Her Alibi

When I was 12 years old the 2nd most phenomenal movie had released - Matrix (1st obviously being Terminator 2). The movie satisfied such a deep innate question in me. I have often had the will to believe "Life is not what it seems", that we are all on the wrong path wasting time reading, studying, earning and the "Architect" has kept us all busy with these mundane everyday chores of life. I was so confident that any day, any day now I would step on this real piece of information - that we are living a lie, that this is a dream, that we have been looking at it all wrong our whole lives, that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth but the other way round, that our entire thinking needs to take a major hit. This thought of mine was blown up and presented to me and to the world as a US$463M grossing movie, that plagued into this very subconscious and gave us what we wanted on a platter. That we might be having a desk job in an office where we are just another person in a cubicle; but we are definitely "so much more than what meets the eye", that just may be, just may be we are "The One".

When I was 15 years old, the doctor told me I had appendicitis and it needed to be operated. After the shenanigans, I was operated on and my mum told me that the operated appendix was sent to the lab to check if it were malignant, standard protocol.Weirdly enough I day-dreamed that it was cancerous, and that that's why my life had not been how I would have liked it to be - I didn't have great many friends, I didn't do as well as I would like in my studies, I wasn't very athletic/sporty, I wasn't a musical/dance prodigy like I would like to be, I sketched ordinary like every other kid. I thought this was the answer that I was waiting for all 15 years of my life.7 days later mom informed me rather reluctantly it wasn't, like it was obvious that I was healthy. How could I tell her that she had just dashed my perfect alibi to pieces?

I am 26 now, I am still healthy. I have suffered enough losses to drive a person insane yet I am not (maybe that's what is wrong with me! That's an article for a different day I guess). I am still not a musical / dance prodigy, I am still not athletic / sporty, I am still exactly everything I thought I was that made me just another girl when I was 15 years young. I still don't have that magical answer - and somehow I have always waited for that perfect answer that would make life seem sensible / fair for without it life just seems like an endless charade of meaningless acts of being mean, robbed and looted of your sanity.

Mario Puzo said, "...with some impunity, insult an older man who has already been humiliated by life itself and will not take to heart the small slights of another human  being. But a young man thinks these offenses mortal."

That was me when I was a teenager, I wouldn't settle for mediocrity even though I myself was mediocre. The dream that was so alive, approachable and glimmering in my eyes, that I could taste it when I blinked; has been carved out with a butcher's knife while I was screaming and writhing in pain, yet no one could hear me. They were silent screams of desperation and frustration, no one heard me for there was no one to hear me. I was in my own social vacuum bubble and like "Tom" of "Tom & Jerry" fame; I had locked the door to that one and ate the key to make sure no one entered or left.

I asked my mum once, "When someone writes a story and sees it enacted to the dot of its depression & frustration does it sadden the creator with the misery of their story, the misery of their characters? Or do they enjoy how beautifully the spectacle plays out?"

Mum very calmly answered, "They marvel at their artwork."

I retorted, "Is that how God feels?"

She replied very wryly, "Of course!"

Logic vs unexplainned

From the moment when you are born you are taught to believe. To believe in a higher power, to believe in things that are beyond our control, to believe "to believe". Out of this compulsory habit that we are taught, by default we believe in "magic" - that which is beyond logic, that which is unexplained, that what should not be questioned and admired simply because you can't explain it. May be its a form of respect that arrives out of fear of not knowing/understanding what lies beyond.

The extrapolation of this unexplained "magic" is "love". That we have made to our custom suiting. We seek out the attraction and chemistry that we feel that is different from the chemistry that we share with the rest as "love". For many have tried and failed at their attempts to explain "What is love?"

This sheer compulsion for us to feel the need of magic brings us to believe in love, to look for love, to seek out for love. We need to believe that when two eyes meet and a moment where their souls can see each other for the person they really are and are still ready to accept each other irrespective of allll their flaws is beyond logic and hence it is "magic" aka "love".

What certainly doesn't help is the amount of havoc your dopamine and serotonin cooks up in your brain, one might almost say "makes you delusional" but I'm not that one.We explain the "CLICK" moment as love for how else would we explain it? Your best friend too understands your needs but do you feel that you are in that kind of "love" with her/him? Of course not, you have been taught to understand friendship since birth, but love; alas! Even your parents haven't had much luck with that have they? They are also under the same umbrella of delusion of love that every other philosopher has suffered from. Fear the unknown? Put a label on it and make it less scary.

Our need to hunt down the unknown and label it as magic is almost amusing. It's more convenience than "love"; about time we realise we are just muggles.

