song of the road

Well, I ran out of fruits by about 4 pm yesterday and was very very hungry. Maybe because I was eating whatever I want for most part these few months, the hunger was specially sharp. So I had a couple of sandwiches at the cafeteria - fortunately no cheese but white bread. Anyway then I left work early to take care of the phone problems. I now again have my same old number which is good because too many people have it. It is almost impossible to let everyone know a new number.

That done, I did some grocery shopping. I bought a small jar of yeast extract for the first time. No clue at all about how to use it. Will check that out later. I also bought a smallish jar of mayo and some chips. Stupid store - they didn’t have salsa! So back home after answering my mom’ numerous hopeful questions and doubts about how cell phones and SIM cards work, I could go to bed with my Dick Francis novel and the chips. I had chips, then some boiled vegetable and beans, then chips again, one piece of sweet, some curry. A full fledged binge. Finished reading and eating by 1 am. Feeling much better today. Don’t know how long that will last.

I do need to get back on track pronto. But I am tired. I need a little break from holding up and controlling. Not for long, I promise myself. I find myself thinking about something else and suddenly realize I don’t have that phone any more. I didn’t know I had loved it this much.

Well, today is a new day. I bought a mug from the cafe downstairs. It’s tall but with a thinnish rim. Just as I like. I am drinking green tea from it now. Life’s small pleasures. Though I did visualize the mug breaking at least thrice on my way up. I have lots of work and reasonably healthy lunch plus fruits with me to eat. I am planning to have a good productive day.

R is getting married today.

so much for being so supportive and loving. I am feeling a little better today. I will be starting with the paper work today. Let’s see how things work out. Went to police yesterday. They agreed to help but honestly not much hope of getting a phone back. On one hand, I do believe if the police wants they can stop every crime here but on the other hand, they are too few in number and in many ways their hands are tied too. Well, all this is my personal thinking.

Everyone, thank you so much again for your kind thoughts. My house is on the 3rd floor. The first floor is an one car parking space. A stair goes up beside it. On the 2nd floor, another teannt stays. We stay on the 3rd floor. Just beside the car parking, there is a biggish courtyard and a small play school on 2nd floor above it. My land lord’s house is intermingled with the school and the yard. It is a bit rambling by Indian standards. But a sweet nice house. I do like it a lot.

The stair opens to a terrace on the 3rd floor. My home or apartment is on the terrace with the main door opening to it. Once that door is locked, no one can come in. People here too have trellis on their windows. We have straight narrow bars on all the windows. Once we open the wood framed glass panes, air and light flow in unimpeded. The bars are closely placed enough so a grown up hand can’t pass through but there are a few a bit far spaced so we can open or shut the window panes which open outside.

So not easily anyone can come in. No one has come in yet. Once we lock the main door, it is like an apartment. The main door has one solid wooden door and one sturdy trellis door. My mom keeps the wooden door open and the trellis door closed during the day. So she can easily see who is outside and open the door accordingly. It’s just because of the terrace, the open stairs and the rambling added-on-when-possible way the house is built, some of the windows are rather accessible. So the thief was trying to pull things from outside, knowing well that by the time we yell and come out, he would slip away easily in the dark. He just has to jump in to any of the gardens or roofs till the hullabaloo dies away. If a theif gets caught, there could be lynching which makes me want the thief to be able to run away. Generally we all are very peaceful but maybe because of our many problems and deprivations, mob fury at times can be devastating.

Anyways, that is enough on that. We are still thinking on making us more secure. Anyways even now no one can come in. We have organized things and all valuables are inside cupboards away from snatching. I slept with my bed side window closed yesterday. But will open one a little farther away today. Apart from that the stair remains open. When we move next time, I will try to get an apartment inside a gated community with security guards.

I do wish that I could have a tantrum. It’s just that I am not feeling angry enough, more scared. Actually lot less scared today. Guess my strength has increased. Most times I cope with unpalatable events by taking a sudden day off and spending the day resting, reading and some times cooking. I have seriously eaten through my leaves and really can’t take any more on whimsy. Though I know I will when I can’t take it any more but I am not yet feeling that bad.

I am doing the fruit day today. I ate papaya, pineapple and chiku (no idea of english name) for breakfast. Chiku is a brown coloured round fruit with a thin skin. The inside brown pulp is juicy and sweet and it has two or three black seeds. I felt hungry by the time I reached office. Had an apple. Still hungry. Now had a cup of green tea and feeling much better. Planning to go through the day on fruit and green tea. Generally I often munch while reading and end up eating more than needed. I was wondering if I should read while eating fruits for dinner. That way I can eat some thing I don’t like that much because my mind will be busy reading.

Love you all. You are trully my pillars.

Life kicked me a little today morning. In the big scheme of things, it is not such a big deal. But it is hurting.

