Meaningful crap...

So there are ambitions and then there is that one thing that one really wants to do!! Is there a marked difference in the two for everybody?? I wonder and I wonder out loud. A friend of mine quit his job because he didnt like what it "did" to him. It wasnt about the money. For abt a year he did all kinds of odd jobs till he found something "respectable" (as my parents would define a job), and mainstream but most importantly, something he wants to do. Something that will make a difference!!

Am I jealous? Am I trapped in a world I do not want to be in??? Bear with me for I know we have all gone thro' the "corporate crap" vs "something meaningful" debate several times over starting with our 1st week in college to the first month of work :) But for the lucky few, "something meaningful" is the corporate crap!! How I envy them!! So where am I? I am in a place where I - think - I am happy that I have a job which helps me to pay the bills, mortgages and lets me have enuf to spend on most things I and others want. I am happy abt these things. Am I happy abt the job I have to do? In a world of compromises (what other world do we know) - this is a happy enuf job. Do I look forward to work - and the painful answer is NO!! So somewhere inside me I know that I cannot do this forever. I admire people who can think that hah - that schmuck is going to work (against his inner will)!!! But let me tell the lucky few who are doing what they want to do without having sold out (w/o being defensive but taking it personally) that these shmucks are somebody's children or somebody's sibling and provide for/ take care of somebody else other than themselves.

I guess my answer is that I will quit this some day and do what I want. When is that day is something I do not know!! :) I wish I could figure. That day is when somebody can take over the EMI I pay and my bills till I start over again. With my retro cafe.. which will be a roaring success cos the food will be great and I will love doing what I do. So till that day, a schmuck I shall stay.

" As I sat mulling over the last document,

With just MS Office (2007 I must add) for company and the net, of course,

I realised that it was time to hit the road, half past eight,

Having packed up, I walked down seven floors,

I watched people hurrying to their houses,

or to pubs or to the movies or wherever they went,

but all with the same speed, the same grouses,

Etched on their faces, with the same weight their backs bent.

And I think to my self, where is the end and which is the means?

Are we all mice dancing to the same tune, enacting the same scenes?

Where has life brought us? or did we get here ourselves?

How do we get out? Without hurting the world that on our shoulder dwells?

And then I think again, am I a poet?

So I stop and I go back to my life again,

See you soon, I tell my blog page, when it begins to rain!"

Ha, ha - thats my bit of juvenile poetry so that I dont feel like a lawyer as I sign off! Watch this space for more meaningful posts :)

New endings...

Today, I got a new ending. An ending which does not seem conventional. And anyway who gets endings after new beginnings. But for me this ending was important. Because no matter how much one wishes to believe that life is about choices one has made, there are certain situations when the choices include others and their choices as well. This happens in situations esp. when one would not want to acknowledge that there is another person's choice involved in the choice one made.

But let me tell you that endings are as beautiful- if I may quote a cliche-as beginnings. As satisfying. 'Cos every ending brings with it a new start. Today, I finally ended bitterness and started talking. All this while I have been talking to a certain person, but as life has taught us many a time, sometimes there is so much of talking to do before one gets down to a meaningful conversation. So I talked. And listened and talked some more.

And then there was light :). It sounds a bit corny but we had actually fought through a lot of bushes, branches, creepers, thorns and a lot of blinding wilderness in some personal jungle before we suddenly, quite unexpectedly fell right out of the forest into a nicer place. Plop...and there we were. I have a feeling the other person also wanted to get there (tho' he must have wanted it only secretly, given the fact that he seemed to be enjoying the madness) even tho' it didnt seem like it, 'cos he was having his own share of fun by extending the bitterness. No cruel intentions there and none insinuated.. I think it was just a secret laughing session for him. Well... each to his own.

But coming back to us... we have some light now. We are going forward without stumbling too much and bruising our knees. How true it is... Falling in love can be hard on the knees!! :) I am so glad all the falling is over finally, 'cos the love truly never ends. I must say that I have always been an admirer of just walking in it, running away from it and if in it, just enjoying it!! :) And the best thing is that my cavalier attitude, it works for me...

Random things about me...

As I was FaceBooking today, I saw this lovely note by a friend of mine named “25 Random Things about ME" or something equally narcissistic. So I obviously loved the idea :) I read it and I agreed with some other friend of her’s who said – “Wow – there is so much I know about you and so much I don’t”. So I thought to myself, “this is kinda kookie and sweet, even I want to put down 25 completely random things about myself” – I have a feeling its gonna be tough to come up with 10 such Random things, let alone 25 – but I shall try to put down as many as I can!! BUT NOT ON FB (I am genuinely afraid of public writing - blogging is my only concession to this and abt three of you even know about it). So here I am.

