Clutter

A funnel of face wash

and bisected bottles

of balms and butter.

Within crabbed cellophane

and an old book, half read

torn into tales.

Between those lies a protocol

unfinished and undone

and theories of velocity

in motion not gaining momentum

What a mess, life has become

a rigid ritual put down as a pact on paper

between thousand threads

trailing along time and the Almighty

We are nothing more than

those containers and cartons,

waiting to be cast away like clutter

into a casket christened in our name.

Long live the Facebook Restrict List

With changing times facebook has become an essential entity of our lives. No matter whatever we do, and however we try to keep away from it, it comes back much like a lost puppy that never got lost. What has eternally been enticing about facebook is the "Restrict List". I think I am one of the those users of facebook who will forever be thankful to Zuckerberg for inventing the Restrict List.


What is funniest, is when cousins meet and ask me "Do you use facebook?"

Pat comes the reply with a  yes after a Manmohan Singh styled "lip pursing act" which doesn't manage to attract eye balls popping into a space I am wishing to defend like a watch dog. Slowly but surely I send them a friend request to not hurt the sentiments of a family that had for long been a species of siblings sharing blood and allergies, not to forget the frailty of forgetfulness that was a game nature has played on them.

Again a "no" will usually be a lie I won't be able to pull off well! I know I can't give Mulayam Singh Yadav a run for his money anytime in this life!

Then for a while, I keep a watch on when they will accept the request for that will be the fateful day when your world will come crashing down and your image will take a toss. Any new friend request I send to my relatives is often a victim of a "high blood pressure" syndrome that can make the BP apparatus burst, in all those moments of animated anxiety. And once I know they are in my boat, I immediately take action, and put them in the "Restrict list"! A doing that has been happening since long and for which I have often felt guileless, as guilty as a married man sneaking to watch Fashion TV in the middle of the night!

Now for people who do not know what a restrict list is, let me tell you it is the option that appears in front of you when you click the Privacy settings, then select "Manage blocking"  and finally tap on the Add friends to your restricted list. This way you stay in the good books of many of the people you cannot afford to give a cold shoulder to! For they stay in your facebook friend list while you continue your nasty nagging on the social networking scene and on blogger, not hurting their old world opinions.

As a girl, one has to take care of so much, especially to not irk the millions of people around you, and these people called relatives! The very first of clans who can get "judgmental" about anything under the sun that girls like me do! Thank God for the restrict list! It is the perfect place to stash away these kind, who can only frown and complain about the modern mannerisms that Indian girls have adapted themselves to, without batting an eyelid, without worrying about how the moral police will treat them?
My restricted list consists of relatives, cousins, people from the church, who have lost hopes of ever turning me into a homely marriage material and not to forget the patriarchal church fathers who might discover about my evil feminist enterprises and may someday report it to the higher authorities in the family, I  mean my parents.

Oh yes I am a bitch and plan to stay so, meanwhile as an Indian girl the thoughtless Indian theories need to be taken care of! While they have been thrashed into the Restrict list, the nose pokers and mindless moralists I enjoy my cup of coffee and continue with feminist activism on my blog and facebook, uninterpreted and fearlessly.

On second thoughts, Rinzu says,

Long live the Restrict list. It is the best feature of the place called facebook we all so wondrously wait to loiter in.

That Someone's Bride

She has preserved those

pencil portraits

and stencil symptoms

a mosaic of saris

dabbed in charcoal clouds

jagged joints and

anaemic asthma,

to memories that

are tinctured tints

all are the blueprints

of the butter burned

on her skin.

She remembers the day

the sun rose

from behind the silken shade

in their bedroom

to the hour she became

a rag doll ranted with ravage

she couldn't say a no

for the practice and the prize

as she removed her relics

from the room.

The sky aged and

the wind chimes walloped

at the window

when he wrote his name

on her agile arm

with crayons chalked

by his canvas.

She saw it all till

she couldn't swallow

her sweat,

today the copper he gave

her has melted

and so has the promise

a scraping with a scissor

and a welted womb

sometimes reminds her

of the times she was

someone's bride.

First published in the inaugural issue of the Kalyani magazine available here .

English Vinglish---The Story of a Simple Indian Woman

After having taken a hiatus of four years from visiting the movie theater, this Monday I happened to step into one. The reason was strongly feminist and very personal as well. A movie revolving around the life of a woman was my object of interest with the trailers packing a punch for strong feminists like me. Sridevi being the second reason. This time though there was no comedy or dance to sweep you away. All that she displayed was poise and grace, stepping into the shoes of a typical  Indian woman  who was under-educated but wise.

