Starting afresh !

One of my dear friends told me the other day that I should continue writing. The funny thing is I myself had searched for my blog in my mailbox thinking i might have starred it or something, hoping i wouldn't lose my blog address. How silly is that !! Once I got in I realized that it's been 10 years since i wrote anything on public domain. 

The people who have read these posts might have moved on and the person who wrote these posts moved on as well. I am not the same person I was 10 years ago. As they say, the only constant is change. Embrace it !!

Most Dangerous animal on Earth

Recently i went to the Georgia Aquarium on a short trip. It was very impressive with a vast array of exquisite marine creatures, not the usual ones. Best of all, I could touch the sharks and rays that were on display. It was quite exciting to be able to touch a live shark. There was another exhibition on display called planet shark. It shows how sharks are now the hunted and not the hunters and some statistics about the same. Towards the end of the shark exhibits, there is a label which says the most dangerous animal on earth, some statistics and a mirror. Well, must be true because we hunt almost every other living being on this earth and are at the top of the food chain. But I guess it is not always for food that we hunt, it is for luxuries and everything else that we hunt these poor creatures, who are lesser animals than us, but who still have the same right to live.
I am not a member of PETA or SPCA or anything, but i still believe it is a sin to torture any living being, be it man or animal. I actually believe that if you can put somebody out of its misery and torture by putting an end to its life, you would still be doing a good deed. Which is why I am in favour of euthanisia though it is illegal in India.  Of course everybody is entitled to their own opinions and this is mine.
How many times have seen a cute looking dog/cat/rabbit/animal and exclaimed "How cute!" or touched it and said "How soft!" or have you said "It's so soft I want to wear it "?
How would you feel if someone else looked at you and remarked, "You are so fair,beautiful and soft that I want to wear you."
I watched a video on youtube on chinese fur farms and how animals are skinned alive for their fur. I dont use fur nor do I personally know anyone who uses them. I've seen it only in the movies and in some upscale shops. Most of the fur coats I've seen are faux fur and not the real ones. Believe me, your conscience as a human being will take a severe beating if you understand how the fur makes it way to the shops. In the animal kingdom it is a sin to be pretty and soft and that goes for all those dogs, cats, raccoons, foxes,rabbits out there. In the video that I saw, the most horrific part was that they skinned these creatures ALIVE. Could they have not shown the minimum decency to kill it before it is skinned? Man through centuries have evolved so much that now we fight for our rights and voice our opinions. All those animals who do not have a voice of their own, are hunted down by a more sadistic predator,US. The animals are as expected transported in crammed cages, not knowing that there is a greater calamity awaiting them. When they are still alive and kicking, they are hung on a hook by their tail. If at all they struggle, which they will, they are beaten up with a metal rod, till their bones break. This bludgeoning happens until it gives up, but poor thing doesn't die. Cuts are made on all for legs with a knife. Just like I peel the skin off fish, before cooking it, these people peel the skin off the animal, when it is still ALIVE. No sound escapes the animal while this is being done. Does it make a difference if it told you that it was in pain? WE just choose not to hear them. After all, what can a helpless raccoon do against a man? Ever had your hand burnt and the skin peeled off? Remember the stinging pain? Imagine this happening to yourself and you'd be thankful to die.  Now comes the saddest part, after the skin is off, the animal is still alive and is just tossed to a side, like a useless thing, made to await its death. Those battering eyelashes with the last light of life will forever haunt me. The only wrong it did was that it was born soft/cute/beautiful AND an animal. Anyways we aren't giving much of a life for a lot of voiceless souls out in the wild. We might as well give them a painless death. The bastards who do this must be skinned alive like they do to the animals, so should the people who think wearing fur is fashionable. That fur clothing you wear to keep yourself warm/fashionable has cost several harmless animals their lives. You look uglier than ever with that fur coat on. Death is too little a punishment for them. I hope people who engage in such activity rot in hell and their souls never attain salvation. For those of you who would still want to see the video, you can watch it below. This is not for kids, pregnant ladies and the faint hearted and unless you have a rock instead of a heart, I would advise you against watching it.
http://www.peta.org/feat/ChineseFurFarms/index.asp
These days I've been seeing a lot of movies concentrating on the apocalypse. May be people believe that we have become such a burden on the Earth that some higher power is going to intervene soon. Well, after seeing this, I think serves us right. As you sow, so shall you reap. No God in any religion will forgive you for wearing a soul on your sleeve. Hell awaits.....

