Category: Life traces

Chauvinistic bastards

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

I am not a feminist, never was, never will be. Because, I don’t believe in discrimination on any basis – gender, age, race, economic status, language, knowledge, power – positively or negatively. Feminism to me is just discrimination on gender to ‘benefit’ out of it. If there’s any ‘-ism’ ever, it must be individualism and I hold that philosophy very closely. But lately, I feel suppressed – emotionally and intellectually. I am a working professional, socially active and emotionally open to new arenas of a social life. And I feel overwhelmed by what I experience each day – at work, on the road, in a discussion forum, a public place and the nuances of simple conversations! I wouldn’t call it out as misogynistic since it’s not always purely on gender, but it greatly does seem so. The biases have been based on age, power and even knowledge. It’s frustrating when you are cornered for being in a ‘discriminated class’. The co-worker who pulls the strings of ‘power’, the reckless driver who questions your ‘female’ driving, the male friend who ‘stares’, the relative who dismisses your ‘inexperienced’ knowledge – no I am not pulling a #metoo moment here. I am asking if this is a #youtoo moment. Have you dismissed a younger person’s wisdom because they aren’t ‘old enough’? Have you played the ‘victim card’ for your own recklessness on the road? Have you made someone uncomfortable by ‘ogling’ at them? Have you been rude to a subordinate because of your ‘entitlement’? Please say no. Please don’t be that person. You are scarring an individual by all those unfortunate moments of truth. Age, gender, power – they don’t make up a person. They are merely some states of a person. Don’t limit an individual’s experience with your inadequacy. Grow. And let grow.

So why does all these matter suddenly? Perhaps because of my fortunate half of life where I have been blessed with unbiased individuals. People who don’t judge you. People who see you for who you are without their baggy lenses. I have had humble bosses who respected their colleagues, dignified men who look up to women for their worth and a great deal of amazing people who make life worth exploring. It’s because of them that I sit down and contemplate on the rest of the world. Why not make a difference with a simple gesture, if it has the potential to make one more person relevant in this system. Why not!

The Civil Service Dream

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Well, before you jump into conclusions there, it was not completely my dream. I liked the ‘weight’ of the title and still do. But the effort involved and the profile of a ‘civil servant’ job was not very convincing to me. The civil service dream was my dad’s, and never really mine. I distinctly remember us stepping out of the movie theatre after ‘Thanmathra’ – the emotional story of an Alzheimer’s patient whose entire life’s memory zeroed in on his desire to see his son being an IAS officer. As we stepped out, dad intently asked me if he’d have Alzheimer’s. The rest of the sentence was unsaid. Years later, now when I ask my dad if I’ve ever let him down, he’s quick to say how disappointed he is of my career choices. A dream he saw alone, through borrowed lenses perhaps.


P. S. Recently, talked to a friend about the triviality of our career paths, and alongside, we did talk about a schoolmate who pursued the ‘civil service dream’. Just putting it down here. 🙂

OCDed forever

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Why this obsessive compulsive post in the eleventh hour of the New Year’s eve? Well, just as much as it is an incurable OCD, it’s also a reminder of the all the moments I missed to cherish in writing. A reminder and a warning, just in case it may boost my morale to write more often. For my sake.

This is not a retrospect of 2019. But I definitely want to note down all those special things I wanted to write about, but didn’t. Top of the list is the most amazing trip of MBA life (second best if you count in Japan) – the IRCTC package tour to Orissa! I still can’t believe I didn’t write about it, and I regret it even 9 months later. Maybe another time. There were quite a few short trips like that I wanted to write about. The mini reunion for Convocation, the Tiruchendur Kanyakumari family trip, and even the trip that never materialized – Mystic Meghalaya. Again, maybe another time.

I wanted to write about winding up MBA and getting back home for once and all. I wanted to write about the mixed feelings of getting back to work after 2 long years. About the swimming adventures. The first complete and elaborate Kathakali experience. The unexpected death in the family. The new member in the family. The changing dynamics in friendship. The hunt for newer heights in career. And even the freshly brewed diet plan adopted a week before New Year resolution season, exclusively for fitting back into a favorite kurti.Now that I listed them down, 2019 has been eventful. Emotionally. Physically. And even Spiritually. A lot has happened, the impacts of which come with me to 2020 and beyond. Perhaps I need to reflect on each of them individually. Maybe another time. Maybe.

Ente veedu, appoontem!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

My home, Appu’s too. That has been the hardest reality I am trying to put up with recently. Apart from global warming, world poverty, Indian politics and general joblessness. Seems that even if I survive them all, I can never accept the existence of this new member of the family. This blog was planned exactly a year ago. When I was away from home, my family celebrated the first birthday of our pet dog, Appu. Cake, a fancy cap, sadhya with payasam, (though the dog had it’s routine curd rice) and a prolonged description of all these to me. The pet’s birthday was quite a big deal. That’s when I thought of the title – the sharing of my home and my family with a new unwelcome member.

