Sleep is a funny thing

 

Its normal for you, natural, easy, thoughtless

For me its like a two headed dragon wolfing down my Hans Im Gluck burger

Ok, I kid

It’s like a two headed dragon with 5 feet fangs breathing Extra Hot Nando’s sauce down my throat

I sweat buckets

My pounding heart sounds louder than Metallica at an indoor concert

And sometimes I feel like I have a protest rally going on in my mind

All this while lying on my cushiony mattress, on silken sheets

Ah, the sarcasm of the half empty glass in a glass half full world

Pills, therapies, Internet articles, mirror mirror on the wall

All served a limited self on a limited time stamp

  Waking nightmares imagined, not real

Stress the driver of an imagined freight-train of worry and sleeplessness

And the two-headed dragon grows evermore on wings of imagined realities

Feeding and slurping away on my beauty sleep

Are they that fictitious- my nightmares?

Or do they tell me a tale I dare not heed during the day?

A tale of unfulfilled dreams and out of reach desires

Of purposes undiscovered and of friends who abandoned

But that’s the story of every life

We are all Shakespearan comedies and tragedies

On stage today and off tomorrow

The peace I seek in sleep is to be found in my heart and my soul

In knowing that shutting my heart isn’t avoiding pain, its avoiding love

And that the two headed dragon isn’t the enemy of my sleep

If I could get past the fire, its only telling me a hard truth

Life isn’t about sleep, sleep follows life

As I pat the two-headed dragon into the pillow, we decide to make peace for just this one night

Tomorrow is another day, another hope for dreamlike living.

Mothers of the world- kudos!

Mothers Day is a manufactured concept but the concept of mothers is far from that.  There is no one uniform way of describing them because they are all different and they are all human.  I could not fathom being one as I thought it was the hardest job in the world and I am too selfish to care about someone that much.  Now I have to change the 'they' to 'we' as I am elevated to that position in life.  And it is true - it is one of the hardest jobs in the world and it is never-ending.  But controversially enough, I dont think being a mother means you are selfless.  Selfless would be taking care of other people's babies without any remuneration but for yours, it is a biological drive to take care of them (you think babies evolved into mini war-crying machines by chance?).  That doesnt mean mothers arent super-heroes - they truly are, we truly are (yep humble pie!) for our children.  That love cannot be replicated.  Ever.

So I sit here today, missing my mother and hugging my baby reflecting on everything that has happened in the last 14 months.  Pregnancy was a breeze and depicted above (the question mark is pre-pregnancy test) and the last month was punctuated by baby's arrival a bit early so no photos that month except of cutie.  The whirlwind of breastfeeding, sleeping (and not sleeping), crash course in diaper changing and bathing babies and the feeling of having two brains in one head which is permanent but gets more synergistic as months roll on.  So whether hypnobirthing, lamazing, c-sectioning, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, latching, sleep training, not sleep training, co-sleeping, day-caring, nanny-using, pre-schooling, homeschooling etc etc - you are the only and the best for your baby.  Happy Mothers Day, wonder women! 

Heartbreak broke my Writer's Block

Imagine...the ordinary: 

                A day spent hugging mom,

                A day spent on the streets amidst maskless merries,

                An evening spent dancing away on a beach at sundown; but

                The ordinary is impossible, the ordinary is dead. 

I am not a prisoner but I am bonded: 

                Bonded to my happy memories, please erase them for me,

                Bonded to my hopes, which dont come true anymore,

                Memories hurt, but hope is a dream made of gossamer wings,

                Beautiful, delicate and easily destroyed.

I live with perfect imperfections but sometimes the imperfections are too perfect: 

                   Flitting from day to day, hiding behind meals and smiles,

                   I am trying positive, but the collective pain of billions tears up the most positive of us,

                   I stopped reading the news, but it just finds me wherever I run,

                   Survival is fine-tuned to the ignorant now.  

The only way to live is to imagine the extraordinary now:

            A day watching my grand-mother hugging my son,

            A day spent without worrying tomorrow will bring tragedy,

            An evening spent under the stars in a rainy forest ground,           

            A day when positivity seems easy...

