Coming Out

Not of THAT kind though ;)

When I started blogging, I thought going with an 'alias' was the norm. So...I became Scarlett. I'd rather get out there now.

Hi...I'm Aishwarya. Or you can call me Ash, as most people do. In fact there was a time (in college) when it used to take me a while to respond to 'Aishwarya'. The Americans could never get my name right, and I too felt bad for those poor souls. 'Ash' just made everyone's life easier, most of all my professors' & those guys at the coffee shop who gave me my daily fix of caffeine. I'm not really stuck up on my name, just as long as you don't call me 'Ass-warya', something the woman at the library back in high school used to do! Unintentionally, of course. English wasn't her firts language.

The photo's up too. Yup, that's me! That's who I am! And I prefer it this way! :)

Take Back the Night

It’s happened with every woman at some point of time or another – some man brushes against you intentionally on a crowded street, men leer at your breasts at a public place in the most disgusting way, men on the streets pass comments of a sexual nature when you walk by, attendants smirk at you when you go to a hospital/clinic to get a pap smear done etc.

I've seen it happen to women when they go to a pharmacy to buy birth control/emergency contraceptive pills. The store attendants will either smirk or talk in hushed tones and generally be so secretive about the entire process, it makes you feel as if you’ve got the plague! After all, it’s not for no reason that women in India don’t go to buy condoms themselves.

We (Indian women) encounter sexual harassment at every nook & corner, every day of our lives. We can’t walk down the streets without getting harassed either overtly or in a covert manner. The men that are less brave will leer at you or pass a comment, while the relatively braver ones will brush against you or try to touch you at the most private places, pretending it was unintentional of course. It’s disgusting.

It’s just so sad that a woman has to constantly fear for her safety in this country, where as it should be our birth right – just as the right to breathe. We shouldn’t always have to look over our shoulders, always beware of who’s walking on either side of us. Freedom to walk down the streets without having to worry about getting harassed simply on account of our gender should be our basic right, not something we have to fight for.

Unless all men in this country, down to the last social strata, learn to respect women, and not see them as merely sexual objects or 'things' to procreate with, we are not going to progress as a society. Bad news is, I think we’re light years away from that happening!

Coming Full Circle

I have a new job. Well, it’s not exactly new, as in I’ve worked in the same organization before, doing the same drill, though I was "lower down the food chain” as they say in corporate lingo. So yes, the work profile is different, as are the expectations from me but the heart and soul of the organization are the same.

I work in a very niche industry – market research – or “consumer insights” as they call it these days. I started off my career with traditionally the best in the business (according to me...you could argue that, I wouldn’t). After four years of learning the ropes, I decided it was time to move on to another organization, to see what else lay outside the “consumer insights” behemoth I was part of. I’m glad I experimented, for it made me realize the place I was at earlier is really the best place to be – in terms of the value they give to clients, the work culture, organizational philosophy & work life balance.

The experiment also made me realize how important it is to be in sync with the values your organization embodies and propagates. They might be doing brilliant work but unless you identify with what they stand for & believe in, it’s going to be an empty, dissatisfying journey.

On that note, can we have the ‘Welcome Back’ e-mail please? :)

*****

It’s been a while since I posted. Yeah, yeah...6 days is quite a long time for me to stay away from this blog. The absence can be explained by visiting parents, birthday celebrations in the family, the first few unsettled days into the new job etc. Now I’m back and getting used to my personal laptop once again, having relegated it to being a back-up while I was lugging around my work laptop (it had a data card for internet access which was so very convenient, where as my personal laptop has a broadband which restricted my mobility).

*****

I absolutely adored him. I do, and will always remember him best as Johnny Castle – the man who Dirty Danced like a dream, sang ‘I’ve Had The Time of My Life’ to his girl, and defined sensual love for millions of teenage girls like me.

I felt really sad when I found out he has cancer, which was a few months ago, and worse to hear of his demise. I don’t think anyone could have played Johnny Castle quite like him. Haven't seen Ghost but it's definitely on my agenda.

This tribute comes a rather belatedly due to the reasons mentioned above but Patrick Swayze, thanks for giving us the weakness-in-the-knees-inducing Johnny Castle. You will be missed. RIP.

PS: My favorite songs from ‘Dirty Dancing’ are ‘I’ve had the time of my life’ (romantic), ‘Hungry eyes’ (lustful) & ‘Hey Baby’ (playful), though I luuuuurrrrve ‘em all. Which ones are your favorites?

9/11

I didn't realize today is 9/11 till I saw the American flag flying at half-mast at the US Embassy behind my office. We too will be marking one year to 26/11 in a couple of months from now. In between there was London and Madrid.

