Of long absences and some soul-searching...

So, here it is...my first post in about a year and a half. Yes, that is a long gap indeed...and if I were to sit down and analyse what all has happened in these intervening days to make me stay away from writing - well, the answer would be, a lot, and also, not much at all!

 

For the big picture largely remains unchanged - I am still (largely) the same person (give or take a couple of pounds :P); I still work in the same law firm; I still  hang out with mostly the same set of friends; I still ask a thousand questions a minute; I still smile from the heart; I still get angry and then calm down in a jiffy, and I am still looking for something (or someone) to make my world go around :) 

 

Yet, the details have certainly changed - there are some strands of grey in what once used to be a thick mop of black hair - strands that, one hopes, symbolise wisdom; there are wrinkles marking experiences, heartbreaks, eureka moments et al. that I have lived through; and most importantly, there is the slow but relentless changing of the world around me, which colours my perception of things and people on a basic, day-to-day level. Foremost among them has been the failing health of the old folks, which has brought on the very unsettling realisation that somewhere along the way, quietly, and without me realising it, the tables have turned - they have gone from being my pillars of strength to the ones who need the support, while I, the baby of the family, now suddenly find myself to  be the pillar they lean on. 

 

In the midst of it all, is a question that has increasingly been clamouring for an answer, and which I have, rather determinedly, pushed to the farthest recesses of my mind, but can't, any longer....the question being, is that all that was supposed to be? What am I working towards? What is the point of all this travelling on the highway called life, if there is no destination to reach? Or is it the journey itself that matters?

 

When I read what I just wrote, it all seems very fanciful, all big words and self-important mumbo-jumbo. But this is something that has been mercilessly bothering me for at least the past year....where am I headed? What is the purpose of my life? What makes me happy? And most importantly, what makes me tick?

 

Someone whose wisdom I've come to value in the short time that I've known him, summed it up rather well when he said that all of us go through this at varying points in our lives, when somewhere the numbers don't stack up any more, and we're left with this feeling of emptiness... It is at this stage, he said, that we either make peace with life as we currently know it, or strive to break free and discover ourselves as people we never knew....

 

Maybe, it's time for me to discover the person I never knew myself to be...

But maybe I'll delve into that question after I have discovered what Deepika Padukone is like in her latest outing as a girl from Tamil Nadu, and what SRK is like when he plays his age...yes, I have a date with the Chennai Express in about an hour...do I see you there?

Ain't no Susanna

So the parents are looking for a groom for moi... having given me ample opportunity to find someone on my own, and having seen me not really do much about it, the good parents decided to take matters into their own hands, in order to be able to fulfill their last remaining 'responsibility' as parents...

And thus began the hunt...preceded of course by what my parents thought were discreet enquiries about my 'preferences' regarding the prospective husband...'you want someone tall?', 'obviously, he'll be Bengali', 'the horoscopes will need to be matched...let's speak to [...] (our family astrologer)', 'Of course, we'll try and ensure that you don't have to move, but, you know, just in case, do you have any preferences in terms of any other cities that you would be willing to move to?' etc. etc.

In due course, I found myself alongwith the parents and another elderly couple at the gates of one of the older clubs of Calcutta, waiting for a family, whose son and scion I was supposed to meet. Said family made its appearance some five minutes later and we all made our way in to the seating area overlooking a lake, which bore a curiously deserted look, which was explained by the sole forlorn-looking waiter as being a result of the fact that the club caterers were not coming in that day, it being a national holiday. The waiter however, did manage to rustle up some sandwiches to go with tea (we were, after all, ostensibly there for tea), and my parents, parents of the Said Boy ("SB" for ease of reference) and the other elderly couple, through whom the parents had come to be introduced to SB's parents, settled down on the chairs made available to us.

The predictable followed..polite, slightly awkward interaction between the two sets of parents, between the parent and the prospective daughter/ son-in-law and between SB and me. Satisfied with their interrogation, and the limited interation between SB and me, the parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided to finalise matters and seal the deal, so to speak...the wedding date was duly finalised and therafter followed a slightly formal, but parent approved, courtship period...

For good or for bad, SB and I discovered over the course of the next few months that we were really different people with nothing in common, and hence decided to close things out before they got any further....of course, this decision was accompanied by the usual unpleasantness, name-calling, blame game, et al...but to cut a long story short, the parents' first attempt at finding a husband for me came to a slightly abrupt and premature end...

Not to be dettered, the parents promptly got to work and within a couple of months, had lined up Another Prospective Groom ("APG"). Things got off to a fairly good start with APG - we were of nearly the same age..we spent hours chatting, going for plays, attending concerts...the works. Somewhere along the way, the parents visited me, met APG's parents, who seemed to be really sweet, chilled out people and, of course...broached the topic of marriage. APG's parents seemed fairly enthusiastic, promised to visit and actually did visit the old folks at our house back home, and things began moving towards a discussion about possible wedding dates.

