Happy woman?

Very cluttered. Skip if not in the mood to decipher the labyrinth of my brain.

What makes women happy? Fay Weldon, my most favourite author tried to answer the question in her book with the same title as the question. I think her list went, sex, chocolate, shopping, friends, etc. Not necessary in that order though. She says that women feel happiness in small moments. For example, when the sun rises on a perfect day and she stands in her blooming garden, she feels happy, for about 5 minutes. But unadulteratedly happy. Then the moment passes. According to her, a woman's 'Happiness' is the sum total of these very short-lived happy moments. I just hope I am able to be peaceful. Happiness is so fleeting that it scares me. I can get addicted to happiness and its scary how sad sadness feels after a bout of happiness. But one cant escape the race for happiness. One mortal can't. My quest for peace of mind sounds phoney and pretentious even to me sometimes. Fay Weldon says, 'Be Good.' And 'Good will happen to you.' Karma- I believe is a a just bitch. Back to finding happiness. Love. It's scary how that seems to be the answer everywhere I look. The concept of another human being fulfilling a need in me seems unfair to me. If our goal of finding meaning/happiness in our lives ended with our finding love with another, I am sure we would have been born in pairs. However, we are born alone. Left alone to make sense of everything we see/hear/feel around us. Our parents aren't gods, we realise sometime soon. Our siblings not our best friends. Our friends not our soulmates. We are back to square one. Of course, we can spend our lives trying to analyse/figure out/make sense of the human condition. It's futile of course. For we are bound by our human limitations. And accepting the futility of our fragile human condition doesn't seem to be easy. Oh How we strive. For we are the only species that can. We form memories, we retain, we have a thumb. So we build, we make, we invent. Isn't it funny! We invented a currency. I think human civilisation(?) peaked when we gave intrinsic value to paper. But I digress. I was looking for meaning of life. The question Why? Isn't really answerable. So we do the next best thing. We live. We try pretending that we are doing more than just existing. We write novels, poems, make movies, music, so much to validate our human birth. There is beauty in it I suppose. In this effort. That there is strife and we still live is beautiful I suppose. That we created language, that we gave credence to art, I suppose in a way is a victory of our human birth. And we created religion and we went back to square one. But I digress. What makes me happy? Food, alcohol, sex. Easy answers these. But what sucks is that happiness doesn't make me happy anymore. I still feel joy. Yes. I try to hold onto that. So. Yes am still living. I still have an unnameable hope. But I suffer. For nothing seems to help any more. Not food, alcohol or sex either. Prozac might, sleep may. And then I wake up and am back to square one. The trick is to be normal. To belong to your community no matter what. To hold on to your roots/caste/religion/morals/what your parents taught, etc. If you are a freak and you begin to question any of that...that's it for you then. Back to square one.

Waiting @ Mocha

The wait is always the same. Don't get me wrong. For an impatient girl, I enjoy waiting. The nothing-to-do ness of the wait has a very calming effect on me. My mind rushes on with images of what can be. I practise imaginary conversations which in a few minutes or so may come to fruit. The drama at the end of the wait, especially if of a romantic nature, always fulfills its prophecy. The one waiting, the Waiter, is a step ahead of course. She has come on time and encountered stray gazes. She can now set the stage. The legs are perfectly folded, the hair tucked behind her ear, the half-finished cigarette between her pink-tipped fingers perfectly poised over the fresh ash-tray. If the wait is longer than a few minutes, her fingers now entwine the crook of a tea cup. The moment's arrived for the waitee has too. Is she facing the doorway or did she have it in her to expose her back to the door and win at the game of not caring. If she has seen him come in, catching his gaze and holding it, with or without a smile, is a good way to begin an episode. However, waiting for him to approach her from behind has its perks. To keep her neck open to prey, albeit, the romantic kinds, takes courage and shows her lack of fear of the future, of the unknown and her non-chalance.

The uninnitiated to the wait, resort to a book. The feiging hasn't been mastered yet. Pitying glances from fellow revelleres worry them still. The mind has not been honed to accept the fatality of a wait.

