Something to Think About

I don't generally read 'mommy blogs' (for obvious reasons) but I came across this post by Parul Sharma. I'm sharing the link because I think it's a topic that a number of women struggle with post-motherhood, and also because I think I've done a post on this topic earlier (I'm too lazy to dig it up so just take my word for it, will you?)

In her post, Parul puts across her point of view on the issue of stay-at-home moms vs. working moms. She talks about how women who give up their careers to look after their kids feel responsible towards their parents & their efforts to give them (the women) the best education they could afford, so they could be financially independent. On the other hand, working moms suffer tremendous guilt for not being able to give sufficient time & attention to their child(ren). And there are some women who're lucky enough to be able to work from home, and while it may seem that they have the best of both worlds, the flip side is that people often don't take their work seriously and trivialize it.

Parul also goes on to say that when it comes to deciding whether to be a stay-at-home-mom or a working mom, there's no right (or wrong) decision. That we have to respect other people's choices, and if we feel we're superior to them because of the decision we've made for ourselves, then we're probably just trying to hide our own feelings of inferiority and dissonance with the choice we've made.

My favorite paragraph in the entire article is this: ".....tough as it sounds, that we cannot turn on our babies and burden them with accusations. Here, I did all this because of you, gave up so much because of you, made so many sacrifices to give you a good, better, best life. Nobody asked you to. So just shut up already, yes?"

I see this happening all the time, particularly when it comes to the child making a choice of career his parents might be opposed to, or in our great Indian society, the choice of a partner. And I think it's completely unfair on the child.

For all the talk about how people want to experience the miracle of creating life, it can't be denied that people have kids for very selfish reasons. They want a child to carry on their family name, to inherit and tend to their assets after they're gone, and most importantly to take care of them when they're old. So they really do need to remember that they have no right to emotionally blackmail the child into doing what they want him/her to do by counting the number of things they've done for him/her and the sacrifices they've made. No one asked them to have a child and do any of it; they did it all completely out of their own volition.

Me, I have taken the easier way out and decided I don't want kids. But for those of you women who are/plan to become mothers, hop over to Parul's blog and read her post.

There. My good deed for the day.

The Wilderness Years

I wrote this yesterday, people, but didn't get a chance to post it. I was having a crappy day. Today is remarkably better. I slept early last night & got up late this morning. That worked wonders, with a little bit of help from a cup of dark hot chocolate & freshly baked chocolate chip cookies :)

*****

Today is one of those days. Household appliances that are indispensable in the mornings conked out on me. Halfway to work I realized I’d left a very important document at home, so I had to go back to get it. Got terribly late to work in the process. As soon as I reached work, my cell phone died, leaving me feeling listless all day. Tried doing an online transaction but I kept entering the wrong password REPEATEDLY (thanks to the retarded bank guy who INSTRUCTED ME TO ENTER THE WRONG PASSWORD), so my card got blocked for online transactions. Had to make multiple calls to the bank since morning to un-block my card but it hasn’t been done yet. DESPITE PROMISES OF IT BEING DONE WITHIN AN HOUR. It’s been ten hours since :(

SO...I’ve been feeling terribly ‘meh’ since morning. Tried drowning myself in work (not that I had to make much of an effort) but that didn’t work either. So I’ve given up all attempts to work and am writing this post instead. At least I will get something accomplished - which is to get these thoughts (that I’m going to ramble about now) out of my system.

I’ve wanted to write this post for quite sometime and today seems to be the ideal day for it. So warning folks, depressing, long & rambling post ahead :0

I hit the big 3-OH next month. Yes, I turn thirty. Which means I start using Olay Total Effects in a little over a month from now. Pooh! To think I reacted with a mixture of incredulousness & rage when my poor mum tried to subtly pass on a bottle of some other anti-ageing concoction to me a couple of months ago. In my defense, I think I reacted like that because it said ‘For 30+ people’ on the bottle. Those guys need a lesson in marketing. And in understanding their target group. I mean, hello, women are terrified of turning 30! You’re definitely not going to win any fans if your bottles are screaming “You’re 30 plus! You need this stuff!”

