tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11337811407478372352024-03-13T11:56:42.263-07:00sujusI dream a bit too much. I've been a journalist, radio host, script writer, TV producer, singer, actor, theatre artist, dancer, artist, yoga teacher, scuba diver, mountaineer, writer... and now I want to be a FARMER... any takers?Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-58917379901464205232014-08-15T13:11:00.000-07:002014-08-15T13:11:23.406-07:00The Fallen - A short story<div>
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There is a woman in every downfall and every woman has
fallen. I am a woman. I have fallen and so has my mother. This is a story of
our fall.<o:p></o:p></div>
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37 years ago my mother signed up to fight a lost battle. Today
she is diseased and bed ridden… yet, every minute of life is another battle
lost.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My mother was born in a tiny village of Punjab. From here on
I will name her Ahana <i>(Sanskrit n. </i><i>First ray of Sun</i><i>)</i> and address her with that name for the sake
of convenience. I want to disassociate with her so she could be what she truly
is – an individual… not a mother, neither a wife, nor that who belongs to anyone
but herself.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ahana’s mother lost her entire family to the Independence
struggle and escaped death to end up as the second wife of a man with no
libido. Social vultures hollered outside in the open, until she forced out
three man-children and a girl from an otherwise platonic marriage. The girl became
Ahana. She is submissive and
submitting. Life, she believes, is a
series of misfortunes and acceptance is the only salvation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Ahana lost her father at a young age and her mother sent her
off with the first man who offered his hand in marriage. That man became my
father and the biggest violator of our collective lives… or is the violator Ahana?
Did she love too much? I often ask myself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My father was a city bred, reasonably educated,
conventionally good looking man in love with his friend’s sister. My
grandfather denied him that freedom. Ahana became the subject of my father’s frustrations;
a mere fixture in the bed, a cluster of burning skin under the furious sling, a
tear that dropped yet the earth never cried. Forbearance became her defence as
she continued loving him, who never loved her back.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In exchange for another day to live and to die, Ahana bartered the childhoods of her three children. I was the youngest and the only
female; my father’s defeat and the victory of many a men. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He, who was the closest in kin, inflicted the greatest
violence. In the hands of a few-too-many cousins, I was undressed and… un…
sung. The only lasting music to reach my ears was my stifled cries and a
resounding reminder that an entire age was lost to sexual abuse. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Where were you then?” I asked Ahana, several years
later… in a stranded moment of bitter pain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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She had but one response. In the momentum of love, she had
failed to negotiate her freedom and now this cage was her only cradle. Wedged in
between of her failed flights, were my innocent wings. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As I grew, the episodes of life started to appear
disturbingly similar, only the characters changed faces. My father started to
live inside my siblings and their wives wore Ahana’s fractured persona. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Today, the walls in the house have lost colour. There are
strokes of cement and hardship everywhere. Sun is a forbidden guest and
darkness has fearlessly impregnated the surroundings. Our lives stink of endless
grief and dysfunction. There is disease and stigma and yet, Ahana ceaselessly
loves, him, who has not and will not love her back.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Where did I go from here and where am I today is for you to
think, imagine and believe, for I am not me. I am just a silhouette; a residue;
a leftover; an end… of the saree that Ahana wore when I last saw her being
dragged by her hair, on to the street, for the world to watch the cruel dance
of destiny.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Suffice it by saying that experiences don’t change people,
life finds a way to come full circle and women across borders and beyond times,
still share the same narrative… just that some fight fiercely and some others never
try.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-48694329604584844852014-06-13T22:29:00.001-07:002014-06-13T23:17:07.184-07:00Across the brick wall<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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“Remember that aunty I told you about in the letter I sent
last November? This morning she looked such a faint image of what she looked
yesterday. I had gone for a walk to the park but then I just decided to sit on that
bench. Rains have caused considerable damage to the plaque that reads the name
of the dead man in whose name the bench was installed. I would otherwise be
quite interested to know who the man was, who died to make space for the rest
of us thankless lot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I sat there long. Leaves were beginning to melt into the
diffused sunlight. The track was covered with their pale shadows. People were
kicking about the ones that had fallen off the trees. They were staggering… drunkenly,
unarmed… across the sky. <o:p></o:p></div>
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These street lights are beginning to annoy me. They stay on
till late in the day. I am thinking of writing a complaint note to our council
representative once I’m done with writing to you. <o:p></o:p></div>
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She, aunty wore the same <i>taant</i>
saree today as well, but the thread work has started to fragment. Her white <i>pallu</i> had hues of blue on it. I think
she is using too much fabric whitener. I was meaning to ask her today to go
slow on it. But then I realised, who am I to say anything to her? I use it too.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Someone’s underwear fell on me, mid-way through the walk. A
bunch of boys stopped playing football and started to giggle. Honestly, I was really embarrassed. If it was
a shirt falling or even a <i>dupatta </i>I
would have been fine. You know what I mean <i>na</i>?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Robin… it is called Robin… the whitener that I use. It has a
colourful bird on its packet. I think it’s a robin. Maybe that’s where they get
their brand name from. Funny, that
whitener would be blue in colour. <i>Haina</i>!
<o:p></o:p><br />
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I don’t know what to cook for lunch today. This is one question
I never have an ideal answer to. Remember, how when we were together, I always
left it to you to decide and you would invariably settle for either <i>gobhi </i>or <i>bhindi</i>. Even the <i>sabziwala</i>
knew our kitchen drill.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I had answers then.
You gave some… but your questions were many. Stop asking questions Gautam. Sometimes
silences make more sense.<br />
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Love,<br />
Pal”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pal… the loose and perhaps the only definition of ‘love’ in
his life… his superlative… the woman who redefined his boundaries and then
forced him to disregard them… the sensual embodiment of freedom and yet his
philistine captivator - Pal, in a moment of unrestraint, left Gautam behind, as
mere residue of a fractured partnership. Monthly letters with no address to
write back to, were offered to him as an insufficient pension in lieu of a long
inning.<o:p></o:p><br />
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Moisture was reeling down his scarlet cheeks. It was hot. Light
had gone off again. Someone downstairs in the building compound was cursing the
government for all their sufferings. The ceiling fan was lazily motioning itself
into a deathlike silence. Harish had fashioned his beard into an obnoxious
stubble, lately. The mirror was standing over the bathroom washbasin to look
straight into him… reminding him of his abject misery.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Harish… He was raised on the sprawling mustard fields of a
small hamlet – Thathi Bhai in independent India’s Punjab. His father was an
influential <i>jaagirdaar</i> – landlord,
who had amassed ample property from the village poor over unlawful pretexts but
no one had the courage to question the efficacy of his word. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Two days back he had publically accosted Harpeet Cheema’s
fifteen-year-old daughter Preeto to be beaten with leather slings by ten men,
under the grand peepal tree, in an obscure corner of the village. Her crime -
she had fallen in love with a Muslim boy from Bhatinda, whom she met on a bus
ride on her way back from her grandparents’ home in the same city. Harpreet and
his family of a wife, ten other daughters and one son stood watching until the
ordeal lasted… rest of the village recoiled into their comfort zones… a dust storm
hit the scene of unrelenting drama as Preeto’s injured body was left to
naturally be devoured by the earth. Harpreet’s family returned to their modest
home that evening where ten other daughters were reminded of the consequences
of falling out of line, over basic bread and <i>daal</i> (lentil soup). The son, youngest of the lot, meanwhile was
wondering where the ten leather slings came from and how he could get hold of
them… one each for the surviving sisters.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On the previous Sunday, Jaagirdaar<i>ji</i>, as Harish’s father was reverentially addressed, read out
Harish’s destiny in two lines. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Go to some foreign country and work there. Bring pride to
the family name.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Pride – it was some crude logic that equated pride to one
son living ‘abroad’ in many Punjabi families. The colonial hangover had the
most lasting impact on this community.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Harish had passed matric from the only public school of the
village, unsurprisingly named Guru Nanak Public School, after the founder of
the religion. By the standards of the village he was over qualified. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The next day, a day prior to ‘the Preeto justice’ – as would
the episode find name in the annals of the village history, Harish left
lock-stock and barrel, for Delhi. Some well-wishers had given him the details
of an employment agent and so he headed straight for Rajouri Garden in East
Delhi after alighting at the Old Delhi Railway station.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Afghanistan is the latest favourite of all you Sikh
youngsters. <i>Bada paisa hai vahan</i>.
Lots of money,” the agent emphasized; his office – a near mock brothel. “A very
lucrative opportunity has come up in the construction industry in Kabul. You
will earn $800 per month plus a trip to-and-fro India every six months, a place
to live, food and clothing and a mobile phone with unlimited talk-time and
sms.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This last promise in the verbal offer came handy. Mr. Agent
had hit the right spot with it. Harish was a victim of the mobile phone
boom in India where the word ‘unlimited’ was used for pretty much everything,
from the sex drive of men his age to the time taken in getting a customer care
executive over the phone to resolve a simple problem with the mobile connection.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Faith was another permanent fixture in the long parody of
the Indian psyche. Wherever electricity, technology, air and water failed,
faith intervened. On the basis of mere faith, not a legal document, Harish accepted
the offer and flew to Kabul with his father’s dream and cash in his secret
pocket on the inside of his pants, placed between his groins and left thigh. <o:p></o:p></div>
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War had settled over Kabul’s fate like an enduring dust
cloud. Life was surviving between sprints from one hide-out place to the other.
A stopped heart stumped his toe like a sudden pebble, as Harish walked to the
construction site where he was due to start work in a day. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Afghanistan has 10 million land mines. Kabul is the most
heavily mined capital of the world. When one of those 10 million exploded,
Harish’s amputated left leg became a number in the UN report on the War torn
nation. His hopes were scattered across the street, alongside broken car
windows and a gush of blood. Silence followed the explosion. It left behind questions.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Harish spent a lonely 15<sup>th</sup> August in a Sikh
Temple in the capital, until the Indian Embassy made arrangements to crate him
back to India.<o:p></o:p></div>
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He had promised his father Pride in return for the years and
money spent on his up-brining. In his father’s mind his son continued to live ‘abroad’,
as Harish sat rotting on a wheelchair, used by seven other deceased orphans in
the orphanage across the brick wall that separated Gautam’s plush villa from Harish.<o:p></o:p><br />
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As Gautam lay dejected on his antique teak wood bed, in the
care of an asylum nurse, the wreckage in Harish's world was pain too. Pain of a different nature, nevertheless, pain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Yet for either, theirs’ lived to remain the only reality…
the only suffering that could possibly, ever take a man down.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-81794964508470101912014-06-06T23:02:00.002-07:002014-06-07T09:40:34.467-07:00The Virgin - Two wars. Bloods of a different kind.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">June lost
hope on Delhi heat. July was en-route. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Abbu had to leave for duty tonight but first
he would drop me to the train station where-upon his cousin, Ali would chaperon
me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ali lived in
a small town of Jammu, from where my late mother-Ammi hailed as well. I had been
there several times, in Abbu’s stories. Today would be the first personal
audience. But before that “Abbu one last time,” I implore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Your Ammi
lived in a town called Akhnoor. In September 1965 the Pakistani army launched
Operation Grand Slam to devour it. Ammi was going to see her aunt in a bus when
some heavily armed men swooped. Her bus was hit by a hail of bullets, snapping
a wheel off, forcing all to run pensively, seeking refuge inside an abandoned home.
Ammi locked herself in a room and ducked in darkness, as the gunmen began their
rampage. Suddenly, the door splintered open as those <i>kaafirs</i> shot the lock apart and burst in, plucking frightened Ammi,
clamping handcuffs on her.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“And then
you tore in and broke the backs of those <i>kaafirs</i>
like my hero.” I clapped feverishly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Abbu dropped
me to the station. He left with a promise to do as uncle says. I did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I extended
my frisky fingers out of the train’s window, hoping to scoop snow off the scalp
of the distant Himalayas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Pass it,”
Ali gestured towards the water bottle dancing on a hook by the window. Our
compartment was empty. The Delhi-Jammu Tawi route was a busy link for tourists
travelling to Srinagar. This was not the year for tourism though, as it was for
war. Kargil War had cast its murky shadow. Winds were carrying blood back home.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I passed the
bottle and with that Ali pulled me close to him. An awkward proximity, I apprehend
now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“My back hurts.
Press it, will you?” He was pounding it with clenched fists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I agreed,
but for seven minutes; my age.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ali pulled
his cashmere sweater and kurta over his head and said “Come on and I shall give
you a magic marshmallow.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He explained
that the more I suck it, the bigger it will grow. It will be juicy he added. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I placed my
hands against the train’s moving wall, climbed on him and began working his
back with my feet, pressing the flesh in then relieving the pressure, like Abbu
would knead dough. Ali moaned, or was it the train as its wheels strum music
against the track?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My feet
visited his buttocks. I felt his flesh throbbing under me. I lost my balance.
He made me lose it. He grabbed my nascent breasts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">It </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">wasn't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> the first time I had pressed his back, but never before, were we alone
together.<br /> <o:p></o:p></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">There are
some wars that </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">aren't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> spoken of in history books and parental rhetoric. There are
wars we are caught in the middle of… unaware. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ali became
my war. In this battle, I lost my virginity… my dignity. The winds carried
blood back home that night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-53034142107676833252013-08-26T07:41:00.000-07:002013-09-24T09:32:02.846-07:00...that...<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>That</i> you will realise
your mother all over again… <i>that</i> you will notice for the first time in 31 years , how unbelievably gorgeous she
looks when she carelessly ties her hair, still slightly wet and crumpled from a
wash, into a loose bun… <i>that</i> when she
cooks something, she wants you to taste it every time and reassure her <i>that</i> she is still the best cook in the
world… <i>that</i> the clothes you bought
for her from your first salary and then the ones you got from your second and
then those from the third, are still the same nine pieces of clothes she
carries with her in the suitcase you bought for her from your fourth salary… <i>that</i> the gold earrings you purchased for
her from your first big paycheck are still hanging to her ears as a swinging
reminder of those golden days of your life… <i>that</i>
her earlobes have extended far and wide and can barely hold the skin together… <i>that</i> her radiating yet light brown deep
eyes are throwing so much light on her wrinkles…<o:p></o:p></div>
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…<i>that</i> it’s only
now like never before… <i>that</i> you are beginning
to truly appreciate… <i>that</i> time is ceaselessly…
speedily racing in one direction – Ahead! <o:p></o:p></div>
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…<i>that</i> she is aging…
and <i>that</i> you have become a mother
yourself… and <i>that</i> this time shall
pass too.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EIxNWcergjw/Uf9TVMZg6tI/AAAAAAAAP2o/zPzo2RYuTw0/s1600/Since+Aayat+was+born+062.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EIxNWcergjw/Uf9TVMZg6tI/AAAAAAAAP2o/zPzo2RYuTw0/s640/Since+Aayat+was+born+062.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4kUlHvOPSiw/UhtamgeVnyI/AAAAAAAAP98/L49tTakHWuo/s1600/2013-08-15+16.39.49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4kUlHvOPSiw/UhtamgeVnyI/AAAAAAAAP98/L49tTakHWuo/s640/2013-08-15+16.39.49.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mummy playing with Aayat</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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… <i>that</i> nothing is
constant… not today, neither was yesterday… <i>that</i>
one day an email from a stranger popped into your mailbox. He had written to
introduce himself to you and to discuss marriage. You started to write back and
forth regularly thereon. In the evenings, back in Bombay from your work trip,
you eagerly awaited his next email as it would be his morning in London and he
would as a recently developed ritual practice, be responding to your long email
sent yesterday. A few months later you would speak with him for the first time over
the phone and say to yourself aloud “God! He talks so much… I prefer him more
in his long emails”. <i>That</i> winter, he
came down to visit you in Delhi at the Surya Hotel – New Friend’s Colony. He
wore jeans and a crisp white batman t-shirt and you wore the same colours, only
your eyes were lined with kajal. Off his laser sharp memory (one of his many
qualities you had fallen for) he remembered your love for Ferrero Rocher and
brought you a box to impress. He ate <i>chicken
tikka</i> and you ordered <i>Dal makhani</i>
over blushing cheeks and feminine lure. On New Year’s Eve he dared to hold your hand,
as blood rushed down your spine telling you <i>that</i>
this is meant to be… forever. <o:p></o:p></div>
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… <i>that</i> when she is
sucking milk while making those rhythmic gulping sounds, covering you with her tiny frail hands like
she is punching her pin in an ATM machine, looking at you for reassurance… <i>that</i> when you are looking back at her <i>that</i> very moment, you will see in her eyes
<i>that</i> she is you and him… <i>that</i> she is everything you built
together… <i>that</i>, <i>that</i> which seems like just yesterday is long gone and now is not
about him and you anymore but her, him and you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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… <i>that</i> she will
not be all bliss and beautiful… <i>that</i> many
a times she will quite literally be full of shit… <i>that</i> she will strip you off all your space but guard her own like a
true warrior… <i>that</i> she will cry hoarse
each night and you will know not what to do… <i>that</i> she will make your life hell and you will tear your hair apart
and you will wish this never happened and <i>that</i>
this was the biggest mistake of your life and <i>that</i> you are so helpless… <i>that</i>
you will weep in front of the doctor and tell him you can sense she is not well
even though he is the 20<sup>th</sup> doctor in the past week who has had a
look at her and confirmed she is absolutely fine… <i>that</i> indeed she was fine but you were just worrying because all those
childcare books you had gulped down like exam preparation had assured you <i>that</i> you must trust your motherly
instinct… <i>that</i> one thing those
articles and those over imposing, friends and family members who give
unsolicited, uninvited advice, will never ever tell you is <i>that</i> you are a first time mother and to worry will become your
first skin but <i>that</i> this time shall
pass too like all others… <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1s-vlRgiARM/UcW2yO3DdzI/AAAAAAAAPd8/uYqJ5lRM_DY/s1600/Aayat+8th+June+2013+004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1s-vlRgiARM/UcW2yO3DdzI/AAAAAAAAPd8/uYqJ5lRM_DY/s640/Aayat+8th+June+2013+004.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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…<i>that</i> at 31 you
are still exploring yourself, then how must you be expected by the forces of nature
and the expectations of everyone around you, to certainly understand what she
wants when she cries… <i>that</i> the
decisions for your own life have been so daunting, how then can you decide for
her without worrying… <i>that</i> when you
become a mother, all other identities become your past… not wife, not sister,
no more a daughter… just a mother you are and will be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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… <i>that</i> you will
experience her like no father can… <i>t</i><i>hat</i>
somewhere inside you there will be an alarm clock ticking, prompting you to
wake up seconds before she begins to cry… <i>that</i>
as a jest to life you will come off age and BF will no more mean boyfriend,
instead breast feeding it will be. <i>That</i>
your body will take a life-long leap and <i>that</i>
you will not regret it because as they say, despite all its banality “it is all
worth it.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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…<i>that</i> silently you
will hope she will become what you never could… <i>that</i> she will be in your wakefulness, <i>that</i> which you have dreamt to be, all this while when you were
asleep… <i>that</i> she will hopefully be
your tomorrow, <i>that</i> which you are not
today.</div>
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“Oh! You mother,” I heard telling myself... “you had heard
stories as you were growing up. <i>That</i>
ONE story you had heard multiple times. But as you were reading it out to her
last night, it all suddenly made sense to you after 31 years. You were
wandering… directionless… in this life <i>that</i>
was…”</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>“Cheshire Puss” Alice began “would you tell me, please, which way I
ought to walk from here?”<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i>“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i>“I don’t much care where --” said Alice.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i>“Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk,” said the Cat.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i>“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i>“Oh, you sure do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough”<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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But now <i>that </i>you are a mother… you beckon the cat to say to you yet again: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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For you know where you belong.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4tEqZHISJp4/UcW3OMOnYkI/AAAAAAAAPgQ/F76YISR-6k4/s1600/Aayat+8th+June+2013+013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4tEqZHISJp4/UcW3OMOnYkI/AAAAAAAAPgQ/F76YISR-6k4/s640/Aayat+8th+June+2013+013.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-68710374584664424732013-04-01T18:18:00.002-07:002013-04-03T01:10:12.648-07:00In death is the other world!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Each minute… every second… I was losing control. Every new
relationship that I got myself into and it forced me to lose myself… more and
more of it. Family, friends... marriage…. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Strangely it wasn’t ever enough… it never is… never would
be. The more my own life, my decisions and everything that is
me deny me complete access, the more I am tempted to give a bit more away. So when it wasn’t enough lately, I
decided to have a baby… Blame it also on me being abnormally
rotund for my own sweet little height. After three quarters of my life going waste in trying to diet I knew I wasn't going to lose it anyway. Hence, I decided to legitimize it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sumeet did most of the work for the next few nights. One
month bygone and three pregnancy strips going blue (just to make sure… Engineer
wife sure!!), I pronounced Sumeet to be more
a man than ever before. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Life’s already a bit less my own lately… Nausea came with
mood swings and soon my house had turned into an abuse-ment park… but well it’s all for
a reason now you see.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Besides, it’s worth it… this addiction to losing control… this free falling... I feel one with gravity now.<br />
<br />
It is
strange though, because whenever gravity pulled me towards it my default disposition
was to fight… but now I simply laugh. I believe its pregnancy hormones and
Sumeet merrily agrees. So when we decided to go holiday in Spain simply because
travel was the cheapest amongst all our other options… I decided not to crib or
fight… and Sumeet gladly accepted my acceptance acceptingly.</div>
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Spain to be honest was never my first choice. If anything, I
wanted to go to Turkey or Morocco or even Egypt… but not Spain you see. I’m
tired of castles and forts and fancy buildings and beaches but most importantly
I am tired of white skin… honestly!
