romance is over-rated

i like the asian way of life.. the one that has no place for romantic love.. where everything happens in a day's work.. marriage, children, death, birth.. i will tell you why.. because romantic love ends up in hurt.. and hurt sometimes sucks the fun right out of existence.. so much so that, it is better to have never felt it. i never thought i would be the one to say this, never in a 100 years.. but here i am, on the eve of 2015, wishing that i had never set any store on romance at all.. not even a little bit.

going into a new year.. the first of my adult life where i feel fully disillusioned. i have had many many troubling years before... i remember my 2006 started with a stomach flu... at about 2 am on Jan 1st, i puked on my aunt's bed! i remember years in my last decade, where all i wanted was peace. i craved it like i were a buddhist monk. didn't want anything else. just a reason to live. but this year, i am so much better on the surface. life is good. but that romance is fully gone. there is no golden parachute. even in my worst days, i used to feel that something will happen. things will change. but now i have no such feeling. reality is fully sunk in. it has taken root, and grown a shoot :)

i feel a little sad at its loss.. at this growing up. but hey, at least i am not hurting right? and who knows, maybe someday i will forget too!

art of fighting nothing.

Trying to stop the flow of thoughts is like fighting with nothing.. imagine the frustration! you are kicking and screaming - but you have no idea what at! and you have no idea if you are winning or losing.. but at least as soon as a thought arises to torment me, i staunch it with another thought.. one focused on survival and pragmatism, and a desire to lead a happy, normal life. yes, yes, yes.. so for those of you who thought meditation was easy - think again. it is a skill... 

a vacation for sights and smells..

usually in the past for my vacations - I travelled, i read.. that's all i did.... my life was about experiences and not accumulations..

but this time, i checked the perfume aisle of a mall for the first time in my life.. to see what all the fuss was about! it was divine.. and then i bought art! worth 100's of $$$!!! wow.. phew... it was stressful.. but i picked 3 pics.. one of munnar tea gardens, one of a flower girl in kolkata and one of gate of india in twilight!

Wow - love these pics.. wouldn't mind staring at them a lot :) but it has been an interesting experience.. exploring new things... decorated my house for christmas... although it might seem marginal, doing new things is truly uplifting.. again i think it was the learning process of buying art rather than owning it that will give me joy!

on a side note, i wonder if staring at audrey hepburn for long periods of time will make me as thin as her :/

memories have quality!

today i realized a lot of things... love has no place for ego.. survival is king.. that memories have quality.. good memories last a long time while ordinary ones fade pretty quickly.. its like china! perhaps its because we keep the good ones in a special cabinet and use it with care :)

aaahhhh... today i wanted to buy a picture for my bedroom.. i woke up thinking that i will buy some art.. that's what i will do today.. something useful.. and then i did a lot of research on art.com and picked this one below.. but while I was searching for it, I saw a lot of audrey hepburn photos.. and thought why? why is she the icon? why breakfast at tiffany's?

and of course to understand it, I saw that movie! and then Sabrina - to understand why Audrey was so famous.. and I didn't quite understand Sabrina - why they fell in love was so un memorable, it left a bad taste in my mouth.. and so I started seeing an affair to remember :).. and realized that both Sabrina and this movie had lots of french influence.. which is so funny... and then i heard la vie un rose.. beautiful song.. and ended the day without any art to hang.. but hey! here is it below.. adorning my blog.. its all in the family (a dialogue from Sabrina :D)

bridges of madison county...

<from long long ago>

when being drawn to familiarity can get to an extreme, one becomes stagnant... but thats what i am when it comes to a few things which have touched my heart once upon a time... maybe it's because i realize that things may not touch my heart the same way again or maybe because i realize thats its simply not the same heart that it used to be before.....

anyways..

prayer

<from long long ago>

here is one of the most comprehensive and intensely sincere prayers that I have come across.. We used to sing this every week when I was in school, but I never understood or appreciated these powerful words...

just saying this once everyday will make our problems seem trifle.. and

This is my prayer to thee, my lord- strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart.

Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifle.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.

a satiated narcissist..

