song of the road

Tomorrow is another great day. I am becoming a little self-help bookish type. : ) I am trying the positive self-talk thing. I hope that will help. I am not so much bothered about R any more. But I think my body hasn’t got the message yet. Last to last week, I could go to work for 3 days and then took leave for 2 days. Last week, I went for 2 days and was home for 3 days. I am going to try really hard to go to work all days this week. What a huge goal! : ) But I suddenly get completely apathetic. I wasn’t writing here and I was scared even to check my mail and was avoiding your comments as well. I felt like hiding forever. Anyway the last five continuous days at home helped a bit. Also there is my mom. Whenever I stand up, she manages to dislodge the rug below my feet. Hopefully I will jump off the rug in time this time.

Anyway so instead of thinking positive things, I am writing down a small essay everyday. There I write all that I can think at that moment about why I love me and why I can be loved and what good things I am going to do the next day. My goal now is to first become beautiful and then become a writer and meanwhile be successful in my software career. : ) Yeah, I know, me and my ever changing goals. But then how to live without a goal? I picked up a book in library called “What do I do when I want to do Everything?” The title called to me. I am yet to read it. Just read one page of the prologue. I do think she is talking about someone like me. I become too joyous at every prospect and get distracted or bored soon after. I want to do so much, learn so much, see so much and I know perhaps I wont even read so much. To come back, I think the writing good things about myself is working a bit. Though it is only 3 days yet, these 3 days have been happily productive. This writing good things about me is a bit silly but my confidence is so low now that I need it. I don’t even know why my confidence has gone and keep disappearing like that. I mean I am really not particularly unhappy about anything. It’s just that sometimes everything seem completely pointless and worthless. Taking one extra step becomes difficult.

Apart from the essay thingy, I have another strategy to hang on at work. This is necessary as I am not getting another job right now. I have the financial stability to let go of this job without another in hand but I DO NOT WANT TO RUN AWAY. I will not go away. It is more or less impossible to avoid R when he sits less than 3 feet away. But if he bothers me even in any small unintentional way, I am going to go downstairs and take a walk. Or I will overcome my shyness and go and start chatting with someone else. I can make them laugh. I will laugh too. I will find out new things and it will refresh me. Those are such silly easy things and all people know to do these on their own from their youth. I am taking so long to catch up. But still what the heck? It’s fun in a way.

Okay, now the other BIG news. Brother dear is getting married on 14th June in Bangalore. I have managed most of the arrangements. I have finished the invitations verbally. Need to meet few friends and hand the invitation cards yet. We have arranged for a good caterer. Hopefully he will deliver well on that day. It is going to be a lavish buffet dinner. I will post photos of the bride and the groom and the food and the flowers. We are going to have a very small ceremony with no religious rituals. T is my brother’s fiancée. Her parents are not too happy about it. So they will have another ceremony for the religious trappings. Since my brother, my mom and I are not big on religion, we are more comfy with a small ceremony. Well, of course it is not the perfect situation to have two ceremonies but whatever! And my mom is jealous as hell about the fact that her daughter is not married yet and T is having so much fun. She gets on my nerves at times. One my mom’s sisters met T a few days back and she liked T a lot and my mom was not happy about it. It’s like T can’t win any way. : ) Mom predicts I will sing a different tune once I know her better. I try to empathize with my mom’s pain and immaturity and her narrow definition of happiness but as you can make out from my tone I am not all that successful. But life goes on.

T has bought a lovely red Sari with heavy golden embroidery to wear on that day. It is a gorgeous traditional piece. We have hired a professional make-up artist for her and me. This lady is supposed to be very good and she does make-ups for models ad actresses. I have ordered my brother’s made-to-fit suit. It is a lovely shade of grey with ultra think lines of purple and perhaps silver running through. It does look well on him. The last finish will be done when he is here. They both have bought the rings. My bro’s one is diamonds on platinum. Diamonds for T as well, perhaps on gold. Mom has decided to give T her wristlets (that’s like a lovely wide ornamented band of gold to be worn on wrist). All this can be worn only on a few days of one’s life as it is not safe to flaunt gold here. Though we are not buying much. Most traditional Indian marriages mean hordes of gold ornament. R’s wife must have at least ten times of what T is getting, rather having to buy herself. T’s parents cant afford to buy any jewellery for her which is okay. So T is sponsoring all the stuff her parents are supposed to give her and my mom is not happy. I don’t see why it is any of her business. But mom thinks they shouldn’t make T and my bro spend so much. Marriages are complicated even when they are happening after at least 10 years of love.

