Big Sur and San Fransisco!

Day 1: 25th march '06 The Big Sur drive on the picturesque pacific coast...greeeeeeen hills on one side and the ocean on the other! With extremely, interestingly great and long chats with friends on all ranges of topics. Took pictures while stopping on all the 'vista' points with a brave attempt to set a foot into the brrrrrrr coooold waters of the Pacific...mannn the cold seeped through to the tip of my head, that too when the sun was high up!!!! Some shopping for electronic equipment for survival here and of course food....!!! how could I miss that....yummy karnataka meals at Dasprakash, a tall, latte, blah and blah...coffee:) at Starbucks, masala idli and masala chai at Woodlands served by chetta:) And of course a peek into their 'town house' basically a triplex;) which is yet to be explored. Special mention - the warmth and comfort and ease which you can feel only with old friends who are so easy to talk to:)

Day2: 26the March '06 San Fransisco here we come!! After a heavy breakfast at the hotel buffet with the cousins...a power nap while on the drive reached the Golden Gate...hmmm this is where the angel-whitelighters meet up in 'Charmed'!!:) After the 'been there, done that' snaps moved on to the fun clicking. The vision of the guy who built this is simply amazing - he put in a 6 lane bridge in the early 1900s when SF had only 250 cars!!!!! Deve Gowda and family should take a lesson or 2....Next was the Miur woods - the redwood trees hikes...after a bit of walking with non-walking, impractical footwear and not seeing any redwood trees, the sight of the trees when we actually got there was cathartic to say the least....could just feel the calm seeping in, the cold felt beautiful and the foot ache vanished! Moved to 'Crooked street' after lunch...well kudos to the Americans for making the best of a tiny opportunity to push something like this to a world famous tourist spot! The road slopes down (a few degrees more than the slope-iest Banashankari road) and these guys have just made it go zig zag and lo! you have the 'crooked street of the world'!! Headed next to the twin peaks with a beatiful view of the SF city and chilly winds...then to Fisherman' s Wharf towards dusk. There were sea lions crooning away...a full of activity coastal delight place. Alcatraz was there beckoning...hmmmm well next time maybe:) got amazing shots..the sky was beautiful...shopped a bit and went off to Ghirardelli the chocolate factory...ordered huge the sinful looking icecreams and the calorie count was climbing...soared! Wont ask people for ice cream for a while now :- 'Lets try a late night movie on imax' was the next item on their enthusiastic list! My eyes were closing of their own accord, but I said 'sure I am game!!'...greeeeeed! Found it impractical after a parking drama and headed back to silicon city! All I remember is waking up in front of my hotel.

sense and sensitivities

"You were just a bad example while I was growing up" hit me like a ton of bricks! Couldnt respond...tried to crack a joke about it and completely put it out of my mind....and succeeded. But the words kept coming back...over and over again. I kicked myself...why did I not respond with a 'putting people in place' statement that I am so well known for??!!! perhaps it was the childhood complex surfacing all over again...became totally blank and felt lowly and inferior? maybe...is it that I still have'nt gotten over those childhood comparisons of "your younger cousin is fair (as in complexion)...u r dark", "ur younger cousin is a brilliant student and u r an average", "your younger cousin got a campus placement, with a $%^&* starting sal and you are still attending vague job fairs"...?

I tried to analyse why the statement was made...after all these years of growing up into 'responsible adults'.....was it the time I tried to take her to a movie or introduce her to Jane Austen, to get a life when all she knew was her text books, or the time I spent all time watching cable TV and not 'scoring' instead, or the time when I showed her my movie stars book of pictures I had cut out of magazines when I was 11, or was it everything...wrath incurred just by being myself? Must have been all of those...and am glad she realised it early in life and didnt follow my 'example'...god forbid then, she would have ended up like me!! Now that's blashphemy isnt it??!! outcast...out of the caste, lesser in value in terms of status or moneys, living life on one's own terms....now who wants to be all that! It is easier to confirm and do the 'right' thing! Let's just be politically correct and say 'to each his own'.

well at the end of this monologue...all I can conclude is that I am still a coward and use the internet to be spiteful and I am ungrateful for all the hospitality I receive and I can be a really mean b**** when I want to...on the internet that is! And people like me who pretend to 'not care' still carry around some baggages of long ago years and some things strangely remain raw and sometimes it hurts!
But nothing changes the fact that it takes all kinds of experiences to make you the person you are and I guess I am quite comfortable with the person I turned out to be....bad example or not!