The wait. An oasis of me-time of nothingness in between a day filled with moments of purposefulness for others. Next time you are awaiting, treat yourself to the glorious drama of it. Spectate yourself. Order a cup of tea, light that cigarette, take a deep breath and wait with me.

The Insomniac's Pillowcase.

I write about you tonight,

dear cotton god.

Of how you suffer the indignities

of my 'toss and turn's.

Begining at my neck,

often in between my legs,

finally on the floor you rest.

Sleepless creases shape

your otherwise benign form.

Moist patches from desperate

douses wet you cold.

Dear cotton god,

how you help me bear the night.

It's stillness.

The nothing-to-do ness.

And how in the afternoon,

i toss you,

like the ineffectual day

tossed the potent night away.

Rosh Posh

Pearls (‘o wisdom)

Drop

From your palms (rough)

From your lips (strangely white)

Your skin smell of melons (bodyshop)

Your hair smooth and curling (dove)

Pearls (aforementioned)

You drop carelessly (as careless s you are with money and..tax)

I pretend not to notice (cos you loved more those who loved you less)

I have a wooden box (mahogany)

Filled with your mouth, your brain, your heart and soul (as for your body.....)

Along with your pearls.

My wooden box is heavy and aches with posthumous love ( you know I am just kidding myself)

Your pearls (of love, caresses and unconditional affection)

Pink and grey (like the salt water ones you loved)

Rest within my melancholic box.

Meeting @ Mocha.

She waited. She'd arrived a minute early. He would be 17 late. She doesn't know that yet, and she doesn't mind. Arriving early is noble and she does it with a practised ease. She pities the late arriver, of course, for he starts with a disadvantage, but she never admonishes them. She has always graciously brushed aside apologies for lateness. It's tough to be punctual, she knows. No, she didn't mind. She wasn't bored. Nobody is bored around her, least of all, herself.

She waits still. Quaint blue tea-cups on mis-matched orange saucers arrive. Earl gray at 8. She takes a deep breath, exhales and takes a sip of the tea. All's right with the world. She lights a cigarette. Stray glances, at a woman smoking in public, hit her face and slide off at her non-chalance. Lookers-oners look away. It hurts them to try and penetrate her private bubble. Her oasis of solitude affects the cheerful mood at the next table and the converstaion dies down a bit.

She waits still, now contemplating her next move. Should she smoke her last cigarette? She let's it be. Play SuDoKu? She doesn't feel like rummaging through her vast green bag to look for her phone. Instead she gazes ahead and tries to concentrate on the noise around her. The collective hum of the conversation of the 17 tables around her gathers her in and soothes her with its benignity. She looks for a rhythm in the voice of the crowd and smiles to herself. It is so easy to feel alone, to experience solitude amidst a crowd. The urbanity of the in-comprehensible hum lulls her to comfort like it always has. It reminds her of her childhood mornings when she would wake up to her mother's chants. The noise of the chants spelt Morning, God, Clean Room, Incense and a Mother Smelling of Sandalwood. She had never known the individual meaning of the sanskrit words. Suddenly, she catches a few words from the table closest to her. She frowns. She turns the other way and starts humming to herslf as if to shut her ears. The table laughs in unison. She smiles and her palms unclench. She lights the last cigarette in the pack and awaits.

'What does it even matter what he has to say, really,' she thinks, 'I know why he wants out of this....' She stops to look for an appropriate word. She looks around to stare at the Jackfruit tree. Her friends would have provided 'Relationship,' she settles for 'Entanglement.' 'He is scared of course.' She continues to talk to herself, her tongue actually moving behind her clenched teeth. Her jaws tighten with the effort of not speaking aloud. She laughs at herself.

'I need to keep a blank mind. I can't let him know what all I presume for all my presumptions are right and he will get more scared at being so transparent to me and run faster. I'll keep the topics neutral. I'll talk about my sister or the Weather.' She decides and pulls the scarf closer around her neck.

She looks around now for him. 18 minutes have passed by.'Where is he?' She spots him entering through the door, with a phone in one hand at his ear, calling her and a book in the other. Her phone rings in the vast green bag. She ignores it and instead looks at him frantically searching for her. She smiles. He looks so young. So vulnerable, So his age. She waves at him and beckons him over, relieving him of his fear of having to wait for her alone.