A thief came in my house today morning. My sleep got a little thin. Then there was a small sound. I turned towards the living room window which can be seen from my bed. I thoutght one of the wondow panes banged because of wind. A few moments later saw the silhoutte of a man for a moment on the curtain. I thought it might be a tree or something else which looked like a man for a minute. I didn’t bother. And then I saw again a guy who climbed on the window sill and could be clearly seen through the curtain. I shouted “hello” and the guy ran away. I was still sleepy enough and thought it was silly of the guy to climb on the window. I was thinking he was trying to go on the roof and there is nothing except for two big water tanks on the roof.

Surprisingly enough I wasn’t scared at all. Then after a few minutes, I simply got up to go to the bathroom which is in my mother’s bedroom on the other side of the living room. There is one connecting to the living room too, but we hardly use that. Then I saw there a long stick inside the living room. That guy was clearly trying to pull my office bag which was left on a sofa about five feet from the window. The bag had fallen from the stick and that made the sound. Maybe he was trying to pick it up again. For once it helped that my bag is generally quite heavy. I was a little upset now. I righted the bag and took it far from that window.

I came back to my room to check the time. I almost always sleep with my cell phone beside my pillow. I use it as a clock too. It has my morning alarm. I then noticed it is not there. I could clearly remember that I had put it on the bed. The small clock on my table said 5:30 am. I checked a few other places and then used another cell phone to ring it up. There was no ringing inside the home and the call was cut at the other end soon enough.

So that is it. My ultra expensive cell phone which I haven’t yet used for 4 months, which I am yet to pay fully for is gone. I have never lost a phone before. Because this one was so expensive, I actually was much more careful than usual. I loved the phone. My brother had chosen that one for me. It is my half month’s pay.

I have to call up banks and everywhere to update my contact number. I have another cell phone given to me by work. I wasn’t using that as my primary phone. Now I will. It was a bit of an envy around here. Lots of people told me I shouldn’t have bought such a costly one. I have to face people and narrate the story many times through out the day and maybe this week.

I had many negative thoughts in the past couple of months. I wanted bad things to happen to R. Well, half of it happened anyway. Bad things did happen, only to me instead of him. Most of the times, I am feeling it is okay. These things happen to everyone. I am stronger than this. But still I feel sad. That guy picked it up from in front my nose while I slept on. I should have noticed that things on the bed are that accessible from outside. The open 3rd floor house with a big terrace has its problems too.

My mom is very upset. I was feeling stronger when I was with her. Maybe her just being there made me feel safer and more okay. I called my brother. He consoled my mom and me a bit too. He wants to buy me another phone now. :) I talked him out of it. But now at work, I am sitting alone as others will come slowly a little later, I feel vulnerable.

Not much point dwelling on that, I guess. To move on, I have decided that I would take a break from gym and study a couple of hours everyday morning for the certification. I need to talk to S on that. I have paid a lot of money in the gym, as membership fees till August. I hoe they won’t charge me while I am on a break. Or that is another loss looming up.

I am feeling a bit shaken. I am telling myself these things are accidents. But are they? If bad things are happening consecutively to me, it must be something in me! I am too naive!!! Maybe R is doing something right and I am doing something wrong. I know these things happen and I shouldn’t let myself change too much because of it. I don’t want to be too cynical and suspicious and scared. But it hard this morning.

Also on my sane level, I know that this could happen to anyone. I have known of bikes getting stolen and more. But one small voice is saying maybe it won’t be easy to spend the long life alone. Today I have my brother to call up. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Maybe there won’t be anyone there. I believe that people are resilient and I know I am and I will figure out a way of survival but I am scared today.

Sorry to dump so much on you guys! I am a bit full of self-pity today. Love you all.

This is something I wrote during lunch hour. But it is got nothing to do with weight loss. Hope the 3fc Goddesses won’t kick me out. My friends here are my oxygen.

I had a weird dream last night. I was back at my childhood home at Agrico, in
Jamshedpur. After quite some time, I remembered my childhood town. 

For a little background, Jamshedpur is one beautiful city in Eastern India. It had the Asia’s first and biggest for many years, steel plant – Tata Steel. A carefully planned and maintained city grew around it. As workers and intellectuals poured in from every corner of the country, it was a very cosmopolitan city. The complex where we stayed at the end of our tenure there, had sixteen apartments in each block. They were two bedrooms, one bathroom units. In the block we stayed, people spoke more than 8 languages at home. Outside it was predominantly Hindi. English was yet to become the language of my thoughts.  

The city has two rivers and one huge partly man made lake. There are hills nearby which has much wildlife. Wild elephants are the most famous inhabitants in the mountain forests. The elephants some time come down from the mountain and ruin crops in the nearby farmers’ lands. Farmers used to beat up tin drums and burst crackers to scare them. Sometimes an elephant will separate from its heard due to injury or other causes like losing a fight with the alpha male and grow mad. These mad lone elephants cause death and mush destruction of property and crops. They would stampede on people and break mud huts. Often villagers would stay in complete dark at night, so as not to attract attention. Generally these elephants are hunted down and killed. Many adventure stories have been written around these hunts. 