Owing to many reasons, read excuses, like lack of time and laziness, I never completed the post. Coming to think of it, perhaps, I was just giving myself time, to know the dog better, maybe try to adjust with it’s existence, if not love it, and then write down something nice instead of my generic snarls about animals and their domestication. As things turn out to be, a year passed by and the dog is a year older now. But nothing changed about the ‘two of us’. Oh wait, I just addressed it as one among ‘us’. That changed I guess. Then again, as I write this, there’s some barking in the background. It doesn’t particularly annoy me, out of habit, but nor does it make me feel warm to the supposed ‘guardian’ of our home.

There’s a lot I learnt about Appu, over these two years. It’s basically a scardy cat, more than a dog. It’s scared of lightnings and thunders, rains, and even the slightest change in tone of anyone of us at home. It has befriended a lot of birds, and suddenly I see many types of them around my home, talking to the dog, stealing it’s food. That’s something I do appreciate about it’s presence at home. Appu loves mangoes, and raises serious doubts about it’s ‘dogliness’ when you throw a slice of ripe mango at it. The dog stinks, and sheds way too much hair for an OCDed human like me to deal with. It’s been the menace of my life, while it’s the apple of the eye for the rest of my family. My parents think of it as their begotten son, and my sister as her lost brother, I assume.

All that said, I don’t hate it. I never did. I am too scared and annoyed of its presence, but I am trying to live with it. Like I said, a reality I am trying to accept. My mom, on the other hand, is pretty convinced that I might even kill it on purpose. My sister wouldn’t disagree, I guess. But what they don’t see is that, there are a lot of ways to cope with things. Ways unknown to many are the norms of many others. When my entire family and extended family loves that 4-legged hairy barking creature unconditionally, I am genuinely intrigued. Why?! And at the end of the question, I am easing into a home that’s not just mine, but also Appu’s. Ente veedu, appoontem!

22fk again!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

image

Vestiges of a messed up cake! This might not be anything more to anyone else, but me. To me, this the ultimate embodiment of love and care that could never be contested or questioned! I am elated by this. This mass of fluffly spongy sweetness means so much to me, for it was given to me, specially chosen for me, with utmost care and immense love. Don’t you dare question the ‘taste’ and the ‘quality’, for those are beyond any judgment! This was for me from my dear mama and mami! The delicacy of the cake and the worth of the ‘aashirvadam’ from my chachummai and thatha totally made my day, pushing my mood atop a sharp incline, from a very deep fall.

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And now that’s my petite little pendant of ‘Poornathrayeesan’ from mom and dad and Vidya. It made me so happy she remembered, that she even ‘made’ me an earring all by herself. I felt all the more loved! It totally was a birthday to me!

Is it so ridiculous of me that I find happiness in all these and go upto putting up an image and such pompous words about it? I am not sure how this might look like. As though I am the only one with birthdays or gifts! Besides the silliness, (and my mom’s complaints that I don’t know what to write about and what not to!), I find immense happiness and satisfaction in such infinitesimally small expressions of life and its being. I am very glad a friend so close, remembered my star and wished me! Aren’t friends just expected to know your date of birth from Facebook calendar’s afterall! I am so much more elated by that end of the day birthday wish. Isn’t that quite something to know that you were in somebody’s last thoughts of a day! So much more to be happy, when people could even spare that one moment to wish you, despite the strict uncompromised schedules! And naturally, I feel so blessed when I get a blissful poem as an apology for a forgotten wish!

What more can a person ask for? What made my day, or what makes my life, are fundamentally and ultimately in my little brain and how it interprets things! When I look at this post as my token of gratitude towards this existence, then so be it. And if I look at this as one of my many countless blabberings about insignificant details of life, then so be it!

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Randomness!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

