New Life

i have now completed a little over a week now here at my b-school and each day is something of a new chapter for me. i've seen so much in so little time that it's a wonder what more is left there...so maybe another day i'll elaborate.

legally blonde!

i just saw Legally blonde tonight. and frankly i loved it! oh elle woods you played out a part of me there. i may not be pretty and i'm not blonde but for some reason i've battled first impressions too long and identifiable lost many. at the stage of life i'm at...graduating and seeing people fly away from my life for their masters and jobs, i so easily identified with her pursuit to keep her life in place and in ways alter her own. i'm off in a fortnight to a new city, a new school and ironically, like elle woods, to the east coast! oh i never imagined it'd fit so well to the night i needed reaffirmation that i mean something to someone somewhere.
today was just another draining fun day of college's last few days. i call draining because it's emotionally so, thanks to the downfall of the structure of a special friendship and in ways the end of the four best years of my young life. it was fun because i try to make it so...squeeze every drop of time and conversation i can from among the best people i've had in my life. oh i'm going to miss them! :'(
as i look ahead i feel fear. i always fear something to come when i wait for it to come. i fear of losing myself in that sweeping tide and i fear of losing people i hold dear. but this too shall pass! so elle woods taught me tonight...that the passion, conviction and self confidence are all the ingredients to a life!

Bheja Curry

CAUTION:: IF YOU ARE A VEGETARIAN AND/OR OF DELICATE NATURE WHERE FOOD IS CONCERNED, PLEASE DO NOT READ FURTHER

ever so often i hear of something-curry, considering how much i love food. i can even say i've eaten most of those curries. Today shall go down in personal history as the day i had brain curry...for real.
let me admit that i had an initial mix of apprehension and excitement when papa ordered bheja curry at Anand's at CP. I'd only wanted to try his, now personally overrated, biryani. So after my eye check up, off we'd gone on our gastronomic hunt!
Enter a plate of bheja curry. At first glance it looks like egg curry...with only egg whites. then pa spoons around and i spot my first perfect piece of brain. i try really hard to keep the biryani i'd had, down. papa urges me to taste it. i break my roti, cover the segment, hold it down and feel it being soft and gooey. i bite into it and i squirm...urgh! i quickly reach for my plate of pudina onions and i gear up to fight this battle of the food. i take another bite, i react less violently. by the next one i'd found a trick to not react to having a brain for lunch...stuff onions in the mouth before chewing, makes it less squishy, gooey and repulsive.
so somehow i got through it. i never could've called myself a foodie if i'd not stood upto the challenge! i had a reputation to keep and keep the fire of exploration alive! but sadly the last bite spoiled it. none of us had realised that the last bite left in the platter for me, when turned over, would be that very perfect piece of a brain complete with it's grooves and hemispherical shape, that can turn any one's (or so i think) stomach over! oh god! i am only glad i didn't throw up!
so after having survived this experience and visibly struggling to not throw up, my very amused father tells me that that curry was a pathetic attempt at bheja curry. it's considered a delicacy and an art when cooked right...more like keema curry than egg curry! damn that cook!
papa did get worried that if such was my reaction to this piece of food, how i'd react to most sea food. yes, it has me worried too. and truthfully i'm most scared of how i'll swallow caviar...they're fish eggs for god's sakes! so much so for my dream of sipping champagne with caviar on the beach in the dimming light of sunset. sigh!

cadmean victory...or is it?

if i were to start with describing my mood right now, i'd write a whole post on how it cannot be explained. it is a saturday afternoon and on wednesday my brother gets married. that is an emotion i'll not write on. it's pure happiness and anticipation. lurking underneath all this, is a dark one that has literally risen from the ashes of the past. as they all said, nothing can be hidden and nothing can be undone...i as always, get to live it.
oh the joys of youth; its abandon! it's hurtful how every action that i don't weigh properly always backfires on me. i aim for spontaneity and in the thrill of impending success, fire the gun on my face. oh it's killing!
like a compulsive gambler, i try each time. and like a compulsive gambler, i lose more than what i began with. but unlike the compulsive gambler i carry a grudge. for the only time in my life thus far, i carry a deep dislike bordering on hatred and i feel it may be reciprocated. but if that's the way to settle the dust on this issue and heal the thorn in my side, so be it. i just want this negativity out of me!

