Maybe....

Reclusive pianists tap-dancing on bar tops, storytellers on fascinating journeys across hills and deserts, troubled detectives trying to solve gruesome murder mysteries - dancers, artists, business tycoons, superheroes…

Maybe I just want to live the lives of the people I read about in the books. And if their reality eventually turns out to be as mundane as mine, I would like to be stuck between the pages of the book, enacting what the author puts into the pages…

I was watching Pursuit of Happyness for the umpeenth time (it's one of my favourite films) when this part comes...Chris Gardner talking about how did Thomas Jefferson know that happiness is always something we pursue...

It's funny how films, lyrics sometimes voice our thoughts, so much better than we can ever do. 

Things always eventually get better...I mean, how long can thing remain bad, after a point, even the worst has to recover. But while that very worst is on, it's often hard to even imagine that you are ever going to get out of it. 

There are so many things said that are meant to inspire and motivate. If you truly want something, the universe conspires to bring it to you (or something like that!) If you are passionate about what you do, nobody can stop you from reaching your goals. Like hell, they can! 

If only everything inside here could just go quiet for a little while...just blank out...

I used to think the problems and worries of one's life were meant to be kept to oneself. At the msot close family members and friends would know. My parents discussed their "issues" in hushed tones over phones or in carefully sealed intimate letters. Whether it was a break-up or a sick family member, one's problems weren't meant to be gossip...

How very ironical that these days, even the slightest hint of agony becomes a flashing update on the FBs and GTalks of the world! Suddenly everyone knows and 'shares' our grief (catfights, sorrow, tears, worry, failure)...the cyber world is the new best place to rant (see previous post for example). Who cares that one of the more explicit updates can become the latest food for gossip in town...This is the place where our life often ends up stripped to its basics...what a freaking tragedy! 

The bigger irony...I am lamenting this trend on the same medium

RANT!!!

Students of Yale University come out with a daily newspaper...and I am struggling to bring out my college's yearly mag. And no, I aint entirely to blame. I thought it was a students magazine...STUDENTS...by them, for them. But no, now I realize it's hardly that way. Nothing goes into print unless it has passed the cautious approval of the teachers. Most of whose scanning system I don't agree with. Because a much better written piece on boys indulging in drugs is rejected in favour of a shittily written story on how a stupid girl gets adicted and realises her mistake. Reason, the first story isn't 'clear'...of course, it isn't...it isn't meant to...dude, students don't want moral science lessons in the magazine. Half the good novels in the world have a warped, delusional feeling to them...Kubla Khan, which I hope the teachers teach, was written in a similar fit. Hello...come into the real world. It's not about sheltering 'damsels in distress' from the wolf. It's about empowering them enough to decide whose the wolf.

What is wrong with the institution and its decision maker?! Why is every shred of thought so deeply scanned to reject and idea that is even slightly deviant? Why are the ideas flowing through the place so hackneyed and conservative? Why is the cover painting of a girl with scarlet lips seen as slutty (which by the way, the accusers refuse to pronounce. "This picture...doesn't it look...you know?!") Why are students in psychology classes shown videos of abortion and asked to refrain from sex? If we are taught to be women of the 21st century, why is every girl in the college being groomed into 19th century Jane Austen heroines.

I have half a mind to resign from my duties, but its a tad late and we might as well get it over with. But maybe next year, they should just stop all this hypocrisy and take over this thing they call the mag themselves. All students will have to do is write their tiny stories and poems, and feel gratified if they are chosen to be published.

GOODBYE...

Over the last three years, I dragged myself at times, convincing that college would end...and the trauma would be finally over. But now that it's really over, I am slightly sad...I cried a few tears at the farewell yesterday, I felt a strange sense of sadness every time a prof said "Goodbye. And do well."

I never liked my college. Even now, I would rather leave than stay on. But there were bits and parts of it that I know I will miss. My tiny TY class, fun moments even with those profs i didn't particularly like, working on some of the world's most hilarious projects, faffinf about thing I knew nothing of, acting kiddy and clingy in class, snatching at food (precisely the reason I was crowned for being Miss Bhuki yesterday) and pendulating between boredom, anger and happiness...

It has been a good three years. A classmate's GTalk status says - "and it's time to move on yet again." But I think there are good memories to cling on too. 

I made a new blog today. Sometimes, I sometimes can't believe what is happening in the country. But this blog, with its digs at threading and life in general makes it a rather inappropriate place to talk about more 'serious' issues. 

http://newsbroadcasting.blogspot.com/

What's in a name??

Even if I do change my name after my marriage, how does it prove that I am a virtuous wife...no matter what Sanjay Dutt says?

And who's gets to keep their own name, if it's a man marrying a man, or a woman marrying a woman?

And why do I have to change my name after marriage, when I have lived my life and made my career with the name I was born with?

And why are educated men, who otherwise vouch for women's rights, suddenly get so frigid when it comes to what names their girlfriends and wives use?

