Anne in Wonderland

A Tribute

2010-10-21T12:46:00.001+05:30

I'm sure all of us have had teachers who made our jaws drop while explaining something. You think "wow! Really? That looks so simple now; why didn't I think of it earlier?" If you haven't had a teacher like that, you've missed one of the very few genuine pleasures life offers: it is a moment of learning, knowledge; gratitude, blessedness and pure luck.

I've been lucky to have many of those: first and foremost ST of course, and then Rajeev. No one can explain theory - or the little bits he chooses to explain that is - like Rajeev does. His classes used to be at 8 in the morning and most of the class would be sleepy. I almost never slept in his class. One of Rajeev's weaknesses is going off the topic; so he never finishes what he sets out to do. But that's also why he made concepts very easy to understand. He would weave in and out of theory and life and jokes and incidents. One fitted into the other and clarified it; you never felt like you were listening to a lecture on philosophy. Which is what, I felt, Ashok never did. I never liked his classes; his antics were unique and he was quite dramatic, so the class was never bored; nobody slept. It's a huge task - to keep 60 or 70 students entertained while lecturing on philosophy. He might have suited more to the traditional mode of a lecturer. He would repeat the same sentences in many different ways, but was not very good at making concepts seem simple. Maybe a teacher should not do that; but I've always loved teachers who did.

Sadly enough, not a single teacher stands out from college. I hated that college and wanted to get out of there every single day I spent there, and I realize the worst part of it was the teachers. I felt they had no business teaching me; arrogant, but I did feel that.

Plus two, both my English teachers stand out - I can't now remember whether it is because I fell in love with English Literature then or whether I fell in love with Lit because of them. Given my character, the second is probably true. And, that's my memory too.

I still remember a few Maths lessons from my high school - remember it so vividly that I can see where I'm sitting, where my teacher is standing and even, the sari she is wearing! It was such a moment of nirvana then, but I never thought that moment would stay with me for the rest of my life. That photo has flashed through my mind many times since then. She was explaining (a+b)2 = a2+2ab+b2 and that whole set that went with it - (a-b)2, (a+b)(a-b) etc etc. I never got them wrong ever afterwards; and I always wondered why people found them difficult; it never occurred to me that gifted teachers were so very rare.

Something happened yesterday. A colleague of mine found it difficult to explain some algebraic steps to a student; I helped her explain it to herself and then she asked me if I could help the kid. So I did that, and as I was doing each step, I heard not myself - but Lily teacher speaking through my lips. I was so moved by the experience, the memory, my almost verbatim repetition of what she did years ago, that my mind went off the lesson quite a few times.

Later P came in to thank me and I said "I just had amazing teachers."

It is for these huge reasons that I love Kerala; I grew up in a village, or many villages. Not TVM or Cochin or Kozhikkode. Did not go to convent schools or even private ones for that matter; did not even study English medium till year 7. But I've had the best teachers possible anywhere in the world. Kerala makes that possible. And as long as that is possible in Kerala, I won't mind not being able to wear jeans or smoke in public or travel alone in the evening!

That is why I want to go back; why I have to go back; what exactly is there to choose from otherwise?

Parenting

2010-06-24T12:37:00.001+05:30

Really, what makes one write? I've been wanting to write a post on Parenting for some time. I never seem to get it exactly right!

What does it mean to be a good parent? Who is a good parent? How does one learn to be a good parent?

I've been thinking about this for some time for many different reasons; but what infuriated me recently is the story of a student of mine; let's call him A.

In the UK curriculum, when the students take the board exam in year XI, they are divided into two groups: those who CAN get As and Bs take the 'Higher Tier' and the rest take 'Foundation'. In a way, this is a good step and reduces the pressure on kids; on the other hand, it presumes that teachers know whether a student is capable of meritorious achievement or not.

If 10 years of schooling has not been able to identify what makes each kid 'tick' and thus tailor the curriculum to his / her needs, what makes teachers think that they can predict that a child is capable of only C or D even with outside help or even some miracles!!?? Why limit their chances of an A or B??

It was not easy to get A to write in the beginning; but something happened around the end of the first term; something clicked and he has been doing great work since then. He wrote one of the most imaginative stories for me and was asking me how one gets published etc! He has also been asking if he could do Higher Tier now; the answer is No.

But even now, if you send him homework, he won't do it! If you sit next to him and ask him questions and lead him on, he will do wonders!

He is imaginative, his vocab is brilliant, grammar is almost perfect. I just wonder why on earth the parents waited till the last moment to get him some help?!

We hear so much about 'pushy parents'! But what does it take to devote one's life to kids, to identify their strengths and weaknesses and guide them along the way? It is an abdication of one's responsibility as a parent if one doesn't do that. I found a book recently, Positive Not Pushy with a similar sentiment! Was happy to see these thoughts written!

Memory

2010-06-21T10:23:00.001+05:30

I've been accused of detailed memory . . .which is not always positive nor only of pleasant ones. I don't take notes or intend to keep these things in my mind, but they do leave a lasting impression. I think that's why I like reading and writing -- I love details; a turn of the head; the shape of the brows or the colour of the hair; life is in details, isn't it?

Where does one begin to discuss yesterday's post? Still wondering . . .

Writing

2010-06-17T09:49:00.000+05:30

How does writing make you feel? I'm talking about the process of writing. I feel exhausted after it. Even when you feel you've done a good job, you feel drained after it all. I feel like I've done some major work for the day and don't feel like doing anything else after it - even when it's just writing a comment. I think I understand now why writers are 'lazy' people who can't do any other work! :-)

Communism & Capitalism

2010-06-16T10:02:00.000+05:30

Something beautiful happened last night! I decided to do a lesson on analyzing the structure of a poem and came up on Lawrence Felinghetti's Two Scavengers In A Truck. Looked to me like the perfect poem for this lesson.

The students here are not always aware of political ideologies; so I was a bit hesitant to use words like 'capitalism' etc. But when it came to the last verse, I found it impossible to explain the meaning without the word. Also because, this boy is a very good student and your usual 'blah blah' is not enough for him. He needs to know that you know what you are talking about. And the surface meaning etc, he would get at one glance; doesn't need your help for that.

So I asked him do you know what 'capitalism' is? Of course, he did! And I asked him, so what is 'communism'? 'A democratic system where everyone is equal!'

Whoa!

From a kid in Dubai who studies in a private school under the UK curriculum?

Where did you learn that?

British History!

Phew!!

What's your teacher's name?

At that point he burst out laughing!

So I asked him which do you prefer?

The normal.

What's normal?

Capitalism, I guess.

Why is it normal?

Because most countries follow that!

However, he was more open and articulate after I gave him a context of Ferlinghetti's life and works and explained that this was not a 'neutral' poem. The poet was taking sides. He seemed relieved that he didn't have to carry that burden!

Or, maybe it's my wistful eyes!

Here's the poem:

http://www.think-ink.net/visit/truck.htm

Till another day of adventrue.

Love.

Being Good

2010-06-14T11:03:00.002+05:30

For a long time now, and especially since I've been teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, Brighton Rock, and A Clockwork Orange this year, I've been thinking what does it mean to be good? Needless to say, also because of situations I find myself in on a day to day basis.

I don't remember much from AB's classes. But I remember one thing he used to say in almost every single lesson: "Morality is tested in extreme situations; you might say 'But I didn't have choice', but if you did, that wouldn't be a test of your morality", and every time he said that, I would think "wow!" And I always studiously kept quiet when LK, NM and SJ ranted about AB's morality trips after every lesson in our room! :-) I so totally agreed that in a Literature or Film Studies class, there are a lot more topics to be covered than morality (and I don't dwell on it myself when I teach), but honestly, I've never found anything more interesting! ST might not like this and die-hard ST students might object, but I liked her lessons so much because they were always morally sound!

Especially in To Kill a Mockingbird, what does it mean for that one family to take a stand so different from everyone around them? We might say what is needed is political movements and not individual morality, but that's not how Lee presents it. She mocks every single institution from religion, to education to law. Atticus seems to be an individual cut from the rest of the society. That might have to do with the history of the novel as a genre; and might also be the reason why Lee has been quiet after that single masterpiece. But still . . .

Since I'm usually quiet and not a trouble maker, every time I speak out, people find that surprising and a little out of the blue. But in some situations, not speaking out would mean complicity and that is as immoral as committing the crime itself.

But my dilemma has been, in personal relationships, where speaking out would mean disruption of the relationship, what should one do? Is morality more important than a relationship?

For example, Suppose I live with a group of friends and all of us do all the tasks in the house except for one person. Talking to that person doesn't help; she obviously knows that food just doesn't appear on the table or the room doesn't sweep itself. Do I just make some food for her too since anyway I'm cooking or do I not sweep that part of the room where she is sleeping?

Situations like these remind me of that joke about the Agnost's prayer to turn the lion into a Christian:
An agnost was in Africa hunting. All of a sudden a lion roared behind him. He turned around too quickly and dropped his gun. The lion charged towards him and all the hunter could do was run. He ran through trees and trails, but still the lion kept chasing him. When he couldn't run any more he said a quick prayer. "Dear God, please let this be a Christian lion."