Moving on

Lying in my iPod since oct30,2009. Seemed depressingly valid today,
especially now. Needs an edit for the current situation, but
hauntingly precise...

It's wonderful u can move on
Stuck in a time warp am I
An inevitable step lies ahead
Parting of ways breaking a tie.

Moments back this was how I wanted it
A new start free from your presence
When spoke your lips the same words
A void appeared craving your essence.

Twice bitten thrice shy u call me
A meekness behind the facade of strength
Stood by me u have, even though only in my dreams
Now u talk of flying away a great length

Shivani Saksena
sent from my iPod

Sitting on the ledge

It's 1am on a quiet dark night. I'm sitting on the ledge of a small
balcony because I've always to and because tonight I can and because
it's too hot inside and I am not sleepy. The ledge is wide enough to
nicely sit on, long enough to stretch out on and low enough to tempt
me to try n jump down. The last is not quite an option, it would freak
too many people out! So m happy sitting on a cool night, rest my legs,
listen to music and besides seeing the darkness n the moonlight, m
happy while I type this out on my touch.
My life is in a funny phase these past few months. There've been
moments I want respite and moments I crave any form of activity.
There's been too little and too much of excitement. And in one moment
of unthinking stupor and folly I've gone over board n killed my
carefully built reputation. College now scares me. My interviews lined
up have fallen in my trap of complacency. I'm apparently too busy to
be actively involved in any sphere: college, bhai's wedding or even my
own life! It's frustrating what's going on and the more time I get to
think over it, the worse I make it for myself.
I was hoping to cool down my anxiety in the moonlight but looks like
it'll have to be done another day. M at a moment that I clearly want a
rewind button or an assurance. But it's just me, the hidden moon, a
distant lamp post, an empty house, long trees, loads of time for
regret and a folly.
I've been missing the carefree me, even though my regret stems from
it. This is one event of my life no1 beyond college is privy to and I
want to keep it that way. I need a hug and I need one bad. Since m not
getting it any time soon, I sit here wondering. Wondering a whole lot
why's...

Shivani Saksena
sent from my iPod

all over again...

i hate heartbreaks, i hate the fall
just today the sky was pretty
now it's grim
i hate this part, i hate this end
why i let myself fail again and again
i don't understand!
optimism always hurts me
it takes me up on my bubble of imagination
just to crash by the needle of reality
and hit the ground of despair!

The rear view mirror

Driving around the city is an experience that calls for a study. Compared to the satellite towns of NCR that I’ve driven in, Delhi is still much better. I remember driving in Ghaziabad once and while I was there I wasn’t able to comprehend who was crazier...me, for following my driving rules, or the local bunch for being practioners of the chaos theory! It was a freaky road with a bullock cart, bicycles, a Mercedes Benz, a handful of MUVs and a rickety bunch of tempos and buses, all driving and shouting and honking on that two lane road!

What today I want to write on is completely different. It’s about that momentary bond you forge with your fellow drivers while the engine is idling at yet another red light. Someone will be fixing their hair, someone their fag, another will look like boredom were his middle name and another like the wait will kill her. Those with family or co-passengers aren’t making it here because they have a world moving with them on wheels, all I am talking of, are the ones who’re driving alone. At each halt in a traffic crossing and/or a jam, I look around at people. I look at people to figure out what’s driving them and to where. Often a pretty face may catch my eye or a sharp glint of arrogance and challenge in the eye of the guy who I’m standing ahead of; a lecherous look of open interest in my affairs or one of horrified amusement when they catch me singing with the radio!

