I will remember you..

I still remember the first time I heard this song. Sitting quietly on the backseat of a car, overcome with so much emotion, and fighting away tears that were threatening to spill out.

As I struggled to look out of the window, to listen to the sounds outside, watch people pass by, anything but listen to this soulful music, anything to prolong bursting out into tears …

A  strong hand reached out.

A gentle yet firm hand clasped mine, entwining my feeble fingers, trying to invigorate and renew my hope. I resisted  the move first, but in my desperate need,  for a companion who understood and enjoyed the song as much as I did, I surrendered.

I surrendered to the music, to the hand, to the moment – and for a few minutes, I thought the music would last forever. Or did I think the hand I was holding on to, with my dear life, would remain forever?

The song was over in a couple of minutes, the loving hand stayed on for a while…

And then the music ended.

Silver jubilee celebrations

I know I am a bit too old to be talking about birthday celebrations, but who cares, I just turned 25 :) 

I am officially over the hill and my folks might soon give up their quest for finding my knight in shining armour :) I am closer to 26, and eventually closer to 30 too! 

I know this is just another day and just another year, but when the clock struck 12 and I looked around, all I could see were faces that meant the world to me. I still haven't figured out what I want to do, I have made a  lot of mistakes in choosing jobs, I still have to save up tons of money, but if there is one thing I have done right in all these 25 years, it is making the right friends.

Cheers!

What matrimonial sites do to you

When family friends, acquaintances, relatives, and the teacher aunty next-door (who by the way has been stuck in a terrible marriage for more than three decades), failed to set me up with a boy of their dreams, my parents finally took the plunge and signed me up for an online match-making portal. Online matrimonial sites are single-handedly the reason for me losing complete faith in humanity. Why you ask? Well, this is what they do to you:

1. They paint a perfect picture of happiness, joy, and love that will come to you if you make the decision to get married. For instance, look at that girl’s face – she is probably thinking, ‘I can’t believe I landed this dumb modeling assignment’.

But what does the website want us to believe? – ‘I am so effin happy because I found my knight in shining armor here, because that’s what knights do after they finish their rounds of horseback-riding and killing witches’

2. They want you to believe that the possibility of finding the ‘one’ is just a few clicks away. Phrases like how a ‘relationship manager’ could help you find your ‘life partner’ for a ‘premium price’ are thrown at you randomly to make you feel like a complete idiot for not signing up earlier.

3. They somehow manage to convince your ‘tambrahm’ folks that this is the next best thing after filter kaapi and The Hindu of course. Sample a typical conversation that I have with my mom:

Amma: Tambrahmmatrimony match says 80%... What’s the problem now?

Me: I don’t like him. He is settled in the US. I don’t want to go.

Amma: 80% di. Not common.

Me: Amma…

Amma: These days, 80% rarity, girls picky, what to do…(trails away visibly upset…)

4. Increases the chances of finding the ‘one’ by separating the several million castes we have in India. Iyermatrimony, punjabimatrimony, telgumatrimony, and oh for the rich fellas we have a privilegematrimony too. Somehow I believe things would be a lot easier if the sites were classified on the basis of professions. Some examples would be -- ITmatrimony, CAmatrimony, engineersintheusawithfakeaccentsmatrimony. Some the subsites would be parentscreatedtheprofilematrimony, lookingforspeeddatingmatrimony, and oh the hypocriterebelmatrimony ( Profiles that say stuff like 'I am extrovert with a traditional outlook)

If you think, things cannot get worse, sample this:

There is a ‘Pride of the Community’ column in a popular matrimonial website that features a celebrity. Any guesses who is the pride of the Iyengar community?

Ultimate star Kamalhassan – Yes! The man who has had two failed marriages, a long string of affairs, openly declared himself as an atheist, and is now currently living in with a woman he loves. Totally the poster boy for the conservative Iyengar community.

Did I mention the ridiculous profiles on the site? There was one ass who mentioned he only wanted girls who were ‘fair or very fair’. Some other gems:

• I want a girl who knows the national language Hindi (Since when did Hindi become the national language? It is an official language goddamit)
  
• I want a flexible match in the earning group of about Rs.3 to 4 lakhs per month, or an unemployed girl from a higher income group. (Translated as: Wants only rich girls. And don’t even get me started on the ‘flexible’.)
  
