Over

It'll be over soon. This blissful period of being in the same city; Dodo is leaving. So back to the old game. Phone calls and messages. This time it will be have to be savvier you see. May be skype, gtalk and emails will become a part of life and mobile will become dispensable. And then we won't be just numbers on the mobile screens. We'll be "new message" notifications in our mail boxes and "Ellie is now online" notification on Gtalk. I can't cry and blackmail him to reschedule his meeting me from 4 months to 2 months now. I can't threaten to break-up because "its too damn difficult not being able to see your boyfriend when he's in the same country" - coz he won't be.

I won't mention the pick-ups and drop to office I have gotten used to these days or that he'll turn up each day without fail even if he's dead tired and collapsing. You see, I have always known that these things were transitory, so its easier to let go in my head. Not being able to meet at all for a year or more. Well THAT, how does one get used to it?

And moving on...

Hopefully, the madness of the previous post is behind us. Arguments and counter-arguments. Hypocrites and their hypocrisy and the lack of any. Things however are just the same. Different city, same shit. Some chap on bike took advantage of the electricity going out and took a swipe at my breasts in Bangalore. Clap people why don't you? And guys who are shouting from the roof-tops calling people not supporting them hypocrites - try askin your Moms and sisters how exactly does it feel like to be groped.

I am little low on patience these days. It could be the heat. Or the usual restlessness. Everyone is boring. Everyone is irritating. People are dumb. Everyone is stepping on my only nerve.

Just wondering if I really did have a great weekend ??

Blank Noise

It makes me so sick these days that a simple thing like catching an auto or taking a walk in the evening requires this undue amount of thought put into. And since when have these one dimensional activities required a multi-variate mental model! But then how on earth is one not supposed to feel apprehensive when most unescorted evenings on the road here involve atleast one sick B@$!@#% trying to grab my (now diminishing!) ass or make vulgar noises. If I were some beauty queen, it might still have mollified my vain soul but I am positively seething that now even plain janes here cannot feel safe. And while it is not justified that any female be subjected to such humiliations, that no one is spared makes me feel really vulnerable.

Having lived the last 22 years on the West coast of India, this whole idea of sleazy men leching at me on a daily basis was quite foreign. Not that I have never been at the receiving end of such behaviour but atleast it wasn't at this epidemic levels where every man walking on the road could be a potential 'sleaze ball'! And right now on my way back from office, I couldn't find an auto and had to wait at a fairly crowded and busy traffic junction to get one, all I could think was which man is standing how far!

Only last week, the Sunday evening was beautiful and at around 6:30 in the evening, in broad daylight, I decided to walk down to Dodo's place, less than a km away from my flat. I put my really wasted jeans and a very un-flattering kurta for the sojourn and started. Barely 200mts away from his place, a guy half my height and a quarter my size, looked straight into my eyes and made smooching noises! And the next thing I know, I slapped him.

What angered me most at that moment, was less about him making that face, but more about why? For any action, every human evaluates the person in front. Is he stronger than me? Is he smarter than me? Is he more influential? Is he more capable? No one wants to lose to a stronger opposition voluntarily. So what did this guy think when he felt like smooching? Did he think he was stronger? ( You have his description!) Did he think he would get away coz no one can see? We were in the middle of the market area, one shout could have got the whole locality out! Was he some influential guy? Nope, prolly a labourer.

So in his head the only advantage that he could have had was - I am a MAN and she is a girl.

It irks me that men at all strata of society think this. And I have been trying for the last one week to think what could have been different to avoid this situation. The only answer which comes is to not have walked at all. I should have probably called Dodo over at my house, the more civilised side of the area. But why again? If anything I have more right than that guy to walk on any damn road, atleast I pay my taxes. So why should I hide away somewhere? Why should I have to keep looking back my shoulders to keep men at bay, when in no way am I coming in their way? And why should I keep staring at the road while I walk, to ensure that I don't get provoked when I see men on the street mentally stripping me naked?

To forward the cause of many women in India who face this, please also read the experiences of the many of us - smart, educated, independent and yet suffering this humiliation every day @ BLANK NOISE

Reality continues to screw my life - Calvin

Things could have been great. Its just that they are not.
I could have been doing awesome. Its only that I am not.
And if things were that bad, I would have been complaining more. But you see, I aint.
I dont know what you were looking for here. I feel so lost myself.
I am bored of Hyderabad and of people. Can I fast forward 5 years and see what I am doing?

