Monday, November 26, 2012
Dreams
Thursday, June 21, 2012
The Possibility of Androids
Sadhu
These sadhus would come over to our house and take their alms. Then they would bless the inhabitants, perform some rituals, even do palm readings and the like. I remember being told once that I would get married to a wealthy man and travel a lot and have lots of kids. That is the accepted and desired future for women here. Of course, my plans for my future headed a different way, but I knew they were trying to be nice. They were elders, they were respected by my father, they were holy men. Even though I was a budding agnostic, I had nothing but respect for them. I was a good girl like that.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Woman
Janu took off her glasses and lay down, eyes open, facing her three birthday cards. She had been sixteen for a whole minute now. She had stopped being a virgin for ten. She could hear the breathing of the Woman behind her. Rough, low, interspersed with a hint of a snore. Janu could tell she was awake though. She shivered and drew her blanket closer. Still the same star speckled blanket. Wrapped around a new Janu. And a Woman. Janu peeked over her shoulder. She was lying in utter ease. She had put her white slip back on. Her lipstick was smudged. Red. Her black curls spilled over the pillow. One tickled her back. She turned away again. Her back was tingling where the Woman's hair touched it. Slowly that sensation spread across. The nape of her neck grew hot. The tingling invaded her, brushing aside the numbness that had been in its place just moments ago. Her heart was racing again. She willed it to calm down. She willed her mind to stop acting befuddled. She willed the situation to start making sense. But then again, there is just so much will power can do.
Janu turned and faced her. She reached out and pulled at the wandering lock. The Woman smiled. Beautiful. Like a mystery wrapped around an enigma. Unveiling itself slowly, vulnerably. Janu had only known her for the past half hour. But she was already in love. This was someone she knew she would spend the rest of her life with. She winded her fingers around the Woman's hair and closed in till the tips of their noses were touching. A pair of piercingly bright eyes stared back. She backed up a bit. Masses of black hair offsetting a dusky complexion. Skin blemished with marks. High cheekbones. A roman nose. Slight dark circles under the eyes. Small, serious lips, cracked from lack of moisture. A mole slightly above them. The Woman was gorgeous. Janu bent down to kiss her. Enveloped in her beautiful fragrance, she felt at peace.
Hands roamed about her body. One clenched at her breast. Round, perky, perfect. Fingernails dug into her back. Skin against skin. The bite of the sharp January wind. Heat. She ran her hand up the side of her body. Down her back. Touching. Feeling. Knowing. Down her stomach. Between her legs. Moisture. Pleasure.
Love.
The phone rang. "Hello?"
"Hey girl! Happy birthday!"
"Haha thanks!"
"I just remembered. Omg you're sixteen now!!"
"Yeaaah!"
"Woah. We need a party."
"Mhmm totally. I'll call the guys tomorrow."
"Awesome! Oh wait. What time is it? Crap. I didn't realise it was this late. You weren't sleeping were you? Did I wake you up?"
"Haha don't worry. I was awake."
"Oh cool. What were you doing?"
"Nothing much…just looking at myself. In the mirror."
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Friendship
I have just one friend. So this should be pretty easy.
I haven’t spoken to her for one month now. Not one word. No texts, no Facebook pokes, nothing.
We go to Uni together. She is what makes my college bearable for me. Before that, she made school bearable. Hopefully, she’ll make some shitty work place bearable some day.
I am not a very social person. It’s not that I don’t have people being friendly to me. It’s not that I find it difficult to open up to people. I just find it difficult to socialize. Always have. I can’t follow social norms. Or rather, I can, but refuse to. I don’t like gossiping. I don’t like bitching. I don’t like meeting up in cafes, all dressed up, and making eyes at cute guys. I don’t like the endless stream of posing and Facebook-profile-mobile-photo sessions. I absolutely detest being fake. I don’t like nailpolish and fairness creams and hair irons and...you get the drift.
However, we don’t always get what we like. So since I was 3, I was best friends with this girl who was the complete embodiment of all of the above. We were in the same class and our parents were friends. So lots of exposure to each other. I grew up with the knowledge that girls HAVE to gossip, manipulate, and back-stab.