One of the rivers is called “swarnarekha”, the word means a line drawn in gold. The myth is that the river sand contains gold. People apparently used to spend hours to sieve sand for little particles of gold. Also the bank of river has quite a few quicksand areas. The river was incredibly romantic to us when we were kids. We once went to a picnic on the confluence of the two rivers of our town. It was beautiful with tall slender eucalyptus kind of trees around. There is a kind of wild flower found abundantly in that area. They come in red and yellow. The yellow ones were planted by the roads and the roads would often be covered in a vibrant yellow. A yellow carpet welcoming you warmly to walk down a road sloping slowly towards a river and distant hills. That was the road in front of our house.  

The red wild flowers are to be found in the forest. The whole forest would turn a bright flaming red in the spring, as if the whole forest is on fire. Curiously enough is the soil too is bright red there. The sane explanation is that the soil there is rich in iron and many different ores. The myth is that there was a very brave and ambitious tribal prince. He wanted to rule the heaven and the earth. So he started a very difficult tapasya¹. He stood on his head and without eating or drinking anything, meditated for months and years. He wanted to please the Gods²  with this, so he could get a boon and become the king of heavens. Lord Indra who is the king among Gods became very agitated when our guy went on for years and feared that some powerful and benevolent God might grant him his wish. So he got other Gods together and plotted and schemed to save his own throne. He then came down to the most powerful king on earth (Lord Rama who is famous enough to have one whole epic Ramayana written on his life – he is supposed to be the model of virtue) and asked him to put a stop to this. This king has always been a nice guy but he sided with the Gods to save his own skin, I suppose. He went down to the prince and broke his tapasya. The prince was very angry and asked why he dared to do this. The King replied that only a “khsatriya” (the caste of kings and soldiers) can be a king and not a lowly tribal. The prince was bitterly angry and understood the politics. He started to fight and was beheaded by the all powerful king³. His blood saturated the whole land red.  

In fact the land there is full of many tribes who have been usually kept down by the powerful castes. Recently a part of three neighboring states in the area broke out as another independent state. This state’s major population is of tribes, some of whom still live in jungles abundant in this area. This area is richest in minerals in India and has many very beautiful places which can be really good tourist attractions. Not much development has happened post-splitting, but hopefully it will happen. The tribes here are peaceful in nature and have much wonderful heritage. Even if you know nothing about them and encounter one, just their broad white innocent smile will win you over in a moment. 

The steel factory is almost in the middle of the town. Because of the good planning and a huge numbers of trees planted, the city is not so polluted. They would pour molten steel near the furnaces inside the factory. The sky would glow red for a few seconds. It is a vision to see. Often they would do it for a few consecutive times in the late evening. Watching it can make one feel that that part of the town had caught fire. The industries and commerce in that place were throbbing at the time. How I traveled from the model city of the India which wanted to use heavy industries as her road to prosperity to the model city of the twenty first century India’s claim to fame on the global arena, could be another story. 

I left the place for good after I completed my schooling there. I did visit for a few more years till I graduated from college and then dad too shifted out. I have never been there since. It is now a town I only dream of and it remains the same that I saw while growing up. The house I saw in my dream last night was one very near to ours, back facing the same play ground in the middle. The people in that house are a story in themselves, to be told another day. Tragedy struck them violently. The house came up in my dream showing R living there.

1. Tapasya is an act that is generally self-inflicted and makes one endure tremendous difficulties to promote ones spiritual growth. Sages are known to stand under the scorching sun, or in freezing conditions, for hours on end. More close to home, one hears of people undertaking difficult fasts. Some include, not having even a drop of water, for days on end. It is believed that the discipline that is the result of ‘tapasya’ gives rise, to spiritual growth. 
2. I am using the word God in plural here. As we also do think God is one and alone. But in mythologies, our world is divided in three parts - the heaven which is above us, the earth which is middle part and the subterranean earth where hell is. The Gods live in heaven who have drunk the elixir of life and live forever young. They are built like humans generally and have human emotions but are far more powerful and wise. Then we humans live on earth. The monsters live below ground in their kingdom. They too are very strong and quite powerful but not so wise except for a few. They are the beings who are too greedy, too hungry, too big, a little weak on the head. They are forever fighting with the Gods. When the Gods found the elixir of life, they made these creatures work very hard to get it but cheated them out of it. 
3. I think the other version is that the prince asked for forgiveness from the king. So the king granted him a boon that he will forever be remembered. The prince had nothing to live for and wanted to die in the hands of the great king and so the king beheaded him at his request. I find the version I told above more believable. And definitely the killing was to make an example out of it. There definitely are other versions and interpretations.

If possible, please share your thoughts on the the above. Anyway, I am on my way home now. Next two days, planning to stay busy with trainings and studying for my certification. KC your suggestion is awesome. It will workf for me. I will start practicing it this Monday, when I am back.

Love to you all, my great women friends. Have a happy weekend!

I have another 30 minutes to go before I need to run for a meeting. Somehow I am continuously facing a problem concentrating on work. I must, today. I have a load to do. Also I need to stick it out in this job till my certification is through. Otherwise it may become difficult. So I just have to dig my heels in, remove all unwanted thoughts from my mind and focus on what I have to do now. I need to clear up my load in office and finish catching up. Also need to study hard for the certification. Also figure out a way to go to gym everyday and lose weight. In this last month or so, I have gained most of my lost weight and not feeling so good either. That was to be expected but now is the time to heal. At least with R being out of office, it is going better. Hope I get better enough before he returns. I need my focus badly because I must stick it out here at least till June of this year, as I see now. 