Can one be moral and still not be exploited? Or, is that bit of violence, where one says "you get what you pay for" inherent to morality?

But it is not for Christian morality . . . it believes in Grace, Redemption, and Christmas and Easter . . .

A Love Letter

2010-06-13T10:03:00.005+05:30

Last night was fun; except for the disappointing performance from the English team. We got together at a friend's house to watch the match bigger and better. The night was supposed to be a US vs England night; but there were only 2 US supporters. One of them, hubby dear, in due course felt too sorry for English team to keep supporting the other team anymore. So there was a room full of us first hoping for and then feeling sad for the English team!

I'm watching football now because of J. One good thing about him is that he really educates me on history etc too. So if there is a historic moment or match which I have no clue about, he'll tell me all about it and make me watch it on you tube! I love that and so I don't feel completely disconnected nowadays...

Also, my kids are all mad about football. Especially about Messi and Rooney. I have to watch the matches for them; otherwise, my 'cool' quotient will come down! They were so impressed when I told them that I had watched Avatar first day first show. I did not tell them that I fell asleep after the initial 3D ecstasy was over; or that I had ragged J for making sure that he got the first day first show ticket!

I am the person they and I want me to be mainly because of him. . . .

Non Violence

2010-06-10T10:58:00.001+05:30

I was just reading an article on Israel's attack on Freedom Flotilla. The writer says that Israel's strategy, from the beginning, has been to attack and make Palestinians attack back so that they can claim "how can you talk to people who kill?" True, obviously. Does that mean, the only solution might be in non violent resistance? Of course, Palestinians alone might not achieve that; Gaza needs to be crowded with international activists! sigh! The papers here carry every minutest detail. It's difficult not to be affected!

That's another good thing about being here, though. The world is not US centered. There is a whole new world -- not only of politics, but also of poems, books and films-- that you had never bothered to think about, actually existing quite closer to you!

A Lesson Plan

2010-06-06T16:40:00.003+05:30

How does one teach to analyze the structure of a novel?

This is a problem that has been plaguing me for some time. None of my teachers ever taught us 'how' to do it. We read other sample answers, tried our hand at writing our own answers and after a few exercises we were ready to face the exam. So I've never understood how to 'teach' my students how to analyze a character or the structure of a work.

Since I started teaching, one of the things I understood was that the best way to help a student answer something is to ask him / her the right questions. I probably picked this up from one of my good teachers; maybe from 'the' best I've had. But this has often worked best. Especially, to teach my students basic grammar in Kerala, the method I used and the one that proved most effective was to ask them questions and thus enable them to ask the right questions.

But the trouble with a question like analyzing the structure of a novel or poem was that I did not know what questions to ask. You could ask who is telling this story, how is this presented etc? But, how do you teach students that who the narrator is important. I've had to tackle this problem, mainly for my A level student who is a 'genius', in my words, when it comes to analyzing issues and themes, but has been struggling with the problem of the importance of the structure of a work.

She had to work on the following question the other day: "How, in Brighton Rock, does Greene present Ida's and Pinkie's contrasting views of the world?"

I figured I had not been helping her enough; so I decided to answer this question myself. I started this mainly because I thought I wouldn't be able answer this myself. I started writing the answer and when I did, I was thrilled that I was doing a good job. Then I started asking myself the right question at each point. What did I say in this paragraph? Why did I say that? How does it answer the question? What if there was a counter point to this?

From these questions, I prepared an outline of questions for my student to 'ask back to this question':
      What is Ida’s view of the world?
   What is Pinkie’s view of the world?
   How are these views similar or different?

How does Greene present this? That means,

1. Who is telling the incident?

2. When is the incident being told? Is it as it happens (this is called chronological time)?

Or is it after the incident is over? (this is called flashback)

3. Do we see the incident? That is, is there action? Or do we only read what is going through the character’s head? This is called Stream of Consciousness.

   What does the reader feel about each of these characters?
   Do we like Pinkie? Why?
   Do we like Ida? Why?
   All the things we identified above, that is, who the narrator is, whether it is flashback or chronological time, etc, how do those help us to like these characters?
   For example, what if there was no justification for Pinkie’s behaviour? What if he was not trying to escape poverty? Would we still have liked him?
   Similarly, if we knew his background in the first chapter, would we have been sympathetic to Ida, a person almost like a ‘whore’, who goes after the death of a person she knew for a few hours?
   [If the story did not end on that tragic note, would we have felt sympathy for Rose? Or would we have been angry at her for being so gullible and stupid? This does not pertain to this question; but may help you in other questions.]

I got a reply back from my student saying "Thank you soooo much." Later, in class she told me, "I wish someone had done this for me earlier; you're the first person to break it down so simply."

There is nothing new about these questions; but I think it's the last 3 questions that helped her the most.

She has an exam on Tuesday; please pray that she gets another A. She is the brightest and the loveliest kid ever.

This also made me realize why I don't take "oh, she's only bookish smart" kind of comments seriously! The major part of learning is figuring out how to learn. And none of us has been taught that. All of us who mastered that art without outside help do need a pat on the back!

I also think all those teachers who never thought of this need to be removed from their jobs!

Well... that's all my ranting for the day! Have a good day!

Love.

Men

2010-06-03T10:51:00.000+05:30

Why is it that if there are three women in a room, all of them are vying for the attention and the appreciation of the lone man there? Never mind if the three women are a woman, her mother in law and her sister in law. The man, of course, the woman's husband.

In Dubai

2010-05-28T22:29:00.071+05:30

The first day J took me around Dubai was an interesting one. We went to the beach, the major malls and the museum. I loved the museum the best. The beach was empty (well, I guess that was natural given that we went there in the morning; not many people could have been as jobless as we were) and felt like as posh as the malls, the malls were . . . er. . malls and crowded, not my cup of tea. The museum satisfied my curiosity to a degree.

I had been feeling a bit of lack of history since I arrived here. Coming from India, where the land is over-burdened with history, the change can be disconcerting. I have always felt that if you travel through India, you can see History walking in front of your eyes. Especially in ancient (?) cities like Hyderabad or Delhi. One always hears, "Things change with time"; but passing through the crowded streets or the markets of India you almost feel different times taking shapes right in front of your eyes. There is always not only a house or a school that looks like it was taken straight out of an older era, but sometimes there is even a face, or a dress that evoke the same feeling. This is true even of the first world countries. I remember in Chicago, in Oakparks to be precise, once, papa took a wrong turn going somewhere, and we saw either a sign pointing to Ernest Hemingway's house or the house itself. In fact, what stays in my mind is a huge house with the sign, but I wonder now if that memory is correct. You just don't stumble into anything like that here. There is an area called 'Old Dubai', even there, nothing seems older than 20 years. I understand that this country is very young, only 38 or so years old. But you see, even that is incomprehensible to me. Even so, there must have been life before that, right? How old is India, as a country-- 60, 63? But our history goes a long way back, doesn't it?

Everything in Dubai has the feel of having been whitewashed recently; everything is slick and new. Though there is a lot of discussion on "our culture" generally, it looks apparent to me that these countries are trying to re-make themselves in the images of the industrialized western nations. [The irony of it is that 'modernity' is being defined as wealth and prosperity, not any of the values that characerized the Enlightenment or Modernity in the Western countries. Just look at the question of democracy or immigrant rights, for example.] Everything, including roads and bridges, is constantly being revamped and replaced; one has to search to find the old.

Therefore, the Museum gave me a vague idea of how life was lived in relatively older times. But even there, you couldn't help feeling that things were a little new.

See how many things remind you of Kerala:

One note somewhere in there mentioned the architecture and the woodwork especially being influenced by Indian traditions or some such thing!

What you see below is where New Dubai is:

These are wind towers:

Here is an explanation from wikipedia on how they work:

One of the most common uses of the malqaf is as an architectural feature to cool the inside of the dwelling, and is often used in combination with courtyards and domes as an overall ventilation / heat management strategy. The malqaf is essentially a tall, capped tower with one face open at the top. This open side faces the prevailing wind, thus 'catching' it, and bringing it down the tower into the heart of the building to maintain air flow, thus cooling the interior of the building. This is the most direct way of drawing air into the building, but importantly it does not necessarily cool the air, but relies on a rate of air flow to provide a cooling effect. This use of the malqaf or windcatcher has been employed in this manner for thousands of years, as detailed by contemporary Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy.

I don't have too many photos from the museum, the other ones I have don't serve any purpose. So, this is it for the time being.

Have a good day!

Down the Lane

2010-05-26T11:07:00.010+05:30

One of the few pleasures of living in the desert is being able to see the sun in all its glory! It looks so near, almost as if you can touch it!

I used to sit here and look at the sun for quite a while. What you can't see in between the desert and the sun is a large area of palm estate / field / orchard. (I'm not sure what the correct word is, sorry! :-( ) I was not bold enough to take a picture of that!

Was there ever a time in history when Malayali labourers were not present in the Gulf? If so, who took care of and maintained the palm estates? I want to write about the history of Kerala and the Gulf through life stories of labourers -- carpenters, gardeners, masons. What would it mean? What would it entail?

These forts are quite ubiquitous here, almost the only sign of life from a pre-skyscrapers era!