In the midst of all this, however, APG and more disturbingly, his mother ("MIL", henceforth - no, not ma-in-law...Monster In the Lurk, gettit?) increasingly began talking in not so happy tones about my work, the work hours...suddenly there was a long list of what I had done wrong, how I didn't care, how I ALWAYS prioritised work over APG, and beat this...over MIL. MIL especially was very upset with me about how on exactly two occassions, I had shown up late by about half an hour, causing her poor puppy to have to wait at the bustling train station...oh the horror!!!

One fine day, MIL decided enough was enough and decided to sit me down for a chat...about how I was not the one for her precious lil diamond, and how she wasn't very happy about the match..of course, I was too dumbstruck at that time to even point out that the "match" was something that had been approved by the parents, who actually introduced APG and me. In a long winding lecture where she touched upon issues best not mentioned in polite company, she eventually declared that she would need to think about whether she could include me in her family or not. Needless to say, the precious lil diamond for whom this battle was waged was nowhere to be found, having chosen to hide under MIL's pallu (figuratively only, I hope...). And of course, I am yet to hear from her.

Am I heartbroken? Hell, no...but I'd be lying if I were to say that I have remained completely unaffected by two such emotional upheavals in the course of one year...the blame game, the whole feeling of having to sell myself short, the unpleasantness, the longing to have someone who actually thought about me as opposed to only themselves...they did take a toll. It would not be an exaggeration for me now to say that I don't have the strength or the courage to get into another relationship..."love", "arranged" or anything in between.

How did you manage, Susanna?*

*reference to the protagonist of "Susanna's Seven Husbands" by Ruskin Bond, recently popularised by the Bollywood movie, "7 Khoon Maaf"

When I get married...

... I will be able to get a haricut.

....I will be able to go on (and truly enjoy, it seems) a vacation.

....I will be able to get houses on rent more easily.

....I will cease to be asked when I plan to 'settle down'.

Before you start thinking that I have totally and irretrievably lost my marbles, dear reader, let me fill you in on the background to this post.

Scene 1 - a lazy Sunday afternoon right after getting a haircut

Moi (having called up the Mater excitedly after a brand new haircut) - Ma, ami chul katiyechi! Khub bhalo keteche, layers e (Ma, I got a haircut...they've styled it really well, in layers).

Mother (barely managing to supress an involuntary shriek) - Eeesh! Ar koyek din pore katatish... (Eeesh! You could have got the haircut after some days..)

Clueless moi - Keno? Koyekdin pore katale ki hoto? (Why? What would have happened if I got a haircut after some days?)

Extremely logical mother - Na, tor biye hoye jeto! (Nothing, you'd be married by then!)

Nugget of information as a minor aside  - The wedding date is nowhere in sight...heck, even Mr. Right is nowhere in sight!

Scene 2 - another random marathon adda session with the Mother (yes, I have a lot of these adda sessions, as you can see)

Don't remember the exact conversation, but the gist of it was something to the effect that vacations are truly fun and romantic only when one is with the significant other (the "SO"), and if I visited all the places I wanted to right now in my sorry single state, what would I do when the SO finally made an appearance in my life? Romantically eat peanuts while looking deep into SO's eyes in the local train in Mumbai???

Sigh! Never mind that I have been hit by wanderlust ever since I can remember and have even allocated a week out of my measly three week permitted leave in a year to travel to new and unknown destinations :) which of course, till date, have happened only in my mind.

Scene 3 - in an apartment in Malad in earnest conversation with the owner of said apartment with me fervently hoping to make the transition from one of the many inspecting the said apartment to the one finally taking it on rent

Owner of Apartment ("OA") - So who all will be staying in this house?
Moi - Principally me, but my parents will visit me from time to time...
OA (turning to broker) - I told you I want only family type people...all these single girls...I don't want to be going to jail...
Moi (startled enough at this point to break into the conversation) - Sorry, didn't get the connection...
OA - Yes, all these single girls, they come and do all sorts of things, and then the brokers and owners have to go to jail...you know of this recent case where yada yada yada...I am also travelling most of the time, what if something happens to you yada yada yada...so bottomline is that I am very clear...yada yada yada...I want only families in this house.

Scene 4 - any time I am with family and well wishers

Concerned neighbourhood aunty/ relative/ well wisher (fill in as appropriate) ("CP" for concerned person) - So, what you doing?
Moi - I'm a lawyer, associated with a law firm in Mumbai.
CP - So how long have you been in Mumbai?
Moi - About four years now...
CP - Wow! That's a long time...yada yada yada...so when are you planning on settling down?
Moi (at least initially) - Well, I am kind of settled in a way, y'know...nice job, love the city, things are looking good if you ask me (tentative smile follows)
CP - Oh c'mon! That's not what I meant, and you know that...when are you planning on tying the knot?

