I am a woman...

When I tell you I am not tired after doing the dishes, feeding the kids, doing the laundry and vacuuming the room… I am actually asking you to make me a nice cup of hot masala chai.

When I am walking around the room in irritation, mad at you for something you did wrong, I want you to keep quiet and listen to my gibberish and later, once I walk out the room, follow me to give me your explanation. And even though I know you will, just to make me feel better, tell me you wont do it again.

When I am throwing a tantrum, the last thing you should say is, “Youre just like every other woman!” Well then, go find yourself a replacement seeing that it wouldn't be a problem.




When I am crying about how my day isn’t going as per what I had planned, don’t make it about you.

When I am saying I hate my life, don’t make it about you.

When I am telling you I am having a bad day, don't make it about you...

When I have caught you with another woman, don’t make it about me…

I am a woman.

I may be a crazy driver, but its cos I am always thinking about what I have to do, when I have to pick up the kids from school, what I have to cook for dinner, why my boss rejected my article… I am always thinking. Cos god didn’t give me the talent to shut off whenever I choose to, like he did you.

Don't ever complain about my monthly cycle. It is not like I'm in love with the whole idea either. But there isn't much I can do. One week's time-out in a month is too much to ask for?

I may be eccentric, unruly, moody and cranky a little too often. But I am also the one who carried our baby for 9 months in me and dealt with the stretch marks after those 9 months while I dealt with you telling me I have put on too much. I am the one who can find your car keys everytime you lose them, even though they are in plain sight, but I cant blame you for having buttons for eyes now, can I?

I am a woman. I am not afraid to confess my short-comings. But seeing that I have so many positive edges, it would only be fair that I ask you not to generalize, complain or back-bitch about how you cannot understand women.

My love, not even a woman can understand women. And that is what adds the spice to life if you ask me.

Lingering something...

My head begins to spin,
Reaching out for something as support...
I find your hand.
Your warmth makes my heart beat faster and slower
both at the same time.
I know its clichéd
But its true.

I wanna be the warm morning breeze
That floats calmly across your face,
Leaving just a misty feeling as proof of its existence.

I wanna tickle your senses
Like a sour grape in winter
that you wish you never tasted, cos now you cant get enough.

Its on an island.. Blue and green,
You take away the fear of water from inside me,
And fill the spaces with nothing
But sweet somethings that linger.

Don't look behind

I need you.

But I will tell you what I don’t need. I definitely don’t need the drop in my self- confidence. I do not want the incessant need for over protection masked with “care”. I do not demand to be told what my life is “supposed” to be.

I have never known of myself as one to follow norms. Do I look like I care about what society thinks? I love my god but I do not believe he put me here with a script written so next time you tell me I was “born” to do a woman’s job, slap yourself.

Actually, just slap yourself anyway. You managed to turn a brightly coloured tiger lily that’s full of life and energy into this ugly weed that is just lying there waiting to be uprooted and thrown away.

I told you. Don’t change me. You should have just let me be.

Now, do all you think you can to turn the clock back. 

My ray of sunshine

You know the feeling, when all you do is stare at your screen and smile to eternity?

The feeling of knowing that there are people who came into your life and just stayed there, never once complaining that you don’t say hi anymore or that you don’t keep them updated on your life anymore. And no matter the distance, no matter the time lapse, you can still pick up where you left off.

Its best when it happens at that moment when you have cursed every other thing and wished for a simple happy life. You see that ray of light blinding you and calling out to you.

Change is constant

Life is about reaching somewhere.

Its always like that. You wake up everyday with a drive to something. Everyone I know has a goal. It’s the reason you wake up on a Monday morning.

Mine changes everyday.

Once upon a time...

..there was a princess and now she’s got her fairy tale.

She stands a few inches above 5 feet and owns the brightest smiles I’ve seen yet. When she laughs for real it’s from her heart and you can really tell from the sound. She has come a long way from wearing braces and crazy weird denims that would go all the way above the place it’s supposed to be at, to being a successful young lady who works with Citi Group in the USA for the past 4 years. 

She is the daughter that her dads boasts of, a hard working girl who makes her mom’s heart leap when she says “what’s up mumma darling?” and a sister who is always there to listen to drunken woes over the weekends even though its 1 in the afternoon on her Saturday off work.

I do not know of one person who dislikes her.

And she has now met her prince. He towers above her at an inch above  5'11", a broad built and smart (from the three odd conversations that I have had with him) hard-working guy who can hold up a very intellectually stimulated conversation (and we all know how tough that is to come by with men). Truth is, when he is around, I have seen her glow. You can imagine a pretty thing like her would look even more stunning with that happy aura around her.

Their story is beautiful because… she is marrying her best friend.

For years they have been by each other through the ups and downs, through the sickness and the good moments. So they finally figured that there was something more to this. They’ve done more than stick to vows of friendship for so many years and they realized that they wouldn’t find anyone else who would fit so perfectly into their lives.

