my very first blog

So, I am creating a blog. Why??? don’t ask me. Maybe because there is nothing else to do. Even the face book is wearing out on me. well .. here goes nothing.

And this is the time that my dad asked me to use it for “productive things” like drafting business plans, preparing for GMAT or GRE, & this is the time which my boss thinks I am earning every penny he is paying me.

So maybe there goes a lot of things.. my dad’s dreams for me, my boss’s money & my time. All for what??? Nothing. And I am the one who critices people who are aimless & waste their time on the “nothings”.

The arrogant me

I go on with life on my own terms, living for myself with my principles & my philosophies. But once in a while, I look around myself. When I do, I regret it instantly.

The incompetence of men and their naivety, it depresses me to the core. I would gladly take an intelligent evil than a foolish one. Because I don’t understand their purpose of existence.

The purposeful ignorance and inconsistent choices, they have turned themselves into just another fad. Why the low self esteem??? How can they stand being looked down to and pitied? More, how can they look down on themselves? Do they not get driven to achieve? Do they not aspire to be among the great?

What drives these people who think they are happy being a fool or being among fools?? What drives them to give up the right way of life? What makes them choose the ordinary when extra is available? Is the dumbness so irresistible, if so, why am I not yet engulfed by it?

Too much of Ayn Rand in me. Its turning me to an arrogant prick and I am loving it. After all, I’ve always loved the arrogance in people. Of course not the arrogance which is based on nothing. I loved Mr. Darcy’s arrogance that complimented Ms Benett’s in Pride & Prejudice.

And in all of Ayn Rand’s writings, I loved her protagonists’ arrogance. So me turning out to being arrogant is not such a bad thing… well atleast for me.

People we lose to death

People who were never part of us, our lives… yet there comes a time when we feel WE lost them.We don’t realize WE lost them until they die; until they are no more there, not around, not anywhere. 

I felt this closely recently. Many a times I wish I had taken time to know them. I often go through their facebook pages, and see what they had written, posted, what others had said. How good a friend he/she was with others. Its kinda sad. One does not get noticed until others know you will never see them again. Living, breathing, laughing… 

I hate that I was born a woman

I hate that I was born a woman!

I hate it because my being born as a woman entitled me to a life of uncountable PMSs. Dark dusty suicidal pathetic loathsome PMS! If god is responsible for the PMSs, I have serious doubts on his so-cherished benevolence. What on earth (or heaven) made him come up with PMS??? Wasn’t it enough of a sick fun to see women leak every month for 5 days CONTINUOUSLY that he had to come up with a way to make them cranky lonely needy clingy bitch for 5 days prior to the internal body tap malfunction?

On my way home

As I ride home from office in my bike in that crowdy, noisy ring road; fighting with the dust and horns and ass of a truck & micro drivers, I always (and I mean ALWAYS) imagine me having an accident. The more disturbing part though is, I almost wish for it…. BANG! It would be a sudden change to this monotony we all have been taught to hate; plus it would mean heightened attention, sympathy, care to this narcissist.

No, I would never cause it deliberately. It’s like thinking of crying out in the middle of silent formal gatherings like classrooms, library, seminars… where the boredom and silence makes you think of things you have buried somewhere and chosen to forget… when the frustration wants to come out in any form of aggressive expression(s). You know you would never do it though; but you would often amuse yourself with the thought of it happening; just to live the little pleasure thrills it gives you.

Tea bags

Few days ago, I bumped into this guy I used to know some 4 years ago. The place and situation we met was completely unusual, hence it was a total surprise and I was bewildered. The fact that I had a huge crush on him could have added to this emotion.

Well, we talked about people, career, each other’s frens, laughed at jokes, danced, slow dance as well, dined together, we were having fun in each other’s company. We were too comfortable with each other like we’d been tight buddies for long. Then it dawned upon me. Damn! We were both tea bags.

Now you maybe wondering what I mean by teabags. Well, I have this way of simplifying a relation between two people. When I said we were both teabags, I meant we were too similar, with same tastes, same aspirations, same way of viewing life. Many might consider this as an ideal match. Sadly, I don’t fall in that many. I want someone who can compliment me, not supplement. I am a teabag looking for my hot/warm water which can bring out my color, my flavor and help me fulfill my destiny of becoming a good tea. And I am saying this at the risk of sounding corny. But hey, don’t we all want corny in life?

It is good to find yourself a fellow tea bag; you could spend your life with them in comfort, friendship, mutual understanding and what not. But that’s not a teabag’s destiny; its not meant to be bottled or packed together with tea bags.. but to be taken out of its kind and dipped in a hot/luke warm water to form a tea. Now that’s called fulfilling one’s destiny.

