Rajrupa Gupta's Blog, page 7

Coping With Being the Eldest Child!

Have you noticed? How the elder siblings often seem to be bearing the brunt! How as soon as the little ones arrive, parents start conditioning the elder ones to be more responsible, caring, rule-abiding, parents’ helping hands and perhaps most importantly to be always-perfect! How from very early on, they must always lead, be the idols of the younger ones! How they never can let their hairs down!
But first thing first. This is not a parenting post! Heck! No! Did you think so? Err, sorry if it was misleading. It is in fact a rant post! Yeah! Having carried the burden of being the first born child of my parents and successfully sucking at it for more than a quarter of a century, this is where I have finally decided to let my guard down. I am going to babble – bear with me if you can.
I HATE being the eldest sibling. And I just have one younger brother, mind you. God save those who have more!
I have had him since I was four. One fine day, he arrived in our household with a trail of cooing sounds of oohs and aahs. People went crazy over that small sluggish thing with minuscule limbs! I liked him too really! He was only a little bigger than my favourite doll with a thick curly mop of hair on his head.
But then it all started! In every two steps I took, a warning or the other always came my way, “You need to set an example. Your younger brother is watching.”
When we squabbled, we both were admonished but later separately, when he was not listening, I was told, “You are elder. You have to learn to take control.”
When a chore was to be completed, it was I who was called always because I was more reliable and more responsible while my brother was able to coast on through. But hello, did you notice? I didn’t pop out on the earth as some kind of wonder child having excellent sense of responsibility! You made me that way! By making me bear all the brunt of your parenting strictness!
If you think it was a blessing in disguise, you are wrong! Twofold wrong!
First, back then, while I was being conditioned to grow up as a responsible person, my brother was let off too easily. Then, I wanted to be able to be like him. A little reckless with a pinch of rebelliousness!
Second, even now, my brother is the baby of the family. He just refuses to grow up! He is used to having everyone available to do his chores for him. He still feels that everyone else is bigger and more capable than him and he nonchalantly expects them to do things, take decisions and responsibilities. Now, I want him to be like me. Independent with a lot of self-assurance!
And if you think that parents would learn from their mistakes, you are wrong again! No! That is not to be done. Because till date they have yet to stop lecturing me with, “You are the elder one girl! If you do like this, what will your brother learn?”
Do you have a sibling? How do you relate to this?

Love, 

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Seriousness is a Serious Business!

Handle it with utmost care. Like morphine. While little bit of it is actually good, too much of it can easily turn lethal. Seriousness can make you sick too, if you are not careful. Seriously! Trust me! It’s a disease, dis-ease! And an infectious one.
Look around you, notice.  I am sure you can find such examples. After all, the world is full of people who are seriously sick with seriousness, jinki #ConditionSeriousHai. Still can’t find them? Here, poor you, let me show you few examples from my life. Remember it’s not the exhaustive list. Never ever. Just the tip of the ice berg.

1.  The Relationship Counselor. They know more about your marriage than you actually. And they never fail to let you know that you are doing it all wrong. “Why does your album from Florida lack photos of you and your husband? Cluck, cluck. All wrong! All wrong!  Why are you letting your husband take photos with his friend and not you? Why do you still call him ‘tu’ and not ‘aap’? He is not your friend from college anymore, he is your husband! Why don’t you keep him on leash? Don’t be so easy on him. You will ruin it all, silly girl!” Oh! Stop making me so scared. And by the way did you know aapki #conditionserioushai? Have you ever consider taking a Cadbury 5 star? Please do! Because - 