Scene # 1

“Onnume sonna purinjukka mattengaradi. Thookathila kanavu kandu bhayappedaralam. Thoongave mudiyarathillai. Enna seyyanam theriya maatengarathu.” She talked on and on. What is to be said now? I turned around to him. He is not smiling. Why isn’t he? He always used to. Didn’t he appear healthier in the hospital? He even cracked a joke or two. And we laughed all afternoon. Yeah, laughed. But now, he is not even smiling. Is this what’s like being unstable? Shuttling between extremes! I inched forward,and slid a finger into his palm. He held tight on to it for a second and then let it go. He wouldn’t hold it anymore, no matter how long I waited. Like a baby who plays with your finger, only till its fascination. “Antha hanumanoda manthram sollindu padutha porum. Appo pinne swapnam onnume varathu. Illatalum, enna swapnam kandu bhayappeda! Ellarum irukkomillaya inga.” Did he hear that? Yes, he did. He’s thinking now. Even trying to say something. He’s trying hard to recollect the stanzas, uttering the first line. Did he seek help? Perhaps not. He was trying to revive it back, and fill in the voids between the lines. And I was trying hard too. I couldn’t recollect it either! Was it a bad thing to remind him now, about the better times of life? He was visibly struggling to get words out of the brain, and sound out of the throat. One stopped cooperaying when the other gave in. It’s like, his thoughts and voice won’t ever give up for eachother. Could he ever say what he really meant, ever in life? I couldntjust stand there anymore. Others had left already. I told her and got up to leave, went upto him and held his hand for one brief moment and turned away to leave. And there he took it over from, “Budhir balam, yashodhairyam, nirbhayathvam arogatha. Ajadyam, vakpaduthvamcha, hanumath smaranath bhaveth!” Did he not smile now? I smiled.

Scene # 2

To be continued…

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Keep smiling!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

Now that most conversations and relationships are maintained online, and there’s more ‘CAPSLOCK’ than actual yelling, more ttyl, more brb, more dnd, more cya, more whatever. Frankly, I don’t care. I don’t care if the soul in people’s communication is absent, I don’t care if emotions are dead, or if intimacy is lost or if distance builds between people! People are talking (rather blabbering) whatsoever! That’s more than glad! If you want warmth in your relationships, closeness with people of your life, and enliven the spirits, probably one should just go for it. Put your heart to it and do it. Online or offline. It’s not the means, it’s always the place where you make upto! Just wanted to say, to all those intellectual freaks, who lecture about how technology seeped into human relationships and fucked it up. How whiny is that! You don’t even know to guard your own mind and soul, and blame it all on the mind-less soul-less technology! It’s not gonna blame you back afterall!

But certainly, there’s one thing I greatly despise or find upsetting about the turn of events as such. These emoticons! Truly annoying! I’d rather say, misunderstood, misused and that’s such a mishap! Nobody ever fully gets what the other person tries to convey with a combination of colon, semi-colon, paranthesis and p’s and d’s and o’s! It’s been of such extensive use that it no longer means anytging. Well, use them anyway. I do too. They are the ice-breakers and once in a while, funny too. But I am sad how my smiles don’t pass by this. I put a : followed by a ) coz I actually really genuinely love to smile. And when I say keep smiling, I totally mean that. In the havoc of millions of colourful and disgusting smileys, I wish 🙂 could win the throne back and be the master of all smileys! Bring the pioneer back, I say! Back then, with the smiling face, was the only time we could actually communicate ’emoticons’ without confusion! A sad face, once in a while, was fine too!

Now thinking of it, ‘Keep smiling!’ was the motto of my school. The school that laid that basic blocks of my morale and principles. Wonder why it took me so long to assimilate the thought! Everytime, I saw that writing on the black board, I was wondering what’s up with the grown ups! Why would they even teach us to be escapists, run away from life, and ignore problems and just keep smiling? But now, at 21 years of age, I feel like Buddha! Like, the meaning just revealed to me. Like, all that I ever wanted was just buried so deep in my mind, next to a school girl’s confused thoughts! The answer reveals itself and it’s all in the smile. Putting it short, the whole deal here is that, when I tell you (you being my online conversation partner) ‘Keep smiling’, I most genuinely mean it. More than words.

Smile away!

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Zero zone!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

That’s where I often am, these days. A zero zone. Zero emotions. Zero problems. Zero dramas. Zero people. Zero activity. Zero time. Zero place. Zero change. Zero thoughts. Zero. Like division by zero. So meaningless and futile. What can possibly come out of it after all! Being at the zeroth zone, the one thing I can’t help is falling out of it. Now and then. Whether or not I want it. The trouble is, why do I even have to fall out of it. It’s become more like my comfort zone these days. Its just so easy and light, to float in there, like zero gravity. It’s not even a compulsion from anything that I do get out of it, but more like an unmistakable cycle of things, as they are. It feels like a chain, all wound up around my entire self, dragging me in and out of it, not out of compulsion, but more as a chain of cyclic process. It just feels normal to be this way. Zero explanations coz there’s zero demand for it! As the better half once remarked..zero cause, infinite reasons! (Or the other way round?!)

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Killing the unborn!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

I don’t know if she even existed. Like, I don’t even know if she were born. But I’d just love to see her dead. Rather, with my own hands, strangle her to death. She who personifies all that I am not. She who desires all that I dont. She who destroys all that I would never. She who creates all that I couldn’t ever. She who wants to stop me from writing this. She who puts a leash on me being me. She who claims to be a twin of my soul. She who disrupts my life. She who destabilizes my hold on life. She who kicks in when no one’s around, and makes me unreasonable. She who wouldn’t just let go of me until I sneeze her away. She who hunts me down, day in and day out. She who scares me. She who I despise to be with. She who I hates to have known. She who wrecks my inner peace.

