Death it is...

 

Weird thing this death business, a spectacle of cosmic jests and mortal waltzes. Wisdom (sic!) tells me that all life's footfalls must one day halt, save for the resilient cockroach.

For years, I fancied myself a maestro of farewells, tutored in the art by none other than Dad himself, a seasoned veteran in his tangoes with the Grim Reaper since 1997. The four times he came close to exit, each a jest played upon mortality's stage was a standing joke. So, when I embarked on my journey to Mangalore on February 4th, hearing that he’s at that fateful door again, I fancied myself 'prepared,' a guise of fortitude donned in anticipation of the inevitable.

Entering the ICU on that Sunday morning, I saw, not the frail specter of impending departure, but the vibrant visage of the father I knew, brimming with life's spark, counting the hours to see me. His whimsy demanded the forbidden indulgence of chicken biryani within the sterile confines of the intensive care unit. We reveled in the joy of bending the rules, a gleeful rebellion against the solemn dictates of circumstance.

In the days that followed, as Dad danced on the precipice of eternity, our discourse turned to matters of mortality. He, the sage puppeteer, orchestrating his final act with mischief in his eyes, and I, the eager acolyte, entranced by his whimsical defiance of fate. Yet, beneath the laughter lay a solemn truth, whispered in the hush of bedside conversations—his weariness, his longing for release.

It took me 2 days to finally listen, really listen to Daddy. He was tired, mentally, and physically. He wanted to die. He wanted us to understand and accept.

His desire was to go home, his final pilgrimage from the sanctuary of familiar walls. In the ensuing four days, amidst tender embraces, feeding and cleansing his frail body, I was weaving threads of acceptance and grace into the fabric of our farewells.

At 12:15 pm on Thursday 15 February, after he drank his favorite pomegranate juice, Dad said, 'Finished' and I said, ‘Yeah the juice is done’ and he gently shook his head until I understood that he was referring to his journey on earth.

I looked into his eyes and said, 'Yes Daddy, it is. Go in peace'. He tried to mouth something I didn't get, and I kept asking him to repeat it until I realized that he was saying Jesus.

I asked him, 'Is your Jesus calling you?' Daddy nodded yes. I said, 'Then you should go'. He gently closed his eyes, and it looked like he was in a deep slumber.

Now back to this death business, methinks that had I gone to see my Dad in a casket, I would have the burden of the if-only’ s, the would haves, could haves, should haves.

Instead, I'm effused with peace and a sense of accomplishment. I spent ten priceless days with my father, flouting every rule of what he could and couldn't eat and drink. Fun conversations, deep debates when he would gently reprimand me and I would ask him, 'How can I be any different, after all whose daughter am I?' to him fragile as he was, proudly pointing to himself; the laughter, tears, cuddles and above all love in its purest form.

I know it was inevitable, I knew it was the way things are meant to be, but I didn't see this one coming.

This hollow feeling that a fundamental need is unsatisfied and will never be fulfilled.

This feeling of death.

Of the living.

Mine.

His heart stopped at 5:15 pm and I switched off his oxygen concentrator and in that sacred silence, as his spirit took flight, I bade adieu to not only a father but to the child within, cradled in the warmth of his unconditional love.

My father thought I was brave, strong, capable and beautiful. The child that thrived in the complete faith he had in me, died with him.

I celebrate my father's life and mourn the death of the daughter I was.

She’s my trouble… What to do

 Is what I’d like my epitaph to read.

So, when the children were young, they’d listen to music not conducive to the prescribed norm and when Rod Stewart belted out Van Morrison’s ,"Have I told you lately that I Love You"… a 3 year old Alder would chime along and end with “She’s my trouble… what to do” in parody of “Ease my troubles… that’s what you do” and glance at me meaningfully.

Was for me an avowal. Trouble is everlasting. Good times are fleeting. Now call me out on this. Please. I dare you.

Like the year this is. Jeez, we’ve been lamenting about the misery and the misfortune and doomsday blah blah. Call me out on this. I dare you.

Cut the crap. Really. We’re alive, every breath we take is a testament to the fact that we’re still kicking. Our ability to ‘function’ as ‘normal’ is impaired. Our grand plans are stalled. We’ve lost loved ones. Lost vocations, vacations and ill-advised fornications. Lost our means for living. Lost avenues for loving. Our ship seems rudderless. Our flights (more of grandiose and fancy) are grounded.

Yet I’m here penning this and you’re here reading this.

More than a little tired of the lamentations, doomsday conspiracy theorists, religious nuts, conformists, rebels, fatalists, and pessimists. A lot more than a little actually.

Yes the year has been a challenge but excuse me, who exactly declared that one is ‘entitled’ to a life that’s sans strife and curve balls?

The measure of a fulfilled life is how one battles on despite the bellows of the Taurus or the gauge of a cannon or even the lure of a mermaid.

We’re dished out infested broth, worse than served at Guantanamo Bay. From hangovers of a miserable childhood to relationships that crippled us to circumstances that stunt us to careers that impaled us. Yeah, it happened. Unfortunate, unwarranted, unforgivable. Like this year, 2020.

Choices… choices on how to process them.

If one believes that we’re here for the long haul and that it’s peachy cream all the way, time to swallow the BS?

Stock check time, Christmas is… for me.

Despite all the vagaries of the current environment and its uncertainties I’d like to believe this has been a year that was bloody brutal yet hauntingly authentic. Of acceptance, elevation and zen. To that which is stronger than self. To the fears that surfaced and made us question our mortality, self-importance, impotence and incompetence.

End this soppy outpouring on a positive, placating note?  Nopes.

 In 1949, J. E. Lawrence in the Nebraska State Journal said:

"New land is harsh, and vigorous, and sturdy. It scorns evidence of weakness. There is nothing of sham or hypocrisy in it. It is what it is, without an apology."

Suck it up and swallow.

Sniff while you’re at it.

Smile too.

Pleasurable really.

This life… she’s my trouble… What to do!

Doobious thoughts...

 ‘The Social Dilemma’ movie on Netlfix though has many takeaways, the one that stayed with me was the conclusion that the intent of social media sites was never the current status quo where our thought process and choices are manipulated via AI systems.

Add to that was the centenary celebration video released by St. Agnes College Mangalore, the educational institute I spent 14 years in. Watching the video did cause my C cups to distend. The pictures circa 100 years ago as well as the motive behind women’s education in an age where the primary goal of a woman was servitude is awe inspiring.

Momentarily however.

