song of the road

Life is going on ordinarily enough. On the study front, things are slowly getting okay. I hardly studied during the weekend. But have done well enough on the first two week day mornings. Another guy from my work has cleared it last week. I discussed the exam with him. I am now feeling confident that I can do it. Any new disaster should not happen soon. I looked up the job opportunities in Bombay today morning. There seems to be many available if I get the certification. This is a great boost.

My brother asked me to come down to Bombay for a long weekend to take a break from here. We discussed taking mom with me. Mom is not too happy about going. But she has agreed that she would go if I feel it is becoming too much for me here. My brother lives with his girlfriend which is not so socially acceptable here. It will be awkward for my mom and T (my brother’s girlfriend). But they both agreed to do it for me. It made me feel good and loved and a bit humbled too. Isn’t it good to have people who are there for you? Anyway, I have decided that we won’t go now. To take my mom and go on a planned weekend will be too much work and quite some tension. I will focus on my studies now, so I can get a job there. Meanwhile if things get too much to bear here, I will go alone for a couple of days. There are too many flights from here to Bombay. It would be easy to get a cheap ticket and mom can manage alone for a few days. Just the knowledge that I can take a break will keep me centered. All this courage might evaporate once the idiot R comes back from his vacation tomorrow. Though I think I am feeling more detached as he is now married and so is out of bounds in every way. In a way it is good that the cut has been so final. I do not want to think about him at all except for the mind share needed for work.

I watched many episodes of Numb3rs this weekend. I also saw a few episodes from the first season of X-Files. It was looking a bit dated. I just looked up that the show started on 1993. The US of 1993 looked quite different from the US of 2000 I personally saw, which must be dated compared to the US of 2008. Also the technology wasn’t this sleek then. I am not much in to science fictions and aliens. I have read only a few well written novels in sci-fi and fantasy genre. But I found those episodes quite gripping. I don’t have a stomach for horror, so will send the whole lot to brother and may watch some episodes later. I still have Desperate Housewives 3 and Boston Legals to watch. It is so good that we get these available so easily here. Globalization helps. A lot!

It is good to watch these American TV series at one shot. I like the innovative ideas and the stories and the presentation. I don’t watch TV regularly here. As the stories they tell here are too well known to me for most part. And I don’t like reality shows most of the time. I can’t stomach the crying, the losing, and the way they stretch someone’s torment and show contestants breaking down. For one thing the breaking down of any person is intensely personal and I feel so bad to witness that and worse to think that they might be fake and staged. For another I can’t understand why someone would be so unhappy to lose in those stupid game shows. But then I guess I don’t know the kind of effort and emotional upheaval it takes. Also I don’t think one participating in a game show, can find much social support. I can understand someone feeling very bad losing in American Idol (we have Indian Idol) but in MTV Roadies! And that awful show – Big Brother! Goodness! The endless bitching and scheming! The Indian version last year had seedy celebrities and it was so awful. One can get seriously depressed if one is forced to watch Big Brother everyday for a couple of weeks. It can be a tool for torture. 

I got a few good books this time. I consulted a few good reading lists from listmania in Amazon and also the reading list in Oprah. I used to think that she is just a popular chat show host. Only after seeing you guys mentioning her here, I checked out her web site and then her magazine, and she really is so much more.

On the books, I read “Rebellion” by Nora Roberts. I am still surprised that Nora Roberts was there in the Oprah list. I had read many books by her and she is a good read. But still. That list has Wally Lamb’s “She has come undone”. No list should have such two different books at one place. By the way, the Wally Lamb book is astounding. I finished Rebellion pretty fast and it is nice but a bit shallow. Then I was reading a book called “A map of the world” by Jane Hamilton. It has major possibilities. But in the first chapter, a two year old girl drowns when the lady who was babysitting her was absent for may be five minutes and the kid walks down to the lake and drowns in the shallows where she generally paddles with adults present. I was upset that day with R’s marriage and this book freaked me out big time. I started to imagine me making such a fatal unintentional mistake and immediately decided that is not some place I needed to visit that day. It triggered the binge too. So I started the Dick Francis novel “Come to Grief” and settled down to a very good read. I will read the map another day. And I have comforted myself a bit by reading the end a little bit.

Now I am reading “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides. Again superlative! It is going slowly as I am trying to read fiction less these days. I still have Toni Morrison’s “the Bluest Eye” and “The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen. I am stocked up with very good books this time. It feels so good. The Oprah’s list is very good actually. Also I am discovering that many of these books are not there in my library. 

On more books, I bought the Vegetarian Times cook book when I went to buy books for my certification. I can’t believe it but I also bought Phantom comics. They were kept in a pyramid display near the entrance. I walked past at least five times and then gave in and picked one. As a policy from childhood, I never buy comics (only borrow from friends) as they are not enough reading for their price. I can buy a thick book for the same price which will last me longer. Geeky! But anyway I gave in, just to commemorate my childhood love for comics. I remember standing in a tiny kitchen and reading fast a compilation of comics at 4 am in the morning because I would have to return the book that very day. Mom didn’t even know I had that book or she would have killed me trying to finish a fat comics book on a school day. As it is she didn’t like my reading them. I finished parts of it by carrying it to the bathroom after everyone went to bed. I remember my parents yelling to ask “what the hell am I doing in bathroom for so long” and “why am I going to bathroom so many times”. Thinking now, they surely guessed what their 10 year old daughter was doing but didn’t have the heart to actually scold her nor could they officially sanction it. 

Once my mom caught me reading a “for adults” book which was a small satirical novel on pre-independent India’s farmer landlords and how they exploited villagers and widows. There was nothing explicit and I could hardly understand much of it because of the writer’s classical language. But the book was in the shape of a bottle and I was asked specifically not to read it. I was reading it below the bed one afternoon (we used to have high wooden beds which have enough space below for even an adult to hide). She caught me and got really really angry. She burnt the book. If she had hit me, I would have been okay. I was stunned. I couldn’t think of anyone burning a book. I don’t think I still have forgiven her for that. Though all four of us have known these awful black moments of terrible anger. I think she has forgotten now. She has told me many times since that her fanatical discipline about me not reading any book even mildly adult was very immature and quite useless. Whereas I now feel it was actually good of her to stop me. But then I took every single chance to thwart her. Mainly because I had more time and intention to read than I had material to read. I was not much of a rebel otherwise. But that burning still rankles. Why did she have to burn the book? But then I guess she got immensely frustrated and angry that day. It is okay, mom.

To conclude, eating is reasonably ok. No other binges so far. Not all food eaten is diet food by any measure but reasonably healthy. No exercise at all due to the break from gym. They have agreed to freeze my membership for a while. That at least will save me some money in membership fees. I am drinking lots of water and eating loads of fruits (thanks to mom). No way can I lose weight now but I hope to not go over too much and keep my blood sugar/cholesterol okay. I am a sick person!

Love to everyone trying to stay well and to conquer the urge to eat delicious food, well most of the time.