Oh I do all this when I drive to and from important places and exams because only that’s when I get the car all to myself. Driving alone can be distracting...it requires too much focus for me to do so in absolute silence. That’s where my music comes in! I switch radio channels, I play music from my iPod or I just sing to myself, but I sing. It gives the whole journey a rhythm, a beat, a life! I sing, I groove, I head bang...I basically imagine I’m in NFS and this is my background score!

Talking of rear view mirrors and co-drivers, the instant connection is quite a mood uplifting instrument. Checking the line of cars in the mirror, invariable I zero in on one car and that becomes my partner for the way. It’s like picking a friend who one drives along with and keeps up with! It pushes you if you fall far behind, urges you to slow down if they fall far behind. It’s something I do, I don’t know if people in general do this. I also mentioned a challenge above...that usually happens with jerks of guys who believe a female driver better, faster and ahead of them is a blob on their virility. So they rev up their cars, scowl at you or make explicit expressions, do their best to overtake you and feel some form of exhilaration when they do! More often than not, I let them be. Childish antics don’t require attention, but on days that I’m on the edge myself, they are up for a challenge I’m not willing to lose!

So this post is dedicated to all the “friends” I made in my rear view mirror and all those I’ll make!

Cartoons in new light

Easy, free time is good for the mind. It's simply bliss but 3 months of it can lead to a rusty attitude and a lazy body! yawn!! ;)

Unlike most people I have just discovered youtube thanks to my better bandwidth. So i'm spending my days watching old episodes of Popeye, Little lulu and all looney tunes and it's good fun.

The one thing that struck me over and over again is how sexuality is promoted through these cartoons. A simple case in point with say, droopy&dripple, a voluptuous woman walks by with a skimpy dress and a bare leg, has a husky voice and smoky eyes and the father-son duo gets their brain rattled and eyes popping! How often have we seen this scene repeated in various cartoons and over the ages? As a kid i'd laugh over it and absorb it as a typical male reaction to a stereotypical female mould! Good lord!
it's very disturbing now that i see such stuff and realise the potential harm it can do. as with Johnny Bravo...the guy was a labelled lecher! i miss the innocence in those cartoons and i also realise that it was innocence in me not to have realised such perspectives to lust earlier. i grew up and my perception of the actions of those characters changed!
Each animation i see, i note the details, i always have. I used to marvel at how grown people could so very easily understand a child's mind and make them laugh, learn and connect to objects that do not exist. But now i see how it works. It is an adult mind at work in a child's playroom...we all remember what we liked. it's just that if i now want my chair to dance with me, it wouldn't be on a "here we go round the mulberry bush" but maybe a "jamaican farewell". so if i were to make a kid imagine, i'll change the music! and we still dance...i, in my big grown up world of deadlines, projects and loud people and the little kid in her world of stars, cars and bliss!

creation in my kitchen

cooking is parallel to creating. it provides an outlet to desires, energies and the euphoria of having created. whenever i have the urge to eat something exotic and the time to wait and devote in its creation, i prefer making it. the Internet is a veritable guide in my pursuits...multiple recipes of the same dish, regional variations of the same dish and the conscience balming variant of low fat!
to celebrate my birthday, i decided I'd have enough of cakes so I'll make ice cream. the newspaper yesterday was in sync...it gave me a super easy recipe of "low fat" banana Popsicles! since my maid, who has a wild mind of her own, decided to clean the kitchen while i was cooking, she promptly treated my paper cutting as trash and threw it out in the garbage before i realised it was missing. this post is my way of saving that recipe, before i forget, and putting up my happiness at its success.
ingredients
1/2, 1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
a pinch of salt
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons vanilla essence
2 diced, big bananas
method
1. in a saucepan mix the the sugar, starch and salt
2. pour in the milk and while continually stirring, bring to a boil
3. simmer, add vanilla and stir. remove from stove
4. in a blender put the bananas and pour half the pudding
5. blend well
6. pour the banana mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining pudding and stir to get a uniform consistency
7. pour into Popsicle mould and place a stick in the middle(couldn't find a stick, i used toothpicks)
8. freeze till set(i left it overnight...my freezer's a wimp)

and voila! homemade Popsicles ready! now even though m not much of a banana fan, less of banana flavoured ice cream, i still enjoyed it. i now plan to try this out with all the fruit variations as and when they come in...strawberry for sure, raspberry for the heck of it, litchis for the taste and maybe even black currants! hahaha...i tried making a pomegranate smoothies once at home, and though it was worse than my papaya smoothie, it looked far better. so if anyone tries out any new dish, try not to go by it's looks!
bon apetit!