Besides, Schengen visa obligations for an unemployed home maker such as
me, are bordering onto ridiculous. The lady behind the glass panel at the visa
office sent me back home twice for lack of proper paper work. A third time
around she complained that my insurance policy does not specifically mention
that in case of my death in Spain my ‘body would be brought back to England and
not buried/burnt in Spain’. I swore on
my dead ancestors to her that my mourning husband would make sure my last rites
happen in my homeland but she wasn’t prepared to trust my Asian tongue. No one’s ever been so concerned about my
funeral… I’ll give it to her for that. Finally after much scrolling through the
93 page long policy I found the exact death clause she was after. It is
believed that death is not to be feared as it takes you to another world. Well
it sure did in my case.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Spain it was then in February 2013. Just a day before we had
seen our baby on the ultrasound and now she was with us on her first
international holiday. We were ecstatic, the Spaniards however, weren’t very obliging. The tourist
information centre was a continent and more away at the Madrid airport and the
woman behind the counter gave us wrong information with an additional sneer for
me being Asian (I would like to believe). So we took the tube and ended up at
the wrong station… miles away from our hotel. We decided to walk it with our
human sized suitcases each and my additional belly. Most people when questioned,
feverishly started shaking their heads and saying ‘no, no!’ to us and running
away in fear. Five such encounters down we realised we were being misunderstood
for being beggars. That was reassuring. Sumeet wore his Okley sunglasses and
gave it another go. This time around the man we approached to ask for
directions pounced at Sumeet first and then ran for his life. I assured Sumeet
that from being a beggar he had successfully graduated to being a blind beggar.
Madrid, Ola Madrid!! They don’t understand anything but Spanish… English they
can’t speak to save their life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Somehow an entire lifetime later we managed to reach our
hotel facing Plaza de España. </div>
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The room was studio style so I could cook
breakfast every morning. Besides, you look down and the entire Madrid was
kissing your feet. We stepped out that evening to buy dinner and to be stopped
by some odd oldies who would point at my belly… not for the bump but for the
giant Nikon D 800 that was sitting over it smugly and then go rattling in
Spanish, expecting me to understand and respond. All I could say over and over
again was ‘no Spanish… ENGLISH’, to which they would shrug like saying how
sorry they felt for me and then go on rattling in Spanish again… until Sumeet
would steal me from the scene. With the entire economy in dire straits its
commendable how they still stick to their guns and believe Spanish is ‘The Way’
or there’s no way.</div>
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We wandered aimlessly in Madrid for the next two days and
saw many fine pieces of architecture… </div>
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...to be honest however, nothing moved the earth from
under our feet until we reached a street named Calle del Doctor Esquerdo. Everything
that Sumeet could have ever asked for was available in the narrow confines of
that curious lane. </div>
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There was a comic shop (Sumeet is a hardcore ‘pannapictagraphists’ or comic book collector) and there were prostitutes (I am assuming this would be of interest to him, if only second to comic books). Yet he was parched, as the former was all Spanish and the latter… transvestites. Such is life…!!<br />
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The next day we went to a small municipality town called
Toledo. Where there would be nothing… there surely would be an Asian I assure you.
Toledo… who would ever imagine a Pakistani running a Donor Kebab shop in damn
Toledo? Have you ever even heard of Toledo before? If it wasn’t for facebook
and the desperation to prove that I’ve been places, I wouldn’t ever step on
damn Toledo and here was a Pakistani brethren running a shop there. Well what must
I say in our honour… we from across seven seas and a million miles… we the
Asians are the epidemic that will suck the world, this way or that… there’s no
hiding from us. You hear us Toledo? You full of monuments, you obscure little, on
the hilltop, inconspicuous, inglorious Toledo!! </div>
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Next on our list was a guided tour to Avila and Segovia. Our
tour guide spoke for two miles in Spanish and then 200 yards in English. Sumeet’s
blood pressure was rising. When we ‘the Indians’ pay such hefty money for anything
but spicy food then we like to get four miles of English for every two miles of
Spanish. Somehow I stopped Sumeet from throwing our guide out of the bus that entire
trip. Anyway we were in for another bucket full of monuments and the drill on
how these cities were famous because Christians, Muslims and the Jewish
coexisted in harmony there for ages. Now
don’t tell me about harmony… we have more than many religions coexisting and
cohabiting and coquetting and copulating for ages and yet we are third world.</div>
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Well! All in all I really enjoyed my four days in Madrid… I
was clearly high on Estrogen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="fbPhotoTagListTag withTagItem tagItem" style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; text-align: left;"><a aria-controls="js_3" aria-haspopup="true" aria-owns="js_3" class="taggee" data-hovercard-instant="1" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=112408052112026" href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Segovia-Spain/112408052112026?ref=stream" id="js_2" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17.99715805053711px;">Castilla y Leon</a></span></td></tr>
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On the fifth day we took a superfast train to Barcelona.
Booking the tickets for that was nothing short of a bullfight. The website is
in… you got it… SPANISH. So you go <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g187514-c80518/Madrid:Spain:Buying.Renfe.Tickets.Online.html" target="_blank">here</a> for the English translation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view en-route</td></tr>
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Barcelona unexpectedly was everything awesome. Despite its
usual terrain and all those monuments, Barcelona has something to it that you
can’t describe with a few borrowed words from any language. Barcelona has a
heart and it breathes. It talks and it dances and it does all those lovely
little things that you fall in love with. Like it wakes you up with the best
orange juice in the whole wide world, each morning and then it serves you the
finest fruits and nuts on the entire planet and then it smiles to you with a
lot of sunshine and so many beautiful friendly faces and then it takes you to
some of the finest dining places you’d have ever been to. Oh Barcelona can be
only described in one juicy, seductive, luscious, exquisite, succulent, opulent
word… Olá!! I love that word as much as I love Barcelona… or is it Estrogen talking
once again?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Both Sumeet and I had a high tide of emotional orgies in
Barcelona for the next five days. Whether it be the buildings made by this dead
chap call Gaudi or the bizzare streets tucked deep into the pockets of big, fat
and famous La Ramblas… Barcelona flirted with us and we flirted back. Our hotel
(Eurostar) room’s balcony was sitting on top of the yummy-licious fruit market
La Boqueria… what more could a pregnant woman desire. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Some of the best and worst food I’ve ever had, both made our
experience equally outstanding. My top recommendations would be <a href="http://www.udon.es/" target="_blank">Udon</a>, <a href="http://www.rangoli-barcelona.com/es/noticias.html" target="_blank">Rangoli</a>,
<a href="http://www.mayuralounge.es/" target="_blank">Mayura</a> and <a href="http://www.crepsbarcelona.com/" target="_blank">Creps Barcelona</a>. You go eat at these four joints and you wouldn’t want
to leave that city ever… despite the fact that the moment you land there… two
random (Asian) well-wishers strongly warn you against pick pocketing.
Thankfully no one picked our pockets in
all those days or they would have found nothing… we Indian men and women hide
our money elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hoardings across Barcelona informed us of the annual
carnival in a nearby beach town called Sitges and it was meant to be massive.So, with our hearts full of forlorn excitement;
with my poor pregnant self, looking forward to witnessing some serious junky skin
show and sex at THE CARNIVAL (please beep this portion for my feminist friends
dear blogspot) I took the train from Barcelona to Sitges…<o:p></o:p></div>
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What we saw there was half a street with one, half naked
senorita and half a dozen bloodcurdling-ly clad Señors dancing to half a sorry
song and a bunch of halflings jumping around in excitement… we cut short our
trip to less than half the planned time. Yet I loved every second of the
experience… Estrogen it is!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our trip was nearing its end… By this time we had fallen so
deeply for Barcelona and its curious charms and amazingly lovely people and the
in-numerous Harley Davidsons and Gaudi and his crazy buildings that we had
started to believe we lived there… besides, I had someone else clean my room
and I didn’t have to bother about cooking either… I could last a lifetime there
without batting an eyelid. But alas all good things come to an end and so did
Spain… for us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In good faith my friends tell me that I saw nothing and that
the real Spain lies in the south. Well I believe that the real Spain lies in
your heart. If you have one… you will fall in love with Spain… <o:p></o:p></div>
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Ola España!!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-11682149961601727602012-08-10T07:07:00.002-07:002012-08-11T10:18:31.510-07:00“Don’t ask me for forgiveness....<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i>... Sumeet, for you don’t deserve it. Instead can you lend me your peace of mind?”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How often is the tide high? And when it is, I can’t stand the breathlessness... when it is not, I stand naked to the world. Fear was walking in through a small crack I didn’t mend and life was beginning to ask questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. Sumeet and I fought... we fought a lot on things big and small... and usually it was me who was fighting to fill gaps in our puzzle. But the fact really is that we both came from alternative realities and the sooner I would accept it, the better.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">October was 26 days old and I was beginning to get restless in my longest train journey ever. After a long separation from Sumeet... after a million meaningless fights and moving away from him to Singapore... after having missed him through every sentiment in my heart... all I was left with was a desire to return.... return to him but not to the circumstances. Together we decided, each to mend oneself.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I went to a hermitage... Madurai in southern India, ignited by the luminosity of a lonely ashram and a month long yoga programme. A train journey from Delhi to Madurai was my worst decision ever. It meant two days of jarring heat, an upper berth from where the only view is your feet as all you can do is lie down to avoid knocking your head against the train’s angry ceiling. No one spoke to me, nobody. The Tamil uncle, aunty and their little daughter, so full of oil that she would slip through your hand if you’d touch her... would oft stare at me from their enviable window facing seats almost laughing at me and my useless ipad. Internet came and went like a flippant affair and soon I gave up on it entirely. My monotony would sometimes be broken by the ‘<i>chai wala’ </i>offering sewage water for tea and the train attendant enquiring about my entire life but forgetting each time to ask what I would like to have from the train pantry. Lunch and dinner came these two days in polythene bags sitting on paper plates served with plastic spoons. Once finished, I would step down to throw my trash, brush my teeth and take a leak. All places of these chores were united in their forms of filth... the kind of filth that is all pervasive in my nation... so pervasive that where it is not, is an aberration; that being the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Ashram in Madurai.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My pre-booked driver uncle was waiting with his aged cab outside the nearly standing station. In the middle of the whistling night he and I made my first sojourn through Madurai. Musical as its name may sound, the city has lost its lyrics... reality is beginning to speak and there is nothing songlike about it. The only music however, that came to my ears was from the late night, street side stalls where radio sets stood competing with each other over bursts of Tamil songs.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I was soon in the ashram. The light had gone off and my ample torch took me to Anup sir. A young smiling face, I remember. He guided me to the girls’ dormitory where spiders, rats, mosquitoes and few sleeping women welcomed me. Morning woke up to an upped ante. Girls from all parts of the world were beginning to flood the dorm. Soon the bed next to me would be gone to a pretty girl and soon to be a very dear friend called Tanu from Hyderabad. Nations and colours of skins, shapes of eyes and forms of speech... all huddled up together in beds next to each other... finding peace in their comfort zones... comfort zones that had come with them as a part of their baggage. Where there was no similar partner, that girl would find the nearest possible match or simply get unlucky with an Indian for a bed buddy. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I went upstairs to our yoga classroom for our first informal session. Ishwara sat there on the stage in all his divinity. He smiled and pronounced a public hello but I was hesitant. I wasn’t mentally prepared to learn an ancient Indian art from a white man. He was ready to lend, but I wasn’t prepared to borrow. He sensed my thoughts but his smile wouldn’t fade. That smile..., which I soon learned, came with a million meanings. That smile which was warm yet detached; telling yet listening; reassuring yet strong. In his silences there was the wisdom of a 1000 words... Ishwara became the teacher I had long yearned for.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Soon we were all to be reformed. Our routine was strict. Waking up at five, eating limited meals, wearing decent clothes and practicing yoga and meditation at regular intervals of the day. There was little time for anything else. Yet, in the first two days I made friends for life and in the next few I shared my entire life with them. Sharan, Tanu and Sabina... Aanchal and Nimrita... Umaid and Kritarth... Vasu, Pauly, Nidhi... the two Shobhnas... no I can’t begin to name them all. I really can’t.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-keS8Ua0mHfM/UCUOLR7h1HI/AAAAAAAAONc/h2uBbRXODiE/s1600/374815_10150989402775133_1706890843_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-keS8Ua0mHfM/UCUOLR7h1HI/AAAAAAAAONc/h2uBbRXODiE/s640/374815_10150989402775133_1706890843_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Nina came from Norway and Danny and her guitar from Canada, Mickey was Italian and Jorge ... well I don’t even remember now... as the borders merged soon and our realities became one. We were all seen wearing similar clothes, doing similar things... complaining about the same things and eating the same food without realising that the Ashram’s backyard was turning into a hill made of coconut shells. I remember Ramya saying jokingly that everything in this ashram has coco-nut in it... it’s in our heads too... no wonder we have all become nut heads.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ishwara soon became an exhaustive topic of discussion... women desired him and men despised being devoid of that desire. He was being discussed everywhere... in bathrooms over buckets full of dirty clothes and running taps; in beds under wraps of mosquito nets; in corridors squashed between giggling girls... sometimes even during our other lectures.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Kapoor sir took our Vedanta classes. We loved him to bits; Deepa and I... not his lectures but his English. Come what may, he never failed us with it. Just the other day he wrote to all of us asking us to “Keep this ‘sprite’ of unity”. So in his classes both of us were always either making voracious notes on a new kind of English... or choking our lungs with suppressed laughters. Were there a war of words between my dad and sir, I can only begin to wonder what a mess this world would get into. Papa’s ‘guesstures' and sir’s ‘wondering’ monks...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">One evening, legs spread wide and arms in tandem... as Umaid lay in his proprietary position right at the back of the room and the rest of the class hissed nonchalance... Nagaraja sir quoted a verse from one of the religious books that didn’t go down well with many of us, mostly Tara and myself. It claimed whites as a lesser race than us Indian and it being our moral duty to help them cleanse their deeds. The verse struck as lightening in that shivering rainy night. The entire class woke up from their unnecessary reverie, Umaid included, such was the impact. I don’t mind being the higher race but I love a good argument and so I jumped in with full zest along with my American friend. By the middle of this argument the class was divided in two halves. One, that simply wanted to slip out of the room and go down to sleep and the other that wanted to kill us both for stretching the time of the class this long.<br />
<br />
Ishwara summoned us next morning to enquire why we could not avoid an argument that took none of us to any inconceivable heights and left us with that thought...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">...Sumeet would have said the same, but I wouldn’t have listened. That which sits on the periphery of our priorities is always what we are mostly fighting for. Throwing his dirty clothes everywhere... not helping in cooking... not giving me surprises on my birthday or our anniversary... when I sit down to think now, I cringe to accept, these were the issues I would argue on.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In this month long yoga course, I got multiple breaks where I had to take new friends through the milestones in my life and they would do the same, in casual conversation. Life had the ability to wrap itself up in not more than a 15 minute long description. Thirty years of my life that at various points I believed, had been stabbed by misfortune, injured by injustice and robbed off happiness... those thirty years which I would lament in thoughts and actions... which I believed had been my undoing... all that those thirty years really asked for was only 15 minutes of my speech. Yet I had always made such a big deal of my life all this while... yet I had victimised myself over things that had gone wrong... never realising that we all fight the same war, it is only the battles that we get to choose. No one is a lesser or greater victim of circumstances than the other, it is only about the choices we make... whether to go down or defy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Fridays were really precious to those of us who would rather experience than sleep. Huddled up together at early chilling hours of the morning... when even the sun wouldn’t comply and night in reverse-gear would be tip-toeing its way away... all us men and women would be adjusted in three buses. On our separate trips to either the celestial spaces of the Meenakshi Temple or the discerning horizons of the Dhanushkoti, the birds and dense trees would stop to listen to our excited morning chants. Oh! Those Fridays were divine... at the end of the first one I wrote to Sumeet:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>“Hi Baby, today we left the ashram to go to visit Madurai at 5:30 am and visited to three temples. The First one was called Triparakunda and it had six hundred stairs... Very beautifully placed inside a hill... Very very poor and old people were standing all over and around the hill washing their clothes and re-wearing them there and then just go visit the god in as pure a form as they could... It was a crazy sight...<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Then from there we went to the Subramaniyam temple which is soooo beautiful tht my jaw dropped... until we went to the Meenakshi temple.... My god I have never seen such magnificence in my life... unbelievable...” <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dQcMAqPVIk4/UCUUDtAZYpI/AAAAAAAAOQg/IGBoEJDkST8/s1600/340800_10150976992600133_1394254446_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dQcMAqPVIk4/UCUUDtAZYpI/AAAAAAAAOQg/IGBoEJDkST8/s640/340800_10150976992600133_1394254446_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All this while life was healing my scars and teaching me the art of forgiveness. I had started to accept and that gave me a sense of freedom... When I heard the story of Jay’s life, I did not cry, I did not feel sorry for him... I only learnt a lesson from his strength and apologised for having judged him for the person he was... without learning of his life’s misgivings.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Today was the day it all had to finish... everyone of the 56 students were slowly boarding their flights... cabs were coming in and out to pick few at a time... there was feverish hugging and crying going on... and finally it was my time to leave... Ishwara picked me up in his arms into a tight hug. I later wrote to him to ask why I was the only one to be picked up... he said jokingly that I was the only one small enough to rise above the ground...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Maybe I truly had been small enough... and it was for me now to rise above the ground.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On my train journey back to Delhi, I wrote:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>“Don’t ask me for forgiveness Sumeet, for I don’t deserve to give it. Instead, can I get back the sorrow I gave you once?”<br />