 I am yet to buy the jewellery I am going to gift her. Need to get that done soon. I am planning some light pearl stuff so she can wear them sometimes. Unlike me she does wear a lot of jewellery – cosmetic and otherwise. I need to buy a dress for me too. My growing fatter is not helping. But I am not going to mind that and be merry anyway.  My brother’s boss is being mean about giving him leave. He is supposed to come down here this Saturday but he is not yet sure about his leave. So a small storm is brewing there as well.

That is enough for today. I still need to catch up with you all. I just need to catch up on work a little bit first. Then I will slowly get to normal. I love you.

I am okay. I wasn’t well for a long time. I again managed to lose my confidence. Anyway I feel I am on the mend again. It took me a long time and lot of courage to come back here. I know you are there for me. I shouldn’t think about whether I deserve your love or not.

I love you all. I will catch up with you all soon.

I am doing relatively all right. For some reason my appetite has gone down. I am rejoicing it for as long as it lasts. My mom is making me eat lots of fruit though. In this heat, that’s the only thing that seems palatable. I know I typed that!!!! It is unthinkable, really. We are eating a lot of sapodilla, mango, pomegranate, sweet lime, watermelon, papaya, pineapple and bananas too. I am enjoying the sweetness and the juiciness.  

It is nearly 30 deg Celsius over here, that too after we had a couple of thunder storms. Before that it went up to 37 deg Celsius and was awfully hot. Actually
Bangalore is relatively cooler. The plains of India are burning up. I was watching a cricket match today which was being played in the beautiful historical city of
Jaipur. The temperature there was 45 deg Celsius and the poor players had to play in that heat for about three hours. The heat there is dry which is slightly better for playing than the humid heat of Chennai (Madras) and Calcutta. Anyway there are more showers predicted till end of May which should keep Bangalore cooler.  

Yesterday R’s topic came up with mom. She is much angrier than I am. She had taken the news of his marriage rather calmly. But she is bitter and angry at how R had been flaunting his marriage and how he caused me so much physical and emotional pain. Anyway the thing is that talk with her did not upset me too much. But it will change once I go back to work. R is not some one who will let me alone after what he has done. He will pretend friendship and continuously be making overtures as if nothing has changed and try to get personal information from me. I know it sounds paranoid but he is not a nice guy. But it is difficult for me to stay on guard all the time at work. Anyway I am going to face it all some how and I need to remember how toxic he is. 

Nothing much is going on. I am still facing a little trouble in concentrating on work. But I am generally happier. I am watching some cricket nowadays. I have got a lot of good books from library – mostly fast read types. Reading “Mystic River” by Dennis Lehane now. I like his style of writing. 

Lots of love to all of you.

Things with mom are cool now. We are back to communicating freely and no more tension for now. She has given in to this decision of mine. When two people live together, there definitely would be some conflict some times. Hopefully the future conflicts will remain to that level. The problem is we hardly ever fight about small things.

Fortunately food is going all right. Lots of fruit and for most part less fatty food. Today I didn’t even have my low calorie chocolate bar.

I have got a mild cold and my TOM. Yeah, pineapple! Need to ask mom to get one.  Couldn’t go to gym today. Hopefully will go in a few days. Need to pick up on the exercising.

Brushed up my resume today after long procastination. Will also need to go and submit my passport application. There are some more chores pending. Also tons of work pending for my projects at office. Hopefully I will catch up this week. Because if things go right, I would go to Calcutta for a couple of days.

The plan is for me to go on Sunday morning and reach there by afternoon. My brother will take the afternoon flight from Bombay and come there in the evening. We have some work to do there. Then we will be back to Bangalore on late Tuesday evening. My brother will stay here for the rest of the week and leave for Bombay on Sunday evening. He has some things to do in preparation for his marriage next month. It will be good fun to go out of Bangalore even for a couple of days plus my brother’s visit is always fun.

I will buy material for my brother’s suit which he will wear on the marriage day and give it to the tailor for stitching. When he is down here next time, I will get the tailor to make the final finishing touches. I am also planning to buy some gold and pearl jewellery for his fiancee as a marriage present. Also would be partly financing the honeymoon as another present. I am also planning on giving them a wedding night suite on a 5 star hotel here so that they can have champagne and roses and all that. But they are not too keen on that one. I am to give that money for honeymoon fund.