<from long long ago>

my day has been spent in a rosy haze at the response my forlorn post had gathered.. thank you.. contrary to some of the comments, i do think that i am speaking to an audience that is intimately linked to me.. i dunno why.. i am unable to write truly anonymously.. i need to know that i have an audience.. the best part is i received praise.. hurray!! on how i capture complex thoughts very simply.. yeyy..

anyways.. i think i will soon run out topics to write about the rate at which I am writing these days (that sounds like what my friends say about how much I can talk - that has not reduced at all - so i hope this doesn't stop either!!) today, i had to do this self-assessment as a part of some training.. and i was amazed at the all the extremities in my profile.. i really don't care whether i am independent or interdependent or anything.. but how can i have 5 out of 6 in the extremes? i compared myself to others in my org - but no one had even 2 extremes - forget 5.. this gave me pause - i consider myself a mellow, easy going person without any extremities.. but my profile showed to be a person with strong opinions one way or the other..

where did I go wrong in my self-assessment? or is my suspicion that all such profiling are crap truly right?

have a good day friends - and stop voting against my name- i am really getting narcissistic!! i was debating between writing about my god - shah rukh khan and myself, and I won out :) - but i really do wanna write about shah rukh khan and why i love him so much.. you know, i had his poster on my wall for the 4 years that i did my undergrad - its like his face is more etched in my brain than my mother's! i have some theories as to why i like him so much (clue: impertinence) - which are not simple like any other fan's - but has the amount of thought that an iitian alone could put in.. and mentioning iit reminds me of the other post that i have been meaning to write - on the boy-girl chemistry in iit - why it is so complex and why it can happen ONLY in iit..

watch out for more tomorrow.. have a good day (that's rachel style - i am picking up the TV host style, ain't I?? :) )

your satiated narcissist,
m

if you forget me..

<from long long ago>

the great indian authors always spoke about love as this universal feeling and all encompassing etc... these are famous.. but passion.. like the one kalidasa writes about, which is a pretty selfish feeling and confused so many times with the love that spiritual gurus talk about, thanks to the gray areas in the english language.. is another thing altogether.. it has a high, a low, lust, vengence, anger, pettiness and more than anything ego.. it is this passion that pablo neruda talks about and calls it love (again thanks to the confusing language).. i love passion (pardon the oxymoron, it is unintended).. i really do.. there is a certain possessiveness and zeal that goes with it that makes my heart soar.. and seems to make my life worth living.. so there it goes, it feeds my ego, it makes me forget.. it pulls me into the maya and gives me power.. wow.. i really do love it..

enjoy this one - so shameless in its egoism and so true in its penning of the feeling.. kudos to neruda..


If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

my shortest love affair...

<from long long ago>

i am an emotional person... i prefer the glow to the glare, fiction to fact and imagination to intellect.. especially in the lonely moments - you know the ones which come without any notice for a split second and disappear before you can register it.. but leaves you with a feeling of insignificance.. as if we were no more than one among the billions and billions of people who have inhabited the earth before us and the billions that are to come..

it's almost too much for me to take.. this fear of insignificance and this feeling of utter loneliness.. that there is not one soul who can be with me in all my moments and witness all my moods.. it is at these times of sudden clarity of my own profound insignificance that i feel vulnerable.. that i fall in love.. if only for a moment.. with that stranger.. with whom i locked eyes for more than the usual second, while i was crossing the street.. the real relationships with real people in my life suddenly stops feeling real, and this imaginary relationship with this unnamed stranger with whom i felt that spark of life.. is more real than any reality..

phew.. so laughable is loyalty.. that constrains this outpouring of love and life.. if only for this short short time period.. tamil poets have tried to capture this i think.. from avalum nokinal, annalum nokkinan to this song here..

the magic of that otrai parvai.. enjoy it..
m

Narumugaye narumugaye nee oru naaligai nillaai
sengani ooriya vaay thiranthu nee oru thiru mozhi sollaai
attrai thingal annillavil netri tharala neer vadiya kottra poigal aadugaiyil neeya

Thirumaganae thirumaganae nee oru naaligai paarai
vennira puraviyil vanthavanae vel vizhi mozhigal kellaai
attrai thingal annilavil kottra poigai aadugaiyil ottrai paarvay paarthavannum neeya

mangai maanvizhi ambukal en maarthulaithath enna
paandi naadanai kanda en mannam passaley kondath enna
nillaavillai paartha vannum kanaavilley thondrum innum
illaithaen thudithaen porruka villai
idaiyil megallai irrukavillai

yaayum yaayum yaaragiyaro nendru naerndhathenna
oray oru theendal saythaai ooyir kodi poothath enna
Sembullam saerndhaa neer thulli pol
ambudai nenjam kallanthath enna

spam.. but good spam...

i can't believe i am doing this! you by now probably know that i love calvin more than anything.. if i were to have a son, i always think of him as being like calvin.. wouldn't it be so entertaining (its fine, don't act shocked, everyone has children to entertain themselves)...

thought i will post some of my all time favorites here.. the only problem is i love so many of them, that it's going to so hard to choose.. but like a true fan.. i will list some here and spread his glory! my favorites are where he defies being 6 year old and makes comments that are befitting of a 60 year old...