2.  The Obedient Worker. They are an interesting type. Probably predominant only among people who are here on temporary assignments. They would do anything to impress. “Sunday? Long weekend? No matter. I am available! You won’t be? No matter. I will handle. It’s 3 AM. So what? I am available. Two meetings at the same time? No matter. I can handle!” Oh! Did Dumbledore leave his time turner watch with you or did you steal it? In any case stop making me so nervous. By the way did you know your condition serious hai? Ever considered taking a Cadbury 5 star? Here let me buy you one!
3.  The Nagger. Now what do I say about them? You have probably come across them too! Haven’t you? They don’t let you rest. No matter how solemnly you pledged yourself to their cause, you will have no respite till it’s over. And then another whole new cycle will begin. They start like, “Did you get a chance to work on it?” and slowly progress to, “You still didn’t do it? I was expecting it complete by now? What’s keeping you so busy? Why don’t you do it first and then the rest of the things you need to do?” Oh I would’ve completed it by now. It’s just that I am surrounded by four more like you. So please excuse me, if you will? And meanwhile please munch on a Cadbury 5 star.
4.  The Do-Gooder. They do have the best intentions at heart but overdo it most of the times. They jump off to help a homeless man keeping the car door open only to find the stereo stolen upon return. Sometimes they give meat to the hungry only to find that the hungry is a vegan. They donate their 10 year old used box spring to the neighbourhood Salvation Army. They go too close to helping a woman off the Subway with a huge bag and in return are offered her “services”. So please relax. Sit back. Will you? And buy a Cadbury 5 star from Patel Brothers.
5. The Intellectual. Oh the most superior of all. At least they think they are. “Oh I am mentally superior to everyone around me. I am smarter. I am more worthy. I am like that because I am a Libra. Libras tend to be like that. They naturally have a superior brain. And of course astrology is a science. It’s similar to astronomy! Look at you! I knew you didn’t know that! And why exactly did you write the ‘wall was blue’? Are you depressed? Have you lost your inspiration? Oh I know. Poor you!” Of course poor me. I am friends with you. Here take a Cadbury 5 star. You must be hungry after all that talking!
So here are five of the most serious stars that adorn my life. Their #Conditionserioushai. I am sure you can spot ten more now around you. There. Didn’t I tell you that I will help you? I am damn sincere about eradicating the seriousness sickness. Come give a hand. Join the cause.  Let's laugh at them. Like the oozy bubbly bottle of soda, let the laughter erupt from the belly causing us to double over with both hands on our belly. After all laughter is the best medicine there is! After a bar of caramel filled yummy chocolate that is. Let’s all have a Cadbury 5 star. I am serious! Dont believe me? Watch this video.
Love,
This post is written as part of the #CONDITIONSERIOUSHAI contest hosted by Indiblogger and Cadbury 5 Star.