It's been 8 years since terrorism overtook our lives, and looking at the way things are, I think we'll have to live with it for a long time to come.

Let's salute the spirit of the people of these cities - people whose lives have been shaken by the roots, yet they continue to brave it out. Their governments too have taken care of them since the attacks. Unfortunately, we (Indians) may not be able to claim the same. Our government thinks dumping Rs 350 crores out in the sea is a better use of citizens' money than strengthening the security infrastructure of our country.

So what can we do for ourselves? Pray, what else. If you do believe there's a God, that is.

A Post Inspite of a Throbbing Headache

Tomorrow is my last day at my current organization. I'm feeling bad about leaving but strangely, I never feel bad about the people I leaving behind. Maybe b/c in my subconscious I know that I'll stay in touch with people that I like...and with people I'm not close to/don't quite like, it really doesn't matter whether we stay in touch.

On the contrary, I feel sad about the things I would be leaving behind...my cubicle, my work laptop that I would need to give away (good ol' Dell...it's slightly bulky but I like that thing...it had a data card, so I could access the net even from my bedroom), my office space, the commute to work etc. It's strange but it's always been like that with me...I get more attached to places & things than to people.

Weird, huh?

******

Chinese take-away rocks! Or pizza & Coke...though that was more college grub (I've had countless pizza & Coke nights in college!).

I can't ever get enough of Chinese food. I turn to it when I'm happy, depressed, generally feeling low, or there's an occasion, or when I generally feel like eating out. Chinese is the numero uno choice. I shall order in Chinese today since I'm feeling a little 'bleh' about the leaving work thing.

******

More power to Vishal Dadlani (of the Bollywood music composer Vishal-Shekhar duo). The man had spoken up once earlier after the Mumbai terror attacks, and he's done so again - this time about the Rs 350 cr. statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji to be built in the sea, off Marine Drive.

Gaaaah...I can't tell you how badly things such as these get my goat (is that the phrase?). While a majority of our population is poor, illiterate, diseased, starved & drought-hit, politicians can only think about building statues (of others if not of themselves) as the best use of tax-payers' money. Since it IS the tax payer's money, I want to know whether the tax payers of Mumbai sanctioned the statue. Did they?

As Vishal mentions, there could be numerous other more appropriate for the money. Use it to feed the poor, give it to the farmers who are committing suicide due to the drought, build schools & hospitals in rural areas, provide treatment to the poor free of cost or at subsidized rates, improve the roads of our country....Do it all in Shivaji's name but do it for Chrissake! Rather than building a Rs 350 cr. statue that will lie decrepit anyway due to state negligence & become another crapping ground for them despicable pigeons.

Go sign the petition against building of the statue, whether you're a Mumbaikar or not.

******

Lisa Ray has been diagnozed with Multiple Myeloma, a rare cancer of the bone marrow. Now, she's no Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan...I don't know her personally either...but my heart went out to her. It's probably the first time I'm feeling bad for a celebrity, and I mean genuinely feeling bad. She's a pretty good actress I think, never mind the one or two Hindi movies that she's acted in (which was the one with Aftab Shivdasani...the thriller where she played a lawyer)? It seems she's being very brave about it and hasn't let this horrible piece of news devastate her.

Now, I don't know whether there IS a God who will get her out of it (I've had "God issues" for quite some time now). I believe it's up to us to be strong in trying times like this. I'm not sure whether her cancer is curable...I'm reading contradictory reports in the media...but I do hope she has a complete remission and stays strong through all of it. You can leave her your wishes/prayers here.

So We’ve Been Good This Weekend!!

Shopping (for clothes, shoes & bags though not necessarily in that order) & desserts are two of my biggest weaknesses, and I was good on both counts.

After unexplained and totally unnecessary crying over the complete absence of shopping in my life, I went to my favorite store (in India at least) - Cotton World - over the weekend. I hadn’t been there in AGES, so I was ravenous for clothes! Raided the entire store and ended up trying some 20 outfits (!!) out of which I short-listed 9. But obviously I couldn’t walk out of the store with all 9 items in tow, or it would’ve put all those months of abstinence to waste.

So I went on another round of trials, after which I sadly and with a leaden heart let go of four. It was a very tough decision folks, to let go of a sexy top, uber-cute pajamas (baby pink with white polka dots) & the cutest sleeping shorts (with pink & purple hearts on them et al). Sob sob :((

I was depressed. To put myself in a happier place again, I decided I wanted cheesecake. I headed to a patisserie....but....just then....alarms bells went off in my head! (Remember, we haven’t lost the entire 10kgs yet?)