There are certain un-explainable (not inexplicable) things about me. (Am not saying they make me unique) These I realise at weird times and I amaze at my belief in magic-of-sorts (and other cutesie things)

I think that 27 is a magical age. In films and books, the most amazing characters will be 27. They stand at the edge of the rest of their life at this age.

I think 28 is the coolest age. There is something very rounded and stable about this Age. It's as if, Now You Are Wise.

I am currently 27 and my favourite age is 23. I find this age irresistible. Of course, it's not the age per se but people of this age...but the co-incidences are amazing! All these amazingly yummy people I meet, whose brain I wanna lick (ewww, I know!) or who I just wanna gulp up whole are all 23.

When 2 people kiss for the first time (and mean it..not drunken/friendly kisses) their souls get a bit exchanged. Their thoughts and desires and goals (not of life, but or that moment or the person changes...interchanges)

If you laugh a lot, you will cry soon. (I think it's a neurotic thing..happens to me all the time!)

I like words like Inexplicable, Astonishing, Inadmissible, Admonishing. I think thats cos they are pronounced like they are spelt. (This thing wants me to believe that the spelling of spelt is wrong..but I wont give in)

I wish to be recognised as the cute thing that I am. Despite my size, heft, intuition, IQ, sense of humour, vocabulary, education, sex, I want to be CUTE!!!

I like it when I am treated like am fragile or weak just cos am a girl (believe me it dont happen often... ) for because of my size, heft, intuition, IQ, sense of humour, vocabulary, education, I am usually treated with asexual respect or like one of the guys. (It sucks if the guys doing this are cute!)

If I see something new and I wonder what would he think of it? If I envy anyone he is close to or spends happy moments with? If he is constantly in my head? Does that mean I am in love?

Whats love anyway?

I felt happy today. Actually, I don't even know if this is happiness anymore. But I smiled. Wide. That must mean something right? A smile escaping me inspite of me. My dog barked at the pigeons. She hates pigeons. And by now she knows that they fly away and come back as soon as her back is turned but she barks at them and rushes towards them nonetheless. She did the same this afternoon. For the millionth time. It's like she'll never learn. Or may be she hopes that this time, her bark will work. I smiled. 5 in the evening is a very special time for me. I sit on my perch and smoke. Usually with a book in my hand. Yesterday and today, I noticed this lady, skipping the rope. I couldn't judge her age. Her face was disfigured. Either badly burnt or it was congenital. Very middle-class looking, wearing a very neat saree, she skips rope with kids in her building. I smiled. I felt happy today.

Reporting from Arunlekha's cluttered brain once again.