But I digress.

The last couple of years haven’t been the best of my life. They’ve been fraught with confusion, indecision, dissatisfaction & boredom with certain aspects of my life, and the general lack of inertia to change things. My personal life - at this moment at least - is not completely in my own hands. Professionally, I know where I want to be 5 years down the line but that requires a great amount of sacrifice on the personal front which I somehow am not able to get myself to make.

The result of all this is that for the past year or so I’ve been having more bad days than good. I’ve been irritable, snappy, withdrawn, unsocial and cribbing incessantly. I’ve been having mood swings by the hour. In short, LIFE. HASN’T. BEEN. GOOD.

It’s funny how when a couple of things aren’t going your way in life, everything else seems wrong & messed up too!

The other day I met a very dear college friend for lunch. She turned 30 last year and we got around to discussing the entire “turning 30 paranoia”. She admitted having gone through those feelings too, in the run-up to 30. She called the late 20s “The Wilderness Years”. And I thought that was hitting the nail on the head (pardon the cliché)!

That’s what the late 20s are, aren’t they? The Wilderness Years. Things that you wouldn’t have given much importance to in your early-mid 20s suddenly become very important. You worry & crib about them incessantly. You’re confused, you’re lost, you’re questioning what you’re doing with your life personally & professionally, and you’re antsy about turning 30.

Life is simple when you're in your early 20s. You like your job. You don't think about job satisfaction much or whether that's really what you want to be doing with your life as long as the job gives you money to pay your bills, go out & shop. You go to work, you hang out with friends after work, you hang out at coffee shops, bars, you go out for dinner, you shop, you travel.

But as soon as you hit 27-28, the realization that you'll be 30 in a few years hits you BANG! Because once you’re 30, you know you’re getting old. And you’re reminded of it every single day in very cruel ways. Your metabolism slows down. The pounds pile on to your waist as if it were a happy, sunshiney place to camp at permanently. The wrinkles, fine lines, dark spots & every other sign of skin aging that anti-aging cream manufacturers try to scare you with start appearing. There are people telling you that you don’t have much more time to pop babies!!

30s also means that your years of struggle at work are over, so you should be doing something substantial, should have respectable savings & investments, and you should’ve achieved some professional milestones.

But more than anything, there’s that niggling worry that you may not be doing what you actually want to in life, and you might be squandering away the best years of your life and your potential doing something that hardly matters in the larger scheme of things.

30 is the year for introspection, for asking yourself questions. But according to my wise friend (and wise she is!), once you hit 30 life is back to being good. You become more confident, you are sure of what you want instead of going chasing everything in sight, you learn to prioritize, and you learn to say no when you want to because you no longer have the need to appease people. You’re comfortable being yourself, comfortable in your skin, comfortable letting your partner be himself and have his/her space. You stop worrying about what will happen a couple of yeard down the line & take things as they come.

But does that really happen? Does all that pre-30s nervousness, anxiety, confusion & disillusionment dissipate once you hit 30? I guess I’ll have to wait another month to find out!!

This Pattern Needs to Break Itself

Starting the year with visits to the doctor’s, path labs etc. is what I’m referring to. It’s been a pattern for the last few years and it’s terribly upsetting. I mean, you don’t want to be starting your year being sick and lining up for check-ups at doctors’ clinics & various tests at hospitals.

2008 started with chronic pharyngitis that took me almost the entire year to get over as the throat infection would just keep coming back. 2009 started with unbelievably rapid weight gain (2 kgs in one week!!) that sent me scurrying to the doctor and then to the hospital to check for polycystic ovaries & hypothyroidism. And 2010 has started with a stomach bug. A short trip over the New Year weekend turned out into a sick weekend that saw me mostly on the bed & on antibiotics. Which meant, no street food, no shopping, no meeting my fabulous friends who call that city home (Vinny, if you’re reading this, now you know why I didn’t get around to calling you :(

