myth and a fact. The rocks that line its bed is countless centuries old, with the ever changing flow of life above. It is old and new in an almost surreal way. It’s tranquility in its profoundest form. I can understand why the people of old invariably came to these mountain ranges for answers to their quest about self. This was an answer in itself, a piece of calm, and a lesson in humility.

I love the Himalayas. It still to me is the benevolent King of Mountains I remember from my childhood, though not grey this time. Maybe the next time I’m here, he would have aged, and white-bearded…. :)

Himalayas I - From Sarchu to Leh

2005-11-10T05:34:50Z

I am weak.

We are climbing up the Himalayas after a halt at Sarchu. I have a splitting headache as we start. The night was too cold in the camp, and my hands are almost blue.

We are not trekking. None of us can. The roads are bad, and our bus is jerky. I have a headache and I want to puke, so somebody offers me a diamox. I eat it. I will eat even you if it will help.

We are travelling through some of the most breathtaking places in the world. The Boy tells me Grand Canyon is nothing compared to these. It’s nature in its most majestic, most mysterious, most treacherous form. The Himavan of the myths, who to my mind still is the white-bearded King of Mountains of the AmarChitra Kathas.

Only I don’t see any of it. I can feel only the pain, and I want the bus to fall into one of those deep rivers below, so that I don’t have to travel anymore. I go to the last row of seats and lie down, and start crying of the pain. I try in vain to smash my skull with my hands. I hate the Himalayas, and the whole damn world right now. Then I am thrown up from the seat and land on the floor.

I am lying on the lap of someone I barely know till now, and I am demanding to be cared for. She massages my head, and whenever she stops, I make whining noises. I make people’s life a mess as much as I can.

After the longest travel of my life, I reach Leh. The hotel is good enough, and there are very few guests. We almost have it exclusively to ourselves. We are supposed to start at 5 the next morning to the next camp site, through Kadrung La, the world’s highest motorable pass. I don’t want to think about it.

The Boy and the Girls say they will stay back. They will stay back so that I don’t have to endure another trip like that before I get back some of my energy back. And the Girls aren’t keen on the drilling journey tomorrow either. So I happily let them…:) I am already better.

We spent the next day in Leh. We see the Shanti Stupda, the Leh Palace and a monastery. We are relaxed and having fun, and I begin to think Ladak is not a bad place after all.

But it still is just another small town. One where you pant every other step you take. There are no snow-capped peaks. The Himalayas in summer is just another huge mountain range in the distance.