I did a little better in eating yesterday. I am a sucker for the evening snacks that the company provides for free. It was not a good one yesterday. So I did well with eating a couple of small bananas that I brought from home. It’s not a big deal but a start. I think I have no bananas today. But I will try to not have snacks today as well. A few cups of tea should tide me over. Also at the worst case, I will have a few biscuits which won’t be so healthy either but it can help me to break the snacking habit. 

I mixed a spoon of my newly bought protein supplement with my oat meal breakfast. It has a strong pineapple flavor but doesn’t taste bad. Thank God for that. Now I can have it regularly enough with my breakfast plus may make some smoothies with it. Hope it will give me some strength and stamina while working out. I will try to have a smallish smoothie before going to gym. Also noticed it has a very low fat content which is another good thing. Though it does have high carbohydrate content, I figure that should be okay for breakfast. I will try to figure a way by which I can skip dinner which is very late for me or have fruits/vegetables instead. Let’s see. I must do something to lose the weight. As it is I lost weight slowly enough, to have gained it back is such a shame. 

I had bought a small box of about 12 bags of green tea. I had a cup using one tea bag. It is really nice. I was worrying that I won’t like it. But I did. It is green tea flavored with ginger, mint and lemon. The mint flavor was rather nice and it kind of bursts inside the mouth with a sip and is very refreshing. So that is one more good thing is my office drawer. I wish with so much preparations, I would do better work. I really need to do things at work perfectly, to justify the salary and the confidence of my employers. But I can’t now. So I guess I will take round’s advice – sometime good enough is good enough. Instead of feeling bad about not doing well, if I spend that time working, it will be better work. I need to look after my guys a bit more too. Two of them are less than 80% productive. With the kind of work expected to flow in, I need them up to full speed to pull everything through. For all of it to happen, I must be on my toes. 

My time is up for now. Hope you all are doing great. Love to you all. 

This is later. I couldn’t post this before leaving for the meeting. So will write a little bit more before running for lunch. You know I have this perverse tendency. Now that I should not do anything but work, I feel this uncontrollable urge to write and do everything else but work. Well, I guess I will have to stop giving in to my urges and must work diligently post lunch. 

We had this skip level kind of meeting with our CEO. He is a surprisingly nice guy. I mean at least he is ready to listen to us. Looks like many issues haven’t reached him. Most probably no big changes would happen but still it was a pleasure to be in that meeting. We had a center manager joining us a few months back. He is now on long leave because his mom is seriously ill. He too had a meeting where he apparently wanted to “hear” us. Oh Boy! That meeting was bad. He would simply answer back on each and every issue and will prove that it is not an issue. Like I put forward a suggestion for making the client happier and be able to give better service. I said I know there is some client unhappiness brewing. He said we don’t need it because we are already doing an excellent job and client isn’t complaining. I work day-to-day with my clients and have some clue about their feelings. But he who has joined a week back and it will be a year or never before he even meets any end user client for the first time, he knows we are doing an “excellent” job. I was so pissed off. Okay, I understand that lot of things cannot be changed due to many limits and problems, but at least acknowledge the problem when you say you want to hear about the problems. That too I was not complaining but actually proffering a workable solution. You may not agree with my solution, but what kind of a manager will not listen to people who do the day-to-day work. Well, apparently there are many. There had been cases, when others in our extended team have brought work and deals because of their hard earned good rapport with clients, they have been told to mind their own business and those deals were let down the drain.  

Okay that is enough of my rant. Whether I work well enough or not, I seem to have enough problems about others. :) I actually do need to mind my own business and I have enough business right now to take more than my mind. 

See you all later. Have a great day!

Yes. Home today. No. Not a holiday. Just me bunking work again. I know I shouldn’t do this. On the other hand just couldn’t face work today. I need to not overdo this. I need the money. But I guess there will be some collateral damage while I get through this. Need to stay just within the safety line. But let’s see. When things go real bad, often it is just after that they start to pick up again. At least I am not in a rut.

I was writing to my brother yesterday. A longish mail after a long time. I love Ella and Ruby’s memories so much, I too am toying with the idea of making a collection of jottings about my folks. And scan and add some photos and things that I remember about them. And things my mom used to say when she was less bitter. I worry about that a bit. Will I lose my resilience with age? I don’t want to. My mom was so cool. I wish there was any way I could pull off a marriage which will not break me and make her life. She just can’t drop her notions that a woman MUST marry. She says without a kid, I have nothing to spend my love and money on. But if it’s not to be, it’s not to be.  

I know you all think I still have a chance. It has been a funny thing. My life is less like of that of an average Indian woman and more like an average American woman in many ways. So that is why what you say to me make so much more sense and I can’t often relate to people here. But still I am here. And here normal women don’t get married to decent folks once they are over 30. Anything can happen and there are exceptions. But why build life hoping for exceptions?  