His marriage will have a couple of ceremonies (decided after a lot of negotiations). We will have a small quite civil ceremony here with the marriage registrar coming down to the marriage hall. We will have a small party afterwards with our friends. T’s parents will be here too. Then they will leave for Calcutta and T’s parents are organizing another small religious ceremony there. There will also be a party there. Many of my brother’s friends who are in Calcutta would join there. Then the best part. They will go to Manali and Ladakh for honeymoon. Both of these are in North India and are lovely places on the Himalayas. But Ladakh is seriously beautiful.

Ladakh is in the Indian state Jammu & Kashmir which perhaps is more famous or rather notorious for being a major bone of contention between India and Pakistan. We recently had a war with Pakistan which is also known as Kargil war. Kargil is a district in Ladakh.  The politics on Kashmir is brutal. The terrorism there is killing at least 10 people daily. There is major military presence from India and Pakistan and there is a LOC. It is horrible. Folks there are suffering as hell. Anyway, forget the politics. They are going to Leh which is also in Ladakh and on the Tibet border which is relatively peaceful. One of the Mughal emperors (they ruled India till before the British started their rule) said about J&K - If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.

Ladakh is the highest plateau of the Indian state of Kashmir with much of it being over 3,000 m (9,800 ft). It spans the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges and the upper Indus River valley. Once you reach there, you are required to rest for a day to acclimatize with the thin air. They are going to drive up the Manali Leh highway which perhaps is one of the world’s best scenic route. A photo of a lake here. I don’t know when I would get to go there.

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.  

I am doing mostly okay. Food is reasonably good. Started going to gym from yesterday and again planning to be regular.

I did some soul searching in last week and found out that I would like to make my own decisions from now on. I will try to not let my mom manipulate me in to doing what she wants. It’s a long story how all this came about but I can’t go in to all that as I have a lot to do at work and must run soon.

Anyway, I am going to take care of my mom as best as I can but not be her slave. I generally ignore a lot of bad things and often refuse to see the bad side of the things. I say this with very less anger that my mom has always made me do whatever she has wanted and never treated me like an independent human being. I was always supposed to be weak, inefficient and worthless at times. Whereas the expectations from me has been higher than that from my brother, the respect given to me has been less. Each of my activity has been twisted and made as a proof of my weakness and an excuse for my mom to drive me. Anyway, whatever is done is done. Now we are both adults and equal. I am not going to take revenge on her but neither am I going to let her use me to acheive her dreams. I have done it for very long and I think I have paid my dues. I am going to ignore her sulks. She needs to grow up.

Also I am planning to go back to work next month as originally planned instead of asking for an extension. R is a very bad person. He couldn’t wait a month after our break off to decide to marry someone else. Then he kept talking to her and flaunting her to hurt me. I have done nothing wrong in trusting him and giving the relationship my best. I am not going to run away from the situation and face it. I have not done any wrong, why must I assume the guilt and pain? It’s okay for someone to stop loving me when he wants to. Why should my life stop for that?

So I am going to work hard at my career. Try my hand in writing a bit. Exercise and lose weight. I think now that I am taking responsibility for my own decisions, I am feeling light and bright. My junk food eating has stopped too, maybe only temporarily. I will make a few wrong decisions and maybe falter a bit but I am not going let anyone to make me think less of me. However strongly someone sites someone else’s example to prove how I am going to have a barren and unhappy life, I know I won’t. I am going to be happy and strong. I am nobody’s door mat any more.

A little too late to rebel? But better late than never to find one’s sense and sense of worth.

Lots of love to you all.

Feeling slightly better. I am quite scared to utter it. Each time I say I am getting better, there follows a meltdown and I get worse. But hope springs eternal.

Diet better than before. Exercise not yet regular. Lots of thoughts in the head. And life goes on…

Love you all my dearest friends!

Feeling much better today. Went to gym and had a massage too. Perhaps yesterday’s outburst was due to the heavy emotional stresss I went through for my brother’s marriage. Also good is a release of the pent-up angst.

Annie, I agree a pshychotherapist might be a good idea. Let me see and try to bring it up with my doctor this Sunday when I have my next appointment.

Thank you all for the greatest support and will catch up with you all soon.

On good front, I went to gym. Then got fed up and left after fighting with S. He kept on harping about how much weight I have gained. I kept quite for a long time. Even at one point another trainer told that it is okay to gain a little weight as that is why they are there to help. S still kept on and on about loss of stamina, muscles etc. I know it is not his fault. Then he was taking my fitness test. I did poorly and kept on getting angrier with each comment. Then while running on treadmill, I ran flat out for a minute and my heart was jackhammering but for some reason the heart rate monitor showed it to be much lower. So he kept on increasing speed. I asked him to stop and then I moved on to the next stationary machine. But he just wasn’t listening. So I said I would leave if he doesn’t stop. He asked me to go ahead and leave and I did. I got very angry. Anyway, one more thing to deal with. My fuse is getting shorter and shorter.