Thoughts after a discussion in class on the subject that has sparked off questions, discussions and a lot of unwarranted fights between otherwise perfectly happy couples...  

THREADING TROUBLES

No pain, no gain, they say. Becoming beautiful isn't any easy task and any women can guarantee this fact. You know what I mean if you have been through a process called waxing. Well, I usually keep my decibel level to an absolute minimum, usually on silent, there are some who believe in screaming their hearts out to ease the pain. I thought, after ten-fifteen times, the pain ceases to register, but maybe I am wrong...

But threading, my dear mates, is a different ballgame. Ten, fifteen or fifteen hundred times, the pain does not seem to diminish much. So before each time, I need to visit a salon for the holy ritual, I go through much mental preparation...not that it helps much. I still end up shedding tears of agony every time, no matter how much I try not to.

Moreover, threading is an ART. One wrong move and the shape of your eye brow gets, shall we say, F&$K** up for the next twenty days. Let me tell you how - year 2007, my usual salon (of those days) ended up shaping both my eye brows in different directions. My optimism that nobody would notice did not help much. About a week later, sitting in a coffeeshop, the person in front of me suddenly went, "Um, where do you get your eyebrowsdone? "Er,why? "Don'tget it done there again, it's hopelessly out of place." Oh dear!!!

I am always on my eternal search for that perfect salon, which can shape my eyebrows the right way. Hasn't happened yet. Too thick, too thin, too short, too wrong...it's somehow never ok. The greatest debacle of course occured yester day when I paid 90 bucks for my eyebrows. Is it a lot, you ask. Well, I usually pay 30. And all this, in the quest of that perfect pair of eyebrows. Across geographical barriers, my search continues...

And upper lip threading is quite another story. It's not unlikely to hear the screams and see tears fall evertime the threads moves swiftly over the lips. And manipulating the skin and holding it tight doesn't help much...

But I, and many others like me, despite the pain and anguish, continue to do it, month after month. because we are told it makes us prettier and cleaner. And no pain, I suppose, can deter women from their questy for eternal beauty.

January 20, 2009

Too much work...damn, I can't wait to get out...probably from the frying pan to the fire...but right now I prefer the fire to this goddamned frying pan, from which even the non-sticky fibre is peeling out...

And I need the internet at home!!!!!!!!!!

My big, big discovery of the day...drawing lines on MS Word...oh, and learning to manipulate text boxes...what was I doing all this while, when the world was busy changing?

First post 2009

It's been 10 days since 2009 started and life is passing prtty much in a dizzy here, with my plans of blogging dailyhaving got busted...but let me start with this...

I, or rather my class, has been told today that bloggers from Calcutta don't exactly make their presence felt in the cyberworld :( What made me regret was it was kinda true. The conclusion that came from the discussion was that Bengalis like their books (read: old fashioned) and are yet to take up blogging seriously...

Mumbai has a very dedicated set of bloggers, who blog consistently and constantly about everything that is happening around, discuss various issues, know each other, use online interactivity to the fullest to communciate in real time. Most of us on the other hand use blogs as our personal journals, writing poetry, discussing our day-to-day lives etc...which is absolutely fine, I mean, I do it too. But I guess, we should have a more proactive voice in issues that are occuring around us...especially considering the easy and cheap availability and wide reach reach of the internet. 

One can say of course that it was done in the case of Singur and Nandigram, and it is true, but it really isn't enough, when you compare it to the kind of information flow that happened on the net during 26/11 or for even day to day news among Mumbai bloggers...

I do think, after spending these last few years outside the city, that Calcuttans should voice their opinions louder. A statistical achievement of being a metropolitan isn't always enough after all...

Aftermath

All newspapers today have the same headline - the Taj and the Trident have reopened. An ad in a leading newspaper yesterday said - WELCOME HOME, AGAIN...with a picture of the Taj. HOME?! Surprising, ain't it...considering 90% people of Mumbai will never be able to afford a meal here. Almost 70% if not more won't even be allowed to enter the hotel, perhaps. All arguments accepted...The damage caused to the two hotels isn't permissible, but a hotel burning down and then reopening isn't more important than all the lives which have gone, or could have gone. But of course, the media is more interested in the hotels, and the grand parties, and the celebrities who attend the peace rallies, and mourn the destruction of their favourite fine dine restaurants...

21 blasts rocked Ahmedabad in July 2008...9 blasts in Bangalore...18 blasts across Assam on bhai phonta...173 people killed in Mumbai during 26/11, the maximum at VT...Why didn't VT make it to the front page headlines when people took the train 2 days later to work...nd why did Taj and Trident?...Why is it enough only when the Taj or the Trident has been attacked, because for the first time, an attack has made perpetrated on the powerful...why are leaders being criticized by people of a constituence, where the participation in last election was less than 20%? Whose fault is it that there are no good leaders? 

An attack on Taj is an attack on the 'Grand Old Lady of Mumbai'...fair enough...but what about the common man?!