Anyway back to the email I wrote to my brother. I think I should share some of those thoughts here too. You know this blog thing so far have not done much on weight loss front. I am not beating myself up about that now. It’s just that things have rather tough last few months. But I am slowly becoming more health conscious and I know I will get there. But the invaluable thing this blog has given me is my sense of worth in being a woman. 

I don’t know if you can relate to it. But most of my life I have worked towards not being less than a guy. My mom had often told me not to cry like a girl. And the idea that I MUST make the money I need to live, has been drilled in almost from infancy. So till I got my first job, all I had done in my life was to get a job. Will you believe it that when I used to think what I wanted to be, the answer was “busy”. I wanted to be busy! I don’t know even now why I wanted that except if one is busy one can’t think about the bad things. Anyway my mom has been rather unhappy about her being a woman (I think). She has loved me with all she has. She has been afraid for me forever, including now. She hurts so much about my being unmarried when I really don’t mind at all. She says now the groom search is over. I hope that is a permanent decision. It makes me so relieved. She has been more relaxed about my brother’s failures; I think just because he is a guy and so will survive anyway, per her. Also a little of that is due to the fact that she learned to be a parent on me and was more experienced for my brother. I am not at all saying that he had it easy. It has just been so. 

I did some of my studying in exclusive girl schools too. But some how I have never caught up being a girl. I hardly ever wear any jewellery. My mom and my dad too have struggled with me to buy me fashionable clothes and to make me try make up. The only things I truly love are perfumes. We had these couple bottles of lovely perfumes – one called “Intimate”. They were from my uncle in US and they were superb. We were not allowed to wear perfume except in very special occasions but were allowed to smell them carefully sometimes. I used to swoon with pleasure. We have some good memories of those. The best thing my mom did was she never bought any cheap bad perfume. Those two bottles lasted us forever.  

When I went to Chicago, I spent so much money buying perfumes for all of us. There is this one blue bottle of Polo Ralph Lauren which is my brother’s dead favorite and he guards it very jealously. So my dad used to spray it whenever he could and my brother would mock protest loudly for hours. His fiancée has got him quite a few more bottles too. He has this Gucci Envy bottle (again bought by me), which I just smell sometimes to bring myself up. He had bought me a bottle of Dior Addiction which perhaps is not appropriate for someone my age but the fragrance actually makes me weak at knees.  

Anyway to come back to my topic again, interacting with you all has made me so much more comfortable and actually really realize my woman being. I work and spend time almost exclusively with guys. I have intuitively picked up their way of thinking in many ways. But it is such a relief to slowly be in peace with who I am. I guess I am not making much sense. I have not quite found who I am, but I am becoming more convinced that I would like the person I will find. It took me more than 30 years just to start realizing my self-worth. I hope I don’t lose it. 

I am thinking I would create a collection of letters written to my unborn niece. Or it would go to my adopted daughter if I ever get enough courage to do it. I have always wanted to adopt. But now that the time is here, I am feeling very afraid to be a single parent. Still I would seriously consider it in another year or two. I have quite sometimes visualized me being a mom. Almost always with a son! I knew theoretically it is wrong to not want a daughter but I did not know what to do with a daughter. I still don’t know. But I can now visualize it easily. I will make loads of mistakes but I will be able to be there and teach her stuff and share her life. It is such a grand thing, isn’t it? To see a life blossoming and to feel such love.  

Anyway, to these letters. Where to start? It is not easy here to track down your relatives. And it is still a dark place. I don’t know if I want to meet all my relatives. I know whatever little I do only about my mom’s folks. Hardly anything about my dad’s folks. In fact we know our dad not much too. My brother was mentioning a curious thing that day.  

My dad has always been big on religion. The rest of three of us are not big on religion and definitely not rituals. India has a little too much religion in any case. My dad steadily went on with his daily worships, alone for most part. My mom has been more complicated. Her dad was again super-religious and her mom non-religious. My grandma was ultra modern in her own way. Oh, not in any loud, slogan shouting feminist way. She was married at 13 and had 11 kids. Two very sick from birth and died soon. She went through ferocious hardships after marriage. She was from a very well-to-do and educated family. Her folks produced one of the first Indian high court judge and the first Indian lady doctor. You need remember here that we have been independent only for 60 years now. Her dad married her to my grand dad when he had just passed out from the engineering college. By the way, including my brother and me, four of us from our immediately passed out from the same college. Whereas my grand dad and my uncle (one of my mom’s elder brothers, who is an US citizen now and who got those aforementioned perfumes) were first in their class, I was at about middle and my bro almost at the end. We hope my uncle will not open the web site and realize this.  

