It's Time to Break the Silence

My silence, that is. I'm not sure if anyone still reads this space anymore, and even if someone does, my opinions can't possibly be a matter of too much significance to them. But I want to do this for me. So even though this is a little belated, for whatever it's worth I'm putting it down in writing.

I first heard the news of the gangrape a few hours after it happened, from a friend. I wasn't angry. I wasn't outraged. I wasn't shocked. I smiled wryly and went on with my life, because you know what? That's India for you. No, not just Delhi, even though it's definitely the worst of the lot. But this is the country we live in. We kill our girl children when they haven't even been born yet, we kill them when they're infants, and if by some stroke of luck they survive, we marry them off early because it's their 'duty' to bear children when they're at their 'reproductive best'. We think it's only natural for husbands to rape their wives because once again, it's womanly 'duty' to provide sex to her husband. We consider it routine, not even worth mentioning, when drunken barely-men pass lewd remarks on women on the road, cop a feel in crowded buses or elevators, stalk or follow girls trying to walk home from work, or "even worse", a pub. And God forbid if anyone ever saw a woman walking with, let alone hugging or kissing a male friend. She had it coming then, she really did.
And if women are not safe on the streets, they're not safe in their homes either. Uncles stare, house guests ogle, and unless you happen to be one of the lucky ones, some day a man from your family, who you've been taught to trust ("because beta, family surpasses everything"), will come into your bedroom, sit on your bed and give you that sick feeling in your stomach. And in the next half hour, things you're not even old enough to understand will happen. Sometimes I'm just glad I live in a house where I know I'm safe, because I certainly don't know it out on the streets, even in broad daylight.

And let's not even get into what we can wear, what we can't, when we can step out of the house and before what time we must be home, who we can go out with, what we can do with them in public, where we can go and the million other restrictions that start with, "beta, I'm saying this for your own good." Do women not have an equal right to go out late at night with their heads held high? Can they not go to pubs without being deemed "loose" and "lacking moral character", while it's okay for men to do the same? Am I asking for rape because I went to watch a movie with my boyfriend? Is it impossible to survive in this country without obeying advice such as "you can't go out late if you haven't fixed up a ride home already. Your brother can though, he's not a girl. But it's not safe for you."? The other day, I caught myself crossing the road after I saw a bunch of young, slightly boisterous-seeming men approaching on the side I was walking on. It was dark and I was alone. I lowered my head and sped up a little bit. And what really bothered me about the whole thing was not that I did it, but that it was a completely subconscious act. THAT's the kind of CONSTANT fear Indian women must, and do, live in.

No, it's not about the law. No, it's not about punishment, or even police enforcement (although let's face it, those things aren't helping either). It's about the mindset. Capital punishment or chemical castration is not the solution. India has some of the strictest laws against rape. Their implementation may be flawed, to say the least, but it's not about that either, which is where I take issue with the people who say the problem is the ineffectiveness of legislation and police action. In India, rape and...associated acts, for want of a more concise phrase, are about establishing your dominance over the woman. Humiliating her, degrading her. It's a power play. Certainly surer and swifter punishment can only better the situation, but these are short-term solutions. Rape and violence against women might decrease because of them, but it'll be due to fear. Not out of any sense of genuine respect for women, which is what's truly lacking in our nation. Women are to BE suppressed. Women are to BE the weaker sex, and if they are not, they are to be made so. How else can one explain people WATCHING, as women get raped?! They make videos on their cellphones! No one calls the police. Men FUCKING WATCH.
That doesn't happen anywhere else.

And the mindset doesn't just manifest itself in such acts. Frankly I've made my peace with the fact that rape and molestation happen every twenty minutes. When you read something or hear of it again and again in the news, it stops shocking you or making an impact. What really bothers me is that if I stay in this country, the one day I get raped, it'll be MY fault. MY fault for wearing a skirt that was two inches above my knees, MY fault for staying in the bar until 11 pm, MY fault for going out with friends who happen to be males. And I'm basically ASKING to get raped if someone sees me drinking or if I happen to approach a random person on the street asking for a light or a cigarette, when I'm wearing JEANS no less! ("How can woman wear jeans?! Do they not want to be 'good traditional wives'? Raam raam!!"). 

I'm not saying rape doesn't happen in other countries. Just not with such fucking frequency, intensity and impunity.

