Flashbacks of awesomeness!

January - Happy 2011 start in India.
February - Birthday parties. Lots of.
March - Skydiving. Enough said.
April - Grad party. More stress than I needed. Almost over.
May - Graduation. Vegas. Alaska.
June - Bye bye Miss AK. Washington DC. NYC.
July - Boston and alcohol with my fav men.
September - Miss AK is back for a visit!
October - Niagara! Thank you bestie and Miss AK.
November- San Francisco. KP and piggyback rides. Roomie time. Cooking TG dinner with friends.
December - Portland. Christmas. Seattle. Food, nature, friends, cold.

Welcoming 2012 with people me hearts. Priceless.

Splenda-h!

If emotions had a taste, I went through the entire spectrum last week. Sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (I think umami fits better than the traditional pungent, bear with me). The week started off as vanilla as possible - coffee, sandwich, muffin. Yay! Meetings, readings, assessments. And then, boom.

Unexpected news. Bitter. Sour. Salty.

The thing about unpleasant situations is that, if you are lucky, you find something sweet. I am lucky. My savior(s) came in, swooped me away and gave me not a free minute to mope around. In the truest sense of the word, शान्ति .

That, and food, and shopping and some MI4 action, all combine together, and leave me with umami. Somewhat impossible to describe, but overall pleasant.

PS: If you are wondering whats with the Splenda, its a story about how the girl woke up to the smell of coffee and pancakes. Oh-so-good-looking pancakes. Mmm. One bite of those fluffy pancakes, and the world went boom again. But bestie's sweetness showed through even those bitter pancakes, and the cake later in the night more than made up for the Splend-id disaster. Overall, umami.

:)

Let it be!

Why write?

a) It takes me to my happy place.
b) It makes me focus on the writing and not other random thoughts.
c) There is nothing left on TV to see.
d) All of the above.

Any guesses on which option I would choose as my answer tonight? 

The only hurdle being, that my brain refused to focus. 

So I went poking around for some inspiration. Found it in my chat history logs. A few days ago, I was talking to a friend and telling her to define "boundaries" between the things she can help, and the things she cannot. In the true spirit of '(don't) practice what you preach,' I was doing exactly what I grandly advised her not to.

While writing this, I am making an attempt to internalize my own advice, trying to weigh if the fight is worth the person, or am I just losing myself, to myself, in the battle? Answer (and the same as before) - A fight against indifference is not worth my time. Thank you brain, for at least being consistent!

Reflection is sometimes good for the soul. Closure definitely is. And so, about a year after I originally posted the Serenity Prayer, I look back and read it with renewed interest. 

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.


Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as He did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next."

In a year, so much changes, yet so little actually changes.
Let it go. Let it be.

Fair?

http://mimiandeunice.com/2010/09/15/life-isnt-fair/

Indeed! That is how a seemingly boring weekend evolves into going out with friends, meeting more friends, some new public and night-long associations with questionable substances. Pause. Cooking for an appreciative audience (who were dead scared of cats!). Rinse and Repeat.

The cherry on the cake? LA Chocolate Salon. Chocolate. Wine. Catching up with Gossip Girl. Too much of a good thing ain't that bad! 

Mine. Part III.

After doing all the keeda-kaand she could in the Motherland, the girl decides its time to shift countries. Welcome to Amreeka, ji. No more Old Monk and Kingfisher. Sad. Welcome to the land of JD and microbreweries. Yum. Always interesting to move so far away from home. The things you took for granted, no longer are. Relationships need more work. Finding new friends, harder than finding housing on Craigslist. But, we have established that the girl is awesome, and hence minimally troubled. What helped?

Stories and rumors and hope - make life so much more interesting and keep the girl going. Maybe they were about the guy with the green car, or the one with the curly hair, or the workaholic. The green car boy - lost cause; Mr. curly hair - still cute. Now, the workaholic. Heart-beat skip causer. Random sweet and sensible words-sayer. Spontaneously funny. The root cause that made the girl look back and remember all the crazy men she knows. Also unattainable, at last check. Oh well, that's the way the girl rolls (not). 

Oh, and how can she forget "shared property" or the "open relationship"? If the girl's life was a twitter feed, shared property would be #FAIL. The open relationship on the other hand, would be trending very well! One facebook status change, made on a dare was all it took. That, and the fact that the girl and the bestie gained great laughter from fanning flames. Equally evil, those two.