I used to walk on these roads and stare at all these things. I don't know why I pictured the light. But since I did, here it is:

This was the only tree in full life on that long road. I used to enjoy the shade of difference in its colour each day:

Can you spot the sun in the last picture?

One day, there was a stool (the intended meaning here is: "a single seat on legs or a pedestal and without arms or a back" and not the other one) under this tree. It felt to me that there was a kindred soul somewhere there. So the next day I took the camera with me and the stool had disappeared!

Can you see a town far in the background? That's our Dhaid town.

Dhaid

2010-05-25T12:08:00.000+05:30

These friends used to come and visit me every morning after everyone else in the house left for work:

By the time the day started heating up, they would disappear.

And this is the back-side of our house in Dhaid: This was my path every evening. I was scared to explore further, was scared even to go for walks. From deserted nowheres, suddenly cars would zoom past and around you making you wonder where they came from. They would even circle around you or follow you. I used to complain and crib thinking these were just jobless people like those in Kerala. Hubby dear would tell me they could be CIDs and must be following you because you walk around with the camera! I was not, am not, sure. But yes, I was stopped by a car full of police once. It was not on the road. Right here where you can see the tracks in the photo above. Customary questions and then asked where I was from and I was let off. After that, J asked me to carry the passport with me if I went for a walk! That was the end of my walks! I hated the feeling of going for a walk with my passport! I think now I know what it feels like to be in a police state! (Maybe not!) J and I fight about this a lot. He prefers the law, the order, the neatness, non politicians. I tell him chaos is life. Corrupt politicians any day! At least you can remove them from office.

Decency

2010-05-24T11:23:00.002+05:30

"Decency in Austen's time meant, for men and women alike, sincerity, unselfishness, and a concern for the happiness of others" (page 181), says Carol Shields in her biography of Jane Austen, which I just finished.
A novelist's re-creation of another novelist's life. Great read.

I wonder though, what decency means in our own time?

Flashback

2010-05-18T10:05:00.001+05:30

I've been thinking about what makes one write or, rather what makes writing possible. You need to be in power and control of your life and self to be able to write. I'm sure even the great tragic stories / poems (especially of broken hearts and failed relationships) were written after the writer overcame the sadness and the helplessness of it all -- like the film '500 Days of Summer'.

When I moved here, I wanted to write -- put photos of a lot of things. But that was more a feeling in my head rather than an urge to do it. I never managed to do it at all. I'm writing regularly now. And I started writing again just like that. There was no reason or cause for it. I had tampered with writing a couple of days but decided against it thinking I'll never do it regularly, so what's the point. But one day, I had to scribble and I had no plans to tell anyone that I was doing it again. The second day I got a comment. A few days later, I got a mail from another friend asking for the url! I was taken aback by the timing!

Anyway, I digress as usual. The point was I wanted to put some of those photos up. These are from last year.

There has been a lot of news lately of UAE and particularly Dubai sinking. One doesn't know the exact details or nature of those news. But what is certain is that a lot of people have left Dubai and rents have become rather affordable. When I came, we did not live in Dubai. We lived in a town called Dhaid which was further down Sharjah and was about 1 hour journey from Dubai. Our house was a spacious villa which reminded me of those kinds of houses one saw in Iranian films screened at the Film Club. I had asked hubby dear when we first started talking if he lived in a house like that and he did not exactly understand what I was talking about. As usual, our living was not as romantic or as communal (in the sense of community) as it was in the movies. It turned out to be just another house in due course.

Unfortunately, I never took a proper picture of the house itself. I used to go for a walk every evening. One such evening, after it was dark, it hit on me that I had no pics of the house as seen from outside. So I made an attempt. Here is a bad picture with apologies:

These photos are so good that our house is not even visible in them! sigh! There is a door after where the car is parked -- not the one you can see in the pic, but another one. That was our part of the villa.

Dhaid was a beautiful place -- calm and deserted (in both sense). But the flip side of it was that my mobility was 0. All I could do was walk. There was no public transport and hubby would leave home at 7 and come back by 8 or 9. Did I get bored? I must have, can't be otherwise. But not to the point that I made life miserable for hubby. I'm not known for patience and if I was bored to that extent, I certainly would have made him miserable.

But whatever did I do those days? Remember, I was not even blogging?

Bottle Wars

2010-05-17T10:07:00.000+05:30

The smartest, cleverest and the most subtle warfare happens in kitchens. It is fought with unopened bottles, misplaced knives and hidden plates.

Martha and Mary

2010-05-14T11:08:00.000+05:30

Without any reason or context, the story of Mary and Martha from the Bible came to my mind yesterday. How many times have I heard the story, how many times have I heard the story being philosophized! But never has there been a sermon / speech in which the story was described as the fight between two sisters -- one who easily took up the traditional role she was assigned and the other one who preferred more intellectual pursuits! And, in this case, Jesus actually validated and glorified the intellectual one!

And, think of all the classes and sermons where 'duty' is given god status and the primary duty of women are described as 'in the kitchen' and 'at home'! Even when there are not enough participants for many of the Church activities, and the priests directly target women audience, even then, they would say "If you don't cook at home and don't take care of your husband and children, all these you do will be in vain." Jesus seems to disagree!

That story has always been talked about as trying to please god by doing a lot for him on the one hand and just listening to him and accepting his words on the other!

God how did I miss this for so long! How do we miss the obvious all the time while looking for 'deeper' meanings?

The Laws of being In

2010-05-13T09:27:00.001+05:30

Perhaps there IS something sacred and sacrosanct about a mother's devotion and a parent's love. A quality of unquestioned acceptance. May be that's a little too stretched. May be it's just acceptance despite the questioning. You understand it and come to value it when you are ONLY a daughter IN LAW.

Gardening

2010-05-12T10:25:00.001+05:30

While on the question of organic living, here is my garden, if I can call it that:

When we shifted the house, we didn't get anyone to fix our dish antenna for a while. By the time we found the person, this one had become unusable. That served me well.

All these plants were bought. I've not been able to grow anything from seeds. A few sprouted, but withered away soon.

I forgot to make these plastic bags inside out so that the 'LuLu' log is not visible! sigh!

We have a few cheera:

and some brinjal:

This is a ginger that started sprouting in the kitchen. So I put it in the soil. I think it too is withering away.

That's me trying to make a compost out of kitchen waste!

Summer has just started. I hope all my plants survive this desert heat!

An unforeseen merit of this gardening has been that my life has some kind of a routine to it now. Quite early in the morning, that's by 7:30, 8:00, the sun is fully out and it is quite sunny here. I should water the plants before that. So, I get up, put milk on the stove for tea, go water my plants, make tea, come back and start blogging. And needless to say, both these habits -- gardening and blogging -- are addictive and I'm getting obsessed!

Wasting

2010-05-11T10:44:00.001+05:30

The marked difference between the life here (and by 'here', I mean both Dubai and my hubby's house) and the life at home is in the amount of waste generated a day. While there is still not a huge culture of commodification in India and my mom being the most frugal and the most careful user of anything, (besides my Christian background, I suppose,) throwing anything away feels like a grave sin. Worst of all, I can never see the reason for throwing something away other than the fact that it makes your life easier and you don't have to put any kind of effort into it. What do u do with that time gained from not working at it? Watch TV, browse the net, Watch TV and sleep? Yeah, I know we 'work' at our office. But it's amazing how much time is wasted at office too, in a day!

I have always felt that laziness and non-productivity (and therefore wastage of your time, energy, and thus, yourself) are the features of 'modern' life. In an agrarian economy, that would not be possible. Perhaps because my parents came from that background, they always tried to do something or the other. I've never seen them slouched in front of the TV for long. And everytime I was found doing it, I was told off for doing that. I dread to think how the next generation would be!

In a way, that's how I started thinking about recycling. The garbage can outside our house, which the municipality collected whenever they did, was always brimmed to the top. I suppose it has to do with the capitalism culture. Supermarkets and Hypermarkets stacked with attractively packed stuff -- both 'essential' and what was made to be 'essential' stuff! For example, Comfort Fabric Softener is a staple diet in our house. When I realized that it didn't come cheap and that us being a big family we ran out of it quite quickly, I stopped using it for my clothes or J's clothes. Guess what? Our clothes are intact! Hubby has not even noticed that what was an 'essential' part of his life for 28 years has now gone missing!

Sorry...! Digressing...back to where I was! So, the amount of plastic bottles and other kind of packaging stuff alone that were thrown away on a single day from a small residential area of 8 villas or so, was enough to delight and thrill the hearts of those garbage collectors who used to come to our house in Kerala, with sacks on their backs, rummaging through dirt and dust in the backyard. This is when the newspapers are full of articles on 'recycling' and how UAE has one of the biggest landmass of waste in the world etc etc! First, it started as a thought inside my head. When it grew painful, I started voicing it. "Why throw this away? Can't we keep it somewhere? Can't we take it to the recycling centre?" "But why? They won't give us money." I had not even thought of money. After all, when we sell bottles to garabage collectors back home, how much do we get? 50 paisa per bottle? And how many bottles does a household usually have? And my mom used to tell them not to pay and used to explain to me how this was their 'livelihood' and why we should not exploit them for something good they do for us.