Random things about Me :)

1. I love snow. Even though I have never seen it or felt it on my nose or played in it. I love the thought of it. I have dreamt, imagined and even in some multiverse played in snow, indulged in snow fights and built a family snowman every Christmas. The vision of snow that stays with me every time I dream of it is - me (almost exactly like Winona Ryder in “Edward Scissorhands”) with snow lightly falling on my face, looking at the sky and twirling around :D
2. I can sleep through an entire day (if need be) and I love it. I have read this story about some greek chieftainess who was late to some meeting of the Gods called by Zeus at Olympus and calls upon her two sons who were the best, smartest, strongest boys in the land to pull her chariot as her horses have died or something. Anyway, leaving those particulars alone, the boys do not let their mother down and actually get her to the damn meeting. She calls upon Zeus to grant her children the most coveted, most sweet, most AWESOME thing in the world. Zeus obliges and they fall down as if dead. As she cries out loud, he comforts her and tells her that he granted them the boon of eternal sleep :D Well, as long as I got the point across….
3. My dreams are as real to me as reality. I fly, I fight, I cruise and I do everything in my dreams. Some I remember, some I don’t. But I do know that when I dream (and I do it non-stop on most nights) I wake up absolutely unrested and tired.
4. I really wanted to join an NGO when I joined Law College. I wanted to (and have promised myself that someday I will) work for the rights of sexually abused women and children.
5. I am fascinated by people. I love observing them – what they are doing, what they are saying. Random people on the bus, on the road, in a restaurant.
6. I believe in God. Not Temples, not Idols, not Pujas, not precious stones nor mantras. I believe in conversation. Ask and the Universe conjures :)
7. I believe in karma.
8. I have never been abroad (nothing that I can remember) after the age of three. And I SO WANT TO TRAVEL around the world. I will make it.
9. I love Bollywood movies with all its jhatkas and impossible plots, the decked up dancing heroines, the ab-solutely endowed heroes and the general madness that is a part of it.
10. I have never been able to judge myself objectively. But I believe I am an absolute great when it comes to judging/figuring out people around me.
11. I have always wanted to live my life without regrets but for me, life has not been that easy. No excuses – but I wish I could truly call myself a free soul :D
12. I just don’t get Kafka or Dostoevsky and a few more of those heavy weight names :( Always been super worried about whether I am brain dead cos the world raves about them.
13. I have always known that I will find the love of my life. I just never thought I’ll do so before I got married to the wrong guy :) Phew, I say....
14. I am a hopeless, hopeless, incurable romantic. I believe in love and soulmates and waiting till you find the other half and together forever and happily ever after and so on so forth :) :) :)
15. I can cry for anything and everything. My first reaction to anything is tearing up :( I hate that about myself.
16. I love and hate intensely, I like and dislike intensely. It’s instinctive and rarely ever am I indifferent to anything.
17. I would love to stop being so bothered about everything, everybody.
18. I would love to fly someday. I mean grow wings and fly away..
19. My fav fictional character is Peter Pan. I used to dream of Never Never Land.
20. I believe hell is on Earth. It’s this life we live which is the test.
21. I absolutely cannot live without music. It gets me through my day.
22. I am scared of the dark. Still. I mumble some old bhajans my mom taught me when I was a kid (picture my sheepish face) :)
23. I hate crowds. Feel super claustrophobic… like they are going to trample over me.
24. My favorite book in the whole wide world is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I have read it and re-read it a million times!
25. I have always (and I think on some level, I still do) harbored a dream of greatness. I want to change something about the world in a substantial way. Be the first to do something (have no clue what the 'something' is though)...

My great Indian blog..

Why does one write? Does it satisfy the need to get your thoughts out of your head (kind of like a Pensieve) so that you can think clearly or merely unburden your mind and memory? For some it may be deeper.... For me, alongwith the need to just talk (read - vent) this also satisfies the writer within. I know it sounds kind of ridiculous that people fancy themselves writers when they have never gotten even a poem of their's published by a proper publisher much less their school magazine (in any year)! So the ones who have gotten something published might feel more entitled to blog as they are ""more writers" than the others. And, also please note that I am not even going into an explanation of which bunch I fall into :)

But still I must admit that it fulfills some deep seated desire within me to be a writer (I want to say "the great, undiscovered" writer :D). Atleast nobody can reject the trash/greatness that my writing is. A few of you are even subjected to reading it. I dont get paid for this (no struggling writer ever does, mind you)... but I still love doing it... I love pouring my heart and soul into this.