You know how people are. They only recognize greatness when some authority confirms it.

Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles.

The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little pratice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!

To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible.

I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.

So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?

I used to make original snowmen, but it was time consuming, hard work. So I said, heck, this is crazy! Now I crank out crude imitations of what's already popular! It takes no time or thought, and most people don't care about the difference, anyway! And what good is originality if you can't crank it out?

I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life ... Procrastinating and rationalizing.

Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. (i for one, follow this without fail.. i don't shop, cook, pay bills, clean or do laundry... just sit and do all the nothing that i have been wanting to do the whole week :) )

hope it made you laugh as it makes me forget everything else.. now that's good maya..

maalika

accepting objectivity...

if i had not already started it, i would have named this post "falling in love with objectivity" what with my propensity to make even going to the loo a romantic endeavor.. but yes, i am going to embrace objectivity as it is but the sensible thing to do... the first step is to not put words to experiences.. this way you keep the experience separate from the power of words thereby not freezing the experience in any form, but just letting it flow through you...

where i have to keep my mouth shut, i shall let vairamuthu bridge the gap for me.. (yes, very very sneaky of me!)

nee annaikkinra vaelaiyil uyirp poo vedukkenru malarum
nee parugaadha poadhilae uyirp poo sarugaaga ularum
un pudavai mundhaanai saaindhadhil indha bhoomi pooppooththadhu
idhu kamban paadaadha sindhanai un kaadhoadu yaar sonnadhu

pen illaadha oorilae adi aan pookaetpadhillai
pen illaadha oorilae kodidhaan pooppooppadhillai
iru kaigal theendaadha penmaiyai un kangal pandhaadudhoa
malar manjam kaanaadha pennilaa en maarboadu vandhaadudhoa

vazhga tamizh
maalika

hazy bdays..

<from many years ago>

it was my birthday yesterday.. and i was alone.. as you can imagine, it's not a good combination.. my colleagues were nice enough to take me to an early dinner, celebrate and i had a margarita.. and i was drinking after about 6 months.. i was dying with the anticipation of the first sip and the heady haze of my drink.. and it was great..

but after that things didn't exactly go uphill.. i had to drive back home, so i couldn't drink all that much (i so miss the drunken auto rides of mine in india) and when i came back to the hotel, i had no idea what I was going to do.. so i slept it off and woke up to attend a couple of meetings with folks in asia.. and then started the real problem..

the vibes of hotel rooms in general affect my nerves extremely badly.. the light is too yellow, the air too cold and the big beds too well made.. and there i sat wishing i had someone to talk to all night.. my sister came online - and i said good night, i was not in a mood to chat.. (with her!) and then i caught a friend of mine and chatted for sometime.. and then he had to sleep too.. (of course.. not everyone was crazy like me with a penchant to talk all night and actually enjoy the delicious languor it brings the next day).. and i tossed and turned in my bed.. till my memories inexorably drew me to other places and to other times where i was not alone.. and leaving me to wonder how long it takes for memories to fade..

looks like as long as i am alive and unconsciously striving to sustain my memories, they won't fade.. such is the diabolical nature of life.. anyhow.. here i am.. 28 and none too wise..

maalika

this time that year!

(a blog from 2009!)

i don't have much to write about, but want to write something, and i thought I will write a travel story.. so i lived for 1 month in london.. this time 2 years ago.. technically the third country where i spent any significant amount of time.. and i loved it.. i thought i will write about some of the things that i loved about the place..