When I was in the tenth grade, Nim joined my school. She was the daughter of my father’s college best friend. She was kinda weird. Different from all the other girls my age. And proud of it. Her dad traveled a lot. She only stayed in my school for 6 months before being shipped off to Delhi. Those six months, however, changed my life.
I learnt from her that it was ok to be myself around others. That it was ok to maybe read a book in the corner during lunch break, rather than participate in the gossip sessions. That I could, perhaps, direct my camera towards other things, rather than those which so obviously made me hate it. That I should stand up for myself and my beliefs rather than partake in such ridiculous hypocrisy. And hypocrisy, I definitely don’t like. In my little hometown, whose rules I knew to be law, she showed me change.
And I did.
This is not the reason I continued to be friends with her after she left for Delhi though. Nor the reason we somehow both needed up in the same crappy college in Kolkata. This is just what I am most grateful to her for. That and the anime.
Eleventh and twelfth grade was a revelation to both of us. I flexed my new wings amidst old territory. She gingerly stepped on the rocky precipe of having an unrequitable crush. We talked 5 to 6 hours a day. We laughed and we cried and we choked while trying to do both. We missed each other terribly. We met once both those years, and we went nuts. We had fun. That was our mission throughout, and I’m proud to say we are still sticking by it.
So, is friendship really about opening your heart and soul? Is it about support through thick and thin? Is it about constantly keeping in touch? To some people, maybe. Perhaps because of the family I was brought up in, I never looked for those things in all the people I looked at as friends. Which is good, because I never found them either. To me, friendship is having someone I can laugh at and laugh with. Someone I can be so complete comfortable with that I can go a month without talking to her and know that when I come back, we’ll go back to whining about exams. And sneaking off for film festivals and plays. And tramping about the city we love. And having an obscene amount of fun. And being happy.
On second thoughts, this wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be. Huh.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Faith
A few days back when I was on the brink of losing a friend, I asked Rosie about faith. She said I would find mine eventually and it would come on its own. To give it time. Well, a day after that I asked my dad what his version of faith was like. And he described it. And I realized I had already found my faith….a long time ago.
He said his faith was like a great big hand cheering him on for his every rise. Cushioning him in his every fall. Always there, sometimes, the only thing there. Giving him strength to face everyday. I always thought my dad was admirable in the way he handled everything alone and took charge of his responsibilities facing grave pressure; now I know he wasn’t alone. God was with him.
Despite being Indian, my family has always had a rather lax and cavalier (and oh so cool) approach towards religion. My father performs his own private prayers every morning. My mother is into Buddhism and has chanting sessions with a large group every Sunday. My brother…I don’t even know what my brother believes. But I know he does. And me, the agnostic. We all do regular routine Indian ceremonies and all. But that is custom and tradition, not actual religion for any of us. Maybe that is why I grew up with a screwed up sense of what faith was. My father set me straight.
No, I still don’t believe in god. Or the existence of a higher power. But I do have faith. I have something that gives me the strength to face everyday. I have something that cushions my every fall and cheers me on always. And I always know I am not alone. I have my family.
So I have faith in…..my FAMILY? Sounds kind of ridiculous when you think about it. Not to mention juvenile. But the moment dad described his faith to me, it just clicked. My mother, father and brother to me aren’t just those titles. They are more, oh so much more! All three of them, individually are three of the most incredible people I have ever had the opportunity to get to know.
My parents faced a great deal of hardship when I was a kid. I know this because I was told later. I was told at one point, after my dad lost his business, we were poor enough not to be able to afford milk. I was told that my dad spent a night in jail after a couple of goons from his business came after him subsequent to his company’s failure and beat him up. I was told that they came and took all of my mother’s beautiful wedding jewelry; not to mention our TV, car, AC, and everything else of worth in the house. I was told all this because they didn’t let me feel a thing. Not one thing! They took loans and kept me and my brother in our ridiculously expensive private school. They borrowed from our relatives to keep the house. They begged favors from friends and we still got our toys and dresses and everything else. They begged and they pleaded and they borrowed to keep our lives the same. And 10 years later, my father is still paying those debts. All in order to keep our tender childhood unmarred by sorrow of any sort and our studies unaffected. My father bore the brunt his burden by himself. My mother…well I can’t even begin to describe what my mother did.