Sometimes I think we're lucky that things like female foeticide and infanticide are so rampant in our country. At least those girls would never have to live in a world like this.

Misery loves company

The walls are closing in. Your sun is going down, turning your horizon from a fiery red into a bleak grey. The crushing sense of defeat weighs down on you, asphyxiating you, closing off your avenues. The future doesn't look so good anymore.

You were never good for anything, you realize. It was all lies, what they’d said. All of them. Big ol’ liars.

You've ruined everything. It was your fault. Every single time. Nothing else seems to matter anymore.

Failure is second nature to you. But you've just realized it.

Your world is crashing down around your ears. And all you can do is look on with a wry smile.

What Can't Be Said

The hunt is always more enjoyable.
Like a dog chasing a car; if it stopped, the dumb creature would just stand there, clueless.
All direction lost.

You're my shiny new object of attention, my latest model of car.
But it's been too long and you haven't stopped.
Why won't you stop?!

The moment you start wanting me back is the very moment I stop wanting you at all.
But for now you pull the wool over my eyes so effortlessly, I can't help but be drawn in.

Two weeks tops: that's all it takes
for them to give in, for me to get bored.
But I'm not bored yet.
And you won't get out of my mind.

It's worrying, this persistence.

We have no future; I've made certain that this is a pointless, futile exercise.
And we have no past either.
We never transgressed boundaries, never pushed envelopes.
But the lack of a present is what claws at me like a nagging insect,
itching just underneath my skin.

The tension is tangible.
The electricity is in the air, the air which grows thick with unsaid words.
Unaired desire.

So we'll always make jokes.
Pretend there's nothing more.
While you want lust and I want...more.

No, I don't want you.
I just want you to want me.
And I want that so badly it's shattering my peace of mind,
pure agony to hear again and again:
"It's okay, babe. I'm still single. For the most part. Let's fuck."
It breaks me, while I let you use me:
I'll take anything in the hopes of getting more.
And while I effortlessly feign indifference to you,
because that's what I've been taught to do.

Anger and grief are no strangers to me.
But these are new degrees of intensity.

They try to hide behind the smudged kohl and the fake smile,
as I've trained them to do.
But this time they threaten to burst out,
I'm barely holding my face together.
Myself together.

And I'll dress pretty everyday,
because hope springs eternal.
But no matter how many clothes I buy,
you'll always picture me naked.

Nothing less, nothing more.

The chase is a drug.
But I'm too high to enjoy the trip.

Leh 2012

So I went to Leh. Last minute plans work out so much better than actual, planned ones, don't you think?

I could use a dozen words to describe it but I'm sure someone else somewhere else has used those already. Yes, it was magical. Yes, it was picturesque. All in all, an awesome trip. But one of the reasons I love travel is because of the people one gets to meet. So today I'm going to write about one of the people I met in Leh.

Mr. P would be about 50 or 60 and has a shock of black-white hair. He's short and thin and rather benevolent looking. He has the kindest eyes I have ever seen (obscured by glasses) which crinkle up in the most endearing way when he smiles. He is a sort of resort owner cum travel agent in Leh. He's quite the self-made man. His resort was built on his ancestral land, in the traditional Ladakhi architectural style. After dinner he was nice enough to shows us around a bit and the place had lots of open room to sit in and open corridors to walk around in, leading via stairs to the rooms, and the whole resort was set in front of a village. He had accomplished all this only in the past 6 years, before which he was in Delhi working for a pharmaceutical company. His wife still stays in Delhi with his young daughter and his son studies in Singapore.

But the most interesting thing about Mr. P was what he had to say because I had never really considered that kind of viewpoint before. He said that if things continue the way they are, Ladakh will disappear in 50-60 years. This surprised me initially but it was obviously a well thought out assertion. He said that there are barely 30-40,000 people who live here all year round, the rest are migratory who go back during the harsh, cold winters when the region remains secluded by snow for a good 6 months. These are mainly Bihari laborers, shopkeepers who are Nepalese or Kashmiri etc. He says the Kashmiri will take over this region in the next 50 years, migrating here incessantly as Kashmir itself becomes more and more fraught with danger and hence uninhabitable for the common man. This will mean trouble. It'll bring insurgents and terrorists and so forth and the whole valley will essentially just go to shit taking its beauty and tranquility with it. The world can forget about holidaying in Ladakh then. And a day will come when the valley would no longer be able to sustain that kind of thing within it and will collapse completely. 

