Drawing the line

Drawing the line between bending and bending until you break, that is what I am going to take a stab at. Though it may sound like its an easy distinction but when in a relationship, it really isn’t. The world is jaundiced with our obscure theoretical view of “love”.

This theoretical view of love bothers me… No, it doesn’t just bother me, it outright annoys me. People idolize and idealize love, they make you want to believe that differences don’t matter and truck loads of turd. Our literature, music and movies  ingrain this concept into us and this couldn’t be further from reality. If you hear anyone who says “Love is enough” (I am sure you will) punch them in the face if you can because this is one of those trashy lines you should just dismiss!

I think its unfortunate that people go starry-eyed and dump logic behind this theoretical love and ruin any shot they have at real happiness. When I was thinking this way, I thought maybe I am just emotionally numb but on reading Mark Manson’s article ‘Love is not enough’ I just felt re-assured that I’m not emotionally disabled. One of my favorite lines from the above article is “It’s possible to fall in love with somebody who sucks for us and our happiness.” and it hits you hard especially if you have something to relate to.

There is a fine line between adjusting and sacrificing yourself in the name of love – you’ve got to discover and define that for yourself else you’re going to be bruised through the whole relationship drill. This is one of those phases where you should dismiss what most people say because their views are tainted by the theoretical starry-eyed love. Love will not fix the underlying issues you have in your relationship. It may seem odd but I relate Taylor Swift’s line “Bandaids don’t fix bullet holes” with this thought.

You’ve got to sit down for yourself and decide where you want to draw that line between adjusting & self-sacrificing and there is no right place for it. Its what suits you the best.

Love, bliss and shining stars

Selfless love, bliss and shining stars are terms I’ve always heard and cringed a bit. For those of you who know me know I am not a mushy person. Never would I’ve thought that I would put up with someone’s shit and still love them. But as always I was proven wrong…

Expression of ‘selfless love’ is unique at different ages & phases of our journey. I think mine came at the age of 20 when my first niece was born. Kyra took over my position of being the baby in the family. In fact, the first day I met her, she was this tiny package of sheer perfectness. Seeing her that day I just couldn’t close my eyes and miss a moment of admiring how flawlessly beautiful she was. Of course, the next morning wasn’t great but I think it was totally worth it !

I lived with her for her first 2 years and I can without any doubt say those have been the best! Each day was a new lesson with her. My first lesson came in week 1 with her, it was when I realised that it is in fact possible to clean someones shit (literally) and still love them more each day. That’s when it struck me selfless love can have simple and humble beginnings like this. I know this may come across as shallow and even trivial to some people but this is the strongest emotion I have experienced.

The best things always come to you for short periods of time and so was my experience of living with her on a day-to-day basis. Kyra, I wish I could watch you grow up each day and spend all my time teaching you things and warning you of every personal failure so you can sail through this journey of life. Having said that, I assure you the distance will not save you from me chewing your ear advising you and teaching you everything even if it is not in person.

As you grow up and face challenges of your own, I want you to know there are a lot of us looking out for you. I cannot promise to have all the solutions to your problems but what I can promise is to be a patient listener. To be there for you if you need to make any 3am calls or sharing things without the fear of being judged. I assure you there is nothing at all that can change the way I feel about you in this whole wide world. 🙂

But I have to warn you there is a one thing I cannot promise you. There is a price to pay for all of that abundant love (selfless love is a bit overrated huh?). I cannot promise you that I wont be that crazy aunt who embarrasses by hugging, kissing & chasing you in front of your friends.

In the end of this post, I want you to know you were the one who taught me how to love and what being blissfully happy means. Not like I haven’t already embarrassed you enough, but I will still go ahead and say you were, are and always will be my shining star!

Babies bring joy!

As of 12th February ’14 we have a new baby in the family, my niece baby Mehr! Yay!! Am an aunt again…. Mehr means ‘blessing’ in some languages, it’s also an alternative name to the Zoroastrianism divinity Mithra. I can tell you this little bundle is truly a blessing…

In just these few days I’ve seen the new parents on the block beaming with pride of their creation. Grandparents who just can’t get enough of admiring how perfect she is. A little 3yr old cousin who can’t wait to share her toys with her new playmate. And us aunt’s claiming our right’s over the little one always demanding more pictures and video calls to see those teeny-tiny yawns and dreamy smiles…

The atmosphere in the house is so upbeat & all the cloudy grey days seem a little less grey now. Let’s hope the happiness continues *Touchwood*. Here’s to you baby Mehr and all the joy you’ve brought us!

