when i think about
the last time i had sex
i feel shame
for the first time in life
i feel … stupid
jumping up and down
like a monkey
it was really good though
maybe that’s why
here i am
sprawled
in the sweet sunshine
of satisfaction
looking back
i look down upon
the embarrassing physical display
of soothing a stupid itch

recently, rather i guess just yesterday, or last night, a reader left a comment here, referring to a woman’s breasts as ‘hooters’. i was replying to that comment in the comments section but decided to make it a separate post as it is not a personal issue. its more of an awareness thing.

for one, i strongly protest the use of the word ‘hooters’ (esp. on a woman’s blog, though it does not matter where you use the word). it is rude of you to do that. and no child, it does not make you sound “cool” irrespective of how you define cool.

the main thought behind this post was that its really sad, the way (most) people have solidified against any kind of sensitivity. “modernity” should have brought about evolved civility. au contraire we have become so much more … wild. uncivil, self-centered, thoughtless, insensitive … outright mean. uncultured and uncouth..

hooters! those are what you grew up sucking on my child (maybe you didn’t, but most of us did). please show some respect.

take the western world for example. (i have a lot of regard for the western world cos at least they make sure that all sensitivities are considered, irrespective of how they feel.) they go to such extremes to make sure that the physically challenged do not face any trouble travelling, moving around, going about their own lives independently, and then they turn around and laugh loudly calling people names like Spas.

india? well, i won’t even start. maybe someday, when i have some more time at hand.

and no. men staring at “hooters” is NOT genetic programming. my father doesn’t do it. niether does my brother. most of my male friends don’t do it. its all about how/where you’ve been brought up. at times its understandable, staring. something beautiful, one just can’t help but look at it again and again. but its the way you look that makes all the difference.

when i was moving to pune, i had thought (not planned) that i’ll stay here for 2-4 years and then move back to mumbai. i was really enjoying myself in mumbai then and didn’t even want to move, but did, as the job offer was good. and though i never really wanted to move out of mumbai, i did, weirdly enough, inspite of having done nothing that might show that i am trying to. that’s fate, ye all. i was meant to be here in pune. i and my baby were meant to be here .. happier .. more comfortable .. a better life. though cy still misses mumbai ..

but now, i don’t think i want to go back to mumbai. just the thought discomforts me now. all that traffic, congestion, the people .. ah!! the minimum time to reach anywhere is 2 hrs. and then there is no space anywhere. the kids get down the building and they hit the road, and every road is a main road there, crowded, dangerous. that’s why i’d fallen in love with powai .. it has lots of space. :) i hope i am able to stay put at least the next coupla years at the place where i am at now here in pune. though the landlord religiously increased rent 10% this year.. and will obviously do the same next year too. lessee..

i’ve always had a fear of studying. that’ll i’ll never be able to do it; study i mean. as a school-going kid, i was pretty bad at it. most teachers didn’t like me, though i was a favorite of a couple of them at various points in time during my school years .. mostly english and physics teachers. maths teachers have always hated me .. my 10th standard math teacher wasn’t even aware of my existence, though i scored a distinction in maths in my 10th standard board exams, all thanks to veer. thank you veer. :) he labored much more than i did, was up till 3 - 4 am, working out complex trigonometry problems for me, while i merrily dozed off by his side sitting on the table (it was a dining table converted at night into a study table as it stood by a semi-open latticed wall and it was just awesome sitting there at nights, the cool breeze coming in every now and then, the dark silouettes of the trees and other plants visible), a book in front of me. i bought the books in january, begged veer to help me, sat for the exams in march, and scored a distinction. veer is a miracle worker .. in the eyes of the universe. no one even recognized his tremendous effort. he didn’t just help a student. he helped me, an incompetent, below-average … rock, with an attention span of a month old infant. i don’t know how i did it .. but i did .. he did it.