The commentary that “The shaping of a woman though rooted in values yet soars on the wings of autonomy of thought and action sums up perfectly the role of the Agnesian Alma mater” caused the sinsemilla calmed nerves to leap into a frenzy of WTF.

A tirade is marching on furiously in my head and I’m knuckling down to keep it at bay lest this seems a vitriolic expose’. I’m sure there are many women who found wings to soar and it must have enhanced the quality of their lives.

My experience was different as I rebelled against the conditioning. Well it’s no secret that I was a terrible student and failed almost every exam, add to the fact that I had no fear of authority, academics bored me and I couldn’t shut up. Terrific recipe for disaster in any school really.

Leads me to think that almost all grand plans begin with the right intent, whether educational institutions, social media, ideologies, social and charitable organizations and the like. The intent being the augmentation of the human spirit.

Somewhere along the line we lose the plot. To me that is the direct result of ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Not dwelling on this as I use the wax for another purpose this time.

Secessionist me balks at the fallacies we employ to justify our actions and thinking, to ourselves and others. To a degree that the sanctification which began as a simple lie becomes the truth even in our own minds.

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. There must a Nazi in most of us, yours truly included as we have this insatiable need for the sanctions of others, to this end we fabricate what seems like harmless confabulations which culminate in altering the truth until it is replaced by our version of it especially in ethical actions.

I listen to reminisces of the elderly and I question my sanity as I do not remember the incidents they narrate in quite the same fashion, my dad talks about things that I’m pretty certain are a figment of his imagination but then I brush it off as senility.

When my friends and acquaintances however resort to distortion I struggle with calling them out on the BS. Oh and this is singular to myself too. The whoppers I’ve indulged in over time are enough to make my face transmogrify into a congress of female baboon butts. Yeah, that crimson!

Now that we’re talking bottoms, the line I’d like to end with is… the truth however ugly, is empowering. It’s fine to be a shithead as long as you recognize you are one and try to better it. It’s fine if you fail, you’re learning. The journey begins with being true, to yourself.

And with that it’s to doobie or not doobie…

A musings...

 Anjali and I were discussing Samira’s English assignment and were debating on the right answer to the question and Sam pipes, but there is no right answer, it’s in the interpretation. Out of the mouth of babes!

Can’t help but lament that the English teachers we had, had no background in teaching the classics really, not their fault I guess. It was the system and methinks this continues to date in Indian schools. We were taught poetry and prose and they all had to have a definitive answer, which is ridiculous. I get it that that there are rules to transcription that one needs to follow. Rather than teaching us those metrics, we were encouraged to accept the teacher’s understanding of the text. 

Similar to the formula applies to our grasp of life itself. Our culture/parents/environment/religion have conditioned us to believe that there is indeed a set blueprint we need to live by, which we do mindlessly and those who don’t are labeled.

Began the process of debunking theories and walked away from that which didn’t nourish growth of the soul. I ponder over the tenets of my rather shallow existence and find myself delving deeper into the recesses of the self. 

As I try to get down to the brass tacks, I examine my actions currently and compare them with how I used to emote. The amount I cringe at the many perspectives and the demeanor employed to execute them ensures that there are some muscles that are growing tighter, kegelly!

We are a bloody judgemental lot and that is the hardest shackle I’m trying to break free of. Almost at two score and ten years of age and yet I feel like I’m beginning afresh.

I have a deep appreciation of the Dutch culture and their ability to prioritize on and abide in the theory of individualism over collectivism. Of the conviction they exude in living their lives sans the prescription that I was raised with. To religion, morality, culture, affiliation, orientation, nation and the neighborhood gossip.

Nopes, not generalizing here. Like we have oddballs in our culture, I’m sure they do too. 

Not a lament on my background and culture either. Stating a fact as I see it. I do wish however that I employed the same with my children and allowed them the freedom to figure out which shade of the rainbow they are instead of deciding for them which they should be.

Well, one learns and I must say it’s liberating. Go easy on others and above all yourself is the current mantra. Life has no formula except one, kindness. The rest is BS.

Endgame...

The spate of suicides we’re hearing about has added an edge to the current environment and I suppose the outpouring of emotion is also colored by our own exigencies.

Each of us is trying to rally on and believe that there is a swift end to the unreal world we exist in the now.

That there is a reason for this; from God’s wrath, Karma’s troth, Nature’s retribution and Conspiracy attribution.

Rationalizations we indulge in make sense to each of us uniquely based on our filters and perceptions.

Much as we’d like to extol our fatalistic and accepting virtues, mere mortals that we are rally against the eventuality of dying.

Among the most celebrated poems on death the one that stays with me is Dylan Thomas’s:

“Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Says much about our humble acquiescence!

We’re posting on social media about reaching out and being there for each other while trying to make sense of the suicides. I even received a call this morning from an ex colleague after a decade!

Kudos to the lovely gestures, here’s my two bit. I cannot swallow all the time, need to spit too. Well actually gargle. One of my loony friends believes that the expression of true love is not swallowing but gargling. So there you go.

While we’re passing judgments on SSR and lending a ear to those who may need it, let’s ask ourselves if we find it easy to reach out?

The dark night and the burden of its dead weight is the yoke my shoulders are insidiously granulating under

Desolate seems the landscape of morrow

Dying by the minute is the beacon of the lighthouse

Rally on you say and…why?

Walked a meter in my shoes have you?

Ever been the melted marshmallow in my s’more?

Judge if you must if it's cowardice or bravado…

I decide when my race is run

And with a slit of my wrist, the deed is done

Hello people… the above is NOT a avowal of intent NOR plea for sympathy, empathy, pathi and all that bull crap.

It’s an honest recant of how I feel sometimes and I’m not very sure of how many people have in certain times in their lives felt the same. 

Maybe my conviction was not very strong and that’s what stopped me or maybe I grew tired of my own drama and said to myself, ‘shake it off you little f*ck’ and perchance it’s my keeda that said, ‘oh but you have so much more havoc to wreak’. 

Playing out my funeral in my head has helped as well (I have cried such bitter tears for me in that coffin than anyone ever will for sure!) as I have imagined my parents and children’s countenances and ditched the grand plans.

Ah back to suicide, depression is an illness and let’s not discount that. Is it easy for someone to reach out to a friend or an acquaintance, may not be so. 

Have you been a friend who has been nonjudgmental, accepting and evoked a deep sense of faith and trust? 

Could I randomly call you with all that assails me? 

Will you call me when you’re in the dumps? Do you think I will hear and help? 

Will you feel foolish like I do? 

Are you afraid that you will be laughed at or worse a topic for gossip?

Does the admonishment or lecture you are likely to get stop you?