Unfortunately,  our choot of a government (and not just the current one, he meant this in more of a generic sense) is overtly concentrated on Kashmir, which can sustain itself anyway, because deliberating on it gives them an opportunity for politicking (wrt Pakistan and so forth, a country that is a ‘gone case’ anyway), something which Ladakh does not because it does not involve any dire elements. It is a serene, tranquil place completely overlooked by the government. Politicians only see their short term gain and are blind to the fact that the valley needs to be protected. By the time enough people realize this, it will be too late. This is why tourism needs to grow in Ladakh, so more and more people can understand this reality and discuss it and bring it out in the open and make something happen. For instance, once he had had a wealthy and influential Gujarati family staying at his resort. They had asked him what they could do for him in return for his gracious hospitality and he had said he would be grateful if they could tell someone in power to make Ladakh a UT or a separate State.

He doesn't understand why Ladakh is a part of JnK in the first place. He says the language, the people, the culture, the customs and everything, it's all totally different. He thinks making it a UT is the best and possibly the only way to protect it so that it's own issues are not overshadowed by Kashmir’s.

To me, Ladakh had always been just a pretty place with nice mountains and good weather. But to think of it this way blew my mind. I have immense respect for this man, not least because he lives separately from his wife and kids and still loves them immensely. 

P.S. Crazy dream #57: Fucking in the mountains.

Change

About a couple of months back, a close friend told me I had changed a lot. He told me I used to be very different when I had just entered law school, which was a little over 2 years ago. It got me thinking.
Basically, I think the gist of what he was trying to get at was that I used to be much more uninhibited, more unstructured, more fearless. Care less. Do whatever the fuck I wanted. And now it's all about memo submissions, good grades and good placements. Law school's most vulnerable victims, unfortunately, turn out to be those who develop an inherent fear of project deadlines (and the like, you know what I mean) and are constantly looking for things to do, to put it in a very simplistic manner, to increase their value in terms of potential recruitment. Sad, but true. Life becomes a dreary path towards one sole aim, the attainment of what our (let's face it) still-regressive Indian society calls a 'stable job and a settled life'.
Yes, maybe I'm exaggerating. But I have a feeling he's right about me. I was watching a typical teenage music video the other day and it struck me that I think I've forgotten how to have fun entirely.
On the other hand, there's always the nagging fear that if I let myself loose too much I'll never get a decent lifestyle after college. I suppose this kind of mentality is exactly what he was hinting at. And the worst part is, I don't think most law school kids would have the balls to admit it, but this is exactly what law school makes of you. Balancing a life and good academics isn't easy.
I must add having fun to my to-do list.

In other news, it is Benedict Cumberbatch's birthday today. He is so lovely he makes me weak in the knees.

I also went to Nainital on holiday for about 3-4 days. Really nice place. We went to the nearby lakes and stuff too. There was this one particular one which I liked way more than the others. It was huge and nice and clean, mostly because barely any people lived nearby. I think if I could have just one perfect day in my life, it would be to go and find a place to sit on the banks of something like that and spend the whole day there with a good book and some music, all alone. That, for me, would be the definition of absolute contentment. If I could have that, it doesn't matter whether I'm in Nainital or Switzerland.
I also developed the habit of sitting on a little rocky ledge right outside my hotel (which was at a height from the main city) for a short while with my iPod every night after dinner. The weather was absolutely brilliant and the ledge offered a nice view of the Nainital lake. I love the way water turns black in the night. I remember walking along Havelock beach at night when I had gone to Goa. It was pitch dark. You could see the black water only for a short distance in front of you, and then, nothingness.
I have also realized that the perfect music for places like these is the In Bruges soundtrack.
All in all, a brilliant trip.