Good times

More often than not when I find myself depressed I have a simple fix. I logon to craigslist.com and look at the titles for "Men seeking men". Sometimes I would get an easy quick fix that would keep me roaring with laughter for an adequate amount of time. This one time I came across a title that read "31 year old looking for his daddy" - needless to say I was touched and I found myself running to make acquaintance of this poor son; what I found tickled my funny bone to an eerie extent. It read "31 year old looking to spank me like my daddy used to."

Peeved out yet? It get's better.

So I find this other title that said, "Don't undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others, - m4m - 23 (Bangalore)" and immediately started reading this beautiful poem by Nancye Sims.

"Don't undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others.
It is because we are different that each of us is special.

Don't set your goals by what other people deem important.
Only you know what is best for you.

Don't take for granted the things closest to your heart.
Cling to them as you would your life, for without them life is meaningless.

Don't let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future.
By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.

Don't give up when you still have something to give.
Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

Don't be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect.
It is this fragile thread that binds us to each other.

Don't be afraid to encounter risks.
It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Don't shut love out of your life by saying it's impossible to find.
The quickest way to receive love is to give love.
The fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly;
and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Don't dismiss your dreams.
To be without dreams is to be without hope;
to be without hope is to be without purpose.

Don't run through life so fast that you forget not only where you've been,
but also where you're going. Life is not a race,
but a journey to be savored each step of the way."

Thank you craigslist for having people who take the time out to write a few words to support the nicety in people.

To borrow sunshine when I'm running low

1. A hedgehog taking a bath

2. A flirty dog

• A turtle nom-nom-ing on a raspberry

  

• 4. An old GIF that's just as great the 100th time around

  

• 5. A silly pun

  

• 6. A ninja kitten

  

  7. A bad day at the costume shop

• 

  8. SLOTH

• 

  9. A happy frog

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  10. A dog standing on cheeseburgers

• 

  11. A corgi bringing joy to a stranger

• 

  12. A puppy saved from a fire

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  13. A very grumpy sheriff

• 

  14. A random act of kindness

• 

  15. A dog on a car ride

• 

  16. A ride for man's best friends

• 

  17. A couple of cat paw bears

• 

  18. A cat that sits like a human

• 

  19. A perfectly angled selfie

• 

  20. A turtle birthday

• 

  21. Lil Bub and googly eyes

• 

  22. A ballpit

• 

  23. An incredibly cool dog riding a horse

• 

22 places that put a smile on my lips and in my heart

1. Tunnel of Love, Ukraine



2. Tulip Fields in Netherlands



3.Salar de Uyuni: One of the World’s Largest Mirrors, Bolivia

4. Hitachi Seaside Park, Japan

5. Mendenhall Ice Caves, Juneau, Alaska

6. Red Beach, Panjin, China

7. Bamboo Forest, Japan

8. Street in Bonn, Germany

9. Naica Mine, Mexico

10. Wisteria Flower Tunnel in Japan

11. Black Forest, Germany

12. Fields of Tea, China

13. Tianzi Mountains, China

14. Hang Son Doong, Vietnam

15. Shibazakura Flowers, Takinoue Park, Japan

16. Antelope Canyon, USA

17. Lake Hillier, Australia

18. Lake Retba, Senegal

19. Lavender Fields, UK and France

20. Canola Flower Fields, China

21. Mount Roraima, Venezuela/Brazil/Guyana

22. Zhangye Danxia Landform, China

Working Class Hero is something to be

"Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and freeBut you're still peasants as far as I can see" 
This is easily my n'th post about women, violence & injustice to women.

Modern day woman is often used as a slang. "Shaadi ke liye hume gharelu ladki chahiye", "We want a smart woman who is capable of carrying out her daily activities". You want the same person to be modern and homely depending on her home/office scenario. I think its high time the term "homely" changes to modern day significance. Homely can no longer mean loves to stay at home, knows how to cook, wash, nurture etc. Homely should start to mean be outgoing, fully able at the work place, have a social circle yet, be able to come home and care about why the gardener's not trimming the bushes. To be a part of today's world and yet pay attention to the small details should be what "homely" means.

Today's middle-class woman on an average has a degree worth having (i.e. not a B.A. in Civics) but a degree that can enable her to stay on her own, manage office work, purchase long-term belongings (e.g. sofa, car, Lazyboy etc.) yet attend parties, go dancing with other men with whom she's not necessarily sexually involved, go on trips with her friends where men might out number women but that is fine - cause modern day woman on a daily basis faces exactly that in any situation she is in. Whether be it in the bus she boards, the office she attends, the gym she goes to, the road she walks on her way home, the supermarket she enters to buy her daily groceries - men always outnumber women. That doesn't freak her out, why should a trip be any different.