struggling at 11

sitting in front of a monitor
looking for the right words
i sit and type and erase what i type
and never know what i really mean.
i want it so much that i hold on too tight
and slipping out of my fingers i see
words have never failed as much as today
while complete sentences i struggle to write.
if i wouldn't know what my life has been
how would anyone else help
but structure i hunt at the 11th hour
and illogical broken dreams is all i find.
the sand clock mocks me with its grains
also with the curves i never gained
trembling fingers and nervous hearts
5essays and an important deadline.

Does the shoe fit?

Happy day, sad day, a day of revelations

Open minds, closed hearts, no place for aberrations.

A wispy hi, a hearty hug, some beaming adoration

A covert glance, an innuendo, a pretty irritation.

Of lefts and rights and divided loyalties

Of dreams and illusions and crashing realities.

Standing there in the pool, splashing all around

Coming back, waist high, just as before I pound.

my big bold cap

I've been haunting khan market and south ex a wee bit too much lately...4days in a row is a record for me! ambling about, hunting down a tailor, looking for kids' stuff and just checking out stores, it was fun in ways. Also since both are virtually entirely on sale, it's quite a sight and absolutely, completely, utterly irresistible!

The reason I haven't emptied my piggy bank yet is that I carry no cash or cards! Precautions are necessary when in such places and even if i don't buy stuff, I'll end up gorging on something sinfully delicious at khan market or burning hot at south ex. And truthfully neither's good for me.

So on my last but one day out at south ex, dad, mum and i were moving in and out of stores, crossing and recrossing the subway and basically driving each other nuts. And then i saw it...it drew me like a fly to the flame and i happily went. I'd finally found myself a big bold Caribbean knit cap! i didn't even try it on..I knew I wanted it and I just bought it! Thank god Benetton was on sale!

Now this cap of mine is getting mixed reviews. Considering how I've barely stepped out of my house without it, almost everyone who's opinion matters has seen it. It's been called a steal, adorably colourful, bright and bold, plain weird, a chef's hat or simply been dumbly stared at.

Google informs me it's called a Jamaican tam but all

my life I've known it as the Bob Marley cap...and so even as I've searched for just the right one for me and finally found one, i can't get over gushing about it!

For those who are still wondering what it looks like, here's a variant though mine is red, yellow and green(no black) and i looove it!

Chronicles of the U-Special

The Delhi University provided DCE with one thing similar to the rest of the university...a university special bus! Then DCE became DTU but thanks to the efforts of its die hard fans, it survived! It’s been 3years, this January that I’ve been travelling in that fixed 4th row window seat in that rickety DTC bus that the depot does us a favour by allotting. This January I am not in it and as it is I have just a semester left, so I decided my U-special deserved a mention in my life.Oh the convenience of it all, that it didn't allow the hostel to settle in my system. I remember me craving for teleporting powers just so I could spend all night in my hostel, sleep with my friends and wake up at home with the uspl always there to take me to college. Alas! science fiction never became my reality and I gave up(as much as hostel authorities with me) on the hostel and in ways I’ve never regretted it. I met more people in the u special than I would've otherwise, being the outsider that I was back in 2nd sem. if nothing else, it forced me to endure random people's company and in return forge wonderful friendships with not just classmates but batch mates across branches. Shy, reserved, dumb, ostentatious, bold...I met each kind and life made a wonderful routine! As blissful as it sounds, these rides through the better part of the route traversed the city forests of ridge and I’ve lost count of how many times we've had a prayer on our lips just so that the bus wouldn't break down! Oh but it did! So dramatically and like such an over drawn tragedy scene! As I remember our misadventures, I list them here:

Scene I: a much-in-need-of-retirement bus is allotted and even before boarding, it refuses to start. Somehow it coughs, spews some smoke and relents. We start crawling towards college. We stop at the first stop, it takes time to restart. We reach our first flyover; it feels like someone with a heart condition's chugging up some mountain and failing miserably...our bunch of qualified mechanical engineers just gaze all lost. 2nd stop it dies for good! By now it's almost 8:40 and we're miles away!