Nepal

I wake up to see my little sister jumping up & down with glee. As an everyday routine, I check my facebook and see my college juniors’ status as “yahoo” or “yippee”. The occasion was yet another Nepal bandh declared by some party/ group demanding something from someone. These bandhs have been so frequent and for such illogical reasons that I have stopped keeping track of its WHYs, WHOs and WHATs.

I didn’t share the happiness of my kid sister who didn’t have to go to her school, nor did I share that of my juniors’ whose exam got postponed, all thanks to the bandh. For all I care, I was pissed and angry and if only I had the courage (& I could drive a really big heavy vehicle), I would very well drive a dozer over the protestors and their flags.

Walking to office can be fun, provided that it is a choice. I or for this matter, any one else does not like to be forced to walk under sun for 45 minutes by some agitated groups whose cause we don’t even support.

Let me talk about the nature of these protestors, a typical person from the agitated party given charge of making sure the bandh was effective. He/she has probably nothing better to do all day than carry something large and heavy like a big bamboo stick or stones or brick, anything that would cause serious damages to the vehicles, its drivers & passengers that dared to defy the bandh. They raise voices as if they are the mafias…. they take out their life’s frustration this way, & if asked about their cause.. they might not have half the clue on why and what of it.

It is actually a nice way to mobilize the unemployed, uneducated frustrated masses of people. Yes we can do these bandhs at least once in a week such that the offices cannot function properly, the construction of infrastructures get seriously delayed & hampered.. and then after our demands have been fulfilled… and we no longer need to protest on that particular topic,  we can easily find another agenda to have Nepal bandh on. After all, we do need to give the unemployed & uneducated, the unprivileged, a platform to express their frustrations – be it by burning someone’s bike or nice shiny cars the rich & posh dared to have the luxury of or simply by hitting the driver and making him unconscious.

We can surely protest on the extended load shedding, the bad network connection of NTC, the water supply, the mismanaged garbage disposal system, the traffic congestions; yes, we can burn up the vehicles, terrorize the general public and this will result in kulekhaaani being suddenly filled with water, the obstructed construction works suddenly running smoothly, the employees being more productive as they have to walk to their offices… Bandhs! that’s definitely the way of getting things done!

(Please keep in mind this was written in pure frustration over the continuous bandhs we were having few months ago. Am generally not this concerned on the issues outside me.)

Mom & Aunts

This write up is about the attempts of elderly female members of my inner and extended family to get me bound & settled for good. They are constantly in the desperation of finding a nice guy for me. And lemme tell u, defining nice is not easy in my family.

Nice means of course good looking, comfortably rich, well educated and with a good job, good social status and good family, also of the right caste. Also, the guy’s family should not have a history of inter caste marriage(s), preferably the guy is a single son so that I am not troubled by my in laws a lot. For me, if I were to remove the romantics and airy headed me & think practically, I’d like me a guy with nice house, esp nice lavish kitchen and a big nice bathroom. Nice, ya nice includes a lot in my case as well. Now tell me how many guys can fulfill this requirement in the population of … Oh ya he should be from the capital or living abroad not in “gaun”. Also some 4-5 yrs older than me, mom says its better if the guy is older and less good looking than me. And I have this obsession with language, so he should have good English or at least one foreign language skills. Of course must have good taste in music movies & books, must play at least oned sports, at least one musical instrument and have adorable eyes. That’s not too much to ask now is it?

Apparently my aunt had this wish to get me married to her best friend’s niece, which I will not hear of because me still 22!!! & at that time in love with someone who I didn’t know will later on leave me for a model. Anyways, with my reluctance to see the guy and mom & aunt’s big wish to see me bearing his kids, the plot began. Mom comes up to me and says we are invited for a dinner at this aunty’s house and me thinking my mom too innocent to be plotting anything, said ok and didn’t think twice. So, now as I was getting dressed, my didi comes up to me and gives me a I-know-it-all, poor you look and tells me “mom is tricking u into seeing the guy!” So, my mom WAS in fact cunningly smart. Well so be it, I decided to play along. I dressed up good, went along pretending didn’t know anything. Get to aunt’s place, she looking at me keenly. My own aunt trying to adjust my hair and clothes, and the boy’s party are an hour late… as we wait, I put on my act. Mom am hungry, who are we waiting for? Aunty can’t we eat? Lets go, blah blah blah.. & the two plotting sisters are left with uncomfortable glances at each other and little excuses, while I am basking at their discomfort.