<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/tnKsg5RPZSA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-28696035207160286022012-02-07T16:33:00.001-08:002012-05-28T08:46:50.874-07:00When I decided to walk...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I walk through the street, that... which did not exist for me until a while ago... <br />
<br />
My camera is justly dancing over me, spraining my neck with its string... holding itself up to my left eye as the one on the right shuts to take a placid moment into its lap...<br />
<br />
Life gets funny sometimes. It drags you on to the road on a cold dreadful night... strips you naked in the midst of a crowd and gives you nowhere to run, until one morning you wake up and realise it was all circumstantial...<br />
<br />
I woke up one fine morning with two fractured feet, fat, jobless, mission-less... with no place to call home, no money that was my own and no shoulder to cry on. My whole life walked past me like a lost opportunity. I was thinking hard in reverse gear, wondering what note of the symphony I had missed... <br />
<br />
‘Papa I want to paint,’ I heard myself say when I was 5, when I was 9, when I was 16 and once when I was 18 and then I forgot all that I ever said to papa...<br />
<br />
All the flashes then on were those of a flight missing and me running... a flight to catch for life... and in that haste, I forgot to walk.<br />
<br />
I looked towards my plastered feet, decided to get them walking without the cast... called up <a href="http://phadchitra.com/contactus.htm" target="_blank">Kalyan Joshiji</a>, son of the National Awardee – <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shree_Lal_Joshi" target="_blank">Shree Lal Joshiji</a>, in Bhilwara, Rajasthan and said ‘Sir, I am coming there for a month.’<br />
<br />
I had never been to that town, I knew no one there, my parents were shocked and Sumeet was slightly upset at my lack of planning... Lesson learnt... if someone doesn’t think 24 years of planning is enough then that guy must surely be an engineer. Check! <br />
<br />
Bags packed... from Delhi to Jaipur with plasters on... from Jaipur to Bhilwara with Bata chappals. This time I will walk! Check!<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">There is nothing to take home to, in terms of the beauty of that town... at first glance it is just another lump of filth like anywhere else in India... that doesn’t mean I don’t love the filth... there is an uncanny sense of character to it... atleast it smells of something... In London here nothing smells... all is the same.</div><br />
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</div>Kalyan sir decided to put me up for the entire month in his sister’s house... kind people! Beyond the knowledge of understanding, there is another knowledge called generosity... that is the only knowledge we Indians know... seasons are many, but our hearts are always warm... <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preeti Bhabhi and Pawan Bhaiya's two daughters!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Their son Krishna!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"></div>Auntie, Pawan Bhaiya and Preeti Bhabhi and their three kids kept me with them for 28 days without any expectation or more... it was the kind of generosity I did not understand. There was a point where I stopped getting overwhelmed... it became a permanent state of mind.<br />
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Kalyan sir’s home was roughly a km away. As I walked the street, that... which did not exist for me until a while ago... My camera justly dancing over me... <br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Unnamed faces cropped up, unknown voices were asking me to ‘take my picture <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">didi</i>. You are journalist?’ I smiled and thanked god for technology... atleast I don’t have to act economical here on the number of pictures I take... what if I was still living in my dad’s era with those Kodak camera rolls... and then I wondered why? Why do we want strangers to take our photographs when the only place where that picture will ever end up is in the bosom of an unfamiliar space... from where we would never be able to retrieve it....Why do we ever smile to a stranger’s camera... when the story behind that smile will never tell itself to people we will ever know?</div><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhilwara is known as the city of looms... !</td></tr>
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Thinking as I walked along unstitched streets of old Bhilwada... streets that were creased with loud excitement... rikshaw pullers waiting for their next customer... cows hosting round table conferences in the middle of human fervour... men in white going for their morning namaaz... beggars busy at what they do best... shop shutters opening with a sound that was frightfully similar to an aircraft crashing... vegetable sellers crowning the space right next to the gutters with their buttocks and a basket full of greens... women with their heads covered crossing the road surprisingly with more precision than men with their eyes wide open... the violent sounds of oil beating the bottom of pans as Bilwara’s famous <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kachoris </i>flew out of them one-by-one, hot in the October sun, sweating with cholesterol... I walked past the prying morning into the home of my master...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tachki and Gotiya... Kalyan Sir's two daughters!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kalyan Sir working on a 32 feet long Phad on the terrace!</td></tr>
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The entrance gate was an obligatory fixture... like a school girl off to party in a see-through dress. Kalyan sir’s mother frail as an autumn leaf... dressed in her customary Rajasthani <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lehenga choli and maang tika </i>that was intertwined with her hair as one... welcomed me with a smile as she continued mopping the floor... sometimes as I write I stop suddenly and start to wonder. How do I write of such experiences? How do I explain?<br />
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It was a modest house, yet there was so much space... Tachki, Gotiya and Pollu were Kalyan sir’s three kids... then there was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bauji </i>or the great artist to whom once M.F. Hussain had said, “If I am the king of horses, you are the king of elephants....” Shilp Guru Shree Lal Joshiji had weathered with age. His coughing would run through the house like rabid tremors but his fingers still ran like magic through canvass. I touched his feet and walked up the stairs for my first lesson in Phad Painting.</div><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>'Bauji' </i>National Awardee Shree Lal Joshiji</td></tr>
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Like a moment that got captured in its own freedom... like a star that became the victim of its own glory... like a beam, a sun-beam that caught fire off its own heat... Rajasthan’s Phad Painting lost itself somewhere on the way. Its intent to remain an art for the few became its nemesis in the tide of popular art forms across the world...<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Phad’s originators were the Joshi (Jyotishi or astrologer) clan from Rajasthan. They made these 32 feet long scrolls of art narrating life stories of local deities Pabuji and Dev Narayanji. These were heroes who had died saving the cattle of the pastoral communities and were later deified... Here people are dying saving nations... what irony!</div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FUj9N9vLkiA/TzGzofQV-_I/AAAAAAAAK54/-OM8XoPTdjQ/s1600/IMG_1300.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FUj9N9vLkiA/TzGzofQV-_I/AAAAAAAAK54/-OM8XoPTdjQ/s1600/IMG_1300.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The long Phad scrolls were purchased by story tellers called '<i>Bhupas' </i>at a nominal price of INR 1000 as they carried them along enacting stories from the painting to enraptured rural populace.<br />
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<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Women were not allowed to learn the tricks of this art so that it would not get out of the household when they get married... now this is an interesting alternative to patenting, however historical. </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bauji </i>stood against the fortress of time, shattering purported vanities and taking women under his tutelage. I being one of the few lucky ones... there came a time in Bhilwara’s memoires where women got extra wedding offers if they knew a thing or two about Phad. </span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Phad’s style, faces, expressions, expanses, monarchs, monarchies, feminine fragility and an oft pawn-like flaccidity ... all have not wrinkled nor maimed over years and years of art and thought... thought has gone into changing mediums, canvasses, lengths... but all else remains the same... no face looks ahead, no! The art form hasn’t looked ahead either...</span> </div></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After a Phad would age and the paint would start to wear off, the painting was passed into the Ganges following proper rituals.</td></tr>
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The only appalling variations to this ancient art came with students such as myself. My first few lessons with sir went by in bobbling and inept doodling... the next few in the fear that very less time is left and the remaining in the heightened fear that almost all the time is gone. In between of these torrential fears, and hammering mental workouts, my stomach often grumbled and Kalyan sir’s wife sensed it like a mother would. She fed me with the most unbelievable Rajasthani lunches... so full of love and oil!! My heart yelled with sinful pleasure as did my belly.<br />
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Dinners were mostly at Preeti Bhabhi, Pawan Bhaiya and aunty’s place. Preeti Bhabhi had a rawness to her beauty that was both refreshing and silently robust. As she would serve me <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rotis</i> coated with streams of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">desi ghee </i>every evening, her face partly covered, partly peeping out of the saree’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pallu</i>... whispering just nothings and somethings to me... her careless kindness would fill up the surroundings. I often would implore her to speak in a normal pitch as all other people would do but in her part of the world whispering and veiling are totems of respecting superiority... be it your husband or your husband’s family. Many call it servitude... I call it an alternative reality.<br />
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My lessons started to help shape the movements of my hands into something coherent... soon turning into paintings and then bigger and bigger ones... </div><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of my initial work!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gxRXx5T-GWU/TzG5HRX-TMI/AAAAAAAAK8A/H8sJzxjVdO4/s1600/Phad+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gxRXx5T-GWU/TzG5HRX-TMI/AAAAAAAAK8A/H8sJzxjVdO4/s1600/Phad+2.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Radha Krishna!</td></tr>
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Kalyan sir gave me decades of this knowledge in the form of faith... he gave me faith in an artist’s inane goodness, belief in the powers of speechless expressions, trust in the ability of telling histories with a single stroke. I learnt from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bauji</i> and him, Gopal sir and Rahul sir (Kalyan sir’s brothers) not one but many arts... the most profound of which was the art of progeny. That which is born of you is not always a child... but could be a moment, a minute, an hour, a life-time...<br />
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From me in those 28 odd days was born a lifetime of love for folk Indian art forms and that shall be my progeny. To nurture it with my milken love is the job he left me with at the end of our journey. As all the family members shed a last tear of repressed sorrow at my leaving... as they dropped me to the bus stand... as they bid me good bye... I prepared myself for another kind of life... a life that has just given itself a lesson. <br />
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On my way back to Jaipur in a sleeper coach bus... I made to myself several promises... promises of staying in touch with all that I have left behind, promises of calling them as often as I can, of inviting them to UK when I have the funds, of hosting an exhibition soon with my guru-Kalyan Joshi, of living many more dreams and desires... unto I die. Promises are residues of experiences... I have to admit I do forget to put them to good use sometimes. <br />
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Nevertheless, for now I may call myself an artist... not one, with art at her behest... but one whose behest is art!<br />
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</div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-35532360252123368872011-07-06T13:12:00.000-07:002012-02-08T00:35:16.891-08:00While my granny's earlobes hung to the grills!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Were only half the seats in life just half as comfortable as a toilet seat! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Often these days when I sit on a toilet seat using one of those hand held showers, next to a pot in nearly all Asian loos... to bathe... With two fractured legs that's the best I could do to keep myself suitably washed... and often in such dull moments I wish if half the seats in life were just half as comfortable as a toilet seat... </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">If providence would have it her way, I literally walked into a pair of plasters last week outside Delhi Airport’s Terminal 3. The diabolic fall has come with a life time of bed rest, an appetite that being the only personal item I had deliberately lost once upon a time and a feeling of walking into the bed each night with shoes on.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Yet before this unqualified twist of destiny I was tripping around Hong Kong. Now I am not a travel expert nor am I sparsely intelligent... least then I knew to differ the H from the K of Hong Kong before I travelled that side. Many of my well wishers however had cordoned off my lean attempts to think of HK as anything better than a “concrete jungle, good for shopping and eating out or maybe a day trip to Macau for some gambling,” that is what everyone said to me... except for my friend Yosha (who painstakingly designed an HK to-do list for me)... who would be my host for the trip.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EPIM7UQKOmI/ThSx-02ttAI/AAAAAAAAKBs/SNkkXds99DY/s1600/1379.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EPIM7UQKOmI/ThSx-02ttAI/AAAAAAAAKBs/SNkkXds99DY/s1600/1379.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That is Yosha (my best friend)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">But the simple joy of pure admiration comes to the callous myna as it would never to the wise eagle even with years of flight having eroded its aged wings. I was new like a new born to the surroundings and I was gregarious at best. HK opened its cloak far and wide and I penetrated unreserved. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">My landing in HK was safe... the airport was chaotic with every people from fair to far. A bunch of Pakistanis, while complimenting me on my perfect Urdu as I spoke to them in adulterated Hindi, led me to the point where my hosts were holding their patience and a cup for frozen yogurt for me. I only put pictures of my neck above on facebook, creating a general impression of being thin... sadly however, when Yosha saw me at the airport she realised that there is much more to a suitcase than just the frail handle.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The taxi ride from Lantau Island to the main HK Island where Yosha and Tish (the Ghosh couple) lived in the centre of the city was uneventful, but for the constant Cantonese bursting into my ears from the radio set in the taxi. The drivers are just or more pissed off with the world in HK as those in Singapore are happy or apparently content. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Yosha’s flat was unique in a naturally artistic way... such that nature had painted its canvas and fixed it to either sides of her house. Through the lavish openings of the rooms I often saw the vast landscape walk in, dressed in different strokes at varying hours of the day.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RKax-6DGQ_o/ThSy6hnOU_I/AAAAAAAAKB4/2YAbd3l7aEs/s1600/1318.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RKax-6DGQ_o/ThSy6hnOU_I/AAAAAAAAKB4/2YAbd3l7aEs/s1600/1318.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's the view from Yosha's and Tish's room</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A8UI8EyXSqA/ThSy7UABivI/AAAAAAAAKB8/RHMdjSUbDFo/s1600/1299.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A8UI8EyXSqA/ThSy7UABivI/AAAAAAAAKB8/RHMdjSUbDFo/s1600/1299.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was the rainy day view from my room</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qCpCL4t4AjY/ThSy8Yf4z0I/AAAAAAAAKCA/g0651yDcj0g/s1600/1302.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qCpCL4t4AjY/ThSy8Yf4z0I/AAAAAAAAKCA/g0651yDcj0g/s1600/1302.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was the twilight view from the living room</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ox9XO2J18YU/ThSy_A25atI/AAAAAAAAKCI/d3RMr2xlnHY/s1600/1307.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ox9XO2J18YU/ThSy_A25atI/AAAAAAAAKCI/d3RMr2xlnHY/s1600/1307.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the view from the study</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HbytHotAk80/ThSxpUfXPdI/AAAAAAAAKBk/cboAlKYHjGE/s1600/1298.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HbytHotAk80/ThSxpUfXPdI/AAAAAAAAKBk/cboAlKYHjGE/s1600/1298.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rainy day view from the living room</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">As I warmed up to the rabid showers and liquid sunlight dripping through the rain-drops... hanging like my granny’s earlobes to the grills of the modest balcony, HK managed to keep me indoors for several days. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nYu8wmzFB6c/ThSzpz7R-vI/AAAAAAAAKCM/WQRa9A-1fl8/s1600/1380.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nYu8wmzFB6c/ThSzpz7R-vI/AAAAAAAAKCM/WQRa9A-1fl8/s1600/1380.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Yosha and Tish took me to the Victoria Peak one day, which controversially (the hub of controversy mostly lying between the Ghosh couple) is the highest peak of the nation... and I almost believed that this is the most of ‘nature’ that I can see in here... The peak tram on its way down nearly made me throw up on a couple of various faces... But I managed to save the throwing up for a latter part of the trip... </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/263141_10150656715465133_674685132_19170667_5662761_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/263141_10150656715465133_674685132_19170667_5662761_n.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's the tram going down so steep I was almost sure Im dead!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">HK is much like the city of Troy... as real as it is hypothetical... as embedded in the heat of today as it is borrowing from its several histories... stories of the British Raj still walk around the uphill streets and whisper themselves through myriad meanings and imaginary realities. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RLsVHkMCE7g/ThS2LEeuAYI/AAAAAAAAKCQ/f4_tc4Rzl6Y/s1600/1392.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RLsVHkMCE7g/ThS2LEeuAYI/AAAAAAAAKCQ/f4_tc4Rzl6Y/s1600/1392.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Lhxh_gB4WAc/ThS2MIKqI_I/AAAAAAAAKCU/kvreaKYqiZM/s1600/1419.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KSDrU4IkQcM/ThS2M9sBmXI/AAAAAAAAKCY/MAXaSGJTPsI/s1600/1422.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">When I heard some of them, I built my own history of this country. The British left behind an entire nation that had lived thus far on simulated wisdom. The government now is careful to the point where even casual repartee is mostly disallowed... except for some irregularities where drunk tufts crowd the skyline with complaints on tax problems amongst others. Mind you, tax in HK is only seven percent of the total income... if that may be considered any form of ‘problem’.