anyways, its this surity that i cannot study that made me never opt for higher studies. i have developed this mental block that i will never be able to make it, that i won’t even be able to finish the 1st semester. why i am thinking about all this now is because i wish i could .. study. i want to try and further my knowledge in my field of work. and its an interesting field of work. its not rocket science, nothing i can’t make sense of. i can, and i can make very good sense of it. and am not at all bad at what i do. but its the .. regime, i think that scares me. sticking to a curriculum, and making sure that you complete this much in this much time. hmmm…..

talking about school teachers, i don’t know about now, but in my school going years, they were a major blot on the entire institution of teaching. they were mostly “home-makers” who wanted to earn some extra money and not spend an entire day doing it. they were/are completely insensitive to a child’s needs, never cared if most of the class is clueless about what’s going on, shamelessly favored their favorites and communicated mostly only with them, AND had no idea about what’s the best way of getting students’ attention and stuff some learning into their heads. i blame them.

veer, on the other hand, is a very good teacher. if he ever chose to, he has it in him to be one of the best Instructional Designers/Strategists of this world. :)

_________________________________________________________________

i love the smell of steamed corn …

aajkal, i develop insomnia at night and suffer from sleeping sickness in the mornings. its so not funny. like last evening, i was so tired that my bones crumbled just at the thought of walking till the kitchen to explore the fridge. i was adequately pooped. so i switched the TV off at 10, urging Cy to hit bed early, and we were in bed by 10:30. the moment i heard Cy’s sweet, sweet, soft, heavy-sleep sound, i switched the lights off, and my eyes opened. my mind’s eyes opened, and i felt fresh like a flower. it was ridiculous. so i started reading the book that i am reading aajkal. i didn’t feel sleepy till 1:30. and obviously it took me forever to wake up in the morning. this is so ridiculous. its been a year now that i have been trying to wake up by at least 7 every morning and go for a walk, or just do some crunches at home. some force of the universe is working against me it seems.

there’s a little girl in every woman. just like there’s a little boy in every man. it shows in the sudden giggle that erupts sometimes from the corner of the mouth in a light, unguarded moment. and then you know .. ah! you are a little girl, or a little boy afterall.

my mind is working on “life-plans”. wow!! i have never done this before .. think in terms of the next 2 years, or the next 5 years. having a baby makes you such a better person. everyone should have a baby. :) .. but yes, a lot of people are good at planning and see far into the future without a baby even remotely in their lives. whatever happened to me when i was growing up (physically).

i have a new favorite song now .. that bring tears to my eyes and greeeat joy to my heart .. :)

ding ding ding ding ding ding ding
ding ding ding ding ding
thodisi dhuul meri dharti ki mere watan ki - 2
thodisi Khushbuu baurai se mast pavan ki
thodisi dhondhane waali dhak-dhak dhak-dhak dhak-dhak saansein
jin mein ho junoon junoon voh boonde laal lahuu ki
yeh sab tuu mila mila le phir rang tuu khila khila le - 2
aur mohe tuu rang de basanti yaara
mohe tuu rang de basanti
mohe mohe tuu rang de basanti - 9
oh mohe rang de basanti basanti rang de basanti - 2
(ding ding ding ding ding ding ding
ding ding ding ding ding) - 2

i’ve never liked daler mehndi .. but i think that he has done an AWESOME job singing this song … AWESOME!!!

i love my baby. God, please may she never suffer in her life. please give me all her pains .. all her hurts. let me feel the suffocation every time she gets a bronchitis attack. let my head hurt each time she has fever. let my body ache, each time she falls sick. god, please let me lie limp and lost and have loosies. dear God, i love my baby .. you love her too ..