Finally the boy & his mama arrive. Apparently their flight was delayed.. straight from New zealand to this house to see some girl, hoping to make her his bride . You loser! Couldn’t u find anyone in your Zealand??? The guy is looking at me shyly; apparently he was not tricked into meeting me. I look away, his too momma’s boy appearance already getting on my nerves. He’d have made a nice hen pecked husband. Should’ve given him a second chance. Well even my mom didn’t like him I dunno for what reasons though. So we come back & I confront my mom and she has her rare sheepish smile which means she admits her mistake & she goes … oh you knew? Am sorry, wont do it again. Finally! & this case rested here, or so I thought. In later days to come, my aunt would bring him up every chance she got, for months. She finally stopped only because she’d found me better matches. Mind you. MatcheS. One was her in-law’s son and another was the same in-law’s fren’s son. Now I got choices! Well after my yet another rejection, the first contender got married to one of my cousins, lets see what the other one does. Please don’t get me wrong here. I don’t think less of them, maybe I do, but the main thing is I am not ready for it yet. My unreadiness has little to do with my age, but much to do with the fact that I have not yet exhausted all my options to settle for someone else finding me a man. As my girlfriend quoted a line from this stupid movie we both liked “he’s just not that into you” (which I think every woman should watch and the director should make another one titled “she’s just not into you”)- “its not about WHO but about WHEN”. Yup maybe its right, well it is right. So my when is not here yet, and unless its here, I’ll be looking for the PERFECT who.

Few weeks ago my mom and my fufu were talking and my fufu mentioned some family who’d approached mom for her daughter(s) and my fufu suddenly got very mad because apparently they are not equal in rank in her locality and she felt insulted that they should dare to ask her niece’s hand for marriage! Well, at this rate, good luck to my mom wishing to see me in red soon.

I remember one fine sat morning, I was sleeping like a log and my mom comes over saying wake up my fren’s here, come say hello to her. So, drowsy me, with messed up hair, I pull up the nearest jacket I could find and stumble inside the sitting room, do the Namaste aunty and a brief polite pause, she didn’t have anything to say to me so I run back to my room and get my sleep. After she left, papa comes to my room and smiles and says do u know why she was here? Well she was in her jogging suit so prolly dropped in to say hello while running… NO! She was here to see me for her elder son. Moms!

Well, I blurt out some oh ok whatever and get back to sleep. Later in day mom looks at me and says, “nanu u r a little tanned, use some of those skin whitening products u know creams, face washes, they have all kinda stuffs now” Now this came as a surprise cause my mom never said anything like this to me before.. hmm. Later I find out that the morning jogging aunty had a little problem with my slightly tanned skin.. well who can blame her, she’d probably want her grand kids to be fair & lovely as everyone does. The rule of the fair skinned! Well that was that.

I can understand the concern of my mom and aunts but what was surprising was that I came to know  that even our driver was concerned in the same area. He told my mom it would have been nice to see maiya getting married before sir lost his job to the compulsory retirement (dad is getting retired after 6 months or so). Well, sorry to disappoint him, but getting married within the next six months is at least in my case, I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E!

To help mom, of course there are all the social networking sites I keep wasting my time in… but I wonder how she would feel about the 40 year old blue eyed Spanish hunk I am currently obsessed with.

Something I wrote years ago

(Before you read this, keep in mind that I was once this silly hopeless romantic.) So, here it goes:

A Perfect Love Story. Ours… (notice the title. how much cornier can it get?)

I’ll be looking for you. I make excuses to hang outside your class just to get a glimpse. I see you; there are butterflies in my stomach. You feel me watching you & you turn to see me. We are face to face. Embarrassed both of us turn away.

You see me with another guy, laughing and chatting, you are jealous. Next time I see you, I can see the anger.  I want to explain that he is just a friend. Now even I am angry at your rudeness. When you see me, you pretend to talk to other girls. You see me turning pale, you know am falling for you but you don’t know that even I know you are falling for me.

In the college mark sheet, I look for your marks. I beam with pride when I see you are above average. I look at my marks. I see a little green dot below my name. I pass you at the hall & I am beaming. I see a green ink pen in your hand.

Four years passes, we don’t talk to each other, and it’s our graduation day. You take the bold step, come up to me. Our eyes meet and then after 4 years of wait, we finally exchange those three magical words.

Years later, we would be watching a movie holding hands & a little stir of your fingers I know that you pity that girl who was betrayed. In emotional scenes, you will hold me tighter, closer to your heart because you know I’ll end up crying.

One night you’ll be having a nightmare & will be all wet with sweat, I’ll kiss your forehead & say its just a dream, you relax and sleep well.

You are late for dinner; I know you are in a meeting trying to make silly excuses to come home soon.