Below is what Mehr’s grandparents whipped together for her homecoming, I melted with the warmth of the gesture. 

Mission : Regret free 2014

So after a long long time I am back here! Considering I was speaking of new years resolution in my previous post, there is some level of continuity here…

I tried not telling people my new years resolutions last year and that dint get me very far so I am going to try the opposite approach this time around. I know I am late in updating these on the blog but in my defense I was still working on the finer details…

Moving on, here are my resolutions for the year :

Explore restaurants : Let’s get started with one of my personal favourites. If you know me, you’d not be surprised to know this is about food. My friends & I have decided to go to one restaurant we haven’t been to before every week. The key here is it needs to be our first time to the restaurant! This was so we could discover NYC and the food places here (Yes, I moved from London to NYC earlier in the year)…

Gym : After all that yummy food, its not hard to guess that gymming would be next on the list. I’ve resolved to go to the gym at least thrice each week plus an extra time for each meal that I eat outside (other than the one covered by resolution 1, come on I need to make it sound do-able!). Target is to to be able to do a 5K under 30 mins by the end of the year.

Say sorry : This one is a bit tougher, its about saying the first sorry… Its about making a genuine attempt to break out of cold-war’s you get into with close people. By the end you don’t even remember whose fault it was just that the outcome isn’t what you want. So say that first sorry and make the effort to amend those important relationships.

Travel : After one serious one, time for something easy to digest… My biggest regret when I moved over from London was that I dint travel enough in and around the UK. I was certain I dint want to harbour the same regret even in this new continent. So I have decided to travel around and not wait until all the factors are perfect. Travel alone if that’s what it comes to but travel!

Invest time getting dressed for work : To understand the next one, you need to know a tad bit about how lazy a person I am that I even dress sloppy to work. While people at my workplace actually dress like the characters in the show Suits! So I clearly am an aberration there, I hope to fix this… This would be the hardest resolution I think,  as I’d need to forego my sleep and spend that extra half hour blow drying my hair or finding the right shoes. Sigh! I am a bit skeptical this one would work but I think its worth putting in any way.

Learn how to dance: With my two left feet and 20-something years of moving like a robot I don’t think I can pull this off right away but I just wish I am no more that girl people can chuckle at when I ‘dance’ more like attempt to move when inebriated.

Read : I wish I had more time to read that I could commit to a book each week but I think it would be far from realistic. Sticking to at least one book a month is pretty much all I can with all my other commitments. Though I will do my best to read books outside of my comfort zone.

Connect with friends : Get in touch & meet up with friends and family in this part of the world. Something I decide to do ‘tomorrow’ for the past 6 months…

Update the blog regularly : The last and final one is to not ignore my blog! I must find the time to document each restaurant we visit weekly.

Now that it’s all in black and white, there is no escaping! Bring it on 2014!

India and Regional Stereotypes

Trying to distinguish between those that aiyyo,aielee, amma, eesshh. Be it a chai party or kitty party or a high society gathering, regional stereotypes is very often the topic of discussion. Stereotyping isn’t great and is amusing when some people get offended with these… Please proceed only if you belong to those class of people who can laugh at themselves.

Tamilian: A Tamilian Anna is:

• Often pictured as the brainy serious person who excels at academics
• Loves his carnatic music and quizes his friends and family on the raga’s of a song on hearing it
• one who is asked to sing songs for any and every family gathering ‘oru paatu paadein’
• an ardent religion follower with photos of God staring down from every possible wall in the house
• Cannot get over idolizing Jayalalitha and Rajnikanth
• Hates Hindi
• Often look jaundiced. No they do not suffer from any health issues. They are just beauty concious and love to use their turmeric face pack in excess.
• someone who doesn’t like women to be size 0 in fact, they like them a little (or a little more than) plump. Thunder Thigh Rambha would sure be an example of this. Most actors belonging to this industry would easily be XL or XXL. Apart from this the hero in their movies can single handedly fight 20 bad guys and still save the girl!