This is later. After a long chat with my mom, found out that my grandma’s brother also passed out from the same college that we did. So now the count is five engineers from the same college and except me all chemical engineers and all male. Must call my brother to tell him. There must be some chemical imbalance here. :) 

Well, you who are still with me here, please forgive me. I just have this urge to write today. And this blog will contribute much to my book for my niece. So, my grandma’s dad got her married to my granddad (those who are wondering about the choice of phrase here, love marriages have been a rarity in India till recent past, even now R’s parents didn’t agree. The more prevalent method is parents finding out and setting up suitable matches… I know how that sounds… maybe I will some day write up my take on “arranged” vs. “love” marriage) as he was this brilliant kid passed out from the country’s one of the best engineering colleges with an over-bright future.  

And what did the over bright guy did. He went to live with a spiritual guru in an ashram (The word Ashram describes a house where a true Guru is living and teaching God-seekers seeking spiritual advice and help… this definition is nearly correct). That ashram was a big thing with schools, chemical labs for making medicine out of Indian herbs, a small hospital and loads of followers living. This Guruji allows spouses too. Anyway, so my granddad didn’t go for his career. A few years later when the politics (oh there is a lot of that in any big Guru’s followings for power, for like selecting who would be the next heir etc) became too much, Guruji asked my granddad to go back to his village and help the poor (I think). So my granddad taught in a small village school for quite some years and taught many kids there to graduate them from school. He was a homeopathic doctor and looked after many people in that village where the only lonely small hospital was set up by his father when my grandma were to have a kid. 

That village is a really backward place with no electricity and proper toilets for a long time. Fortunately my great-grandfather had lots of land. So my grandma ran the farming of the lands, managing all associated business, cooked and fed the army of her kids with help from the older kids a little later. My granddad taught all the kids and nothing much. He was a good guy with a quite a fiery temper but they got along well. My grandma used to win prizes for recitation when most Indian girls hadn’t started to see the inside of a school and she had actually attended meetings (as a kid of course) held by Indian Independence fighters. She had to come and stay at a village with no light, one elderly cranky father-in-law (who loved my grandma lots and for that matter I think everybody who knew her had loved her), three small sons, two of whom were retarded (the middle one was my uncle who now lives in UK, is a doctor and married an Irish lady among great furor and whose son studied in MIT for which alone I want to meet the son once), the small middle son at three year old used to take care of his two slow siblings, almost no domestic help, a pond to take bath in, numerous kids afterwards, the responsibility of making money from and maintaining the land and run the house. She had to save enough to educate all the kids and get them married. When her two kids died, the second one when he was almost 18, I don’t think she had time to mourn. My mom cried whenever she remembered her slow sweet elder brother. She and my grandma maintained that my brother looked a lot like him. When her eldest daughter was married, her youngest kid was like a year old. My didi (elder sister in Bengali) from that aunt is only a couple of years younger than my youngest masi (aunt who is mother’s sister in Bengali). And in all that chaos, from when my doctor uncle (for ease of reference) was like 5 years old, it was his duty to collect the one day old newspaper from the school (only establishment in the village to buy one) in the afternoon after everyone have read it there and bring it for my grandma to read. She used to read the newspaper daily. I remember her when she was quite old and all her kids have been grown-ups, then of course the newspaper used to come home, she used to do the word puzzles everyday after lunch using a dictionary when needed. Sometimes she will read an article and granddad would bring out this huge thick atlas and they will both locate out some foreign place in the article. They were more educated in many ways than we are now.  

Anyway now back to my granddad. His Guruji said that women should not be educated beyond a certain limit which got interpreted as about 10 years of school education. Though that guy got his own daughters educated well enough. It can be beyond comprehension why people listen to such so called spiritual leaders. On a separate note, my dad and my other granddad (my dad’s dad) also were disciples of the same person. My father’s dad died when I was about 3 years old and anyway we have never been very close to my father’s family. So I think of my mom’s dad as my granddad more though that is not very common. Anyway so my granddad did not let his daughters study beyond the first school exam (after 10 years of schooling) and that too he home schooled them. My uncles went to the best colleges in Calcutta and then went abroad to further their studies and careers. All my aunts and my mom too are ferociously ambitious. It didn’t sit well with anyone. I will write another day how one by one steadily my aunts rebelled and my youngest aunt managed to complete her Masters degree in economics. 

All these problems have been squarely blamed on religion. My grandma apparently said she didn’t know if religion is needed or not and frankly she couldn’t spare the time to bother. She did some worshipping as needed by the village society but nothing because she wanted to. None of my maternal uncles and aunts is even a little bit religious. So you can understand the kind of good feelings my mom has about religion, though it is a little bit more complicated than that. Anyway my brother and I are not religious at all too. I am at least ambivalent and sometimes pretend just to avoid unnecessary arguments and explanations. My brother doesn’t at all. He has such a “just ask me” expression on his face, I have seen people swallow their advice back. We are not in the least bit against organized religion as long as anyone doesn’t ram it down our throats and as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. And in India, religion hurts and kills and is a tool for politicians and power mongers. Anyway that’s another story. 

