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.

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.