I haven't done any other traveling this summer so I badly needed this. Travel is something I don't think I could live without. I think I will always love it more than I could possibly ever love any human being, with the exception of my parents.
I am currently reading The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams. People like him give me an immense inferiority complex. I always feel so small and unaccomplished-in-life in front of his comic genius. A long time ago, I had read someone's interview where they were asked that if they could choose one era or time other than the present to be reborn in, which would they choose. I remember thinking then that if I ever grow up to be rich and famous (*snort*...fat chance), and someone interviewing me asked me the same question, I would have answered the time of P.G. Wodehouse without even thinking about it. For one thing, he existed. For the other, it really seems like a brilliant time period to be living in. And people like Adams and Wodehouse, well, reading them is simply...orgasmic.

I'm also almost done with Season 2 of Game of Thrones. It is an E-P-I-C series. And I have officially fallen in love with Tyrion Lannister.

2 of my friends are mucking about in Europe and I'm INSANELY jealous. I know I've seen most of the continent before and it's only their first time, but it almost physically hurts, the thought of them being there and me being stuck here. I would give an arm and a leg to travel to Europe with friends. Hopefully someday I won't have to.
I'm going to stop ranting now. I haven't written so much without editing since...ever, possibly. Now I will dive back into the world of Douglas Adams to assuage my pain. And it will be awesome.

Aaaaand...I'm back.

I just took a look at the date on my last post. The one which actually makes sense and isn't simply random webcomics or lyrics I liked. It was March 28. That makes it about two and a half months since I last wrote.

The past two and a half months have been rather kind to me. Life's good, on the whole. And I'm not complaining. A lot has happened.
April and May were spent working on something rather dreadful, and I'd pretty much lost all hope, not least because I myself sort of lost the motivation to work on it towards the end. But the results were better than anything I could ever have hoped for considering the kind of work I put in. The details are boring and inconsequential. Now I'm faced with the prospect of choosing between two options, both of which seem to be rather good. You see, when one gets a reasonably high rank, one has a multiplicity of choices available. It's the rich man's problem :D

I also had a rather fun birthday and got a haircut which people tell me, has completely changed the way I look. For the better, they say. I decided it was high time I should pamper myself. And the people at the salon did a pretty good job. I actually look, if I may so myself, rather hot. All thanks to a friend, who knew exactly where to take me and what to do. I basically put myself in her hands. She took me to this brilliant place I haven't been to before, near college. This has helped me overcome my previous fear of such places. You can read all about that here.

Exams were, as expected, absolutely horrible. I am very seriously facing the prospect of failing in at least a couple of subjects this time round. I'm just trying to enjoy my life before the results come out and I die.
Also, I've started my internship at this law firm, which I'm actually kind of liking. It's the first time I'm interning at a firm, and I've got to say, it's not bad. It's not one of those big firms, so everything is a little more chilled out here. Plus most people are on leave and the courts are closed, so workflow is less. (Which is why posting frequency on my blog has now gone up, as you may (or more likely, may not) have noticed.) There's lots of other interns, all of whom seem to be rather nice and fun to talk to. It's taxation, which is kind of boring, but for me, being inherently a researcher at heart, nothing beats the joy of finding that one case to clinch the argument your associate is trying to make.
I've also started taking French classes every weekend. Those are fun sometimes, like the other day we were supposed to write a dialogue (in French) in groups of two, where both the people had been dumped by their significant others, but one was happy about it while the other was sad. Rather entertaining.

I am currently sitting in office with not much to do, passing the time reading random things on the net, listening to good music, occasionally talking to people. I'm in a room with 2 ACs, with a constant stream of cold coffee and chocolate chip biscuits. And I'm being paid for this.
Life couldn't really get much better.

P.S. You can now follow this blog by email! How exciting! And no, I am not ashamed in the least to admit that this is a desperate plea for more readers. So go fill in your email address on the little widget thingy (is that what they call it?) on the right. No seriously, do it. I'm watching you.

Liar

I know that things are broken,

and though there's too many words left unsaid.

You say you have spoken.

Like the coward I am, I hang my head.

You lie careless, your head on my chest.

Don't even look at me looking my best.

All these things I can't describe.

You would rather I didn't try.

But please, don't cry, you liar.

Oh please, don't cry, you liar.

You lean in for your last kiss,

who in this world could ask me to resist?

Your hands cold as they find my neck.

Oh, this love that I've found, I detest.

A Softer World

I know that I don't deserve you,
but that's okay.
Life's not fair

but do I love you. Do you want me to loosen the cuffs?

