song of the road

Things are slowly settling down again. At least it seems so.  

I had a few very intense days with the face off with my mom. This time was about meeting a guy for marriage again. This guy came home once to meet us and to be fair to mom he seemed rather decent. He is a divorcee and earns about half of what I do. This is a typical arranged marriage scenario. So anyway after the first meeting, he tells my mom that apparently his and my career plans don’t match (I didn’t say anything about my career plan in that meeting, mostly because I don’t have a plan) which means he is uncomfortable with my salary (I always pretend this is the reason as a defence mechanism) or something else. Then my mom still convinces this guy to meet me a few more times to know me better before finally deciding. Again, to be fair, she did not do much wrong. But somehow it was the last straw.  I was desperately angry with mom. I went to kitchen to break a few things inside the sink and then couldn’t do such a careful breaking and didn’t do anything. The next day my mom at first agreed to my not meeting him if that was making me so upset. I made a huge mistake then. I was caught completely unguarded with her acceptance of it and agreed to meet him just once. 

Then I kept on questioning my decision and had a miserable week. At the end I didn’t go to meet him with a weak but classic excuse of headache. This time my mom was very upset. Then she kept badgering me to call or email him. Fortunately my aunt (chotomasi) called me that night and my confusion cleared to a great extent. It was during that night and the next day that I decided about facing R at work instead of running away and refusing to do anything that I didn’t want to do.  

Again to be fair to my mom, I have been acting rather restlessly the last few months. One day I wanted to adopt kids. Another day I wanted to give up my job all together for a 6 month leave. And then the next day I wanted to get a technical /content writing job to get more time and to explore my writing talent and to see if I have any. All this made my mom upset and scared and she was completely decided upon to help me by making my decisions for me; though she kind of has done that most of my life.

Anyway the fact of deciding to do only what I wanted has helped me a lot. I am felling more stable and calm. She brought up meeting that guy once more yesterday. This time I let go and yelled at her and told some of the unfair things she had done to me. I guess that let out some poison even though it gave me a throbbing headache. Anyway later I apologized for saying those things but I told I won’t meet any more guys including this one. She said that it is difficult for her to accept my staying single and so she is finding it very difficult to give up. Today morning I decided to be extra nice to her since I am not going to do that guy meeting thing. Hope I can hang on to the thinking for myself thing. I can think all I want, but I find it difficult to not do the peace making thing, to not do the approval seeking thing and do what I think is right. I apologize all together too much to everybody. Let’s see how I do with the problems coming up in the next few months and years. 

On the good side, my junk eating has gone down considerably. I am not cooking so much these days. I made a pie a la Ms. Soclose a few days back. It came out well. Today I made some savory cake out of semolina which is made my steaming a mix of semolina, plain home made yoghurt, a bit of green chilies, a dash of ginger, a tea spoon of lime juice and a pinch of baking soda. It is good and subtle tasted for our tongues used to more fiery tastes; though I am mellowing down rather quickly with age. I may make chinese style noodles for dinner with lots of vegetables.  

The Chinese food here is very very different from true and authentic Chinese food of which there is many variety based on different parts of China, as I understand with very limited knowledge. In my native city Calcutta, there is a reasonably big Chinese population who has settled down there for many many years now. For most part they have become quite Bengali. Even the religion has mixed up in a small but bizarre way. Anyway, some people from there and some enterprising chefs from around India have created a heavily spicier and more fried and some would say disgusting Indian versions of many Chinese food loaded with MSG and chili sauce and tomato ketchup. Often only the 5 star and some expensive boutique restaurants serve authentic far eastern cuisines; though now the trend is slowly changing. Many people including me are getting a bit tired of the road side Indo-Chinese cuisine and seeking out the more authentic and subtle fare. Everything far eastern is Chinese to roadside eateries.  Another problem is that huge parts of the Indian population are vegetarians. So the food has been bastardized more to suit the palates more here. We have dishes called “chili chicken”, “chicken Manchurian” going around as Chinese but as far as I understand they are anything but. Specially that Manchurian thingy is a rage here with versions made of chicken, prawns, cauliflower, cottage cheese, baby corn, mushroom and even potatoes I think. Once in a show in Discovery they had a show on roots of Indo-chinese food and they requested a chef from Shanghai to try some of our stuff. The poor guy said, “it is very interesting” but he was smiling a lot which rather belied the “interesting”.

Anyway so after that rather tangential discussion on Indian Chinese food, let me say again just that I am very very very happy that I am seriously snacking less these days. I have those 104 cal chocolate bars which are very good. I am a little low on energy though. I guess the lack of exercise and the medication are the reasons for that. I have ordered a small supply of a vitamin supplement. I am trying to remember to mix my protein shake powder in either shake or cereal. Hope things would improve soon. Also I am yet to get regular with my exercise. I am scared to test it but I am hoping my diabetes is not acting up. I need to get in to a regular rhythm again. 

I am reading “I Know This Much is True”. It is awesome. This guy Wally Lamb is simply too good. I identify with the story on many levels. Plus it is one heck of a story. I am yet to finish it. I am planning to write a thank you note to Mr. Lamb afterwards. (Do you know I once wrote one thank you note to Paulo Coelho and he actually wrote back and for a couple of days afterwards I walked on air)

On the other hand, I read my first Marcia Muller novel. She is good too. I will read the rest of her available in my library. Thank you Ms. So Close. I am also reading “The Complete Idiot’s guide to Creative Writing” in bits and parts. I am planning to do some work shops or courses once the dust settles a bit.  

I bought a few books too recently. One is “A Beautiful Mind”. The movie blew my mind away. I am ashamed to say I saw such a great movie only very recently. So I am planning to read the book. In a slightly bizarre coincidence I am getting suddenly a lot of material on schizophrenia from different media. I am not really seeking them out. I hope the disease itself doesn’t decide to make a personal visit. Since I have schizoids in my family, I am sometimes really afraid and that is why I ran to a shrink at the first sign of trouble. Perhaps, just perhaps, I should have been strong enough to tackle the problems on my own. However I am not taking any chance and not doing anything stupid like stopping medication suddenly. 

The other book is “The Argumentative Indian” by Amartya Sen. I have heard good reviews about this book. The last one was a complete impulse buy. I am not sure if I will like it at all. It is “Women who run with the wolves”. I loved the cover. The back cover mentioned things like “inner life”, “ageless knowing” etc which almost made me put it down. Let’s see how it goes when I pick it up. 

Well, that is the end of my long and meandering thoughts for now. I need to quickly catch up with you all. Tomorrow is Monday and I have too much work pending on me.