Scene II: another season, another time the bus, this time loaded to full capacity, decided we were much too heavy for her delicate frame. I can bet we never tipped a 30kmph that day but she pulled along just fine, till we came to our 5th flyover and guess what the driver did...asked us to get off and see him at the top of the flyover. So there we were, some 50-80odd kids walking up a flyover and then scrambling for seats just when the driver took off at full speed! It had been decided that we'd try not to slow down and never to stop! Sadly we had at a crossing and without saying a word we all knew this would be as far as we'd get that day!

Scene III: in other misadventures, the bus broke down once in the midst of the jungle on a winter morning! That was when Salony coined our trip as "jungle main no-mangal" or something. that would also be the day when I realised for well and good, that "big" boys at dce will never take responsibility...they happily sauntered off, hitchhiking with strangers, leaving behind a bunch of scared, hysterical, angry and plain lost people behind to wait it out for a replacement bus with the oh-so-weird driver and conductor!

Scene IV: let me see...hmm. Oh yes! We had a bus breathe its last next to a big huge slum and hence our abandonment! Also once we travelled all the way with the engine throwing out black smoke and even threatening to burst into flames! I remember bikers turning around to check if it were really a moving bus on fire.

Scene V: one fine summer morning, in the midst of our semester exams (or mid, I don’t remember) we travel happily studying. Since it was an exam day, only those who had a paper at 10 were travelling in it. By now the dear never-to-be-sent-to-retirement bus is familiar and no one pays heed to its groaning and grunting. I call it a sheer attempt at attention seeking, but the bus managed an unimaginable feat...the rear axle broke and popped out!! And bang in the middle of the jungle! Oh the panic! How will get there? What of our exam? Oh this and oh that...and all this from the boy-folk. No offence, but I can't call that behaviour man-worthy! So then groups formed and a taxi was hailed to get us to the metro...6people stuffed into one cab and going zigzag like a pot-boiler he got us there after happily fleecing us. One of the guys, who'd declared himself our leader, proudly proclaimed, "Main baniya hoon, mujhe paise bachane aate hain!". Poor him, it took us a minute to prove how badly we'd been fleeced! All I can say is I gave my exam somehow!

It’s not like I have no sweet memories. I have so many I can't start to put them down here. Early in the 2nd, 3rd semester days Salony and I would sit and laugh all the way. It wasn't like any of us had some great sense of humour; it was more her thirst for gossip, my inadvertent supply mixed with her unique drama-queen style and my cynicism. Oh what fun! But then she stopped coming and I, around 5th semester on, found a smart Monday morning company...aka swayam. Monday morning fun only but our male bashing sessions were hilarious and heart-ache tales so similar! It was great having those intelligent conversations that didn't make me feel too dorky or too romantic or too cynical, depending on my mood, and was even better learning from her!

Not to forget, there was the "chi-chi" gang. Mayank and Prannay christened three irritating, loud, ill-mannered females, a year junior to us as the CHI CHI gang. the head chi chi was a migraine inducing female who had too shrill a tone and their conversation wasn't even ever fun, far from interesting! The conductor once had asked them to shut up, he'd had enough!

Coming to the last 2-3 semesters, it's noteworthy how on most days, I’d end up being the only female aboard. Given how this was nothing more than a passing observation of my own, I’d settled very comfortably in the entire atmosphere. I knew I had friends here...Mayank, Prannay and Anoop. Silence was comfortable, debates a lot of fun (I’d always be quiet), EPL almost a religion and taking my, Anoop's or absolutely anybody's case, Mayank and Prannay's best time pass. But I loved it all!