Of Babies (and my somewhat tumultuous relationship with them)

At the outset, I would like to make it very clear that I do not hate babies. No, I do not think they are evil aliens (let's face it: sloppy, messy, icky, have their own language. Just because they're not a sickly green in color doesn't mean we have to give them the benefit of doubt) put on Earth to foil humanity's plans of progress with their own cunning schemes. What I hate is the almost-universal assumption that if you have a vagina, you must love babies. Unlike some of my friends, I like babies. However much I always come down to referring to them by 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she' (just so much more convenient). As long as they're being nice to me.

Think about it. Would you tolerate a grown up person who has suddenly taken to rather hurtfully pulling your hair and stealing your glasses all the time? No, right? (If your answer to that was yes, please get yourself tested for insanity. Or (yay!) start reproducing immediately!) Then why must we extend the same courtesy to persons who are simply a little smaller in size?

I just think kids can be annoying sometimes. I fail to understand how their mothers handle them. For the life of me, I cannot figure out a goal for babies other than to destroy everything they see about them and irritate the fuck out of rational, sane people like me.

Having said that, I must also stress that the following events were NOT INTENTIONAL.

Going in chronological order, when I was 8, I dropped a baby out of a window. . It was a ground floor window so no major damage done (no trips to the hospital and the like, but that was perhaps simply because I went outside, picked him right back up, came in and acted like nothing had happened). And yes, it has been drilled into me time and again by people to whom I can feel sufficiently unashamed telling this story, that any mental retardation that this kid might suffer once he grows up, however slight, will be my fault. However I assuage my guilt by telling myself that on the other hand, he may just turn out to be another Stephen Hawking. But then I remember how Stephen Hawking probably hasn't gotten laid in a long, LONG time.
Again, I emphasize that this was NOT deliberate. Here's how it happened. I was simply sitting on the window ledge with the window open because it was such a nice summer day. For some unfathomable reason, all the rest of my family were busy and had given responsibility of the baby to me. If you think about it, it's their fault really. I'm the real victim here. I mean, who the fuck gives responsibility of a tiny baby to an irresponsible 8 year old?! And the little thing was so tiny, I was simply trying to shift his position in my arms and before I knew it, I heard a loud splat on the pavement outside. This has given rise to one of my rather infamous nicknames, aka 'window-popper'.

Something similar happened when I was 10. Clearly I hadn't learned my lesson. I was very fond of picking up my nephew under the arms and flinging him round and round in circles until we were both dizzy. Dangerous, you say? Fun, I say. After all, Mom used to do the same thing to me. Soon enough, I realized that that was probably because she was more responsible. One of those times a-flingin', he slipped out from under my small hands and fell. Thankfully again, no real damage. But this time I resolved to get my act together.

Cut to 2010, when I slapped a random baby at a metro station. Again, I must stress that this was not intentional. It was simply one of those busy intersections at Rajiv Chowk when I was in a hurry to get to college. It was a rather chilly Monday morning. Now in order to get to college I must put in a good 1.5 hours of commute, which means I must wake up at an ungodly hour in the middle of the night when it is still dark. And I cannot stress this enough, but I am NOT a morning person. Pissed off, cranky and barely keeping my eyes open, I managed to hear the announcement for my next train which was to arrive in a minute, while I was more than a minute away from the platform. So I made a run for it, with some five bags of luggage in my hands. Now under such circumstances, a certain amount of random baby-slapping becomes inevitable. I rue the woman in the burkha who had her son in her arms and was walking calmly in the opposite direction across the bridge which connects the two platforms. She probably used to think the world was a good and happy place. After her young son's head had finished lolling from my impact, her beliefs would have been shattered. My friends seem to find this highly amusing and in such circumstances, I am ashamed to admit, it is a little difficult to be as contrite as I probably should be.

More recently, I have been frowned upon for simply airing my opinions about kids in a metro. We were talking about how annoying babies are and how we might prefer puppies instead. Now there is good reason for this. Right next to us were a couple of kids who were reaching new levels of irksome I did not know existed, fidgeting relentlessly, wiping off their boogers on our sleeves and generally creating a completely unnecessary fuss. Next to them was their mother who was clearly incapable of controlling these two tiny creatures from Hell. Just as we were about to get off, she berated us for our views and told us that it was not her fault, kids are 'like that only'. She even scolded the only one of us who was talking pro-baby. And on the station we saw her pointing us out to who undoubtedly seemed to be her husband, in a rather contemptuous manner. My compatriots seemed to be all up in arms, ready to fight to the death about their right to freely express their opinion in a public place (a sad occupational hazard that law students suffer form), but I managed to calm them down and dissuade them from their death wish, for in a public place like this, the public would surely take the mother's side. In fact my own mother did so when I narrated to her the incident later in the night.