   

Top 5 benefits of a bed-ridden world (or read this the next time i lose Hope)

A friend suggested this title to me for my next blog entry after discovering that i hadnt written in my blog for more than a year. I dismissed it at that time because a) I was in the throes of maddening numbing pain after my ankle operation and b) ummm i was depressed because i was in the throes of maddening numbing pain after my ankle operation.  So even though i did vaguely think that i would like to write about this experience as it has been one of the most painful and difficult episodes of my life till date.  Especially as i tend to forget difficult periods and only moan about the problems that have befallen me at that exact period in time or get depressed about nothing at all. Short-sighted but thats how things have always worked out in my life. Coincidentally just before I fell and while I was still in Singapore I had borrowed a book called "making hope happen" by shane lopez who is a renowned gallup scientist.  A very inspiring book for sure and it was my companion through the screaming nights of pain in the hospital and sometimes depressing sometimes inspiring days and nights of my now 5 week recovery period (if your takeaway from that was that i am a slow reader, that was completely not the point and untrue to boot as i finished 2 other books in the same period...you need to absorb some books and not just rush through them).  One of the interesting parts of the book was how relevant the ancient greek text Odysseus is to modern day hopeful thinking and decision making.  He copes with the sirens i.e. Distractions by recruiting the help of others i.e. His canaries.  I am hoping that this post will act as one of my canaries in helping me on the path to progress towards my goals.

  So anyway without digressing further or providing more boring background, let me just plunge into the benefits (from the optimist's point of view) of a bed-ridden world:

1. You can order everyone around, dont need to do anything yourself and get pampered and pitied
even if the fall was the result of a drunken high heeled sojourn in a nightclub. Best. Result. Ever.

2.  5 weeks paid leave, great home food and tons of time with family.  Of course i was working from home and did have to work quite a bit for a week, but i realllyyy cant complain at all! The bonus was that i got to stay home during the holiday period and no one could really complain that i didnt do enough work as there wasnt too much work anyway.

3. My liver will thank me forever.  No or negligible alcohol for 6 weeks!  This hasnt happened since...2008 i think! Wow!

4. I knew acute pain for the first time in my life and as a corollary i know what it means to be pain-free - my usual state of affairs but which i never appreciated.  Have you ever had nightmares when you have been screaming and howling in pain and then suddenly you are woken up and its bright sunshine and the world is still a happy place? Thats how i feel nowadays...aah ok. Im not mary poppins yet but you know what i mean right?

5. When i finally walked with minimal support and then with no support, all the internet horror stories fled like ants drenched in water...it was freedom. It was wonderful and i am sure if i was that kind of girl or in an ekta kapoor serial, i would have had a few glycerine tears to shed.  Now looking forward to my first run...first dance...i think dr. Lopez, i have taken the first baby steps towards hope...

Serendipity in the time of whatsapp

I recently gifted one of my good friends a book by an author i really like.  Love in the time of cholera by gabriel garcia marquez. He then told me oh this is just serendipity! I was like, why? He was surprised that me, being a girl hadnt watched serendipity, one of those ultimate of ultimate romantic movies. The kind girls base all their dreams and hopes of the "One" on (well i think for me that was personified by before sunrise but more on that another time) and then badger their husbands or boyfriends to be more romantic or hopefully fantasise of finding one who will be.  So ever the practical sort, i promptly downloaded the movie and just let it lie in the downloads section of my laptop saving it for a sad hopeless day, we all know the kind. Today wasnt one of those but when my initial ide of watching a bollywood movie with my folks didnt pan out, i just decided to watch this.

As this isnt a review of the movie ( i would be 13 years too late in any case) i will just jump into the topic at hand.  Of course the hopeless romantic girl in me loved the movie.  Even the most practical hard boiled jaded girl will not be able to honestly swear on her "One" (as no one wants to jinx true love, whether you have found it or not) and tell me that something in tht movie didnt appeal to her.  I was trying to figure out if a concept like this, however far fetched and hollywoodish it may be can ever work in todays day and age with all the multifarious communication devices that we have (Bbm, facebook, twitter, whatsapp blah blah- together generalised as whatsapp (and yep thats the lawyer in me, be happy i didnt capitalise)).  I am going to loosely re-create the basic plot but in 2014:

Jon meets sara during sales on christmas eve (there are possibilities here that they wouldnt even be physically shopping but just logging on via their tablet or laptop precisely to beat the crowds and out of stock items which brought them together in the first place but as the movie and consequently this post is about destiny, i am going to discard that train of thought).  So they met and in the midst of whatsapping their respective soon to be forgotten loves, they reached for the gloves.  Then we know what happened, lets not change anything till we get serendipity the cafe. Half the magic is lost because though they are undeniably attracted to each other, they are still distracted by the numerous sounds that their smartphones are making every second.  And however destiny and serendipity focussed sara is we know that when they do tear themselves away from those phones, the ice skating rink works its charm and she agrees to give him her number.  But who writes numbers on pieces of paper anymore?  Jonathon of course types it onto his phone and immediately adds her on whatsapp. No question of the paper just flying away then right? They part but keep in touch on whatsapp and maybe they are soulmates and they start dating and get married and live happily ever after.  More likeky it jyst becomes another mundane whatsapp flirtationship with some occasional sexting.  No 5 dollar note, no waldorf astoria and no marquez.  No magic. No serendipity.