The worst part was with the newspapers. The household had no concept of conserving paper. When we started subscribing to the newspaper, the biggest trouble was disposing off the bundle that came everyday! Newspaper is also a commodity here. Attractively packed and with more waste than substance both in its form and content. We just used to throw these away! No, I haven't been able to do anything with them, except find a place to keep them stacked up until I can persuade hubby dear to take me to a recycle centre one day.

There are a couple of Bangladeshi watchmen who live nearby. They've asked us for the plastic bottles. So now we wash them and keep them in a bag outside our house. They come and take them away whenever they can.

I have always wanted to live an organic life. What does it mean? What does it involve?

Recycling

2010-05-08T19:54:00.000+05:30

I have also been upto a little bit of this:

this:

and this:

Clearly, the first and the last magazine racks are made from cardboard boxes. I pasted decorative paper on them. I'm very bad at cutting things in a straight line and that is obvious even in these photos!

I have seen the second one in a lot of the Gelf houses in homeland! So I tried my luck with that too. Here, the magazines are put in the empty box of chocolates. These two sit at the entrance of our house. The money-plant is a contribution from the mother in law.

This is another chocolate packet. The bar code is still visible. I left it intact. The black flowers were part of another packaging. I cut it off and pasted it here. It was gifted to me by a student on Christmas. Ethan, from class 2. I did not want to throw it away. Thought of the best way to preserve it and came up with this! And this is what actually started off the whole crafting desires! The Lindt symbol is left intact too, on the other side: The book marks are cut from newspaper ads.

Our computer table has been relatively tidy after I managed to do this:

It's from a milk packet. I said "relatively" tidy. At least, the cards are not thrown around on the table anymore.

This is another beautiful box I could just not throw away:

This one is from another milk bottle I couldn't throw away. Pa in la is a handy man when it comes to tools and weapons. He had a big saw. I used that. Later I saw Ma in la accomplishing the task on a bigger bottle with a small scissors! That burst my bubble!

This display board was hubby dear's writing pad during the school exams! There is this wonderful shop nearby, called Daizo, in Karama, where u get all pretty craft stuff! So that paper is from there. This is today's work. Hope hubby and ma in la are suitably impressed! ;-)

Domesticity

2010-05-08T16:36:00.000+05:30

What have I been doing over the last year or so?

This:

Can't figureout what it is?

Oh well! That's the first produce from my vegetable garden! If you can count there are 12 of them! Would have been enough for one meal, but alas! This was my first time gardening and I didn't know when to manure the soil, etc. I just kept watering the plant and I noticed the flowers one day and not long after, the fruits too! The plant was also only as big as the fruit! :-) Here they are for a better view:

Joys of an A

2010-05-07T10:51:00.000+05:30

Is it me or is it the fact? Of all my students, the brightest three are girls. In fact, apart from one kid in year 2, I don't know any 'bright' boys! And, one of these girls has been diagnosed with dyslexia and the other one has all the symptoms, though her parents have never mentioned it to me.

I've been, as usual, feeling guilty about teaching students with disabilities when I'm not equipped or qualified to do so. The boss has been saying they are here mainly because they have not got any other help. You can either refuse all help, or give whatever you can. That argument made sense to me.

The eldest of these girls, the one in year 12, came to us when she was getting only Ds for her work. After initial classes, she started getting Cs. Yesterday, the result for her main coursework paper came from the UK and she got an A! I don't know who was more thrilled, me or her. We hugged, we screamed and jumped around the room! And in her mock exam, she got an A for one session and B for another one. The C which she got for the third session made her overall grade come down! :-( But still, she was suitably proud of the other ones and was working hard to make the third one better!

When she left, E, who works at our office, who had obviously seen us jumping and laughing, said, "You are enjoying each other's company?" Oh god! What an understatement!

Discussing Politics in a Cab

2010-05-05T11:01:00.001+05:30

One of the few pleasures of living in Dubai is meeting intelligent workers from different parts of the world. Though the conversations are pleasant and enlightening, the skewed world order is infuriating and humiliating.
E, a friend and one of the smart guys you'll ever meet, has a degree in Philosophy, used to be a lecturer in the Philippines, and now works as an office assistant in Dubai! Some of the most entertaining and intelligent conversations have been with the ubiquitous taxi drivers from Pakistan. ( Mallus are ubiquitous too -- but they are quite a pain and as horrible as anywhere else in the world!)

Last night was one such beautiful night where I got to meet a really pleasant and helpful taxi driver from Pakistan. I was eating a cookie when the taxi came near and stopped. Eating in public places such as taxis and trains are banned in the UAE. So, as soon as I got in, I asked if I could continue eating and the driver replied, "Yes, Sure, No problem."
"Thank You".
Silence.
"Eat no problem, but no dirtying my taxi, huh?"
I burst out laughing. He laughed too, and we started talking. His name was Ghulam. I couldn't catch the last name though he told me his full name. Conversation flowed and he asked me if I was new to Dubai and how I liked it here. When I said I preferred India, he said, "you have a great country, don't you?" Then we started talking about his family and he said he's from near Lahore. So I asked him if there's any war troubles in his place and he said there used to be, but now everything is ok. But, he said living is very difficult and there are no jobs to come by so he has to live here alone, whereas his family is in Pakistan. He didn't like that arrangement, but like E and a host of others like him, Mr G was not someone given to self pity or useless anger. It was a matter of fact practical arrangement and life went on its own pace.

One of the questions that has occupied my mind (obsessed might be the right word) after coming here is, 'How did rich countries become rich and poor countries become poor?' This is particularly thought provoking when you realize that the rich countries are actually poorer in resources whereas the poor countries are abundant in resources. What then, has led to allowing the exploitation of these resources by these richer countries? I have been reading up on this, but also talking to people to see what they think. The reply, without exception, is that 'our governments and politicians are corrupt'. It seems a little stretched to think that only the politicians in the third world countries are corrupt, whereas the first world is replete with morally sound politicians. And even if it is so, what makes the atmosphere in Third World countries so conducive to and so susceptible to corruption?

I decided to pose the question to Mr G as well. "There are many well educated and very rich people in Pakistan, right?"
"Oh yes.... many. The people in Pakistan are quite rich, it's the government that is poor."
"Then, why doesn't everybody do something? Maybe, change your government or something?"
"See, Pakistan government is not good, nobody wants to be a part of it. If we had someone like your Manmohan Singh, things would be different."

What could I say?

"Yeah, at least he has changed the perceptions of people about a government."
"Yeah, yeah, he's been very good. You wait and see where your country will reach in the next 10 years!"

The power of One. But, poor Manmohan Singh!

Marriage

2010-05-04T09:28:00.000+05:30

It is by fluke that I came across Margaret Atwood's poem on marriage. And how right she is! I think of it quite often these days.
How do you live with a person, 24 hrs 365 days, get used to her smell, her sweat, see her completely naked -- both literally and figuratively -- and still love that person? What does it mean to 'grow together'? What are you required to cast off from your past, and what are you allowed to carry on forward? Forget about the past. From your present, having lived on your own terms for so long, how do you suddenly learn to choose that which strengthens your marriage and ignore everything else?
It is a fight for survival in the wilderness. You need each other to survive, but you also have an eye on each other so that he/she doesn't predate on you finally.

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

The edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert
the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn

where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far

we are learning to make fire

Maybe I should read all of Atwood. She seems to be the writer for this phase of my life!

And . . . ever after

2010-05-03T12:38:00.001+05:30

Why don't I write more often? Because what I've got left now is the 'ever after' part and am superstitious. What if I write too much or too little.

So life goes on. In its hunger for myriad details. . .

Reading

2009-12-06T11:35:00.002+05:30

Some days back we went to a bookshop -- I think this is the biggest bookshop I've seen so far -- unless you consider the second hand market in Calicut and Hyderabad! Browsing through the books on the shelf, I found 'Edible Woman' by Margaret Atwood interesting and picked it up. As I did, I thought to myself, "what timing"! (It talks of a woman who has to choose between a non-existent career and getting married! ;-)) I hadn't heard of this book before nor ever wanted to read it. But it was amazing how it ended up in my hand when it did. I bought it. One shelf down, I saw another book -- I don't remember the title or the author now -- but the blurb said something like 'there are so many books that you want to read and there are so many that you actually plan to read but you end up reading books that may not even have been on your list! Books choose you as much as you choose them!' I was happy to see that; all of us have thought this at one point or another; all of us have known this for some time -- but, it still is a different thing to see it in print.

A few months back, a friend had sent an article written by a friend and Prof -- on the 'Rajni' phenomenon and 'fandom'. I read most of it over the next two days. It was such a drag, bore and I didn't understand anything except the film stories that he narrated. Yesterday, I was deleting all the unwanted files from my laptop and saw this article and started reading it again. It read smoothly; I finished it quickly and I understood most of it. It made my day. I noticed some interesting lines too, which I hadn't noticed before.