I wrote a couple of longish emails and that “my room” thingie and cooled down a bit. Then I found out that R has taken leave and has allowed everyone to take leave at once. We had some argument and I lost my head again. His in-laws are visting and that is his emergency to allow whole team to be absent on a support contract. Well his watertight excuse is that he has told our manager and he is okay. Really I should have let it go at that. But I yelled like a maniac. And then called my brother and cried and howled that I want to leave this job this minute. I cooled down again after a while.

Only good to happen out of all this is that I am getting friendlier with my mom. Otherwise I feel I will become a howling raving lunatic soon. I don’t know why this is hitting so hard and so late. sick! sick! sick!

My brother’s wedding fiascos are near over. I managed to get my mom around having the religious ceremony (albeit a short one) as well here. Hope there won’t any more issues. I am a little bit angry at having to give way to them. But I am too exhausted too. And as my mom said, the situation is getting bizarre. If the choice is between cutting my brother by half and taking a piece or to let him go and live in one piece, better to let him go. I am still a bit scared and worried. But whatever is to happen will happen. I am exhausted and not sure that I can keep it all together. My head is throbbing with madness.

I will catch up with everyone once I can get my breath back. I am too restless to read even a little bit.

I was writing this piece to just to cool myself down. Here it is for you too.

Well…. what to write about? Right now there are a few things in my head - Shahrukh Khan, my gym and personal trainer, my job and my plans of adopting a child (or two if I am very lucky).

I am lying down on my stomach supported by a rather thinning pillow with my laptop in front and a cup of black tea standing on a black note book. The noon outside is hot and silent. All is peace and harmony in this house at this moment. This used to be Chiku’s room when he was here. In fact even now when he comes down for a visit, it becomes his room again. There is something of his personality left here which makes me feel an usurper still. The smoke smell from the pillows and the bed cover and the walls are gone. It may be our personal computer sitting idle and mute in the desk in front of my bed that is yelling his presence. The unoccupied chair is infrequently dusted. You should have seen the perfectly  parallel stripes of dust on the internet mechanic’s black trousers fitting his rather ample butt. It was hilarious.

Anyway, the computer is not working now. The poor machine perhaps have given up breathing after losing that boy who used to play games and plan adventure bike trips and projects of building electronic gadgets and moon in general with an overflowing ash tray on his side. Who would now sit on the uncomfortable plastic chair for hours and often look like in the process of getting sucked in by the monitor in to some fairy land of his own where games and gadgets rule.

The drawers of the tables still spew his endless collection of CD, a pack of unused new pens, a few empty packs of cigarettes (kept why exactly?), a red ball made of some unknown polymer which when thrown on ground lights up, a bunch of pencils still sharpened (memory from the days spent on preparing for CAT which by the way I am giving away to masi for her kids), bunches of wires, cables, headphones and related paraphernalia. The drawers of the computer desk are still forlornly empty. The upper one holds a pot of ink waiting for his sporadic hobby of trying to recapture the magic of writing with fountain pens and a lone CD of Ravindra Rachanabali which has refused to get installed in my work laptop. The bottom drawer has a stick of glue and a camel cigarette pack bursting to seams holding coins collected as change from innumerable procurements of cigarettes.

The cupboard still holds books and CD (yes again here too, apart from a suitcase full of them under the living room bed and albums of them on the living room sofa) and the old digital camera and the older yet still camera and a group photo taken at Wipro, exactly as he arranged. The table proudly displays the paperweight from Harley Davidson and the photograph of a submarine brought back from a trip of Vizag which was a souvenir gift in turn for me, mom and the girl friend.

The room would never be mine. It is as if I am holding it for its rightful owner. In spite of the can of ocean scented Odonil room freshener, the Nike Women deodorant ( a recent acquisition),  the bottle of Dior Addict (a perfume I would cherish forever as a gift from the room owner though it is really a little too aggressive for a goody-two-shoes like me. well, I am goody goody most of the times though less and less ), a bunch of books - some fiction and some work related, there is very less of me in here. But then I guess I miss my brother that much less in here.  and to think we would leave this house for another some time sooner than later. If I ever write a memoir, perhaps I could fill quite a few chapters only with my brother’s rooms. I find his way of nesting amazing.