Disturbia

I gaze out of the window absent mindedly thinking whether I'll reach on time.

He's going pretty fast & going by the speed he's going I should be able to catch the train on time.

As it is, I've missed the train and my only chance in joining him is to catch the same train.

As myriad thoughts fill my entire being, the auto i travel in, screeches to a grinding halt.

I get down from the auto to look around.

It's still dark and the clock in the station ticks 4 o clock.

With great difficulty, I read the name of the station....OTTA-PPAALAM...

The moment my brain comprehends what this means, the look on my face turns from relief to horror.

Darn !!! I'm supposed to be in Varkala & here I am in Ottappalam!!!!!!!!!

Damn it !! The auto guy must have gone faster than was really required and I ended up in no man's land.

Horror on my face changes into pure red anger as i turn to look at the auto driver.

And wonder of wonders he's smiling at me, as if mocking the predicament I'm in.

I'm seething with rage as I ask him, "Is this where I wanted u to drop me? Is this y I was ready to pay u triple the meter charge? Have u got no sense at all or are u challenged that u cant understand anything? Now who is gonna be responsible now that I've missed my train? R u gonna drive me all the way to Chennai????"

I utter all gibberish, totally incomprehensible until I get one tight slap across my face.

I see the stars in my head, as u see in cartoons, and I reel backwards to fall on the ground.

It hurts real bad and now I understand how it feels to be hit by a man.

My ego is hurt very badly, more so cos I cant believe that an ordinary auto driver has the audacity to slap ME. I'm too stunned to move. But still conscious.

As the stars inside my head settle down, my eyes adjust their focus to the man standing tall in front of me.

He's tall, about 6 feet at least, fair, well built,no moustache & smiling.

It is the sly smile that unnerves me... as if he's plotting something and I cant seem to understand what it is.

It's the sly, cunning & mocking smile of a fox or rather a hyena which approaches a half dead creature ready to tear it into parts and eat it while it's still alive.

I come back to reality with a jolt, amazed at how my imagination can work overtime in a situation like this.

For the first time in my life, I feel scared & vulnerable.

I have a funny feeling starting to rise up from the pit of my stomach. Fear........

I see him throwing off my bags from the auto. They land with a loud thud, on the railway tracks nearby.

My head is still groggy and I cant seem to process what is happening. My head feels extremely heavy. It must be because of the slap.

I see him take off his khaki shirt & I can see his well toned sweat glistened body in the faint light of the platform lights. Slowly, the realisation of what is going to follow dawns on me.

I've seen this scene so often in the movies.

This is how it starts off, then the girl yells "bachaoo" in her highest pitch, then the villain approaches her, tearing her clothes to bits and doing whatever it is that he intended to do.

This is where the story forks. Either the girl emerges with tattered clothes & bruises on her body, sobbing softly to herself and blaming her fate for what happened or, the hero appears out of nowhere, beats the villain to a pulp and takes off his shirt/coat/whatever to cover her up and they they live happily ever after.

I think of my hero... He must be on the train, the train I was supposed to board. He must have crossed the Kerala border & must be waiting for me, wondering what was taking me so long.

I can actually see what is going to come & I blink and blink to make it all disappear and get back home, but in vain.

I try to get up, but the fall was so severe that I can get up at all. Every part of my body groans in protest, refusing to budge.

Before I realise it, there is this shirtless man on top of me, violating everything a girl feels is her own private self.

I open my mouth to yell, only to be clamped shut by a powerful hand with bulging biceps, like that of a gym instructor. It was almost like he was squeezing life out of me as he clasped his hand on my mouth.

I struggle under his weight helplessly,but that mountain of a man doesn't seem to budge.

My bruised & tattered ego is seething with rage & I try to wriggle out from under him, like a helpless worm wriggles to and forth.

No sound comes out of my throat, but my eyes rest on that sly smile of his, ready to devour me & that fills me with rage again.

I try to push him away, I try to kick him off, I try to bite him, I try to do everything to get him off me, but I end up being more subdued, drained out of strength & unable to move.

As I lie tired & suffocated under the weight of his body, I see my dupatta flying off somewhere into the oblivion.