someone staring at my breasts was never a problem for me. it didn’t bother me because i didn’t give 2 hoots. 2 hootes!! :) :(

but now it has started to suffocate me .. maybe there are a zillion other things as well. but people you want to get close to, you like, you want to warm up to, when one notices those people stealing glances at your breasts, it .. it breaks you. like right now, i want to cry so bad .. as in huge sobs. but why? technically, everything is the way it should be. the world is beautiful, i have a beautiful life, a loving baby, a decent job. but suddenly, these glances at my breasts are making me feel so alone .. alone in all of the universe. but does that matter? does human company or closeness matter to me? am i not doing just beautifully by myself. maybe its not physical company, but something totally different. its people’s thoughts that matter to my ego. and the fact that they stare at my breasts proves that they don’t care. they don’t care about me, hell they don’t even know me. they don’t care to even know me. its ok i guess. i don’t know a gazillion people in this world and vice versa. what does it matter. *sigh* ..i’m being such a gurl ..

i wish i could remember last night’s dream. it was dark .. as in the locale. dark and grey. i remember two different scenes, i don’t remember if they were connected. in one, i am taking my sister to this beautiful place i have been to, where from among the buildings you reach a beach that is just awesome. but when we reach that place, (and that place is not grey, its day time and everythig looks normal .. with a slightly yellow tinge to the lighting) thought there’s water and all, but there’s no sea. its more like a lake. in my mind i am disappointed and thinking why did they make that wall in the sea and cover this area? there actually is a wall some distance away in the water, peaceful water. there are steps, like a ghat and people have little shops and stalls around. and then suddenly i remember that maybe there never was a beautiful beach here. that the beautiful beach that i remember was a place i had been to in my dream and it exists only in my dream and didi can’t see it because i can’t take her in my dreams.

the next scene is, that i have reached some place by auto (i think i’m with didi again, my sister). we’ve come pretty far off and i am telling didi that we are too far from home, and its getting late (dark and grey that i remember). i take out my mobile fome and try to see where we are (the mobile phone gives the name of the area you are in), and i can only read FRA…(and in my head i am rtying to recall if its a place just on the outskirts of mumbai) a lot happened then, we are in this weird shop and something happens that i can’t remember now. but then i am standing in front of a stall, or a counter kind of a thing and this guy comes and holds me from behind and i scream and start crying .. and something happens that again i can’t remember.

there was a third scene too. we are having this string of meetings since past coupla weeks. today we are supposed to have a long meeting 12-5. i dreamt that it has been cancelled. its 12:34 now .. and we are waiting, i don’t know for what.

very weirdly, this morning, on the terrace, i was ordering b’fast standing in front of the counter and this guy came and hugged me from behind just the way that creepy guy had in my dream last night.

6:45 pm
maybe i got just too touchy about the entire “glance” thingie. sometimes you can’t help “look at” what’s right there in front of you, right. hmmm…

i just read this on jonathan cainer’s site: Tonight, for the first time in 2007, we are entering the dark of the moon. People invariably become more sensitive at this time of the month. Some experience strong personal emotions, others find that their psychic and intuitive abilities deepen. Many experience both reactions. The influence of the New Moon is likely to be increased by the comet…

marriage is against laws of nature. its limits one’s growth. path to moksha and true bliss is going solo. marriage is the devil’s temptation to deviate humans from the true path. its a redundant institution, installed by short-sighted society-keepers types, to limit the thoughts of citizens and contain an individuals’ energies.

..and considering Kartike’s comments, this “fact”, or rather universal truth has nothing to do with whether i marry or not. my doing or not doing it (or someone else indulging in it for that matter), does not make it not true. i can very well say that everyone should say the truth and keep on lying to the world.

i had an interesting dream last night. M! analyze this: :)

i am on a train station (yet again). and there’s me, sul, and cy. lots of things happen before i reached the station and when i am on the station. i will try and capture the stuff that happened before, but i don’t remember it too well now, at 1:30 pm after a tiring 2 hour meet on ID fundamentals. the beginnings of the dream are in this place .. a house with an open front yard kinda thingie, small, sparse patches of dried, yellow grass and stuff. we (i?) owe money to someone. there is someone else also with me in that house though i can’t remember at all who. the guy i owe money to threatens, and i plead and he leaves saying he will come again tomorrow. tomorrow comes, i still don’t have the money and certain other things also happen that day that i can’t remember and then that guy takes out a gun and starts shooting at the house. i, sul, and cy run, planning to leave town. (interestingly, about 10 days back i finished reading the book gaban by munshi premchand, its about this guy who apparently embezzles govt money and then runs.)