I’m hoping 2010 is GOOD and that the first few days do not set the pattern for the rest of the year. Here are the tangible things I want to be looking at by the end of this year:

1. 7 kgs weight-loss (minimum 5)
2. Better fitness levels
3. Better all-round health
4. Cutting down on my expenses by 10-15%
5. At least a few lacs sitting pretty in my bank account
6. Respectable investments
7. A more stylish wardrobe

And with all the positive influences around me (read a boy who believes being over-weight & non-stylish are the two biggest crimes on this planet, punishable by death) and the fact that I now live in a city that doesn’t force you to be counting how many pennies you have left in your bank account at the end of each month, I think the goals mentioned above should be attainable.

In my defense though, I’m not technically over-weight. According to the BMI calculator, I’m on the border of normal & over-weight. And I think I’m reasonably stylish. Just that the goddamn companies want only skinny people to wear their clothes these days, so finding an outfit that I like AND that flatters my body (that is of cow-like proportions right now) is tougher than finding a needle in a haystack. And unfortunately for me, I don't possess the patience of The Boy who can spend an entire day trying to find a pair of jeans or a t-shirt that he likes, and is still perfectly happy to not have found anything by the end of the day!!

Rich & Sexy

I want to be RICH and SEXY. I don’t want to be famous because I love my freedom to do the simple things in life, such as walking down the street, hanging out at coffee shops, walking into any store/restaurant without getting mobbed etc. way too much to give it up.

But I would LOVE to be rich so I can travel across the world without worrying about whether I have enough $$$ in my bank account, shop as much as I want to without having to worry about going broke, and live in the house of my dreams. In that order.

And I would love to be sexy so I can slip into any dress without having to worry about whether it would fit me, look smoldering in sexy lingerie, wear the sexiest cleavage revealing tops and the tiniest of skirts, and make heads swoon.

But as of now neither of these looks like it’s happening, so I’ll just sit quietly & plan that mind-blowing trip to Europe that may or may not happen someday, and dig into my hot gooey chocolate walnut brownie.

Shit, I won’t be able to gorge on brownies when I become sexy, right? And I'll have to live on water & sprouts inspite of having all the money in the world. Kinda like movie stars?

Life is such a bitch.

Photo courtesy www.polyvore.com

Just when you thought…

…that you beat the change of season by jacking up your immunity through healthy eating & regular Vitamin intake, you’re pinned to the ground with a nasty cold, temperature & obstinate blobs of snot that are happily making little swirls inside your head!

You gulp down buckets of orange juice praying that the greedy capitalistic firms manufacturing them didn’t skimp on the Vit C, and your mom was right about the healing powers of OJ when it comes to the cold virus.

Your respiratory allergies start acting up, compelling you to pump yourself with Allegra & inhalers – stuff that makes you nauseous & dizzy so you most dutifully avoid them otherwise.

Did I say I hate falling sick when it's so close to the weekend?

UPDATE: Orange juice does little to alleviate a cold apparently. The Vitamin C in it can boost one's immunity but one's the cold has set in, it's of no use. I'm doomed!!!

Who Have You Helped Today?

Have you ever tried to help someone only to have it backfire on you?

A couple of weeks back, a colleague asked me if I knew of any houses that were available for rent around where I live. A friend of hers was moving to Cal from Bombay as the Regional Head of Sales of a company that manufactures automotive lubricants, and needed a place to stay.

The next day, I ran into a neighbor who was looking for a tenant, so I passed on the information to the guy who was looking for a place to stay. I must have spoken to him for two minutes on the phone, and after I hung up he started pestering me to meet him through text messages. The day he was scheduled to inspect the house, he messaged me every hour to come see the house with him! I ignored his messages, hoping he'd get the hint but that hasn’t discouraged him from messaging me almost every day! And he’s taken to calling me from random landline numbers because I won’t take calls from his cell phone.

The man is in his mid 30s and has a wife & kid back in Bombay. It didn’t come as a surprise to me. I’ve seen enough married men trying their luck with single women, and those of us who’re vulnerable fall right into the trap. I’m not freaking out over this yet, but it's getting really annoying. And thinking that he’ll be moving into the building next to mine this weekend is not a happy thought.