This is typically followed by absolutely direct questions as to whether I am dating someone, if no, why not, if because there's no time, then maybe I should consider a lifestyle change which would give me more time for myself...at which point of time my eyes glaze over while I desperately look for the first opportunity to turn and run!

Before you draw any conclusions about me being a vehement, frothing-at-the -mouth opposer of the institution of holy matrimony, let me hasten to assure you that I am quite the romantic, with embarrasingly outdated and idealised notions of love and marriage and I would love to be married one of these days, actually fairly soon, but what really has me annoyed is the persistent denial that most people seem to face regarding a single, unattached girl, and the completely overrated position of marriage in the larger scheme of things.

To be fair to the dear mother, I think her dismay at me having got a haircut stems from her concern about my hair needing to be styled into a bun for the wedding ceremony, and (in her mind) the complete likelihood of my knight in shining armour sweeping me off my feet the day right after the hair cut, in which case, said hair would be too short to be styled into a bun....well Ma, that's not happened so far, so I've gone and gotten a haircut yet again :)

But on a more serious note, though one would have to appreciate the concern of well wishers for a single girl in terms of how it is difficult to deal with everything singlehandedly, and I'll admit that one does sometimes wish for a helping hand and smiling face to come back home to, it does get a tad annoying when people tend to look at marriage as the be all and end all of a girl's life, making it seem as if her whole life is in limbo for that one moment when knight in shining armour puts sindoor in her maang, after which the said girl would lose all identity of her own and be referred to as X ki bahu and Y ki bhabhi and Chunnu ki mami and Munnu ki chachi.   

Is it really so difficult for people to accept the fact that in today's day and age, there is a sizable chunk of girls, at least in the major cities of the country, who having spent most of their waking time in the past five years or more doing things which are all designed to achieve a professional degree from a reasonably reputed college/ university, would want to spend some time on their own discovering themselves and figuring out who they are as people, as professionals and as individuals, before taking on the responsibility of another person and possibly another family? Is it really that unimaginable that a girl may want to stay alone for a while instead of making a transition from her parents' house to the hostel to the husband's/ in laws' house? 

And assuming, though I am totally not inclined to believe this, that girls with thoughts like those above (a.k.a like me) are really few and far between, is it too much to ask for if I want to treated as someone in my own right? Why is it considered necessary for a girl to get married before she's considered 'settled' in life? Do financial and professional security count for nothing? Will it always be necessary that the SO (as and when he does decide to show up) be used as a defining point rather than someone who complements me and my personality?

What do you think?

It's that time of the year again...

It just seems like yesterday that we ushered in 2009. Though it was a quiet celebration, because I was still recovering from a relapse of malaria, it was all that a celebration looks like in my mind...friends, family (well, almost, it was T's family and her house, and that sort of qualifies), good food, a long adda session...all in all, a great time.

And zap, it's time to usher in 2010 already!

As I get into the festive mood, the kind of looked forward to, but not really eagerly anticipated, year end contemplation begins to make its presence felt. It is something that has become a sort of tradition in the past three Christmases that I have spent in the city...where I look back at the year gone by and thank the people who have made the year memorable. This ritual has great significance for me, because it is my way of creating a family out of friends in this city where I have no relatives and no family to fall back upon. Some of these people are friends from college, some others who I met here, but all of them are today an integral part of my life.

Festivals, for me, have always been associated with traditions. This ritual is also my attempt at creating traditions and establishing a familiar pattern in this phase of life on my own.

And then, of course, there's New Year's eve...unlike most people I know, I do not have any plans in place yet to bring in the New Year. So what does someone, who's not interested in braving maddening traffic after work on the last day of the year to squeeze into a smokey place filled with people packed like commuters in rush hour traffic in a Churchgate bound local from Virar, do? Dunno yet, but we'll discover the answer in the course of tomorrow :) Of course, Nuts has invited a bunch of us over to her place tomorrow for a house party with the promise of making waffles on New Year's morning, before I leave for the airport to get to Cochin for a dear friend's wedding. Yeah, I know, is she sweet or what!      

And of course, somewhere in between, there is packing to be done for the trip, work to be finished and resolutions are to be made (and hopefully, stuck to, this time around!) On that note, time for me to sign off now...wish you and yours a very happy new year!

PS. On that note, have often wondered, is there anyone out there, who's reading all that is the outcome of me pouring my heart out on (virtual) paper? Anyone at all? If so, it'd be nice if you gave me a holler, if only to return my sincere wish! :)

Until I am ready to pour my heart out again in the new year....

Toodles!