I can feel my salwar being ripped open, my new salwar.

Suddenly, I can feel the bitterness of the cold morning air just as cloth leaves my body.

And then, there is this intense piercing pain, like a 100 daggers are thrust into you.

It increases & increases until i cant bear it anymore & I feel as if i'm going to burst.

Then, I open my eyes.

My gaze falls on the stand beside my bed, full of umpteen creams, lotions & hair bands.

To my greatest relief, I recognise my room in the apartment I live in.

I feel very tired and mentally drained out. I sit up in bed, trying to recollect what I saw in my dream.

I just saw myself being raped.

And the thought itself fills me with so much anguish that I say Oh God! how could I see something so painful as this?

It's earlier than my usual time; the clock has just struck 8 & I have enough time to make breakfast.

I had my bath only last night so then I don't usually bathe in the morning. But, given the circumstances I woke up in, I felt violated, dirty & in need of a thorough cleansing.

I switch on the geyser to take my bath, make myself my cuppa horlicks and sit in front of the TV watching a gyrating Jyothika on sun music.

Once I finish my horlicks, I take my clothes & rest of my paraphrenelia and proceed to take my bath.

I pour the first mug of hot water on my face and as I close my eyes, I go back to visuals of my dream in a flash.

The feeling of being dirty dominates all other feelings that I had. I don't know y but that's how I felt.

Considering that I had only a dream , I know that this is not a big thing. But, such an incident in just a dream affected me so much that I shudder to think about the hapless women who have been through all this and more. I wonder what they might have felt. Their souls must tattered and bruised beyond any possible recovery. I can now at least relate to how they must have felt.

My dreams are always in 70 mm colour. It is very descriptive & detailed as I see it, but I cant seem to remember the faces of people involved. However, I can remember the settings, 4 eg in this case that the scene was beside a railway station. I cant remember the man's face no matter how hard I try. I think 4 me, he signifies only bad in people which is omnipresent. I still cant remember his face, though i can clearly see his physique.

I'm always struggling in my dreams, for something/someone, to get away from someone/ something so on and so forth.

I woke up painfully disturbed, scarred, feeling dirty and dead. Bathing today was cleansing to me. As if I was trying to wash away whatever was the dirt on me. If I could draw i think i would have drawn the scene, but since I can only write I know that it is a better release 4 me to write it out. I cant really put across my emotions when I woke up & I couldn't believe I was so affected by just a dream.

I think the Ottappalam setting was from my ex-room mate who was 4m that place. I cant figure out how i got this sort of an eloping idea from. I would never have done that in real life. Nor could I understand y the auto guy slapped me cos I didn't say anything bad. I was just angry. I don't think i saw any rape scenes in any of my recent movies & so i cant seem to figure out how the idea evolved. People say that things that haunt ur sub conscious mind translates into dreams. Things/people you yearn for, things left unsaid all this and more can translate into dreams. Small things come together to evolve into a totally different experience.

Phew !! This has been one tiring experience.

Me signing off.

Dress Rehearsal

Scene

The door of the fitting room opened wide to reveal a pair of medium sized bare feet, a pair of well rounded calves which would put the fattest chicken drumsticks to shame, hip rounder than those of females you would see in old ravi varma paintings, waist as slim as a housewife's, well endowed bust further bettered by the deep and wide neckline and a spectacled round face with a questioning look.

A : So what do you think?

N : hmmmmmmm (long one) It's really nice, accentuates your features, a bit on the shorter side. Only problem is you remind me of the girls in c grade mallu skin flicks & I will get you this dress only for bathroom and bedroom wear. You get out of that dress immediately !!!!

A : (deep sigh)

The rotund figure slinks back into the fitting room. Door slams shut.