Gaaaaah....goddamn alarm bells! They always go off at the wrong time!!

So there I was standing in front of the patisserie with the sad face of a baby that wants chocolate but doesn’t get it, while there was a huge war waging inside my head....like the war between the id & the superego! 'Id' wanted that cheesecake, which I could so clearly see calling out to me from inside the patisserie (they have voices, trust me!), but the superego was yelling “Leave! You’re fat! You don’t need that cheesecake!”

And I walked away.

Sigh…depravity! How difficult can life get? But the same evening, my sister came over with a box of freshly baked, warm & gooey chocolate chip and walnut cookies from Cookie Man.

There’s always justice in the universe, you know? What's yours shall be yours forever. No one can take it away from you :P

WHAT???!!!!!

I am truly shocked.

A friend who’s been married for two years - and whose identity & the issue that triggered this conversation I shall not disclose on a public forum such as this - recently told me that sex is, at most, 5% of a marriage!!!!!!!!!!

Now, why would he say something like that? Is it true?

Shudder shudder!!

As it is, marriage as a concept doesn’t have too many things going for it, as far as I am concerned. I mean, what does one have to look forward to after marriage? A lifetime of waking up to the other person’s morning breath? Physical & emotional “space” issues? Regular fights because people tend to give up their respective individual social lives and become clingy & needy of their partner? Bickering about whose turn it was to do the dishes or take the trash out? Adjustment issues with respect to the in-laws? Getting "knocked up" and waddling around for nine months, time after time? Chasing the kids you produce around the house with a plateful of food so THEY can survive? Or running around like a headless chicken cleaning up after them? (If there is anything less appealing to me than the idea of marriage, it's the idea of having children!!)

I’m sure marriage has a lot of good things to offer as well – companionship & a sense of emotional security (whatever little comes with it these days) – being the biggest things. But companionship at the expense of sex…is that what I want? HELL NO!!!!!

I don’t want to be one of those people whose college-going kid says, “I don’t think my parents are doing it anymore”, or “I don’t think they get it on”, or “I don’t think they get any action anymore”....or whatever the lingo when they grow up. I want to be the person who “gets it on” with her partner even when she’s 50+, and who goes with him on romantic holidays to Greece & the South of France with their life savings even after retirement.

So all ye married people reading this, do you think my friend was right? Is sex REALLY less than 5% of a marriage???

PS: No personal examples/details solicited, just your honest opinion. And this post is not intended to offend any married people/people with children. This is my very personal take on marriage & parenthood :)

The Journey From Bong to Thai :)

Once the crazy hormones have subsided, life can be calm and serene once again. After having fought with A for no reason at all on Friday night (I was PMSing hardcore...he wanted to come over...I wanted to meet him but at the same time didn't...so he ended up getting thoroughly confused & pissed off by my erratic behavior, and we ended up having a big fight), I decided to make it up to him by cooking him dinner last night. For company, I asked my sister & brother-in-law to join us.

I was initially planning to cook Bong food for the lot...rice, kosha mangsho & eelish (was borrowing a recipe from The Knife)...but my sister vetoed it. In fact, she vetoed anything Indian. My other options were Chinese, Thai & Italian.

Now, Chinese food, I think, is best left to restaurants. Home-cooked Chinese just doesn't taste as good, maybe because we don't add the fatal ajino moto to it when we cook it at home! So I turned to my ever favorite pasta, which was shot down by both A & my brother-in-law, at the last minute (hmpfff...shouldn't men just be thankful they're getting cooked food magically on their plates)?

Then a friend & her boyfriend called & asked if they could come over. I suggested they stay back for dinner.

With just a couple of hours to go for dinner and an undecided menu, the panic button was pressed. After a quick inspection of my fridge, my sister, who's an expert at damage control of any kind (I stand & hyperventilate while she goes about finding a solution to the problem/crisis at hand), spotted Thai green curry paste, fish sauce & soy sauce, and came up with the idea of making Thai green curry with chicken & Thai fried rice.

While I made a mad dash to the grocery store to buy boneless chicken, she went about boiling the rice & chopping the ingredients. She had also brought along a caramel pudding mix (I would suggest not bothering with the mix, it has too much sweetener & vanilla essence in it...it's much better to make caramel pudding from scratch at home, though it's painful). We quickly ordered a couple of starters from a nearby Chinese restaurants.

What we ended up with were two decent starters - crispy fried lamb & red chilly pepper fish, a good Thai green curry (though it was more white than green courtesy all those cans of coconut milk) & a disaster of a Thai fried rice.