Because dont you see its not only who you meet, its how you meet and the image that creates in your mind and soul.  Whatsapp has made things easier but it has also taken chance away from the equation. There can be serendipity, no alignment of events and no im not in anyway saying that serendipity the movie is anything but fiction but i do still believe in magic, because ive felt it bfore and hope to on e again.

Now if only that smartphone had been out of charge....

FEM

Today I dont want to be the wimp. Today I am angry. Today I am not diplomatic. Today I am going to be blunt. I hate hindi serials!!! I hate their portrayal of women, of relationships, of life! I dont profess to know a lot about life but I have been watching Hindi serials for a long time, often reluctantly because it used to be on for all my waking hours and at one point of time, on the only TV in the house. Now, I watch only when I want numbness. (Ok, I won't give any more excuses...they are kind of addictive). But I disagree with them. And on pain of being branded a feminist, (Actually it's not a pain, every woman I believe, worth her ego should be a feminist) and in utmost anger, I have started the Female Ego Movement (FEM). (I am the sole member of this movement at the moment) I think that Feminist movements were fine in their day and age but now that we have managed to get under the skin of men in a number of fields, (at least some of us have) [this was a pun, it makes no difference if I say it wasn't, you'll always think it was) it's now time for something else and I thank Ekta Kapoor and her ilk for giving me the inspiration through their medieval, screwed up, patriarchal, hindi serials.

I would first like to lay down some fundamental tenets of FEM (DO NOT dare compare it with the Hair Removal Cream. FEM is not the best brand...oops sorry...this wasnt for this post):

1) Women need egos. Their egos are bigger, more important and often hidden. So every time a woman is paraded in front of suitors who reject her, every time she is scolded by her mom-in-law and every time she is told that her aim in life is to be the ideal bahu, she should turn around and stick out her tongue. So There!

2) Women need wives too. This is not an original idea. I believe I have read about it a number of times. And this is not a support of lesbianism or a critique of the flavour of the season i.e. Section 377.  IPC. I just think that women need those glorified and absolutely subservient creatures who dress in heavy ugly Silks and heavy ugly gold jewellery and look after the house, the kids and the bai everyday. And what's more. These wives should be Men.

3) Women need a career. They don't need a job as a secretary, or a part-time teacher, while they wait to get married.  And then promptly quit these jobs when their boss falls in love with their dainty beauty in modest salwar kameezes.  Nowadays they are sometimes social workers whose "cause" is then gallantly adopted by their rich but kind suitors. Blah.  Women can fight the causes better because guess what its HER cause.  I am sure if someone asked me to fight for sachin's return to professional cricket, i would do a poor job.  I mean he's a great cricketer and i admire him for leaving the dirty sport with a ujala spotless reputation but that would not be my chosen cause.  Sorry for this obtuse example but it was for the benefit of indian men as i would hope women get the point im making.

4) Dressing in western clothes doesnt make me evil. Nor does red lipstick.  Pop colours fyi are in (oops not that relevant for this post either).  Why is it that in today's day and age when even grandmoms from traditional families wear dresses and pants and there is immense hullabaloo and criticism regarding the perceived image of women in the rape debate (kudos to the makers of that viral sarcastic video - its your fault http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8hC0Ng_ajpY). Wanted: a serial where the bahu prances around in shorts or a power suit for her job as a corporate honcho.  Ekta, are you listening?

FEM will not rest till reality meets soaps and then some.  In fact, I accept that my reality may not be the reality of every Indian woman.  So FEM will continue till every fantasy meets reality (maybe other than men wearing ugly saris, I clearly hadnt thought that one through).

Go FEM!

Sleep

When I close my eyes
I know I will forget all cries

every night, I die inside
knowing you are so far away

like a uni-coloured rainbow
like a sunny day without warmth
all beauty loses colour

when i close my eyes,
tonight
i hope i dream of you...