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kEpvzMarsPU/ThS3WROWkII/AAAAAAAAKCs/MdJxJCV8Cck/s1600/1510.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kEpvzMarsPU/ThS3WROWkII/AAAAAAAAKCs/MdJxJCV8Cck/s640/1510.JPG" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This funny old man musn't have been photographed as much on his own wedding I tell you!</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Government has rationed land disposal for habitation on a piece-meal basis. 40 percent land is dedicated to nature reserves and country parks. One such park is called the Sai Kung East Country Park. The geography is so complex that I can’t nearly attempt to lecture you on that but I can assure you that with or without a lesson on that, you will get drowned in the unabashed beauty of HK. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8QeLJA0FU2c/ThS4EuZQ7lI/AAAAAAAAKC8/E6uyim9E94I/s1600/1618.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8QeLJA0FU2c/ThS4EuZQ7lI/AAAAAAAAKC8/E6uyim9E94I/s1600/1618.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This enchanting fairy land had only its fairies missing</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">My tour guide <a href="mailto:martin.heyes@gmail.com">Martin Heyens</a> – when I spoke with him for the first time on the phone, I was flushed with the horror of spending an entire day with a British and an old one at that... is just a bit too much of colonial hangover-dose for me. But <a href="http://www.walkhongkong.com/">Martin</a> beat me at my prejudice. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s81mQ0bL7Ow/ThS4fRheSoI/AAAAAAAAKDA/UiRpZTqvDuo/s1600/1609.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s81mQ0bL7Ow/ThS4fRheSoI/AAAAAAAAKDA/UiRpZTqvDuo/s1600/1609.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's funny old Martin walking through the bridge from his times to mine!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">He is quite funny and awesome... a police officer from the times of British-HK, Martin stuck around in here like a shell on the beach while the waves returned to their original abode. Old as the name Martin itself, his legs were such a repository of energy that our 12 km long walk that day, slipped through casually without knowledge of its own existence. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rEg77l_NnL8/ThS5BxnQkJI/AAAAAAAAKDE/ms5QDDzG9QY/s1600/1582.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rEg77l_NnL8/ThS5BxnQkJI/AAAAAAAAKDE/ms5QDDzG9QY/s1600/1582.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-evkdqWdB_HE/ThS5EiMJ8zI/AAAAAAAAKDM/hFh-m-Zz8XY/s1600/1592.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-evkdqWdB_HE/ThS5EiMJ8zI/AAAAAAAAKDM/hFh-m-Zz8XY/s1600/1592.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uy4EUD-f2ls/ThS5KbDBO_I/AAAAAAAAKDc/rlTTQ2wgoog/s1600/1650.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uy4EUD-f2ls/ThS5KbDBO_I/AAAAAAAAKDc/rlTTQ2wgoog/s1600/1650.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">As we walked through Stage II of the 100 km long Maclehose trail, the sun, the skies, rains, sands, trees, toads, crabs, crows, butterflies, bees, snakes and plants and 50 odd years of stories from Martin’s world followed us. The canopy of God changed its disguise every few moments and introduced itself to me with different names. Sands and sounds from the virgin beaches sometimes came to me as Sai Wan or Ham Tin and other times as Tai Long or Tung Wan... The sensuous heights of the Sharp peak stood between me and the dizzying clouds... and far away from sight, the silky turquoise waters of the High Island Reservoir blurred the horizons of my imagination. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's the Long Harbour</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can you see the Sharp Peak?</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">On our way we met with abandoned houses of the Chek Keng village that wept to me with stories of their barren wombs. Soon my journey was about to finish... I walked into it with a blank, I returned with a page and heart drenched with experiences... I bid Martin adieu.</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">On my second last evening, the Ghosh couple took me to Macau to the Playboy club where laps were being readily graced by luscious asses full with joy and silicon. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">We brought in Yosha’s birthday with drinks and we bade goodbye to it the next evening with many more drinks and a pot full of nausea. As I flushed it down, I wished if half the seats in life were half as comfortable as a toilet seat...</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AMPP5LoqIqk/ThS79KH8HGI/AAAAAAAAKEs/sGpulv-txeU/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AMPP5LoqIqk/ThS79KH8HGI/AAAAAAAAKEs/sGpulv-txeU/s1600/photo+4.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's us so drunk even the camera felt a shiver</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">In the flight back home I was upgraded to Business class for a price that I paid after getting out of the airport... the two broken legs... it is all good for as long as I have friends that can paint plasters better than most of us can paint pictures of our fractured lives!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/264173_10150675058760717_640585716_19286069_2703519_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/264173_10150675058760717_640585716_19286069_2703519_n.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks to my best friend Parineeta Sharma for this one</td></tr>
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</div></div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-88124219042032256072011-06-16T13:06:00.000-07:002011-06-17T20:40:40.435-07:00My conflicated life!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>“So what if life is easy... there is always a way to complify it...”</i></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -18pt;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>By Papa</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -18pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My father is an honest, simple man. He means whatever he says... but not everyone can understand what he means. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I remember I was not a very little girl once when he got peeved at the amount of time I would waste in life... almost as peeved as to sit me down and waste the rest of my time on a lecture so long, I would have to jog my memory for almost a mile to reach the end of it. Somewhere in the middle of it, however I remember him saying to me that<i> “time is the same for everyone Sujata... whether it be a rickshaw driver or John-Abraham-Lincoln.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Lately, I must confess papa’s dictionary of words is getting increasingly creative... </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Singapore’s East Coast Park is a Freudian Mecca... tender, careless legs from almost everywhere in the world wander through the dense jogging crowds here daily. One of these moist days, I was pounding this track myself, when I saw a store with scuba diving gear hanging on the outside. I wouldn’t say this was the awakening moment or anything... honestly, I had always wanted to do some diving in my life... not having a clue of how tough it could be ofcourse...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Clearly anything and everything I knew about diving came from the gazillion movies I watched where body-doubles would drudge the fatiguing depths of the sea... while the heroes stole the show. Clearly then; of course; if I may say... that is... I was caught unawares between a sea weed and a hard place. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So that day at the East Coast Park, I decided to go for a dive trip soon. Now then, SGD 520 and an outstanding trainer... <a href="http://www.diving-solutions.asia/">James Costello</a> (one of the only two British ever that I don’t hold a grudge against)... Malaysian visa... a cracker of an online theory course followed by some 16 tests all of which I needed to clear with 100% marks... and I was all set to go on my first diving trip. The online exams were however, the first reminder of the toil-in-line for me. Every time I would press enter for the browser to take me to my score, my mind would do a little salsa while my heart would hum a funeral song.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Papa’s brain meanwhile was pollinating over half a bottle of whisky. “<i>You must not go beta</i>,” he said. “<i>You take life too easy Sujata that is why you always look for ways to complify it</i>,” he said. There is some truth in papa’s words... despite their <i>complification</i>. I did take life too easy... until when I went to this trip atleast.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All through the bus ride unto Mersing (from where we took the jetty to the island – Pulau Aur) I was feeling like a relic... no one spoke with me... understandable, that could be... considering no one of them had never spoken with me in their or my life before... there wasn’t much to talk that day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Malaysia arrived sooner than anticipated, I lost the network on my phone and Sumeet lost contact with me earlier than planned, and disruption of a plan in an engineer’s life is worse than an epidemic. Hell broke in London, while I was conveniently boarding first a ferry and then a ship called <i>‘samudra’</i> in the middle of the night. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kSa4g9ie5Mc/Tfpaop8sc_I/AAAAAAAAJ9U/37cj1Yon35Y/s1600/1245.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kSa4g9ie5Mc/Tfpaop8sc_I/AAAAAAAAJ9U/37cj1Yon35Y/s640/1245.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MWNyrek9Riw/Tfpa0G2JNmI/AAAAAAAAJ9c/iErxk1X-UOI/s1600/1243.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MWNyrek9Riw/Tfpa0G2JNmI/AAAAAAAAJ9c/iErxk1X-UOI/s640/1243.jpg" width="640" /> Everything in the night was so blurred... thanks to my horrible camera!!</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorry for the blurred pics... my camera sucks!!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CuA39_EwQ3k/Tfpa07kzA3I/AAAAAAAAJ9g/7LuQ0xdPVlE/s1600/1247.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CuA39_EwQ3k/Tfpa07kzA3I/AAAAAAAAJ9g/7LuQ0xdPVlE/s640/1247.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blurred again :-(</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">We reached our resort on Aur at around five in the morning. The night was clam... we were three girls sharing a room... the sun stung like a bee in just two hours... </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MoZl5ma8_vs/TfpamcOOqUI/AAAAAAAAJ9Q/5vgqGEf3KDs/s1600/1254.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MoZl5ma8_vs/TfpamcOOqUI/AAAAAAAAJ9Q/5vgqGEf3KDs/s640/1254.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An idiot cockroach outside my room... He wouldn't know how to sit up!!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RYCe4y-ehOE/TfpazaE6bPI/AAAAAAAAJ9Y/EXzLEtUgKIY/s1600/1268.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RYCe4y-ehOE/TfpazaE6bPI/AAAAAAAAJ9Y/EXzLEtUgKIY/s640/1268.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From here on are some more pics of the island Pulau Aur or simply Aur</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MWNyrek9Riw/Tfpa0G2JNmI/AAAAAAAAJ9c/iErxk1X-UOI/s1600/1243.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J037QlYTz5I/Tfpa198P3WI/AAAAAAAAJ9k/oxQFOD2xfng/s1600/1255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J037QlYTz5I/Tfpa198P3WI/AAAAAAAAJ9k/oxQFOD2xfng/s640/1255.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DfSczUpzl8M/Tfpa2012CxI/AAAAAAAAJ9o/48y7cvAVS5o/s1600/1256.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DfSczUpzl8M/Tfpa2012CxI/AAAAAAAAJ9o/48y7cvAVS5o/s640/1256.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qjNaD2AtOOA/Tfpa3wIE87I/AAAAAAAAJ9s/uwzDRtSYMP0/s1600/1258.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qjNaD2AtOOA/Tfpa3wIE87I/AAAAAAAAJ9s/uwzDRtSYMP0/s640/1258.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M-4-IRpmums/Tfpa6cgEmyI/AAAAAAAAJ90/4r-8wmJWnAg/s1600/1264.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M-4-IRpmums/Tfpa6cgEmyI/AAAAAAAAJ90/4r-8wmJWnAg/s640/1264.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-STi787RQKSY/Tfpa7KtqW1I/AAAAAAAAJ94/kW6bhJfZV-4/s1600/1267.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-STi787RQKSY/Tfpa7KtqW1I/AAAAAAAAJ94/kW6bhJfZV-4/s640/1267.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ESGLbZR224/TfpbADnTMEI/AAAAAAAAJ98/nQ5DRjgdCRU/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">As we got into our diving gear and choked our faces with sunscreen lotions, I realised this was it mate! No turning back from here... just going down. In school the first time I took a swim in the pool, I was seven then... and I had my mother giving me reassuring smiles from a distance... all I could see here... at any distance, myopic or otherwise was the wild expanse of the South China Sea.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">James took me and my dive partner (or ‘buddy’ in diving terminology) onto the deck... we crowned our feet with those funky fins that make you look so cool eh! and we were sorted for the first dip. Spread your legs... hold your waist belt and your mask... look straight to the horizon and jump into the sea... </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WovvE0vI4KY/TfpbAm-oiQI/AAAAAAAAJ-A/-pM5Ny7R078/s1600/2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WovvE0vI4KY/TfpbAm-oiQI/AAAAAAAAJ-A/-pM5Ny7R078/s640/2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's James teaching me and my buddy some tricks under-water</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The senses go numb for just a second before fear creeps in like a silly joke on a talk show... your world begins to fall apart and all you want is to run away... but there is no ground beneath your feet!! Funnily... it was only me who was feeling all this while my buddy looked like Buddha in a swim suit. I bid a final adieu to everything known slowly allowing the unknown to suck the life out of me. Down under the fish were so relaxed, almost mocking at me... laughing at my frowning face. A pale pink nasty fish bit me so much I almost opened my mouth to say ‘you bitch’ before I shut it back over fear of losing my artificial air supply and my life with it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The under-water world is like that eternal sketch in the life of every child, where everything is a perfect utopia. The beauty of this sketch is that it does not speak... even in its turmoil there is no voice and so the only song of the under-sea is its enthusiastic silence. I wanted to meet Nemo, which I did eventually... she dodged the shutterbug until finally James caught a glimpse of her and me together in one frame... </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrispycheong/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mZJlhiMYwlM/Tfpb1kAOZqI/AAAAAAAAJ-c/Mn6kg9RIwC8/s640/nemo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picture taken by this awesome under-water photographer <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrispycheong/">Chrispy Cheong</a></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9UG3706bmWc/Tfpb0LWrlhI/AAAAAAAAJ-U/yyY6GEPmRBc/s1600/me+with+nemo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9UG3706bmWc/Tfpb0LWrlhI/AAAAAAAAJ-U/yyY6GEPmRBc/s640/me+with+nemo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That is me with Nemo... if you may!!<br />
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</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">It was mission accomplished in my mind and on the clock... Dive One was approaching its end and I was visibly ecstatic... but I would have to wait to reach the surface to release my smile.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L_fZI1YL1D8/TfpbCLnsleI/AAAAAAAAJ-I/TZXwRCHkNpk/s1600/4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L_fZI1YL1D8/TfpbCLnsleI/AAAAAAAAJ-I/TZXwRCHkNpk/s640/4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The girl in this picture is a gorgeous filipino called Kian and the boy is a British-Chinese called James</td></tr>
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</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MbXL37vzYcE/TfpbDQEgFdI/AAAAAAAAJ-M/W5bFQRG39UY/s1600/5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MbXL37vzYcE/TfpbDQEgFdI/AAAAAAAAJ-M/W5bFQRG39UY/s640/5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Both Kian and James became good friends by the end of the trip</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now I must confess to you that the food they give at the “Diver’s Lodge” (our resort) on Aur is simply a devil... inviting and luscious... juicy and yummy!! All us divers exchanged diminishing guts for a handful of freshly made donuts and lots of chocolate sauce. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In my second dive my ears began to hurt like I would die and I began to go upwards instead of otherwise... my buddy Adam thought I was facing buoyancy issues so he started pulling me down... he was inviting a real master kick from me. I hit him so hard several times as I pushed myself upwards... some of the fish would have died of a heart attack looking at our fight. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gVWBXE6RacE/TfpbBYxb7nI/AAAAAAAAJ-E/P8IH8T4gZjc/s1600/3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gVWBXE6RacE/TfpbBYxb7nI/AAAAAAAAJ-E/P8IH8T4gZjc/s640/3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's me struggling to go up!</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Finally I surfaced and James sent me off to rest... only to return in an hour for the third dive... the next two dives went fine as we kept our dive site close to the resort.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the final dive on Sunday morning we were taken to some scary centre of the sea and thrown inside with a million other divers... eighteen meters down there was no pale pink fish to bite me to death thankfully but the scope of my vision was falling short to internalise what it saw. I can’t put a finger on what was the most beautiful or which was less... I can’t compare one experience with the other... it ain’t an entity to quantify... it is to be felt...!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrispycheong/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XMKFFYnZZRw/Tfpb0-kWy3I/AAAAAAAAJ-Y/dxyBjQ07cfk/s640/more+weed.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picture taken by this awesome under-water photographer <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrispycheong/">Chrispy Cheong</a></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sHF-oU-zDTo/Tfpb2VetJiI/AAAAAAAAJ-g/PHqZmoyLxfk/s1600/weed.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sHF-oU-zDTo/Tfpb2VetJiI/AAAAAAAAJ-g/PHqZmoyLxfk/s640/weed.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picture taken by this awesome under-water photographer <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrispycheong/">Chrispy Cheong</a></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">I wish I could take my mom down there, she would have loved it... all she ever does is to keep fish in a most obnoxious aquarium at home that has weed made of plastic and coral made of glossy paper... but then I can’t really ever take her down there or else she would insist on going there in her <i>salwaar-kameez</i>. In the midst of all these random thoughts fear came back and I started to feel I may die... I said bye to my buddy and shot up to the surface... </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was the scariest moment of my life... with dangerous waters on all sides and nothing else in the vicinity... not even the shores... my end proclaimed its entitlement over my life and tears swelled up in my eyes as I started to wave feverishly at a ship in the distance....</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The ship saw me... she did... maybe not... I seesawed with the thought as the waves sometimes threw me slightly up in the air and on other occasions sunk me into their arms. When death is your only chance, time begins to tick in your brain and even if not for a watch on your wrist, you can accurately gauge what compelling moment it maybe... it took that faraway ship precisely 12 minutes to reach me... I was going to live!!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-faVhn1kM0Xw/Tfpa5WksbuI/AAAAAAAAJ9w/P4k2ZxqBxRg/s1600/1260.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-faVhn1kM0Xw/Tfpa5WksbuI/AAAAAAAAJ9w/P4k2ZxqBxRg/s640/1260.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That man in the centre is my trainer James and the one on the right is my buddy</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">This was it then... I somehow reached my resort and after everyone including James and my buddy Adam had a huge laugh at my expense we packed our gear to head back for Singapore... yes I am alive but it is only in afterthought that I am actually able to appreciate fully, all that I saw underwater, to be honest.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I may return to the depths of the world... I may not... but I have learnt a lesson or two on peace and patience..</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In afterthought, I feel however, Sumeet might just disagree with me on this one!! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JYzc6lOlxOw/TfpbDwK4v5I/AAAAAAAAJ-Q/BwZVubftZxc/s1600/6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JYzc6lOlxOw/TfpbDwK4v5I/AAAAAAAAJ-Q/BwZVubftZxc/s640/6.jpg" width="480" /></a> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-39794032569939518992011-04-10T09:32:00.000-07:002012-02-08T00:41:36.627-08:00I am an innuendo!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
