quotable quotes

You see things and ask “why”. I see things that never were and ask “Why not?”  

                                                                                                                -George Bernard Shaw

 

Do you ever wonder?

About how your life will shape up?

About how life will treat you whenyou are old and gray?

About how healthy will you be at 65? And how you will look?and if  you will  still have all your teeth?

About how loved you will be when you are not in your prime?And what people will think and say about you when you are gone?

About if you will marry and have kids?

About if the person you marry will turn out the way you hoped and prayed he will?

About if you will be able to raise your kids exactly the way you planned it in your head? And if they will turn out the way you hope they will?

About being able to handle the responsibilities that piles on with the age and the kilos?

About being able to tackle the challenges life throws your way successfully?

About having enough money to never have to depend on anyone?

About maturing as you age?

About never failing your loved ones, never letting them down, no matter how busy or hard your own life may turn out to be?

About how many genuine friends will you still have ten years from now?

About if you will always live in the same city or town?

About how successful you will be professionally?

About how you will manage to never sacrifice your values and still get to the top of the professional ladder?

About if you will end up working in the same company forever? Kind of like your grandfather, and probably your father too. Loyal to the core. Or will you adopt the trend of the times and job-hop at the slightest hint of better opportunities and fatter paycheques?

About never forgetting where you came from, never losing touch with reality, never becoming insensitive to the needs of others, never losing humility, should life be kind enough to send success, money and power your way?

About if you will ever have the luxury of owning a pet?

Speculating about with future is a preoccupation with most. Why is living in the present so difficult? Why do we always want to know what the future holds? Why is it nearly impossible to cultivate the patience required to wait and watch as life unfolds its plans for us? Isn’t that what everyone advices us? To live in the present  is to be truly happy.  We even have a song that tells us “whatever will be , will be, the future’s not ours to see”.  And yet the urge to see goes beyond the boundaries of rational thought. We may intellectually know we should worry about the future, but it doesnt stop us from doing exactly that!

No matter how blurred our long-distance vision may be, we know for a fact that our future is going to be a mixed bag of good, bad and downright ugly. Why then, do we have to know what exactly the good, bad and ugly is going to be? Is it because we don’t like the unknown? And that we feel more in control if we know what’s going to happen? Whatever it is, it sure makes taking up Astrology a very profitable profession!! I am buying myself a stack of books and making a professional shift. I shall be a self-taught astrologer. In my urgency to make that shift, I shall in fact start looking for clients right away by publish an advertisement here. I can sense it, my fortunes will be made in fortune telling.

Do you feel you dont know where your life is leading? Do you want to know how to get that job of your dreams? Will your son do his engineering from the US? Set an appointment and  visit  Mandiradevi  to find answers to these nagging questions, at her Astrology for Life Mumbai office from 9.30 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday. Bring along your astrological chart. Charges-Rs.100 per question only. Telephonic consultation for regular clients also available.  Please contact only after September 2009. The astrologer is presently on a study leave.

 

NB: When I started this post the skies were overcast, the weather gloomy and my mood serious. Somewhere towards the end, the caffine from my hot cuppa coffee kicked in and the mood improved considerably. Hence the strange twist.Please adjust. I promise to keep the  mood of the next post uniform all through. As a parting shot, let me ask you- what do you generally speculate about?

 

Resorted

to sending me on a training.Thats what my company did last week. Which basically meant I got to bunk office and live and learn all things centred around “personal excellence” while staying at The Resort at Aksa. For those of you unfamiliar with the word Aksa, let me inform you that Aksa is the name of a beach  situated in western Mumba.Till recent times  it was infamously known for the large number of people drowning and dying, but after Priyanka Chopra and Salman Khan sang a song with the word “Aksa” in the lyrics, people began associating Aksa more with Bollywood than the drowning incidents.  That to my mind is  a good thing, even if the song itself  is actually quite terrible.