I mean, since my MA days I have noticed this and have been perplexed by this. Especially when I read something I feel I 'have' to read, I understand even less of it! That's another reason I think research is not my field; though there is nothing I enjoy more than reading such things and being able to talk about them in my own way!! This also makes me think about my students. I can never really 'scold' them because I know some things refuse to enter your brain simply because you are reading them at the wrong time!

Oman

2009-09-26T01:54:00.000+05:30

Here are a few pictures of Oman from our visit last week. After getting used to the deserts of UAE, it was a pleasant surprise for me to see this beautiful, mountaneous, green country! Reminded me of and made me pine for homeland!

2009-09-26T01:51:00.000+05:30

2009-09-26T01:50:00.000+05:30

2009-09-26T01:49:00.002+05:30

2009-09-26T01:49:00.001+05:30

2009-09-26T01:41:00.005+05:30

2009-09-26T01:41:00.004+05:30

2009-09-26T01:41:00.000+05:30

2009-09-26T01:40:00.000+05:30

Wedding

2009-09-19T18:19:00.020+05:30

Recently saw a few photographs of a wedding on facebook. Politicians and celebrities were present. The arrangements and attires looked extravagant. But those photos made me more scared than happy. What makes people put everything they have, all their expectations and happiness, into one day? Oh, god! I still remember how scared I was! That's still a day I don't like to remember. That's one fear I have not managed to erase, even after taking the plunge!

Calendars

2009-09-18T16:16:00.000+05:30

Today is Friday. The only day I'm aware of these days. It is amazing how calendar does not have a place in your life if you are not engaged in time bound duties. Is calendar another invention of capitalist economy? I'm aware of time, though. But only twice a day -- 6:30 in the morning -- the alarm for morning tea, and 2:30 in the afternoon -- when mom gets back home. J comes whenever he can. So that one is not marked. The rest of the day is a borderless chunk of activities. People ask me how I pass time. I'm often at a loss for an answer. I'm never at a loss for things to keep myself occupied with. Never have been. However, there is no 'goal' to look forward to and therefore also no accumulated achievement to show at the end of it all! I seem to prefer an 'A' at the end of every semester!

The Beauty and the Beholder

2009-02-22T13:37:00.002+05:30

I wonder if Aishwarya Rai is confident. About her looks, that is.

The trouble about beauty is that it lies in the eyes of the beholder. If the beholder had a bad day, was screamed at by the boss, or is just feeling grumpy, good luck to the beauty! She just wrinkles and shrinks -- Until the next beholder comes along and blooms her back into loveliness.

It was another ordinary day at office. The only good thing about that day was it was weekend, and I was going home! In the ladies' coupe though, I realized that it was November 1 and the Kerala formation day. Didn't really notice any difference with the men who were on the platfrom, but the women were all clad in traditional 'Kerala attire'. For the students, it was just an occasion to wear sari and dress up. What was it with all these working women? One girl, can't be more than 22, could be less than that, especially had taken special care and was looking as pretty as a picture. She looked as proper and as pretty as popular standards required you to be. Clearly, she knew she was the best looking among the lot. And everyone else did, too. It was fun watching the drama, from behind my book, unfold before my cynical eyes.

As each new person entered the coupe, the girl's eyes expectantly sought approval and admiration. Most of them obliged. Some of them seemed to be torn between jealousy and the desire to be nice. So they modified their compliments with comments like"but this could have been done better", "that could have been like this"etc. The girl was not very good at hiding her feelings -- whether pleasure or distress. Then entered one woman in her middle ages. Looked as if she hated passing her youth and her behaviour left you wishing that she was a little more grown up! People like this usually get away with tags of 'honest' and 'frank'. Perhaps the reason the girl seemed to have been waiting for this one woman. Her eyes lit up and she acknowledged 'aunty's entry immediately.

The 'aunty' smiled benevolently, talked loudly to everyone in the coupe and also to all tthe plants and animals on the platform, sat herself down and started giving 'expert' comments on everyone's attire and beauty! Finally, she came to 'the' girl. Told the girl she was looking 'nice' or 'good' or some such thing and asked her to get up. I still don't know what made the girl stand up. Perhaps the fact that they all travel together every day and that they are friends. She was there standing in the centre, centre of everyone's attention. And the aunty proclaimed, "nice sari, but you didn't wear it properly!" "You didn't iron your sari? It's all crumpled!" The girl's face fell and she sat down. The aunty then picked another victim and started complimenting her, the woman was grateful for the unexpected bounty.

For, the rest of the jouney, the girl was not a part of any of the conversation or the usual revelry. She just sat there, looking through the window and taking in the landscape.

Perhaps, that's one good thing about beauty. It gives you the confidence to say "to hell with the world!". The confidence that "tomorrow is another day!"

Humility

2009-01-31T13:56:00.002+05:30

Even as we are proud of something that we've achieved after a lot of hard work and having wanted it for a long time, we do not see or we overlook the compromises we've had to make to get there. Is this humility or arrogance?

Back!

2009-01-26T17:15:00.002+05:30

:-) That was too long a break! I too, had not expected it to be this long! Wonder if I'll have anymore readers now! Well, that thought suddenly makes me rather optimistic! I just tried editing the 'About Me' part to change 'engaged' into 'married'. Then I realized I also had to change 'working' to 'not working' or 'housewife'!! Sigh!
Apart from this minor incident, I have been, in my husband's (this word, and the other word, ['wife'] are yet to sink in! I still have a tendency to introduce J as 'my friend'!) words, "so far happily married"!

Too many brackets up there. Good luck with deciphering that one! ;-)

Shopping

2008-12-21T12:44:00.002+05:30

Most of the shopping is done. My sister's daughter, has been busy re-enacting the scene since then!! She started walking about a month back and her steps are not yet steady. Worried that she might step on the bags and fall down, we tried giving her smaller bags, but to no avail! I must add though, that she has not fallen down even once while walking with these bags!

Brahminism and Vegetarianism

2008-12-08T18:23:00.002+05:30

It is unfortunate that in India, vegetarianism is equated with something as unethical and exploitative as Brahminism. However, my point, honestly and obviously, was only about Brahminism. I know the girl. She is not an animal lover any more than I am! And, secondly, the argument (not that I wasted any arguments with her!) she gave me was 'smell'! I mean, I could have understood that if I was cooking beef or eating beef curry in her house! I wanted to make her smell the two sets of puffs and choose the vegetarian one! I mean, really!! What was infuriating was that suddenly I became the 'polluting agent'. What about the relationship we shared? the friendship in whose claim she asked me to cancel my ticket? If she even had let me eat anything during lunch time, I would not have needed those puffs! :-) Vegetarianism, obviously, is about love/compassion for the fellow beings. Brahminism is the love of the self above and beyond everything else! I mean, people argue that the terrorism of certain organizations has its basis in monotheistic faith, that monotheistic faith, by default, means violence! What would it require for us to see the violence inherent in behaviour such as this? Philosophically, what is the difference between the two? Both believe that they are right and they are willing to have their 'rights' scored at any cost!

Resenting and not eating a pork sandwich is fine. We do not get to be 28 by not meeting and having to live with people who resent and do not share in some of our fundamental ways of being! But I wonder if any other religion has this concept of being polluted! Certain things are taboo and proscribed, for sure. But it is enough that the believer abstains from those, and tries to convert the others into that faith. The believer is not 'polluted' by sharing the same space with someone who doesn't follow the faith.

(I also make it a point to avoid prasadams. That's not because I think I'll be polluted. In fact, the most arrogant way of being Christian is to believe that nothing can pollute you now that Christ's blood has purified you! There is some reverence associated with prasadam and I'm not sure I share in that view. I do not want to make silly of something that is important to others. Therefore, I do not take it. To me, it is the same as a non-believer taking part in the Holy Communion.)

Brahminism

2008-12-07T11:26:00.003+05:30

I pondered over this for so long! First, on whether to write this. And, then on how to write it! Finally I thought I should post it anyway and write it as factually as possible!

On my trip last week, I was staying with a friend. My return ticket was booked for Friday. She asked me if I could postpone the journey so that we could go shopping on Friday. I agreed readily! (I have a Saviour complex!) We shopped from 9 in the morning till 3:30 in the afternoon! Don't ask me how I did it or how anyone does that!! This was the first for me, and will certainly be the last, too! We didn't eat anything during the whole day because she doesn't like to eat from outside! I was hungry for a while, but we had tender coconuts and I was satisfied! We reached our home stop by 4:30 and I bought four puffs -- two veg and two beef. I had no clue that she had strong reservations about food! Anyway, she kept dropping hints and after the 4th or the 5th time, I realized that I was doing something wrong! So I asked her, "do you have a problem with me eating beef puff?" There is another friend who stays right next door. So this woman told me, "Not really, you go and sit in Beena's house and eat it!" I smiled and agreed and sat outside and ate my puffs!! I just could not believe that! And still can't!! Sitting outside I just felt immensely grateful that I was born in a Christian family!

I went for the Sunday service today. Papa's sermon was based on Romans 14. Here's the whole chapter: "Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: " 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.' "So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall. So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."

:-)

Breezing in

2008-12-06T22:24:00.004+05:30

I was in Calicut this week. Riding pillion with Sujachechi, I had this title flashing through my mind all the time -- "Breezing in through Calicut".