The movie is about a middle age Maharashtrian housewife who lives with her husband, mother in law and kids in some part of Pune. She was not convent educated unlike her daughter who is studying in class seventh, which doesn't allow her to speak in the Queen's language. Even though she has a rare talent of making ladoos and is a small time entrepreneur. Both her weak English and her flair for making ladoos aren't a hit with her family. The director tellingly proves through many sequences that English is the status symbol of modern day India, and an individual's inability to converse in it can be a social embarrassment for the family.

Fate takes a different turn, when one day her sister calls her inviting her to the United States to help with her elder daughter's wedding. It happens to be a blessing in disguise when one day while out on an expedition of the city, she happens to see a notice which claims to make you affluent in spoken English in 45 days. She remembers the telephone number printed on the notice and from there begins the journey that changes her life for good.
She finds a group of friends who bond over harmless racist jokes and the language English. There are no borders in the language class and  a sensible Shashi to save the souls of the students there. She also tried to enlighten the common Indian viewer on the insensitivity towards homosexuality in a scene where her friends make fun of the homosexual teacher's heart break and she gives wisdom on why the heart doesn't understand the sex of the partner when in love.Therefore as the heterosexuals even homosexuals have the same kind of feelings when it comes to the matters of the heart.

Shashi finds a very special friend  in Laurent, the french chef who makes her believe in herself  unlike her husband who is ashamed of her wife's culinary skills and often arrogantly advises her to give away making ladoos. They both live and learn and talk their hearts out. In one of the conversations, where in Sridevi calls cooking as the duty for the women and an art for men, the director has tried to display the odds existing in the world. Both Shashi and Laurent share a common passion in cooking and have reverence for each other as opposed to Shashi's family who always belittle her for the abilities and inabilities she has. I particularly loved the scene where in Laurent admires her beauty and she runs for cover, only because she had forgotten what it is to be admired. Such was their chemistry, that they do need languages to pour their hearts out.

What I disliked the most was the portrayal of Shashi as a typical Indian woman who is rolled into her responsibilities of being a wife, daughter and mother. Why did she have to give up on her English classes when her son hurts his foot? Why couldn't the father take care of the child and let the woman discover herself as she exercises her right to education. Like the Karan Johar romance, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, I would have loved it if Shashi could have gone to Laurent, a man who honestly respected her unlike her husband of many years.

So also, she looks gorgeous in the saris she sports and has definitely made a comeback for the intelligent Bollywood lovers.

Spare A Thought For Those Who Brought You Up

Indian sons, and their wives, aren't treating their aged parents well. A study on abuse of India's elderly, conducted across 20 cities and involving over 5,500 older people, has found that almost 1 in 3 (32%) have faced abuse. The son has been found to be the primary abuser in 56% of cases, followed by the daughter-in-law in 23% cases in a survey conducted by the Hep age India.

While these might be the revelations made by a study, I am reminded of the many cases of the brutal battering that elderly were meted out by their sons. The most inhuman case I ever heard of made a son, who was the legal heir to the property, put his surviving mother in the dog's kennel where she was served food and made to live in forcible fear. 
A woman in India has rights and privileges as a human as long as her husband is alive, since the identity of a woman is recognized with a husband and with the married status. In most cases since a wife is younger than the husband and since women have been known to live longer as per this survey that says that at the age of 80 years and above, 71 per cent of women and only 29 per cent of men have lost their spouse, older people, in this case women end up being alone in their twilight years.

This is because social biases do not allow remarriages and seeking refuge in old care homes, owing to the gender discrimination that Indian women are meted out and the dirty tricks Indian culture keeps playing to mull the ideologies of womanhood. Again for all the sacrifices they make as young women, with many retorting to live as "stay at home" moms, career planning is ignored or put on the back burner which adversely affects financial planning and too much dependency on the husband.
If the husband passes away earlier than the wife, which happens in most cases owing to the higher life expectancy of Indian women, the mother is left in the lurch. And a feud for the family property erupts with the mother complying to the son's demands in most cases, making her a dependent on the son and daughter in law. In most Indian homes, daughters are absolved of all rights in her birth home, the day she gets married and dowry is given to her, which in most cases is seen as her share of the paternal property. In this case, daughters are asked to stay away from their birth homes and consider the conjugal households as the place where their due of the decision making should come into play.