So with all this behind us, we never were a religious family but my dad kept with his rituals alone among us. His family came out unscathed and happy with their encounter with this Guruji. In fact one my dad’s brother gave up being a banker and is a high level accountant/treasurer for one of the heirs and lives in yet another ashram. My dad asked us some times to join him. We did for a while though that was my mom’s doing too. My mom had a serious nervous breakdown some 10 years back. About 5 years before that she turned fanatically religious over night. She went whole hog in to doing good (some of it were hilarious) and spreading the light. It was one terrible phase. She forced us into praying and all that. My dad was overwhelmed at first as far as I remember. Then he reluctantly joined in the manic over doings. Anyway lot later when she was treated for her illness, she lost that thing. We had stopped long before but it was such a relief to have her sane again. My brother was quite young through most of that but he never bought in to it. I didn’t know she was doing all that because she was unwell. I kind of bought in at first. Then I too stopped. I haven’t repented it. Organized religion is perhaps not for me.  

Whatever else he was, dad was a practical guy. My brother and I had always wondered whether he actually believed in that Guruji who had three wives and in many ways quite a bigot (really). We don’t know. My dad never accepted that. But he never said much about Him too. He was like always quoting others about Him. But my dad is a deeply opinionated person. He has an opinion about everything and is not afraid to share it generally. I too don’t remember him saying that much about all of it. So I guess it could be that he too didn’t believe fully in what he was doing. He didn’t want to question it for some reason and just did what his father told him the correct thing to do. But maybe he didn’t buy in too. I don’t know. Maybe I will figure it out some day when I am older still. 

Well that is quite enough for me too. I spent quite some time today with my mom talking about things.  I will write some more another day. I love you all.  

* All of this is my personal point of view. I am not particularly knowledgeable on anything plus have a big tendency to over-generalize. Please take it in that spirit.*

Since I am doing some studying for my certification, I am thinking a little bit in management jargons like processes and phases etc. I feel a new phase has started for me. A consolidation and getting better phase. The first stage of intense pain has passed and the medication has settled down. Not that I won’t have bad days occasionally, but I feel the major brunt perhaps is over. Fingers crossed.

I did feel very low on Friday. Then inspiration struck and I went out for an hour to buy DVDs. I bought the first season of Numb3r and a few seasons of MASH and X-Files. Though I am still watching 24. I love the show to bits. It is sophisticated, intelligent, pacy and really gripping. Anyways the retail therapy worked big time and I turned euphoric. Well, agreed, a few DVDs making one euphoric is a sign of instability too. I came back and did some work after all.

The weekend was nice. Most of it was spent watching 24. I cooked dinner both days. Made a salad and naans on Saturday night. Both came out nice. I forgot to tell my mom and she used refined flour to make the dough. Will use whole wheat from next time on. The salad was boiled chick peas, potato, tomatoes, cucumber and a dash of chillies, fresh ground pepper,  lime juice and coriander powder. It was nice. I have a tendency to make things too hot and too sour sometimes but this one came out having a nice balanced taste.

Then yesterday night made pizza from scratch. But my oven again gave out after 10 mins of baking. I guess it got too hot or something. Must call the service center and figure it out. So had to use our skillet in a creative way to finish making them. The dough came out okay and the base was soft inside. But not crunchy outside because of my oven betrayal. Still it was nice and I topped them with lots of vegetable. Planning to use home made pizza sauce next time.

Now the best thing is that I went to gym today. After a long long time. S wasn’t there. I need to find him out. He has got a good job in an insurance company. So is working in the gym only in the mornings. I hope he hasn’t left the gym completely. Then I would have to start with a new trainer. That doesn’t upset me too much but it will be a hassle still. Anyways did low intensity cardio for about 50 mins today. I have lost quite an amount of my stamina. Will need work there. Plus gained at least 3 kgs. Need to lose that too to only break even. I think this weight will go easily but will hit my plateau again at 70 kgs. But I may be being optimistic here. Let’s see.

I am planning to have one fruit day every week. I would eat only fruits and raw vegetables on that day. Main aim is to detox. Hopefully some weight loss would happen too. Let’s see if I can do this. I can’t diet conventionally and must make/eat some good food on weekends to cheer myself up. I am working on making more healthy choices.

Towards that bought a pack of fortified cereal for breakfast. I have bought a tin of protein supplement too. I forgot to check if it is suitably low calorie because I was too worried that it would taste awful. I hate health drinks. Planning to use a scoop of protein with my morning breakfast which generally uses milk. Also bought soya powder to be mixed with the whole wheat four for making flat breads (roti). They have launched a flour which is of mixed whole grains. Planning to buy that once it is available. Also bought a new brand of chocolate which is only 100 cal for a 3 inch bar - about 6 squares. It says it would taste good because of high cocoa content, let’s see.

Well, that is all from me. Now back to work and studies (when I can) and being well. Love and well being to you all.

Today is the day R is going home on his 3 weeks vacation to get married. It reminds me a bit of the day about 3 months back when he was going home to talk about us. I went to drop him in my car. Coincidentally a song was playing in my car, ruing about one’s lost love. He said he was going to make it work with his parents and the song was inappropriate and I remember changing it. Well, whatever!