- the trains.. there was a train station just opposite my apartments.. just getting to travel to and fro work by train brought back all the romance of public travel..
- the Thames.. so our house had a full wall made of glass - the living room and bedroom that opened into a balcony facing the thames (we were charged $6000 for the 1 month for the apartment - so you can imagine) - and wow! did i love it.. every day we walked from vauxhall to westminster.. with the views of the bridges and castles that i had only read about..
- flowers on the roadside - they have these flower vases everywhere.. filled with a profusion beautiful flowers.. it's definitely a sight not to be missed..
- accents.. i can go on endlessly about the accents.. but when I was there, I had work with people all over the UK - and over phone many times.. it was a lesson in accents.. if you think the various indian accents are the worst it can get.. wait till you go to london.. but they are beautiful and make for an enjoyable time, just mapping the accent to the location they are from..
- the black cabs.. can you imagine a more quaint symbol of history than those fancy black cabs??
- beer on weekdays.. the most absolutely fabulous part.. there are pubs everywhere.. and you can drink on weekdays without people thinking "she is extreme!".. it's the norm!

there are so many others.. the theatres and museums.. the plazas and parks.. women with immaculate dressing sense and good hair cuts (london's where I first chopped off my hair!) and of course, the friends with whom I put night outs in the city.. the reason my 1 month seemed longer... i probably averaged 4 hours of sleep per day in that 1 month..

hope that inspired you to visit london sometime!
m

a sample of cheesy poetry!

(poetry from 2009 :D)

it's in the smile,
the unspoken warmth in the eyes,
it's in the high you get,
even when just talking over the phone..

it's in the interlocked fingers,
the contentment that brings a sigh..
it's in hearing the words
that you most wanted to hear..

it's in the desperate need,
in the sleep sacrificed for conversation..
it's in the peace you feel,
even when it's madness all around..

it's in the time,
that seems to stretch every minute
it's in the time,
that has flown by so fast,

it's in the limitless joy,
when you think about him - even if it's years later..
it's in the never ending memories
that you simply cannot erase..

i never knew
that it's all in the sharing..
i never knew
that this was it..
i never knew
until it was all too late..

m

going going gone!

(a blog from 2009 :D)

Over the past few days, I am noticing that my happiness index is increasing.. for instance, my biggest problem right now is which watch to buy.. when that happens, you know you have reached a pinnacle of peace.. and i like it..

the only thing is, as I am getting more and more settled with the ups and downs of my life and watch my friends get married and have babies (oh, the cutest of them! I don't log in to facebook anymore, cause all i want to do is pinch the cheeks of these babies, which I of course can't!), i feel like my youth is fading and am reaching the happy middle age of wanting kids, wanting to watch them grow.. and am actually feeling dissatisfied with all the free time and the spontaneous traveling and the books and movies and of course the blogging.. it's almost like every once in a while i am roused from nostalgia into actually taking action.. and when this happens, i feel propelled.. call it nature.. call it something else.. i feel the momentum behind me.. as if i am part of an avalanche.. i felt it when i got married.. like it was inevitable.. like i had no control over it.. like it was not my decision to make in the first place..

this is exactly similar.. i feel the momentum.. to have a baby.. even though it's a thankless job, and i lose my time, money and freedom.. it's absurd and counter intuitive.. at least to me.. but i feel it.. that's why i am doing it all.. everything that i can't do later.. as if to prepare.. to live the most.. enjoy the frivolities.. as much as i can.. before i will be constrained.. it's interesting to feel the rush.. preparing myself mentally, physically, spiritually.. it's what al koran says, when you want something so completely, everything you do assumes that you got it already.. like not feeling guilty about the extra bedroom, the bigger car - i might need it all soon..

it's fascinating to see myself prepare unconsciously and suddenly be aware that i am doing all these things.. and that's probably why i feel that my youth.. as i know it.. independent, care-free - is going going gone!

maalika

listen you girl!

there once was a cute and bossy girl,
who read a lot, and in particular,
read a lot that the love of her life
will someday sweep her off her feet
into a world of adventure
expand her horizons to things
she never even dreamt of,
and just as she kept busy growing up
she met a shy and awkward
young man and they became friends
she knew of course that he was no
knight in shining armor, just
ordinary and simple,
and so they spent the days,
in a warm cocoon, talking about
nothing in particular,
and she knew she was heard
and so even a simple cup of tea
was transformed into an
experience of intimacy
made memorable by the sweetness
of it all and then at this moment
someone knocked at her door,
and she opened to find at last
the knight that she always knew
would appear someday
and he was ready take her away
but even as she was getting ready
to go away and feel the cold wind
on her face, the rush of excitement
in her blood, she knew that
she would miss the warmth
of the old friendship
with her shy and young friend
and as the years passed by
she realized that the love of your life
could come in many forms
and didn't always ride on horses,
that he wasn't always brave
and didn't always know just what to say
or what to do but that you sure could
know by the temperature of your heart :)