So as per the requirements on the training,  from Sunday till Tuesday I kept away from the office, in a comfortable, peaceful environment conducive to learning.  I was helped to polish up existing skills and learn new ones that would help me “attain personal excellence” in everything I do.  Since the company sponsored it, I assume when they say “everything” they basically mean “everything at work”.  The programme itself was  so-so. Some modules almost succeeded in killing me with boredom, some nudged my  brain cells a bit and a small fraction forced me to sit up straight and listen. But then this is how most HR training sessions are- a mixed bag of the good and the bad. More exciting than the training was the venue. I have never been to Aksa. Its ridiculously far from where I live and I am not mad about the sea anyway. But when I got the opportunity to visit this particular beach I realised I liked it. It wasnt disgustingly crowded, the way Juhu chowpatty tends to be and neither was it shockingly dirty, as all beaches in Bombay are gauranteed to be. It could have appeared that way because we made a trip to the beach on a working day. Its unlikely to  find many people sauntering around the beach at 7 pm on a Monday evening.  Thats not to say that the beach was deserted. A few people dotted the coastline- just the right number of people to make you feel safe to venture out all by yourself but not too many that it became uncomfortably crowded.  We finished our training session by the time evening fell and headed towards the blue-ish waters. It had been drizzling all day. The floating clouds accompanied the cool winds. The waves lapped at the feet of the wet sand and when they receeded, left behind assorted sea shells in their wake.

Have you notice the hour that herald the night is especially peaceful? Its a time when the day officially draws to a close, when animals return home,  when people wind down after a long day, when day light turns soft before it turns off all together. There is just something so calm and soothing about the time. We were at the beach at that exact time. I soaked in the vibes as I walked along the beach. The skyline was so beautiful that I was forced to take a few pictures. Its at moments like these that I wonder why I own a phone with jazzy business features that I never use, and a crappy camera that I do use, rather frequently I might add!! I really should have listened to my father.He wanted me to take along the camera.I told him “Come on! No one takes pictures in a training, dad!!” So here I am sharing with you not so great pictures of an evenning that was, in reality, quite great. Yes, I have learnt my lesson. From now on I am going to be carting that camera everywhere I go.

The horizon.

The sand, after the waves have swept by. Do not ask me what those blackish lines are. I thought it was some sort of coloured particles. Someone said the words “sewage water” and “into the sea”. Thirty seconds after that I was out of the water. The visit to the beach was followed up with a Dettol bath.

The horizon again.

The receeding waves.

A shot of the sand. Why, do you, think people make a visit to the beach in high heels??

Fat fish in a artificial pond at the hotel.

 

 

Change?

The father says she can study but she shouldn’t work. Working women are not the family’s tradition and tradition are sacrosanct.
I say who are you to decide whether she should work or not? If you are getting her an education only to get her a good match, I suggest you don’t. Let the engineering seat go to someone who will really use it. But then you decided what she will study, where she will study, who her friends will be and what she will wear, so yes, it makes sense to you to decide if she can work or not.

The NRI says things look good but his parents insist that the horoscopes must match for a marriage to take place.As per the family’s tradition nothing proceeds unless the  horoscopes match perfectly.
I say if that’s as forward thinking and global you are, you aren’t forward thinking and global enough for me!

The mother says its for  her 20 year old son to date a “wild” 16 year old Christian, just so long as he doesn’t ever intend marrying her. Marriage, whenever it takes place, would have to be with one who qualifies- a “homey” Brahmin from a “good” family. He can have his fun in the mean while. What had he to lose? He’s the boy after all. The girl’s parents should worry.
I say I have no words. If you think its alright for your son to have a “good time” with someone else’s daughter because he wouldn’t ever have to bear the consequences, I think you need a paradigm shift. That’s how things work in your world but that’s not how they should work. Your son is as responsible for any action as that girl. If anything, more so- he’s older. And I can’t believe you are actually bringing up your child that way- to be so disrespectful toward women. Its so disgusting I don’t know what to say.