When the girl looks back at the last two years, she realizes she doesn't know when the bestie became the bestie! Knowing the girl, it probably helped that he cooked. Very well. Water - the girl loves to be near it, the bestie loves to jump in. The walks. The drives. San Diego. Malbec. Surprise(s)! Car-Bar-Net. Maybe the bed they shared, or the friends. Ink. Cards. Dancing. "Wild". San Fran. Long phone calls. Silence. Safety at 30. Red. The times when they thought, if only they were not so similar. The times when they are forever grateful for those similarities! Acceptance. Understanding. Most importantly, love.

Man o' man, by no means the girl thinks that this is a comprehensive list! The girl hasn't even mentioned the distant cousin she was linked with, and the distant cousin who wanted to marry her. Hey, don't blame the girl, the bawas are a small community! The sandwich-wala, who was the most important person around for 2.5 years. The girl is a slave to her stomach, also to be blamed on the bawa genes. The internet friend-of-a-friend, turned good friend, who the girl tried to hook-up with her BFF. They shared a love for slightly wonky late night conversations, peppered with references to 'mayo' and 'hunny'. The supposed asshole, who has never been but super nice to the girl (maybe it's her charm!). He was even nice enough (and drunk enough) to offer her an ill-fated piggyback ride. What fun! Oh, and the Army captain she met on the train? The girl had lunch with him on her visit home, played the perfect smart young woman, and there started another round of rumors. Fun fun fun. 

Who else? The girl also met a very open-hearted, ever smiling, amazingly humble person. The closest to a wise elder brother. Did she mention the other bawa guy who was her senior, and her nephew at the same time? Who fleeced the girl to get free tel-maalish? Also, the spiky haired guy on her team for the last one year. Brave man that one, to be the only guy in a 5 person (aka crazy women) team, but still afraid of insects. And the neighbor, alternating between being hot and being a slob. His cat, who ruled the girl's house for the past two years. Sidenote - If the cat was a human, it would have become the despotic ruler of the Earth-wide Kingdom of Godot. Scary stuff, that.

So the girl concludes, she is blessed. She looks around, and sees never-ending sources of inspiration, strength and love (and food and alcohol). Most of whom are okay when they see the girl break out into the trouble-creating evil grin. Almost all of them celebrate(d) the fact that the girl isn't a helpless maiden. And almost all of them are slightly scared of the girl's daddy dearest, because my Daddy strongest!

Mine. Part II.

And so, the girl keeps writing. College was an exciting time, so much to do, so much to see, so many people to meet. Oh, if none of this makes sense, do read Mine. first. Don't hold me to a strict timeline though!

When the girl came back to the big city for college, the first classmate she met was pouring over the entrance test results, wondering if he would get what he wanted. Couple of months later, he thought the girl looked super pretty in a saree. The shortest relationship ensued. Through the ups and downs, they remain friends and tell each other the most random stuff. Weird, but feels quite okay. Looking back, I am unsure if the guy ever got exactly what he wanted/envisioned. Life has a way of throwing him very interesting punches, leaving us with a repertoire of amazing stories! Manic Monday. Terrible Tuesday. Whacky Wednesday. Terrific(?) Thursday. Fantastic Friday.

It was also in college that the girl met the sweetest person she knows. Unflappable. Looks like a wrestler, is a marshmallow. Such patience this man has, to put up with what is now 6 years of ribbing by a set of friends who have all been generously sprinkled by the devil's dust. He is one of those people who will always be blessed, for he will have a child-like innocence with him forever.

While the girl was powering through college, she felt a need to explore an alternate world-view, partially because a close friend was immersed in it and the girl was bored and curious (in equal parts). So she went and did a short course with this international organization that claimed to change her and the way she saw the world. Yoga, social work and the lectures about living a good life were fine and dandy, but then horror of horrors! They wanted the girl to shirk her love for meat and alcohol. In desperation, she looked around for support. Found a pair of twinkling eyes. They shared a smirk, a "someone save us from these holier-than-thou people" look. Scooted closer and plotted to go out for a drink immediately after. So opened a world of hanging around in the heart of Mumbai and learning to understand Marathi. Going to small hole-in-the-wall places to eat fish(y) delicacies. Khooni paanje. Kala khatta golas. Conversations about Physics and Biology. An unforgettable holiday. Fights. Blame game. Constant pestering. Volatile emails. More pestering. A full circle, back to a tenuously held together friendship.