P.S: I cleared MICAT, but didn't turn up for the interview at MICA.
My report got published in front page Business Standard, I wasn't quoted though.

It's been a while

Days merge into each other, with only the weekends standing out to distinguish one week from the next. The weekends haven't been really eventful. After the last terrible hangover, I am done with drinking for sometime now. Dodo hasn't been around on weekends for a month now, so that makes venturing out of house, a planned move. Situations make you do things you never have. I went shopping alone a la Sis' style and had good fun too. Rediscovered Murphy on that jaunt - You never find good clothes when you have money!

I have also taken to spouting some very wise quotes, best among these were :

1. Being committed is the path of least resistance - its staying single that is difficult.
2. Don't treat him like a kid, if you don't want him to behave like one.

Well, that's one thing I didn't know about myself! :)

And another - its not wanderlust anymore, its plain homesickness. I haven't been home since Diwali and treading on really thin ice here before I break down. I have figured out my need to run away each month. I need a change and some familiarity - yes its complex but then so am I! :P But dreams about mom just ruin the days for me and so does a view of Bandra Reclamation in movies. I'll give it one more week before just the VT station will break me down, despite the fact that I NEVER go there!

I gave MICAT last week and while previously I used to think, that a call gets you a step closer to an admit, I have just realised that it doesn't at all. You are as far from your dream school while giving the exam as you are at the stage of GD/PI. Its like this distance you need to cover on a horizontal line that doesn't get you any closer to the centre of the maze. And though MICA isn't my dream school, this realisation will further add to my paranoia when I am that one step nearer to it.

People often ask me about my obsession with IIM A and probably equate it to the fat paychecks and exotic profiles you get once you pass of it. But for me, it just means that I get to be a part of the experience of being in those hallowed halls. I am sure all B-schools have their own culture and tradition but IIM A's culture has me fascinated the most. For all I know, it may be a downer given my expectations but it will still be mine. The satisfaction for me will lie in converting a dream into a reality. Somehow in my head not getting into IIM A has no consequence on where I want to be in life. But getting to it will make me put that one tick-mark on the dreams I have and want to achieve. Right there with a Euro-trip and all exotica its has to offer! :)

Off to weekend cooking now.

Song for the moment : Dream on - A little south of sanity

The Books Tag

What better than a tag to get out of blog-coma (can that be a word!)! So here goes another from Ish.

A book that made you laugh: Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis- my current read and it is really quite funny and absolutely unintentional funny. After all a semi-autobiographical tale about the life of a mortgage trader would have scare humor right? Wrong...Go read!

A book that made you cry: Gone with the Wind...again and again and again...why Rhett!! oh why?
Love Story - who didn't!!!

A book that scared you: Fountainhead (Puritans keep your brickbats!) but that book has the supreme ability to wreck a havoc with my head.

A book that disgusted you: Somerset Maugham's Of Human bondage - not becacuse it is written badly. On the contrary, the masochism depicted is honest that it creeps me out.

A book you loved in elementary school: Enid Blyton's- The Magic Faraway Tree series and the scones, the macaroons, the treacle tart..........and oh! damn the VLCC!!

A book you loved in middle school or junior high school: Anne Frank- The diary of a young girl. I completely agree with DC that at every age there is some new dimension that you can add to the book, the lives of all those people living behind the cupboard.

A book you loved in high school: Harry Potter- coz there was no feeling to top the wait for the next book. And now there will be none. :(

A book you loved in college: Sense and Sensibility & Pride and Prejudice

A book that challenged your identity: Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged - they made me realise, I can't be them.

A series that you love: Tintin and Asterix :)

Your favorite horror book: Never read these.

Your favorite science fiction book: Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Triology is the nearest

I have been to science fiction! :-o

Your favorite fantasy: Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings. Period.

Your favorite mystery: Holy blood and the Holy Grail - though it does end up being more of a history book than a mystery novel! :)

Your favorite biography: Tough one here - Ikon - Steve Jobs, Tough Choices - Carly Fiorina...waiting for Bloomberg by Bloomberg. Jean Sasson's Daughters of Arabia that opens up a whole new world of people existing right beside you. Must read.

Your favorite "coming of age" book: Sidney Sheldon's If tomorrow comes- the book introduced to the kid in me to lesbianism.

Your favorite classic: All of Jane Austen's work from Mansfield Park, Persuasion to Emma.

Your favorite romance book: Gone with the Wind (Rhett, oh! Rhett )

And now for the ritual -

Utsav again - coz its books right!?