My mother made up in creativity what we lacked in funds. My birthday parties were the BEST in town. Period. Girls who weren’t invited used to die of envy. There were richer girls who threw huge expensive bashes with expensive watches and imported toys as return gifts. But they were floored by the gifts my mom made. My mom made personalized masks. They were so pretty, covered with sequins and feathers. Some were of animals. All of them were completely tailored to fit the tastes of the kids attending. Mine was a tiara. She made handmade gifts, which cost nearly nothing, but were everyone’s prized possession. She decorated our dead and decaying house to make it look like a castle. She made all sorts of goodies; golguppas, dahi vada and of course her famous chicken sandwiches. My favorites. She made me feel like a princess always. She still does. And she did all this for every single event that came our way. She adored me and my brother to death. It is a miracle we didn’t end up utterly spoilt brats.
I remember this one Christmas; she was with me on our Verandah when Santa Clause came. We lived in a Christian-Muslim locality. All around us lived Christians. On Christmas Eve, nearly every house would have that telltale star hanging in front of it, signifying to Santa that this was a house worth his time. There were tons of visiting Santa’s who would drop by these houses with gifts and songs and well, happiness. That was a particularly depressing Christmas for my mother because that was the year those goons had come and taken everything away. But that’s not why it was depressing; it was depressing because now she didn’t have a vehicle to drive us around town and show us the lights. So when Santa came next door, I remember her getting up and running downstairs. She had told me to wait. She went to our neighbor’s gate and approached the guy. I could see them talking. I sneaked downstairs and hid behind a tree and eavesdropped. My mother was asking Santa to come visit our home for a little while and play with her children. No she wasn’t asking, she was BEGGING. I stood behind that tree and I heard my mother beg this random stranger dressed in a red suit to come say hi to me, to make my day a little brighter than it already was. I could hear the desperation in her voice, he could too. He snubbed her with disdain. I was 10 I think. I cried. I cried for my mother and for how much she loved me and my brother. When I think of that night, I still do. I don’t know why.
My brother, now that is a whole other ballgame altogether. He was my best friend. He was my mentor. He was my hero. Ah screw the ‘was’es. He still is. I always hero-worshipped him. We were like equals though. He told me his secrets, I told him mine. We went through thick and thin together. The four years age difference between us never made much difference. There was never any jealousy between us or rivalry for our parent’s affection. Not that we needed to fight over that; that was provided to us aplenty.
All my life I have known the worth of my family. All my life I have seen them as the strongest and most powerful force in my existence. For me, they are a religion. For me, this is faith; knowing that there is somebody out there for you no matter what you do. Holding your hand tight as you try and figure life out. Never letting go.
Bugs
I have always had a very intimate acquaintance with bugs. In India, it is hard not to. Since I was a wee baby toddling about my house and gardens, they have always been there to escort me. My own personal convoy of buzzing, biting, tickling little freaks. Many a solitary, rambling walks have I taken over hills and meadows and well, noisy trafficy roads, with them as my constant companions. I won’t say the relationship we have built over the past twenty years has grown to be particularly fulfilling; in fact there are times that I am very tempted to outright squash them, those annoying little midgets. But then again, isn’t that how all relationships work out?
Growing up, I was always by myself. Not that I didn’t have girls who wanted to be friends with me; quite the opposite. I just didn’t particularly like their company. Playing with dolls and doing makeovers and painting each others nails…bleh. Oh and the worst of the lot – gossiping. I never got it. I still don’t. What pleasure could these people possibly get by picking someone else’s life to pieces? So I boycotted them and went on long excursions to places wild, something I am always going to be eternally grateful to my country for having. And that’s where my true friends played with me. Dancing with the butterflies, crawling along with centipedes, chasing spiders and following them to their webs. It was fun. In my teens, I would often sit on the edge of my terrace, surrounded by the reassuring drone of chirping crickets and think. Later still, could any girl ask for a more fascinating model to practice her amateur photography on? One who would stay so obligingly still always; waiting till I got the perfect angle.
I never had any pets but if I did, I think I would adopt the whole of Insectdom.