Sweet November.

It's already November and one more month and it's going to be a new year again. This time, I'm really excited about the new year. Actually not just this time, but always. I don't have any regrets over the old year or that I'm getting older. I just like the last 2 months to speed by ( like everything in life!) so something new can start. Sometimes, that affects my 'happy' state because I'm wondering when this is going to end and the next phase - good or bad start. Must change that. That said, I had a pretty good October.

Most of my challenges worked out well. I did figure out how to wear a sari, though wearing a silk sari troubles me to  no end and I'm going to have to practice a lot more for that. I did the festival hopping really well and managed everyone in my family and extended family/friends group rather well. I think I've arrived as a Maami officially.

The cycle has been postponed thanks to reasons like laziness to find parking at the store near home and forgetting there are other stores in the city too. Very valid reasons, you see. Same goes for the license. Reading happened in full swing though!

October seemed to be a month where I either worked, micro-managed some people or went to other people's homes. There wasn't time to do 'my chores' per se. Except of course, a rather hurried 2 day getaway after all the people and work madness. This brought us to sweet November. Sweet because I'm back from a vacation and I'm in that good spot :)

My challenges this month.

1. The license challenge continues. All I need is to go to the RTO.
2. The food blog again. Which I forgot to mention in my 'didn't happen at all' part of the post. 4 posts this month. I have it all written already. Promise.
3. Push myself at work more. I can't reveal my goals here unfortunately, but hope to get going with lots more work.
4. Get through all the bookmarked readings on Instapaper. I love Instapaper like I hate it. It just makes it easy to postpone reading.
5. Plan a girls getaway with a friend. And meet another set of really close girl friends somehow.

Every month teaches me something new. Some of you may wonder how this is helping at all since most of the time I hardly achieve anything. I do achieve something. I do regular pedicures now - it's relaxing if not anything else, my fitness levels have improved thanks to previous challenges and just the fact that I keep thinking that I have these challenges keeps me on my feet. Some of us need a push like this. And I'm doing well with it.

If nothing else, the past two months have shown that I may have taken on too many challenges (because I'm a compulsive list maker!) in the last 2-3 months. So, this month is sober. No major goals, just extremely utilitarian things that need to get done.

So, how is your November looking?

She

She'd always let him down. She was a firebrand feminist who never listened to him. Never heeded his words. He wasn't always right and she made sure to point that out to him.

Today, she regrets every single time she fought with him. And wants to make amends. Constantly trying, constantly hoping that things work out in such a way that she will get to make amends. That she will do something for him, something that he may remotely want.

Some children don't disappoint. They are the perfect children. She never was one, and never wanted to be one. She was proud she wasn't one, mostly. But today, she wished she had that blind devotion. That blind, searing love to stand up for him.

But because she is a she, she can't be that perfect child. Yet again, so someone else can be a perfect child. And that someone else is always a he. 

Wake me up when October ends!

That should have actually been my line in September because I achieved nothing. Nothing at all. I ran a bit, but hardly read the books I wanted and didn't do much with the food blog. Total #fail month, September was.

October looks crazy already. I know it hasn't even begun, but so far I have plans for every weekend. Ya. None of it involves relaxation or things for myself, necessarily. I'm going to be running around and catching my breath this month with social obligations.

So, my challenges this month?

1. Get the car license figured out. 
I left home at 19 and never got around to getting a license. I need to get back to driving on Indian roads and figure out license without a bribe, that is.

2. Smile through all the social obligations and visit every aunt, every cousin, every grandmother and every friend's house with aplomb and joy.
It's unbelievable how busy the festival season is, for a married me in my home town. But I came back to India to be close to family, to have fun during all these festivals and get back in touch with long-lost cousins and watch my nieces and nephews grow. And I want to do just that this October!


3. Practice wearing the sari religiously everyday.
I'm ashamed to say I don't know how to wear a sari. I'm going to have to wear a sari in 4 months time without anyone's help since I won't be the bride or the newly-wed or the recently wed anymore.

4. Read everyday for at least 30 mins.


5. Start cycling.


6. Food blog, food blog and food blog. 
This challenge comes from last month. This time, I think I've planned it well in my head. Dishes and photos included.

So, wake me up when October ends and hopefully it will be a dream of a challenge.

P.S.- No, not finished Infinite Jest beyond 20% of the book. Pushed to November. Aim to finish it in 2011.

I'm feeling lucky?

I just saw a TV show that I don't normally watch. I don't watch TV. For some reason, I watched this show on Sony TV 'Crime Patrol.' According to the premise of the show, the show recreates real life cases/incidents. Thanks to insomnia and because I was already sprawled in the middle of the couch, I decided to watch what it was all about. I thought I could live-tweet a hilarious 'san-sani' serial.