Who is to be blamed for the way my life is shaping up? Clearly it is me... Closing in at 30 at such a menacing speed is sometimes un-nerving... you don't really know which door to stop the flood from gushing in...<br />
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Honestly however, mostly I believe it is not me... not me to be blamed at all... or that is how I console myself most of the times... it is this world... and the fact that it is damn well built from the point of view of a man... everywhere there are tall erections<br />
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or pot - holes... to bind things together you need to screw them... Everything is an innuendo really and the most abused of all innuendoes are women... we are not we, for we mostly preen ourselves elaborately into the ceremonial robes of our masters.<br />
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Yes I believe I am an innuendo! So sometime last year amidst the galore of a die-hard romance, I decided to become a wag of Sumeet and quit India in almost a jest thence moving to London with him.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fA0ixtaFIgc/TaHUGljLigI/AAAAAAAAJsM/fjnJSyuYpc4/s1600/Bath+28-08-10+081.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fA0ixtaFIgc/TaHUGljLigI/AAAAAAAAJsM/fjnJSyuYpc4/s640/Bath+28-08-10+081.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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What followed was a narrative of bitter exploits... A year of studying at one of the world’s best known War Studies Departments as the elder-most student in a class of some really beautiful men... life was quipping at me!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ItMbc6BNnLQ/TaHaIHSNudI/AAAAAAAAJtI/3qrEh1JtCC4/s1600/c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ItMbc6BNnLQ/TaHaIHSNudI/AAAAAAAAJtI/3qrEh1JtCC4/s640/c.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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Studies were followed by a period of hiatus where I was straining my stomach with excess food... truly becoming one amongst the ‘masses’. In between of all this I landed myself a job in Singapore and here I am now... Sumeet in a faraway land... for a while I stunned myself with the rebellion... the wag had stopped swivelling as I had decided to choose career over love...<br />
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Singapore was Sumeet’s way of telling me that I can’t get really far from him... this country I tell you... it is all so sterile here... almost like a hospital... clean... quite... perfectly well planned... The most adventurous anyone can ever get here is to go to the zoo... or better still to the bird park.<br />
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No contingency can ever befall this nation for they have forestalled guards against all, but one. The only natural disaster that can take lives here is a tsunami of boredom! People are polite to the point where they say sorry to a mosquito before killing it and then clean its dead body with a hand sanitizer... may the dead lie in germless peace!<br />
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Apparently there is a joke in neighbouring Malaysia that by the road there is a cross-over bridge and the only person to use it is a Singaporean. Well... but I kind of enjoy the rule following sometimes... it is like being on liquid diet for a while to cleanse your system.<br />
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The most curious characters out here are the cab drivers... awarded the world’s most awesome cabbies and justly so! They are like fortune cookies... leaving a sweet taste at the end of every journey.<br />
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If you are a man and are looking to visit Singapore in the near future... remember to always look down when you walk... that will keep you satisfied, for soon as you look up you will see the grave injustice plopped on the longest most sensuous legs God has ever prized an entire race with. Enough said... May the smart understand while the foolish fray!<br />
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The sea is endless here... blue and bare... calm and clear. When the sun sets on it she starts to rise above and kiss him... I have seen that happen several times myself.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZP89ZM7xGc4/TaHYHc9VWUI/AAAAAAAAJs4/k63eiT_U6J4/s1600/IMG_8381.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZP89ZM7xGc4/TaHYHc9VWUI/AAAAAAAAJs4/k63eiT_U6J4/s640/IMG_8381.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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I come here for a random walk with myself and then get carried away by the smell of the hawker stalls... it is common culture here to eat out every single meal of the day... no one cooks at home... by far hence this is the only nation that has proven to be an absolute aberration to history... a people who have burnt bridges for a woman from a man’s stomach to his heart... <br />
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In all this I forgot to mention work... Work is great and so are the people here at my office in Singapore... I have managed many new relationships some of which got ruptured last week midway... makes me think why we work so much on friendships when they don’t even last that long... maybe I am just being too senile but life ain’t easy mate if you have left your partner 5000 miles away! Every need becomes immense and only friends can fulfil that repressive gap... but partially only...<br />
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Maybe then why I wrote all this today was just to tell you that I am but, an innuendo... yes I am... and so I like to be with whom, that shall lend my pun its intended meaning! Sumeet I love you!!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5XMcYCrdKTk/TaHY9Cvp1dI/AAAAAAAAJtE/Uyzs6UQBFMo/s1600/IMG_8917.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5XMcYCrdKTk/TaHY9Cvp1dI/AAAAAAAAJtE/Uyzs6UQBFMo/s640/IMG_8917.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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</div></div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-51876610707313005892010-11-24T06:42:00.000-08:002010-11-24T06:42:38.162-08:00In his kingdom... lay the joyless king and the beggar smiled to every weather!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal">For how far will this universe pull me my lord!</div><div class="MsoNormal">Though I know not glory and I fear not shame, I share a hunger that is petty that is ‘name.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is me I see when the shanty of rosemary ripples through the virgin orange... the juice of sweetness I see in me, in me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is me I say when the rice, little, so small, swell in the futile hollowness of a colourless, bottomless even shadow-less water... I say the forgiving, swelling heart... it is me, it is me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yet, in the dignitaries of sorrow I see a gurgling posture that is dishonest that is untrue, for sorrow is not near me so I know not to rue. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But for how long my lord! I will stay so delight. The pain the anguish, there will come then my night.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I alight wisdom now, for what is foolish what is vain. Still it is now, when sits outside a beggar under the cruel naked rain.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Give me goodness, as the alchemy of life, </div><div class="MsoNormal">And so make me the beggar, I wish for strife!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TO0j1klghbI/AAAAAAAAI8g/hBT5Wb3EgLY/s1600/IMG_8292.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="536" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TO0j1klghbI/AAAAAAAAI8g/hBT5Wb3EgLY/s640/IMG_8292.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TO0kBqM_lNI/AAAAAAAAI8k/GdqYIfidOLY/s1600/IMG_8291.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TO0kBqM_lNI/AAAAAAAAI8k/GdqYIfidOLY/s640/IMG_8291.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TO0kKRNinEI/AAAAAAAAI8o/SLP6nVEKUnM/s1600/IMG_8289.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TO0kKRNinEI/AAAAAAAAI8o/SLP6nVEKUnM/s640/IMG_8289.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TO0kTNwzs-I/AAAAAAAAI8s/OkhFeUG29_4/s1600/IMG_8287.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TO0kTNwzs-I/AAAAAAAAI8s/OkhFeUG29_4/s640/IMG_8287.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-35394301780670456712010-10-20T07:23:00.000-07:002010-10-23T17:33:16.628-07:00When the Defence budget got cut, Victoria's Secret was lost!<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Almost daily as I sit vegetating on my bed, waiting to get an e-mail from some potential employer, I chat up with an odd friend on g-talk. This time around my friend Devjyot... to whom I crib ever so often about the in-variability of life... was introduced to a surprise novelty factor... the element of variability in my life... Dev in his regular fashion enquired “How is London?” and I was most eagerly awaiting this question... so I could tell the tale of the stolen <i>Victoria’s secret.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">As winters slowly discredit the morning sunshine and the rains begin to apprehend the cheerful London summers ... </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TL75kW4GkCI/AAAAAAAAIl8/J8OBQEeL_NY/s1600/september+2010+044.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="412" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TL75kW4GkCI/AAAAAAAAIl8/J8OBQEeL_NY/s640/september+2010+044.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TL758sEtUKI/AAAAAAAAImQ/xdQ5boUivdA/s1600/september+2010+025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TL758sEtUKI/AAAAAAAAImQ/xdQ5boUivdA/s640/september+2010+025.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"> people are doing anything to break from monotony... Some such people in London are on the lookout for old jockey undergarments bought at discount price from a small shop in New Delhi’s <i>Pahad Ganj</i> area... with a generous number of Victoria’s original secrets. About half past midnight this last Sunday, one of these Londoners... let lose in London, ofcourse... happened to chance upon my two full machine-lots of washed clothes hanging outside on our washing line... AND STOLE THEM. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">The Met Police in this case is a classic example of youth acne... just as helpless or maybe more. They come, they listen, empathise, write the report and say that's the best we can do... try not drying your clothes anymore [read: “try wearing wet underpants”]”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Welcome to the developed Western super-power... with the defence budget getting the beating from the Coalition government, self defence is increasingly becoming difficult here.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now you might wonder in wonderment...why anybody would waste time on complaining theft of underpants... the reason being my wish to meet someone more jobless than myself... considering the number of k[night]hoods our British system endows on lame candidates... our dear night thief could be of worthy contention.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the end however, this episode did me some solid good. An intensely loyal hater of house chores, I had to regularly conjure excuses to elude collecting clothes from the washing line... at least this once I’d have to never pick them up ever again...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Long live the British Empire and its Defence cuts!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-87329679121519158782010-09-28T16:03:00.000-07:002012-02-08T00:46:02.342-08:00He promised me the world and I bartered my mole!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal">My life is a journey and I met this realisation somewhere in the middle of a finger pointing fight with Sumeet, last year on Valentine’s Day. I was getting tired of his capability to never give me a surprise. Somehow, out of the million other fights between us... my words managed to enter the fuzzy cleavages of his ears this once as he planned a surprise that shook the last bone in me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I told my dad I’m off to Uzbekistan, he took an hour to put breaks to his over speeding heart. Not in his life had he heard of another ‘istan’ besides the two obvious ones... blame it on America. Honestly, I didn’t know about Uzbekistan myself until then, but then I didn’t know people made a living out of making holes in donuts either, until my encounter with Dorianne Laux tonight. So don’t you judge your lack of knowledge in comparison to my absolute absence of it. Anyway, much as I told dad all ‘istans’ were not the same, he seemed less convinced than inconvenienced to be asked to alter his comforting prejudices. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Uzbekistan is an enchanting oddness, however... a genie in deception, a jar of pickle hidden deep inside the closet, long forgotten. The unbundling of former USSR in 1991 revealed five embryonic states of what makes for Central Asia today-Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Amongst these, Uzbekistan-the seductress that rests enticingly on the ruins of the ancient silk route, is an over-qualified hostess with seldom suitors.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">A piecemeal knowledge of Russian can take you a long distance there. Being an Indian is even better. The stubby good looking men with their loosely prefixed Mongolian features and the flirtatious women, cheating on men and traffic signals alike... are the most devoted lot fanning the Indian film Industry.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Walking on Tashkent’s vast, clean lanes I was stopped every five minutes by a friendly passerby wanting to sing Bollywood songs to me.... It was overwhelming to enter an Uzbeki pub.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On my first evening with Sumeet’s gorgeous uncle and aunt who are an Indian Diplomat couple living in Tashkent, I was taken to dine at the ‘NUR’ restaurant. I suddenly began to feel like a dessert on the menu... everyone wanted a piece of me on their table. The moment we entered the restaurant, the DJ played a popular Bollywood song in my honour and soon I was being dragged to the dance floor. Women as much as the men wanted to do <i>gidda </i>(a Punjabi dance form) with me. A girl called ‘Gauri’ with a voice so sweet, I could get diabetic on it... sang old Hindi songs to me without having known a word of Hindi, while a man called Javli Sultanov swore to stake the world in return for the mole on my nose. I could have given it to him for free, I hate it anyway... </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The intemperate heat of summer-time in Uzbekistan has added profound layers of warmth in its people’s hearts. And often as they smile feverishly, their 14 carat gold laden teeth tell stories of a society so conscious of status symbols. Teeth of gold are totems of wealth that sit inside almost 60 percent of Uzbeki jaws. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">However as deep are their tooth cavities so are the final destinations of their trouser pockets. Swollen with Uzbeki currency notes (soum) that are so depreciated that one dollar could fetch you 1650 of them notes, the Uzbeks have pockets and purses so large, they occupy an extra seat in all public places ‘a table for two plus one pocket please!’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Most unique element of Uzbekistan, and I can only speak for Tashkent actually (never got time to get out of there to visit other beauties like Samarkand and Bukhara,) is that every single vehicle ambling the streets... privately owned or public property, is a taxi. On my second day in Tashkent when I was waiting for a cab to take me to the famous ‘Chorsu Bazaar,’ and making my hand rehearse ballet in the air, a car stopped and the man in the driver’s seat explained to me ‘every car in this country can be stopped and you can pay the regular charges for being dropped to your requested spot.’ I simply loved this brilliant scheme as much as I loved everything else about the country. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I couldn’t escape local Uzbeks pinning me down with Hindi songs even in the crowded Chorsu Bazaar. Much as I love standing out in a crowd, I was increasingly getting tired this time, just when a boy stared at me and we communicated without the benefit of a common language. Of all he spoke, I understood nothing but one word ‘<i>Hrithik Roshan.’</i> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Bollywood sure has taken India places... who would fancy concealed in colours of Korean salads, famous Uzbeki dry-fruits, cherries and brandishes of cheap but exquisite Uzbeki artefacts... a silent admirer of India’s response to Batman. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TKJwJ_heQPI/AAAAAAAAIJQ/drEu8FiJyGM/s1600/_MG_3669.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TKJwJ_heQPI/AAAAAAAAIJQ/drEu8FiJyGM/s640/_MG_3669.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TKJyGSSugUI/AAAAAAAAIJc/ZNXvjgX1Y24/s1600/_MG_3811.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TKJyGSSugUI/AAAAAAAAIJc/ZNXvjgX1Y24/s640/_MG_3811.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Coming back to artefacts, Uzbeki chandeliers, wood carved furniture and carpets are a delicacy that can be relished only in Uzbekistan itself, unless you are ready to pay extra baggage price for it... Uzbek air allows 20 kilos luggage alas! I hence gave the flying carpets and the hypnotic chandeliers a pass as my eyes got fixated on a group of oldies taking a good laugh at life.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">They are the lucky charms that apparently bring prosperity... so many of them ganging up on the Uzbek economy and still doing no good for it... I was beginning to question their credentials... however, for the sake of ‘tourists must buy souvenirs’ legacy, I adopted one of them. Soon I saw a zombie pumpkin that let some odd guy paint all over it without realising it’s a vegetable, not a canvass. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TKJy4-YIh1I/AAAAAAAAIJk/w5deHtLCkWY/s1600/_MG_3804.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="548" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TKJy4-YIh1I/AAAAAAAAIJk/w5deHtLCkWY/s640/_MG_3804.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, I liked its attitude so I bought it... soon enough I saw many more such stoned- to-death pumpkins... they amount to some sort of art in Uzbekistan and drunk or not drunk... I just think they are gorgeous and a must buy!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now getting drunk is an act unaccomplished by me in there... On my second evening in Tashkent, <i>Muasi</i> (aunt), <i>Mausaji </i>(uncle) took me to an all-Indian get together where I was offered the Uzbek wine. If you want to die on a glass of slightly mauve with bursts of maroon sugar syrup, then let me know... I’ll get you some Uzbek wine. In retrospect I think that country is a land of some extremes... extremely sweet wine, extremely brackish cheese (yummmm!), extremely creative calligraphy </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">(they look for the messages of Allah in all his creations. So if you draw a human ‘eye’ and try reading it... it would mean <i>‘subhan Allah!’</i> in Urdu,) but most notably there is a discomforting extreme of ‘artificially generated bliss.'</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Since 1991 Uzbekistan has been run by one President and one party... every other voice is comfortably numbed. Education and media are alike, state run products marinated with power politics. While schools have no names but numbering, so you could be in school 1 or 2 or so on... the media is homogenised with a silence that quells rebellion. Each morning I woke up to read the national newspaper splattered with stories of glory of the government. It’s a nation whose people have not the privilege to know what is ‘bad,’ what goes ‘wrong,’ hence, they know not of such bitter sensations. That’s what I call ‘generated bliss.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One could point fingers at such governance, it’s the simplest job to do... besides, you don’t need to apply and go through the selection process for it. I’d however like us to visit Uzbekistan and experience the sense of absolute security a woman can feel even as she walks the barren streets at 3:00 am, oscillates in the oft crime-free air, bathes in historical grandeur and meets the almost perfect bunch of Allah’s own children... before making our paralysing prognosis. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In my three days in Uzbekistan I could not alight the highlands... but the lowlands were a journey of the self... I promised myself then, never to judge Sumeet’s misgivings for they could often be just as rewarding.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div></div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-35432336039203956132010-09-15T06:40:00.000-07:002012-02-08T00:48:50.734-08:00While the sun composed symphonies on her naked back<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am originally a shallow Samaritan.... I thrive on the other’s sorrow so I could smear it with laughter. It helps me fill fragments of my own person, my rubbish vanity, my desire to be called a ‘good human being.’ No wonder then my distaste for Britain. There is no one here awfully helpless, in need for me... unlike India where every distance the size of a cheese slice is covered with broken limbs or eyeless souls. If India were a drama, such would be her props and I miss the Great Indian Tragedy ever so often here in Britain. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yet tragedy herself asks of me to experience both sides to her dual personality.... one where she hits the other while I watch and this other once she has hit me... I long to go back to my own land... But India remains afar... very far.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However, to massage my agony Sumeet took me recently to another tragic tavern- that being Greece. On 2<sup>nd</sup> September 2010, Sumeet and I flew by the cheapest possible option to Athens at half past two, during what is called the ‘English summer’... a misnomer that helps sunglass brands to fool blinded-by-fashion individuals to further lose sight as they shelter their eyes from a sun that doesn’t exist here. Greece however, was a different tale... tanned with enormous sun and flourishing with ample sea... the only virtue missing there is a ‘smile.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">While in the planning stage of our second honeymoon, Sumeet and I often decorated our dreams with huge towering walls of the Ancient Acropolis hoping for the ‘ancient’ to live up to its true elements... the graffiti on the walls... on every single wall in Athens... looked like the city got hit by an epidemic called ‘graffiti’ and no corner was devoid of it. That would but obviously be the first thing one would notice in Athens, even before beginning to realise that it’s only a city... like any other... dirty, filthy and gravely erred by its own people. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">My first impression of Athens: the drive in Bus no. X95 from the Airport to the main ‘ancient city’ area-Plaka felt like experiencing open infidelity of someone you’ve always held in high esteem. Athens has comfortably married modernity in her attempt to break from the past. Plaka however, slightly sorted my aching heart. Wherever you may walk, the Acropolis would stare at you from an exhaustive distance</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">and we had a sufficient intercourse with this uphill antiquity that first night.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Much against his usual engineer-like precision, Sumeet this once decided he’d like to go on this holiday completely unplanned. With around 20 kilos each on our backs (both Sumeet and I somehow felt the need to carry more than required clothes to an island nation... speaks obliquely of our increasing body mass and the desire to keep it under wraps) we scanned the entire Plaka that night to find a ‘decent’ yet ‘inexpensive’ hotel for one night as we planned to go to one of Greece’s many islands the next day. Now much as our wish list for a hotel was like a girl on the lookout for a potential husband, the search was just as tough. Almost four hours of hobnobbing through the pleated streets of Athens, we finally stationed ourselves at this hotel called the ‘Acropolis Place’ for 40 Euros a night in the room right next to the reception desk, the loo in the basement across the reception across the dining room across the kitchen... far enough to dissuade even the most pressing of nature’s calls from being attended to. However, it was just one night as we had decided, half of which had already passed. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sadly our expedition from the past evening left us in no position to wake up early for the boat to any island so Athens it was for 3<sup>rd</sup> September 2010. The hotel’s breakfast table was like a government ration shop of which the morning shift receptionist stood as a brand ambassador. Jasmine- her body was the width of a tablecloth but her unending chatter was brutal murder... the day had set itself on us...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Outside on the streets, Athens was awaiting us... </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDHE9dq_MI/AAAAAAAAH-w/SiP0ueGGtwo/s1600/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+107.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDHE9dq_MI/AAAAAAAAH-w/SiP0ueGGtwo/s640/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+107.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We walked out of Acropolis House and banked our 40 kilos of clothes at a nearby hotel called ‘Byron’ where the bed creaked so much, our poor ears were at work all night. True to its name then this Lord Byron was ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know.’ In the afternoon we ate lunch at an open restaurant with local birds breaking bread with us... </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDHTZHI5II/AAAAAAAAH-4/HAigKOwGyw0/s1600/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+092.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="576" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDHTZHI5II/AAAAAAAAH-4/HAigKOwGyw0/s640/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+092.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So much heard about Greek food, I claim is mostly bull’s crap! Tsatsiki, Musaka, suvlaki, the Greek dishes sound just as grand as they are actually not. They deliberately throw in a basket of bread (their staple diet) in every meal and charge three Euros to each person for it... that’s like forced charity.... damn I still sound angry! The man serving food to us didn’t particularly enjoy our brown skin so he decided not to be nice to us and took an extra while to bring our food... we in return took extra pains not to tip him... Indians never miss a chance for making a pass on the tip. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A toy-train took us around the town then and up to the Acropolis where Sumeet got lost in history. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDH50dFvWI/AAAAAAAAH_A/ScSvh0blYP0/s1600/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+138.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDH50dFvWI/AAAAAAAAH_A/ScSvh0blYP0/s640/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+138.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDIAl-vsTI/AAAAAAAAH_I/5A8sR33Fljo/s1600/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+147.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDIAl-vsTI/AAAAAAAAH_I/5A8sR33Fljo/s640/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+147.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDIKmbxTiI/AAAAAAAAH_Q/KeFgAjDLjgM/s1600/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+194.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDIKmbxTiI/AAAAAAAAH_Q/KeFgAjDLjgM/s640/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+194.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">While he had supper with Asterix and Obelix inside his head... the surroundings taking him back to the ‘feel of that comic,’ I found nebulous creatures around having hefty appetite for sex. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDIrQG4TRI/AAAAAAAAH_g/4mg0UWJpT5I/s1600/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+207.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDIrQG4TRI/AAAAAAAAH_g/4mg0UWJpT5I/s640/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+207.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Later we met a ‘we are from Dubai on honeymoon’ couple who asked Sumeet to spare with his pounds so they could see how the Queen’s face looks on the currency she grandly gulps down as the largest social benefiter of all times. They were so damn inquisitive, they beat the Chinese, I tell you.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The next day we set off in Bluestar ferry to Santorini Island on a five hour journey with Katherine Frank’s biography of Indira Gandhi by my side. Indira went up to Mahatma Gandhi asking for his permission to marry her longstanding boyfriend-Feroze Gandhi... however, Bapu challenged her to vow celibacy after marriage. I was just about digesting this amazing piece of history when I saw a land of such magical beauty that I forgot to put a bookmark before squashing Indira between two pages.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDIzjYypcI/AAAAAAAAH_o/m0vIYQn1HI0/s1600/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+243.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDIzjYypcI/AAAAAAAAH_o/m0vIYQn1HI0/s640/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+243.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s a pity you don’t know such things about a place before you visit it, as you know after you have been there... so there no way you could ever avoid getting fleeced. Amongst the million people from around the world, who strangely picked the same day, time and place as us to holiday, we seemed to be the only ones wondering what to do next. So we simply hopped on to the most expensive cab journey of our life and went to this village called Oia. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDMissUfqI/AAAAAAAAIAg/-9Y9gqfPaWg/s1600/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+293.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDMissUfqI/AAAAAAAAIAg/-9Y9gqfPaWg/s640/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+293.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To the count of one Greek, that village had almost a dozen tourists. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There was a pattern to the nationalities we realised. Brits and other Europeans travel on shoe string budgets, can’t afford villas of Oia so they stick to the hugely tourist-y ‘Fira.’ The Americans and their Arctic cousins travel rich after having sucked all the world’s oil (I mean it for the Americans)... so they cruise around the globe in expensive ships only rarely touching earth. The Canadians however insist on one crucial difference: ‘We are not Americans. We like to enquire.’ The South –East brethren of my beloved nation, huddle up together and are always taking pictures, of everything and almost anything... its wondrous how truly deprived they are so as to literally admire just about anything through the modest openings of their myopic vision. The Indians, on the other hand are like that rare endangered species on this island that not many have seen... the few that we ended up chancing upon, were all patients of personality disorders... talking London, looking <i>Patiala paanwala</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Those three days in Oia were absolute bliss... by this time we were completely attuned to the handicapped Greeks without a single funny bone, the overpriced Chinese counterfeits they sold in the name of art and the huge-as-hell watermelons they brought from dispute- ridden Cyprus and traded in their shops at the price of gold. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The island made out of volcanic lava preserved human eruptions in all empty spaces of every single beach. Wherever you’d move your eyes, naked women would be strumming their breasts against the beach’s sands and pebbles while the sun penned symphonies on their backs. Sumeet’s soul was well fed on this trip...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDJaHVrS8I/AAAAAAAAH_4/hBFcSDl3FfE/s1600/still+santorini+024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDJaHVrS8I/AAAAAAAAH_4/hBFcSDl3FfE/s640/still+santorini+024.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDJmemtueI/AAAAAAAAIAA/ZV9v2YoMOUE/s1600/still+santorini+034.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDJmemtueI/AAAAAAAAIAA/ZV9v2YoMOUE/s640/still+santorini+034.JPG" width="448" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDMuQkkIrI/AAAAAAAAIAo/GAe1ZkwzHws/s1600/still+santorini+027.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDMuQkkIrI/AAAAAAAAIAo/GAe1ZkwzHws/s640/still+santorini+027.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Quad-bike was another attraction... a 220 cc quad cost us 45 Euros a day... that’s a price well paid if it makes a man feel man enough... Sumeet said if there’d be a scale to measure pleasure... ‘Riding the quad was worth a million orgasms, all in a day.’ Now if men were to design all measuring scales in the world I’m wondering how cooking shows would start to look—‘add one small orgasm full of sugar....’</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDJ1hzQs6I/AAAAAAAAIAI/rBKKzXM0m8s/s1600/Santorini+2-6+September+2010+071.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDJ1hzQs6I/AAAAAAAAIAI/rBKKzXM0m8s/s640/Santorini+2-6+September+2010+071.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We drove uphill to this place called ‘ancient Thira,’ another must visit on a Greece trip itinerary. The winds up there were running a marathon so the only objects standing unperturbed were the patches of 7<sup>th</sup> century BC in all their magnificence. Such unmatched brilliance... it was tea for us in the private company of Greek Gods, the only distraction being skirts disobeying their ladies, while adding to our entertainment.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDKyJ86xMI/AAAAAAAAIAY/O3KliwkEe8Q/s1600/santorini+last+day+031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDKyJ86xMI/AAAAAAAAIAY/O3KliwkEe8Q/s640/santorini+last+day+031.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sadly, only on the final day did we discovered ‘Nikos Place’ in Oia... the best Gyros (it’s a Greek dish again) ever and reasonably priced. We bid adieu to all... especially to our daily massages that some Chinese immigrants offered on all beaches for reasonable price... considering almost everything in the world has glimpses of Chinese labour... there was no escaping it in Greece either.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Our last night back in Athens was most adventurous I’d say. We reached Acropolis House at 12:00 am, where we’d pre-booked a room before leaving Athens earlier on. The tiny reception was cluttered with sullen faces of Europe... two Greeks and an Austrian... the silly hotel has a policy of retaining room keys of all guests before they go out for a stroll in the city... this Austrian had to submit his as well and when the room service went in to clean his room, they left the keys inside... the management comfortably-dumb... couldn’t bother and waited till the Austrian volcano erupted at night. He was fuming when we reached the Hotel cos all his expensive possessions along with his phone were locked up in the room while the manager was sound asleep. While his stuff relaxed in that room our dear Austrian got rabid... ‘You bloody Greeks with no money in your banks... you working at this reception with nothing better to do with your life...’ the poor guy behind the desk stood assault after assault for he wanted to retain his job more than his self-respect. One thing I learnt about ‘people’ in general that night is that all are the same... white or brown or black... besides an extra dose of melanin we Indians have in our genes... something that fairness creams promise to rid us of... rest everything else is the same... anger, shame, hatred and folly... that doesn’t change nationality ever.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">The memories of the trip would last us a life time, and so would the after effects on our balance sheet. But they were all worth a million smiles... the sun, the sands and the sea as she sometimes kissed the earth or seamlessly merged into the skies.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDJBkMLiJI/AAAAAAAAH_w/WqirkjX9bVk/s1600/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+283.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TJDJBkMLiJI/AAAAAAAAH_w/WqirkjX9bVk/s640/Kew+Gardens+and+Greece+Sep+2010+283.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<br />
SOME TIPS AND CONTACTS:<br />
1. Carry your sunscreen<br />
2. Peak periods to visit Greece are from June-Sep end... but I'd rather go post or pre that... the mediterranean region that Greece falls in, wouldn't ever have 'bad' weather and things are cheaper in lean periods.<br />
3. Go unplanned... Greece can throw surprises for planned travellers.<br />
4. Pleaseee travel light... No one but fools like Sumeet and me would carry so many clothes there. Besides, you'll have to walk more than you'd imagine.<br />
5. Don't expect to get by with a budget holiday. Its an expensive nation.<br />
6. Carry your student ID if you are from Europe. It will help you with a lot of discounts.<br />
7. Carry a UV lens for your SLR.<br />
8. Carry your driving license.<br />
9. Carry your packaged food... Greek food can tire you out on a long holiday and is super expensive.<br />
10. Carry a book or sudoko to keep you company.<br />
11. Carry a spare sheet to spread under you, on the beach while you take a nap<br />
12. Get you currency converted in your own nation... Greek islands have one odd banks and conversion rates are horrible... even in Athens.<br />
13. Don't buy any artefact... just do window shopping.<br />
14. Never annoy the Greeks, especially if you are brown or black... sorry for the racist remark... well I'm brown too and am speaking out of experience.<br />
15. While flying in and out of Greece take the window seat on the flight... the view is 'unmissable.'<br />
16. Check for concerts that are happening in Greece during your holiday. We happened to miss U2 :-(<br />
17. In Athens, get a place in the 'Plaka' area cos 'Omonio' is a notorious region of the city.<br />
18. Travel by bus no. X95 from the airport. It will drop you at a five minutes walk to Plaka.<br />
19. Athens is nice and different. Don't listen to those who say its a useless place. Spend atleast 2 days there.<br />
20. Acropolis House (ask for the room no. 103, next to reception. It costs 40 euros and the other rooms are no better but more expensive. Ph no.: +30 210 3222 344)<br />
21. Palia Tavern... now I didn't particularly enjoy their food and their service is painfully slow but that's the case in all of Greece... so make your own judgement.<br />
22. Hotel Byron... ask for the cheapest room it comes for 60 euros... the bed makes silly sounds but you wont find anything cheaper in Athens during peak seasons... with an AC and attached bathroom. Ph no. +30 210 3230 327<br />
23. For getting ferry booked to any Island... just step out to the main market area in Athens... its the same place where bus X95 dropped you on the first day... and you will find so many Ferry offices... Just hop into one of them. No tension at all about pre booking. But please keep in mind that all ferries move out of the city early morning so you need to book one day in advance.<br />
24. We went to Santorini so I can't say about other Islands... but santorini is gorgeous... its both isolated (if you stay in the village Oia) and crowded (if you lodge at Fira)... u take your pick. We preferred solitude so we went with Oia.<br />
25. At Santorini Port there would be buses every half hour to take you to Fira. from there you can get another bus to Oia. Don't worry about how long it would take and how cumbersome it would be cos it wont be. travelling by public transport in Greece is really simple and cheap.<br />
26. If you prefer taking a cab to Oia then the guy won't charge you less than 20 euros.<br />
27. Don't bother with pre-booking hotels here as well... Just get down at Oia information centre... that's where the buses stop also. Go inside and tell them sorry boss! I can't afford more than 80 euros a night... or whatever your limit is... and they are so damn helpful they will get you a good deal.<br />
28. Incase you want to stay at the magnificent Caldera Villa (we were on a second honeymoon so we could splurge) then their number is: +30 228 6071 28... to tell you the secret we got a villa there for 90 euros... we just got lucky cos of some last minute cancellations... but its never less than 200 euros on average.<br />
<br />
29. PLEASE as a rule only eat at 'Nikos Place' if you wish to save up on eating good and eating cheap. Their Gyros are aweeesome. Ph: +30 228 6071 105. Its right next to the information Centre.<br />
30. For booking a Quad bike... please go with 220 cc cos the others can give trouble on the hilly terrain. You could book it in Oia... can't tell you from where. Or you could get it in Fira. We got it from Fira at Alex-Rent a moto for 45 euros a day. That's really the standard rate I guess. Ph no: +30 228 6022 483<br />
31. Lastly, if you care for a taxi in ATHENS then contact Dimitris Papagrigoriou of 'Taxi Services.' He is a sweet and reasonable guy. Ph: +30 693 2717 325<br />
<br />