The mother-in-law say she doesnt expect her daughter-in-law to give up her job just because she’s married her son.  She has accepted the trend of the naya zamana.  She doesn’t care if she works full time, just so long as she makes two types of breakfast to meet the fussy family’s needs before going to office and comes home in the evening to prepare another two types of dinner, cleans up afterwards, indulges in chit-chat to keep her entertained in the evening and then spends time to help her child finish up his home work. It isnt just the immediate family. The odd relative that drops by on almost every weekend must be shown the best hospitality as well. Paid work is all fine, but she can’t ignore houseworkand commitments to the family, can she?
I say its unfair to treat your own  daughter like a queen when you treat someone else’s daughter like a maid. A human being is a human being, whether born to you or not. How can you differentiate between two  and be so guileless about it?

The employer says we don’t have too many women in the team because of  the work we do- its too demanding, women don’t stick around long enough, don’t cope too well.
I say we don’t give the facilities required, we don’t make adjustments to accommodate family needs, we don’t pay enough, we don’t care.

They say the times have changed. I say we are fooling ourselves. Tell me just what has changed.

Note: the matter for the post has been collected from real life conversations or incidents that I  have encountered that have left me shocked and upset. Yes, I am as disappointed with the world as you are. Do we really need to keep discovering it as we grow up? Childhood oblivion was bliss. Literally.

 

Sahi nahi

I think it was the ad that did it. ‘MTNL hai toh sahi hai’ it said. It lead my unworldly and innocent father to wrongly believe that MTNL was indeed the right choice for us. We had an MTNL phone to begin with but somewhere along the line we collected an internet connection and an IPTV by the same company.  Big mistake. Never put all your eggs in one basket. All thanks to MTNL we now have a fairly complicated situation at home. The IPTV and the internet have what can be described as an avoidance relationship. Simply put the two don’t work well together. Ditto for the internet connection and the telephone line. In my humble opinion, it’s the internet causing the problem. If you have the internet on, don’t switch on the TV because all you will get is odd looking shapes moving in painfully slow motion across the screen backed with a broken sound track. If you want to talk to a friend while another family member browses the internet, forget about it unless you are sure you are equipped with excellent concentration that can tune out that strange background noise the internet connection creates. Life is now a matter of constantly making choices for us.   The TV or the internet? The phone or the internet? And occasionally, a choice between the phone and the TV thrown in as well. Making choices that are acceptable to all family members at all times is stressful.

The unexpected developments of the last few days have done a lot to reduce the stress at home. We aren’t being forced to make choices and just that seems to have made our life so much easier. When only one of the three services you have subscribed to works, there is no question of making a choice, you see. The present scenario is such that only MTNL’s telephone seva works, all others are dead. Reasons unknown. I suspect the maid yanked a cord or two in one of her recent dusting expeditions. I don’t know for sure but right now she is the most likely suspect. With both the parents being out of town and my working full time, I refuse to lodge a complaint with MTNL.I am just going to pray, and pray real hard that whatever when wrong fixes itself. Feel free to join in the prayers. If you have a magic wand, pass that over, will ya? If neither prayers nor magic wands are your thing, then I suggest you simply wait for the crisis to resolve itself. And while you are waiting, I sincerely urge you to see this. Shakira at her very best, guaranteed to get a few laughs outta you. Yes, you got that right laughs. Don’t waste time now, hop over and take a look.

Note: I think you all know this but I think I should mention nevertheless. The person in the video is not a relative, friend or acquaintence of mine. The said person was discovery courtsey a person at office.