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Love and Other Deceits

Akash and Varsha were a couple. Akash - the husband, Varsha - the wife. Akash worked as a mid-level manager in a fast moving consumer goods company. Varsha stayed at home. Not that she always stayed at home. She had recently resigned from her seventeenth job to be able to plan properly for the party they had decided to throw on the occasion of their wedding anniversary. It was the fifth, so of course it had to be a big one. 
For the past three months Varsha had had absolutely no time to rest. The villa they lived in had been repainted under her scrutiny. She had roamed the whole of New Market to get the drapes like just what she had imagined. Mirrored vases of different shapes and sizes were bought to adorn nooks and corners. Floor rugs, soft cushions, brass statuettes, crystal curtains, sparkling silverware, expensive china – Varsha remembered everything. Invites were sent and RSVPs were received. And today, the night before the big day, Akash couldn’t but admire his wife’s efforts. The whole house was screaming sophistication from all corners. Their guests would surely have to tread the thin line between being impressed and jealous.
After dinner they were going through the details once again, sitting on the plush cane chairs in the balcony overstuffed with pots of decorative plants, the sitting arrangements in the terrace needed a little shuffling: a cold war was going on between Seema aunty and Rati aunty, so they couldn’t be seated together. The red roses were looking too much against the deep purple wall, they would have to be replaced with white, the florist was informed. Varsha was double checking the guest list when she snorted, a short spurt of air, a cross between disbelief and amusement.
“I still can’t believe Sid and Roshni said yes!” she said.
“Yeah. It will be little awkward but that’s alright. We should be glad that they are making an effort to make everything alright.”
“It would be good, I suppose, to have Roshni as a friend again.” Varsha spoke unsurely.
“Yes. And to have Sid back!” Akash said. The last bit of his sentence almost hinted longing.
They fell back to silence once again. Varsha went back to her list of guests for tomorrow.
Suddenly Akash looked up and said, too self-consciously, “It is still very strange don’t you think Varsha?”
Varsha sighed of relief. She was glad that Akash thought it odd too. In fact the whole thing was so odd that five years were too little a time to pretend that it was not.
“I think so too. I don’t think they should have accepted our invites.”
“But why did you have to invite them?”
“Oh! Why not? I didn’t want anyone to feel left out?”
“Well then. They might have thought that it was rude to refuse.”
“Hmm. I thought Sid had better sense. To accept after all that happened!”
They went back to silence again. After five years of marriage it was not uncommon to sit together in comfortable silence. And so far there hadn’t been anything to suggest otherwise. It was therefore perfectly normal and must be taken at its face value when Varsha came up with the brilliant idea.
Her whole face lit up when she said, “Akash, now that they are coming, why don’t we play some joke on them? You know, fool them? Just for fun and see how they react?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh you know it all! How I was in love with Sid and how you loved Roshni, remember? Five years back?”
“How can I even forget? Roshni was my classmate and you her best friend.”
“And Sid was my teacher! And you his best friend!”
They both laughed out loud. Indeed, it was amusing. After so many years that is. It was not fun then. Not the least. Love was lost and friendship was broken. But nevertheless it was always better to have a good laugh at the expense of a pain of the past.
And yet, this was not the first time they did this. Akash and Varsha often found amusement in this discussion. How each of them ended up with the best friends of the persons they loved.
Akash and Roshni were inseparable in college. And Sid could die for Varsha. The two couples met at the wedding of a common friend. Akash met Varsha and a tempest ensued. She was breathtaking in pink chiffon and silver stilettos. Light seemed to reflect from her sharpness and it seemed to blur Roshni’s sweetness in an instant. And what Akash had known so far to be love, faded away to this new sensation. Such was the intensity that they had found themselves married even before the year turned. And then they heard, while they were away celebrating their first anniversary abroad, that Sid and Roshni were getting married. How they came to be together, Akash and Varsha didn’t know. But they were happy for them. They hadn’t heard from them since then, until now.
“So what is this plan?” Akash asked.
Varsha’s eyes shone in conspiracy. “Why don’t we pretend and let them believe that we are not happily married.”
Akash didn’t speak but his eyebrows shot up.
Varsha hastened to explain her plan. “See, we don’t know right, how they ended up together? It was not easy to pull up right, the way they were devastated after we got married? Don’t you remember the scene they had created when we had told them? It had attracted a crowd! I just want to see how they are faring. Do you understand what I am trying to say?”Akash nodded wisely, “I think I do.”
“Oh great! Deal then? Will you be able to pull it off? You were never much of an actor!”
“I will manage. Don’t worry!”
Excited at this wonderful prospect of fooling their once best friends they went to bed that night.***
The party was an instant success. Guests were enthralled by their abundance and suitably jealous, just as Varsha had hoped. She looked the prettiest among all the ladies present and gratefully received all the compliments that were showered. The food was amazing and the caterer was able to make several contacts and as a result gave a discount. Akash kept his promise and indeed managed to remain cross with her throughout the party. They made sure that Sid and Roshni noticed when they staged little arguments over petty things. They danced but held each other at arm’s distance. Then soon the evening was over and the guests were leaving.
Sid came to Varsha before leaving and said, “I didn’t know Akash behaved this way with you. No, don’t pretend, I saw. I never believed he could make you happy but then it was your choice.”
Roshni found Akash in the darkened balcony and sympathized, “I knew this was bound to happen. I warned you. But you were blinded by her beauty.”
“Why did you marry Sid?” Akash asked.
“Because he was the only one I could share my pain with.” Roshni answered sombrely.  
After they left, Akash and Varsha raised a toast to themselves and drank to celebrate their success as hosts of such a big party. Then a little while later, Varsha giggled and said, “Oh, how we fooled Sid and Roshni! I am sure they are still discussing it!”
Akash smiled, “It’s always better to fool others than yourself.”
“What do you mean?” Varsha asked, her voice on the point of being slurry.
“Nothing. Just that, it was really fun to fool them.” Said he.

 Love,

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

The Language of Love!

        When I found that Write Tribe is hosting a contest spreading kindness and love I couldn't resist myself. I absolutely had to share this story of my life. It all had happened so long ago, yet the memory of it is still fresh in my head. And it always brings a smile on my face. It also taught me that the language of love is universal. All you need to do is to listen to understand! This Valentines Day when all are busy celebrating love I thought of bringing forth this unusual kind! 