I love travelling on bikes! For me, train comes next and everything else after that! Pillion riding is always great, but it's even better when it is a woman in the front!

Most of Kerala looks the same in terms of geographical features. And the amount (is 'amount' correct here?) of vast uncultivated land is shocking!! And they accuse us Kottayam people of being 'rubber achayans'!! We produce money when they lay back lazy! :-) This time, I noticed one difference between Calicut and the rest of us! Today is December 6th and Travancore Kerala has started getting ready for Christmas!! Most of the shops are lit with stars, decorating bulbs and revolving Christmas trees!! In Calicut, I didn't see any of these. I could have missed them. But there were notices of 'discounts' for Christmas. I saw those. But don't remember seeing any Christmas decorations.

We went shopping. And we always started with, "What's the price?" and we were usually given the reply, "You take what you like and we'll sort the price issue later"! That was again, a first for me in Kerala! In Hyderabad, I've had that experience, but not in Kerala! One dress which was labelled for 350 was given to us for 220 and the boy scratched off the price tag and changed the bill before the owner came in to check!! And the owner was there in a minute's time!

I discovered, once more, that I hate shopping! And, that I hate shopping with women!! I think the only woman I can shop with is SJ! I mean, I understand that one has specific tastes, but after one or two trials, one gives up, no? What's the point of being such a pain to others? (Man!! I have to go sari shopping and jewelry shopping now!!! I will hate pretending to be a nice girl in front of JK's relatives! But, I don't think I'll hate that as much as all these shopping marathons!!)

Goodbyes

2008-12-01T21:50:00.004+05:30

I hate goodbyes and farewells. Why does everything have to end and everyone has to leave?

It's time for me to leave my current job. I had thought of leaving around the 15th. Today, I took permission to leave earlier than that. I had to. Have been thinking about it for a few weeks now. Life has been tough. I hate the food in the hostel I stay. I don't have any friends there. Sleep has said good bye to me, and without proper food too, I am afraid of falling sick again! Can't do all the endoscopy and whatevernot scopy one more round! Am terribly scared of leaving my parents and living in someone else's house!

I love my office and the people there. Though i've been here only for a short while, I have not experienced any envy, ego-clashes, or competitiveness till now. And one good thing about this leaving is that I'm going on a positive note. I have not fought with anyone, no one has fought with me. I hope no one has any ill feelings towards me either. I hope some of the friendships I developed here will stay for a long time. It is difficult to leave. I think I had tears when I spoke to my Manager! But what to do. Everyone seems to be busy leaving, it's my turn now! In all such situations, I remember one word GP once said to me. When I was cribbing about some such difficulty, he looked sympathetic but just said, "Life!" That has stayed in my mind ever since, and I think of it in all such situations! I need to go, and I am.
"And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment."

Therefore, it is adieus, till we meet again!

The good thing about today was the moon! How many of you caught that? I sent messages to as many as I could! On that positive note, . . . .

For Some of Us

2008-11-28T22:09:00.002+05:30

This post is especially for some of us who went through anguishing days in ST's classes! The toughest days in Campus Politics, went through my mind as I read it. SJ, almost dejected, told ST, "they can keep doing this, and we have to keep fighting!" ST looked sympathetic and said, "I must tell you this is going to be your life!" (She must have put it better tham that. She usually does.) Oh, by the way, this post is about another article of JB, which I just read on line! This is what she says:

Coalitions are not easy or happy places. They are places one stays when one has the impulse to leave. They are forms of work that are, by definition, difficult, since one has to have one's position and allow it to be decentered by what one hears. One must persist in what one knows to be right, and yet know also when to yield, when to do something for the sake of continuing to work together, to preserve the relations at hand. I think that Buber had a point in believing that one had to work at living together, working together in de-institutionalized ways, and that such alliances could provide the foundation and the model for collaborative associations seeking non-violent and just solutions to conflicts that appear intractable. This would mean living to the side of one's nationalism, of one's identification, allowing for a decentering of a nationalist ethos. The question of establishing and tending to relations will be more important than grounding oneself in an identity. Something other than nationalism has doubtless emerged already through these associations and collaborations, something inadvertent, even beautiful.

The link is on the right as usual! Hope this will see us through some difficult times in the future as well! Hugs!

A Room of One's Own

2008-11-26T22:10:00.004+05:30

At what age does one learn to do what one is supposed to do, and thus please the more powerful ones and thereby create your own place in the world?

I now live in a house where there is a four month old baby. Everyday, when his mother folds the washed clothes, she waves each one of them over his face. The baby crackles into giggles every time she does this. The mother says he loves this. Yesterday, she did this when he was playing and was busy otherwise. When suddenly this game was put on him, Deepu looked to me more bored and obliging, than happy. He very well knew what was expected of him, and was even doing it before the clothes brushed past his face!

One hears a lot about the ingratitude of children. What would constitute the ingratitude of parents? The parents always seem to live for the children. But what about living a life whose terms are already set for you?--at least until you are 20!

Habitation

2008-11-25T23:55:00.002+05:30

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

The edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert
the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn

where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far

we are learning to make fire

Margaret Atwood

Hmm.......

2008-11-13T21:33:00.004+05:30

Sorry. Bad mood, couldn't think of a title. I've been thinking about our discussion on the 'Multicoloured House' and about how long we've been discussing this now and what's the use etc. Then I saw this interview by Judith Butler. The link is available at right. Here is my favourite part from the interview. The other favourite one was about the American mode of internationalism. I especially most liked (alright, what to do! I've already used 'favourite part' twice! ;-) ) what she said about her Jewish upbringing. Okay, off to her:

"But politically it is important that people ask the question 'what is possible' and believe in possibility. Because without the motion of possibility there is no motion forward. The idea that people might live their gender in a different way, or they might live their sexuality in a different way, that there might be room for a livable sustainable pleasurable happy politically informed life out of the closet. Philosophy makes people think about possible roles, it gives people the chance to think the world as if it was otherwise. And people need that. During my work in the human rights movement I saw that activists got burnt out very quickly, they became totally exhausted and then they always want to go back to school, they want to read. And then the readings brought them back to what they believed. It gave them some image and vision of the future. And I think a movement that is alive has to have an intellectual life otherwise it will just repeat some of its terms. It should try to revise its own beliefs in the light of new political circumstances."

Let me not spoil that by saying anything stupid!

Christianity

2008-11-09T17:32:00.003+05:30

The death of the self in the act of loving is the message of Christianity, right? Christ died and rose again. He did not die a second time, neither will he. The second coming is as the King. So does that mean the death of the self in loving is possible only once?

The Multicoloured House 2

2008-11-05T18:47:00.004+05:30

Ah! Marianne Moore! What a poem! It's been a long time since R.K and Steeple Jack! :-)

Sorry for the long silence. As you could see, I was busy touching up my blog. Since I am so totally "technologically challenged", I had to do a lot of research even to do this much! I think I'm done now.

Thanks for the poem and the comments. Back to our favourite topic . . . the multicoloured house.... My question is, if we have this kind of a mature definition of relationships, how does a marriage stand in the way? I have a doubt before I proceed. Are you talking only of romantic relationships here? If not, the only thing marriage does is to add to the number of relationships, right? How does it reduce the house to a corner? I realized that the most useful work I can do is in Kerala, but I kept running away from here because I did not want to get married. My students were always looking for ways to 'justify' me!! That was the pitts for me! Do we have to give marriage that kind of importance where we give only secondary status to every other important aspect of life? I think that is only the American definition of marriage, certainly not the Indian one! ;-) IF and as long as a marriage lets you do these, of course, within its own limitations, what is inherently bad about it? This has been the big question for me always. Why does romance have to have that big a place? To have intense relationships, is it necessary to be romantically involved? My experience has been otherwise. Are our relationships worth it only if we translate them into some romantic and sexual terms? And, what is romance? Is it only saying the three words sentence? Or is it the immediate and intense connection you sometimes find (all too soon) with total strangers? And if it is not necessary to be romantically involved in all your important relationships, how does marriage constrain you?

(I don't know if I'm making any sense . . . these are just my doubts.)

Poetry

2008-11-04T20:13:00.009+05:30

Today there was poetry.
In the air.

I was walking back after work, tired.
We were chirpy, with Sagar goodies
Dangling in a plastic bag in your hands.

The bright red(ish?) orange sun.
The view from the second floor balcony
Where we, the enthucutlets, debated my new and your old love, "the Pope".

There was a little girl, fair,
With long hair
In a dark green kurta--high-necked
And white churidhar.
I had just started wearing sleeveless
And you, trousers.
What about jeans? Do you still hate them?

The busy street of poor people
Walking back from work
Or just starting the day's business
There was a man
Making mirchi bajjis.
The aroma of memories

You said I was your poetry
I wanted to be the fairy-tale.

Today I knew.

There was poetry in the air.

The Multi-Coloured House

2008-10-31T17:03:00.004+05:30

Hmm...... I seem to have started on a popular topic here! :-) I like having discussions rather than my 'neurotic ramblings'! This reminds of me of those long late night debates and over - the mess table-discussions. With the new batch joining in, of course! Hope all of you have read the whole interview of Judith Butler. There are more gems there, and even better ones. I chose this because this was simple yet provocative.

