Some people feel important only if they are making someone's life hell

Thats how some people get a kick in their otherwise mundane life.

There is this person in my office, I can not disclose the whole identity of that person since he has found my blog too. But lets just say, he is someone whose opinion and whims can affect me.

And it did finally.

He was tad over-friendly initially, which I first thought as a trait in some people, and ignored.
Then he started calling me for some mentoring sessions , and we would have these 2 hours session, where 1.45 hours would be all inane stuff. As to how his married life sucks, how his extra curricular activities make him different from the rest, how he has brought up his kids marvelously, how he is such an outdoor person but wife is an indoor person and they always have conflict because of that, and how his neighbor is such a competition for him since he cares so much for his own wife that there is always the comparison.And how in the end he and his wife "kiss and make up". Those are his exact words, which made me uncomfortable too.

But I refused to believe that all this saga is cos I am a woman and he wants to spend some time with me.
I even fought with my then fiance, for insinuating any such thing.

Then he started messaging me on office IM, which grew creepy with time.

Well, he had me googled, and unfortunately google shows a lot of information about me.

So he first IMs me about my grand father (which one of my online profile states in full detail), feigns the fact that he knows he is my grand father, asks me if I could get books by him if I go to my home town. Also mentions he is such a big fan of my grand father (well he never mentioned that he knew he is my grand father)

At this very moment I knew he has his data on me.
Then came the story about my secret talent as a dancer, that he has his sources and he knows that about me.
What was he thinking..I am a  dud?

But since the hierarchy is such, I played along and feigned surprise.
And finally he called me to a room and told me that he knows I have a gift of writing. It was getting nauseating for me and I wanted to punch his face, but kept smiling and tolerating.

What I dint anticipate was that announcement of my marriage would change things drastically.

The day I announced, his whole persona took a 180 degree shift.
He refused my leaves, asked me to work till a day before marriage. Which obviously I could not.

When I came back from wedding, he did not bother to even congratulate me. Just called me for a meeting and told me that I would have to go on "Loss of Pay" for all the days I did not come to work, while I was away for my oen wedding.

And if you know me, you know that my temper and intolerance for injustice comes in my way always. So did it this time. I had a massive show down with him, in front of another colleague (who was clueless as to why all the bickering) and I walked out of the meeting

I was aghast at how a married man(15 years of marriage) could hope to have anything with me. What did he think? That I have avoided marriage for so log, to have an extra marital affair with a person whose face resembles a buffalo? What was his game? He manages to be married with a sane woman who is taking care of his house, he should thank his stars for that. Not raise his bars any further.

Finally I decided its in my best interest to resign, since anyways I would be moving out of this city soon.
And now I am jobless in 13 years, not knowing what to do with all the time I have in hand.
Little depressed, little out of sorts.

My blog my solace.

But I am sure, I will finally find my groove

We will always be kids

We are all fools...always a kid..however grown ups we might want us to be

We all want things for ourseleves, we all have our insecuritirs to feed, our desires to furnish
Nothing matured about it

I am saying this, cos if this recent incident which happened with me
It involves me and my 3 year old nephew Shrehaan, about whom I write all the time here , here and here
and lastly here

Just the other day he was here with his mother(my younger sister) and as ususal my sister wanted some of my things(yeah she is always asking for my dress, saree, jewllery..its her childhood issue and fascination for  my elder sister's and my things)

And I was being a little childish about it this time and said I dint want her to take anything from my stuff..yet I knew I will be giving it off

She finally chose  a neck piece & an earring
Just to play along with and see whose side my nephew was..I acted up and cried "No. no you can not take it"
She snatched it from me, and I tried taking it back and cried out and seeked my nephew's support and looked at him
He looked at both of us and said "मम्मा  को दे दो !"(Give it to my mom)

And for that brief moment, I felt deeply betrayed. I felt the like an outsider and inspite of knowing that he is just a 3 year old kid and that he lives with his mother and meets me only once in a week, where his loyalities would lie, I still felt a little jealous and betrayed

As much as I wanted to kiss his bird-like  mouth, I wanted to thrash the daylight out of him too


But when he is about to go and looks at me with his soulful forlorn eyes and holds my hand "तुम भी चलो" (You also come along), everything melts and go down holding his hand..but that small amount of feeling of betrayal never goes

It never will

Some of them have it easy, they can treat you any which way, still you would eat out of their hands when they want you too...

There are some people who can be the worst & the best with you...Yet you take in the worst, cos their best is so beautiful, innocent and honest

Rustic me

Urbane is not for me, its the rustic which always excites and unstiches me

I am trying to figure out that part in me which relents to something like that..

You appear as some one sauve and sophisticated with the right most expression and gravest smile on your face, but when you break into a punjabi gaali under your breath, thats when you make me smile

You are the graciosu lady who loves to be the perfect bahu, wife, giver for the world
But when you give in to hysterical laughter is when you make me fall in love with you

I guess we strive to find a part of us in any and everyone we meet..
that ME which resonated with something un-accountable in me

And when we see it somewhere..we run after that

Be it a song, a poem, a person...a moment..a love..a hatred..a madness..a sadness
Something which keeps reminding us of what we are...and keeps us alive

How can we ever get past us...and this "I" we so nicely concocted, and coveted

And so this song is also about me..