I think I was five when I first met him! I was in the first standard and he took me to the school. In his tricycle rickshaw. I hated him! He was dirty! His teeth were brown. There were thick layers of dirt under his finger nails. And he was always sweating. In school they taught, cleanliness is next to Godliness. It meant he must have been the furthest from God. I resented my father for trusting him with me! I was so scared that he would kidnap me! Perhaps then my father would learn a lesson!
He slept in the abandoned mansion behind our house at night with few other rickshaw pullers. If I craned my neck enough, I could see him rolling chapathis sitting in the stretched veranda, from my room. In the morning he would break a thin branch from our Neem tree that had stretched over the boundary wall to the garden of the mansion and brush his teeth. He never used toothpaste; but it was not because of not using toothpaste, his teeth were brown because he was always chewing paan and spitting brown all over the place.
I was the youngest, the first grader, so my classes ended an hour earlier than the other two older kids who shared the rickshaw seat with me. And therefore I had to spend one hour with him trying to converse with me in broken Bengali.
Every evening, I stubbornly declared that I wouldn’t take his rickshaw the next day. But baba didn’t budge.
Meanwhile, somewhat amazingly, my grandma formed kind of a bond with him. They became close enough for him to start calling her Ma. Every evening after dropping me home, he sat with her for a long time discussing things I had no interest of knowing.
Slowly, somehow, even more amazingly, I started to notice small changes about him. He appeared cleaner, though still with brown teeth, but the dirt under the fingernails were gone. His hair appeared combed and he wore a clean shirt and pant which I suspected were my father’s.
I didn’t know when exactly, but one day suddenly in the middle of a particularly talkative conversation I discovered that I didn’t hate him anymore, that he had gained my trust, if not love, through his tolerance and compassion which were probably brought about by my grandma.
During the summer vacation, he went to his home in Bihar. Grandma told me about his small daughter who lived in his village in Bihar with her mother. Though I never really missed him, I was happy when he came back. His wife and daughter came with him.
Soon afterwards the wife took on maid’s job in many of the households in the neighbourhood. With my father’s help the daughter was admitted to a primary school. He continued to take me to school and live in a room of that abandoned mansion.
A year later we moved out to a different locality. We didn’t see him anymore.

Years later, I had started the secondary school, when one day he came to our new house. He wanted to see my grandma. He said, he had got his own auto rickshaw and wanted my grandma to break open the coconut to inaugurate it. Grandma was so overwhelmed that she cried and put a blessing hand on his head.
Later when I asked her what magic she weaved to bring this about, she said, “I saw him as another human being, equal to me. I loved him. I listened to whatever he had to say, even though I understood very little of his language. I encouraged him to hope, to aspire for a better future. I am grateful that he gave my words so much importance, even though he understood very little of what I said. And I am grateful that I could inspire him enough to work for it.”
It was amazing. They were the two people most unlikely to become acquainted. Yet, here they were. One recognised the other as the person behind all his little achievements and betterments while the other felt grateful at this recognition. Yet they understood very little of what the other spoke. What they say is so true, love needs no language, with compassion and patience anything is possible.
What was his name? I realized I don’t know! I always called him “Rickshaw Uncle!”

 Love,

This post is part of the Write Tribe Valentines Day contest: The Language of Love.

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Of Books and Book Worms

     B is for books. Books have always been and still are my best companion. What’s better than those ivory pages into which you can bury your nose and inhale the sweetest smell on earth? Who can you have more confidence on to never judge you? Who else’s only motto in life is to enlighten you?
            They give me the flight, I can flutter my wings over the entire world without having to actually take my legs there. They teach me nothing is impossible, they show me new sides of what I have already known. They prepare me before I am about to face the unknown. They give me knowledge to perceive people better.  Really, how can one even list down the qualities of books? It’s already proving to be the most futile attempt ever.
I was very little, barely five, when Ma introduced me to reading. I was enrolled as the youngest member of our local library which was also amongst the bests in the city. Her purpose must have been to keep me engaged, to keep me from feeling lonely while she and papa were away working. I guess effect was as she desired but more than she had hoped for.
The library attracted me like a moth to the fire. Rows upon rows of books, old books with their sweet dusty smells, books that I had to use ladders to reach, those golden letters on their spines and those black ones on the old yellowing pages inside seemed to have bewitched me, for, I was always at the library when I was not at school. So many books to read, so many new things to learn, how could I waste a single moment?
Then there was the book fair. Once a year, every year. Thousands of makeshift book stalls adorned the green ground, books from around the world, unlike those leather bound ones from the library, they were colourful. Faces of people, drawings of beautiful places or animals adorned their crisp covers, their pages smelled new and they told different stories of different people around the world.
It still happens, the book fair. Still thousands of people visit every day to buy books, making the air stuffed with dust that rises from their shoes. I will again one day too, visit the book fair and inhale the dusty air smelling of sweat, to experience the best thing that can happen to the world, books of course, in the best possible way. Till that time I am content to have Barnes and Nobles, Amazon and the Half Price Book Shops at my disposal.
            Along with the other complications of adulthood, came the critical eye. In my childhood I read everything I could without really judging them, it was the information that I sought. But now when I read a book I critique it mentally, internally. Yet I try to keep the open mindedness of my childhood self when I read something new. I try to learn from those, to perceive the world in yet another colour. 

