the difference is that i minded not attending a rocking party after the other because I believed that was how fun should be had. that was how other people are having fun! and now i know hopping from one party to another and then posting drunk pics on facebook/orkut or mailing them to everyone is kind of pathetic and boring…he he he he

being 30 is so liberating.

and i am still feeling sad, free, disappointed, feeling painfully wise and all of that after realising that 90% of the facebook pics are proving to be a facade…

there are no normal relationships out there, forget love-ful, fairytale ones…

wonder if Ghalib wrote this for the face book -post-your-huggy/kissy-pics-and-hope-world-is -fooled phenomena

“Hum ko maaloom hai Jannat ki haqeekat lekin, dil ke khush rakhne ko Ghalib yeh khayal accha hai”

Now after that terrorist attack ended another terrorist attack seems to have started and I hardly hear a squeak…hardly, because there are a few who realise that this is non sense…

a few others don’t however.

why should he not have a lawyer. why should there be no case against him. yes we have all the evidence that we need. so what is the worry?

how can the lawyers refuse to represent him? how can the shiv sena not only DECIDE for us but also storm a lawyers office and destro property? how is THIS not terrorism?

why do i make this list. coz i am a specialist at this.

1. Now come on…do not give up on ‘loving’ some one because others think its not good for you. its very simple to understand, others are NOT living your life. you want to spend 10 years being in love this way, do that, stick to your feelings. BUT for your own sake, whether a relationship is working out or not working out or is about to work out or will never work out, be in touch with your REAL feelings on a regular and very honest basis. because your love and your relationships (of any kind) are about you. so don’t fool or delude yourself… it’s best for EVERYONE that way.
2.  don’t be in a hurry to get over. no seriously, at least understand why you fell for her or him this way. and what exactly is the nature of these feelings. don’t get stuck into jargon though. i always get stuck in slotting, what you call it is not important. but understanding WHY is.
3.  hmmm….this one is the toughest and most painful. i think. whether you are in this situation because that person loves someone else or is single (and maybe even ‘looking’) the thing is that unless he/she has the inclination/guts/sensitivity to communicate to you the interest or the disinterest, do NOT assume that there is a relationship. try leaving the ‘reading between the lines’ to poetry classes. will elaborate that in a latter point. okay this point deserves many sub points:

-   the thing is that 99% of the time, if he/she is in another relationship, that is not what is stopping from him/her from getting together with you. no really. if he/she is interested despite the relationship, let him/her come and say this to you. don’t be daft and do not blame the spouse. the spouse has NOTHING to do with your feelings. that also reminds me to point out, ‘ what is it in her/him that he/she likes him/her better is soooo soooo futile and illogical, it is not even funny. how do i know this. because i am a specialist, remember. hmmm…unless this man/woman you are in love was actually doing ‘inky pinky ponky, father had a donkey’ over your head and his/her spouse and then chose that spouse in question then darling, your sweetie is the DONKEY, his/her father had! okay? so you do NOT lack anything the other person has. and its a BRILLIANT idea to look around and think of the person whose unrequited love you are!  see, how you do not like him/her despite him/her being so nice, the same thing applies your unrequited love also.

- hmm about that reading between the lines. now if she/he asks you to pass him/her water, it REALLY means that. REALLY REALLY. it does not mean ‘ quench my parched existence’. Or if a person says ‘ you are a good friend’ it does  not mean ‘letsgetmarriedhavebabiesandbehappyforever’  or even ‘iamcallingyouafriendbecauseiamtooscaredtoaskyoutohavehotsexwithme’ because if that is what he/she wanted to say, that is what he/she will say. you do NOT want a person who doesn’t know basic English/Hindi/Punjabi or whichever human language you communicate in. How do i know this. Because I do!do! not look for salacious details that you can laugh over in this post. HAHA

   4. just because you love/adore/in lust over/infatuated by/admire/respect/obsessed by this person, that person does not owe you love!!!! he/she does not owe you any of the above mentioned feelings in combination or individually. you do NOT want love to be OWED to to you. you do not. you do not.you do not!