I must confess that I wondered "what is it that one blogs about"?.... before I found the courage (yes - COURAGE) to start this blog! It seemed too simple to think that one will blog about one's life. Kind of like a memoir, a time-tracker, an event and emotion tracker.. but is it really that simple??? I have always dreamt of being a genuine writer, a serious one, a writer who will one day spew out 300 pages of a best seller. A best seller that will capture this writer's life and experiences. Maybe a best seller that is a selection of short stories that reflect Kerala or maybe just my life and the lives of people I know. And believe me, I have tried .. ha ha :D It was a joke... cos I just stopped half way. I just didnt have the patience to document the characters of my GREAT INDIAN DREAM! Well, woe be me and all's well with the world cos I have still not Found What It Takes to write that damned novel... in the meanwhile, I continue to salvage my cravings by penning this blog :)

Today aint that day!

So, what's new? Nothing is new at my end surprisingly enuf, this being my first post of year 2009 and all! I wish I could write about a new feeling, a premonition about a better year, about raindrops and sunshine and dewdrops and kittens. About lovely beginnings filled with hope and sad farewells bid to 2008!! Big deal... the new year is in and has anything earth shattering happened yet in my life? I guess its kind of negative and that's usually soooooo not who I am but, I feel the same :(

Do I feel the need to renew, reinvent, polish, find, better or redo myself? Maybe through resolutions, conversations, introspections and solutions? Nah.... I really dont! I wish I had resolutions to look forward to "punish myself" with... atleast my own. Since I didnt have any, I borrowed one from a friend.

I am going vegetarian for a month (and no alcohol either) :D. I must confess that I thought it would be bloody difficult to go "lacto ovo" vegetarian (for all you uninitialised non-vegetarians out there, that means that my diet can include dairy products and eggs)... It's been 8 whole days and frankly it aint that bad :). I know, I know.. even I thought the carnivorous non vegetarian me will break down after a week max (as I have so many times before) and give up the damn diet and claim that resolutions are after all meant to be broken. But surprise, surprise.... and I must admit this is one of the biggest ones yet... I am okay!!! :D
I have not broken down yet, have not yet felt those hunger pangs which oddly enuf I feel the moment I feel I am depriving my body of non-veg... I actually crave for non-veg like an addict! But this time round I am okay. I really am.. in a very happy, smiley, non-frowny way....

Its weird.. for me atleast, cos this is a novelty. I do miss eating sea food like I would miss a good old friend of mine. But I feel nothing.... Absolutely nothing.. nada, zilch craving for red meat or chicken....

Maybe in a way I am growing up (tho I am thinking this is some kind of mental imbalance)... Growin up - ah, lemme explain why I said that one. Because, I have always admired people around me, friends, colleagues and family and even acquaintances for that matter who can make up their mind and stick to it. Do I seem delinquent (that's maybe because I am)??? I do the things I like... I dont do the things I dont like. So life is pretty much simple for me that way. If I have to make up my mind to stick to something... then that almost always means that I am forcing myself to do something I dont entirely like or want to do BUT am doing because it's good for me. So therefore, I generally dont stick to doing the things I have Resolved to do because in a couple of days my dislike for the Thing I Have Resolved To Do has become so acute, I just cant do it. Therefore - I admire the people who do things They Have Resolved To Do. Its plain admirable... it shows character (or whatever)...:)

Now, this is why I think I have grown up this year....cos I have always thought man!.... I am not Grown Up or Determined enough to do this. The day I find Determination, which is what separates a fake grown up (like me) from a real grown up person, I am on my way to Growing Up. I shall start doing things I dont like but I should like.

Or maybe I am just plain tried of feeling ambivalent about murdering innocent animals. God alone knows cos I have no idea what's going on with me.

I wish I could also be Grown Up about the people in my life. The "people in my life" are the mysterious beings who control my emotions, my days, my actions to a great extent. I guess being Grown Up also means we get used to being taken for granted. Am I okay with being taken for granted? NO! Not now... not ever!! But then that's what I thought about being vegetarian (even for a brief period) - not now... not ever - and look where that got me today!! So maybe there will come a day when I will get used to Being a Grown Up in another way. But it doesn't look like that day is today... cos I hate being taken for granted. I hate being yelled at. And most certainly do not appreciate "the people in my life" thinking its okay to be callous and insensitive when I am chumming... I mean I am seriously bleeding to death here.. Can't I be afforded some space to be Weird and Irritated? Have mercy man...

Maybe when I Grow Up somemore... Ill learn to behave like I am perfectly normal all round the month, every month, all year... But that day aint today!

So there goes my first post of the New Year - '09! Depressing aye? Well... too bad cos I aint about to Grow Up anymore right now.. poor ol' delinquent me is all I have to offer and maybe a few happier posts later on... so HAPPY NEW YEAR amigos! :)