When your friend begins to isolate, rather than allowing your ego to chafe, maybe watch for other signals of depression and get them to accept medical help. 

Similar with us as individuals, when you recognize that you don’t have your game together, reach out to gossamer strings that bind your soul and towards professional help. 

It’s an illness like all other and if we can have no qualms about talking about a visit to the physician, why balk at an appointment with a psychologist/ psychiatrist.  

Finally, let’s stop passing judgement on the decisions people make, to live or die. To each his own.

Mine...

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I presented a book review.

The book I chose was Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’ a book I read again for the fifth time and each time I find new meaning and takeaways.

I winged it like I normally do. Sigh! The universe however seemed to conspire in my favor  as I received decent feedback on the presentation.

Truth be told I’m a lazy f*ck. If I can get away with my apparent charm (sic!) or the apparent illusion of someone who’s got their game, I will.

I did spend some time on the speech draft and while I was writing it, a few hours before the presentation I was nervous (a rare occurrence) and worried that I wouldn’t do the book the justice it deserves.

Time to present and I do so with absolute joy, the abundance of which all else seems pallid and it did! For the 7 odd minutes I was in a state of pure euphoria and ecstasy.

Post the review, I got to hear that it was decent and was thanked. Which confounded me really, I didn’t do anything that stemmed from altruism, I did it for myself, for the absolute pleasure it gave me.

Books are my lifeblood, the gossamer strings that bind my soul and the juice that fuels my engine.

Ironic the choice of the book really. The Fountainhead is all about the individual over collectivism.

Posting below an excerpt from Howard Roark’s speech below:

“It had to be said: The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing. I came here to be heard in the name of every man of independence still left in the world. I wanted to state my terms. I do not care to work or live on any others. My terms are: A man's RIGHT to exist for his own sake.”

The book review was what I did, for my own sake. Which got me thinking, in much of this drama called life we do things that resonate with us intrinsically. 

Yet we cloak it in a mantle of self-sacrifice and make it seem like we’re doing it for others.

Time to call out one’s bullshit, mine primarily.

I exist, for myself. Much of what I do is because it makes me happy. And I’m finally not ashamed to say it.

My choices on how my life should be and who needs to be in it stems from my need to feel fulfilled.

Within my core.

Fumble, stumble and crumble I will. But will find the faith that Christ’s doubting disciple lacked at first and discovered later.

Mine! and I claim it. Without apology.

Them Blemishes...

Growing old doesn’t plague me as much as growing up (not happening!) does. However, one must respect the law of gravity and what it does to one’s bodies.

I try not to look in the mirror often but when I do, the blemishes I’m developing on my face bother me.

Decided to check with my gynecologist who I was visiting for my hot flushes/ flashes and let me explain, not of the amorous kind, although these want me to tear off my clothes too!

Web MD: “Hot flashes are one of the most common signs of perimenopause, the years leading up to menopause. Intense heat starts in your chest and rises to your neck and head. Beads of sweat grow until perspiration run down your face. It’s a hot flash due to menopause, and it’s a loooong five minutes until it passes. Multiply that by 20 or 30 and you can call it a day.”

So my doctor grimly announces that it’s my genetics and perimenopause that affects the unbecoming blotches on the face and prescribes an anti-blemish cream. Hey Ho!

While I was applying it on my face after a shower a few minutes ago, the question popped, you’re working on eliminating the blots on the façade, what about those on your soul? 

Heaven knows there’s enough there to qualify for a many splendored speckled mosaic. Pun intended.

No seriously, why is the assiduity to the exterior exigent, while to the interior inconsequential. How am I working on refurbishing the innate quirks that desperately need redress. 

One of my multiple personalities is giggling like a meth addict while another has merely raised a lazy eyebrow languorously supine on a hammock, the other pushes the faith of my parents for answers and then there’s one who gently counsels.

The sully doesn’t define me, there’s room for improvement for sure and it may not be via enslavement, apathy or religion but needs to stem from the soul.

How I'm going to action the thought may well be the strength of my character (not from the theater of the absurd I hope) and the verisimilitude of my mettle. 

Blame-ish on me!

Know when to fold 'em...

Begrudged rumination is my bête noir, I swear. I’d rather flit through life blithesome or at least fake it till I make it. Sigh… the well laid plans of mice and men and all that jazz indeed.

Grand plans were and are explicitly not my savoir vivre. Darn the grand bit, them blasted plans have in perpetuum dwelt in the lower echelons of my peregrination.

Perchance it’s the fault in my stars or the genuine dope that the ruling Neptune of my Piscean star sign is farthest from the sun. Apt that. I’m equally removed from here and now.  

The current monomania is the desolate landscape, unrequited wasteland… to borrow brazenly from T S Elliot:

“I have heard the key

Turn in the door once and turn once only

We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison”

Reiterates the everlasting trepidation that the prison bound by gossamer strands will be a forever Achilles heel. And what of that?

The lack of sentiment there and its paucity which demands the change that must occur seems like a strange blue hue of a celestial body of what children once believed to be made of cheese.

Yeah yeah I’m an aper and a shameless one at that.

So yeah… for once I’ve schemed a blueprint to this odyssey and the Greek goddess Moira decrees an ambush via a pathogen.

Downing white Moscato furtively is shoddy yet emboldens the pen I wield brazenly. Hic!

A tribute to Kenny Rogers and a lesson I’m ending this lachrymosal musing:

“You've got to know when to hold 'em

Know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run

You never count your money

When you're sittin' at the table

There'll be time enough for countin'

When the dealin's done”

…hic!

Froggy Style...

So the furore over Priyanka and Unnao seems to have petered out and the brouhaha aborted. As is norm. Until the next Buzkashi is thrown into the field for the media and junta to drag around that is.

Opinions were strewn like a farmer sowing paddy and in Priyanka’s case, they were rather over shadowed by the end meted out to the perpetrators.

Of all the rinky-dink offered freer than condoms to sex workers, I’d like to sum my two-cents too!

I firmly believe that we tripped over ourselves in the rush to ‘allow’ our women privileges and forgot the poor bystander of a man holding lauda in hand wondering WTF.

I’m borrowing heavily from the paper published by Pennsylvania State University authored by Audra Hixson and Dr. Peggy Lorah, titled “Power and Privilege”.

A proverbial frog in a well has no awareness that it is in water because the water has always been there. It only notices the water when it is taken out of it, and then what it notices is the absence of the water, not its presence. (Spoiler alert! – the frog is the protagonist of this narrative)

We live in an environment that is infused with power and privilege where personal power often relates directly to levels of privilege. which we are unconscious of really, to us it’s the norm, it’s what was always done, what we know and is part of our DNA, pretty much like the frog! Take away the power and privilege and voila we flounder since we’re now made aware if its absence… it’s presence always goes unnoticed. Mais c'est comme ça.

Privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of anything they have done or failed to do. (Johnson, 2006, p. 21)

With this privilege comes personal power (did Spiderman same something along the same lines???) that has societal acceptance.

Power is better understood via familial and employment structures, parents have power over their children because they can set rules and dole out consequences and rewards regarding those rules. Like teachers over pupils and bosses over subordinates, husbands over wives ( largely) you get the drift.

We know that worldwide, approximately one in five women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape (UN Millennium Project, 2005). We also know that one in three will have been physically abused in some form, including beatings and the coercion to have sex (Heise, 1999).

I do not  have the statistics for women in India, I’d like to believe they are way higher.

The vast majority of these assaults are committed by men, a male in our society has power over any woman based on the reality that a woman knows that the perpetrator is likely to be male. A man may never assault or harm a woman, but the prevalence of violence against women by men automatically gives him power based on his gender leaving the woman less power as she is unable to  exercise the same freedoms as a man based on fear of being assaulted. Going out alone after dark is only one example of this dynamic.

Only rarely will a man go beyond acknowledging that women are disadvantaged to acknowledging that men have unearned advantage, or that unearned privilege has not been good for men's development as human beings, or for society's development, or that privilege systems might ever be challenged and changed. (McIntosh, 1998, p. 95)

Women are more likely to see domestic violence, workplace harassment, and wage discrimination as major barriers to their quality of life than men are owing heavily to the power and privilege associated by gender.

It may well be that a man is aware of a woman’s situation and yet might attribute it to her character rather than the environment she lives in.

-          She wore ‘revealing’ clothes and ‘asked’ for it

-          If a woman smokes, drinks, is gregarious: she’s giving signals that she’s game

Much of the privilege and power that men have over women in our culture today is unearned power. It isn’t just the man, a woman herself is the enemy of her own sex. Indian women largely support patriarchy and are brutally judgmental about their ilk.

To draw a conclusion, Milind Soman (sigh!)… ages ago when asked about the most definitive moment that changed the course of Indian society cited the advent of Satellite TV into the average ‘sitting duck’ Indian’s home that insidiously permeated and clawed into our psyche.

While I watched M.A.S.H and Remington Steele (sigh again!)… the Mangy world was enthralled by ‘Bold & Beautiful’ and ‘Santa Barbara’ as I imagine was, most of urban India.

Not to digress, but women of my generation began the advent into awareness… varying from career choices to sexuality and yet had to live with the truth that we were ‘underprivileged’ and  ‘powerless’ purely based on the fact that we had tits and a vag.

We grew daughters to whom we imparted in a convoluted and flawed manner that ‘you could be who you want to be’… if you followed certain ‘societal’ norms. A crying shame really.

Change is not like an orgasm, quick and fleeting. It’s a long drawn process much like foreplay.

Yes, it would be great if men recognized the ‘power and privilege’ they were born into by virtue of the phallus and testicles so as to enhance self-awareness of the bias.

More importantly it would be to educate the generation of boys yet to be men to share this inheritance with their women and for women to step away from ‘accepting their troth’ and believing that true freedom comes when we uplift each other, underwired bra fashion and abort froggy style!

Fail yours...

Three years ago we won the ICDC Debate contest of the Division in Toastmasters. Today, we were Runners up, which technically means that we lost.

So the sham philosopher in me preaches that the best learning arises from a loss. Damn I’m frikking ‘woke’ in that case considering that loss is my current posse.

But not. I’m a sore loser.

With things that matter. With the who that matter and the ‘it’ who matters.

So failure is my best teacher right… let me attempt to list down my learnings.

Life owes me nothing.

Irrespective of how much I invest, be it faith or emotion or sheer drudgery of chores… life dishes out mindlessly it seems, of what it deems fit.

Often quite the antithesis of my deepest desires.

Giving does not necessarily means that you will receive.

Patience does not translate into victory.

Love is not a lofty emotion that guarantees reciprocity.

This path you walk is solitary.

Effort no matter how deep and definite is not a formula for success.

And insidiously the desire to sink into the calm obscurity of defeat beckons invitingly.

Tentatively I test its tepid waters.

Oblivion’s embrace is welcoming, comforting.

Hamlet’s immortal question runs on loop in my head.

I want to shrug, like Ayn Rand’s Atlas.

The quagmire threatens to envelop.

Dimly in the distance as I flail I see beloved countenances of the pair that sired me, the pair that I begot and the pair that sustain me. My Alpha and Omega, unrequited.

From those murky, convoluted and turbulent waters emerges faith somehow…

That I’m a Phoenix… not Icarus.

I will emerge from the ashes and not burn.

That Scarlett was right… tomorrow is another day.

That the bane of my life are indeed it’s boon.

Faith as tested by Christ's famous disciple... is mine.

Fail, Falter, Fall... Fervently

Fall or autumn, as used by speakers of the English language to describe the season has thus far been for me an idea I had heard of and seen visuals of via media and not in person.

It has been a subject I romanticized about in my posts, poems and proselytizing eons ago without having the perspicacity of the real McCoy. 

Again a life lesson, that I have the tendency to shoot off my mouth on topics I have neither expertise or authority on. Sigh. Motor mouth. I could probably use this as an excuse for my bulk, it’s all those words that I’m forced to eat... and rapidly! Karma’s turnaround time is indecently rapid. 

The trees are pregnant with leaves in brilliant hues of red, yellow, pink, brown, maroon, mustard, purple, cerise, amber. Each trembling tentatively, I know not whether in anticipation or trepidation and my wild imagination demands that it’s the former.

As I tread on the kaleidoscopic carpet of dead leaves, my thoughts wander to the reason behind the season. 

By all accounts Fall is the beginning of the end, the harbinger of rot and decay, the living metaphor for death. 

Autumn is also the ‘Fall’ from grace, productivity, health, abundance and life itself. 

The wasting away sustenance and vibrancy of the spirit, the crumbling of set orders and the annihilation of existence. 

The end of the old order. 

With it, visions of the immediate future loom in 4D. 

Tomorrow’s sky is overcast with dark looming clouds and the sun fights a losing battle as it fights to permeate light through. 

Tomorrow looks lonely, desolate and desperate. 

Tomorrow sadness will be the cloak of comfort and no matter how merino the wool, I will be chilled to the bone. 

Tomorrow is the winter of my existence. 