Now as college comes to an end, my daily dose of music, score updates, match analysis, newspaper reading and gossip will not come out of the same 1hour early in the morning. As for what's passed, I wouldn't have had it any other way! Look what I’ve had...

play time!

Pac-Man made by Neave Games

musical all nighter

just writing what is going on in my head and life is sometimes the best catharsis i can get. the pure pleasure of stringing words together, writing a tale, making a rhyme or just plain cribbing is addictive...and that is one thing i was always taught: how to avoid addiction and fight, but i wish i could write something good someday! hah! so here i am...having decided to not to sleep, now that it's 2:40am and my alarm poised to ring at 4:15! diwali culminates tomorrow on dooj and bhai flies back at 7am. considering i have to be bathed, dressed and ready for the dooj rituals at unearthly hours(at least for me) i have all the right to crib right now. start with my music, i can blab on so many stuff right now that i am wondering where to start. the music streaming in through my headphones, the elusive post grad prep or this whole magical weekend? i think i'llcoz that is what i have most different from other people. my choice of instruments have been called most memorably "arcane". i can't help but smile when i look at them that way. i have tried to test for myself my tastes by combining heavy metal, rock, pop, classical and 'my' kind and even with my eyes closed and the music on a randomiser i still loved my stuff. a symphony on the santoor, a strumming guitar, a whistling flute and rhytmic percussion...give me Rahul Sharma, Mark Knoffler, Zakhir Hussain, Richard Clayderman, Robert miles and all and i can happily lose myself to the music! there is a very big cool factor associated with rock music and i would be lyin if i didn't admit i tried liking it, but baring a few bands and a track here and there, it never appealed to me as a genre i'd passionately follow. unless i'm prepared for ear shattering, head banging, migraine inducing cacophony, metal to me is painful. more often than not, i listen to those tracks for what they symbolise and what they say. m a lyrics freak for the most the unusual songs and could completely ignore all the allusions and innuendos in John Mayers and darren hayes! such is music to me. it's ironical to think i'm a trained violinist and singer and i've done my fair share of stage singing and the only time i took stage at college, i had people tryin very hard not to snicker and hence be rude to me on my face! what was i thinking by singing mltr randomly? but then again i wasn't thinking... my alarm has finally started ringing so i 'wake' up while it's still dark outside...i wake up while m still awake and i wake up with mark knoffler taking me down the Irish countryside.

just one bite...