Today's case was that of abuse within marriage. So commonplace right? Darshan just went back to jail and all is well with my #outrage ridden Twitter world.  This man marries this girl - arranged through matrimonial columns/sites. She meets him several times and then agrees to marry him. Her parents are educated, liberal and rich. They get married. Soon, he asks for a BMW in a very playful tone. She shrugs it off even with warning bells ringing in her head. Soon, his brother tries to molest her. She asks for help and she only receives a 'what's wrong with it?' answer. 6 years into marriage, she is a sex slave for his brothers, his business partners and he, himself abuses her with inhuman sexual activity every night. They are so confident that she won't talk about it that (I found it surprising) she is not locked up or forbidden to talk to anyone. So she talks to people - her family, her sister, her mother. The answer and the belief is that this happens. This happens in every marriage. These are marital conflicts. 'Bedroom ki baatein' as her sister puts it.

How many of us get abused within our homes, our bedrooms? How many of us are willing to talk about it? I remember this friend of mine who I'd forgotten until this show. She got married at 22, all starry eyed. The age isn't the matter here. She got married to someone she knew and fell head over heels in love with him. 2 years later, she wrote to me saying he was going mad or that she was afraid he was going mad and that he abuses her. She was in the US. I asked her to talk to her sisters. She said she did, and they said it will be okay. She wrote to me again. I asked her to come back home on the pretext of a vacation and never go back and take concrete steps. I invited her to stay with me until she sorted things out. She didn't respond. I forgot all about her until I moved to the US and tried living all alone, going mad in an empty house. I contacted her again. This time around, she was happy. Pregnant, perfectly in peace with her world. I didn't know what to make of it. I left it...

Now, as I sit in one corner of my couch, shaking, unable to move in sheer disgust and maybe, even fear, that girl's face flashed in my head. How many of us make such compromises? I thought back to my life. I'm married and it was a very traditional arranged marriage. How did I trust AB like that? How many of us do this and are not leading lives similar to mine?

I thought to myself how lucky I was to have AB as my husband. I go into the bedroom and he smiles and hugs me. He waits to talk to me every night. The conversation you have with your partner lying next to each other. I tweet, he talks. I read about all the problems in the world, he talks to me about his  problems at work. I listen sometimes, I nod once in a while, all the time believing I got lucky with him.

He is not a special guy. He is a normal guy. A normal human being, doing what is expected of him. Why is it then that I'm considered so lucky? Even by my own admission, a lot of the times. Because he is doing the right thing? From when is doing the right thing to be applauded? He is not going above humanity to do something special, right?

Why are we always made to feel grateful for the 'good' things that happen to us? Even if it is our right?

Tonight, I'm on the couch. AB has to wait until I forget this episode like many others to talk about his annual review. I think he can and he should. 

30 days of September

Wake me up when September ends.

This is not something I want to be saying this month. Though I started the 30 day challenge last month - it wasn't a hit. I did run a lot more than I would have. I did work out a little more regularly, but it is not IN me, as yet #ifyouknowwhatImean.

I know better now how to handle this and plan for this and I'm not going to get disappointed over my failures in August.

1. Moving to hankies - worked great for me. I haven't had a cold since ;) But seriously, I moved to a lot of non-paper things - grocery bags are only cloth now. I walk back without grocery if I don't have a cloth bag on me. I've figured out an optimum time and cycle to use the washing machine. No switch in the house is on all the time, including those for plug points. I'm thrilled, yes.

2. Running and Gymming - This worked partly and didn't work partly. I fell sick in between, I went to my mum's house without preparation and didn't find shoes to run. As an aside, I also moved out 8 years ago and it shows in the fact that no clothes of mine that fit me are in my mum's house. Sigh.

3. Sweep and mop the house - SUCCESS. I did this religiously. There is something therapeutic about domestic chores. Also, the credit for this goes to my inlaws who were visiting :P

4. Learning to say no - On this, I guess I could always do better :) But I'm getting there. This was a success though I sometimes forgot to confirm yes or no! Or, go 'available' or 'busy' on GTalk.

I loved the idea of this 30 day challenge and now I'm doing it again for Sept with the following points of focus.

1. Read Infinite Jest everyday, however slow I read. Again, I'm doing this with Supreeth
2. Running and Gymming since it's not IN me as yet ;)
3. Pedicure at home everyday
4. Eat breakfast everyday, come what may
5. Update food blog every week, at least once

This looks like a long laundry list and mostly like a 'Things to do' list. But these are some things I am struggling with.

This starts from Sep 3 since I'm still on my August challenge. Also, hopefully, I will be more active on Twitter with #my30days update this time around.

What are your challenges?

Shammi Kapoor, RIP

We had only one cassette in our old car. The cassette had only Shammi Kapoor songs. I've listened to those songs from the time I was a year old until I was 17. My dad didn't listen to anything else and we didn't want to listen to anything else. The songs were danced to in the back seat by three girls while the same stories about the Kapoor family were narrated by Amma.

I don't usually write posts on movies or books or celebrities I admire or like. This is a special one. This isn't something I'm going to talk about, or something I expect anyone to read and comment on. This is for me.