Once you start thinking about the people that have touched your life deeply, you realize that there are many more to go. And so, the girl will follow a friend's advice: "Today was a fantastic day, tomorrow will be better, if you like to write, don’t hesitate, if you like to draw don’t wait, whatever it is that makes you happy pursue it today for tomorrow today shall be a memory, a fading memory lest you capture it in your own special way…."

Mine.

There is always a little sweet spot in our heart for some people. The special ones from the myriad collage that makes up our lives. Old friends, friends you met only once, people who were such an integral part of your lives that you forgot all about their value, the shared mischievousness, the family bonds. Also, relationships that were not meant to be or will never be. As the years go by, sometimes even after things go bad, don't work out or maybe don't even really begin, they leave behind little pieces of memories that make you smile. Bitter-sweet as the smile may be, this is my journey through the smiles and (in this case), the men who made them!

A long, long time ago there was this girl who had the devil as her personal adviser. She was always the little perfect child in the presence of elders, but when in the company of her peers, the devil was let loose. Great many children were beaten up in the battles for food, game-time supremacy, kites, toys and attention. And then, a prince walked into the warzone, ready to face her. They clashed and fought, but realized that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. So together, they ran headlong into mischief, co-conspirators against the boring world of the parents. Together they became teenagers, and discovered the first bloom of romance. Alas, the evil world of studies and Board exams interfered. The first bloom remained exactly that, and life went on.

Her travels took this girl to a new city where she was thrown in the midst of these strange big city kids. Too much free time and a love for bike rides got her together with this another guy. So different from her prince, this one was a crazy, unrepentant wild-child. So much potential for so much fun, and the devil told the girl, go live. She did. Even today, it brings an evil, evil smile to her face!

Oh, and then there was the competitor. The guy who wanted to challenge the girl in everything. They got into fistfights at fifteen, and stories abounded in the small town they call home. The girl took the ultimate revenge. She went ahead and charmed his parents. Practice helps!

First day in college. Girl sees a guy with an odd vibe, just lurking around, being unsocial. Somehow, over innumerable cups of chai, classic milds, pegs of varying alcohols and other adventures, they went from being awkward friends to this another plane of friendship. The one where the fact that you didn't really speak for a year and a half does not really matter. You can catch up over 3 days and 3 bottles. Bliss. Thank you, God.

Still in college, the girl meets another guy. This one was highly amused by the girl's attitude - her tendency to be the laziest in a pack of lazy, willingness to fight and propensity for using very colorful language. The exact opposite of what he thought a perfect girlfriend/wife should be. Then he discovered that she was willing to get yummy sweets from her hometown, just for him. Instant magic recipe for an everlasting friendship. Bike rides. Floods. Rainy days. Food. Chai. Alcohol. More bike rides. Gossip. Pretend study sessions. Xerox frenzies. Screaming matches (the girl won). Concern. Affection. A lot of laughter.

A chance online meeting. An instant connection and a decision was made. The girl met this complete stranger, one late evening, in the middle of her exams. Passed those, couldn't pass up on him. Shared a common love for coffee, food, cinema, and exploring their city. Could not tolerate each other's music choices. The girl made him smile, and his smile made her feel like a princess. But if you think they were a boring sweet couple, think again. There was this sparky current between the two, and well, life was very interesting. Though time and tide found its way in between them, an email is all it takes to remember the time the girl scared the daylights out of him. All it took was a bumpy ride on the roads of Goa, with the girl driving the two-wheeler. 

The girl has more stories and more people to write about. She will too, soon.

Shor

I laud the fact that Anna Hazare and his co-workers could exercise their rights for freedom of speech and expression to extol the virtues of the Jan Lokpal Bill. If nothing else, this makes me glad to be an Indian, rather than a citizen of the multitude of countries where the whole gang would have been arrested, and/or executed.


But being a citizen of a democratic republic can be quite a double-edged sword. 


I lament the fact that Anna Hazare could publicly fast for 13 days, and in effect hold the Government at ransom. Call me heartless or unpatriotic, but weighing the wishes of one organization against the actual good of the 1.2 billion people we have does not quite make sense to me. What I do applaud AH & Co. for doing, is bringing the issue of corruption to the fore-front. On a more practical level, does it actually stop people from paying off the policeman, the babu, the clerk, the conductor, buying a movie ticket in black and the other small "chalta hai" corruption we see and actively participate in? Not really. Did the hunger fast make a lasting change on our mindset? I have my humble doubts.