I allow myself to wade through murky waters of self pity and melancholy and as I’m mired in the quandary of my own design. A state I could revel in like a pig rolling in muck. 

And when I’m depleted and quite frankly enervated by all the lugubriousness and thoroughly disgusted by the trajectory of my thoughts, chicken me berates self and I feel the Phoenix in my soul draw strength from the awareness that I may well be alone but I’m enough unto myself. 

I turn my gaze to the inevitable spring that must loom in the horizon, the hope that ‘springs’ eternal beckons gently and I allow myself the luxury of dreaming of a season that will bring a new version of me who, my fervent desire is, will be a better, refined and exceptional version of the current joke. 

“Spring drew on...and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that hope traversed them at night and left each morning brighter traces of her steps."

–Charlotte Brontë

I fail, falter, fall... fervently and I think that’s quite alright. 

Hen... pecker

Ok, so the keeda is running amok these days and since the avenues for expression are rather limited, I will resort to the English language and the words that make me think. 

Henpecked for one.

Henpecked is defined as, ‘(of a woman) continually criticize and order about (her husband or other male partner). Synonyms: browbeaten, downtrodden, bullied, dominated, nagged, subjugated, oppressed, repressed, intimidated, ground down, without a mind of one's own, tied to someone's apron strings, under someone's heel.

Living in a multicultural environment and conversing with people of different nationalities, most being non-native speakers of the English language I’m constantly amused by the words used by Indian speakers. Henpecked is common jargon used superciliously.

Quite different from ‘cuckolded’ which means ‘a man whose wife has sexual relations with other men’. While both words are derogatory towards a man, I would think henpecked is the lesser evil.

The female version of both words are ‘cockpecked’ (I know… I know! The wiring in my head is running amok with puns) and ‘cuckquean’. Quean incidentally means hussy or prostitute.  

Now comes the quintessential question… why aren’t these words commonplace?

Going by statistics, I’d think that these words should have a wider representation. Interesting isn’t it that when a woman is ‘cockpecked’ (aiyyo! this word, this word!) the man is considered the epitome of manhood, alpha if you please and when she is ‘cuckqueaned’, the man is simply being a man! Nature of the beast and all.

Interesting no, cock and cuck, peckered and queaned. How phallic the fallacy. 

Me no pause...

I was asked whether I would choose to be reborn as a woman if I believed in reincarnation and mindlessly I said, of course! What do you think!

As always motor mouth sprints like Bolt before the brain can actually assimilate rational thought.

Struggling with menstruating once in two months and then twice a month, chafed thighs, volatile mood swings, hot flushes, bloating like a decomposing corpse, copious weight gain… would I still answer with the same nonchalance?

I know I am on the brink of the dreaded menopause (yeah I said it and it’s not a dirty word, except when the men in question pause when you’re almost at the apogee) and I’m morphing into a creature I do not recognize.

While traditional stereotypes are not who I aspire to be, I mean, Sita and Esther… good for them but they do not titillate my twat, I’m pretty clear of who I do not want to be!

I do not want to be jaded and vitriolic, disenchanted and inorganic, defeated and bummed out as I grow older.

I do not want to believe that the flush of my youth has ended and I have to behave ‘like a lady’ and act my age, I mean, even my body is telling me that apparently.

I do not want to quit yearning for adrenaline rushes, sinful blushes and some action behind the bushes.

Then again, the very question gets my panties into a knot, being reborn as a woman. WTF. Interesting though, the religions that do believe in reincarnation edict that being born as a woman is some sort of a punishment as the souls refines itself through karma and towards nirvana.

Bad karma apparently leads a soul to be reborn as a woman and is an obstacle towards attaining moksha. Forget the panties, my gut just did a Korbut flip and include the bloody uterus percolating crimson too, it just jiggled like hooters sans silicon. You get the drift.

No matter how excruciating the cramp and agonizing this teetering on the brink of mania, I’d do this over and over again. Be a woman that is.

Not extolling the virtues of womanhood, penning this has been exhausting enough and one could give free reign to their bent imagination.

However I will say this, I love the fact that I can allow myself to feel deeply with the core my being and experience emotions that at times threaten to sear me as well as embalm. To girdle my loins with steel while sporting a gossamer garter. To walk away from the unnecessary drama and watch life go by as I chill with  some hooch. To nurture and nourish, protect and cherish and sponge away the blues of those who are mine.

Yup, coming back as a woman. God help us all. I'm on a roll...

Me no pause...

Hype Oh Crite...

Hypocrisy is considered by some to be the eighth cardinal sin of man. Being consistently evil is in some ways better than being inconsistently nice. Inconsistency is thought to be the hallmark of a man of weak character, of one who cannot decisively control his own actions - Mendel Adelman.

I confess I'm hypocritical too, a trait I'm trying my best to minimize.

The current been in the bonnet is the poor unsuspecting ‘bindi’, if I'd known it would cause so much trouble, I'd have tattooed one on my forehead by now. Bindi is a coloured dot worn on the centre of the forehead, originally by Hindus and Jains. Bindu is considered the point at which creation begins and may become unity. It is also described as ‘the scared symbol of the cosmos in its unmanifested state’ - Wikipedia.

When one of the girls who married into my family said she loves my bindi’s and used to wear them before she got married, I asked her what stops you now and she said ‘I’m not allowed to wear’. ALLOWED??? Seriously!!!! By who exactly and the poor girl mumbled something incoherently.

When I narrated this to someone in the family, she says, “I hope you didn’t encourage her”.

I was ‘reminded’ that Protestant Christian women from my family and church in Mangalore do not and should not wear bindi’s as it is against our culture. Now that I am defying the traditions that I was so carefully brought up with, I should be mindful that I maybe encouraging other women in my family to follow suit and this is a cardinal sin (oh we have an entire glossary of sins that yours truly indulges in freely, if excommunication was allowed I’d be first in line for my ‘misdeeds’).

Twenty five blood vessels burst in my head simultaneously and before I could explode I was told, “You married out of the community so we don’t tell you anything but don’t encourage our girls to wear it, if her husband doesn’t like it, she shouldn’t”.

I’m astounded I’m still alive, really. The pressure in my cranium was immense and I asked the woman in question, “how can you even say that? Did you not tell me a week ago that you are not allowed to do the little things you like since your husband doesn’t ‘allow’ it? And did amnesia make its way into your being so quick… talk about double standards.”

Needless to say, our relationship is strained thinner than gossamer strings. I’m only lamenting on the many experiences we are shut ourselves from because of our hypocritical attitude. Women cry foul about subjugation when its themselves they are talking about but when its other women, especially younger women, ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’ are used like Damocles sword and chastity belts to reign them in.