All The Women Independent...Throw Your Hands Up At Me!

I keep telling A that he’s incredibly lucky that I’m an independent girl who can take care of herself and find a solution to her own problems. The response to this usually is, “I know. That’s why I like you”. Which is when I want to dump an entire plate of food in his hair!

This question isn’t an “I know” type of answer eliciting question. It’s a “Yes, I’m incredibly lucky. Thank you so much. You’re doing me a huge favour”, type of answer question.

My life is plagued with a constant stream of problems (I’m sure everyone thinks the same way about themselves, so I’m not hallucinating here). But I find solutions on my own rather than speed-dialing my dad or A to come rescue poor me!

Heck, I don’t even have them on speed dial!

Anyway, the latest problem plaguing my life is that my new office is situated in a very “down-market” area of Calcutta. It’s a very commercial area but also home to mainly SEC C, D, E kind of people. The stretch outside my office gets deserted even at 6 in the evening, trying to get a cab is a nightmare and there is no dearth of eve-teasers and harassers in the area. (You see where my recent rage against men who harass women is coming from!)

I rely on cabs for my commute to & from work, but since no cabs are willing to take poor little me home, I had to find a solution…a solution that would make my daily journey from work to home peaceful & uneventful. (It’s in times like these when I miss Bombay the most.)

So, I called one of the cab services in the city – Kolkata Cab (for anyone who might be interested, their number is 033-44222222). Turns out they have an everyday pick up & drop facility which you can book for 7 days at a time and pay for on a daily basis, just like you would pay a cab. They charge Rs 15 per km & Rs 1.80 per minute as waiting charge. Not a bad deal at all, I say. I promise to do a plug-in post for them if they do show up everyday!

Anyway, it was a solution I found completely on my own. A was informed that he need not worry for my safety, I had the situation under control (or so I hope). And I didn’t even speed-dial him to buy me a car!!

Note to self : Must enroll in driving classes soon.

The Battle Rages On

I’m obsessed with my weight. Probably because I’ve always had trouble with it, partly due to genetics and partly because of lifestyle choices. Like most of us, I largely lead a sedentary lifestyle. I live in a city where it’s too muggy to walk even short distances, my office is on the 10th floor (you don’t expect me to climb 10 flights of stairs everyday, do you??), my house is on the 1st and I have a job that requires me to sit infront of a computer for at least 8 hours a day.

The only form of exercise I get is when I go to the gym or am strong-willed enough to wake up early in the morning (6.30!!) & go for a walk. You can imagine how frequently THAT must be happening! There's a huge lake which is a 5 minute walk from my house & is apparently a magnet for morning walkers & joggers. Someday I'm determined to see what it looks like!

To make matters worse, I’m a foodie – as in I don’t eat a lot but I love non-vegetarian food, love chocolates, love bread / pizza / pasta, love Chinese food, and love to eat out in general. Thin people don’t love all these things - unless they’re genetically blessed that is. They love sprouts, salads, carrots, cucumbers etc.

I’ve tried various means of losing weight....going to the gym, swimming, aerobics, low carb diets & more recently, signing up with a dietician!!

Now, I’m convinced dieticians are one of the most ‘out-of-touch-with-reality’ people on this planet. The kind of diets they prescribe are unpractical & cumbersome. Sample this:

7.30am – Cereal (50gm) + Milk (250 ml)
8.30am – Tea + 2 Biscuits (non-cream sad plain biscuits)
10.30am – Fruits (Do's : Apples, Oranges, Papaya, Pears, Watermelon; Don’ts: Bananas, Mangoes – basically everything good)
12.30-1pm – 2 Rotis (100 gm) + Dal + Vegetable + Chicken/Fish (100gm)
3.30pm – Yogurt + Carrots / Cucumber / Sprouts
5.30pm – Tea + 2 Biscuits (non-cream sad plain biscuits again :(
7.30-8pm – 1 Roti + Chicken/Fish (100gm)