 

Letters long due

Did you ever notice the underlying similarity between relatives and colleagues? You can’t choose either of them. You just get what the Lord thinks you should, and you have to make do, as best as you can, with your share. Unlike friends. Those you can choose. Well, at least most of the times. With colleagues and relatives you can’t always speak your mind. In fact, you shouldn’t. These are often complicated people and situations and generally there is too much at stake to risk it. So if you are smart, you won’t. I don’t. That’s why I have a whole list of things to say to people at work that I haven’t said as yet. Don’t think I will ever say it to their face but I will get it outta my system by saying it to them here. Some of you will call this post rubbish, and it is, especially if you may find nothing you can relate to. Other may call it brilliant –that’s if you suffer the way I do. Either way, I am pouring it all out here.

 

Dear Beauty Queen,

Do you remember any speeches from beauty pageants or any latest interview from one of the top Bollywood heroines? Remember what they say? Beauty comes from inside. Its not the hours we gym or the food we eat, we look this way because we feel this way from inside. I am thinking since all it takes is thinking the right things, you have been wasting your (and our) time everyday.

You come to office at dot 9 and rush to the loo. While most people take a cursory look at themselves in the mirror, brush their hair, touch up their make up and head to their desks, you preen and pamper yourself. First you open your extra large bag and pull out the face wash, yes, a face wash, Pond’s if I am not mistake, lather your face briskly and then splash cool tap water over it. The higher the velocity of the water hitting your face, the better your face will clean up and the prettier you will look. That’s the only way to explain the kind of rain drops your face washing showers on unsuspecting colleague standing in the vicinity. The vigorous face washing is followed by face wiping, an equally vigorous exercise. Honestly, if I were in your place, by now I have either grown tired of all the hyper activity or gotten bored of how long the entire procedure took. Fortunately neither of the two seem to happen to you. You march on the path of enternal beauty with a determined mind and  the essential beauty devices.

Face wiped clean, you apply a thick layer of some sort of liquid foundation and follow that up with a compact (or is it called a campac ?I am not too sure. But its Revlon that I am sure of.) Pat, dab, pat, dab and then a distinct snap to announce to all the inhabitants of the loo that the basis of beauty has been laid. Its then the turn of the eye line (colour of choice), the lipstick (again, colour of choice), bindi (colour and design of choice) and the perfume(in sufficient quantities to choke up people near by.) A close look in the mirror to check if all’s well and then, a second look at a distance of 1.25 feet, to check if the impact at distance is as good as that at close quarters.

Packing up the beauty products takes you only five minutes and after that you flash a smile at…no one.. cause everyone has  finish up and left by then, turn sharply on your high heels and tick tock off to your desk.

I have a few essential questions for you, Beauty Queen and I would have loved to ask you these up front, but we hardly know each other so it would be rather rude of me. A- have you ever bothered to find out if fierce slashing of water can cause skin damage? B- why do you think other women in the office come all “beautified” to office? Do they have some motive behind it? And C-how do you justify the 27 minutes you spend making yourself perfect to the HR dept? Its office time gone waste, isn’t it? Oh wait! you don’t have to explain it to anyone. You are HR!

Your washed out colleague,
Mandira

 

Dear deported resident of Antarctica,

It’s been hard for you to adjust to Mumbai; I can tell by the way you feel all sweaty and uncomfortable when someone sets the air-conditioning to anything beyond 22 deg.C. You get all sulky and frowny, and either instruct someone “AC badhao” or if you are in an impatient mood, do it yourself. Mostly you are too hierarchical to do it such a small job yourself so you bellow your orders sitting reclining in  your chair at any junior who has the misfortune of being close at hand  It’s a different matter that others on the floor have a threshold for tolerating cold temperatures much lower than yours. You are the King of Antarctica and your wish is our command.

When will you ever adjust to hot and humid Mumbai? Never, I think. Let me invest in that Kullu shawl. Now seems like an opportune time.