The state right now is that I had a refreshing (unexpectedly!) day with a friend I have known for the last 10 years. A friend, I hardly considered one, as she never matched me intellectually and was such a bad introspector, that I didn't value her friendship much. I know this above sentence smells of narcissism and other horrible things. I am all those other horrible things. I am beginning to feel that I have lost some human-ness for am growing so secure and confident and honest about my being that I am unable to connect with people, because I see in them what they are not able to see yet (but that's for a later post) But, today after almost 2 years, I could be honest to my friend. And had a good time . A great time in fact. To her, she who has seen all my antics, to whom my craziness is not crazy anymore (it stopped being crazy 9 years ago), I was less an object of curiosity, less a circus freak (ok am stretching my strangeness now) and more as a flawed, albeit, happier Uglygirl. You know what? I wasn't an Uglygirl today. I have dropped many many barriers, and today I realised I have dropped another. I haven't been using my strong, silent, resilient, aggressive Uglygirl barrier for a while now. For about, 7 months, I have been me. Me at 27. I have now come to terms with my differences. I don't want to pretend anymore. I don't want to don social/corporate/diplomatic/practical/pragmatic or any of those soul-numbing masks anymore. The masks pierce through to the inner me and dilutes and defiles a much happier, if wistful me. I know I sound like I've read a lot of self-help books and have discovered the true meaning of life, and in today's world, I sound like a fool. And you know what? Am OK with that. Totally, completely, utterly secure with what I am today. If something hurts me now, I cry with joy, for I felt something. I wonder at my ability to wonder. I am an honest person. Always have been. For I am good. I don't do things that make me guilty. (but if I feel guilty, I rejoice at that too, fuck~! What a feeling this Guilt is). Of course, I seem screwed up. We all are. WE ALL ARE. At least, I am not pretending otherwise. Pretension, low self-esteem, inflated ego, insecurity are fucking hammers, with which we hit at our own tin cans of life. Then instead of getting rid of the hammer, we try to straighten out our out-of-shape cans. Getting rid of the hammer is difficult. Hoping nobody sees the obvious marks of where the hammer hit us, is stupid and easier. If this selfish society sees your marks (and oh! It will), it will laugh at you, talk behind your back, and make you feel bad. (Why? That makes them forget the pain of their hammer hurts). The more you feel bad, the stronger will the hammer get. And the pain and the suffering continues. Of course, a lucky few, don't see the hammer or feel the pain. They are the blessed, for they are ignorant. They all feel the pin-pricks (where others feel the blow) and shrug it off. They carry on with practicality, pragmatism and other such dry (not to mention soul-sucking) words and live 'happy' lives within the selfish society. Of course I use the term 'Selfish' very very loosely. Society as a whole is selfish, we who make up the society are self-less. For we endure the hammer. Why am I blaming the 'society' for our individual insecurities, esteem issues and the like. I am not very good with words and so at this point I apologize. For we were all born Potentially perfect. Beaming, selfish, happy (truly happy, and with potential for extreme joy). Then our flawed parents happened. Then their flawed religion. The flawed schools and their flawed methods of teaching. Sexual awareness happened, followed by flawed moral guidelines. Flawed 'Social' taboos. Flawed media. Flawed ideas of 'love.'

I too hate the word perfect and love the word flawed. So Let's now interchange the 2.

For we were all born Potentially Flawed. Beaming, selfish, happy (truly happy, and with potential for extreme joy). Then our perfect parents happened. Then their perfect religion. The perfect schools and their perfect methods of teaching. Sexual awareness happened, followed by The Right (Perfect=the best=the most right?) moral guidelines.....and the rest.

I don't want to live this way. This perfect way. The only way we are taught to live. I want to live. Not to reach great heights, conquer the world, prove myself, achieve fame, beat you at sudoku and the like. I want to experience each fucking moment with the utmost energy I have. I want to use what I was born with. The brain. I want to use the mind (which bless it's soul baulked at the idea of the practical and the pragmatic)and the inherent Human soul and ask 'Why?' to everything I hear. Just as we did at the age of 2. And not settle for anything but the complete honesty we deserve.

Ask the question 'Why?' to whom? The only one who matters anyway. To your 'me.' We introspect. Till we can flush out our social conditioning, we introspect. And we be good. After all this, there is a good? (one may ask) Yes. (I asked me yesterday, the answer was in the affirmative) We be the the fucking best we can be. This time with complete awareness of the self. We meditate our every fucking motive. Be honest. HONEST.

As I write this now, am I aware of what I am feeling about this as a blog post? Will the 2-3 friends who read this be impressed? I don't fucking know. Ok let's try again. 'Do I like what I just wrote?' Yes. Why do I like it? Cos I was fucking honest. Am I not scared of being judged by smart people? No. Why not? Cos I was fucking honest.

I left the story of the friend of 10 years untold. Our relationship soured (I don't think she was aware that it did. And that was the second reason) for a boy. A moral dilemma I put forth now. Her Ex of 6-8 months, whom I found hot, called me one day and started talking dirty. He was by then seeing another girl and my friend was with another boy. Her X and I started an adulterous (look how posh am being) relationship. It lasted about 1 year. He still had a girlfriend and my friend still had a boyfriend. After about a year of 'it.' I fell in love with him. I asked him to leave his GF. He asked for time. He took 1 month. Came back saying, he can't. I took 1 more month. Stopped talking to him. I never told my friend anything, cos I knew she was still pining for X, and though they were broken up, my 'relationship' with her X would have hurt her. I was being Practical, pragmatic and thus secretive. This screwed up our friendship, for I turned out to be a sensitive person (who knew?) and keeping a secret from a friend made it difficult for me to be a friend. I told her last week. She was not angry or unhappy with me (or may be she was and she lied to me, dishonesty is the villain of this story) and we bettered our bond and I had a great time and I think so did she.