“Hey, its high time we broke up. I am so tired of you hanging on to my neck. You want a parasite? Go find someone else. I am so done with you. Just so you know, you’ve done enough. To wreck me and my life.” “I am sorry but I didn’t know. Like , I always thought you liked things this way. Weren’t we perfect this way? Life was getting much..” “Duh! Look at who’s talking about life. What do you know about life? When have you gotten outta your little fantasy world, to even acknowledge there’s a real world and life going on out here!” I tell you I am breaking up with you. But you know what’s it I am gonna really do? I am gonna kill you. Finish you off and wipe you off the surface this world. I wanna wash my sins away in your blood. May be you’re a total piece of crap. But your intangible blood has such marvelous charm. You won’t see another sun rise. Go to a calm and peaceful sleep tonight, and you’ll never wake up from that eternal peace.

P.S. Lately, I have been contemplating metamorphosis. And this is how I see it in me. Went through some past autographs from school. And the one constant line, in every page, even the ones written by people who don’t know eachother, matched so perfect and identical. They all said just one thing. ‘Never change from what you’re. Your attitude stands unique.’ However fancy may that sound, do people really do this copy-cat thing in autographs as they do in tests? Or is it that they all planned on making a fool outta me, by writing out the same thing to freak me out? Or is it actually that, they all thought the exact same about me? Oh mother of god! Where the fuck is that attitude of mine then! (The one that I too loved! Where am I!)

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Superannuation!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

“Dad, how do you spell rimpersement?” “Dear, I thought you knew. Make daddy proud about his little girl! Don’t be silly and stupid like this. Anyway, r-e-i-m-b-u-r-s-e-m-e-n-t.” “What’s VRS and CRS daddy?” “Where did you hear them now! Voluntary and compulsory retirement from service.” ” Why don’t you take them dad! That means you’ll no more have to work and can stay with me at home. You could drive me to school, we could come back in the evening and pick up mom. And you know the best part? I could skip the after-school nursery! That lady is so…” “Dear, that’s not gonna happen now. If I quit, who’s gonna get you all the stuff you want? How will we pay your school fees? The books..” “Oh daddy! I am so stupid. I’ll study and get a job, and then you take the VRS thing then?” “My sweet little thing! It’d be time for my superannuation then!” “er..your what?” “Honey, let’s keep that for a while later. Now walk fast, so that we don’t get caught in the rain.”

….

How much time passed by, after that one little conversation! Nobody ever knows. Nobody ever knew what happened to that sweet little girl and her daddy. Over the years, things changed. Drastic, dramatic, diplomatic. All kinda changes had come over people, places, things, but memories. Next to change, I think memories are the one other thing that doesn’t change. It either stays or doesn’t. So her memories, or his memories, were now lost in the deluge of the new striking events, that has brought their lives to this moment.

So now is when he retires. Filling out the PF forms, he had obvious difficulties. He didn’t care enough to ask for help, she didn’t bother to offer help either. As he was filling them out, the moment of silence loosely hung on a thread. And the thread was so broken, and words so came flowing in, when the mother and the rest of the family joined the father and the daughter. He was almost done with a nominee field left out. And he asked, “Sudha, what’s Bhavya’s DOB?”. Her world just crashed right in front of her. Why was he asking mom about her sister’s date of birth? Is she going to be the nominee? Why not me, she thought. It wasn’t about the money. Now that everybody earned shitloads of money, nobody cares. It wasn’t about the authority either. But didn’t she and he have a pact? A superannuation-slash-VRS pact? When he finally promised to be with her, spending more time with her. And when she could finally reach out for her dad, at all points enroute being daddy’s pride! And now, all of that’s gone? Misunderstanding? Miscommunication? Mis-what? She just missed that one pact she had hoped to exist. The one that she was sure would be kept. Why do people change like there was never a past? Like, there was no history that they shared with the others in their present! She died a little inside, but casually sat there, right opposite to him, with no emotions.

….

Could Sudha be right? Did I unnecessarily make a fuss about the whole retirement thing by calling the return-back party at home? She seems too burdened with the chores. But then, did I have a choice. I so wanted my little girl to be here with me, while I retire and step out of my office. I have finally made enough space and time for her in life. Perhaps, Sudha was right. I shouldn’t have wanted her to come. She seems so uninterested. She’s right about moving on, from daddy’s little one to the woman she has become now. You make me proud, dear. But I would have been a lot more happier, if only things were slightly different. And if we could still get back to our old VRS pact! Or did that already slip into our cold mask of oblivion!