This is about Shammi Kapoor. No, I didn't have a crush on him. I wanted to experience the same joy he shows in his cinema. I grew up listening to Bollywood songs. My uncles are the biggest fans of Bollywood and they raved about unknown songs, songs unheard or the not-so-popular songs. It was a matter of pride among us cousins if we could guess the song or the movie ( we had quizzes!) These are the fondest memories I have of many a summer spent in Pati's house eating fruit custard every half hour. And among these memories, Shammi stood out. When we sung his songs, all the competition during Antakshari vanished and everyone'd sing along. We'd sing beyond the first stanza and go on until we'd finished through the list of Shammi songs we knew as kids. One of my uncles disapproves of popular songs and likes only beautiful, but not so popular songs ( we call them ATCs or All Time Classics sarcastically). But with Shammi, he sang every song, including his popular songs. But then, which Shammi Kapoor wasn't popular?

Every song, every movie filled us with joy. In fact, that's the only word that comes to my mind.- joy. Be it the popular 'Tumse Accha Kaun Hai' with Shammi in a sack or the absolutely fantastic 'Aaj Kal tere Mere Pyaar' with Mumtaz. The enthusiasm, the crazy dance steps, the grin, the mischief - no one, not a single person before or after Shammi displayed that kind of attitude. 17 years of Shammi Kapoor and I didn't realize what a fan he had in me. Today, I woke up early thanks to my in laws staying with us and didn't get online as always. AB switched on the TV and casually said, "Oh, Shammi Kapoor is no more." I didn't realize that I had tears in my eyes.

To date, when I sit in the car, I like to start off with his songs. In the interest of keeping my marriage alive, I move on to other songs. Shammi did that to me. I'm a really bad writer when it comes to tributes, even during my journalism days, and today is no better. Shammi Kapoor, in many ways., I dance like you. I tried to be as bindass as you during college. I don't know if it's because of you, but I'd like to think so. Thank you.

The 30 day challenge!

I saw Supreeth's post on Twitter and figured I needed a challenge too. You should totally read his post to see what he's taken up as challenges. I have several things to take up including some of my resolutions this year that I haven't even started working on.

I love TED Talks and a lot of them have highly influenced my life. Matt Cutts' TED talk is one of them. However, as lazy as I am, it took a post by Supreeth to get me going.  Here are my list of challenges.

1. Like Supreeth, I'd like to move to hankies too.
I actually already did. I went and bought myself a packet (they sell 4 dainty ones - so pretty!) the other day from the 4th Block Jayanagar shopping complex. In the area I live (Whitefield), I'm guessing I will get designer ones or none! However, since I bought them I've been afflicted with the most horrible cold ever. Only, I forgot how bad my colds are. I'm known to have finished an entire tissue box in my Google days thanks to my cold.

So, obviously these dainty hankies are only meant for dainty aunties and not me! I need those large white handkerchiefs used by men. I should raid Appa's cupboard for those.

2. Running
I try to run everyday and so far, it's happening with breaks in between. I want to be able to run continuously for all the 30 days just to make it a habit.

3. Gymming
I go on and off. Now, all the 30 days.

4. Sweep and mop the house 2 days a week myself.
 I don't have a maid. I think maids in this area change exorbitantly and extremely rude. While I'm usually generous, their rudeness and 'taking me for granted' ness put me off. So, no maids. I live in an area where dust accumulates at home. I aim to sweep, mop and dust the house every 2-3 days for this month. That makes it twice a week and 8 times a month. I think it's perfectly do-able.

5. Learning to say no.
 I kept the most important challenge for the end. You know how people say that while they miss India a lot while living abroad, they'd any day live away from family and all that. That's not true of AB or me. Okay, maybe AB to a certain extent since he's anti social. I'm very social and I came back to India only because I missed India, the noisiness of family around us. Basically, I wanted to meet all my nieces and nephews, all my cousins when they fly in to meet their parents from different parts of the world. And what better place than India!

However, I under-estimated my need for space in India. It's very different when you are single and living with friends. It's almost as if you have permission to have fun and do what you want and skip family gatherings or functions. Life is not the same when you're married. AB and I haven't had a weekend to ourselves. I have myself to blame for that. I have way too many friends, way too many familial obligations and way too many social niceties to adhere to.  So, as a couple, we've decided to put our foot down. We will still be active socially (I will die if I don't see anyone but AB) but prioritize us over anything or anyone else. And do more fun stuff. Like use the badminton rackets bought 2 weeks ago for a start.

People who know me or have been following me on this blog know that the last 3 years were rocky for me. For us, sometimes. I went into hiding, literally, with my GTalk. I couldn't have thanked Google enough for creating the option of being 'invisible' on GTalk. I remained invisible for 3 full years choosing who I talk to, and when I talk to them. Some of you may find it stupid. In my defence, I was upset and didn't want to answer any questions, even the innocent, truly concerned ones. A lot of you I have actually chatted with are lucky ;)

So, big decision was that from yesterday, I decided to go visible. No more hiding. If I don't want to talk to you or can't talk to you, I'm going to tell you. As it is. I'm not going to not respond unless I'm not at the computer. And that is going to be the first step in saying no.

What are your challenges for the next 30 days? Tell me in your comments.

P.S. I may just use Twitter(@nandiniv) to update everyone on my progress. The hashtag will be #my30days.