Charlie

Nikhil

Pragni

And everyone else in love with books! :)

In a moment of self doubt

Tethered are we to hope
To the ever-lasting memories that we built
Scared to watch them break
Knowing the end is real.

Does it matter if it is today or tomorrow
Because the day-after we still won't have.
Does it matter if it hurts so much right now
Because then it will still be as bad.

I am wondering if you promised me something
That I forgot
Or have I been clinging all this while
To naught.

Then why is this sudden urge to break free?
Why do I suddenly feel tied to the wrong tree?
I ponder if I am blinded with what I want
Or is this once that I can clearly see what you can't?

I wonder if it is still too early to let go
To lose all hope
I wonder if we are already too late
To go back.
I wonder if I'll ever know what I think I should
Or if I'll always let the sand slip by.

Wondering

There are people you meet years down the line and you can pick the thread of conversation up right where you left. They manage to remember the right things (and a few wrong ones too!) and accept that some habits WILL change. After all fart jokes stopped being funny after 7th standard, didn't they? As have Elle 18 nail polishes with sparkles and 'frocks' on college-going females.

Then there are some whom you met twenty days ago and now there is a chasm of disconnect. And you wonder, why on earth am I friends again? :-s How difficult is for people catch up with someone in real time? Why should someone be fixated on how you were and what you believed in, what now seems, another lifetime?

This is when you are barely months out of college and strangely in the same city. Makes me shudder to think of those people who have now moved on to other cities and even continents.

A new day

I am currently writing this post clad in a top I wore for New Year celebration on 31st December 2006 after preserving it for over a year because almost the next morning I became to big to get in!! But in this 'Happy' New Year I can :-) I am ecstatic about it. The weight loss is working and showing slight effect and I hope I don't lose steam mid-way.

The year till now has been eventful of sorts. I am currently broke, right at the beginning of the month and each necessity is feeling like a luxury. I have sworn off hard drinks because of two bad hangovers in the same month make me feel the high aint worth it. So cocktails only. Also my fluke attempt at CAT paid off. While the score aint high enough to get me a call from any IIM getting a 99 percentile in Verbal ability has boosted my confidence up a couple of notches. I am applying to MICA in the hope that I get to finally test if I have enough ability in me to get the call and convert it. Joining is another issue.

And yes the form filling exercise has been an introspective torture. But nonetheless I am wiser at the end of it.

Finally I have a tag to finish from DC, so hear goes:

Ten things I miss in my life (in no exact order)

1. The freedom to have Pizza without thinking of the calorie intake.
2. I miss the hours and hours of smses passing to and fro between my mobile and Dodo's - years of being together does have a few downsides too.
3. Leaving for home every one month when wanderlust hit me.
4. College LAN - never knew it in college that I would miss it.
5. Wait for Harry Potter's next book. :(
6. My roomies in college who made the 4 years so memorable.
7. Mom's food - Egg rolls :(
8. I miss the confidence I had on myself that I could accomplish whatever I wanted.
9. Midnight Maggi parties.
10. Affogato's in Coffee Culture.

Ten things I want to achieve within a decade from now.

1. Eurotrip- it is in everyones list!
2. First honeymoon :P
3. Own a studio apartment in Bandra west overlooking the sea
4. Wearing a 34 size jeans consistently :P
5. Having my own collection of lots of books.
6. Get into a great B-School.
7. Sponsor a trip abroad for my parents.
8. Work with LVMH managing their brands.
9. Own a Mondeo or Civic.
10. Spend a month doing at Vipassana at Igatpuri.

And I'll tag

Utsav

Abhinav - since it has been long since u posted!

Scout

Charlie

Spread the joy people!

The Fight has begun

Sitting in front of the counsellor and filling the forms made me realise it. It has been 7 years. 7 years since I just felt awkward about my height. 7 years since the pimple scars stopped being the focus of self-obsession. For 7 years, shopping has been an lesson in embarrasment I pay to go through.

7 years of being happy with inertia and excuses. 7 years of cliches about inner beauty and the jokes about beautiful pancreas. 7 years of relating to and narrating Garfield quips like these :

7 years is a lifetime, isn't it? A long period to get comfortable in your skin. An eternity given to old acquaintances to get used to 'YOU'. An era in itself with so many small things hinting you to take that one step forward, not to win a kudos from others but feel good about yourself, truly.

And after 7 years, I have finally taken the first proactive step to not be FAT. :-)

Battle against the bulge has begun!

Target to achieve :20 kgs

* Drumrolls. Sounds the bugle*