As I understand it, these three demands have been tentatively met: Lokayuktas in every state, citizen's charter in each government department and inclusion of lower bureaucracy under Lokpal, with some others under discussion (I apologize if I misrepresented any facts). My do paisa views on them:


Lokpal/Lokayuktas: To expect one "God-sent" (Anna-sent?) Ombudsman to take care of the corruption that happens everyday around us, is logistically ridiculous. As is the idea that this one authority would be able to dig deep into the lives of our political and bureaucratic elite and reveal the corruption that lies there. So this person would need to be surrounded by staff members, in essence, another bureaucracy. Has anyone thought about running this organization or are we expecting it to materialize out of thin air? Who will elect/select/nominate people for this post? Will we have another election for this, and if so, who will fund it? Also, would will investigate the corruption in the Lokpal's department?


Inclusion of the lower bureaucracy: Many of the same issues as above. We have this whole convoluted, multi-office bureaucratic system. From my experience of trying to work with it, most of it involves corruption, either by money or by "influence". Monitoring the activities of this giant, and handling the complaints that are likely to float in from the public is daunting. Also, the Lokayukta will only investigate the complaints, the trial and prosecution rests in the hands of the over-burdened judicial system. So how does that improve the efficiency of getting an actual result?


Citizen's Charter: Eh? Let me ask you this, as an Indian, the most binding Charter on you is the Constitution of India. Now I don't expect you to know it in any detail, but do you remember maybe the Preamble or the Fundamental Rights and especially the Duties of the Indian citizen? In case this makes you go "of course I do", when did you last actively follow through on any of them? Except use the right to talk and blog, we do that incessantly.


Now that I have finished my rant, I admit that the movement, and the power of the Indian public behind the movement is admirable. What I question is the effect of these on the public, after the shor, the noise has died down. The issue is larger than AH's fast and demands for a Big Brother bill.Tackling corruption by increasing bureaucracy is a self-defeating cycle. Putting the power of the public behind a movement to increase the transparency of the existing babudom may yield better results. Modernizing the way our country is run is important, as is making the government servants accountable for their work. Six sigma and lean management theories, anyone?


For our sake, I hope the whole Lokpal movement brings a positive awakening within the public, within us. But if I can't bribe the Customs official at Mumbai airport, how will I smuggle in the extra iPhone and the bottles of alcohol into the country without paying excise? Quite an ethical conundrum, ain't it? 

Maudlin

Change is the only constant. These are the five much brandished, amazingly clichéd words, meant to comfort ourselves and others about all the funky changes that make our lives as interesting as they are. For me tonight, right now, there is no comfort in hearing these words. Tomorrow may be different, who knows? In the last two months, life as I knew it went spinning. For an almost control freak, this realization is even more scary. None of these changes are unexpected, but since when did anticipating something make it easier to swallow? (;-))

I graduated from a Masters program which embodies "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." Since this is not my ghost typing this out, I guess it worked. One of the ritual rings of fire we pass through at KGI is a year long project with a company. To say that my project turned me into a caffeine fueled fiend would not be very wrong. But it was the journey and the people I shared it with that made it amazing. We had our good days and the bad days (and nights), but we rallied. "Blow their socks off" was what we lived by and worked for. Done. Oh, and then we all graduated. No more waking up to urgent team emails, sharing the 'crazy eyes' look, eight hour marathon meetings, late late nights working , driving down to get animal-style In n' Out, or the team's collective eye rolling at Dee's innuendos. Damn, I miss all of that, and all of them.

Graduation time = Family time = Emotional roller-coaster. This reinforced my belief that family is an entity best loved from a distance. That way, its easier to say "I love you" and forgive and forget. Just when things were settling down, it was time to bid adieu. Fast forward to the next few days, and I was back at the airport to say bye to a dear friend who was shifting countries. I don't think I have yet fully absorbed the fact that she is no longer a 25 minute drive away. Her apartment and the long conversations we had together always gave me the peaceful sense of being at home that virtual communication just can't match up to. Fast forward to the next few days, and I was back at the airport to see myself off on a cross-country trip to meet old friends. Conclusion: I am good business for the US aviation industry.

These were also turbulent times for many of my closest friends, and I think we all came through without too many scars. In the true spirit of the drama that my life is, there were some highly charged, emotional revelations. A few relationships were broken, some new ones made and some old ones remain unfixed. Sadness, hope and regret, all in a flux. I gained new perspective on old wounds, and was gifted a pair of rainbow colored glasses to view the world with. True story.