           Books have been my world since I have learnt to read, and though reading books is the most under-appreciated and unacknowledged pleasure that humans can have, I have no scruples in admitting that it’s the greatest I have ever known. 
Love 
This post is part of ABC Wednesday's weekly prompt. This week's prompt is the alphabet B.

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

A for the Arctic Blast

ABC Wednesday's this week prompt is the alphabet A. I was anyway planning to pen down my one of a kind experience of the Polar Vortex and this coincided perfectly. So here it goes:

A is for Arctic Blast. The deep freeze that forced us to spend an entire week locked up inside. Temperature dropped lower than that of the North Pole. It was a crazy experience: when we visited the local Meijer to stock up our supply the day before, we found empty racks upon empty racks, and huge lines behind the billing counters, something I had never known before.
It started Sunday afternoon and till Friday morning, we could do nothing but to stay inside and watch the local news that showed calamities happening around with no end. When we peeped outside through the patio door, it looked like this:

But even this intense snowstorm couldn’t deter my photography enthusiast husband. So here he is, all wrapped up and out in the white taking pictures.  Thank God its all well now and we didn’t face any burst pipe or damaged sprinkler system like many others we know did. We stayed inside, spent some quality times together and did a lot of baking.

Love 

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

I am only eligible to be locked up - I am an H4 visa holder

Today I will tell you a story: a story of a woman, one of those many, who came to the US with her husband. She can have any name, but for the sake of the story let’s call her Bama. Her status in the US is that of a dependent of a legal non-immigrant worker, she holds an h4 visa. Image Courtesy: Redbus2USA.com
Every morning her husband, Vijay takes the car to work. Since public transportation is sparse to non-existent, Bama is forced to stay at home all day. She tried to get a driver’s licence but since she is not issued the social security, the process was tedious and involved a lot more paper work on Vijay’s side, but he didn’t feel up to it. “Arrey, I am there na, I will take you wherever you want to go!” he had said.
She hardly has any social life these days (other than the occasional weekend gatherings). Even though Vijay had promised to take her anywhere she wanted to go, he hardly has any time. He is almost always busy. After coming from office, he either has to continue to work or goes to play cricket with his friends!
Bama stays home and misses her life and career in India. She used to be a lecturer in a college! And now she doesn’t even have a mobile phone. She’s learnt to be happy with the landline. She becomes desperate to keep her sanity, she turns to developing fancy cooking as a hobby, she turns to the Internet, becomes overtly active in the social media. She watches all the crappy soaps she used to hate in India. She is finally up-to-date with all the movies (a feat she never dreamed of achieving in India). But all these things only help so much. She plans to read, but books are costly and Vijay thinks it’s a total wastage of money, the cable line is cheaper.
When they do go out, she learns to deny herself. She had never had the habit of asking money from her husband before. But now for tiny things, to even buy a nail polish she likes, she has to ask money from her husband. So she learns to say no to her wishes. She learns to entertain only the needs.
Since she is not eligible to work, she plans for higher study. But since she is not eligible for the loan, she doesn’t want to burden her husband with her student loan.
Her over-dependency on her husband destroys her self-confidence. Even though she is highly qualified, she feels totally at the mercy of her husband! She feels like a prisoner locked inside a room, who has food to eat and water to drink but she feels like someone whose dreams, aspirations have been taken away. She has no identity of her own. 
Vijay however seems not to notice all these. He has done whatever he could do. He has taken a nice apartment on rent, bought a nice TV, taken the cable connection – what else could he do to keep Bama happy at home? “It’s just time”, he says to himself, “with time she will learn to accept.”
And then one day, she does. She learns to see herself as a stationary object in her husband’s moving life.
The End
P.S: This is just not the story of Bama but most of the women who are here on H4. I have been thinking a lot on this lately, probably because most of the women I meet here fall in this category. They come from diverse backgrounds, but have strikingly similar back stories. They are all smart, qualified and confident women. Back in India they were used to having their ways; they were completely self-sufficient. They managed their many roles efficiently. It was hard work, but there were achievements that made them happy. They were all independent, modern Indian women.
But when they came here, most of those privileges were taken away. Ironical, isn’t it? While for others this is the land of opportunities, they crawl inside, helpless, for, the most progressive nation of the world has revealed itself to them as only a regressive place to live in. They lose their freedom in the land of the free.
Yet, I meet more women every day, who have come here with their husbands. On H4.
They all did the right thing though. When their husbands’ H1Bs were approved, they all dutifully applied their H4s. Because nobody doubted that it was the right thing to do. Everyone was so at peace with the idea that there was no place to ask the question. If for a moment their own hearts nagged, they pacified it, and felt guilty afterwards to even have created the smallest opportunity for the same.
They are Indian wives after all. You can be as modern and self-sufficient as you like with your husband around, but, when he moves to a different place he reckons will be better for him, if you decide not to uproot yourself and accompany him, the very ones that loved you and had no problems with your being independent and self-sufficient, would not think twice before calling you selfish and too modern to suit the traditional Indian values.
A good wife always follows her husband – no question asked.
And so they came. They willingly wrapped their lives and careers in India and boldly embraced the life they hadn’t known before. 
It disappoints me when I see their husbands merely thinking their duties complete after buying a sofa or a large screen TV. And what is more disappointing is, in general, they are considered the generous ones! I have had the misfortune of meeting one who bought his wife yarns of wool to knit him a sweater for the winter, because, in his opinion, she anyway didn’t have anything to do at home, at least this way she could save him $100 or more on a coat!
All these wives tend to the whims of their husbands without complaining. In return all they ask is the acknowledgement; they want their husbands to be appreciative of the great sacrifice they all have made.