And today all this seemed to be a source of much entertainment for some gentleman eavesdropping on our conversation in the metro while pretending to read his newspaper. Moreover, this has led to many unfortunate nicknames that I've been christened by some of my friends. I repeat, I am not against babies per se. I simply doubt I'd ever like to have one. I just think I would be the kind of mother who forgets that she's left her kid at Walmart or on the changing table, or tells her young child to fuck off because Mommy and Daddy need to get it on.

Inspired

Her mind seems blank. Sometimes it tries to think, but it’s hard. It seems to be moving at a very slow, sluggish pace, like it’s just had a big lunch. But it’s a brilliant feeling.

But now it’s moving rapidly, and she feels that the kind of insight she’s getting should be put in books and taught to children as part of their school curriculum. A special course called ‘The Ways of The World’. Because let’s face it, school doesn’t prepare you for the real world, for what’s out there, outside of the safety blanket of those four walls. School’s fucking useless.

It’s amazing really. The range of emotions she feels right now is nothing like the range she can feel normally. It’s broadened, the spectrum. Her horizons have broadened. There’s new sensations, thoughts flying around rapidly in her head. Their speed almost blinds her. They knock against the sides of her brain and fly with increased momentum to the other side. Like dragonflies. She can barely keep track. They switch rapidly, from one thing to the next. Happy, sad, anguished, desperate, ecstatic, nostalgic, amused, bewildered, surprised, sorrowful. There’s a valid reason for each. She wasn’t even aware the human mind could move at a pace like this. What comes out of her mouth makes perfect sense. She wonders why other people find it funny.

It’s pretty, the smoke. It forms images in front of her eyes. Such a waste. Pretty things are almost always undervalued. Why do people run after the grotesque and leave the ultimately beautiful to waste away, she could never understand. It’s the same with relationships. The really beautiful people almost always end up dying alone. She supposes it’s their way of finding hardship in life, to make them stronger, more resilient. Even more beautiful. Yet never appreciated.

She gets lost in the beauty of the smoke coming out in front of her. It’s mesmerising. Even as a child, the soft shapes formed by the lit camphor at Diwali pujas used to invite her, tempting her into their labyrinthine cave. She’d get lost, looking at those forms for hours. It was perhaps the only way for her to get through those Pujas.

She feels heat on her fingers. Time to roll another. 

I have fallen unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Benedict Cumberbatch

...'s voice.

And alright, maybe also a little bit of him.

"This love, which was the first of my life, taught me almost nothing of the ways of the world, for it was perfectly happy, not tarnished by the slightest self interest."

2011

I got my awesome, awesome, awesome laptop. And even though it gives me trouble from time to time, I love it with all my heart. And I would CERTAINLY lose the will to live without it.

I did my first moot. Bleh. Mockery it was. BUT it made me realize my strengths. And now I know what to do in that area.

I got to know a LOT of new people. And for the most part this has turned out to be good. Which in my experience is something new. I call these people friends now. And I'm happy about it, for once.

My first birthday in college. FUCKING brilliant. Credit to some rather...imaginative people around me. SO much fun.

IMS. Boring details that are consequential only to me. But still, a significant moment when I got that phone call. Didn't dawn on me until quite some time actually.

Movie spoof. With amazing people. Of amazing movies. Good shit. =D

And as a good friend reminded me, after which I whacked myself for forgetting, Europe. Summer 2011. Switzerland, France, Italy, London. Heaven. I could NEVER, ever give up travelling.

And this is just some of 2011. I had no idea it would turn out to be so utterly awesome when it dawned. It's been a brilliant year.
2012, you have some stiff competition. Better pull up your socks.

It already seems to be shaping up to be a pretty eventful year. Who knows, 2012 may just knock the socks off 2011. I sure hope it does. Even if we all die at the end. =D

Happy New Year everybody :)