I am walking back from my office, I see you on the way but realize that it is just my imagination. I enter a grocery store, I see you again but now you are not my imagination, you are there buying my favorite ice creams. I smile and go home and act surprised when you try to please me with the ice cream.

You have to go to office early, I set the alarm for 5:00 AM. You wake up at 4:30 before the alarm can disturb me. You go to your office; in your briefcase you find a lunch box you had not packed. Along is a note saying “I love you. Guess who?”

After my lunch with a client in a café near your office, I come home. There is something bothering you. I give you the coffee mug & say “HE” was my client. You smile and we watch the movie you rented.

You are home early, lying on bed sick but you don’t call me because I am attending an important meeting. I know something is wrong & I come home to you to close the windows & put a warm rug around you.

You are awarded, you go up to the stage to say thank you. I am with your parents beaming. You take the mike, look at me, and say, “I’d like to thank my beautiful mom.” Her wrinkled face lights up. I’ll beam with pride. (Someday our son will do the same for me)

You will be away on a business tour. I will be preparing dinner. I’ll know you are at the door, I’ll open the door before you try opening with your key. You look at me & that look tells me you are sorry you could not get me anything. I smile & lit the candles set for the dinner.

Then, when I am sure that I know you perfectly well, you will surprise me on some Tuesday with a bunch of red roses on my office table.

On weekends we will go out on some lovers’ park; watch the new lovers & wonder if they would be as lucky as we have been.

Funny thing is I haven’t yet given up on this story of mine. Something still remains. hopelessly romantic still.

Juggling life between four different classes and a 9 to 5 job.

Well I don’t mind the waking up early, the running around the house shouting I AM LATE!!!! rushing from one place to another… I love all that. Makes me feel important; but mainly keeps me occupied so that I don’t have time to go over and over the my-life-is-empty vibes. However, it gets difficult when I have to manage my time between family & friends. Both important part of my life and there comes times when I don’t know which one to priorities.

And today I forgot my sis’s birthday! Well didn’t actually forget it, did wish her in the morning, but it slipped out my mind in the evening when a friend invited me to “hangout” & its been a while that I “hung out”, chilled, plus it was a FRIDAY & I was working my ass off; the hangout with friends sounded a good thing helping me to live thro the 9 hours of work work work.

Well, the phone call from home during my hangouting gave me a jolt. I had to lie and say I am in an official dinner. Darn! Well, in my defense, I didn’t know a dinner party was being planned. Nevertheless, fact remains; I missed my sis’s birthday party. That makes me a hypocrite of a sister, since I always keep lecturing nanu on how important is family and how you should priorities them first above all things.

My penance will be in buying her that nice expensive phone now. There goes my savings for a DSLR. Well, prices u have to pay to live through a lie!

Unresolved issues

There are times when I’d like to quit my office, or shout at my colleagues on top of my lungs, or plain give them a tight slap in the face. It gets tiring to be around the hypocrites. Many of the times it does not bother me, at least I don’t let it. Maybe its this unconscious suppressing that’s causing these heightened moments of hatred towards them.

People whom I hold in high regard tend to not only disappoint me, but actually cause pain inside me, their hypocrisy, their “idealism” for the sake of having one, the rudeness for appearing strong; at times I feel so much mature than them though they are double my age.

One time this lady at office told a group of us that she disliked me, she said that I reminded her of herself when she was young. I wonder why she disliked herself even then… to me she was fine. I wouldn’t care less if she hated me, because she is not that important to me.. but then my EGO, it cares what others thinks of it. So maybe, well definitely, her opinion is important in that aspect & must be one of the reasons why I am jotting this all down in my blog.

There are times when I am left at my comfortable bed thinking of them, what they said, why they said it, and what I could & should have said and done. It becomes an obsession, distraction, a mental torture if I was to put it dramatically. Now why do I let these people get me? They are not going to be a part of my long term life, neither were they part of my past, and nor are they close to my heart. Then why is it that it hurts in that inside place of my left hand, the same way it hurt when my lover left me, when tragedies happened to me… maybe it’s the fact that they scare me, yup they do scare me and believe me this is one of the hardest thing I’ve ever admitted. Ok lemme reemphasize it & get over with it “THEY SCARE ME!” phew! Now that it’s out of my chest, I can breathe better. You must know me, know me as in know me better than I, to know how much I hate getting scared by any other human being. So the fact their words, their opinions scare me itself is the biggest possible tragedy to me.