 5. its so tempting to indulge in self pity. and i suggest indulge. but in private maybe. since at the moment, your feelings are only your business. and your head/heartache. sharing it with blogs/friend/friendship status is okay i guess but EXPECTING other person to pity on you because you say ‘what’s wrong with me’ 14563409 times. ‘gawd i am so unlucky’ 7652310 times with a sigh (now we know why its snowing in delhi, it’s not global warming it is your SIGHS!) is silly! if it is not humiliating then maybe you need dictionary.com because it is supposed to be humiliating. you can eventually/always can live without this person. so his rejection/scorn/insulting /patronising remark you can get over. but you cannot live without yourself, so don’t do it. at least try. no one learns to love another person in one day, it’s a long process, so it’s okay if you don’t get loving yourself on the very first day! but try. do not say ‘love me because i am so needy/pathetic’ things because whether or not you get this person, either ways you will regret this.

this is all i can think of at the moment.

i can also please please please suggest three amazing reads in this direction :

Revolution from Within by Gloria Steinem

The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein

and

this i suggest a little reluctantly but i don’t think this is only for women. i think its just talks about the delusions we live with. i half agree with the book. and i half disagree with the book. i agree that we delude ourselves in so many ways because we don’t know/aknowledge/express our true worth but i do not agree that ALL men are such shallow bastards. maybe some are. but the so are so women, so there! so read it for fun and some wisdom. Here

He is Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt,Liz Tuccillo and Lauren Monchik.

P.s not that i have any kind of readers at the moment so this is rather presumptitious but if someone shares this without pinging back to me then that person will ALWAYS have unrequited love all his/her life. this is my curse! Hah!

Never mind, origins are rarely important.
Its the reaction that counts.
Something is always better than nothing.
Now make that 5 epiphanies!

So, I quickly composed the answer, checked for grammatical errors. In my head, of course.
Er…you do remember the bulb, the sink, the toothbrush?
“So , its like this beta , that good things are a result of painstaking efforts, sacrifices and continuous self evolution…er…okay since you are only 7 years old , make that …growth or something.”
Her knitted brows are the punctuation in my speech! How well we work as a team, I thought happily.
” On the other hand bad things you know…are just lazy thinking, taking easy ways out, not being disciplined etc. So you know more people are lazy than not so bad things are more common than good.”
Her ‘whatever’ and the sudden disappearance didn’t startle me.
One I am used to it.
Second, I was still playing the game of evading the truth in my mind.
I love the game, most stimulating, keeps me alert and on adrenalin.
So, now the Team Truth says that bad things also take continuous indifference, apathy, it takes monouvering to push the fleeting thoughts of hope away.
As hope…hope often betrays.
Anyway, it is also worth noting,
that this answer of Team Truth will not fly anywhere as its not age appropriate.
Hmm…
I can go back to brushing my teeth now.
I wish she wouldn’t ask me these question while I am at the sink, though.
Its dangerous!
I could just accidentally glance in the mirror you know…

but a whole lot of posts and opinions are making me think in another direction. another direction from Enough is Enough and Lets fight Back. These two posts in particular.

really,though. everyone is scared and everyone is hurt and disturbed. everyone has spoken of sleepless nights and paranoia. everyone has also spoken of what we should do, what we want to do. and i am glad for all of us.

but this does seem like an insult to all the soldiers who lost their lives in the past if we remember only a few of them, doesn’t it. it does seem like an insult to the pain of those who experience it everyday and we don’t care because north east is back of the beyond its not a coffee shop which have personal memories for all of us.

but then again what i speak of sounds like futile cynicism, it IS better to do something than nothing. i don’t want to do nothing, i am going to empower myself in the way i know i need to. tonight i am going to read and understand what a PIL means and how it works, i am going to understand what Z security etc means and what the whole confusion about this 49 O is, which is somehow promising us magic but everyone is conviniently not reading the fine print that says this is ineffective in electronic ballot system. okay maybe not ineffective but the voting decision is not secret any more.

Major Unnikrishnan’s father refuses to let any politician enter his house. he also threatens to commit suicide if they do. it might not be as dramatic as the black bands and the white shirts but it is extremely important what we are communicating to our children today and everyday. Major Unnikrishnan didn’t magically become a brave soldier. His parents and the value that they instilled in him reflected in giving up his life.

i wonder what the parents of these terrorists are like? can they ever imagine that the small baby sleeping in their arms looking helpless may grow up to kill at close range, with robot like lack of emotions, 200 people and more and still feel not even fleeting remorse.

yes it is extremely unfortunate that we had to have the terror right at our doorsteps and we had lose people we knew or knew of to such horrific deaths to finally admit to ourselves that THIS happens in the Nortn East and Kasmir every day, every week and there seems to be no end in sight for them.

mumbai is ours, we are proud to be indians. we appreciate people like this who are with us sharing our pain and anger. but how many times have we called ourslves Assamese or Kashmiri in spirit? okay i speak for myself and myself alone. i haven’t.