Punjabi: A Punjabi is often pictured to be:

• with a dhol doing his signature ‘balle balle’
• over the top and excited
• the funny one and one who laughs the loudest
• drinking uncontrollably
• gauges how good a wedding party is by the amount and quality of alcohol being served ONLY
• love ghyo (a punju term for ghee ), lassi and pronthe (paranthas)
• have a lot of ‘teri toh …‘s in his dictionary
• screaming ‘chak de phatte’  out of ecstasy
• fierce and brave. Thus the unsurprising large number of Punjabi’s in the army
• extremely hard working and do not shun away from doing menial jobs
• the jaan and shaan of a gathering always
• food lovers and a large percentage of obese people in the country would belong to this category
• the kind who overdo make-up
• The kind who love to have some awesome shawsome type rhyming usages

 

Malayali: A Mallu chettan:

• loves coconuts and has it on his plate, on his head, on the sink (to do vessels with the chagrin), in the fireplace and everywhere possible
• just cant do without rice and needs a mid day meal having rice. Due to its presence in every household at any given point in time, mallus (Malayali’s) have discovered alternate uses of rice. I have even seen it being used as glue! (You already have an answer to the standard interview question which says ‘Give me few non-conventional uses of blah. If the blah is rice, we have hit the jackpot!)
• doesn’t use shampoos very often. The common/healthy practice is to pluck certain leaves and flowers and use the soaked water to wash hair
• man is that typical mooch (moustache) man you have read about or seen
• can be found anywhere and everywhere.There is a popular saying, “You dont meet mallus they just happen to you” 😛
• is one who shops for ONLY two things (esp. in mallu land) – sarees and gold
• is obsessed with fairness creams and powders
• loves his lungis for various reasons…1. when getting bored u can fold it, undo it, redo it and all in public… 2. makes scratching easy 3. facilitates unrestricted ventilation due to reason 1.
• When it comes to movies here, I think they are very similar to their Tamil counterparts with the difference being, the hero here would first fold his lungi ( while the bad guys stand and watch) and  fight a whole battalion of bad guys alone and save the girl! The hero is in short a lungi clad superman! 😛

Kerala fact-sheet: half or more than half malayali’s are NRIs settled in ‘DuFai‘ or ‘GElf‘. They louve to catch the ootoo (auto) by ccch-ccch‘ing it (a way of calling any and every random person and we thought call signals only existed in the animal world!). This state has 100% literacy but no they still don’t believe in working… They believe in strikes. Which turns out to be a blessing when you are in school or college. Who doesn’t like extra holidays?! 🙂

Gujrati: A Gujju bhai:

• is known to be stingy
• is the businessman of India
• is a vegetarian
• likes everything sweet including their dal (lentil soup) !
• has a taste for shiny/sparkly clothes
• is exaggerative
• calls every one baain (behn)
• loves to speak in english. Errrrm his version of it, where Pop is Pope, Hall is Hole. These variations of the language can at times result in ridiculously hilarious meanings. Try permutations with the above words and be creative. You would know what I mean! 😀
• look for a reason to perform (sing/dance). This reminds me of that scene in Kal ho na ho… right before the song Mahi Ve. 😛 Can be fun (to the extent of being lame! ;P watch KHNH for further reference ) . Even the most obese oldie gujjus can put those fit gymming youngsters to shame with their garba and dandiya moves.

Bengali: The Bengali Babu and Boudi

• love feesh (Fish) in a spicy jhol curry
• love their mustard in every form… you name it, they use it!
• uses mustard oil for cold, earache, cough, etc. It is the Bong panacea.
• have shrill voices and can be heard a couple of houses away owing to their habit to speak errm softly.
• obsess wearing bindi and the rule says, the bigger the better.
• like everything colourful from their houses to their clothes.

Bengali fact sheet: They are the true artists of India.  Most of out actors, musicians, poets hail from there. They are known for their flawless beauty and beautiful skin. Other than this a rule that applies to the Bong English is that ‘a’ and ‘o’ are equivalent. This means that Office is Affice, Mahima is Mohima, West Bengal is ‘Waste Bengal’  or ‘Bhaste Bengal’ and Veg is ‘Bhaej’.

UP waala’s :

A UP waale bhaiya is extremely hard to spot and classify. They come in different packages. One variety would be the paan eating ‘Kya kahat hain babua?’ types while another contrasting variety would be those ‘pehle aap‘ Lucknow Nawabs. The UP waalas are found all over India and claim to be the hindustani’s which is what makes them hard to distinguish. Cant decide which part of India a person belongs to? Must be a UP waale bhaiya.

On a personal note, I can relate to 3-4 of the categories mentioned above as my family has representations from the different states in India.