Anyway, for the last poem, why ask that rhetorical question at the end? :-) And thanks for the other poem, too. Though I personally don't like all these romantic poems, about loneliness and waiting and longing and desiring for a partner being written in the female point of view, even when the writer is a man. It reminds me of that quote, "Lady Chatterly was a man!". It would have felt more genuine if it was from the male perspective. ;-)

Ah . . .! The multi-coloured house! hm. . . . People who've been living monochromatic lives speaketh now! Is the language of the youth the only language we can write in? Do we write far away from our experiences? :-)

Will we? have a multi-coloured house, that is. There will be different colours, I agree. But they will be shattered, na? What provides them the overall structure of a house?

It is so difficult to maintain just one relationship, won't we go schizophrenic (or what is the word for multiple personality?) if we had to put the same effort into all of them? Bodies being shaped and moulded, desires and responses sent across and received in different frequencies? I don't know yaar. I'm not sure. Does anyone have a thought on this?

Judith Butler

2008-10-30T15:16:00.002+05:30

I'm sorry, but I just saw this and couldn't resist copying and pasting. The entire article is available at http://www.believermag.com/issues/200305/?read=interview_butler. I mean, for those of you who have not already seen it. Also, was just going through the pages of 'Giving an Account of Oneself'. Why don't they have whole books on the net??????? sigh!

JS: We need to get beyond requiring other lives we deem meaningful to fit into a frame we have approved beforehand.
JB: It has to do with humanization and dehumanization. How do people become humanized, how do we come to understand them to be human beings rather than some distant entity we could never hope or desire to understand? Let me try to explain what I mean. One thing that happened post-9/11 was that The New York Times ran obituaries. They appeared in every issue, with a picture. The person was always smiling, and then there was a vignette about them or something about their families. They always had hopes and dreams and they always came from some place, had hobbies. The loss of life was viewed, then, as a real grievous loss.
I think that public grieving is a good thing. People need to be grieved; loss needs to be acknowledged publicly, because it helps to confer a sense of reality on the loss but also because it makes it known that this was a real life. Obituaries do this. The life doesn’t simply get erased. It gets imprinted and remembered. This strikes me as a dignified thing to do…
Today, I heard a radio announcer read the names of the American soldiers who had been killed. Now supposedly there are already two hundred Iraqis who are dead but we will never hear those names. We’re never even going to learn how to pronounce those names. We won’t have little vignettes, narratives about where they lived, what they were doing and what they wished for in their lives, what their deepest connections were or their most passionate loves.
I think that manipulating the terms by which lives are acknowledged as lives, and deaths as grievable is part of a kind of effort to dehumanize those to whom we do violence.
JS: So that we can do violence to them without grieving!
JB: Yes. How can you eviscerate a life that is not considered a life? I worry about the obituary as a form of nation-building in this way. Here is a good example of what I’m getting at. An Arab Christian group in San Francisco submitted names to the San Francisco Chronicle of some Palestinians who were killed by Israeli violence. They put it in obituary form and submitted it to the paper. The Chronicle said that they couldn’t accept it without proof of death. Then the same group went and found the proof of death in Ha’aretz, which is a relatively progressive Israeli newspaper which reported these deaths. Once the proof of death was submitted, the Chronicle said, “Well, this doesn’t fit our obituary format”—no reason was given for why this was so—“but you can submit it as a memorial.” So then the same group wrote it up as a memorial and submitted it again. The submission was as follows:
In loving memory of Kamla Abu Sa’id, 42, and her daughter, Amna Abu-Sa’id, 13, both Palestinians from the El Bureij refugee camps. Kamla and her daughter were killed May 26, 2002 by Israeli troops, while working on a farm in the Gaza Strip. In loving memory of Ahmed Abu Seer, 7, a Palestinian child, he was killed in his home with bullets. Ahmed died of fatal shrapnel wounds to his heart and lung. Ahmed was a second-grader at Al-Sidaak elementary school in Nablus, he will be missed by all who knew him. In loving memory of Fatime Ibrahim Zakarna, 30, and her two children, Bassem, 4, and Suhair, 3 all Palestinian. Mother and children were killed May 6, 2002 by Israeli soldiers while picking grape leaves in a field in the Kabatiya village. They leave behind Mohammed Yussef Zukarneh, husband and father and Yasmine, daughter and age 6.
The memorial was rejected with the claim that the Chronicle was worried that if they published this memorial it would offend a certain number of their readers, that it would be publicly offensive.
This makes the point in a rather outrageous way, since it seems to me we have to ask, Under what conditions does the grieving of lives become publicly offensive? In Sophocles’ Antigone, Creon didn’t allow the public grieving or burial of Polynices, his nephew who attacked the city, and that ended up bringing down his entire kingdom.

Being Single 2

2008-10-29T06:18:00.004+05:30

As we all know, the trouble with 'norm' is that it stifles difference. Or else you have to be a missionary. I hope it was clear that I was not saying that we get married because of 'societal pressure'. The power of the norm is also that it disciplines the self.

There is not only a lack of other images with which we can fashion our lives, but also a vacuousness in whatever is available. These posts took time in coming, because they were quite difficult to write. Before writing this, I read some posts on 'The Compulsive Confessor'. (I hope most of you have heard of it by now, to actually warrant an introduction.) There is one post where she says she once asked a friend if there is anything to do in that city except drink, party and go to the movies. Or something of the sort. And the friend thought for a while and said, 'no'. That is also the reason a lot of us get bored easily by these kinds of writings. After endless repetitions of the same cycle, you are left wondering 'So then, what happens to life?' This is not to deny that there is a heavy moralistic attitude to these things prevalent in our society. But, as our beloved Professor used to say, by waging war against all these, are we undermining or underscoring their importance?

I was pretty clear that I did not want to be a nun. The other mode, of being casual about relationships, of giving (too much) importance to romance was also not for me. I wanted more out of life. Wanted to stop being young. Wanted to grow old, grow mature, and manage three full time jobs perhaps, like my mother did. All those could have come only from the emotional stability I lacked. Am not talking of a knight in armour husband. But definitely of a corner to pick up and keep the broken pieces.

Being Single

2008-10-27T22:15:00.005+05:30

Ah. . . . That was a rather long break from my, what a friend calls, 'neurotic ramblings'! So. . . . . where were we? Yes, marriage! Why do girls get married?
Anyone who asks this question in non-urban India is usually greeted by the other question "What else is there to do?"! 'Career' with its own demands and trajectories which may not necessarily facilitate a family life is not yet an idea that has currency here. One could have a 'job' which pays enough to maintain a decent family life. Anything else is looked upon as 'selfish'.
I'm aware that being single is the in thing today. Not only are there a lot of women who opt not to get married, but they have also started gaining visibility in our culture. There are feature articles in mainstream journals, minor characters in mainstream films, and of course, a lot of blogs. But, to me, it looks like that culture, that lifestyle is limited to a very small circle. When I told my father that I do not want to get married, he told me that in that case I should become a nun. In one of her outbursts, my sister also told me that I should become a nun if I did not want to get married. For a long time, I thought these were the traditional fears about and attempts to regulate female sexuality. Obviously, if they preferred me being a nun to me being a 'normal' single woman, this could be the only difference. They knew that I've been found attractive, most of my friends were men, I travelled a lot and generally lived an 'unrestricted' life. I'm sure this was definitely one of their worries. But this is not all that there is to it. Recently, as I was making up my mind whether to get married or not, a friend, male, who had also put off marriage for a long time, asked me 'What do you plan to do then?' I told him I do everything alone -- i shop, go to the cinema, go to the restaurant, manage the house everything on my own! He was like, 'no, no!' 'All that is fine, what will you do with your life? Do you plan to do any social service?' !!! He then told me how he had planned to, but realized that everything was corrupt and then decided to get married! Being single, not getting married is an abnormality, it is something that you have to explain both with your life (write books, do social work) and with words (tell everyone who asks you why you haven't got married!). In my singlehood days, the biggest trouble I had was this feeling that I was making a statement with my life! It was like walking with a banner on my forehead! I never really had any commitment issues and was almost sure that most men are the same! Why then not get married and get it over with?

Getting married

2008-10-23T15:31:00.007+05:30

As I was saying and as you could see, I am bewitched. But that's not what I wanted to write about. That was just an introduction. I wanted to write more about my life and this was another attempt at clarifying my life to myself. I wanted to write about a point of disagreement with her, but before that somehow what came out was my love! Sigh!

Part of the enchantment about AR is the missionary zeal with which she fights for the issues that are dear to her. There is an element of conviction, confidence, hope and also arrogance in that. There is also an absolute lack of seriousness about oneself at the same time. A self that can be conceived only as a part of these issues and the people fighting for it. A willingness to be ridiculed, to be warned and rebuked -- all the same time knowing that she is above all these. A power that comes from thumping on the insecurities of the powerful and gaining the affection of the powerless. A willingness to go to court saying 'I stand by what I said' and pay the fine and come out after a day. Knowing very well that there are critics too, who follow her moves everywhere. It's like she will do what she can, even if that is very little. For me, life is worth living only because of people like her (and Karunettan).