Have a great Trip!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-64864017803632936012010-09-13T13:59:00.000-07:002010-09-13T13:59:19.295-07:002010-08-16 stack<a href="http://goo.gl/photos/vk55" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TGkcW5OTccE/AAAAAAAAHWw/thCEgNMMLuw/s160-c/20100816Stack.jpg" border="0" /></a>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-12758794544309851482010-09-13T13:57:00.000-07:002010-09-13T13:57:52.127-07:002010-08-30 Bath 28-08-10<a href="http://goo.gl/photos/tLSh" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TIga3u9fSsE/AAAAAAAAHn8/L8LuzSsFAwI/s160-c/20100830Bath280810.jpg" border="0" /></a>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-30814702289516080662010-07-29T03:51:00.001-07:002012-02-08T00:52:49.262-08:00When I went dry in the middle of his orgasm!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">When did ‘Constancy’ become my first love... I often ask myself. It was the day I first saw him that I divorced ‘Change’. Constancy gave me a strange sense of security... of being at the same place all the time, around the same bunch of people... frowning inside while they smiled on the outside. I loved Constancy... he gave me the freedom to wake up every morning at exactly the same time to get dressed for ‘Work’... and then he let Work screw me every day. But I never quit... until the day a huge ‘Crisis’ hit my life...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Crisis by the way was the only adventure in the flat terrains of Constancy... and this once the Crisis was unprecedented... nothing like before... nothing I could undo. In this marriage with Constancy, I finally hit the wall... and with Work I suddenly went dry in the middle of his potential orgasm. Life stopped and I didn’t know where to look and who to ask to find me Change again... but coming back to the famous Paulo Coelho’s sermon on ‘When you want something real bad, the entire universe conspires in bringing that close to you.’ I set out to look for Change... and the universe conspired...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I met and exceedingly understanding life partner-Sumeet and an exceptionally uncommon man-Satyabrat Dam (satya1302@gmail.com). It was when I was a Radio Jockey with Big FM in Delhi. I read in Delhi Times about this Navy Commander who was looking for some women in India to go on a trip to the Arctic (Not sure of the details of the expedition.) I had a huge showdown with Constancy that night for he wouldn’t allow me to go... he had successfully managed to create a web of responsibilities around me... that of playing Work’s concubine so he could pay me to fund my own marriage to Sumeet. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I was so frustrated I could die... all I wanted was to dress in a frilly frock with two plats and a pair of pink shoes before the austerities of married life would strip my childhood away. I called Sumeet to ask if I could go to the expedition or even someplace else where so much technical training wasn’t required... this was 3 months before my marriage date. Sumeet was nice and calm. He assured me that we could do it once I’m married because right now I’d be answerable to my huge family but once I’m his wife, it would be just ‘us’ I’d have to think of. I understood his point and called Satya meanwhile to stay in touch with me for any other ‘Opportunity’ in the future. Satya around that time had taking voluntary retirement from the Navy to go pursue his dream of an oft intercourse with the mountains.... he says mountains are his real home! And I was always invited over for a cup of instant coffee, nutrella pulao and some glucose biscuits.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Soon the universe introduced Opportunity to me and she is such a lovely person. She counselled me while I was undergoing the turmoil of a recent break up with Constancy. She promised to me that ‘Ecstasy’... where Change lived now, will be a beautiful place for me to overcome my inner Crisis.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This May I came down to India on a promise from Satya that a trip was planned to the most unbelievable place. Sumeet was complicit in this plan for all he wanted for me was to wear that frilly-frock once again and smile like a child.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I started off building my stamina by climbing 400 stairs with 10 kg weight on my back every day and boy! I was so proud of myself... but as a guide Satya was a tough nut to crack. We soon took the bus to Dharamshala from ISBT (Delhi) and after an overnight journey... Oh! You must take a cursory look at the mid-way where buses to Dharamshala stop... besides a variety of newly-weds announcing their lust in different positions... the sparkly, brightly artefacts at the mid-way are a delicious sight. God knows why they have a horse the size of a horse parked at the entrance... on sale for 30 grand. Why would anyone in their right mind, buy a horse the size of a horse but looking like someone has painted his body with peanut butter... from a damn mid-way for god sake!... I mean are they going on a trip to see the Lama-land or on a mission to purchase the worst piece of non-art in history.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, so the next morning at Dharamshala bus-depot we met up with Surinder who would be our porter for the trip and was he the most adorable boy in the world... indeed! He took us to the point where the road ends... and my expedition starts. It’s not a fairy land... it’s not a land... it’s a place from where the Mountains have drawn their LOC.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFnj8GlahI/AAAAAAAAHDE/eF2WH98YdqU/s1600/India+2010+032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="430" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFnj8GlahI/AAAAAAAAHDE/eF2WH98YdqU/s640/India+2010+032.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now I thought climbing for 2 hours to the Kareri village was the toughest thing I’d ever done... more than having to walk around with a 10 kilo <i>lehenga</i> on my wedding... but that was the bitter oblivion of what awaited...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On our way we met the residents of these Mountains... the sheep, the cows and the goat... each time we’d take a halt they’d offer us the purest form of life-fresh water and a loaf of sunshine. They promised me that I’d never be alone here and they lived up to promises, I swear on the each time I went to take a leak in the mountains hoping I’m alone but found one of these sheep standing around with ‘promise’ written all over sheepish smiles.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFnrrNS1FI/AAAAAAAAHDM/qBHxopLeLRE/s1600/India+2010+039.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFnrrNS1FI/AAAAAAAAHDM/qBHxopLeLRE/s640/India+2010+039.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Once atop Kareri I lost everything that I had when I was battling on the streets... and most importantly I lost ‘Words’. It’s the experience of being born again and feeling helpless without the ability to express... everything looked so new and magnificent that speech ceded in the shame of having come from a world that is not this world... how then would it do justice to what it had never spoken of before?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFnzUAmSiI/AAAAAAAAHDU/g8QunVhSPB8/s1600/India+2010+071.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFnzUAmSiI/AAAAAAAAHDU/g8QunVhSPB8/s640/India+2010+071.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Surinder took us to his home that their family of six built on their own. Cow dung made for the flooring and a stick of corn would hold the entire ceiling together. Wild shrubs were served for dinner and I was allowed to bathe in the kitchen sink where both the utensils and I got collectively cleansed. Surinder’s mother was a generous woman... she had bequeathed her two daughters with the beauty as unspoiled as her own.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFoQ0R_VAI/AAAAAAAAHDk/8qjXTd1j3Ms/s1600/India+2010+091.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFoQ0R_VAI/AAAAAAAAHDk/8qjXTd1j3Ms/s640/India+2010+091.jpg" width="444" /></a></div><br />
<br />
While the entire village shone that night with stars that seldom visit my home just right down the street... I slept the most unperturbed sleep of my life. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Next morning we packed our gut and grit in the ruck-sacks... mine being the lightest... both resolve and the weight in the bag. As we lay foot on solemn sands, wet with last night’s rains... I realised that I am finally on my way to meet Change. We halted once a while amidst painfully blue skies, shades of greens, anxious birds and streams of water in their hurry to reach someplace. That evening after 7 hours of climbing, intermittent to which Satya and Surinder kept tricking me by saying we’re just 15 minutes away; I had my first audience with Kareri Dal lake... promiscuity doesn’t bring so much guilt as does the realisation that life had so much to offer and I never noticed. The violets and the peaches, the lilacs and the turquoise... the different strokes of nature sang lullaby that cold stunning night.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFoIhHBe2I/AAAAAAAAHDc/vBHxY_8io2c/s1600/India+2010+114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFoIhHBe2I/AAAAAAAAHDc/vBHxY_8io2c/s640/India+2010+114.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Another morning arrived as we tread across Dal lake to start the ‘real expedition’ as Satya would call it. He said to me the night before ‘you have passed till std. IX with distinction in all classes, in just two days... but now is the real test... your first board exam in Xth class... I hope you are prepared.’ When we reached a point where all I had was a space the size of a cell phone to put my foot on and go across... when I reached that point where when I looked down I knew either I get lucky and get across or I go down forever... when I crossed that god forsaken point... I just sat down and cried my gut out and the one person I really missed was mom. I thought I’d never be able to see her again. I just couldn’t stop crying for fear of never returning to the known... for fear of the unknown gulping me down without even farting!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Surinder couldn’t stop laughing at me and the one thing Satya really wanted was to shoot a video of me and put it up on YouTube, but he first calmed me down... and here’s what he said to me ‘look Sujata... you have to learn to see the bright side of things... I know there is a long risky way to go and you’re scared as hell but think of what this expedition would do for your massive ass!’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We came across many such ‘size of a cell phone’ points but all I could think of was my convex ass slowly concaving with all the exercise. After hours and hours of climbing the mountains where the only sounds were made by me like I was in labour pain... we reached Minkiyani pass. It amazes me how for men and women God is a greater item of necessity than is food... even at an altitude where hunger freezes, sensations freeze too... need doesn’t cease to breathe... the need to connect with God... At that altitude I saw a Lord <i>Shiva </i>temple with loads and loads of <i>trishuls </i>swerving in the breeze. Change kissed me again that evening with Gods smiling on us.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFmUw8UfqI/AAAAAAAAHCk/UOP8Omn04XE/s1600/DSC_0074.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFmUw8UfqI/AAAAAAAAHCk/UOP8Omn04XE/s640/DSC_0074.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">After getting a picture taken there to show to Sumeet (actually to put up on face book ;-)) if I ever touch ground... I went tumbling down on my ass over thick ice sheets for almost two miles until rocks summoned me for some more adventure...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFmj0kAFGI/AAAAAAAAHCs/R0aM2h8oy-c/s1600/DSC_0079.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFmj0kAFGI/AAAAAAAAHCs/R0aM2h8oy-c/s640/DSC_0079.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Finally came a cave our way with ice-ice all around and not a place to pee. We slept there with extremely cold winds cradling my fortitude all night long.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFmx-2tsmI/AAAAAAAAHC0/QGLmT0lgUT8/s1600/DSC_0105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFmx-2tsmI/AAAAAAAAHC0/QGLmT0lgUT8/s640/DSC_0105.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s all it was... that’s the trip in a nutshell... on our way back from next day onwards came villages as pristine as a child’s solitary dream... fruits hanging on trees as young as to make infancy feel shy... I went past the mountains slowly... grudging those that didn’t make any path for me so I had to jump across narrow escapes from death at times... but I often thanked those who gave their lives for carving the seldom paths out of the stubborn mountains, while they were alive.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFnLqs8pVI/AAAAAAAAHC8/_RZVQrYVAgs/s1600/DSC_0167.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TFFnLqs8pVI/AAAAAAAAHC8/_RZVQrYVAgs/s640/DSC_0167.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mountains may be stubborn and stiff... but they teach you that to live in fear of death is not half as good as to live like death could come take you any minute... so live your ultimate dream every second of your life.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TL8BsvY_uII/AAAAAAAAImY/6Rkm1L6afLg/s1600/India+2010+111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/TL8BsvY_uII/AAAAAAAAImY/6Rkm1L6afLg/s640/India+2010+111.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div></div>Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-89636597824049709282010-01-15T14:00:00.001-08:002010-01-15T14:24:15.202-08:00Oh God! Please make me a Mercedes Benz!<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><style>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">Two recent occurrences have been instrumental in making today a defining moment of my life. Few days back a pundit warned me against my black tongue which I should use sparingly, least I would harm someone. Yesterday however, when my friend Kanika enquired about the diminishing number of my blog posts I splashed the soot of my tongue all over myself. I said that I need to be in a state of severe depression to get inspired and so came the day that is TODAY.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">It would have been just fine if I were Mercedes Benz... C-class reins superior to an A-class unlike the grading system of human machines. When you slog like a dog and go on to ‘c’cure a C-grade in an academic paper then you ‘c’incerely feel like committing some ‘c’in. So here goes TODAY.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I woke early morn thinking I’m Pygmalion and the image of ‘A’ would soon be reality. I asked a close friend from class to collect my checked essay along with his own from college... saves energy you see... besides I was sure I’d Ace... only that the ‘A’ got missing. When my friend called back to inform me of the thunder-bolting, earth-shattering, bed linen-wetting, ceiling fan-falling news, I went numb for the longest time in which none of the things just mentioned happened. The professor had commented that it was an intelligent paper but the argument became shaky as the essay progressed. I started to weep from 11:58 am TODAY till just about ten minutes back. In this time I explored all possibilities of ending my life.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So if I jumped off the drawing room window then would it do the deal? Considering the house is on the first floor, it wouldn’t really be a mighty jump for an average joe but then I’m quite ‘unique’ (read ‘short’). So applying 5<sup>th</sup> standard physics I decreed that for me this would be a decent jump with 90% chances of achieving success in my future endeavour.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">However, before taking the final plunge I applied academic methodology to my problem. First I asked myself a question and then I argued the pros and cons. The question being why the hell am I so depressed? Is it because C-grade and I have never seen eye to eye before this and that I consider myself an exceptional student? Or is it because I asked a friend to bring my paper and so he knows my grade against which, I could have done this myself and then lied through my nose about it to other classmates?<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The answer is both with slightly more weightage to the latter argument. So if it’s really about the EQ (embarrassment quotient) then why the hell do I need to create a personal high jump record for it? Public memory is the only living phenomena on this planet that is shorter than my height. Soon my result would be forgotten and until then I can bask in the glory of being the unique piece of my class... 89% of the students have taken huge sums for loan to study this course, they wouldn’t dare write anything as lowly as to deserve a ‘C’ grade. By that virtue, there is a high probability of me being the precious special case deserving this honour. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Besides, I soaked ‘processed and packaged’ tree trunks with tears so that relatives would sympathise more than sermonise. Jumping from the window was ideated for similar reasons... to gather positive attention. Now this is not India to be honest and neighbours aren’t even remotely prying. Hence, after falling face down on the green grass outside my house, I’d slowly get covered with snow to take the shape of a mountain on which the Labrador of the man from the next building would come take a leak at sharp 6:15 pm. No one would save my mountainous arse until Sumeet turns up from his Sweden trip late tonight and by then I’d turn into a nursery rhyme... up above the world so high, like ‘A’ diamond in the sky...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I’m sorry I prefer to live than die... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So I’v decided to think of myself as a C-class Mercedes Benz... life can only be a smooth drive from here on.<br />
</div><br />
Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-64187835240487561342009-12-02T02:15:00.001-08:002009-12-02T02:15:23.712-08:00A-Free-ca Nation!!<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><title>Three Pillars of the Liberal Peace</title><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><style>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">Men have an inherent ineptitude for understanding feminine humour... so is the case with my partner Sumeet... he happened to chance upon my blog the other day to which he stated:<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Sumeet: Your blog is nothing but cheap babble...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Sujata: I cater to the masses.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Sumeet: it’s dirty pervert humour.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Sujata: I’m honest<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Sumeet: But you are doing masters in International Politics... you mind writing some intellectual stuff...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Sujata: I am an aberration...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">But to this I was challenged that I can’t survive a full page of politics... so here comes my latent dose of ‘The senses and the sensibilities’...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">A recently attended conference on the future of Africa left me wondering how my brain and shoe size haven’t grown in decades now... this was that sort of conference where cerebral matter is free flowing just like beer in the October Fest.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">There was a dainty-Danish policy-maker. Put her through a calculator along with the car she came in and she would work out to be costlier than India’s annual education budget. Then there was this stark white male politician from the UK... recently washed with fabric whitener... his face sat in embarrassing contrast to the African billionaire turned social worker at the other end of the panel.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The Mr. Britain was insistent on making donations to which Mr. Billionaire turned social worker was readily giving acceptances and why not should they?!!<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Even the beggar I see crawling all-over the Romford Train station every morning... has a steel (not steal) purple shuffle I-pod nano with Radio Dammit!! Can you imagine the unthinkable amount of wealth in the British coffers? Makes me appreciate PM Brown’s nonchalance at the World Economic Forum this year... the only man in history to ever have his phone go abuzz in the middle of his own speech!! <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Ms. Great Dane was unrelenting in her support for the donations likewise... this pocket size nation has lately started to jump for attention in the world arena graduating from chocolates to bottles of whisky when it flared it’s flag on a 3 km. long stretch of an island in the middle of the Arctic. So much so for their imperialist drills... and with Copenhagen set as the background for the forthcoming political photo-ops... Ms. Dane is buzzing with pride. These free dollars she offered to aid the Rip Van Winkle-ism of A-FREE-ca was only less than her pocket change. And all were happy in this ‘ring-a-ring-a-roses, with their pockets full of posies’<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">A-FREE-cans get some more years of paid-for-holiday, World Bank and IMF can say poverty is reducing in world’s second largest continent. Diplomats, journalists and social workers can make leisure-family trips to this land of the great apes and ‘we’, the bunch of goons sitting and witnessing this exchange of tax payer’s money can rest assure that a fruitful day has passed... where we saw some big-shots and got our photographs taken with them... something to be proud of in life!! <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The era of utilitarianism has seen another rising sun... Amen!<br />
</div><br />
Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-76749152476866523882009-11-23T18:16:00.001-08:002009-11-23T18:16:47.651-08:00How to write a perfect Cover Letter...<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><style>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">And so it all started as just another day and ended up like this... I always knew I had a part of my ass inside my head so it always felt a bit larger than the rest of my body... anyway, what’s the use cursing myself when I have ‘do the do’...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So I had a career day at college today and companies came to sell themselves to us... can you imagine how much the poor career cell head would have had to slog to get even those 4 companies on board in this time of recession... I mean it’s the worst kind of profile in these tough times... to try and get a bunch of dopey looking-‘trying to act smart’ type-college ruffians, some work to do...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Anyway so one particular guy who had come from one particular company was acting particularly cool and I went up to him at the end of the session to ask one particular question “If I send you my cover letter... do you want me to be brutally honest or painstakingly diplomatic?” and he confirmed in favour of the former... So here goes my Cover-Letter to him...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Dear XYZ,<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">You have seen me already so you know I am of slight disposition but of towering claims... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I was born and brought up in a small town with a bunch of morons for siblings and an activist for a father. He thought he was save-guarding my human rights by keeping me off all men except the three in my family... So the first thing I did when I got my first salary check was to call my dad and tell him “Hey dad! I am independent now and I have a boy friend... Oh! By the way he is Muslim...” <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I guess by now you must have gathered how much of a free, sovereign mind I have and oh! Also a self-starter... did you not use this specific word when you were selling your company?<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Anyway... about being able to work in teams... let me carry forward the theme of my boy-friends to explain how I truly am an adjusting person. I have made a record number of 7 boyfriends in my life so far of which 2 were Muslims (one Shia and the other Sunni), two Christians (Protestant and Catholic... the latter asked me to convert and I showed him my back side...), then there was a Sikh and one nonbeliever... one of them spoke a lot about his car and his father’s money so I never got to figure out his religion, though he was a good kisser... So that’s the story of my national integration sealed with a kiss... At the end of which, I have prudently adjudged a settlement over a south Indian boy as that part of the nation was hitherto unharmed by my manoeuvres. Believe me when I say that I have the ability to integrate teams... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Once the team work issue is resolved I would like to touch upon my hard working abilities... well you see I have been born and brought up in a third world nation. The phrase “working like a dog” that Beatles so cunningly added to their famous lyrics... came from my side of the fence... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Ah! and I forgot to mention my organisational and planning skills... Ok so here’s a lesson for you... never ask a woman this question... There’s no species better at planning and organising than Lady-dom and hence, it’s always a man who gets perfect surprises and it’s always a woman who is left only dreaming of them...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">About my intellect, I’ll tell you a thing or two... I am smart, young and I look good... that’s half the battle won... I’m sure you won’t pay me more than what is worth winning half a battle for anyway... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Finally coming to the question of having the writing skills... if you’ve still not figured out then you will never figure out...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I hope I have satisfied you completely and now I hope to hear from you soon so I could exhibit my linguistic skills as well...<br />
</div><br />
Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-6749036160285956062009-11-22T12:02:00.001-08:002009-11-22T12:02:50.143-08:00I was a woman in an electronics store!!<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><style>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">What does it take to be a woman in an electronics store? Ensure that you know nothing... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I experienced the bitter-sweet brainlessness of my own today at an electronics store...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Sumeet (my partner) and I went to buy an iMac at the world’s largest Apple store (well this is the only thing I can boast I know... doesn’t take too much brain for this though). Now this is a system that Sumeet has been lusting after, before I entered his life and so I was spared the embarrassment of having to see him stand outside Apple stores with his horns sticking out. But today he almost hit me with one of those very horns man! The reason being my shameless womanhood...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So here’s the scenario. At half past three Sumeet and I entered the store fully loaded with cash and my student ID card since King’s College students get 12% discount on the machine we were buying... Sumeet’s mouth was dripping with longing for the iMac Quad-core (Oops! I was just about to write Quad-pro... save me man-God!!)<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The store assistant (SA) positively-certainly confirmed that they only have the Dual-core and the one that we want is out of stock... I shot my first question...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Me: What’s a Quad-Core any way? (After trying myriad ways of explaining to me and failing... here came the master stroke that did it...)<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">SA: It’s basically a man with a multiple personality disorder... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Me: And what’s this RAM thingi?? (By now the assistant had entered my brain and was sitting inside comfortably)<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">SA: It’s like a re-usable plastic bag.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Me: And how much can it contain?<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">SA: Near about 4000 potatoes and you can pay some extra bucks and buy a bigger one that would carry 16000 potatoes...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Me: Wow! That’s a lot. I’d never be able to use that much space... but then if I have this plastic bag then why do I need this 1-tera byte Hard disk crap?<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">SA: Oh! Well you’d need to keep your vegetables safe in some place right... so it’s like the Refrigerator... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Me: Ok I promise this is my last question or Sumeet will kill me... What the hell is this damn Graphic card that one has to pay 200 quids for?<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">SA: Ok tell me when you want a complete face-lift and when you’re in a mood to look perfect what is it that does the magic?<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Me: Oh! I could just visit a nice Salon on strand and spend hours getting a facial and some steam treatment done... to look bright, clean, fresh and young!!<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">SA: So this graphic card does exactly that to the graphic images on this machine... so now do you think all this money would be well spent?<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Me: I guess this is the only way for me to feel that I am benefitting from my education... I mean getting a discount on the student’s card... so maybe yup! Makes sense... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">By now Sumeet was dying to drag me out of the store cos I had embarrassed him and amused the passer-by’s enough for a day... or maybe a year... but I still had my House-wife-ly questions... like a pond that would never die!! I started to pour myself out, outside the the store.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">“Baby if this is a desktop computer then where the hell is that phallic looking CPU”, I implored.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Possessed with anger yet restraining Sumeet: Sweetheart it’s in there... for once it’s not sticking out you see...<br />
</div><br />
Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-55230040526057390112009-11-20T06:50:00.003-08:002009-11-20T06:50:30.623-08:00A lonesome night!!<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">It was simply mind numbing last night. Sumeet (my partner) was off to Germany for 2 days and I had to sleep alone... sleeping alone is like having to go partying alone... it’s so irritating...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I spent half the night staring at the walls and the rest of the half thinking since have nothing better to do so I might as well just keep staring at the walls...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Thoughts and sounds came flooding in... even the air walking in and out of my room seemed to disturb me and I freaking wanted it to shut-up... and then I started to think of this best friend of mine... now she is a TV actress back in India and she is really hot. But being hot had nothing to do with the creatives of the show deciding to put her as a vamp in the soap, and a terribly ugly one at that... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">In essence a woman who looks like Denise Richards ends up looking like Donald Rumsfeld... so you see what make-up can do to people... and when such an ugly face enters the realm of your painful solitude... you just wish you had died or something. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So before I could recover from my self immolating thoughts... the vamp started to light a match-stick, just like she did in one of the episodes, and she dropped it on her greasy-shiny dress... I so wished she would just burn that ugliness but she instead started to call out for help...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I gasped... I jumped off my bed and shouted... cos I remembered that’s exactly what she did in one of her shows... and then the family came running to her rescue and the self victimised vamp won their sympathy... <br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Damn! I remembered how this particular episode had inspired one of my neighbour’s kid back in India. The moron went ahead and performed the same scene in front of his own family. I wanted to slap him tight when his mother came and told this to my mum... who is some sort of a social worker. She wanted us to talk to his son and show him the better looking, the real side of my best friend... so he knew that reality is nothing like fiction...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Ironically, the only picture of Anu that I had at that time was of her in a bikini... one of her portfolio pics... I moved to the UK a day after this event...<br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">God knows what that lamp-brain would have done to himself after seeing his ideal and my best friend in a bikini...<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/SwarJx76BAI/AAAAAAAAB5A/AAXeUQq-5KQ/s1600/goldie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IMY_QY8qJ0Y/SwarJx76BAI/AAAAAAAAB5A/AAXeUQq-5KQ/s320/goldie.jpg" /></a><br />
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Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-44114527274577787172009-11-19T08:52:00.000-08:002009-11-19T08:54:41.486-08:00Attention!! or Stand at ease!!<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:relyonvml/> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> 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margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} p.MsoNoSpacing, li.MsoNoSpacing, div.MsoNoSpacing {mso-style-priority:1; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:12.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Today I took a record 5 hours to read a 32 page article man!!... It could mean 2 things... either the author was a total nincompoop who actually came up with such a whole lot of <span style=""> </span>randomness or that my attention span is that of a fish... I can go round and round a million times and still find the same point new and novel... or it could mean both at the same time.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Either ways... I so I wish I was a fish in an aquarium... it’s a simple life really... someone will change the water for you, feed you and stare at you for hours so you never let your vanity rest. All you need to do is look pretty and not feast on the plastic pieces that kids like to drop into to the aquarium under the eyes of their parents...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">I can’t stand such wicked kids... they remind me of George Bush in his nappy pads... not that I ever saw him in them but I’m sure he still has to wear them... considering how easily he’d get wet at the mention of the word “oil”...
<br /></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">I sometimes wonder what would be of the world if all men were to be so effortlessly excitable... All the top positions would be held by women cos the men would be home, running their pants through a dryer...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">But if dryers were to run all the time, it would dry up our energy resources faster than the pants themselves... what will become of Obama’s ethical war against Climate Change...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Ah! That explains why he allowed Shell to dig oil and gas fields in the Arctic... now even if it’s a ghastly step away from his Ethical War... it sure helps him keep his pants dry... After all the odds of not allowing so were almost as bad as a Black-Male... I mean blackmail.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Oh! But I was talking about a 32 page article and look where I’ve come... attention crisis is it!!</p> Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-64906438352133450472009-11-18T23:37:00.000-08:002009-11-18T23:39:00.643-08:00When your ball gets tired... your brain starts functioning!!<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> 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mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Not very long ago in time... the Neanderthals lived by the rule of daggers and axes... the spill-overs of those in this sophisticated age and time now fancy the use of brain for a change... Beware of them, cos they always move around in groups for fear of attack from the superior race. They are called Shiv Sane-Dicks and they are so obsessive about guarding their autonomy, their existence, that they shun parting from anything that has to do with them... every bit of them is precious... even their faeces and so they don’t let it drain... they carry it around in their brain... explains why their heads are so full of crap. </p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Their last survivors are scattered around pockets in Maharashtra where they have spread havoc by applying rules from their era... no one can kiss in public areas, Bihari population is not allowed entry into what they call their domain and this one is especially interesting... they are trying to champion the Hindi Language... all shops, offices, public and private places have to have their names engraved in Hindi along with their English counterparts....</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">So the other day I came across a particularly interesting Hindi version of a book shop’s name... Lundmark (Dick-Mark) for Landmark... explains why a man called Ball-Thak-Re (literally translates to “Balls are tired”) would have suggested this absurd rule. So tired of using his balls that he prefers using his brain over them... god knows how his poor wife manages... </p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">But that’s exactly what a highly accomplished journalist asked him once on a highly accomplished TV show...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Journalist: So Mr. Ball Thank-re (BTR)... what does your wife do?</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">BTR: She doesn’t have to do much... I have an entire <i style="">Sena</i> (Army) to do her... Oh! I mean to do for her...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Journo: So what does your Sena do when it’s not doing your... I mean, doing for your wife...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">BTR: Oh! Then it’s doing those who are doing out in the open.</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Journo: Oh but Ball you should atleast allow people to do out in the open on Valentine’s Day... it’s a day of love...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">BTR: We don’t stop anyone from doing... we just ask them to keep their eyes open while they do... our Sane-Dicks could be round the corner... Besides, we did a Dick-Stick survey and we found out that our policies are widely accepted...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Journo: One of them being you hatred for the Biharis... What do you have against them?</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">BTR: I don’t have anything against them. I just don’t like the balls of their Hairy-eared leader... they are like amoeba man! He’s produced 9 off-springs through them and they are still going strong.</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Journo: Oh! So it’s really about the Balls at the end of it... explains your interest in cricket... I heard you recently wrote an open letter of discontent to Sachin Tendulkar condemning his statement “I am an Indian first and a Maharashtrian later...” must have been hard-on you to take this nonsense...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">BTR: Oh! By the grace of Shivaji, I am never subject to hard-on (s). It was a common place matter and I wrapped it off by warning him to keep his balls confined to the cricket field...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Journo: Well played sir! Thank you so much for this enlightening talk. I’m sorry I can’t get up... my balls are stuck to the seat...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">BTR: Bollocks!! </p> Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1133781140747837235.post-26550453411534402092009-11-18T17:36:00.001-08:002009-11-18T17:36:56.782-08:00Life after marriage<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgolumotu%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 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mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Life after marriage has wicked ways of getting itself noticed. You'd read about it in places but you won't notice it until you're in it... like the billboard for a Russian Play at the Eastbound Circle line platform at the Liverpool Street Station... I really never noticed it until I actually started to learn Russian...
<br />
<br />And now I am one of the privileged majority that surrenders itself for the cause of humanity... privileged cos I have the power of knowledge... and how I use this knowledge is by warning those who haven’t as yet done the deal. But I know I fight a fallen battle...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Life after marriage is like gulping a spoonful of English Mustard... there’d be lots of those who’d warn you against it... including myself.... but that will only bolster your courage to try what it really is... </p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Believe me it blows your nostrils and it enters your system with such gusto that you won’t have time to turn back time. It will blind you, make you the extreme opposite of immobile, the bitter repudiate of insouciance, the culpable antithesis of ecstatic, the antonym of every antonym... and the first antonym you will most relate to after marrying... or eating a spoonful of English Mustard... will be that of “LOVE”</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Life after marriage is the process of being shaken out of inertia... it’s almost like the quick fix change of an age old authoritarian regime to a democracy... look what happened to India when the British left us suddenly... there was chaos, a civil war, lots of deaths and a divided nation... do you remember the rampant looting in Iraq when the Saddam Regime was toppled... Oh! How would you remember... neither were you present there... nor are you an International Relations student like me... who’d care for such news... Anyway! The point is... Life after marriage kicks you out of subliminal reveries of singlehood and makes you an amaranthine temporal asinine... an everlasting materialistic dim-wit is what I meant to say in simple English... </p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">It changes everything you ever believed in... Especially this one... almost all of us grew up under aegis of good parenthood that taught us to share everything. So we started off by looking for someone we could share our love with... in the life after marriage... you want to suck back all that love out of that same person... so you feel like the death eaters of Harry Potter... </p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Conversations change from:</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">A: Baby I love...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">B: But baby I love you more...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">To</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">A: Baby I still love you...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">B: But I’m not so sure...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Strangely, rhyming... but that’s how life after marriage is... it takes you go round in riddles... and you pay a heavy price for this ride...</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">But don’t believe me... cos it’s really not all so bad... and after all I don’t want to be the one to be blamed for your screwed up barren-land of a life... </p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">I just had an argument with my sweetheart over who will wash the utensils and he finally succumbed to my pressure... now that I have nothing better to do with myself as I sit pointlessly in front of this godforsaken laptop... with whom I spend more time than with my husband... I just feel like writing rubbish and that’s what I just did...</p> Sujata setiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15305155510819128234noreply@blogger.com4