Its wonderfully humbling to realize the emotional strength of people around you. Its also wonderfully depressing to realize that you are not as strong as you imagined yourself to be.

I think I need more vitamins. Plus some Jack and maybe a smoke.

BART-er thoughts

Why do we make "friends"? Man is a social animal, agreed, but why are so many emotions involved in a friendship? There is all this love, joy, anger, jealousy, with some shine and glitter sprinkled around. Yes, we need people to talk to, share stuff with and just hang out, but why do we have a need to invest in them? Apologies for the multitude of frivolous sounding questions, but hang on and help me understand.

Psychological studies say that if a person can't form friendships they lose the ability to connect with society, and gain a label: misanthrope. Society frowns upon a person who has only casual acquaintances and relationships. You think not? Think about a girl who does only one night stands, and the label that comes to your mind! Not very polite, were you? I wasn't, at-least not initially.

To me, it appears that a vital element of friendship (or any relationship, for that matter) is reciprocity, the act of responding to a positive action with another. Simply said, its like give and take, without which very few relationships survive. So is friendship really about being selfless and all such other lovely "goodness of my heart" emotions? Or is it a barter, with strings attached? Me thinks its about being comfortable enough with a person that the act of reciprocity becomes effortless. In essence, a sugarcoated barter! 

All of this leads me back to my original thought - if we can conduct business as a barter, why isn't the relationship of friendship the same way, minus the messy emotions? 

Help.

---

Riding the BART in SF always makes me think strange. This is what happens when one of the announcements you hear is "Don't use your child's pram as a doorstop". If a parent-child relationship is one of give and take, what isn't?

Contribution!

http://mimiandeunice.com/2011/02/01/contribution/

Time flies!

I had a set of scribbles and drafts from the past months, which I decided to condense into the CliffsNotes version(s) of multiple posts, with my retrospective thoughts!


November:

Diwali time! Another Diwali in the land where you are legally prohibited from bursting fire-crackers except when you can. The child inside me wanted to rebel so bad it was almost painful. The adult part just smiled a serene(?) smile and spoke about the need to reduce pollution. I am looking forward to attending the Euphoria concert and my first Los Angeles Lakers game. Go Kobe!


PS: The Euphoria concert was an unique experience. A small crowd of about 250-300 people, mostly Indians, a high energy band, listening to old favorite songs, standing on my seat and singing out aloud, overall pretty darn good! The game was predictive - Lakers had to win! For those in the know, and wanting to challenge my wisdom, they were playing GSW. Its a moot point - Go Lakers, all the way!


December:

Mumbai in 5 days. Home in a few days. It is a feeling that has not completely sunken in yet. I am looking forward to the sights and sounds of my absolutely favorite city. Getting to see my family and friends after a long while is exciting, and somewhat scary. What changed, what did not? I am definitely not looking forward to the customary "she has changed after going to America...." dialogues and the like. Also there is a marathon struggle to get done with (too much) school work before the vacation can begin; and that's the reason why I am writing a blog instead of a report.


There is something beautifully alluring about those then-common, now-special things which beckon to me so temptingly. They say "come home to us" - the simple pleasures of having chai at a tapri, with a garam cheese toast butter with extra chutney, company of old friends over old monk+coke and papad in the as creepily welcoming as ever Nimantran. Train rides with the breeze of the Vashi creek in my face, going to Colaba and having the freedom to bargain my way out, a cold Kingfisher, eating pizza from Joey's, coffee at my Juhu Barista, a walk along the beach, meeting school friends - those special people who keep me centered, meeting the newest members of my extended family; a very fast, very long ride on my Dio, and more. India, brace yourself - here I come!


PS: Those 21 days at home made me realize - time flies. It was a rude slap in the face, but brought along the comfort of knowing, for certain, that some people, some relationships and some places do not change. I don't want to imply that they are in status quo, but just that their essence does not change. I am quite sure that I have seen this before, but I guess this is a lifelong learning? Or maybe I like my illusions too much? Whatever, don't know.


January: 

Dee has faced a grand realization: Home is where there are no "well-wishers." Absolutely no one who is concerned about my life, career, marriage and child-bearing potential. Home is where I are comfortable with myself, and not under a highly judgmental microscope to be dissected by society at large.


I missed my Claremont "family" and was surprisingly happy/excited to be back here. Maybe time flew by too much, too fast and I lost my place in Mumbai/Ajmer in the larger scheme of things. I will take help from the wise - "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." - Anatole France