But it seems to me (generalizing, of course, from the sample size I am acquainted with), like every other sacrifice that women make in their daily lives, this one also is taken for granted. Because after all, it’s the husband who comes before self, isn’t it? That’s what makes one an ideal Indian woman, putting others first! It doesn't matter if in that process 
Love

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Magic Kingdom - The Happiest Place on Earth!

This was probably the most joyous day of 2013 for me. The day I visited this place that boasts itself as the World’s Happiest! Well, I can’t deny that its right! For, Disney’s Magic Kingdom is truly magical. The Disney CastleNo matter how grumpy you are, you are bound to feel transformed once you enter the park. Well, before that actually! When you wait for the monorail to arrive to take you across the lake to the park along with hundreds of others, it’s then when you start to feel the happiness growing inside you. Even before that actually! I saw children and adults alike buying Mickey’s ears and other Disney stuff from the streets and stores the day before to ready themselves up for the experience! For many of them it seemed like a staple family vacation destination! You can imagine how excited a first timer like me must have been who had fallen in love with Disney Cartoons at a very early age and never quite recovered.
And it is an experience indeed! On arrival, a crew of beautifully dressed people, smiling ear to ear, welcome you. At 9 am in the morning! And you are sold! As soon as you enter you are thrown into the Main St, designed like the centre of an old city. Streams of colourful people, packed in every corner. Plump women in white confectioner’s dress in bakeries, servers in bright canary yellow and white uniforms in coffee shops, shopkeepers selling colourful Disney goodies in looking equally colourful! It’s dazzling!
And before you get the hang of it, out comes the street party! Beloved Disney characters, alive in front of you and they dance, they sing and blow you kisses! The video is bad but you get the general idea!             
It’s hard to describe the feeling, but there was a time when I wished I worked there! Any job, even the sweeper’s job in Magic Kingdom must be more exciting than my current job!
As we walked towards the attractions, the road was literally littered with princesses. Little girls could get made up as their favourite Disney princess in the castle salon – free! And their counterparts, the real Disney princesses roamed about in the road. Gaston sold cookies in his own Bistro, Cinderella’s step sisters stopped random people on road and told them off!
Then there were rides, nothing superbly technological, but so perfect in their settings. The Haunted House smelled of damp and moss and decay, like an old abandoned house should. The Small World smelled like pages of books!
Between rides we had time to catch the parade and at five in the evening we just about made it to the famous show – Dreams Come True. Here’s what it was about. I hope you will pardon the camera shakes as it wasn’t easy to hold my mobile up and steady while jostling to get an opening at the same time.             

Now probably you get it why people never want to leave this place! And after we took this photo with Mickey, my determination only grew stronger! That I must get a job there! It’s no wonder that this is the only amusement park in Orlando that remains open till 11 in the night while the others close at 6! It was proved once again when we found people jamming and sitting on sidewalks saving places from as early as 7 in the evening for the Electrical Parade that starts at 9. We caused many people swearing at us when at 8 we tried to push through the crowd to get a better view of the parade way. So far I had only seen people thronging the sidewalks this way on the day of Dussera when Durga idols were paraded in dazzling display of lights before the immersion. This was eerily similar. Except for one thing – the robot like efficiency of guards! When it all ended finally and we had to leave, I seriously considered of extending our stay and go back to Magic Kingdom again. Alas, it didn’t happen! We had to come back. But, I still hold my other wish very close to my heart; I must get a job in Magic Kingdom.
Love,

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Journaling the New Year!

