You Are Here...Am I?

With so much hype about the novel, You Are Here, I bought a copy to see what the noise was all about. I started reading about a few pages and instinctively I could hear the echo of various chick flicks, all strewn together in a massive obsessive-confessor style.

Girl gets dumped – career goes bad – suddenly life is falling apart – then the hottest boy turns up – falls not for the hot models in the party but for this poor little girl with her hair ever messed up and perennially smelling of coffee – sparks fly all over the place – they hook up. Sounds familiar? Well, that is all what this book is about.

The book starts with a girl – in a vey fancy event-management job recently dumped by her boyfriend. So typical of Hollywood movies, I thought. In Hollywood, the girl either has to be jobless and loveless in the beginning and suddenly finds herself in the most glamorous of the jobs - event management, Page-3 journalism, or invariably fashion. Sometimes, the girl is already in a fancy job but get dumped right at the start of the movie so that the entire 90 minutes can focus on how miserable her petite life is and how she meets this drop-dead gorgeous man and they live happily ever after.

This novel is no different. In a supposedly raunchy style, it takes off the same way. The girl is yet to get over the tragedy of being dumped and always finds the hottest boy in town to make out. In between, you will find flavours of humiliation and disaster in career, about how this middle-class girl wants to be the models or Page-3 society she works with and yet all the time cringing and whining about how miserable her life is.

If you grew up watching movies like Never Been Kissed and the other numerous high school movies that Hollywood has churned out, you will see the similarity here. Only that the hangout is not some fancy place but our very own Café Coffee Day and all other Indian spices garnished all around. Also the chapter titles are lifted directly from the episode titles of Private Practice – a popular American drama. They all start as ‘In which..’

Some of the descriptions want to be very bold and I-am-the-new-Indian-girl. Sadly, they wound but being vulgar and utterly unreadable. And the book is so typical that I wanted to vomit all over it. The same cycle everywhere you turn. Why are the girls always portrayed as vulnerable, utterly insecure, lacking confidence and the entire time craving for men? I you have read books that come out by the ‘Red Dress’ publication, you will know why I am disgusted.

I know this might come harsh, but it is such a shame that books like these sit next to the greatest works of literature such as Catcher in the Rye, God of Small Things. I was so temped to visit the book store and ask them to make a separate rack for filth like this.

Anyway, I think I have ranted enough. So my summary of the book – it is the story of a 26 year old teenager who forgot to grow up.

While travelling to work today, I saw the most heartless thing that was done to a calf. The milkman was crossing the road with his herd of cows and a few calves. The sight should have been perfectly normal and not have evoked any anger or shock in me. Except that the milkman had tied the calves' mouths with a rope so that they will not drink the milk!

Can you believe? Depriving the calf of the right to it's mother's milk when we are enjoying rasamalai and rasagulla here? Imagine being starved of food for days, when it is literally a stone's throw away. Would you do that to your child? How would you feel when someone made you suffer and also deprive your child of sustenance? Would you tolerate? Then can we tolerate this?

When you go get a glass of milk to day for your child, I want you to think about this. when you make yourself a warm cup of cappuccino, look back at what you just read. There are alternatives to milk that supply ample source of calcium. Soya milk is absolutelyt healthy and tastes delicious. You even get them in flavours like chocolate, strawberry, kesar-pista and so on. So, you don't even have to spend money on buying Bournevita or Milo for your kid that will not drink plain milk. Use rice milk, it is healthy and completely vegan!

Sacrifice or Succumbing?

Most often than not, we all use the word 'sacrifice'. We sacrifice our wants and desires for someone else. We give up our heart's call for nurturing someone else's and we hold back words and actions to pamper someone's ego. And we draw a blanket term for this - Sacrifice. Here is the truth about sacrifice - you do it so that you can stand on a pedestal and say 'Aha! I gave up my needs for you. I am the one who has been robbed of desires. I'm the Gandhi here, so you can't complain!'.

And the times we do give up things for someone else, it is succumbing to force. You do it because you need to do it. Else, risk abandonment, invite scorn and endless guilt. Women give up careers for husbands, children give up dreams for protecting their parents' financial security or family pride. Most often than not, people give up way too much in the name of relationships and adjustment.

How would you like to have no control over your life? How would it be to have the gears of your life under someone else's clutches? How would you like to be a puppet in someone's hands? I "sacrificing" or "succumbing" to force? Would I rather let someone live my life or would I take control? When you feel that you are succumbing to someone else's wishes and still can not break out of it, then it is easier to call it a sacrifice. And when you turn out to become a loser, this is probably your best defence. "You made me choose/do something I didn't want to. Obviously I sucked. I sacrificed for you and now my life is in a mess. So, YOU don't get to call me a loser!"

There is another theory to this mysterious act called sacrifice - fear. Yes, absolute fear for the unknown. I would again choose an easier way out, unconsciously choose someone who you know will not let you be what you what to and blame it all on them. Ha! What an amazingly easy way out! Want to be a poet but scared? Marry an illiterate drunkard construction worker with absolutely no sense for fineness and blame it all on him. Poor you!