Well, that was one of my many dress rehearsals. It was a beautiful cream n white satin dress, but the judge clearly said what it reminded him of and no contest. The second was a grey dress which didnt actually do anything for me, but did wonders for his pocket. So we finally bought it because we couldnt find anything else that would fit my hips and his pocket equally well. I was a size large in most brands in India & here sometimes my chest fits but my hips dont and sometimes the other way round. Here I fall in the petite category & fit in most medium sized tops and bottoms. I wasnt quite happy with the the dress or may be i didnt know there were other dresses which could make me happier. So we continued hunting, thanks to my patient half. I found a Calvin Klein Shirt dress which was really smart, but only problem was that i couldnt sit down while i was in it, the buttons would pop open under the stress of my layered fat. In addition the judge said no ways. He sure wasnt a great fan of peeping body parts, specially his emotional half's. And we did find something that made me happier. It was red all over, with black vertical lines which made me look taller than i was. The cloth was thicker than those of most other dresses i had seen, because they didnt openly advertise my intimate wear. And it had this little black lace which could be tied into a bow at the waist. Most importantly, it fitted my hips & his pocket & it didnt remind him of anyone sleazy. So like the cat who got the cream, we took it home. I wore the dress when we went to Balharbour shops, Miami. I've been to a lot of malls, in India and abroad, upscale , downscale, medium scale, all scales, but this was out of this world. The shops housed there reminded me of the fashion week in FTV. Versace, Gucci,YSL,Chanel,De Beers, Armani,Cartier,D&G,Dior,Escada,Fendi,Jimmmy Choo,LAcoste,Louis Vuitton,Prada,Tiffany and what not. I gawked wide mouthed at their exhibits and peered wide eyed into their shops. We didnt muster enough courage to even get into any of those shops. The shoppers who came there looked like they were imported from some ramp in Paris, dressed to the hilt, in fur coats, leather and boots. However, there were a few like us who came there for the sole purpose of proving a point which is that we have gone there & for a photo shoot. If there's one place unfit even for window shopping i guess this was it. The opulence and indulgence of the glitterati who came there was so intimidating that i felt like i was out of place.

Role Play

Well, for a long time i didnt know what to feel when i think of my better half & now i doubt if i feel anything at all. I cook for him, clean his house, wait on him & sleep with him, but does that make me a wife? May be it makes me a glorified maid servant with extra privileges and some perks free. I dont know. I still am emotionally attached to a lot more people than him. If i have a problem or if something is upsetting me, i think of others before i think of him. I get more consolation from people thousands of miles apart than the person who sleeps right next to me. I wonder why. Is it time, is it the circumstances or is it plain magnetism which draw people closer. When u r girlfriend boyfriend why do you buy chocolates/flowers for your gf? Is it because it is the done thing or because you know that she likes flowers and that it will make her happy or is it because people around you tell you that it is the way it is or is it because you love her being happy? Why is it that people celebrate anniversaries? Is it because they cherish the day they married each other or is it because they are doing it cos everybody else did it like it is the done thing? Everything that we do, we do either out of a sense of duty or out of love. Things that you do out of a sense of duty has no emotion attached to it, like doing a job, totally mechanical. Things you do out of love has a lot of care, planning & effort into it. Like I read somewhere, you realise what you had only after you lose it & it is too late to get it back. I still remember my birthday this year. I was quite lonely because i was living alone at that point of time. But, i didnt want a boring birthday , so i bought cake & candles for myself, treated myself to a private dinner & dessert & watched a good movie on tv, all alone. 2 of my very dear friends surprised me with birthday gifts at midnight, something i did not quite expect. Perhaps that was the last birthday i would ever celebrate with friends, with cake cutting at midnight & gifts. If you have a strong desire to relive the past, then it means that you dont love the present as much. I still love my brother a lot, perhaps the only man who can console me at bad times & knock some good sense into me. One bear hug is all it takes to wash away all my sorrow. I still lean on him for support, though we are physically thousands of miles apart. Doesnt it feel great to hear "I'll be there for you" from someone? Sometimes it helps to say it out loud and sometimes it does a lot more to do something equally nice, like a bear hug.

Lost & found

Just a day back I found one of my childhood friends on a popular friends networking site. I wasnt really ecstatic in finding him, but as always felt like "ah! Gotcha". His face hadnt changed a lot because one glance at the profile picture he had posted told me that it was indeed him. We had studied together in 1st std in a small little school, far away from my native. I was notorious there because I was always late for the 1st afternoon period. Reason being that I would play more than the others & finally have to eat lunch with both hands instead of one. So while teacher was out calling the attendance, i would be at the taps trying to wash off lunch leftovers from my face & hands & shirt and wherever else I managed to smear it. I remember him as a very pious guy perhaps because he had "vibhuthi" on his forehaed every single day that he came to school. I also have memories of him as an ardent Ayyappa devotee, because for some reason "ayyappo swamiye" used to come out of him at regular intervals. He was also the class topper in 1st std. I remember this clearly because achan was always pushing me to beat him at school. Besides all these, there is another bigger reason, why I hounded him on networking sites. I have very vivid memories of him getting beaten black and blue by his father, for any number of reasons.