Writing this, I am finally discovering why it prevents my good sleep, keeps me from enjoying my movies. In addition, the fact that I do not have anyone to share this with must be one of the reasons that make it a bigger issue than it is. Well, don’t get the impression that am an antisocial loner. I got tons of friends, people who’d listen to me if I talked.. but then I can’t; I can’t open myself up, can’t let them see how I feel and leave me exposed like that. This reminds me, a guy I knew once said I got issues, & it was funny hearing that coz everyone’s said I am this happy go lucky person, always smiling, .. and here he dared to say I had issues. Well, I know & knew even then, that he just wanted to be “different” and make an impression by saying something unexpected. Nevertheless, even though in his ignorance, he did seem to have stumbled upon a fact that even I would not admit to myself. So…. I got issues. Same as millions and trillions and zillions of people around the globe. They always say admitting u have a problem is the first step towards solving it. So… here, I admit, I proclaim, I am shouting.. I HAVE UNRESOLVED ISSUES!!!! Now what? What is the step two? I know they would say work towards solving it. Now to this, me saying “its easier said than done” would be an understatement. Well, a lousy response to a lousier suggestion.

There is no such thing as resolving your issues. Let’s face it; resolving issues are a utopian idea marketed by the psychiatrists to earn easy money and easy status. Well this might be a little harsh, and somewhere some shrink, who is reading this (i.e. if anyone is reading this at all..), might be thinking they could help me. But this is how I feel. In the end you have to learn to live with your “issues”. Make them not bother you so much, or find a way to distract yourself when it does start bothering you. Well, I am off to finding me a distraction.

Dad and Me

Apart from some exceptions, we all love our dads and look for their approval, a word of praise.. all our life; with sad, expectant and hopeful puppy eyes. It was/is the same with me and my dad. Am the puppy looking for the master to throw the ball and receive a much desired stroke & a pat on the head, when I run and fetch it. Well, don’t get me wrong here. My dad, he is not rude to me nor does he hate me. It’s just that we don’t have the intimacy that a father and daughter are supposed to share. When we deal, it’s like dealing between a boss and a secretary; the only difference is that an office secretary does not have the luxury of shouting & banging the door when things get too frustrating. I do what he asks me to, I try to impress but his expectations… ah.. he wants perfection in a person. Who can fulfill that? Certainly not me; what with my moody character which tends to be lazy most of the times.

Since we share a very cordial relationship, there has not been much of a significant rift between me and my dad. One time there was this thing with him, I don’t remember regarding what, but I didn’t talk to him for almost a week. I didn’t even know if he’d noticed. I was polite, and would do my chores.. nothing more, no exchange of words. Then after 5-6 days of this silence, I saw the balcony table covered with my dad’s newspapers, I went to clear the table & the paper on the top had an article titled “Father & daughters share a special relationship”. This was the way my dad chose to deal with our problems. Well, knowing him, I know it’s a big step. So I decided to let go off my childish ego, and again get back to being the obedient secretary to my dad.

This arrangement with papa wouldn’t have bothered me much if it were not for the fact that my elder sister and dad were so much better together. She shared with papa something I never did or could. Even when they are just watching TV, quietly in each others company, I could feel the harmony and mutual acceptance. You might think this is plain sibling jealousy and I am imagining things. But I lived it through every day. Seeing my didi and papa getting on well – fighting, shouting at each other, sharing office anecdotes, jokes… and to think that I never felt (and will never in future) comfortable with him. Why? Didi and me, we are both Aquarians and dad is Leo. Leos & Aquarians are supposed to do well.. It proved well in didi’s case but not mine.

Anyways, when didi started getting serious about going abroad for studies, I was happy. Happy that finally she’d be out of the picture and maybe then dad would notice me, love me and talk to me as I wanted him to, as he did with didi. Now please don’t get me wrong here. I love my didi and plus she’d be happy in US with her boyfriend. & if I’d also be happy here with papa, whats wrong in that?

Well, after few months, didi left, and I was all hopeful. But things between dad & me remained same; it didn’t get better as I’d hoped. We did have our rare father-daughter moments, but it was so rare that the distance between these moments felt like ages. But today, at this present time, I can happily say its better. After 8 months of didi leaving, my dad finally realized he needs me, will have to depend on me, and with errands he making me do, errands he usually had my didi do, he depended more on me and when I’d do it good, he actually sometimes EXPRESSED his pride in me!!! These moments are my Oscar moments; not that I know how it feels to win an Oscar, but am pretty much sure that’s how it feels. So, now in some evenings I go to dad’s room, sit on his bed & talk about didi, nanu, family matters. Though it grew out of mutual dependence, I finally have a father daughter relationship with my dad. Its of course not like the ones where one gets to shriek out “Papa u r the world’s greatest dad” in some father-daughter softball competition, but its satisfactory, and in this case, I am happy with satisfactory.