The Chicago SkylineThe east sky turns pink; it’s the first dawn of a new year. The last sunset of the previous year wasn’t so different, you know, like something special to signify the end of a time. It was normal, like any other day, yet along with it went a whole year, time that won’t be back ever again.
Is it not weird though, all these man made special dates? To give a day that you can’t tell apart from any other day such a high stature whereas some truly significant days go unheeded? For example, the day when it rained ice and cute icicles hung from trees which when touched clung to your skin? I felt happier then, than when the Christmas Eve dinner party was a success. But yet I remember that the dinner was on Christmas Eve but I can’t remember the day when it had rained ice!
But I get it. These days exist to force people to take a breather from the back breaking journey of the daily life. To relish the joy of existence and not merely take it for granted. And so before I forget, Happy New Year everyone. Don't waste it whimpering over don't-haves and have-to-dos. They can wait. For now, sit back, relax and have a piece of warm cake maybe. 
It’s customary that on a New Year’s Day, you count the blessings the last year had brought in and then pray for the year ahead. I am lucky I get to do it twice in 12 months! Once the English New Year in January and then the Bengali New Year in April. On both of these days we have been counting our blessings and praying since we were children.
So this New Year, when I started to review how my last year had been, a new thought struck me: I could remember things that made me happy, but couldn’t recollect how I was feeling at that very time! Was I happy (of course I was), but how happy was I? How did I express my feeling then? Did I just smile or was I elated? What went on around me then? I just couldn’t remember! When I went back another year, I could hardly remember the perks of my daily life! Only the flat blur of routine and the occasional blasts that disrupted it!
And if this happens in such short time, then how will it be in, say, 5 years? And then it struck me! That’s precisely why people kept journals! Noting everything, documenting mundane details so that it could be looked back and relived!
I used to be a strange kid who preferred to be left alone, in a corner of the room, where I could hunch and read a book or maybe scribble notes - writing down everything that was happening around along with what I was feeling about them. But somehow it felt apart, don’t remember when though! Probably I grew up!
I called my mom up, made her go through my junk pile in my abandoned room in my home and come up with those ruled notebooks where I had written in letters as big as coat buttons, about my daily experiences! As mom read them over phone, we laughed and we choked together sometimes: how differently I perceived things in my childhood innocence! Yet it was great! Those green notebooks gave me a new insight, of me!
Inevitably I am tempted, once again, to keep a journal. To document my days here, however small and insignificant they might be! To write about the weird pony-tailed father of the two year old boy or the strange appearance of a seagull in the frozen lake outside (can a bird get lost?)! Although it’s been 19 years (the last entry dates 9th March 1995, that's primary school!), it’s never too late! And who knows, twenty years down the line, just like now, it would be so fantastic to know a retro me, who I forgot ever existed or maybe an explanation of how I came to be!And thus my New Year resolution is to keep records – loads and loads of them. Web logs wouldn’t do, because for a nostalgia sucker like me nothing comes close to a real pen and handmade paper. Bit old school – but that’s how I am.

So yeah! That’s it! Little weird for a resolution, I know. But it will have to do. Oh, btw, what’s yours? What did YOU decide to do this year? 
Love,

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

The Bangle Tangle!!

It’s been the longest that
I have really written anything. Sometimes I don’t know what to write, and when I
do, I am too busy. As I hope to slowly slip back into my old self, what could
be better to break the break than to introduce another busy blogger whom I adore?
Not only we have similar lives, we share common ideologies and beliefs too. I
adore her as a blogger and admire her for being extraordinarily vocal about
different issues we women face each day in our country.




Even though we have been
fortunate to have a shielded life and be brought up in an environment liberal
enough to not force us to give in to norms without dissecting it, most of the
rest of us didn’t have that luxury. They still believe in “supposed to” or “not
supposed to” without really thinking about the underlying “why?” Nabanita Dhar,
who writes at http://nabanita-blacknwhite.blogspot.com/
brings this
wonderful commentary about how women in India are still in shackles of their
own minds.

***




My
concerned neighbour: “Where are your bangles?”




Me:
Err...what bangles!?






*Confused
by her question I look into my hands wondering if I had been wearing something which
was now lost*




My
concerned neighbour: Shakha,Pola? (Red and white conch shell and a red wax/lac
bangles respectively which signify a married Bengali woman)

Me:
Ohh .. I didn’t wear it today.