Forgetting about the report card, not mentioning about a PTA meet, hiding answer papers because

he got only 48 in math & not 50. They sure didnt believe in sparing the rod or spoiling the child. Of course I have had my share of beatings & slaps both publicly and privately, but achan was never a tyrant, he was much easier to deal with. After 1st std we parted ways, he went to a boys school & I was sent to a convent. We used to visit their place once in a while so we were also invited for their house warming. I can clearly remember that the house was beside a canal or something. But by then, we were both grown up and had lost that innocence binds children irrespective of sex. When you are 12 or so, there this distinct charaterisation of boyish stuff and girly things. So we never cared about each other, after all he had his friends & I had mine. Years passed, and now i see him again and all those memories come flooding. I am yet to ask what is happening with him, though I feel it might be the same old routine. Sometimes i feel that all the friendships i had in school never withstood the test of time. They just withered away or simply gave way to stronger more fruitful bonds.

Of hugs, kisses & emotions

I come from a fairly emotional family which believes in expression of emotions quite plainly. When i was small my father used to say, "How will I know that you love me, unless you say so or do things that show that love?". He's right, no point hoarding all that love in your heart & not do anything about it or say nothing about it. I still remember how my brother & I used to jump at him, crawling all over him like monkeys, overjoyed when he came home on friday nights after his week long tour. When I became a big girl, i used to stand on the side, watching my brother do the same, perhaps sad that i could no longer do it. Hugs and kisses meant everything to me. Showing love physically is still an important way of expression for me. Perhaps that is why when some great tragedy befalls someone and you dont find words to console, it does wonders just to hug and cry with them. It does much more than any amount of words could possibly do. But, when you have friends of the opposite sex, sometimes our minds are too narrow to see reason or emotion behind the physicality. It is easier to hug a girl who is an acquaintance than to hug a guy who is your best friend. I cant understand how people can bottle their emotions up. I have a friend who I can relate to as someone with "supressed" emotions & I realised a lot of it depends on the upbringing also. A long time back when i was onsite in a very cold country with even colder people, there was this couple who stayed in the same building as me, who taught me the basics of how live in that place. His pregnant wife was not very literate & so there was no common language between the two of us. But we managed with my really bad hindi & her even worse english. once when they took me to a nearby shopping mall, i still remember how she held my hand on that cold night. It was a very small gesture but i've not forgotten how it made me feel. Small things make a big difference. When amma was in hospital for her hysterectomy & achan was having his chemotherapy, I was the bystander for amma. One sunday i came home to get fresh clothes & in the amount of time that i was at home, i changed the bedsheets & made tea for him. I remember him telling me that it felt like having a woman in the house & that the tea tasted like payasam. I know that he didnt have the sense of taste much, but the thought behind the act made the sweetness i guess. On the day of my wedding, amma & I had a very small private crying session in the privacy of our bedroom. As we hugged each other and sobbed, we were both relieved that the great groom hunting ordeal was finally over, a sense of relief flooded over us. As luck would have it, I married into a family which had zilch emotions, very matter of fact & normal all the time. If you had to plot a emotional graph, it would just be a straight horizontal line, while mine would go up and down and wherever it pleased. For his kind of upbringing, my better half has fared better i guess. He left no stone unturned to please me in our brief but sweet courtship, flooding me with surprises like flowers & chocolates & many more. When we were about to leave, i had this long session of hugging & kissing every aunt, uncle & cousin good bye, while he & his family simply nodded at each other. It totally stumped me that people could be so emotionless. As long as he wasnt so with me, i didnt have room to complain. i could not see the bond between siblings or the bond between mother & children, in fact there seemed to be no bond at all or probably i couldnt see if there was. Amma could immediately sense trouble if I spoke less, because I always clamped up when i was disturbed. He's also learning the tricks now. In 2 months time, i feel that we have progressed beyond monosyllables. People see the change in him post marriage and are surprised. Well, if the change is for good then why not.