We do not need anyone to clip our wings and shackle us, we do so ourselves dear fair sex, quit then the needless whining about 'equality', it's never going to adorn the portals of your abode as long as you are Janus faced.

When you say you're done with servility and would like some civility, can you please sit down, shut the f*ck up and practice consistency in speech and actions.

Oh come off it… hippo critters!

Symphony…

The end of the year is always a good time to do a recce on the year that passed and the crap I’ve done, the people I’ve pissed and wonder whether I could have done it any better, who did I miss!?!!?

 Fleetingly the challenges and obstacles of the year, the sometimes dignity of handling them with grace, streaks through the mind with Lady Godiva ish grandeur.

The word that’s doing the foxtrot in my head for now is ‘Symphony’. As defined in the dictionary, a symphony is “an elaborate musical composition for full orchestra, typically in four movements, at least one of which is traditionally in sonata form.”

This is a purely musical annotation of the word. A sonata is “a composition for an instrumental soloist, often with a piano accompaniment, typically in several movements with one or more in sonata form”.

Hmnnn… the elephant doing cartwheels in my cerebellum is wondering whether there has been any symphonic element during the year for yours truly.

So, four movements of a symphony are quite akin to the four seasons methinks: spring, summer, monsoon and winter. 

Also to the highs and lows of the year which each of these seasons denote.

Now remember that one of these movements, have to be a sonata... or playing solo. Which one of these have I been spanking the monkey at? 

I gaze unblinking until my eyes dilate better than you-know-what at a D&C procedure until the phosphenes twirl in my orbs in concentric circles.

The psychedelic moment passes and lucidity allows me to reconnoiter that there really hasn’t been one specific season that I’ve been cranking the shank, every individual period has had its fair share of sonatas.

And that is probably what keeps me sane. To be able to disconnect from the melee around me or the fracas in my mind and focus, if briefly on the evanescence and impermanence of it all. My father in law loved the phrase, ‘that too shall pass away’ and I’ve girded my loins (which explains my retroverted uterus) with it.

In the summers of the year when you flirt with the highest point in the bell curve or at winters when the dip reaches the nadir, all one needs is to take one step or maybe two, back and take a few deep breaths and introspect on how much energy one really needs to spend on the triviality that is not worth a tinkers damn in a few years, months or even days.

Now that we have established that the sonatas have been multitudinous, has the symphony been pleasing to the ear or jarred the senses. Did the orchestra have consonance and equilibrium. Did we play in tandem.

Again, those little buggers did the jig in my eyes as I stare at the screen blankly and now I see blue dots do the striptease. 

Fact is that the concinnity has been sporadic and random.

That is what this thingummy jig is after all isn’t it… of irregular cadences, the bass and the tenor going off key at times, the string quartet at loggerheads with the percussionists and the conductor throwing the baton in, only to sigh in resignation and bravely pick it up with hope that each person plays their part to the best of their abilities.

That we will celebrate the composition of different elements, even when the concerto doesn’t play to the audience, to be true to the self and not simply simper... phony.

I'm..fallible

Just finished this marvelous book by Val Brelinski, "The Girl Who Slept with God" and I couldn't have chosen a more opportune time to reading it.
Christmas has always been my favorite season. As a young girl brought up in the devout Protestant faith of my parents, Christmas was a season for love, for festivities, new clothes, presents, sweetmeats, family gatherings and above all, of faith.

Of the birth of the Lord, of new beginnings, of a better tomorrow, in short... of faith.

Val Brelinski with her utterly simple and evocative narrative describes a family that is extremely religious, not a scenario I identify myself with although there are some extremely judgmental passages about the shenanigans of the 'wicked world' and the sins that one can 'succumb' to. The teachings of a conservative church that most 'faithful' ascribe to, when it suits them of course.

The narrative draws you to a web of fallibility that each one of us subscribe to, as children, spouses and parents. Of the decisions we ascribe to thinking that we do so in the best interests of the family and how hopelessly selfish each one of them is.

There are passages in the book that make you want to exclaim with anger tinged with pain and there are those rebellious actions of a fourteen year old that urge you to simply say, 'atta girl!' You want to hammer the parents and wallop the girls at times and there are times when you simply resign yourself to the futility of all the dissent and wish we lived in a simpler world where God was your ally and not this fearsome creature who waits to punish you for every misdeed. Well God knows I'm past master at those!

The book brings back memories of personal defiance as a girl, of incredibly stupid resolutions as a parent and some pathetic behavior as a human that makes me hang my head in gut wrenching shame. Prostitutes may not confess to a priest but thank heavens I have a blog to sate this desire to expunge.

The book has a melancholic ending and you wish with every fiber of your being that its denouement was positive. And yet, though one of the protagonists is but ashes at age seventeen, the fourteen year old (alter ego?) chooses a simpler path although she's the mother of everything convoluted. She chooses to forgive, a grace that belies her age. Above all, she gives credence to that which she cannot see, but can feel.

This for me is the message of Christmas this year, that I'm fallible and will forever be and maybe that's ok... as long as I posses the honesty to accept that, the tenacity to ensure I minimize the damage and the forever faith that there is one person who is Infallible, to whom I can turn and rest my yoke when life turns dreary.

It's a new day, a new beginning and every Christmas is the harbinger of this faith, love and hope, HE's Infallible and I'm fallible.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

  

Of sooner's than later's...

While change is the only constant, thank you Heraclitus… I’m afflicted with vertigo and tinnitus at its velocity and vibrancy. The latter, I’d rather welcome. My paternal genes lean heavily towards presbycusis, I will get there sooner than later.

My little world is pulverized almost every day as a new dogma is lambasted into it. India is big into changing names of its famous, infamous, not so famous cities. I refuse to call the place where my umbilical cord disintegrated as Mumbai. My birth certificate states Bombay and Bombay it shall remain for me, until senility comes calling, which I have a sneaking suspicion, is also sooner than later.

Today, a post on Gandhi flanked by two young women made its way into a Whatsapp group with metoo emblazoned on the women. I’m super reactive, sensitive and umbrageous these days. Menopause will you bloody happen sooner!

Yeah so I expostulated, I thought it in bad taste and I’m unpleasantly miffed that I maybe part of a groupuscule that is tottering on the brink of extinction. How molecular this infinitesimal cerebellum, sigh!

Which triggered recent memories of posts, conversations and publications that I’ve been playing eyes wide shut to, because it splinterizes the dogmas and tenets that I’ve grown up with. Like Gandhi, being the Father of our Nation and his role in our freedom struggle. 