The Moral Dilemma? The only problem (in retrospect)I had was that I was lying to my friend. Did I think of X's girlfriend? No. Why not? I didn't know her and I felt no compulsion to lie to her or tell her the truth. How could I love X when he was a 'cheater'? I love flaws and don't hold it againest anyone. Why did I want him to break up with the girl friend? I don't know. Love is irrational and I hate sharing. If you loved him, why & how could you cut all ties? He hurt me (and my ego) and I love me the most.

Ok story and Q&A over. Now my question to you is. Would you judge me? Or X? Or my friend for still pining for X though she was in a relationship with her BF?

I can't. I can't judge no one. For we are all humans, flawed. And only the society as a whole has come up with words like 'Wrong' 'Right' 'Slut' 'Sin' and the like. Individually, in a lone room, a lot of the society would feel 'Nothing.' (For Fuck's sake, how does this story concern you in the first place? Who made you Umpire?). To a judging group (I know I keep saying 'Society,' but you know right I mean 'Religion,' 'culture' and the like) that answer would not be acceptable. (Why? we love to hear our own voice me thinks) It would smell of a Moral Lack.

Ok... If you were X's girlfriend (or her friend), how would you feel then? You would hate him (and may be me, though you don't really know me) for the emotional pain he caused you (or your friend).

Would you call me a whore (or an equivalent)?

Ask yourself 'why?' and let me know the answer in a comment. (If you read the 1606 words of it, that is)

Tag (I Tag Medusa and Amber Scriven)

8 TV shows/News Channels I like to watch:
- CNN IBN, Lost, Friends, How I met Your Mother, Bones, Dexter, Mentalist, House.

8 Places to eat and dine:
10 Downing street, Uthpura, Mocha, Deli 9, Aromas of China, Chutneys, Pulusu, Barbecue Nation.

8 Things I Look Forward To:
- Monsoon
- Movies which have Aamir khan in it.
- The Oscars.
- The next ‘Love.’
- 6 pack abs.
- Getting published.
- Own house.
- Motherhood?

8 Things That Happened Yesterday:
- I drank milk three times
- Watched Lost and Bones on T.V lying on my couch.
- Slept most of the day.
- Had a dream about a place in Hyderabad, which I saw today and it looked so different from the dream.
- Missed all my friends’ Calls
- Started reading Fahrenheit 451, Thank you Abhijeet!.
- Saw the face of the love of my life on facebook after like 7 years .
- Discovered a fellow Agatha Christian.

8 Things I love about Winter:
- I can wear scarves.
- I can skip a bath somedays.
- I can skip the deo somedays.
- The chill. And when you are on a bike at 4 in the morning, and the wind brings tears to your eyes!
- The Sun
- The mothball smell of my mother’s winterwear.
- Shorter Days
- Oranges.

8 Things on my Wish-list:
- Tickets to Scotland (travel and stay)
- Ditto for Ireland.
- New glasses.
- A new hair cut.
- To lose another 8 kgs.
- A kitten.
- a T.V in my room
- Becoming a vegetarian.

8 Things I am Passionate about: food, men, women, dancing, talking, books, reading, and writing.

8 Words/Phrases I often use: Huuuuge, What the…., ‘It’s so funny,’ ‘Listen na..,’ ‘means?’ Theek hai, ‘I sooooo want to….,’ ‘Fuck.’

8 Things I learnt from the past:
- True happiness is in real peace.
- I am a secure person and thus most likely to be lonely.
- And am not completely upset with that fact.
- I love humanity.
- I hate violence.
- Sadness and happiness are so alike that they can be confused with the other.
- I love me.
- I find it difficult to say no to women.

8 Places I would like to go /Visit: Ireland, Scotland, Darjeeling, Yercaud, again, Goa again, New York, Paris, Kolkata,

8 Things I currently need/want: peace of mind, to lose 8 kgs, to cut hair, a tattoo, sleep, to be immune to all the illnesses in the world, to be strong and fit, to move out of home.