My
concerned neighbour: But you are married?

Me:
Yes, I know that aunty.

*Mom
looks at me with an amusing expression*

My
concerned neighbour: All you modern girls, what’s with not following
traditions?

Me:
Traditions? Ohh… I am married and a girl so I need to carry symbols of that?

*And
I laugh to hide the fact that I am annoyed with her*

My
concerned neighbour: Yes and your mom wears them too? It’s bad not to wear them
you know.

Me:
Well aunty I respect my mother’s choice and the fact that she understands it’s
my choice if I choose to wear them or not....

*I
smile and an uncomfortable pause follows*

Me:
More tea aunty?

*And
I get up to move towards the kitchen lest I cross any sort of line*




It happened again, my bangle
tangle! My affinity, or rather the lack of it, towards bangles seems to be
a vital cause for concern to my neighbourhood aunts and distant cousins. So
much so that they choose to brood over it rather than their very own protruding
and must I add hideous bellies. If I were them, I’d certainly dwell on the
latter!




I don’t know what it is
with the people of this country but minding one’s own business certainly isn’t
a common trait anymore! But was it ever really?




A few weeks back when I was
at my mother’s place for holidays there was a neighbourhood aunt who dropped by
to pay a visit, which was great. But after a few awkward pauses I realised that
my appearance as a married woman truly
bothered her. While ideally as far as reason goes it really shouldn’t have! As strange
as it sounds it seemed as though she was more focussed on my bangles than me.




The fact is I don’t wear
bangles, bindis, vermillion, toe
rings or mangalsutra all the time nor
do I carry the other signs apparently mandated
for a married woman on a daily basis. For festivals perhaps or when I am in
the mood to dress up a certain way then yes, but every day I certainly don’t.
That said I would also like to mention that I respect women who chose to follow
these customs out of their own will and do it so well every recurring day of
their lives.




I agree I am married
afterall I have a husband to show for that! But the poor jokes apart I don’t
believe that I need to wear a certain bangle 24X7 365 days a year to proclaim
to the world that ‘look here I am a
married woman’ unless ofcourse I want to!




But when it comes to India,
that has always been the norm, hasn’t it? It’s mostly the women who need to
take care of the traditions. Starting right from the vermillion to the bangles; or the mangalsutra to the toe ring, it has been the women always. I have
no complaints that men don’t need to display any such signs, except maybe a
wedding ring. But I do have a problem when I am told that since I am a woman
and a married one at that I need to dress a certain way. It’s not that I have a
problem against wearing the shakha pola or
putting on the toe ring. I like to
put them on but I like to do that when I feel the need to out of my own free
will.




The sad part though is when
women themselves become crusaders for the incarceration of their own kind in
the shackles of one sided customs. Pointing a finger at someone for not wearing
a toe ring or a bangle just because you chose to wear one is wrong, and not to
mention judgemental.




It’s pretty simple really.
It’s as easy as saying ‘to each their
own’. If a woman chooses to wear these every day or follow certain
‘traditions’, it should be because she chooses to do so and not because someone
in ancient India deemed that necessary.




But the fact that it’s an
individual choice doesn’t seem to register in the minds of people in the
country we call our own. I try as much as possible to live life on my own terms
as I always had in my parents’ home. And I implore upon all women to do the
same. Don’t follow something just because you are supposed to. Lead a life that
is made of choices you make. I know it’s not easy especially because as women
we tend to take the high road to avoid any conflict within family or the next
of kin. But we need to stop that now for what we believe in is important too.
And if not that then atleast what we are comfortable in is absolutely imperative.




It’s time to think and
detach unreasonable customs from everyday life of women. It’s time to get rid
of the ‘To Do List’ society expects
women to fulfil. Think about it. A woman mandated to be clad in saree 24X7 in
her in-laws’ place would perhaps be more amiable in a salwar suit. A woman
cooking dinner with the long end of the saree on her head would most certainly
cook better without the added baggage on her cranium! A woman with a heavy nose
ring wouldn’t mind a few days without that dangling from her nostrils. The
underlying factor here is of choice. Don’t
bury a woman under these unnecessary conditions. She’ll always be the woman she
is meant to be, the nurturer and partner, even without the multitudes of manmade ‘obligatory’ accessories.




So I plead this case to the
beautiful women out there, free yourselves and the one’s you know from burdens
such as my trivial yet important bangle
tangle!




Love,

© copyright 2013 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random