• Single daughter or single daughter with male brother/s preferred. (Again translated as: Non-rich girls don’t apply)
  
• Girl should be professionally qualified, employed/willing to work, very good looking, caring, traditional but with a modern outlook, and home loving. (Erm, my son, you can only find these women in the movies or Leo coffee ads. You know, the kind who wakes up at four, takes a bath, cooks, walks around the Tulsi plant ten times, prays for husband’s well-being, and then wakes him up with coffee)
  
• I want a girl who has been well trained in domestic responsibilities. (A maid you mean?)
  
• Quiet understanding, simple, broadminded, believe in co-existing, prepared to offer love and affection, have a feel for elders, knowing fundas of cooking, reasonably english speaking & educated and employed, family minded girl. (I just couldn’t go through this profile without flinching at the irony. The ‘quiet’ understanding with a ‘feel for elders’ part is just so creepy on several levels.)

My brother finds this whole process very funny and occasionally sends me profiles with grim jokes like ‘horrorscope’ on the subject line. This list could go on and on and make me sound like an absolutely judgmental ass who thinks the world of herself. Though this description might sound perfect on some counts, I am still stopping my passive aggressive rant so as to not ruin my ‘opportunities to get married’ on the interwebz.

Happy New Year 2012 :)

Ah, finally 2011 is drawing to a close. Throw in extreme bad health, depression, travel exhaustion, loss of dear ones, parts of body broken, unemployment... Phew! Honestly, I am not going to miss it...Hope 2012 brings better tides. On that bright note, Happy New Year folks :)

To a wonderful friend...

As I walked into Sify nervously, during my fresher days, the apprehension and the worry I had would vanish in a jiffy, when I saw this tall, lanky guy, with his uncombed mop of hair, drinking chaai and laughing his heart out at some lame joke he had cracked himself. That was the quintessential Syed for you – carefree, obnoxious, and impossibly funny.

He was often spotted in several places around the office, but more often, perched on the desk, right next to his best pal Sathya’s computer. With his gelled hair, and a handkerchief tied around his wrist, he would look intimidating, but the mischievous glint in his eyes, would give his innocence away. From his pastel color shirts that would evoke a string of abuses from Gauthami (the most common one being, ‘Hey Syed, you look tootiful today’), to his sarcastic one-liners that would kill Ishwarya’s stories about her team, he taught us an important life lesson – never to take it too seriously. I still very vividly remember how he would endlessly mock Anusha’s habit of straightening her hair every few minutes and managing to piss her off completely.

During my endless late night hours at work, he would often stroll by, say something really nasty about the kind of work I do or how unproductive I was being, by working extra hours - of course, I would flare up immediately and say something equally nasty back and this would continue, until both of us laughed and went our separate ways. Now when I look back, I realize that it was his way of giving me a stress buster and teaching me to take a break.

Syed was every bit a person who actually celebrated his existence on earth. He would play practical jokes, laugh loudly, and strut around the office like it belonged to him. He was no doubt the show stealer in any group. When his pal Sathya got married, he waited patiently until all the girls with their expensive sarees walked on to the stage and then mercilessly sprayed foam all over the lovely ladies. The amount of physical and verbal abuse that followed still makes me laugh uncontrollably.

His niece, Alina meant the world to him. Sending us baby pictures and videos of her every other day, he would cherish every moment spent with her. There were several days when I couldn’t help but admire the wholesome love he had for her.

Syed was someone who could instantly lighten up a tense moment, liven up a boring party, and cause commotion. And to know that he is no longer around, saddens me to no end. But, keeping in mind his spirit and the yearning he had for everything cheerful and happy, I will remember all the fun times we have had together. I know he is in a better place now, he is still happy, and is probably driving someone else nuts in another world.

I do not think he can ever be fully gone – each time we think about a joke he cracked, a photo he sent, or a prank he pulled off, he continues to live life, indomitably on his own terms. May your soul rest in peace. We love you.

Another move...

In my ambitious effort to move on to ‘bigger and better things’, I just moved to Domlur. Of course, I can vouch for the ‘better’ but ‘bigger’ I have my own doubts. I just moved into a nice, little place with pink, cream, white, and blue walls – as opposed to the orange monopoly that was thrust into my face for the past year. I can’t really say that I miss the open spaces, eerily quiet nights, and absolute lack of human presence for days together, that Whitefield gave me – but I do miss it for everything else that shaped the last year up for me.

