Spectrum of perspectives...

So I'm currently reading this book by Elaine Kagan titled, 'The Girls' and though it's reviews are mediocre at best, I’m enjoying the different perspectives of different individuals.

The story revolves around six girls who were friends and grew together and are now in their fifties, living different lives in different places. They are brought together by a tragedy, one of them shot her husband and the story is narrated by all six women. And each has a story to tell! About the man who died, about their collective past and about the present and about each other.

The characters sound repetitive at times yet the way they see things is brought out quite interestingly. It’s fascinating the human mind, our interpretations and the many impressions we form. I have yet to meet two people who think exactly alike in all situations and this intrigues me to no end! I have a brother (Manny) and God knows we’re different! I have two children and the same God who made Manny and me is surely laughing, sigh! History repeats and how…

So if two people who share the same genes and DNA and parents and faith, culture, upbringing can be, think and act differently, tell me why we expect others who aren’t connected to us by any of the above social, economic, biological factors need to conform to our thinking?

The biggest common factor in failure of relationships is incompatibility or irreconcilable differences. If we love our siblings despite their incomprehensible and sometimes flaky personas, why not offer the same ingenuity as we view other people in our lives. Err… Manny, when I said ‘flaky’ I was describing yours truly :D.

You know, those great expectations that we have (not Lady Havisham variety), maybe it’s time to do a recce and audit whether they still make sense. Did you expect that your partner, friend, child or colleague would conform to a set standard of the image you had of them in your convoluted mind? Did they? God Bless you if they did.

But for those who were not blessed with this, could we look at them like we do our own siblings and say, hey we’re chalk n cheese ourselves, how do I expect you to play jam to my toast. It’s all in the perception. You have yours and I have mine and ne’er the twain shall meet and you know what, it’s just fine. It’s not supposed to.

What is, is this… the faith that each one of us is unique and its perfectly alright. We make the world beautiful, each of us, by our myriad madness…

You’d for sure be bored without mine ;) (Of course I'm vain!)

Give me a break!!!

I have said this before in a post in 2007 I guess... I don't understand the fuss behind Women's Day!

Seriously.

When I first opined this many moons ago, we weren't connected to virulent social networking sites as we are today. I have recieved countless posts, forwards, pictures on Women's Day and methinks, they either ridicule women or set standards or norms like the Biblical allusions to perfect women, Ruth, Mary, Esther and our Indian versions, Sita, Savitri, Gandhari.

C'mon! Give us a break and let us be.

I'm a woman and every day is my day. I don't stop being a woman on a single day. Except during periods.
I'm a daughter, sister, wife, mother. Every day. Hmnnn... maybe not during periods.
I'm a career woman and rush to work every single day except weekends when I'm working at home.

So yeah, what's the fuss about exactly?

Pardon me but I do not conform to anyone's idea of a Perfect Woman, but my own... warped as it may be.

I'm not in the competition to check how I compare with role models or other 'super' women, I'm perfectly flawed and fine with it.

Women... all of you, don't wait for accolades and pats on the back or medals or certificates of achievement on any day of the year. Enjoy the attention if it comes your way but don't hanker after it.

You dont need any of those. You're a WOMAN!!!

And hell yeah, that's quite ENOUGH!!!

Unplug and shrug...

Came across this post which said, Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes... including yourself.
Don't know why but there's always a sense of urgency everywhere, there's so much frenetic activity and people constantly trying to do something, accompllish another thing, complete everything... push themselves and then some.
I just tire looking at them, like what's the rush?

Ambition is great and perfection unsurpassable. To those who seek the latter, God Bless.

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"

I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"

To shrug.” 
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Unplug and shrug is the latest bug... 

Unmasked...

So I keep hearing that I am not the same person I was and have changed so much that I'm unrecognizable. Where has the old Melita gone? The 'simple', 'obedient', 'apologetic' person who was so easy and nice to be with and didn't upset the apple cart, instead was such a comfort?

Who is this new quarrelsome person who now resides in someone who looks like her but is not her. What fuels this 'arrogance' and 'pride'. Where is Melita. Who abets this ungainful ugly pursuit she has embarked on and takes her on this path of 'self destruction'.

To all of the above I have only one answer, I've stopped wearing the mask you were used to.

Watched the movie Tamasha yesterday and so loved it. What a wonderful expose' on conformity, wearing masks and the death of the soul. I sat in the theatre and let myself be completely absorbed by the depth of the plot and ofcourse the brilliant acting and the cinematography. Not a crtique of the film, pardon me.

So, back to the crux of the matter, Yes I'm selfish, if selfish means doing those little things that are fodder to the spirit. I'm self centred, if looking for happiness within myself is being self centric. I'm terribly vocal, if saying what reverberates from deep within me is so loud that I can no longer quell the din.

I love myself and refuse to suffer pangs of guilt and apologise for it.

Again, the mask is off and who you see now is the me that was once afraid. When fear walks out and love walks in, its hard to play the lute and the lyre to the rythm of the conductor. This magniloquent capella refuses to cow down. I can't fight it anymore, it's stronger than I imagined and I'm swamped in the wake of it's tide.

I sincerely apologise for all the unnecessary misunderstanding caused by my own cowardice earlier. I'm bare naked and stripped off all pretence.

Masquerade no more... it's curtain call.

Chances are...

'Chances Are' is a movie I liked very much, starring Cybil Shepherd and Robert Downey Junior...

No, this post isn't a critique of the film.

It's about chances that life throws your way.

I've always heard that life gives you one chance and you better take that chance or else you will miss the bus and with this thinking, those that indeed miss the bus believe that the door is now shut firm and there is no point in trying to prise it open 'cos it won't budge and thereby lose hope and let go of looking in that direction, what's the point anyway.