There are many practical problems with this diet (And to think I paid this woman shitloads of money to come up with this crap!!):

A) It involves cooking of dal, vegetables AND chicken/fish everyday, and assuming I need to carry them to work, all have to be cooked before 9.30 in the morning
B) I need to remember to eat every two hours & once work gets going, DO WE EVEN HAVE THE TIME TO PEE, forget taking out our cute little Tupperware & start eating?
C) Anyone will get bored eating the same food over & over again. Normal people need to eat out at least a couple of times a week, and eating out does NOT mean eating salads, soup & grilled chicken/fish. It means eating pizza or pasta or Chinese food or Butter Chicken or KFC or Subway (with Parmesan Oregano bread, mayo & their delicious sauces)
D) You can't measure cereal, flour, chicken & fish every time you have to cook them
E) What if I feel hungry after 8pm?

You see why I think dieticians have completely lost it in life?

I think a more practical way is to eat the way French women do! Do you know why French Women Don’t Get Fat? France is considered to be the gastronomic capital of the world, yet their women are thin! It’s because they eat everything but in small proportions & voila! You will be thin.

The things on my imminent weight-loss agenda – kickboxing, power yoga & aqua aerobics. Oh, how I love the water!!

P.S.: I am hydrophobic.

Update : Just read a column in the paper where a girl has written in to a fitness expert saying she's too thin and would like to gain some weight on her butt & thighs b/c irrespective of the size of jeans she buys, they're always lose on her! Oh well....guess as long as there will be women, they will have issues with their bodies :)

Update 2 : This is my 250th post on this blog alone!! Have a happy long weekend people! Happy Easter!!

Twilights

Twilight is my least favorite time of the day. I hate twilights more than I hate early mornings. Always have.

With twilight sets in depression. It's that time of the day which is neither here nor there...neither light nor dark. It's very unsettling and gloomy. I never know what to do with myself if I'm at home during twilight. I can only get depressed and wait for it to get over...for it to be completely dark.

I remember chewing my mom's brains every day during twilights when I was in school. I used to crib crib crib about getting bored and not knowing what to do, and my mom would be tearing her hair out in frustration!

I have to be either completely shut out from twilight (inside a mall or theater or at work) or outdoors but so busy I don't notice it! Christ, life is tough! :)

What about you? How twilight-friendly are you?

Things Fall Apart

All the time in relationships & friendships. Due to misunderstandings, unmet expectations, misplaced accusations, incriminations, people making a judgment about something you might have said or done - or not!

Sometimes your closest friends fail to understand you. Sometimes they are quick to form conclusions. Sometimes they are so blinded by expectations, they can’t bring themselves to respect the way you are and accept you for it. You try and explain it to them a few times, make it up to them, take the (misplaced) blame even, just so you can preserve a friendship that means something to you. But you do reach a point when the only thing you can do is let go. For how long can you keep acting the way people expect you to act?

I don’t understand why people expect you to act a particular way in the first place, and get offended & upset when you don’t! Is that fair? Agreed, there has to be some level of expectations in relationships & close friendships, but the beauty of a friendship over a relationship is that you’re not supposed to prosecute a friend over unmet expectations. Friendships lose their meaning the moment they become binding.

Especially for free-spirited people like me. I dislike being tied down just as I detest tying others down. You will not find me holding grudges against friends who forget to call back or do not call back for whatever reason. If I want to talk to them badly enough, I call them back. I don't sulk when a friend cancels. It's okay...things can come up. The world isn't about to end, and neither is our friendship. I do not expect people to act one way or the other, I do not hold them to what I think they should do! I give them their space when I feel they need it, they do not need to spell it out.

Similarly, I need my friends to not expect me to act in a certain way & get upset when I don't. If you can't understand this bit about me even though you claim to know me so well, our friendship had a chance in hell to begin with!