They tie the knot in the eleventh month of this year and I couldn’t be more excited. I am hoping to write a lot more about the whole affair from the end of October to the wedding. After all, she is my sister. 

Stop and feel

Oh heart, my heart
why do you ache so?
This is the way that life is to be

The pain has been divided
over the world, to every creature
The tears have been shared
by every soulful eye he created
The joy to everyone that breathes
has been rightfully allotted

Yet Life did its justice
When it chose you to bear this burden,
it looked at you,
realized your strength,
knew what you could bear

So know this
oh heart, my heart
What you hold in you
is what you deserve

It’s only your share of pain
that you need to bear
Do not hurt for the rest

It’s only your load of tears
that you need to shed
Don't be greedy for another’s

It’s only your bounty of joy
that you need to hold on to

But life never stopped you
from multiplying your love
For that is the one weight
you can carry fourfold your size

You are and always will be
Oh heart, my heart

punctuate this!

i am lost in what i think others want me to do, think and feel

if i like a movie, book or piece of art that u dont, well bloody hell i want to like it cos i do! i want to do it without conviction and judgements from u

but actually, to hell with ur judgements

and i dont like everything i say i do. most of the times i just say i do. but well hypocrite, so do u! i want away from the worry of not being liked for saying what i feel and how i feel it. for needing to stop writing cos i dont want 'u' to read.

i love me more than i know i do. its ok if u dont. its ok if u read and say 'what a bore' or 'how could she dare say something like that' cos i do not want u to care anymore.

if i dont like what ur wearing, il write it. just be happy im not saying it out loud!

if i think ur a jerk and u cant lead a team, il say it. thank ur stars im nt saying it to the others.

online.. u dont know me, i dont know u...

its a blog! lets keep it at that, shall we?

Justifying it in your head

So it feels mixed.

You are relieved that you no longer need to prove ur location, reason for being there, reason for no prior notice of going there, justification of why the other people wanted you to be there..

You are calm, cos suddenly missing a call isn't going to send you to hell, leaving ur phone on the desk plugged in to get charged isn't a crime and you don't need to practice ur reason for receiving a late night call..

You are lost cos you don't know what to do with ur weekend cos ur friends are so used to you nt being around that they don't even consider planning it with you..

You are scared cos ur not sure who to go to the movies with. You can't ignore the constant feeling of running out of time cos you have very little to find someone new..

You are empty cos you don't know who will hold you when you cry. You don't know who you will call to pour out ur heart to. You don't know what to do with a long weekend.

You avoid.. Ur iPod cos every song hurts. Places, people, thinking, conversations, the mirror, sleep, mornings, nights, food, the clock, facebook, anything red, anything blue, anything white, life...

You search.. For a place to go cos you constantly want to be alone, for a thing to do so you stay occupied and don't think about memories, for reasons to stay back in office, for reasons why leaving him wasn't a bad idea..

But all you will hear on the outside is everyone tell you that you need to give it time..

 

And everything just justifies why its called a Break-up

Pushing too hard

Disarm yourself.

Heard this song that a friend shared with me this morning. It felt the best just listening to it on a loop. Its odd how a trance song that says the same thing to you repetitively can feel so good. But he sure did make my Monday so much better. Thank you Ab. 

Don’t you miss yourself?

The song asked me. And that is all I have been saying since the past few months. I don’t know how and when the change happened; I didn’t realize how it was affecting my life and the ones around me. But I’m here now and I want “me” back. I used to be so much fun, I enjoyed my own company. I was reminded of a very close friend in college, who once wrote me a long letter on my birthday and put it in a huge birthday card. This is what I remember of it clearly (and what a way with words he had, especially beautiful because we took the French class together and he wrote it to me in french)

“Vous etes la fille la plus spirituellement magnifique que j'aie jamais rencontres. Vous ne laissez jamais le monde vous rendre triste. Et quand tu es triste dans ton coeur, personne ne peut savoir en raison de votre sourire eclatant qui ne s'effacent jamais. Apres quelques annees, lorsque nous nous reunirons, nous serons heureux et nous allons embrasser. Je sais que je vais voir le meme sourire. Vous ne devez pas perdre vous.”

My French wasn’t as good at that time (I actually pretended it wasn’t as I knew it would sound soo much more awesome when he read it out) so I asked him to translate it for me. And it reads…

You’re the most spiritually gorgeous girl I have ever met. You don’t let the world get you down. And when you are falling apart inside, no one would know because of the beautiful smile that never fades. Years later when we meet out of the blue and you run up to me and hug me with excitement, I know I will see the same smile. Don’t lose yourself.

But I think I did.

Word Vomit

I think I have lost my filter.

That is truly the first line that popped into my head after I had spoken my first sentence this morning. Lately, I don’t stop myself before blurting out the thoughts in my head. It’s only the most extreme situations when my brain says, “You’re screwed if you say another word”.