But the trouble about missionaries is that they believe their magic is universal. It's almost as if there is only one way of being. AR has made some comments about marriage in that book. And they were not any different from the ones of usual card-carrying feminists. Like I said in the previous post, almost all of us have problems with 'marriage' as we know and practise it today. But we still go ahead and get married. Why is that? AR said something similar to 'these girls all decked up and looking so happy to be slaughtered, they don't know what is awaiting them' or something similar. If things were as simple as not knowing, all we'd need is 'educating', right? How come feminism has not yet achieved that much in its long history in India? Or, could there be something more?

The Fairy or the Witch?

2008-10-23T11:49:00.000+05:30

The trouble about Arundhati Roy is that she is a fairy-tale. And, like all fairy-tales, she makes you believe in magic!

I was captivated by the magic long ago. By God of Small Things itself. Being a sucker for magic and fairy-tales, I've followed the other writings, too. Just read a collection of essays and interviews. And some autobiographical stuff. What a fairy-tale of a life!

Not many of us who live in the "progressive, developed" God's Own Country today know any single mothers or divorced young women. Not that there aren't any. Just that they are invisible. In fact, statistics show that there are a lot. [But, where do they all go?] The norm and the accepted practice even today is to get married to a groom of your parents' choice and to continue to suffer till death. "We are older, we know better" is the chorus. So, they make choices for you so that you do not make wrong ones. And if you want to live your life? Well, wait na? for a few more years -- till your children are grown up, that is! You can live your life through them, just as we are doing now! There are of course variations to the genre. You could choose your own mate -- provided that he is from the same religion and the same caste as you, parents will try to be happy. If he is of a different religion and caste, well, if he is an engineer or a doctor, they will be happier than if he is just a teacher. And whatever you do and how ever they try to be happy, the litanies of 'ungrateful children' shall haunt you for the rest of your life. That is today, 2008.

Here then, is a woman, who grew up in Kerala about 40 years? back as the daughter of a single mother! Her mother had married a non-Keralite Hindu and had divorced him, too! The daughter did not have 'normal' schooling, but went on to study Architecture. She refused to go the normal architect way and kept writing and doing what she wanted to do. Then she wrote a novel and it won the ultimate prize. In her own words, they expected her "to go home with the trophy and show it to mother". She refused again, and kept writing and raving and ranting. She rejected the 'professional writer' tag, by not churning out novels after novels. Oh, in the midst of it all, she did not get married and did fall in love!

Now Malayalis have a dilemma. We would certainly like to claim the Booker for ourselves, but we also wish that it was given to a better behaved Malayali. (It is a different matter if AR would identify herself as a Malayali or not.) We are also so totally embarassed by her rabble rouser image.

Well, that is a bigger problem. And 'cultured' Malayalis shall work at the problem diligently. Now, there are some of us who wish that AR had not won the Booker prize. Well, not only coz we are envious of her life, but also coz that would have made our life a lil easier! You know, our claims of wanting to write and live an 'artistic' life would have had more legitimacy! We would not have been expected to come up with a Booker at 26 and without half the experiences that AR has had! Sigh!

Is a witch a bad fairy?

continued.......

2008-10-21T20:17:00.000+05:30

The thing is both P and S are people like me. That's why they advise me. I know that at least S had hit rock bottom and decided to float around for a while before actually bouncing back. P has also hinted at something of the sort, but we never really talked about it, so I'm not sure.

ST once told me, "this girl is a structuralist. (I think that was the word she used!) Every move is a structural change for her!" She also says that "L worries the problem"! and SJ says that I'm a typically "passionate Scorpio". As with everything they say and do, I was suspicious of these comments. Now, as I was writing this, I felt that maybe I know what they mean. SB also told me once over chat, "you can only live life as it comes to you. There's no point in introspecting and analyzing each move so much".

I think this is my biggest problem. Oh, by the way, NKN shared a few lines about my star sign the other day over chat. It said, "you have an affinity (?) for the absolute (?) That's why you find existence difficult"!! Sigh! I sit and think and analyze and worry too much. I am not averse to working hard. In fact, for me, that is the only way to be -- committing yourself to something and going all the way for what you commit to. But, these days my problem is that I do not want to commit to anything. I keep thinking 'This is not the life I wanted. You gave me only this, and I don't want it!" I would like to change it, if not for anything else, for the simple fact that I'm scaring people who love me. But somehow, I can't. It is like, the only way I know to be has been destroyed, and I haven't yet learned another way to be.

The uncertainty, the doubts and the unwillingness are results of this broken self.

I lost my faith in relationships long ago -- started with BB, went through SJ and it finally ended with my family! With that one blow, I knew that all the so called "LOVE" will go this far and only thus far! (That's why JK and I are a good company -- we have a cynical definition for the word now -- "love is a habit"! Actually, it's his defintion for which I'm staking the claim ;-)) I cannot commit myself to work anymore either, after the Ch L project!!

I would like to aim for something, work towards it and work at it. But I cannot see anything ahead of me. How do I go on?

Love

2008-10-20T10:44:00.000+05:30

But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.

Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello.

Living For Ever...........

2008-10-20T10:32:00.000+05:30

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.

Being 28!

2008-10-18T13:52:00.000+05:30

That's how I started this, too. The blog, I mean. To have something that will make me write. To write away my sorrows and to bottle up my joys. To have a journal to record my life, if not a handle to steer it.

What trigerred this blogging was the last conversation with P --the bad taste it left in my mouth, my feeling that I've failed for the nth time to explain what's been bothering me. This is another attempt. I don't know if he will understand. That's one thing I now know at 28 -- it is impossible to explain yourself to anyone else! That's why I admire people who have not bothered to explain, not bothered to introspect, but have "marched on regardless"! Today S called and talked in the same vein. As I had suspected, they had discussed me! :-) If I didn't care for these people, I could have overlooked this. But they love me and I love them and as we know by now, that is 'a constant state of agony'!

Why do they all have one definition of 'success'? T. U. said that once. "Success is having everything you wished for and doing everything you've wanted to do at least once by the age of 3o!" First of all, what a tall order! Secondly, how boring! I'm not ready to sacrifice many things for that kind of success. In fact, that is my only complaint against success. Having been a 'successful' student, I know what success requires is single minded devotion to it. I lost out on a lot during those years and that journey. I'm not willing to do it anymore. Let life travel through the by-lanes and alleys, there might be beautiful restaurants and luxurious palaces there too. Even if rare. If not, small huts will do. And so far, I've been blessed with both. Never really lacked a resting place.

Perhaps this is arrogance and perhaps this indifference comes from the fact that I have never lacked a resting place. If it is, this is the last bit of arrogance left in me and time will take care of that too........

If I were to follow those steps to success, I would never have met Karunettan, or Fousiya would never have told me that I taught her English. When she tells me that I made it possible for her to think that she could study further and go abroad, I don't know whether to believe her or not. But that makes me happy! Seeing my name printed would also make me happy. But I'm not willing to forgo one for the other. I want both! And now that is also a tall order!

You see P, I can't really say all these. These can't make up a defence for you know na, how they look? Sour Grapes! That's how.

My Late Nights

2008-10-18T09:11:00.002+05:30

There's nothing more exhilarating than reading late into the night. Perhaps that's why I'm up now -- sitting with a pen and book -- after an hour long attempt to sleep. I finally gave up and got up when I realized that my brain was far too busy to even want to sleep. Perhaps all this energy and enthusiasm come from the fact that I finally finished the huge book which I thought I never would -- even though it was a crappy book. You'll never know how a book inspires you, ignites your imagination and suddenly makes your life far less incomprehensible.

That's why and when I write mostly. When my life seems out of control and incomprehensible -- to reverse the gear and head in just the opposite direction.

The Script

2008-10-17T08:20:00.000+05:30

The worst part about getting walked out on is that suddenly you become responsible for your life and the mess it has become. "The anger is within you, crush it. You are envious, kill it. Possessiveness is not good, get rid of it." The other side of the story is perfect. "It is not an issue of morality, it just happened. It is love." Even as you handle the humiliation of rejection, you have to deal with the "defensive feelings" -- the envy, the anger, and the resentment. And you have to be mindful of the direction life will take in future. You had not thought about anything so far. It was wonderful to fall in love and everything was beautiful and life had taken its course. Not so easy from now on. I need to fall in love again and I need to protect myself. "That's growing up", mummy would say. Isn't that the worst part about 'growing up'? That you are forced to leave the innocence, faith and hope behind? You need to be clever and chart your life. If not, you are just naive. But, after you've lost all these, what is the point of living? of ploughing through life? Why should one 'grow up' like that? And, where do I take the bitterness, the anger, and the feeling of being used? To the next relationship? Bury them inside me? One question keeps gnawing at you: "What went wrong and where?" How did I miss the hints? After enough postmortem, you realize that it just happened. It was not your fault. But from then on, you also know that things just happen in life. All you have to do is just float about. Passion is not necessary and no amount of passion will save you. That is why I admire people who refuse to float about. They have lived on with passion intact!! Isn't that the only way to live?

Like a friend said once, "Who writes the stories we become part of?"