Now to throw some light on what the legality says. Daughters have the same rights and responsibilities as sons and no human force (In this case the brother and his wife!) can hinder them from exercising a liberty the law has allowed.
The day daughters will share the onus of taking care of the parents, they won't be seen as burdens. So also the division of property as son's share and dowry for the daughter can be arrested to allow equitable splitting of rights and duties. Under such circumstances daughters won't be seen as a liability and social evils like female foeticide, female infanticide and dowry deaths would be forgotten fables. 


Somewhere down the line, Indian parents rely too much on sons when it comes to emotional, mental and financial security in the old age. Sadly, this is where the equation has gone wrong. Every adult should plan wisely for the old age with the expectation of living with the son not playing a part while they chart out their retirement. Retirement can be the best time of the life with a bit of saving for the rainy day. 
Even as home makers, women can put aside a small amount of money every month for the future or can invest in pension schemes which won't make them very reliant on their husband's share of the property. There are also investment options that makes the "spouse" a beneficiary in case of a mishap, even those can be put to good use. 
So also, both women and men must learn to live without their spouses in case of an eventuality in the future with the decision making about property left at the will of the surviving partner.

The Krishna Key by Ashwin Sanghi

Title: The Krishna Key

Author: Ashwin Sanghi

Price: 250

Publishers: Westland

Pages:475

Characters
Ravi Mohan Saini: An intelligent and well informed professor of history teaching at St. Stephens college, Delhi.

Priya: Saini's doctoral student.

Radhika Singh: A tough police officer, a woman who can give many men a run for their money when it comes to solving criminal cases.

Sunil Garg: Director of CBI

Taarak Vakil: An innocent rich boy victimized to kill.

Sanjay Ratnani: Priya's father and India's top criminal lawyer

Sir Khan: The don in the den.

The book begins with a mysterious murder and a History professor being framed. The murderer kills in the name of God and to be able to stop him and not let himself be wiped out, the professor along with his doctoral student set out on exposing the ancient secret of the human avatar of Krishna which is the key to unearthing the mystery behind the murders. I liked the way in which he has drawn parallels to the mythological characters and crafted a plot that is not rushing, yet very engrossing. One can say, the book is the Indian take on the Da Vinci Code, again with Hinduism playing its role to not hurt the Indian sentiments. It is less furious than the Da Vinci Code in its flow and the twists and turns in the story keep you hooked to the hatch.

What I particularly liked was the way in which  excerpts from the Mahabharata kept appearing to tell of a tale that was a fable for me till now. So also, it tells us of many strange secrets from the Indian history with realistic roles of civilizations and kings, that the history books did not delegate in detail.

The book also gives a discourse on what is good and what is bad and the importance of making the right choices in life. The comparisons between the characters and the mythological personalities make the story all the more a catch.  And without any advisory authority tells us of  how the wicked ways only lead to destruction and nothing else.

The book is a peerless pick for people who are interested in spine chilling thrillers or those who have an eye for history and mythology. Infact anyone who doesn't know the story of Mahabharata can pick it up for a peek.

A few of the flaws in the book I particularly like to point are these.

1) The usage of the word "barked" is sometimes irrelevant in telling us of the characters and what they wanted to say.

2) The author talks of a Smith and Wesson! What is Smith and Wesson for the average Indian reader? No clarifications on that.

3) On Page 245, the usage of "Dot on time for her" doesn't make sense.

4) On page 253, the usage of an extra "out" in the line fitted out with the latest audio and video equipment did not make sense.

5) On page 284, the Don smiled a smile of satisfaction. Is smiling a smile of satisfaction the correct usage?

6) On page 301, Radhika was wrongfully referred to as Priya in the last paragraph on the page.


Then there were many other places where a "would" was replaced by a "will" and present perfect became the past tense in a blink of an eye. These tiny trivialities could have been done away with, to give the readers a better piece of literature.

The book scores 3/5 points on the exhaustive exploration done to provide a whooper of a plot, and 2 points go away for the grammar errors and spelling mistakes and the giving away on the identity of the character Radhika on page 301.

Tension

Tension is the one factor that is eating up our brains and reflectively reminds me of the stubborn stains that our dirty clothes usually have at the end of a tiring day. With them being left at the mercy of the maid or the washing machine, the dirt is dusted off the fabric and our clothes come back to their old self. We may happen to wear the same dress on another day, and it may again get shamed on the seams by some other kind of a stain.

Life seems to be following the same crooked cycle of happenings. The mind sometimes, soaks up too much of tensions and worries and in a mortal moment of human fallacy blurts out on the world around you. People then may seemingly consider you an angry snob snorted in pride and might also want to break off all ties with you because of the mishap.