11bomb blasts shatter the spirits of people in Guwahati. we quickly check on our friends and then sigh and turn away. when i was very very little Kashmir was a jannat. we all used to dream of going there… but the generations right after me will only know kashmir as a bone of contention between two countries or as this state which is always burning…

and since it is always burning we can’t bother too much about it.

some of us wore black yesterday and today in mumbai and lit candles ( i did the latter and i feel stupid now) in our windows to show solidarity and to protest. i am not going to be judgemental about what others are feeling and doing but i didn’t do it. i didn’t do this because i want myself to suffer. i don’t want myself to feel that i have done ‘something at least’ by wearing a black band. i want my sleep to be tortured so i pore over the editorials of newspapers more seriously so that when i vote next year i know exactly what i am doing. i want to be afraid for a really long time so that my 14 month old nephew doesn’t grow up to inherit this fear from me and people around him.

i deserve to wince in fear and squirm and feel overwhelmed by guilt for being alive because if i don’t now, i will learn to get used to the violence in mumbai and delhi the same way as i have gotten about assam and kashmir.

it was almost too easy to say/think/feel that such things happen in pakistan because er…pakistan is like that only…and now THAT country is us. j.w marriott of islamabad is the taj in my city. today!

taj, a very very prominent part of my aspirations. the place that awed me and coaxed all these dreams in me each time i walked inside.  the first time i had coffee there was very special to me because now i could afford it with my own money. the joy i felt also embarassed me because i wanted to walk there non chalantly and not so aware of the fact that the coffee cost more than 150 rs! taj was always a part of my ‘one day…dreams for me’ . and now my friend shares with me that she feels that taj will be shifted to another place or at least not rebuilt in a hotel because no one, would ever stay in a room that witnessed gory murders. she may be right. i can easily get over these dreams because in the light of what has happened my dreams are trivial to the point of being insulting and shallow!

but how many places am i going to give up. for the past 6 years i have walked in smug knowledge that mumbai is not delhi. here i can be safe and more importantly FEEL safe all the time. i have loved the local trains passionately. i have loved the feel of south mumbai so much that it could bring tears to my eyes in the first months of my being a mumbaikar! i have found a refuge in malls across the city. i have been so deeply thankful that the city has been generous to a personal space-junkie like me who never ever had to think a single thought extra before heading for a film alone or to grab a bite alone. i escaped from the fear of delhi streets to the haven…which is not a haven any more.

it probably wasn’t perfect before wednesday either. of course people have valid and sordid tales to tell of this city also. but the safety i felt was a part of me. and now i will walk in fear.

but i say , i deserve this fear. i am the one who forgot the most important lesson of growing up. you have to earn the life you want. whether it is the iPods, respect from boyfriends, appreciation from bosses, understanding from friends and the right to walk free without fear.

Dr. Daisaku Ikeda a poet and a spirtual leader said ‘ Hope is a decision.’. I read this while praying a while back. i read his words to soothe my spirit, to polish my faith , to learn to be happy and brave. but today this 4 word phrase was a BIG slap to my face.

of course it is a decsion that i have to take. if i want to live in a city that does justice to all my dreams and gives me the non judgemental space to exist and then i should bloody well earn it!

i know it is a ramble.

but i also know this is only the first post. i will be reflecting more and hopefully will write something which has more value.

but then again, this is a place where i want to think aloud and sort out my thoughts so why the aplogetic tone in my voice?

please do read this post by my friend where she makes a very pertinent point when she speaks of the enthusiasm we all felt for Obama’s coming to power and implies a very escapist and convinient cynical approach we all don as a way of our political opinion.

 except that i’d like to gently point out that in the indian political system the president is but a rubber stamp. she/he can make a difference if she/he is motivated enough but is not really required to! it’d be pertinent to compare Obama to Manmohan singh more than Pratibha Patil.

and the second one is an ad i loooooove. 

anyhow, some of us hate the depiction of love in the films. we are appalled, angry, amused, roll our eyes at, spew a lot of theories on, ignore it, bullshit it etc etc. Some recognise it as ‘just fantasy’ and say ‘so what’s the big deal…it is just a film.’