I am doing kind of okay. Resisted the mild urge of not coming to work. Actually having my mom with me helps (of course it helps in many many other ways too). Rather than explaining and making her more worried, I felt it was easier to face it at work. Anyway it’s another 3 more hours before he leaves for the airport. I have passed time till now by going through one of my project management training programs in a computer away from my desk. Now I am back. Can see his beautiful marraige invitations in the hands of my co-workers. Thankfully he is getting married so far away, no one can attend. I think there will be a party here later on, which I will have to bunk and will need to lie considerably to pull that off. The invitation is surprisingly beautiful. It is in the form of a scroll and red in color. It looks gorgeous. Surprising how much bigotry is concealed in that gorgeous piece of cloth. Seeing the other girl’s name in the bride’s place stopped my heart for only a moment yesterday. I told myself something bad would happen to them and then the beautiful invitation will mock it more. I know nothing bad would happen and I have to suck it up and move on, but a little bit of fantasy can’t harm, right?

I am telling myself that I need to snap out of my trying to please evreybody attitude a bit. My spine can do with a little more strength too. So hopefully this working in the same office two feet away from R will pour some steel in me. I think I am acting more decisively and more guiltfreely these days.

Also I kept telling myself if I can leave this job, everything will be easier. Now R is going home, I can really test that out. I am giving myself today. But I must be mucho better starting Monday. My work can wait a little bit more. I will try to work. If I can’t at all concentrate, I will do the trainings. But I must be back to more than top speed to start making up from Monday.

Well, what else? I think my blood sugar is up with the eating anything I want and complete lack of exercise. I just have to pick that up from this Monday. I should actually diet a bit too. Let me see how I can incorporate that in. Maybe I can have a couple of fruits only days in a week. I feel like the WW plan would have worked for me. But they don’t have it yet here. So I need to do something creative so I can eat healthy, lose weight and can eat tasty food once in a while. Hopefully it can be done. Because I definitely can’t work out enough to lose weight through that alone.

That is all for now! Wish all of us the very best in each of our personal struggles.

One of my better days today.. so far. The Valentine’s day hasn’t got to me yet. I fully plan to not let it either. The sooner I can get away from these daily interactions with R, I would be better off.

I applied for a couple more jobs today. They are not what I am looking for. But I think I will take something a little unsuitable too, just to get over this thing. I would be able to explain it when I again come back on my career main road. Maybe I would not take these, also maybe they won’t call because I am overqualified but the sense of doing something helps a lot. I am going to go full steam on getting ready for the certification. That should help.

Meanwhile I was reading this poem posted on Ms. Bobbie’s site by Veronica A. Shoffstall. It is awesome! These lines made a special impression

and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

That resonates so strongly. I do want be a strong woman and not a petulant child. Life is tough some times and so enjoyable at other times. Sometimes it is pay back time. I am not going to cry. I don’t know what unconventional route my life will take but I know I will be happy, positive and trusting. I guess because I read so much fiction, I kind of always wanted to be not ordinary. Also I do look for the wrong things at times. I have no problem with being un-ordinary as long as I can live with myself. But that looking for the wrong qualities, I hope I can stop the pattern from repeating. That is my biggest fear and I sometimes despair.

I was thinking about what Ella wrote. I guess it makes me a bit loony too, but I kind of think the same way. I keep obsessing about karma at times. I have even tried to change the course of things by bribing God by doing some charity. Of course that has never worked but whatever little good I did has been done. Like in the Abou Ben Adhem story, I guess I would be the last person in the second list but I want to be in the second list. I guess you all know the poem, but here it is again -

Abou Ben Adhem

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold:

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?” The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”

“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men.”

The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest!

       — James Leigh Hunt

There is nothing more to say after this except that I love you.

I am sinking some and then floating and sinking again. My fight to keep functioning is still on. Some days I feel better and capable to face the world. Other days I feel so blue. I have not thought of suicide at all but have thought of just chucking the job.

I had stopped taking the sleeping pill for a while in between as it used to keep me sleepy till late morning. I thought I would be able to sleep well enough without it too. Turns out I was taking my wellness for granted a little too soon. I grew restless again and had crying jags and felt like running away all the time. My work suffered like anything. Anyway now I am back on taking half a tablet every night for last two days. feeling much better and centered. Not so blue any more. I guess there will be hard days again sooner or later, not that it is easy now. But I just have to hang on here till this passes.

I had managed to almost get over at being angry with R. But last few weeks, I was murderously angry again. I can do nothing and it about killed me. Anyway enough on all that. I have been taken for a royal ride, but I think I did not make  any major mistakes. In hindsight there were things I should not have done, but I am not ashamed of anything.

Looking out for a new job is still on. I am planning to get a certification done on project management. that should help my job search immensely. Plus I am planning to look for a different profile too. As of now the plan is to move on to Bombay. The certification thingy will take a lot of studying which will keep me very busy.

I am still feeling a bit shaky. The writing here is not coming easy. I need to be back at working out too. That has stopped completely. Chatted with S today. Will go back to gym soon.

I am planning to catch up with you all very soon. I missed you so much. I kept feeling undeserving of all the love I have received here. I don’t want to disappoint you.