BLACKLISTED

I had to face a difficult situation sometime ago. A good friend of mine points to this other lady and says, "I don't understand how people like this can be happy", the voice was filled with disgust and loathing, or I don't know if I was imagining it. When I asked what caused that statement, I was told, "she has applied for divorce, she wants to get rid of him". I was shocked, not because this other girl had applied for divorce, but because this good friend of mine was being so...What's the word..Puritanical?Judgmental? I do not know.
A million thoughts and emotions raged through my mind and the first one was anger, again not at the girl who applied for divorce but at my friend, and probably me for listening to all this. It all came flooding back then, the comments about the going-to-be-divorced girl's clothing and the way she carried herself etc etc over the last few months. Then I tried to reason with her, "you never know what prompted her to do it, do you?", "I know quite a few divorcees, their stories are always sad, and really not one person's fault", "people who put up a brave front and look happy maybe the victims", "its sometimes considered better to part ways when the going is decent than to suffer and die a bitter person" and an added million other thoughts all trying to take center stage! Its not that my friend is the vile villain or I am this super sensitive good soul, it just has to do with perspectives and the amount of experiences or exposure one has. She is actually one of the most generous, forgiving people I know.
Well, none of my thoughts and words did get much bhaav and the topic got changed and I was left frustrated, since I wanted desperately to hear an acknowledgement of what I said and I wanted an understanding or atleast a willingness to keep open mind that there generally is more than meets the eye, that dressing in a way that's considered hip and happening does not necessarily mean that someone is 'fast and easy', or takes relationships very lightly or is promiscuous (not that any of this was ever said, but always gets implied...hanging in the air types) and even if that is so, what business does anybody have to question the way someone lives his/her life?, and putting on a brave/happy front need not imply anything! I had gotten myself so angry...I was seething!
I am truly hoping that the little of what I said will trigger off something....sometime. But again who am I to judge this friend, who am I to say she should keep an open mind. Maybe there's something in her experience that has her reacting this way,.......... and maybe I will also get blacklisted in these circles for what I was trying to say, and maybe that's not so bad after all....kinda used to that anyways....a lot of maybes. But I do believe that a debate and discussion and dialog however depressing and frustrating go a long way in change of attitude for a healthier more open atmosphere. On that thought I am not seething anymore:)

when destiny takes over...

ok! here is a word I very seldom use in my vocabulary...destiny/fate. Truly always believed that we are where we are, etc etc simply because of the choices we make at some point and our own efforts or the lack of it. But sometimes some things just happen! We dont put any effort, we dont draw them towards us (atleast not conciously), we make terrible stupid goofups which should actually make them work otherwise, and we also come to a point where we dont want things to happen and simply avoid anything to do with it. And they happen, and you feel the rug pulled from beneath your feet. You dont know if its for better or for worse.....And like our famous Murphy says, they will happen at the most inopportune moments...when you really really dont want them to or actually dont want them to ever happen! The best part is, you have to pretend that everything's normal and cool and get on with life....ok! I really dont know where I am going with this...just had to put this down.....

Blank Noise

A project to recognise eve-teasing or rather street sexual harassment as a sexual crime
http://www.blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com/

I am trying to remember all the various times that the noise in my head was refused meaning....was blank. And frankly I have just lost count!