Your frozen subject,
Mandira

 

Dear Copy Cat,

You love me don’t you? That’s the only way I can explain why you get clothes stitched like mine in colours I like, why you buy shoes shockingly similar in style to mine, why you speak in my “accent” (whatever that is) while talking to others on the phone and why you like to hang out with people who are my friends in office. Its almost endearing, how much you look up to me. The key word being almost. In the past few months its gone well beyond the limits of “endearing” and become “annoying”. But you don’t realise it, do you? Your behaviour reminds me of that game we played as kids where we manically repeated whatever someone(mostly a sibling or cousin) said. That made the conversation sound something like this “give me that” “give me that” Right not” “Right now” “Ok that’s enough!!” “Ok that’s enough!!”  Infinite fun for the one doing the copying, infuriating for the one being copied. I wish you’d put yourself in my shoes one day and understand just why its not fun being copied all the time. I understand you do it out of deep admiration and love, but for my sake try to hold yourself back please.

Almost smothered in love and admiration,
Mandira

 

Dear Wise One,

You have an opinion on everything- the weather, the “right” way bring up kids, the “best” age for me to marry, the “problems” of inter-religious marriages, Sonia Gandhi, BJP, nuclear missiles, apricots, viral fevers… I think I will stop now. The list is endless. You insist on being heard. If ignored or avoided, you do everything in your power to get our attention and when you have it, you make your point. Most of the times your point is actually our point because you simply take little portions of all that we have said about the subject so far, thread it all together and present it to us as your view.  I don’t quite get the motive behind what you do, but I am more than willing to ignore that, and give you extra marks for your enthusiasm. You add a fair doze of “value” and “judgement” to each little piece that you throw back at us. A lot of “shoulds” and “musts” and “wrongs” and “rights” and a couple of “haaws” thrown in to show disapproval for anything that goes against the grain of age old societal traditions. I guess with the addition of all that, the thoughts and words that you once stole from us become yours.

You also have a fabulously selective memory- so selective that at times we wonder if anything gets saved in that hard disk of your head at all. You come to my table and leave your pen. You leave the papers that you got signed by boss on her table. You borrow a lunch coupon from me and return it to some other colleague the following day. How you remember you to pick up your daughter from day care in the evening is a mystery.

You might have noticed that there are times when we don’t laugh at your jokes. Its not coz we don’t like you, we just don’t get your jokes.  But that doesnt stop you from laughing your guts out. We do make a pretty sight when we do that at the lunch table. Five people sitting together, plates piled high with food, one laughing so hard that she has problems breathing, the other looking at her quizzically and then, out of the necessity to not look like foolish, sending a restrained smile her way. Why we feel like we are the fools for not joining in your merriment,  merriment that we don’t really understand, I do not know for sure. But I do know this with certainty- we are so glad we have you, Oh Wise One. One is quite enough. Two would have killed us.

In eternal merriment,
Mandira

 

 

 

Soon

……is a relative word. When the boss says “I want this soon” she’s actually  saying “ I want this yesterday”. When the mother says “You should clear the kitchen soon.” She means get off the couch and clean up now.  When the maid says she will clean away the cobwebs on the walls “soon” she actually means never. When I say I will do this task soon, I mean I will do it sometime in the future, exact date, day and time unknown.

That’s precisely why you can’t say I am late for this tag. I only told Monika I would take up the tag “soon”. Today is soon  As per the tag I am to put my self in a man’s shoes and come up with a list of five women I would find attractive. Its not an easy task when you don’t quite know how you would be as a man cause you’ve  never been one. So what I am going to do is make up a list of five women that I like either for their beautify, intelligence or talent. I am sure if I were a man I would be attracted to independent, talented, pretty women. Anybody would!

Sushmita Sen-  makes it on the list for a number of reasons. A- she’s pretty, b- she has a mind of her own and is what I would categorise as intelligent and c- she’s single and  has adopted a baby!(don’t tell me other women have too. How many of them are famous Indian women that we all are familiar with?) There arent too many pictures of the lady with her kiddo on the web so we will have to make do with this not-so-great pic.

Gaytri Devi- has been shamelessly whacked off Solilio’s post. She  mentioned her and when I saw that name on her post, I just had to have it on mine too. Thats because  the Maharani is too pretty, too poised , too graceful to ignore. Plus she goes with the title Maharani, making her sound all regal and impressive. Thanks for the idea Solilio, I might have not thought of her had I not read your list!