Unfortunately, as I have learnt the hard way many times over, not acting the way your friends expect you to act can often be misconstrued as not caring enough, not being committed enough to the friendship or not valuing it enough. Apparently, bonding over brownies & cheesecakes & shopping for shoes isn't enough to seal friendships. Is anything?

Friendships thrive when there is a willingness to accept the other person the way they are.
They are meant to be fun zones, not an element of life that stresses you out & ties you down. That’s what relationships are for! Sometimes, your closest friends fail to realize this, and you wake up to this realization only after things have fallen apart. Completely.

P.S.: Title of the post borrowed from Chinua Achebe. Feeling expressed - heartfelt.

The Story of a Shoe

We (women that is) love our shoes. They are an integral part of our existence & happiness, and can go a long way in getting us attention. Sadly, they can also be a source of much worry. Ever had the heels/straps of your shoes give way while you were traveling or on your way to a client meeting?

It's one of those things you wish never happen to you. But what happened with me today takes the cake.

I wore my new shoes to work (lovely white ones…I’ve wanted white shoes for a long long time), and just as I was about to step out of the cab in front of office, the bow on top of both shoes fell off! All within half an hour of wearing them! And I paid 1000 bucs for them. They were apparently stuck on to the shoes & not stitched on.

So...I pick up my pretty little bows & walk in to work all upset & just then a colleague goes, “Hey, nice shoes!”

You can imagine the look on my face!!

And what’ll you guess, during the course of the day, at least 5 other people have complimented me on my shoes! And I’m like “They’ll look prettier with BOWS on them!!!”

Said with a mix of anger & 'poor me' face :(

Oh well, life is tough.

Gender discrimination

People often say “God is a woman”. I say it’s BULLSHIT!!

The simple reason being that had God been a woman, she would’ve given the ovaries, the uterus, the fallopian tubes & all the other unnecessary painful things (that life could be perfectly happy without!) to men.

These are the reasons which have convinced me that God MUST be a man:

1. Men can pee standing

2. When on a journey & nature calls, they don’t have to hang on till they find an appropriate place to relieve themselves. Just about any place will do.

3. When they get a bad haircut, they don’t have to worry about their face looking too fat, or neck looking too short, shoulders looking too broad, waist/butt looking too big, thighs/calves/ankles looking too fat, toes looking chubby etc.

4. They can scratch their balls in public without anyone giving them gross looks.

5. Their best friend that dictates all their plans in life…travel plans, socializing plans, gym plans, swimming plans etc….doesn’t visit them every month

6. They don’t have to deal with things growing on their body out of the blue when they hit puberty. They’re born with whatever they will have (and need) for the rest of their lives

7. They don’t have to waste thousands of rupees over sexy fucking lingerie. BIG BIG GRIPE.

8. They don’t run the risk of getting pregnant so they never worry when they are out of protection

9. They can get mayonnaise all over their face while eating a sub or sandwich & still be called ‘cute’

10. The only work they had to do in life was in bed thanks to the Catholic Church decreeing the missionary position as the only legal position. Now they’ve found a way to evade that as well. It’s called ‘WOMAN ON TOP’

So yeah, God is a man:

1. Because it was Eve who couldn’t resist the apple. Adam was an innocent little thing who didn’t know he was blessed with a potent asset that could start an entire species. Bad, bad Eve!

2. And it was Pandora who opened the box of troubles & not her brother who shouldn’t have brought the box home in the first place

P.S.: It just dawned on me...I think the word 'evil' has come from Eve!!

Borrowed lines...

Read this on a friend's blog...

"Once u like a person, u can’t be “just friends” with them! Someone’s heart is bound to be broken."

I've been on both sides of the fence and nothing can be more true than this.

PS & completely unrelated : Have you heard anyone saying they miss the heat of Bombay? It's so much better there than in Calcutta!

The Talented Mr Ripleys

If you’re a girl and reading this, I’m sure you will identify with it. And if you’re a guy, I’m sure you must’ve had at least one female friend crib to you about this.

Why is it that the biggest losers of men think they have a shot with any attractive girl they meet?