On Thiruvakarai

I have always been drawn to the full moon, partly because my mother used to perform on the full moon to honor Goddess Durga. I remember staying up till midnight and performing the ritual. I thought of the smell of incense and camphor, my father ringing the bell and my mom showing the fire to the Goddess as an offering. She would then take the lamp and show it to the moon. We would then gather and chant for sometime. I felt extreme high energy while participating in the ritual.

I also remember that every year during the full moon in April, my mother and I used to visit a Kali temple in the outskirts of the city. It was quite deserted but I always felt at home there. There used to be huge gathering at the altar and people praying and chanting. Only women came there. It was not forbidden for men to come that night, but it somehow seemed like an unwritten rule. Men visited the temple often. But just that night, every year, they did not and left the entire temple to the women.

Sometimes, the extreme high energy even caused people to sing and dance and enter into a state of trance. Even though I was very young, I was hardly disturbed by this scene. It infact felt natural and at home. After the ritual, we stayed back at the temple, slept in the lawn and stared at the moon. That was the only time people were allowed to stay over night at temples, as it is usually forbidden.

I wonder where it all went, what happened to all that bonding, with family, with women and with the Deity. why did we distance ourselves so much? Why this change and why the shift. As primitive as this may sound, the dancing and chanting in the temple made me feel calm and relaxed. It was primitive. Barbaric, yes, but Divine. It is about surrendering yourself to the deity and to the Goddess. To the Life Force Energy. I wish if we could ever get it back.

What Is Love?

A question that I asked when I was meditating.

First, my mind thought of romantic love, as that is the context in which it is mostly used. I thought about my current relationship and examined the past ones. then I thought how romantic love is so overrated and how we need to mellow down a little.

Then I thought of why people love and need love. We love something because it reflects something about us or something that we wish we had. I love tigers because I'm known to be a very assertive person and I see that in tigers. I also like dogs a lot because I wish I had the quality of care and loyalty. I love their company and what they do to me. Hence, I love them.

This reason for why we love something or someone is probably the true reason for love. You love someone BECAUSE they give you something in return. No one will love someone who hurts you. You may convince yourself that you love your abuse partner. In truth, you are used to the person being around and you feel having someone is better than having none. You fear that your partner will leave you if you act like you don’t agree to their conditions. You restrict your freedom. But you say ‘I do this because I love you/ In truth you FEAR the thought of them leaving you. There is no love here, only fear.

Then I thought of Divine love. Most people fear the Deity, or ask for favors from the deity. The emotion involved here is fear and hope, not love. Children usually love their God/Goddess. When I was a child, I remember having conversations with Ganesh idol and even scolding him for my poor marks in exams. When you pass from the fear/hope level to seeing the Deity/Spirit/Divine in its purest and original form, you love. You no longer fear nor do you have wishes to present to your deity. All you have is love.

You can never love someone until you love all. This is my motto. Unless you love the various forms of the Deity and the formlessness, unless you love all in completion, you can never love any one single person in totality. Hence, when I say 'I love you' to my partner, I actually mean 'I love you, partially, love some things in you. But I also hate when you don't come for dinner on time, forget my birthday and so on'. Therefore, unless I come to love the other parts too, I can not love.

The Spirit is made up of everything. All of our cells, your partner, your neighbour, of that you the serial rapist and killer, of that of the dog that bit you yesterday and everything. If you hate the serial killer, the dog and if you are indifferent to your neighbour, you do not love the Spirit.  Therefore, you do not love your partner as he/she is an extension of the Spirit, of whose some parts you hate. 

I Make No Apologies

I make no apologies for what I am. I make no apologies for how I have become what I have. I am not sorry for you, your society, or your world. I am not even sorry for my own self. And therefore, I make no apologies, whatsoever.

People usually call life a rollercoaster ride. No, it is not. Rollercoaster is when you have ups and downs. Note the ‘ups’ in the ride. When there are no ups, it is a freefall all the way down. It is like bungee jumping, minus the ropes. So, in the end your head just smashes on the ground. Somewhat like what they call pink mist, tomato sauce and the like. Smashing is the ultimate. When you hit the ground, you know you have reached the end. You are either dead, or if you manage to stay alive, you have passed the toughest test of life.

But, what would you do when you never reach the end? When your head never ever smashes the ground? When you are forever falling and falling. It is like having tears in the brim of your eyes but never being able to let it out. Never being able to shed the emotions, the hurt and the pain. You just lock it up, snug it in your pocket and carry on with life. Tape a smile over your lips to seal yourself forever. Apply mascaras to cover the hurt in your eyes.

People often use the image of hollowness in your chest. It feels like you carry a weight around, but it is the weight of nothingness. Of emptiness and void. Like a hole in the universe, filled with nothing. And because you caused it, and because I accepted this, I make no apologies.