Hema Malini- now not then. Then was when she was she was a hoarse sounding, strange accent speaking, slightly squarish looking actress. Now is when she is a diva. Try not killing me for saying unkind things about Ms.Malini when she was young, I sincerely dint like anything about her when she was in her prime. I think she is one of those women who are like wine- they get better with age. I think the present Hema Malini is what dreams are made off- she’s dignified (she was that back then as well), in fabulous physical state, has skin better than anyone half her age,dances beautifully, loves her two kids and looks genuinely happy.  I dont know too many 50 plus who can do all that.

Asha Bhosle- with talent like that, who can resist?

Madhubala- I am not even going to explain why she’s on the list, you know exactly why.

All pictures courtsey-who else?Google images.

I notice this has turned out to me more of a list of women I admire than a list of women I would be attracted to. But what the heck, a tag is a tag and you are allowed to tweak it a bit. Consider this one tweaked.  

I don’t know if you’d agree to this, but I think Raja Ravi Verma made some of the best portraits of Indian women ever. Take for example these three-

Lady with a lamp

Milkmaid

Draupadi

Picture credit-naturemagics.

These are some of the most expressive pictures of women I have ever seen. What do you think?

 

Because no one likes coming last…

…I dint leave a comment on IHM’s award ceremony post. It wasn’t for the lack of manners. I was brought up the right way I believe. It was for the strong dislike of being last. No one I ever met likes being last, your truly included. I don’t think I have every come in an absolute last in anything I’ve done. Studies, sports, painting classes, recitation, the usual stuff all parents and schools get kids to do sometime till the age of 18, after which the kid typically graduates from school, flies the coop and makes the conscious rational decision to what only what pleases him/her. No wait! The doing only- what- I- want happened at 14 didnt it??Annyway, lets get back on track. I staunchly refuse to mention the word dancing when I speak of things I dint come last it. Its not because I am afraid of admitting how terrible I am at it. I was never really in a competitive situation where there was a possibility of coming last..So  it doesn’t really count and doesnt require a mention here. I would also not mention swimming here. But thats coz  I never really learnt to swim properly. You can’t say you dint do well at a skill you dint really possess, right?

Just because I said I haven’t ever come last at the things I did, doesn’t automatically translate to mean I came first. Far from it. I generally managed to find a slot somewhere close to the middle, often mildly tilted to the higher end of the spectrum. Not phenomenal, I know, but good enough to make my parents and me think I did respectfully well.  I didn’t have a problem with being average. Still don’t. It suits me just fine. It keeps expectations, which in many cases can and will kill you, to a minimal. I am happy without the ridiculous, taxing expectations that “high performers” have to deal with it. No, sir, I want that not.  I am totally ok with average. Just don’t make me last.

I landed on IHM’s blog after the all important post had received 90 comments and she had already published a new post. Unwilling to be the lasts to say thank you, I said nothing at all. If I were to believe Ronan Keating, I would say it best if I said nothing at all. Unfortunately not being the kind to say nothing for extended periods of time, I will say what I want to, here and now. Thank you IHM for beautiful awards!!! I display my badges of honour with much pride. I dint think you’d notice I am a header changer,IHM. Why, I hardly every change my header !  ;)

I gave you the Friends award sometime back and you gave it back to me. That means this is now officially a mutual friendship..unless you did it  accidentally . Please prepare yourself for an onslaught of multicoloured friendship bands and red roses and cards on Friendship Day.

You also thought I was a lovely blogger and that I think is pretty cool.

And to top it all , you though I was creative! “Creativity resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc. Imaginative: creative writing.” I am not too sure I can be called creative in the true sense of the word. I mean look around, there are so many bloggers infinitely more creative than me. So  I am certainly not exceptional.  I guess I fall  right along the median of the bloggers sample slightly tilted towards the higher end of the spectrum. Who cares where I fall? The bottom line is I made the cut. I am officially Kreative now!Yoo hoo!!!!