I belong to a class of people who can't take hypocrisy with a pinch of salt and have often landed in the most questionable of situations when it came to my closest friends and family. I have thanked my stars many times over and over again for not letting any of those beautiful relationships from being severed because of my loved ones bearing witness to my tales of tension. I've always let stress shamelessly soak into my grey cells and wasn't doing much to scrub them off, distorting my image in front of the world.

The realization of how much damage I was causing my mind pensively plagued with problems, came to me on a Wednesday evening, when the maid went absconding. And I was supposed to wash a shirt of mine seared in brown coffee stains and mottled by dirt. The sight of the shirt was giving me a heart attack in triplicates but for the meeting on the next day this piece of clothing would make for a perfect costume. To make it wearable I had to let a miracle happen much like the genie coming out of the bottle and making magic in the blink of an eye. The washing machine could not have done the trick since the shirt was spoiled in five or six places requiring a through rinsing and rubbing. While soaking my shirt in the detergent and the oxygen bleach and soaping in to sluice the stains, I saw the water getting coloured in brownish black hues and the piece of clothing that I achingly admired coming back to its old world charm.

Having witnessed this chemical reaction, my thoughts took for a flight of fancy. I started visualizing my mind as a piece of fabric forged by anxiety, concern and a host of other kinds of distressing emotions. Or a spider weaving a web around itself erringly trying to twist the threads.

Doesn't our mind go through the same kind of phenomenon when we bring home varied versions of misery and misgiving.? And in letting it grow in us like the weeds that deserve to be plucked and plundered, we harm ourselves to be handicapped. Much like a piece of cloth that can be scrubbed off the silly stains tarnishing its beauty, we all can relax and take out more time for our sweet selves scouring off the worrisome woes that can harm us and our loved ones.

Some people like me have often been misunderstood because of these trials and tribulations I housed in myself and unknowingly becoming a victim of controversy. Not recalling those incidents I decided to move forward in life, for sometimes I felt that those hurtful hours of discord were also a doing of the other person and I couldn't at all times hold myself guilty. But to beat tension and trauma I started following these simple tips incorporating them into my everyday life.

1) I started smiling more often and even when I did not want to paste that grin on my face, this diplomatic dame in me took over and made me whimper. Somewhere down the line, even a fake smile did me no harm and people started considering me as a person with a positive attitude. Surely, I begin my day with a smile and that has added oodles of confidence to my personality.

2) My skin specialist told me on one of my visits to her, that often when we are cloistered in confusing conflicts of mind, our breathing becomes shallow restricting the flow of oxygen needed for circulation. I have instilled breathing exercises in my daily regime of workout and walks which has done me a lot of good.

3) The best form of exercise for me is thirty minutes of walk down the lanes of our colony. Watching children play in the neighborhood parks and seeing older people plagiarizing my actions has been a wonderful sighting. I often watch birds and try discovering rarer plants along the pathway while I walk, painting pleasing pictures into the rainbow of my mind.

4)Music has been the food for my soul and no matter how tired I am, it is a doing everyday and one that happens without failure. Listening to my favourite old Bollywood classics and western music has managed to mute much of the malaise in me.

5) Having something to hope for can motivate you and help you stay focused. That kind of an activity ranges from working on my poetry manuscript to submitting to poetry journals and even participating in the Indiblogger contests. All these are activities I eagerly look forward to each and everyday of my life.

6) Do indulge in your favourite food once in a while. The thought of a binge to feed your senses and stomach can be a blissful blessing one can anticipate in the day or during the week. If stress is giving you a tough time you may also go for Ginseng.It has the ability to improve blood circulation to reduce the effects of stress, improve mental clarity and support the functions of the nervous system.

7) Going for occasional breaks and involving myself in hobbies and especially in shopping and poetry has worked as a purgative for my otherwise, stressed mind.

8) I try to not concern myself with the trivialities of life and the way people judge me. Always remember, anyone or anything troubling you is not entirely your cause of concern. Just like a clap that is always the doing of two hands, such is an argument. Do not try to interfere in others matters until they ask you to do so while always lending your shoulder for a person in need. Don't overdo an act of kindness and do not try to act like the Messiah. If something has gone wrong in the past and you have not been able to straighten it, leave it like that and move forward in life while holding your neck high.

These are few of the stress busters that have made life easier for me. That one incident of sweating it out in the bathroom to clean my shirt taught me a very important lesson in life. The lesson to "Soak No More in Tensions".