but there are some who take it somewhat, faintly, very, obsessively  seriously. and i have met, known, interacted with and invested emotions in their opinions so therefore though i have no stats to back me up i think i want to write about this.

one of the recurring theme is how the boyfriend/girlfriend dies and the spouse left-behind, doomed to be single, heartbroken etc meets a look alike and falls MADLY in love.

yes of course it is shallow. it is THAT obvious. but i know the types who in real life have fallen for rebounds just because he/she looked so much like their ex. 

it sounds strange and it sounds disturbing. because of course physical attractiveness is important. oh a minor digression , i don’t MEAN (or ever endorse) attractiveness as approved by the society. i don’t think only beefy men, thin women etc are hot. i so do not. i’d also like to assert that i don’t do this because i am alternative or different, i do this because i belive that is the ONLY sane or normal thing to do. personally rickety chested nerdy men, anorexic starving actor type, well built and TDH with a scar, cute and balding but with smouldering sex appeal, cute teddy bear type with a fatherly smile, puppy type man half my age have ALL rocked my boat so…whoever works, his looks just add to the appeal, they are not the end all or be all.

okay so coming back to the topic. i remember Kaho Na Pyaar hai the most here but i am sure there are hundred others. 

and i actually know people who have fallen for people who remind them or look like their ex. okay i know about two and i have heard of a third one. the third one ended in a suicide, coz the new BF was nothing like the first one in personality and she couldn’t get over the first one ever.

a friend of mine almost stalked the second guy, the look alike to give her the same attention and he wouldn’t (thankfully) and she had to get married to a boring (very very nice guy) man with her heart broken.

oh that girl is another story or rather many stories so remind me if you by some miraculous chance are not only reading this post but also interested in what i have to say.

but such phenomena is TRULY bizarre except that i know that many many people fall for such superficial things and then cry and regret all their lives. whether they follow it up with look alikes or not they begin with idiotic standards in the first place! 

do you know such people? how do you deal with them?

i deal with it in my not so advisable being snobbish and saying snide/mean things to them. yes its not a nice thing to do. but i have issues too and this is my issue. too harsh about some relationship aspects.

An ex who i am always chatting with is telling me in that smug, sentimental tone that he is ‘alone’ so he is introspecting blah blah. the ‘aloneness’ is making him introspect. listen asshole, if you were this sensitive and perceptive, phir to baat hi kya thi.

anyway so i tried to be charitable in my head about his feelings. in real life, with him i am like shreya of Bachna Ae Haseeno…sigh. So even I identify with the film after bitching so much about it…hmmm…

anyway so i was trying to defend his feelings by thinking, so big deal loneliness is loneliness…whether i feel it or him..same thing. then suddenly realised that at the end of this ‘loneliness’ he is going back to his wife and child and with that huge salary that he gets, he is not going to any pressing worries either. and i was jealous. i was pissed. and i was pissed at myself even more for being pissed in the first place. I tried to ignore pics on facebook….but fail.

brilliant. so on a PUBLIC blog i admit that i am pissed (AT THE MOMENT) about being single… are two-three people who stumble by, out of loyalty, public? hmmm? besides the loyal junta is married or in happy relationships too…so what do they know.

wah wah wah…just in 48 hours being 30 doesn’t seem like such a hot deal.

and yes it is NOT PC to assume on my blog that i might be PMSing. so i am just annoyed that assholes ex’s are getting on with their lives, their present girlfriends are flashing diamond rings under my nose and breathing down my neck to get hooked too…coz it is so much fun. yes miss sensitve, present girl friend, i am wilfully not getting hooked coz i am mental!

i am not hooked, coz i refuse to relax my standards. most days it is not awful, bad, bothersome, it just IS. some days its even THANK GOD I AM SINGLE. but some days it is pissing off!

p.s one BIG reason for my breaking up with that boy was that he thought i was too un-girl like, not tom-boy like but just not feminine enough for him. in my attitude, that is. why didn’t i like gold, diamond, make up…why did i only want to read and talk and think….etc. I was also not maternal enough because if a random child threw up next to me in a restaurant, i’d be disgusted and not full of motherly love for the child. Ugh. so this diamond ring is even pissing off…coz i did/do not want the bloody ring but still…