i sit here writing this stuff while my classmates at dce are probably struggling to make sense of the last mid-semester paper currently going on. i am not appearing for any this time, hence the luxury of writing this! and i owe this situation to a mosquito. darn her!
it's been 11days since the day i fell ill with high grade fever and in those 11days i have seen myself suffer through maddening bouts of sickness, a stay in the hospital, innumerable needle pricks and meeting my entire delhi based family. quite an eventful series of events which i never wish are repeated, ever again. i have had enough of hospital beds, thank you.
it all started on sunday last while dad n i were happily roaming about cp and before i knew what was wrong i was shivering! back home i tried to quietly go to sleep but with ma not around, my dad wasn't quite sure how to handle a burning girl :P somehow we both pulled through the night and when ma finally came home, began the fever ritual and i slept like i'd never slept before! our erratic cycle pulled up long enough till wednesday when i was in a state ready to kick any and everything because not only was i frustrated at my sickness, i was bored to death! but boredom does stuff to your head, or so my dad now believes. my "bestest" nurse, my dad, says i bored him with tales of how i had ogres sitting on my head beating drums and the three bears playing around in my tummy...he never could stand any of my fantasy shit; a delirious fantasy land was more than he could partake!
so one fine morning it seems my body had had enough and i managed to do a very classy swooning act. alas! i was not in a ball with fancy clothes and handsome men, just me in my pyjamas and my aghast parents! having scared the daylights out of them at night, come morning i was promptly taken to the hospital and i must've been one hell of a sight coz all i remember is sleeping on my way there and then waking up in 'my' room with a drip stuck into my wrist. yeah i also remember shouting when that long needle was poked in, but that's it! i slept after that and slept some more.
now i hold myself patly responsible for my visit to the hospital coz i'd always had a desire to be admitted in the hospital and have peoole visit me! i did manage it, but i regret being so stupid and wishing for it to happen; but a part of me is also glad i learnt my lesson and got my hospital trip. stupid me.
so well i got everyone in delhi to actually visit me. my room always had someone or the other dropping by to check on the little baby and also bring in stuff which i had no desire to taste! but the biggest surprise was bhai walking in! he came in all the way from mumbai coz i was in the hospital and once he was there, nothing was the same. he made sure i had "good" food, read kathi rolls, and a good time of my stay....he got me to actually use the tv in my room and even let me check my mails there itself! bhai u rule!!
oh did i mention all the blood samples i gave? my right arm was literally punctured! i counted about 12 pricks in all in my elbow, my wrist and my back-of-the palm. when my drip was removed, my docs were more than happy not having to struggle to find an unpunctured vein! so they happily attacked my left arm too. ouch!
so now that i look back at this whole episode, i wonder how many times had i brushed off a mosquito as nothing but a nuisance and now i had to suffer through a whole bout of dengue thanks to that one fateful bite?
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs117/en/

all time fav....

troubled by failings

today(it's post midnight) is the mega hyped solar eclipse of the century. there has been enough talk all over our news-deprived news channels about what it will supposedly mean for all of us. but that's not what is worrying me enough to rouse me out of bed n typing here. what triggered my brain into over-drive was my hand-made tapestry of ganesh ji in my room. the year was very nicely also embroidered into the setting n as i just noticed, it's 10 years old! man was i a creative kid :P

what i wonder aloud here is this: is god vengeful? this is something's that's been bothering me for quite a while. when we listen/read to any scripture be it the Gita or the Bible, there are obvious similiarities that arise. am not doing a comparative study here, but just wish to point out the 'good way' to lead life. there are pre-conceived notions of how life's to be led, how we are to pray and how we are to pay for our sins. and lest we forget, they are very subtely repeated over and over again. it's not that i'm sitting here challenging what is a way for life for all, including me, just wondering why God's potrayed as being too busy to be watching over us directly? why is God is so unbending that there is only a certain way to get his attention? it's not like i want some special powers from him that i'd have to prove to be worthy of it. then maybe i'd consider all this effort!

resonating in my head right now is the satyanarayan katha. i've always been fascinated by it and there was a time when i could recite it with my mother. not that it's been ages, just i grew up and life changed. till a few years back i couldn't wait for ma to call me to recite it with her n then i'd get the kasar! yum! so now that i was thinking of God being potrayed as being vengeful, it's not suprising that i'd shuffle back to it. there is a story of a man who wished for a child and promises to fast on the birth. when the couple was blessed with a bonny baby girl he promises to fast when she marries. on her marriage he forgets. a few years later, the girl learns of the fast and for some reason she is unable to complete it. that is when God decides enough is enough, He punishes the family until the fast is complete.
now analyse the story as to what are we supposed to learn. there are a few lessons i can pick up though can't decide which to pick as final. first is the moral lesson that if we make a promise, we should keep it. simple trust n trade. second lesson is that God keeps track of our actions and loses both patience and can be very vengeful! so is He really not as forgiving as He's made out to be? and frankly it's not only hindu mytholgy, every religion has it and none is lacking in such tales.

the latter observation of the Almighty's personality is rather troubling to me personally. why do we make the Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient all so human? why should the one giving us a drive have his failings?


google threw this at me when i googled vengence god:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2005/204_Gods_Wrath_Vengeance_Is_Mine_I_Will_Repay_Says_the_Lord/

scroll down to para 2 onwards...not close to what i was trying to imply, but then a minister wouldn't tell the faithful to doubt.