As children most fancy dress competitions were won by those who dressed like Gandhi, every year, same to same, Dorian Grayish. To say our parents and teachers lacked imagination is an understatement. I’m going to be ostracized, by the former and the latter, sooner than… you know the drill by now.

We had to learn three languages in school, English, Kannada and Hindi and all three had lessons on Gandhi and honestly it was overkill, the only reason I had some feelings for him, positive ones that is, was because October 2^nd , his birthday was a national holiday.

In law college, his book “The Law and the Lawyers” was prescribed as part of English as a subject and we were supposed to be inspired as ‘lawyer or a layman with the belief that the vocation of the lawyer is an honorable vocation requiring the highest standards of rectitude integrity and uprightness and that its practice is in no way inconsistent with the pursuit of truth.’ Says the blurb on the book.

It was a chore and most of us hated it. Once we were done with formal education, the only reminders of Gandhi were on our currency largely and I grew to quite like the fellow as an adult. I’d begun to appreciate his wily wisdom and slowly made peace with him. Later than sooner.

Just when I decided he had merit and was proud, some of my country folk, pun intended, have swung the other way. Gandhi is an anti hero to them for acquiescing with demands that led to India’s partition. The millions of people who were killed during this division, apparently their blood is on his hands.

Now ask me why my ire is piqued! Like seriously!!! My India is hell bent on rewriting history and presenting new ‘facts’. I have only one thought, will this help my country to be a more aware, humane, intellectual, cohesive society? Will it pave the path for equality and justice and brother hood? Will defiling memories of leaders past bring to our future a new aurora?

I said only one thought a few sentences earlier, didn’t I? Ok I bent the truth… left. Read Gandhi’s autobiography “My Experiments with the Truth”.

I’m also wondering how many ‘truths’ will emerge to convert, covertly or overtly, to Fascism, sooner than later.

#metoo

If there’s one thing that everyone has an opinion on, and a right one these days, is metoo! 

Yeah ok I’m joining the bandwagon. I’ve been ‘bubbling’ with it for days now and if I don’t spit now I may just choke. Consider this a spoiler and stop reading right now.

What interests me is how, when metoo entered Indian society via Bollywood actresses accusing the respected bigwigs of the industry, it gathered momentum and women began posting their stories on public media.

In the beginning it had the support of women and I know many who spoke about abuse and how they suffered through it. Their trauma was discussed and their ire openly expressed. There were men who thought this was wrong too and circumscribed with the thinking too.

As more stories emerged the tables seemed to have turned, all the sympathy and bonhomie has left the room. I went that way too when I read a post published by a Bangalore male about the woman who, along with his ex, posted stories about him and his abusive ways, including his torturing his poor dog, no really, not the position!

I read through the post and his sincerity shone through especially since he has posted evidence of the events that unfolded. It did seem like a malicious and bitter woman besmirching the good name of this man. My band of girlfriends and I, were paralyzed with shock, not as much at the slander but the sexts the man has shared. Messages and pictures by women he met largely on Tinder and the many one night stands, threesomes, orgies he claims to have had, plus his sexual preferences including BDSM, which some women claimed to love. The messages, jeez… they read straight out of Literotica. I’m a believer that the stories on the website and Penthouse’s Letters to the Editor aren’t fiction at all! Fact is indeed stranger than fiction.

For a couple of days I was reeling with the shock of encountering a society I didn’t quite know existed (I am as stupid as I look, yup!) and we continued to talk about it on the group and the common consensus was that we’re old fossils and our attention shifted from metoo to WTF.

You’re still reading? You little rebel… I like you :P

Today a post made its way to many whatsapp groups by a woman apparently, who rubbishes the metoo claims and says, ‘A strong woman does not wait 30, 20, 10 years to speak up, she slaps him on the first "bad touch" and knocks him out...’

Which triggered my confession on my family group that I was molested as a 4 year old and it took me over 40 years to talk about it. The perpetrator is long dead, what is my motive in bringing this up now, and worse posting it?

My response, “I support the metoo movement. Well what I went through is history but what I now want is for no other girl including my daughter and all the daughters in this group or anywhere else to go through what I did. This movement isn’t against men but it is to show solidarity with other women who have been through abuse. It’s cathartic.

Also maybe as a warning to those who may think they can do this and get away with it. Not anymore. We will raise our voices from now and refuse to take abuse.”

Ok so I was a kid and hence not strong enough to raise my voice but once I grew up, I should be able to take action right then and not whine years later, correct?  NO. I don’t know if I’m that ‘strong’ person even now… I definitely wasn’t a couple of years ago (this isn’t to elicit sympathy... I’m getting there) but yes, I have hope now, more courage than I ever did and that is because I don’t feel alone anymore. I don’t feel like I will be judged for admitting that I’ve been a victim.

I don’t have to believe that I’m a woman and it comes with the territory and it’s better to avoid situations rather than complain about it. As I was growing up this was an adage that was the foundation of my upbringing and while I believe it’s better not to be in a position from where one can be f*ked, literally, I’d like to be able to make the choice and for it to be free.

Metoo isn’t only about women, there are many men who’ve been abused too, who are being abused ironically by the metoo movement too. Just because there are cases of it being used for extortion, I don’t believe we should rubbish the genuine cases. I’d flay anyone who abuses either of my kids, it isn’t about the gender.

Ultimately let’s be harbingers of a change in society that allows each of us decorum and freedom and the right to choose which, how and where and oh yeah… lets reserve judgement and lean towards empathy, not cos karma is a bitch but because that is what defines us.

You’re still reading? You may want to pour yourself a double large :D

Jump in with both feet tangled...

It’s been yonks since I’ve posted and I truly did believe the words had deserted me until I railed against a post this morning on my college Watsapp group. Living away from India I have been watching the drama in my hometown of Mangalore for the past few months develop into passionate frenzy the past month due to the State elections, with a nonchalant eye, half closed really.

The shit storm of politics never interested me, even though Mother is a fire brand supporter of the Congress party. I think it had more to do with Rajiv’s good looks than ideology and of course his death, which gave him unwarranted hero status. Mum would write to newspaper and magazine editorials, very passionately about her beliefs, most often as counter arguments (now you know where some of this keeda germinates from) and Heaven help us when they were published.

When young we rolled our eyes behind her back, as we grew we rolled them in her face and when we grew balls we asked her to buzz off (Mother… I am your oldest child and you know by now that I’m inappropriate, ill-mannered and irreverent, don’t disown me yet, serves you right for making us endure all those odious political debates and news… you should have allowed us to watch Krishi Darshan).