Modern day woman has sleep overs at friends places who are of the opposite sex. Doesn't mean there's anything unworthy involved. It just means she can see her friends to be beyond the limitations that we have been brought up with - that he is a MAN. So does the modern day man. He acknowledges it when he notices that they are friends and respects and honours that.

Modern day man has as much role to play as modern day woman in growing out of the box in which we were nurtured. The fixed ideals with which we were brought up has been outdone by both parties equally.

Who needs to acknowledge that is the media. For media would still like to portray as a man and a woman alone, must most surely be overcome by their cannibalistic carnal feelings. Do the mass of India still like to amuse themselves with the idea that a man and woman no matter what their relationship is if closed in a room for hours would most definitely end up in sex? For we are weak people void of any conscience or self-control?

Abroad women feel confident enough to wear revealing clothes for it is acceptable by everybody that she is confident about her sexuality. Here women are told to hide it all away for it reflects poorly not only on our character but also people may think too wrongly of it.

Are we holding ourselves back in a war between what we were taught, what we feel is correct and what the world today deserves? Or is it all going to go down the rat hole either way?

Keeping Score

There was smoke everywhere, one could barely see the others face. Disco lights filled the air while everyone held a glass of "maal" in hand, while other glasses were being refreshed by women that had their ghagras way too low on their hips and their blouses not covering much either, needless to mention were freely being groped at, almost as one does to a tomato to check if it has gone bad. "Fevicol se" and its likes filled the room to which some girls gyrated to; anybody else would easily question their age and check if they have been heavily drugged, but not here.

The meeting had commenced. The person at the farthest end started the meeting. He said "14", the one next to him said, "11". This kept going on for a while, till everybody at the table had done mouthing numbers. After this ritual, the head of the table stood up and said in a far crass tone that is neither legible to normal ears or in a fashion that can be reproduced word to word; the gist of it meant, "Hello fellow brothers. I would like to congratulate each of you for successfully completing yet another year of making our mark in the city. Earlier only the local newspapers would speak of us but now we have shown the entire world who is the new boss around here. We have also set those insignificant mortals to their places. They are nothing but sex objects and every time one of them have forgotten that, we have taken things in our own hand and set the table straight. Just cause you are born doesn't mean you have the right to prove that you are equal to us, MEN. Leave alone dream of leaving your place, your kitchen!" To which the entire club roared to cheer at this "wonderful" statement.

This is what I think is the matter with Delhi NCR. This is what they do with their free time and the money they didn't work hard for but got it the moment all the "Delhi"ness happened. This is the only thing that makes sense to me. They have a club sort-of, where they meet to discuss the number of rapes that they have successfully committed, put women in their place, and fled without so much as any sign of it. 

The only thing that explains how in a city where a lady gets raped and dies, yet seems to fall shy of actually knocking some sense into these monsters that just let your fellow lady live and die a normal dignified death. The statistics doesn't shy for the slightest, the rapists don't shy away either, obviously, and the police maintain its lackadaisical attitude: whether they have been bribed or not seems beside the point, as the Delhi bus rape victim pointed out. She was raped by nobodies like a fruit seller, a bus driver, a gym instructor, bus cleaners and a non-adult. So many rapes have been happening for way too long in Delhi, yet somehow no one shrugged. Now finally when a girl dies such a horrible agonising death, the nation has finally decided to shrug the dust off their shoulders and do something about it. 

What shocks me more is the numerous women criticising as to how and why was she out 'so late'. These questions make my blood curdle. So many people keep saying she deserved to die for her life would have been more painful as people who knew her traumatising past would treat her so harshly, that would make her trauma seem like nothing. When will this judgemental attitude for someone who has already gone through hell stop? When will today's society accept the modern day woman? She no longer just cooks and cleans but also earns just as much as her male contemporary, may be little more, she drives expensive cars, buys obnoxiously expensive shoes, wears perfume, flirts, dances with men, drinks & smokes "like a man". No longer is it necessary that she is sleeping with a guy if she's staying at his place. Yes, the definition of "friends" has actually extended by that much! 

Deal with it!

The real question is no matter how much we are bantering about these rapes now, will it actually make a difference? Will the cops actually bother to protect women better? Will the government work to making better laws? Will they work to try and change the mentality at an extremely young age that men know that so much as touching a girl without her consent is equivalent to having killed everyone you love a million times? Will the girl get justice? Will so many other girls who have been raped and yet their victims roam around freely, be penalised and put behind the bars? Will a girl shudder every time she boards a bus late? Will their own fathers/brothers/uncles stop raping their own mothers/daughters/sisters/nieces/toddlers?

Keep the wound alive, till you have reason to let it heal. 

Don't forgive, don't forget.