Now the tough part. Who do I pass on the awards too? I think IHM covered everyone. Umm… I will skip the Friends award because I already passed that one on, that leaves me with the Kreative award and the Lovely Blogger award. I shall pass on the Kreative Blogger award to Crafty( for obvious reasons), Homecooked(again for obvious reasons), Chirag (for the great headers), Parul (for making the simple things of life sound funny) and Solilio (for the great headers and the cool looking RSS icons). Moving on to the  Lovely Blogger Award. This one  goes to N(you are getting it only coz we were friend before we turned bloggers, lets get that clear, ok? :P), Laxmi(for all the smses and email that you field to sort of my baking issues.. I still maintain you dont post often enough but you do make a lovely buddy), Dipali( for the intangible something that makes your posts sound so warm), Dhiren ( you keep fighting for the first position in the comments space. Hight time  you got  awarded for all your effort!) Abha (for sharing with us cute pics of Cubby) , Monika ( for moving to WP! you dont realise how much easier and lovlier you made my life by that one act!! ) and Roop( just because I feel like it!). Now thats all done, I hope you guys have a large smile dressing you face!:D

 

Domestic godess? err..almost!

Just because I made a resolution to go slow  on blogging, you guys decided to stop tagging me! No fair!!! I’m generally partial to tags- just so long as they don’t require me to make public things that I would rather keep private. There’s a meme going around that asks bloggers to give evidence of how “great” they are in the domestic sphere. Monika’s done a post on it and so has Abha. And because no one tagged me, I am tagging myself, if that’s even possible, and doing a post.

Let me take you back to the time when one of my cousins was tying the knot. As family we were obviously invited to the wedding and all the ceremonies that preceded the main event. Living quite a distance away for the scene of action, my parents had decided to attend only the wedding. I wasn’t too happy with that. To me, at 16 years of age, the circus that Indian weddings usually are, was very alluring. I wanted to be a part of everything, see everything, participate in everything (except the dancing. That I could and can live without. I prefer not to dance, not for my sake but for the sake of others’ who have to watch me make a complete fool of myself with my two left feet and all.) Seeing my extreme enthusiasm and the situational challenge faced by me, one of my uncles offered to let me stay with his family till the wedding was over. He was in the cousin’s immediate family and that meant he would be attend all the events leading up to the wedding. What more did I want? I happily packed a bag and tagged along with him. Learning from my example another cousin, S, who lived even further away than us, decided on camp along with me at our uncle’s. We dint really need the wedding to get us all excited and charged up. Between the uncle’s family, S and me, we were enough cousins to have celebrations of our own!

One afternoon, while everyone took a nap to rejuvenate themselves for one of the ceremonies – I put myself to good use. My uncle used to have this part time maid who would do odd jobs like ironing clothes in addition to the usual jhaadu-pochha and kapada. Trying to be efficient and helpful, I though of ironing the clothes for the evening myself.  I pulled out my clothes from the heap set aside for the maid to iron and extracted S’s clothes as well. I was going to iron my own clothes so what would another 2-3 clothes matter? I ironed my clothes and kept them in a neat pile and began tackling S’s lehnga. The moment I placed the iron on it, I heard a sizzling sound. Unperturbed the noise, I considered it a minor distraction and continued running the iron along a straight line. Some more sizzling sound was heard, this time accompanies by small plumes of smoke. It was the smoke that sent off alarm bells in my head. Something was wrong.  I lifted the iron and peered at it. There were trails of red, green and gold decorating the stainless steel surface, akin to a smudged spray painting. I moved my gaze to the lehnga then. The off white base that was once embellished with a pretty pattern constitued of tiny polka dots in red, green and gold, now had practically no pattern and the cloth wore a singed look. Oops.  Not too sure of how to undo the mess I had created, I folded the  lehnga and kept it back in the pile of clothes, switched off the iron and took up a corned in the house and pondered about how to break the news to my cousin. S was bound to be furious. More than her being furious, I was worried about what she would wear at night. She couldn’t quite turn up in the jeans and t-shirt at an event where all would be dressed in finest. And what was I tell her parents when I met them?? I was two years older than S, I was supposed to know what I was doing.