These are men who have no interpersonal skills. They have ZERO discretionary ability in terms of what’s appropriate & what’s inappropriate to say to a woman. The concept of space is completely lost on them. They ogle at you. They invite themselves to the seat next to you…in a bus or a train or a waiting lounge…and randomly strike up a conversation irrespective of whether you’re even bothering replying to them. These men are complete social PESTS – the ones society can totally do WITHOUT, yet ironically there are SO MANY of them!

There is one more issue that plagues men. If you’re a girl who is actually nice to them, they think you’re easy! If you bother to say hi back to them (when they block your way in the alley & refuse to budge till you acknowledge their existence), they think they've got you! And, God forbid, if you end up smiling at them, they think you’re dying to get in their pants!!

On the other hand, if you do not acknowledge their existence (either because you’re just not the extrovert-overly friendly-gregarious kinds, or because they’re just plain disgusting), you’re presumed to be a stuck-up, high-handed bitch.

Don’t kill me guys (who’re reading this)…I know plenty of cool men in this world - men who’re smart, witty, funny, interesting, great conversationalists and an absolute pleasure to be with. They have no hang ups with regards to their relationship with women, no illusions about themselves. They know what they’re capable of, and are comfortable in their skin. Strangely, it’s the loser lot that seems to think they’re God’s greatest gift to mankind. Touché.

Trust me, it’s a talent to be so defiantly self-assured & confident about your chances/prospects in life when you know you’ve got nothing going for you.

This is it!

The movers & packers came home this morning to take my stuff to Calcutta. All I have with me now is just enough clothes to see me through two weeks at home.

Never thought that after having lived in Bombay for so long, it would just be a matter of three days before I leave. It’s heart-wrenching. I love this city so much I don’t know how I’ll manage to stay away. I’ll go through major withdrawal for sure. I’ll always be a Bombay girl.

Life is very funny indeed. I never thought I would be moving to Calcutta. I liked the city on my various visits there – I always felt that Calcutta had the heart of a small town in spite of being a metro. I loved the laidback lifestyle, loved the fact that Calcuttans value things in life other than money. But I never thought I’d end up living there!

Well, life has its ways of getting you around to doing things you never thought you would so, and therefore the saying “Never say never”.

So yeah…this is it! Three more days in Bombay and then it won’t be home anymore. Even though I know my way around, I’ll still be a visitor to the city. But then again, I took a conscious informed decision to move out, so can’t really complain. I’d like to end this post with the opening lyrics of Vince Gill's 'The strings that tie you down'...

You're so close to telling me your leaving
Packing up your things and leaving town
If you can walk away the rest is easy
Once you cut the strings that tie you down

Follow Me

You don't know how you met me
You don't know why, you can't turn around and say good-bye
All you know is when I'm with you I make you free
And swim through your veins like a fish in the sea
I'm singing....
Follow me
Everything is alright
I'll be the one to tuck you in at night
And if you wanna leave I can guarantee
You won't find nobody else like me

Roti, kapda aur makaan

This is something that any person, especially singles, who have come to Mumbai in search of better career prospects will identify with. The rent situation in this city is not only unjust, it's appalling.

I live in a one bedroom house in Bandra (better known as 1BHK in Mumbai). My roommate & I pay twenty two thousand as rent every month. We're vacating our house at the end of this month, and the guy who is taking it up after us will be paying thirty thousand for the same house!

Landlords in the city seem to be minting money at the expense of hapless tenants. My landlords are a Catholic couple in their 50s. They are really sweet people...they are gracious enough to invite us to their house during Christmas, Easter etc. They regularly enquire about our well-being, whether we need anything, if we need anything fixed around the house etc. But they are quite fixated over money. Why shouldn't they be, you ask? After all, it's a deal you made with them...they let their house to you, you pay them rent. That's all fair. My point is - is such a high rent justified?

There are so many other expenses that single people living & working in this city have to bear. Transport costs, electricity bills, paying the housekeeper, groceries etc. A better part of our salaries goes in meeting these expenses. It seems that we earn just so we can pay other people for the services they provide us!