the next scene is that we are on the railway station. there’s a one o clock ka train. though i remember getting tickets and maybe we boarded the train i can’t clearly remember. the scene i think then changes to another day .. the next day perhaps. i am looking around the station with cy in tow, wandering among the stalls, when i find a baby boy .. a lost, wandering baby boy. his name is noah (i don’t know how i got that information). i pick him up and decide to keep him. i am really, really happy. and then i want to go the loo, a very old friend of mine Mna appears out of nowhere, i entrust noah to her, as usual take cy with me into the loo and sit and try to crap, and as usual take ages. after a long time, i give up, come out, and see that both Mna and noah are not there. my mind blames it all on Mna and also myself that i should have taken noah inside along with cy. like a distraught mother i run around the station shouting for noah. i am crying and feeling all that a mother of a lost baby feels (its a horrible, horrible feeling :( ). i give up eventually. we have missed the 1 o’clock train. there’s another one at 3:15. i get the tickets for that. its 3:10, the train is there, but its on another platform. sul is carring this huge heavy bag with a handle. we (i, sul, and cy) run up the platform stairs, go over the waiting train, and as i am running down, i notice that the train has started moving. i am thinking, rather irritatingly, that no one told me that the train is going to stop only for 5 mins at this station. i shout at sul to run down the stairs quickly. we all run along the train, i grab the heavy bag from sul and throw it into the running train. then i grab cy who is running along with us and jump into the train. i don’t look back but know that sul has also managed to jump in. i don’t remember much after this.

i have been feeling sad again. but i know what’s the matter. i just overdid it in goa. running around on the beach all day, swimming in the sea, wrestling the waves, staying on my feet since 8 am till 10 pm. its taking its toll now. and i guess this physical stress, this extreme tiredness is somehow affecting my psyche too. i feel down (not depressed), still (sadly so), and miss … being at home when i was in school, with ma, and veer, and didi, and daddy too somewhere in the distance. when i used to just lie down and not do anything for days on end, not giving a shit, not caring about the good food parents put on table, the nice clothes daddy paid for and such.

i want to not work for sometime now. just go to the mountains, find a peak high above the clouds, and sit still. the 8-day vaccation was supposed to be rest. it was anything but. :)

i had a beautiful dream sat night. it was on long dream which i think my mind indulged in for most of the later half of the night. i was preparing for a trip .. a part of it in africa. the tickets, about 3, were costing me about 60-70K, and that’s about all the savings i have, but i tell myself that its worth it. and the dream revolved about preparing for the trip ..

i remember this one time when the song ‘hot in here’ by nelly had just come out. it used to be on TV almost all the time, and since our TV used to be on almost all the time, we used to be watching this song a lot. so once my mom asked me, seeing all those sexy “wimmen” dancing sooooo suggestively and the guys jumping and all taking in the suggestions quite agreeably, what are they singing?

this is what i told her .. i actually sang it in tune, in punjabi:

guy: ethey badi garmi ho rayee hai, apney saarey kapdey utaar deyo.
gal: mennu badi garmi lag rayee aye, mein apney kapdey utaar rayee aan.

she was adequately disgusted. :)

lyrics:
guy: its getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes
gal: i am getting so hot, i’m gonna take my clothes off.

as a group
we are destroying the world
sadistic cannibals
we are eating our own innards
unaware
of our own dissemination
not feeling the pain
‘cos we have gone numb
so the bites
don’t hurt
the tearing flesh
doesn’t make us scream..

i am scared God
pick me up from here
drop me someplace else

a sad day it has started as
well, not sad, but …
melancholic,
some concerns,
maybe worries
a tiredness
a will, an urge
to cry
and fill a tank.

returned from goa this past saturday. wow! will post when my feet are back on ground again.