Saying goodbye...

This is to write what I'd need to say. On Sunday, the most dreadful news came. Of all the people that I had come to love, the few teachers who moulded me into who I am, I lost one of the best. Mrs Flavia D'Souza, or Fundy and she was popularly known, passed away on Saturday. Surprise, disbelief, numbness and a little shock were my first reactions. It was then and there that I decided that the least I could do for her was to be present at her funeral and pay my respects. The afternoon passed trying to find someone who would accompany me for I wasn't sure that I had enough composure to go alone. For Reasons varying, most declined. Finally I found one.

That very evening after I parked my car, it started to rain. Rain was something that had been eluding us for weeks now and all I could think of was how it turned out to be a befitting farewell to a teacher always with a smile, a word of advice and an infectious enthusiasm . It turned out, the entire programme had been advanced. By the time we got there everyone, the family and the school faculty, were on their way out. I did not expect my teachers to recognise me, but most of them did, and did with a wistful eye and even a few hugs. To stand at the foot of the grave of one of your favourite teachers, is not the easiest thing in the world. To stand at the foot of the grave of your teacher and not know what to say it even harder. As Charlie Chaplin put it, I love the rain because no one can see me crying. It was ironical for me to be speechless in front of the teacher who most often trained me on how to speak.

Mrs D'Souza was the youngest of four sisters and a brother. She is survived by her little daughter and her husband who most of us knew through her stories as sonu and uncle. She was born and brought up here in Delhi, went to school to Carmel convent and further to the college of Jesus and Mary. Her stories, her antics and the peculiarity of being the quintessential English teacher somehow became her identity over the generations.

I could never see her conform to anything even remotely resembling the almost boring demeanour of the rest of the teachers. Everyone knew that very few got along with her, sometimes irritating, childlike behaviour. She could be deadly serious, most miserly with marks, rarely angry but more often than not have an air about her that you could not help but be affected by the energy in it. I am yet to see another person who could evoke such emotions in so many people at the same time. I am also yet to see a teacher who could give marks ranging from 0.15 to 8.6 and yet claim that her mathematics was weak! Most don't even try to break up the marks into quarters.

Almost all of us have at least once seen ma'am racing down the road, flailing her arms about and shouting, " let me through, I am late!". It's not every day, only it was for us, to see your teacher racing about just so she wouldn't lose a leave of because she was late and then most properly settled her hair, fix her dress, calm her nerves and go to the staffroom. Another of the peculiarities. Another of the reasons most found her weird.

She had a way about her that I cannot express. She not only went about completing the syllabus but often indulged in discussing things that happened around us. I still remember the one discussion she had with us way back in class eight. It was on surrogate motherhood. Young teenagers have an awkwardness that can only be felt. Topics like these are heard with every eye avoiding the other. She still went on and since she barely got a response from any of us, she gave us her's. Oh we all discussed it among our little groups but we just couldn't say it aloud. Maybe that was the first time I felt the urge to say what I feel without worrying about how others would judge me. From then on I tried to express my opinion where it would be heard and haven't looked back much since.

Talking of English teachers, I can safely say that I have had many over the past two decades. I've had a full-time one at home and some brilliant ones at school. Even though they have taught the same things how they did it was always different. For Fundy it has got to be her grammar and interpretation. Working on my diction or strengthening my arguments, she would always have the patience to not go about always correcting me but finding the way to just alter me enough. And how can I forget, when things got too serious, she'd just go and say,"Angrejan aisa hi hai bachha! kya karen?!".

On Sunday, when we were leaving I met an old friend who was just coming. He called out and when I saw him all I could think of was how she had affected us. All I could think of was S-H-U-G-A-R. I spoke what I had to, I told him where he had to go but I could say no more. I didn't feel up to it and I said as much. The rain just about concealed it all.

On Sunday Mrs Flavia D'Souza was laid to rest above her mother in the family graveyard in the presence of her family, colleagues , students and friends. May her soul rest in peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, Amen!