I'm not sure the situation is any better for couples. They might be a double-income couple but they may also have other significant outgoings, such as EMIs on cars, other durables etc.

I always thought the rent situation in the city would reach a point where it would not be able to sustain itself and rents would come crashing down. But that doesn't seem to be happening what with the constantly increasing demand for houses and tenants willing to pay higher rents than ever before. I don't know how but somehow the situation will have to correct itself...sooner rather than later.

Man proposes, life disposes

My whole life I've been fighting to convince myself that the way our lives turn out is the direct outcome of the choices we make. That there is no such thing called 'destiny'. We always have a choice...to pick one path over the other, to go this way or that, to stay or walk away, to resist or give in. However, as the years go by, it becomes harder and harder to convince myself that this is entirely true.

For instance, I'd never thought I'd go to the US to study. Right through school, I believed I was headed for Delhi University for college. However, the opportunity to study in the US presented itself and I took it up. I didn't go seeking it, but once I got the opportunity I went after it.

Once I was in America, it was almost a given then I would finish college, take up a job there itself and settle down. Life, however, had totally different plans for me! The situation became such that I had to return to India. I'm not saying that was a bad thing, just that I hadn't planned it that way! During my four months in the US when it became apparent that I would have to return to India, I tried very hard to find a means of staying back but I couldn't.

A year after I'd been working in India, I got a call for an interview at a company that was the biggest brand name within my industry. After an excruciatingly long interview, they made me an offer that I accepted. Thus came about my move to Mumbai, a city I love to death! Again, I wasn't looking for this break. It came to me & I decided to take it up.

Seems like history is about to repeat itself now. When I was contemplating a move to Calcutta for personal reasons, it didn't happen. And when I stopped thinking about it & shifted my attention to Delhi instead, I got a job offer from Calcutta that was both lucrative & compelling.

I do think our life is an outcome of the choices we make but only to a certain extent. The options that we must choose between are thrown at us by life itself. It is the greatest of all masterminds. So yes, with each passing day I'm inclined to believe that there IS a force called 'destiny'. Nobody can take away from me, what's meant for me. At the same time, no matter how hard I try, I will not get what doesn't belong to me. I will get only what is meant for me, and that's the way it will be!

Life, the great leveller

I often hear people say that we should do good and be nice human beings because we'll have to pay for all the wrongs we've committed in our lives once we're dead. I've always wondered what makes people worry about what will happen to us after we're gone instead of worrying about what will happen to us now, in this life. Logic would suggest one would worry more about this life rather than the life after (for those who do believe there's life after death)!

I believe that we pay for our actions in this very life. In my case at least, retribution has been instant. Faster than you can say 'instant coffee'! Whenever I've hurt someone or broken someone's heart, I've gotten it back soon, as good as I gave. The account has always been balanced; I've never had any credit. That is how life keeps score. You lose as much as you gain, and in the end it all evens out. Life is the greatest leveller of all.

The Forbidden Fruit

It's funny how you have all the good looking men of the universe hitting on you when you're already seeing someone, and particularly when you're in a committed relationship. Without even batting an eyelid or thinking twice, you just smile and say "Thanks, but no thanks" because you're so much in love with the person you're seeing that you see no need to look beyond.

And when you're single, those men miraculaously vanish! Hardly any men ask you out and those who do have LOSER written in caps across their foreheads!

I don't understand this phenomenon. It's not like you go from zero to irresistably attractive as soon as you start seeing someone!

I remember reading a scientific explanation for this sometime back. It said something to the effect that when you're in a relationship, your body secretes these hormones that make you glow & make you more attractive to the opposite sex. Rather, they attract the oppotite sex towards you. Maybe there's truth to this explanation but since there's no way to prove such an abstract hypothesis, I prefer to believe that it's just the case of "the forbidden fruit". We get attracted to someone we can't get because they're committed elsewhere. I guess we haven't been able to overcome the lure of the "forbidden fruit", and seems like we never will. It makes our otherwise insipid lives spicier, and what's life without a little bit of spice? ;-)