When S woke up from her siesta, she began getting things together for the evening. She asked me if the maid had come in the afternoon to iron the cloths. “She dint, I tried ironing your clothes. But I think I burnt your lehnga a little, S. I dint mean to but the iron was too hot for the light material of your dress I think”. Without a word S ran to the ironing board, pulled at her beloved dress, and looked at it with a broken heart. I waited for a barrage of reprimanding words. “It was gifted by dad, you know.” was all she said. That made me feel infinitely worse.  “What will you wear tonight?” I approached the topic I was dreading. “I brought along a spare dress. And mom’s stopping over here before she goes to the venue tonight, so she can bring me something from too.”  Ok so it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined it to be- S would have something to wear, I would only have to deal with two sets of incensed parents- her and mine.

S wore her spare dress that evening, which for the record, I thought was nicer than the lehnga. To my utter surprise my fears of being pulled up by her mom were unfounded. All she told me was I needed to be more careful while ironing. I got a brief lesson on “how to iron clothes” by my mother but not much else.   Here I was expecting to hear a no end of my error, no matter how unintentional, and all I got was nothing!!  What can I say? I have nice family.

PS: Incidentally, have you read the Undomestic Godess by Sophie Kinsella? I recommend it. It makes a good read.:D

 

The realisation

In the four days since I took the decision, I have realised this-

discipline is very hard.

And no, you cannot consider writing a one line post a failure  in my endeavour to lead a disciplined blogging life.  It can, however, be called a failure in resisting temptation.

 

The decision

is to spend less time on the blog and more on life.

As much as I love blogging and reading others’ blogs, its taking away too much of my time these days. And since there is no way I can turn a 24 hour day into a 36 hour day or survive with only 4 hours of sleep, I have no option but to cut down on some  activity. I am choosing to cut down on blogging because thats the only thing I can cut down on! All others are essentials. I have books I need to read, walks I need to take, a jig saw puzzle that I need to solve, introspection that’s long due, and most importantly read /re-read some of the posts I got my mother to write for me. So for the time being the decision is to go slow on blogging and to catch up with everything else in life. That means I will reduce the number of posts on this blog to one per week . One, I suspect, is more that enough since all I write about nothing of great consequence anyway. Post on Bakingbuddies will vary with our desire to bake and to take the effort to write out the recipes.  I will, however, try and make time to read your blogs all through the week. What else will I do during  the lunch hour ??;)

 

Thus spoke the wise one

These days people underrate simplicity so much that they forget there is value in it.

 That’s the gem that tumbled out of my mouth early today morning. I don’t know if it was the fresh cool breeze drifting into the room or the steaming cup of tea in my hand or the  morning calm that prevailed that stimulated my mind to generate such a gem. Normally nothing can make my mind come up with such profound words of wisdom. But today something triggered it and I don’t quite know what. What I do know, however, is that the words sounded exceptionally wise to me and I had to have them written down somewhere. For posterity if nothing else. What place could be better than this space right here?

Have you ever accidently spoken words of wisdom? Share them with me if you have, the comments space is all yours!

BTW, I do need to figure out the trigger. I would surely like to come up with more wisdom-packed one liners in the future!

Edited to add: I do realise that that line may not sound “profoundly wise” to a lot of you, take that with a pinch of salt, will ya? But seriously, there is context to the line which I have no desire of sharing here. If you read the line in the context that it was meant to be understood in, I think you too would consider it wise.  Trust me on this one, I swear I did sound as wise as an owl when I  said that.