The new place is centrally located with plenty of supermarkets and eateries, well-connected to the rest of the city, and also is a very peaceful residential area. I live right next doors to a small temple, so I can hear the temple bells and the chanting of mantras all day long (shortcut to Moksha probably). Also, I have to cross a cow shed and a few cows too to reach the house – my dad took this opportunity to aptly name the place Jerusalem. Indeed, it does resemble Jerusalem, because there is such peaceful co-existence between the cows, the birds that peck them, the doggies that curl up next to the cows for some warmth, and a lone, stray, fearless cat that bosses the rest of the animals around.

Once I cross Jerusalem (holding my breath of course for better Nirvana), I can see huge trees with white and yellow flowers, the sole Banyan that graciously bears the playful squirrels scurrying across, little children playing on the roads, the gossip club with old ladies clad in long robes (often irreverently called a Maxi), the permanently parked water lorry with a man screaming in rapid Kannada, and the towering temple that somehow brings a sense of peace to the whole neighborhood.

Garbage disposal in Whitefield was a complicated mix of scientific mechanisms – flex your muscles and fling the bag as far as possible and into the clump of trees. Sometimes, it would hit a hapless dog scavenging through the muck, and in which case, you would have to run away as quickly as you can to avoid getting bitten. In Domlur, the disposal techniques are simpler and certainly less adventurous. The disinterested old man who lugs the trolley around hardly even cracks a smile.

No more waking up at seven and still making it to office at nine, no more going back home for lunch, no more gazing longingly at the house from the office window, no more running into the same people – but I know for sure that I will love this place as much as I loved Whitefield soon enough :)

Turning 24

24, an age that evokes an ‘Oh, you aren’t married yet?’ sympathetic response in all tambrahm households. In fact, this is also the favorite topic amongst the kanchipuram silk saree-clad maamis at ostentatious tambrahm weddings as well. I had the fortune to be at one a few months back, and needless to say, I had to come back home gasping for breath.

What was more shocking to most of these maamis was that the cousin who was getting married was a few months younger than me! Horrors of horrors…How could that happen? If not for the constant scratching I had to focus my attention to, thanks to the very itchy jute sari I was wearing, I would have gladly pounced at a few of these ladies. To add to the drama was an uncle of mine who accused me, “Girls can’t put too many demands like this. Good matches might just run out after a while” - and the so called ‘demand’ that I had put forth was that I didn’t want to go abroad; for the simple reason that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life making rotis on a dependant visa, and not being able to work.

This, of course prompted my dear mother to immediately make a trip to an astrologer. The dimly lit room was filled with pictures of several gods and a huge poster of Agastya muni. Agastya’s palm had a yellow triangle coming out of it and ending in a yellow circle. Was he trying to teach geometry? Or was he advocating family planning?

In any case, any funny retorts that I was itching to say out loud were silenced by one deadly look from the mother. As the astrologer took his time, writing out predictions on a book, my dad started playing a game of Solitaire on his Notebook. Another piercing look from mommy resulted in the quiet disappearance of the laptop into its original position.

Finally the astrologer looked up and sighed very deeply. Apparently there was some very bad news. Saturn was revolving viciously around me and Uranus just decided to set up shop inside the eighth house on my horoscope. I couldn’t extract rent from that cheeky planet and I was in for a period of very bad innings. His gloomy voice predicted that I would be cheated by my own friends and get married to a complete prick if I was not careful.

I would cut my future husband up, pickle him, and probably eat him up too if I got married now. “Planet influence, what to do?’ he sighed dramatically again. He also casually mentioned that I could either get squashed under a bus or lose a limb if I was not careful. As I turned to look at my folks with mock-terror writ on my face, I could see actual-terror on theirs. I began rolling eyes and signaling towards the door, but no avail. Mom was fixated on his ’How to kill your daughter’ tips and could not be shaken.

Of course, they all came around after a few days, when he called us up to tell us that the Gods had ordered him to get basmati rice that weighed as old as I was (24 kilos), a golden thaali, and an astronomical figure as his guru dakshina – and as for me, I just look really carefully before I cross the roads. I don’t want to die under a rubber tyre, I would rather die in front of my own little garden, stroking my sleepy kitten, and reading a book... :)