Sunday, November 12, 2006

A very rough ride

No one said marriage was going to be easy. But what makes it so difficult?

What do you do – exactly how do you break the limbo when both involved believe in the superiority or worse still, righteousness of their own argument? Tough nut to crack that.

I don’t think we have quite broken out of that state of mind yet, where a woman’s in-laws are “now her family”, while the guy’s in-laws well, they are “her family”! What really raises my heckles is that every pot-shot taken at me is on account of reactiveness at one taken at him or his parents. Oh c'mon, get original will you? And if you think that's unfair, wait till you find out what I did to him!

At the end of the day though, is it all really worth it? Even marriage itself, is the momentary romance of “having found your soul mate” really worth losing your independence, your devil-may-care attitude towards life? And gaining of all that weight mind you? Why is it that a woman in a happy marriage puts on weight, while the man just becomes this attractively unavailable man with a gold band on his finger beckoning the Helen in all single women?

Oh I could rave and rant about all the ill marriage has done me. And it would take a while. But why then on most days does it feel like I finally got something right?

Beats me – all in all its just a very rough ride.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Et Tu, Zizou??!

World Cup weighs heavy on the minds of all soccer fans today - and I mourn alongwith countless other French team fans.

To me Zizou has been a study in leadership and skill - especially since the 1998 World Cup that France won. I like watching sports and I always seem to pick a level-headed, rather colorless but highly skilled player for a favorite. Zizou being one of those. Of course, I wonder alongside millions of fans about what could've provoked him to throw away a chance to be a worshipped god-like figure post-retirement with that head butt. But I think the bigger question is - what happens next for Zizou? For the most part am sure its just going to be an interesting few months or a year for him and then right back on track. He's far too talented!

One point I'd like to make here - Zizou has made no statements about the comment from Materazzi that made him lose his cool, he's not going to play the blame game. I think that's good 'ol Zizou for all of us.

Besides... even heroes have the right to bleed.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Married Indian women can't have a life...

Might hurt a few people mentioning this - but if they could look outside the "I", what a perfect study in human interaction some of my recent conversations with male friends would make!!

Here I am, married, settled - and immediately off the market. Well, of course I am - I am off the marriage market, just didn't think that was inclusive of "long interesting conversations with male friends". Now don't get me wrong, I love my sweetheart of a husband to death... but wait, does that mean I AM dead??

Let me back-track a bit. If you've ever read my blog before, you'll see my slow progression from singlehood to wedded life. It wasn't an easy road. But down that path, in my exploits, I met some amazing people, interacted with an interesting lot. Most of whom I connected with via my self-expression, my "vedicverses". There was one such interaction that started just before I met and married my soulmate. It started off well, through a couple of long emails, seemed to be going into the interesting realm of philosophy and debate... and then one day, I posted on my blog my happy tale of sudden and mind-blowing wedlock. The next day onwards, the emails trickled down to one, maybe two lines. I remember smiling wryly in my mind, and putting it away into that one little compartment in my head where I stuff all the ruddy memories of my life. But sometimes, things come back to you, and you wonder... "nothing really changes ever, does it?"

Growing up in a school where I never fit in, I tried making friends with some who just saw me as an eccentric gal with crazy ideas or a target for adolescent passions. Either ways, it meant ostracization for me - adolescence can be cruel, do you remember? I still can't bring myself to interact with that "yahoo group"... can never help being afraid of those unspoken judgements, being paranoid that someone is snickering, waiting for me to stumble and make a fool of myself. I grew up to meet some of that lot, who felt equally ostracized or alone in their school years, and yet when the time came to be different, turns out they were just the same born in the same flesh mirroring all they despised.

That's what makes us alone, doesn't it? The neediness, the dire craving to fit in?