It does not belong to me in the first few lines
But when it breaks into tabla at 1.12 seconds..its all mine to claim..to love.to hate..to reminisce..to love..to cry..to belong..to disown...to just be ME

Raatein jaagengen raaton mein....Teri bemaani baaton mein..

Ye dil hai

I envy people who can follow their heart.

They are the women who can do field work, men who would take up dance for a career,

Here I am, ensconsed in my corporate world, doing the stuff I have been doing for years

The only adventure in my kitty could be the decision to go to US a few years ago, just on a whim, just cos I wanted to run away from something
Then to stay there against all odds, the only girl in the entire project, with noone to turn to

But then, all that cos I was pushed to a corner

Aah..why am I talking about all that, when I should be apolgising(mostly to myself) for absconding my blog for a month

My brain must have stopped working, does marriage do that you?

From Eat Pray Love..To..Committed

He said - "You smell of champagne"

She said - "You smell of my dreams"

This life and its mysteries, the calculations and mis-calculations, the compromises and disillusions, this fight with yourself...ready to know if all of it is worth it

Rest when I regain myself

His scent - for one more season

She does not love to be loved, but just as whim
Being desirous suffices her needs

She looks at men with her kohl-ed eyes
In her Velvety heel and black shimmer dress

she can find gaps in any man, from where she can slip

She says..the wanting look in men in truthful
Not the love they wear on their sleeves

They have all loved her secret strength
Not knowing she had always been in love with a weakness

But strange things happen with her always
The more she gets detached, the more men try to get her attached
The false stability makes her further unstable in her mind

She hates to stare at her mobile for someone's name
Nameless faces make her feel  alive now

She knows the game of seduction finally tilts things
One way or another,

She knows, men will get her addicted to something, and take that away
So the only addiction she trusts now is of alcohol and desire

Some women are meant to be lonely
Men have seized to be what she wanted them to be
A tryst with herself, a lump in her throat

There has always been..
This desperate need to look for someone who is in touch with himself..
So that he can touch her soul some day

For men, her mystery ends in her body, never before and never after
She carries her mystery with herself, never willing to part

She does not believe in greatness in men, mere thought disquiets her
Its the smallness in them that lets her be what she wants to be

She has been hugged many a times, sometimes for the body
Sometimes for the sake of commitment and objectification
But nothing in synch with her, nothing of the hugs she misses

All this rigmarole, cos she tried finding his scent elsewhere, but could not
She would never know what a life with him would have been, or if any of it was worth it

The scent of belonging, the scent of her womanhood
She has not blushed in eons

One of those things

In my last post I talked about lots of things being on my mind...
One of it was me getting on stage with kathak, after 15 years

As you grow, you lose so much of yourself, which can only be revived by doing what you love doing

And in times like these, when you are trying to regain yourself, you realise how much of you has been lost

You find yourself little mellow, in everything you do...or everything that was so you

And kathak was such a thing for me

And I felt I could not be what I used to be (even though the bit I wad doing was no where close to what I used to perform earlier, in terms of complexity), and that made me little shaky..
I could not do that stuff by letting my vigor be chipped away

And for that reason I created multiple reasons in my mind, and told my sister that I wont take part

Cos she was the one who had organised this whole show, to showcase her institute and her students along with a kathak dance teacher caller Murari(who incidentally knew my guru too) and his students

This sister is the one I wrote about here :
http://memoriesofaworldelsewhere.blogspot.in/2011/08/she-is-doing-her-bit.html

and here:
http://memoriesofaworldelsewhere.blogspot.in/2010/09/presenting-malvika.html

I said "I dont like the girl I am dancing with, she doesnt give me right vibes"
then "I am not his student so I guess he is not interested in involving me in this programme" (I was like a guest dancer and not his regular student. But I was the one who initiated this and asked her to ask him to include me in his compositions)
and another "I wanted to do this cos I hoped a more enjoyable experience and an environment of dance and music, but thats not happening here, since they practice separately and I am just like an add-on"

But for some reason she was so adamant on me performing. She said if I dont like the girl, she would ask him to let me do this solo, etc etc. And finally I gave it a shot.
More to try myself than for anything else.

And gradually the enthusisam started creeping in.
When we had the final stage practice, I felt so different.

I was that girl who used to be so sure of herself on stage, I always knew all eyes are glued on me when I dance.
I would look at people in their eyes while dancing and would see them looking at me and that gave me a high
But this time I had no clue, I just wanted to get thru it.

But after that stage rehearsal, when I went down, all the women there(sister's students) gave me a boost which I have been lacking.
Some said "You are far more elegant than the other woman"
Some "I could not take my eyes off you"
And I got my reward in small ways, dance must be in my veins

Here we go again...after 15 years