But the very first time was when me and my friend (we were both around 12yrs old!) were walking on the roadside, she closer to the road, and a fellow cycling from the opposite side groped at my friend. It was probably less than a second and he fled. Both of us were stunned..I actually remember shivering! I dont think we were even able to scream or react. My friend recovered first and said "He must have thought that the glittery design on my dress's neckline was a gold chain". Ok! that explains it I thought and totally shut down that voice which was screaming in my head...both of us knew we were fooling ourselves and neither of us admitted to it. We actually related the incident to her folks that somebody tried to chain snatch on a cycle. And exactly a week after that, the same thing happened to me at a different place as I was walking alone. I had no glittery neckline for his defence and this time and believe it or not, was a 12 year old KID wearing a salwar kameez with a dupatta to boot! I remember not sharing this with anyone at home, not sleeping that night, thinking, 'what did I do?' that's it....'WHAT DID I DO?', 'there must have been something I did'. I remember hating myself for it. I remember feeling like a lowly creature, but I dont remember getting angry at the groper, since I was conditioned to believe (at 12!!) that it must have been something I did!
It's been about 15 years since then and nothing has changed much. Here we are at it again. And all that talk about she 'asked for it' by wearing or rather not wearing whatever holds no water when I think of my huge pink salwar kameez with a huger dupatta that I owned when I was 12! Come to think of it...maybe thats why I hate wearing dupattas so much!

an afterthought: Caught up in the 'it must have been me' to this day, I have even tried looking 'married'! tried the sindoor and other objects and symbolisms I simply dont relate to! And nothing has helped! NOTHING! So everyone with all these smart, condescending analyses and theories should basically shove it up!

blacked out!!!!!!

a speedbreaker (like in a hump ..... LOL!)
daaaarkkkk
opaque
misty eyed
foggy
stormy
glueey
breaks failed...brakes also!
didnt hit any breakpoints (whats that which slipped into my so-called poetry!)
blasted into a door
keeerrraaashed into the oncoming stone wall !!!
lying face down
cant move a thing
calling out..no response

[Ok peace!!!! this describes my current situation while I am trying to solve or rather understand why my software is crashing!booohooo am I in the wrong place doing the right things or in the right place doing the wrong things!]

solitude misunderstood!

Recently read this piece by Mahesh Dattani in the Week - passing thought section. He writes about people's choices to stay/live alone which is generally looked at very sympathetically, gist being, loner always made== lonely.
I remember that as a kid that I was quite content being the loner but would always get looked at very sympathetically (being a single child over and above this just adds to the spice!). Even to this day, I have absolutely no issues sipping coffee or shop or travel all by myself. Not that I dont enjoy company of people or abhor a good chat/gossip, it's just that I quite enjoy 'my' company too. And very frankly, I have never had longings for siblings to make me complete. Turned out quite normal and even a little generous being the single child.

Quite a few of my growing up years were spent in opposing the instituion of marriage et all and the strong opinion got more meat when people would give me really skewed ideas to get married and procreate! Would be either 'what about companionship when you are old and grey?' or 'what about support systems when you are old, in the form of your children who will look after you when you cannot?'. And since these things were supposedly sound reasons, I would retort 'Why the hell should I punish myself today to be looked after when I am old? I'll find another way!' ...the feminist that I was!
My arrogance didnt go down very well but quite a few these folks' 'budhape ke sahare's are NRIs and some some dont even have their old and grey life partners! And they do manage to chug along inspite of not wanting to be alone, swallowing expectations from their kith and kin. But yes I do agree, really sorry state, especially if you dont understand the term 'loner'! and if you are conditioned in your expectations from fellow humans. Most of them cannot even relate to the idea of an old age home and equally ruined gets their NRI children's pride.... Not that I have any problems with making your fortunes and a better life in another country...perfectly fine to be an NRI, absolutely no judgement on that one. I just analyse the various pride and expectations equations here. I could go on, but thats another topic all by itself!

If I am married today despite my earlier revolts, it is definitely not to have a companion at 60 but to have one today! And I still very much am a loner who still likes to go shopping alone (to the obvious relief of husband:)), think my own thoughts and find ways to avoid obligatory social events (Of course the seriousness of the situation of avoiding social events can be very high when you are a 'marital status' person! and I like a good challenge as always;)) or travelling alone. And no, dont want to have kids as an old age investment or because there's nothing better to do or because babies are good fun or it's the law of nature or the biological clock is ticking....! Only if and when there is a real, true need (not sure what that is yet) and sure enough, I will still remain the 'loner'!