This thinking doesn't work for me, not anymore. Not after I have experienced beauty in life and the myriad wonderful experiences that I have had.

Life gives you second, third, fourth and ultimately I think, many chances. It's your perspective that doesn't allow you to see them as chances or take a blessing that comes your way.

Indeed the chances you get repeatedly may not and often are not in the same shape or form that they came your way originally. It may very well be something that is completely disconnected from the  original. How do you know then which choices to make and which door to open or which window to allow the breeze waft through.

Fact is, that life will challenge you; you may never win a medal, and not all your battles will be victorious, am sharing a few thoughts that have helped me:

1. Keep the faith and believe that tomorrow will be better

2. Mourn the loss, cry, rave/ rant... whatever works and then get it out of your system

3. Keep your ego out and accept that you goofed up but don't beat yourself

4. Introspect but don't over think and no self pity please

5. Be brave and accept the loss as a learning curve

6. Surround yourself with positive people who will boost your spirit

7. Take a break, slow down and do something you love

8. Believe that the best is yet to come

9. Know that you are stronger than you think

10. Love life, it will guide you

11. Take risks, it won't kill you

When optimism is your mainstay, Chances are... your chances will be limitless.

Fabulous forties...

Bingo or housie housie as it’s called in Mangalore is a popular game in clubs, parties and get-together’s.

I’ve learned a lot of phrases there especially as they called out the numbers, one of which was ‘Men get naughty at four and oh’, and the crowd would go ‘Forty!’

Therefore the number 40 to me has always been associated with men becoming naughty, supposedly. No one though warned me about women in their forties.

Let me put together my personal as well as the opinions I gather from my girlfriends in their forties:

1. We are the most confident we have ever been and vocal too. Our threshold for accepting nonsense is almost nonexistent and we do not suffer fools gladly.
2. We are more aware of ourselves, of what we want and how to get there, without suffering pangs of guilt or making apologies.
3. We do not want to make new friends, are very happy with the friends we have and believe in spending as much time as we can with them. Quality over quantity.
4. We’re not in the race, we have lost a few battles, won some, gave up the others and now we know that the race doesn’t matter. Living one day at a time does.
5. We’re sexually aware and honest about our feelings. Our twenties were spent in exploration, thirties in acceptance and in our forties we have come to our own and know exactly what we want and how and we are not ashamed, rather revel in it.
6. We are done with experimenting, be it in relationships or fashion. We know what looks best on us, be it the men, the clothes, the lip color even. Irrespective of what the norms demand, we will wear what we feel best in.
7. We love the way we look and celebrate it even if we complain about the cellulite and the wrinkles. It’s the face in the mirror that matters now, when we look at ourselves and say ‘Hey Beautiful’, we need no other compliment.
8. We do not need anyone to validate our existence. Other’s opinions about us are unimportant and unnecessary, we know the path we’ve walked and we are proud of it. Have fallen into potholes and scrambled out in tatters, have climbed the peak and looked down in joy and now we know that we can rise after every fall and therefore there is no fear.
9. Our children (mine at least) are young adults and do not need the constant care like they did when young which leaves us with time. Time to do what we love doing, not what we are obligated to do. Time to pursue that old hobby, to get in touch with the self, to introspect, to breathe. To just be.
10. We are more grateful and accepting, calm and serene, absorbent and resilient. We know we are strong enough to face anything that comes our way and we know we will make it.

I must confess to loving my forties and wonder why we used to think that it was only men who transformed. While naughty is not the word I would use to describe a woman in her forties! I’d say gorgeous, beautiful and go girl… the world is at your feet, go live YOUR life. Finally.

Forgiveness... your mainstay

Mahatma Gandhi said, "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong."

This has been running in my head for the past few days ever since one of my school friends announced on our group chat on Watsapp that she spent the day with female prisoners and was not sure whether it was worth her time.

Felons deserve no mercy right, it's just rewards. After all they did something that warrants punishment and why should we fret over their plight and waste our sympathy on those who deserve what they get.

When I mull over this, there's a part of me that agrees and there's this other line of thought which prompts me to believe that although they have committed a crime, we do not know the circumstances that pushed them to or how they arrived at that point form where crime seemed the only option. In a certain sense, unless one is a psychopath, crime is something one doesn't meticulously plan in the quiet of the mind. It largely is an action to a reaction or an escape route from suppression.

If we as strangers who are not directly related to the crime can't find it easy to forgive imagine the trauma of the people connected to the victims, the parents, family and friends. And yet, I know of people who reach out and forgive the perpetrator.

Forgiveness isn't something you offer only to a crime, even petty skirmishes need this absolvence. I know a lot of people and I have on occasion said it too, 'I forgive but I never forget'. It's just a line. Believe me, we want to look grand by saying I am the better person and I forgave but when you say the next part of that line you negate the gesture.

Why should we forgive, especially when we have been hurt and been through traumatic times? I think keeping a grudge is like cutting your nose to spite your face. Negative thoughts and feelings weigh us down and drag our emotions to a nadir too. It's a slippery slope, happy thoughts keep us happy and negative thoughts worsen it for us.

To let go of a grudge from deep within one's soul, to look at it with compassion and understanding and decide that it was a moment of weakness which made the person do what they did, when you tell yourself that the other person was a victim of their thinking and while they were silly but did not mean to deliberately hurt you, it's freedom.

The power of forgiveness is in liberation, most of us dont realise it but when you let go, you untie the shackles of negativity that binds you and now you breathe easy, simplify your life and just inhale postivity.

Forgive... not as a chore you are doing for someone let it rather be a gift unto yourself.