You see, neither my sister nor I have quite mastered the art of cooking rice, so we have pretty much resigned to the fact that our rice will always be limp, sticky & more like 'mashed' rice. The caramel pudding too was a mild disaster. We tried making it with skim milk (mistake # 1 - the mixture became too thin in consistency), added too much of it, and tried to do damage control by adding some custard powder to it (mistake # 2 - the mix became lumpy).

Over dinner, we pretended every dish was made from scratch and no readymade mixes were used, but men who stay/spend a lot of time with women who can't cook know better, and our bluff was called! That's when I decided to drop the bomb and said I should've just stuck to my original plan of cooking Bong food. I heard a collective scream of "NO!" go up. You see, all three men at the party were Bongs :)

People!

Bloating – check
Crazy ass mood swings – check
Irritability – check
Snappiness – check
Murderous tendencies – check
Hormones hitting the wall of my head like electrons in a nuclear reactor during fission – check
Random desire to cry without provocation & for no reason at all – check
Wanting something & not wanting it at the same time – check

Any guesses what game we’re playing?
.
.
.
.
.
Oh well, let it be.

Let’s talk about ‘Sach Ka Saamna’ (the Indian adaptation of ‘The Moment of Truth’). Not about whether the show should be aired at all on TV, how it’s ruining the moral fibre of the 'great moralistic nation called India’, how it’s turning us all into voyeurs & all that baloney. To read what I feel about such issues, please go here.

I want to talk about the psyche of the people who come on the show.

They participate willingly. They definitely don’t look destitute to me, even if I discount all that bling on their clothes and overdone make-up. They are regular middle class people who reveal their most sordid, intimate secrets to the television channel so the dirt can be splashed on their faces in front of their spouse & family (who are hit the worst), their extended family & friends who must be watching them on TV, and an entire nation full of conservative, judgmental people!! Going by the confessions the contestants make, I’m sure they pretty much wreck their lives.

Of course, they come for the money though they claim they come because they want to confess to their spouse/family, unburden themselves of guilt by facing the truth head-on etc. If you really wish to confess, you can do it within the confines of your bedroom just as well. You need not do so on national television. They come for the money alright but sadly, most of them don’t even go back with an awful lot of it. The lie detector trips them & they usually go back with a few lacs at most. I really don’t understand why anyone would wreck their lives for a few lacs of rupees.

Oh well…it takes all kinds, I guess. There is no dearth of amusement in this world, people being the biggest of it all. My brother-in-law’s reaction to the show hit home. He said, “I never realized ordinary people have such extraordinary lives!”

I didn’t either.

PS: I couldn't think of a better title for this post. We're all people, you know. 'You' are people, 'I' am people, so are the 'people' who go on that show...they are people too. Even animals are people. I mean, they are animals but they have feelings too...so I guess that makes them people too, no? And what about plants? Are they 'people' too? You know how they say that plants too feel happy & sad...they sway when they feel happy? Or was that something only my crazy grandparents said? That sounds like something Luna Lovegood would say! She's people too! See...people again! There are people everywhere. There are so many people in this world! You can't even get a house at a reasonable rent these days because of so many goddamn people, all of whom want to live in houses! And people do weird things. And they feel strange, especially when the hormones are jacked up. People are jumping around in my head right now! And I'll stop before my head explodes!!!!!

Taking a Step Back

I'm not a clingy person, definitely not as far as my friendships are concerned. I like to give people space when they want, just as much as I appreciate people who give me mine. I don’t get aggravated if a friend does not return my calls at times, unless it becomes a pattern of course. I’m OK if a friend I had plans with wants to take a rain check. I don’t feel our friendship is dying if I don’t hear from a friend for a while.

However, as far as relationships are concerned I feel I still have some way to go. I’m not clingy or needy, but there are times when I want to be a part of the other person’s plans constantly. And then suddenly I realize that I need to take a step back and give the other person their space. It’s OK if they want some ‘me’ time or to hang out with their guy friends. It’s only fair – b/c I too am very particular about my time with my other friends. But for an attention-craving person like me (yes yes, I admit I do crave attention....majorly....but only from people I love) it's tough to let myself not be the center of attention all the time :) And it’s tough especially when I don't have plans of my own.

I was reading an article by Gitanjali Kirloskar in a newspaper supplement once where she was talking about how she too was extremely clingy in the first few years of her marriage. She wanted to be around her husband all the time, wanted her husband to talk to her all the time and involve her in everything she did. And she would feel dejected whenever he didn’t. But gradually as years went by, she realized that she needed to leave him alone at times, and her marriage was that much better for it.

I’m sure people who have been married for sometime feel the same way. And I’m sure the transition was difficult for them too. So what about you? Do you, at times, have trouble taking a step back as well?