This realization also comes out of the fact that the past month I have been doling loads of mad advice to a friend about her relationship. Now through it all, I keep hearing her say time and again how he won’t let her do anything she wants to do. Like for instance, she’d want to go out dancing with her friends and all he would say is, “I don’t think that is a good idea”. Never does it occur to her that she could just say, “Well I think it’s a great idea, I’ll see you when I’m back!” Post him saying this, she would just get upset, hang up and cry. Then later give him grief about how he won’t ever let her live her life, how he is crushing her freedom, after which she would call me up and relate the whole thing. While she talks, in the back of my head I'm thinking 'if someone pushes you around in a relationship, you are the one who tolerated it more than once, didn't put your foot down and stop it then - it is all your fault.'  But I am the queen of words when it comes to advice and the pauper when I have to use it for myself, so I stopped myself from saying that to her. But her situation changes everyday, yet the end is the same every time. So, one day I can’t take it any more and I just blurt out “it’s entirely your fault that this relationship is getting screwed. It’s not gonna work out and I think he should just leave you”. And my head echoed softly ‘oops, word vomit’.

Now there are two reasons why this sentence sounded wrong to both of us at first. One, I am those feminist types who believe that it is unfair for a guy to stop a woman from doing what she desires. Two, being her friend I am supposed to be supportive of her. So now I sit there with my hands cupping my mouth – for fear of some more trouble coming out of it, thinking fast about my words, searching for a way to explain myself. I do manage to gather my thoughts right and explain it to her. I didn’t apologize for what I said; I merely explained my theory further.

I will tell you why I do think it’s her fault.

In relationships, the truth is that your first quarter is what sets the bar. If you start allowing your partner to believe that his/her words are carved in stone, there is nothing stopping him/her from doing that to you all your life with him. If you allow your belle to call you while you are with your boys, there's no way you can stop him/her seven months down the line saying “You can’t do it”, cos it’s too late by then. Then the most cliché line in the history of relationships comes up, “You don’t love me like you used to. You have changed!” Irony is that I learnt this from the man I am currently seeing. But I’ll give you this, it’s so true and if you go by it, there is no way you can ever complain unless you really have changed.

Now this won’t apply to you folks who have been with you sweetheart since you could say “mama”. You two have to adapt to change cos you are growing up together. But if you are 20+, seeing someone new, all you need to do is be honest with the person you are seeing. If you are going to argue about the fact that too much information is never good, well then genius, I don’t ever remember saying that you need to sit the person down and freak them out with news about how you once had UT infection. Just take it slow and be yourself. Don’t be the person you think they want you to be. Don’t bloody preempt what they are feeling cos you’re getting way ahead of yourself then. If they liked you in the first place, its cos of the things you are. If you don’t like football, don’t pretend you do cos he loves it. Say you will join him for the game cos you want to see his joy when the team scores. When she asks you to eat pasta and you just can’t stand the sight of it, tell her you would have a pizza instead and allow her to order her pasta. The day you find yourself going too many extra miles because of the butterflies in your tummy, stop and think about what you may be doing. Butterflies get tired of fluttering sometimes you know, and the day they are resting could very well be the day you wake up to reality and practicality. I think it’s totally unfair to give someone something that you know you can’t keep giving forever. Especially if that something is the new self you changed into just to make them happy. 

Expectation is the mother of all miseries. Don’t let someone you love feel it unless you are sure you can live up to it.

Fattyness

What happens when a trigger happy person like me just hates taking pictures with her own face in it?

I never fully understood what it felt like when chubby women said to me "I hate my own pictures". Now I can fully gauge what it feels like to dislike ur own reflection. I can't stand to see my once so flat tummy stick out like santa's happy belly. My face now has a double chin! My arms are as large as my thighs used to be...

I've always loved food. Cheesecake, pasta, pani puri, chicken lollipops... Everything! Now I'm scared that the thought of it might just make me fatter! I don't understand... Even before.. I used to eat just this much. I never gained this way.. Now I bloat with just day of outside food.

I want to be slim and pretty again. I want to lie flat on my back and look down to see my toes without having to look over the mound of fat! I want to turn heads. I want to be able to wear tube tops without having to be bothered by my chubby arms and large shoulders.

Somehow I want my boyfriend to fall in love with me again.

Senses

I stand before this world broken and unable to renew

I stand before my judges who will placate all my moves

I stand before this world that wants to take me apart

It will not replace what it has stolen

My body is battered and my eyes are swollen

My face is streaked with remnants of tears

All I am asking for is your love and the rest of all my years

The world absorb every bit of me until there is no more

It will peel back my essence and pacify my soul

It  will rip apart my seems until it can take control

Look at me as I stand before you damaged from his place

Is this what you were looking for when you looked at my face?

My heart no longer beats it's true, my body grows now cold

I am searching for so much more but I can't catch hold

My bones a brittle and riddled with breaks

I don't know where you have gone; I will fight for you no matter the stakes