Yeah so, politics and me??? Unlikely bed fellows. I hate politics, hate politicians and hate to waste my time on the dumbf*ks. I think ALL of them are cut from the same miserable sackcloth that is driven by greed for either power or wealth and those who are not aren’t worth their salt since they are impotent. This is my personal opinion and I do not want to hear about the “clean” politicians. If you know them, hallelujah! good for you.

The past few years have married religion and politics in India and history has proven how dangerous this liaison can be. World history has taught us about the damaging influence of the Church as a sovereign, Martin Luther and his band of prostitutes have damaged the world forever. Ok ok! Protestants. (How do I keep mother away from reading this post?). 

How much unnecessary bloodshed has the world seen, how many innocent lives were lost? To what end? Look at Europe today, most of it is either atheistic or agnostic. But will we learn??? Ah no!!! what is a popular dogma today will be dust on a history book on a long forgotten shelf in a few years.

 

What unleashed this torrent of words is this terrible feeling of utter helplessness and despair as I watch the path of self-destruction our society is headed towards. For someone who tears up every time our national anthem is played and wore a red bindi to church on my wedding day, lights diyas for Diwali and draws rangoli, don’t tell me my identity is connected to the religion I was born into. 

Do not automatically assume I have any allegiance to a particular political party and for sanitary pad's sake don’t expect me to blindly beat the Modi drum. I have nothing against the man personally. The vermin that have emerged from the woodwork under his regime is who I want to piss on. (err.. chill!)

I get it that using Hindutva is a political strategy by the party and most people are falling like nine pins for it, going as far as to ‘rewrite’ history since the books we read taught us a distorted version of history apparently. What exactly did those lessons teach us and how did they influence us and our thinking? Methinks, I would still be this gruesome piece of shit no matter what.

Ok, confession time… I’m frightened shitless, like seriously crapping in my chaddies, heart beating wildly types (nopes, not ogling at Milind) as the thinking of my ‘elite and intellectual’ friends seems to have left the room. One even went on to say, “we Hindus have taken so much shit, we are done, our patience has run out and you better watch it.” 

Eh??? When did I become ‘you’ and when did you become ‘we’.  The bourgeoisie has its brains between the nuts, understood… but those with grey cells that I admire and respect, how does the obvious Fascism escape their notice. 

This is just a political gimmick to divide and rule, by playing into religious sentiment, they have mired rational thinking. If you repeat a fallacy thrice, the fourth time you say it, you will with conviction. Your brain, enslaves you, why do most people who commit suicide with a gun shoot themselves in the head? They have to silence the master. All these posts (by each political party) are insidiously altering our cerebellum and so craftily. Should we lose our rationale too??? More importantly our humane selves??? (Mother… say nicely for me)

Hell yeah!

Woke up to umpteen posts on Sridevi's demise and had to vent.

While we should respect the dead, and I do, her immense talent and the joys her movies brought... to me she was India’s finest female actor. Thanks to social media we will mourn her, cremate her and dissect her life and also make grand proclamations of how she should have led it. We know it all.

There are so many posts about her surgeries and the need to look young and "beautiful" including holding her husband responsible, why couldn’t he have stopped her apparently!!! ... from which angle did she look like she needed to be told and stopped, we insult our own intelligence by giving anyone else the right to dictate.

But, a great time to revisit our own thinking on beauty and appearances and the lengths we go to achieve this. Just last week, my 28 year old Lebanese colleague shared the contacts of a clinic where she had been to. For collagen injections on her lips for the perfect pout and chemical peels. I’m not ashamed to admit I was tempted, not for the pout but the lines between my brows and around my eyes. I want to look good too.

Whose definition of good is what I’m questioning now.

How simple life was, I remember the days of my parents, not too long ago and yet prevalent in their psyche that voluptuousness was true beauty. Our genetic makeup is essentially of a full round figure, look at the illustrations of the Kamasutra, the temple carvings all over India, our Goddesses and Ravi Varma’s paintings to the actresses we so loved and to the women in our families. Did they get flack for fat?

I’m first to admit that we are not our mothers and though in our mid-forties, our spirit is way younger. My mother was 41 when I got married and I remember thinking that she was old! I’m 46 and God knows I don’t feel my age, is there a set norm for that too? You’re supposed to feel and think and look this way because you are this age?

Ah! Coming to the crux of the matter, we don’t not want our physical appearance to mirror our age especially since our mind and spirit do not conform to the physical changes of the body. A dearly beloved friend who is 60 but has the body of a 20 year old tells me, I don’t want to look an age I don’t feel. Another tells me, you’re either beautiful or lazy. Such tremendous emphasis on being well turned out. I am desperate to stop hennaing my hair and going grey yet balk at the thought, I will look old methinks and a despairing sense of gloom sets in.

We talk about preserving our culture from the cow to the cowards, of women’s emancipation and equal rights, of a forward society. Bullshit. The first thing we do when we meet each other is comment on how much weight we have lost or gained. We talk disparagingly about those who are ‘fat’. Looking like you’ve given the entire world and its cousin a blowjob with sunken cheeks and pallid skin is fine. We’ve got cosmetics to take care of that.

We, us, we are the harbingers of change, not the eighties, nineties or the millennial kids. It’s us. Coming from the sleepy town of Mangalore, we ventured out, from the education to the professions or even being home makers but all of us have a voice and an attitude. Let me repeat we are NOT our mothers. We are the bridge between the complete disconnect of our parents and children’s generations.

True freedom is freeing the mind from shackles and misconceptions and someone else’s idea of what acceptable should be. It may not be the curves our parents admired or the planes our kids do. We should be allowed to age gracefully wrinkles and all and why do we need to hide them exactly? I have lines around my eyes and mouth from laughing too much and those between my brows from frowning too much. I’m short staffed on patience, hell yeah. Each line emerged as my inner self expressed itself. They are my badges of honor and dishonor.

Stay healthy, walk your butt off, work out, stretch those muscles with yoga and whatever the hell gets your goat. Do you need surgical intervention to craft a body that someone else will glance at for a few moments, exclaim and then promptly forget. People are too busy with their own shit to give you more than fleeting thoughts and this is whether you’re fat or thin. Loose talk drifts faster than pee after a bladder ultrasound.

When you see a woman in a saree with love handles popping out, don’t snicker but look into her eyes, feel her verve and if you are inspired, go tell she’s beautiful. Every woman is. And yes you women, who claim to be intelligent, modern and responsible, behave like you are. Don’t ever let anyone else tell you what and how you should be.