For all my eccentricity, I am but an Indian married woman at the end of the day. Someone you can't debate with, discuss philosophies with... someone who just stepped over that threshold to a place where women can't have a life. Oh well, like I always say - C'est La Vie :)

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Poem: Alone

A firefly lights a spot
Two can light the same only brighter still;
Hope can float on little wings or
Glide us by,
Its but a matter of will

A star will sparkle in a darkened sky
Another one needn't be by
Yet a speckled dusting of glitter turns
A horror into a lullaby

A swanling swims in a swampy pool
Scorned and mocked by the duckling school
Until a honking white flock gathers near
Taking Ugly to the azure too

Why then are we not comforted?
Why then does alone prevail?

(c) VedicVerses (Rucha Gokhale)

Friday, April 28, 2006

Movers? No Pizza for you

Don't ask me why... let me just say that the experience of having offered... well, stinks! :)

We're all moved in, still a bunch of unpacked boxes lying around. But it finally feels like home. And despite the apparent lack of interest men show in all things domestic, its just a big old sham! My husband loves the place, stares out all windows admiring the view, and missed the old place all of ONE minute! :)

Ok, I have a confession to make. I lost my temper rather viciously with him for a very small reason... and I feel very very bad for it. I may blame it on tiredness, and I was VERY tired too. But to be, well, honest, I think it was just a case of "Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely." Yep, in a-Snowball-of-George-Orwell-fame-way.

It happened like this: As the day wore on, I found my better half (I'll give you that only this time mind) depending more and more on me for all the decision-making. I felt powerful, and in the absence of sugar (chocolate), power rushed to my head. Fueled by "The Find" - a plastic bag filled with garbage, neatly stashed in one of the boxes packed by the perpetrator (my husband, for clarification, in case the story so far has befuddled your brains) - my rage came as a complete surprise to the poor, unsuspecting humanoid from Mars!

Oh come on! I feel bad enough. I definitely am owed a lousy excuse to be a steam kettle for all that hard work I put in! Aren't I??

Sunday, April 23, 2006

God and moving apartments

Alrite you got me... they really haven't got much to do with each other except for the fact that thinking about both is scheduled for me this week for completion by the weekend! :)

One's a theme for a read meet and the other an actual task...

Moving on: using my blog today as an excuse to e-ink with my new shiny apple laptop, my very first mac!! my candid exprience till date? I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT!!! :)

Good to know that apple is going the mass consumer way... for us lesser beings who are officially non-geeky and fat but still would love to be seen alongside a beautiful and slender Mac! (Yes I am smitten, can you tell??)

Except for the battery life no complaints so far.

Also the next beautiful thing scheduled for me is my new apartment... a dream home on lease for a year... we pay our entire salary towards the rent, but that's something I'd rather not admit to in public :D So this beauty of an apartment is right by the marina (I told my niece we can go fishing in our balcony next weekend, you can join us if you like!) and has a gorgeous view of the Lady Liberty. Ok so we'll probably enjoy the apartment for all of three spectacular summer months and then get grouchy about it all of winter (which equates to about 3/4ths of a year!) - not so much cos its unbearably cold (its not really) but cos I'll have howling windows by the bedroom window, and you know what howling winds can do to my alien invasion nightmares... yes, they just add the sound track to those little movie clips of my imagination. And being the-evil-breaker-of-neighboring-arms-while-watching-scary-movies-through-fingerly-gaps that I am, its really not cool :)

And yes the God thing, well its just that I have to write something around that topic for this meet thingie I have scheduled. I really hate the person who set me up for this... wait a minute, wasn't that person me?

Ok my new year's resolution, not to set myself up for things I know I will procrastinate doing. Now all I have to do is wait for December 31st to make it (the resolution)! :)

Monday, March 13, 2006

One-night stand

morning comes
she stands akimbo
spewing wrath
at the mere hint
of weakness

in all aplomb
yet in limbo
for her free path
is strewn with the lint
of amorousness

her heart's aflutter
it spies an angel
amidst blissful snores
morning breath
smelly farts et al

the love-laced clutter
of her mind is in danger
as her spirit soars
in a lustful spate
only to fall

a welcome quagmire
beckons and embraces
sucking her in
to notorious places

after all she thinks
freedom is lackluster
until it goads
fettered passion to fester

(c) VedicVerses




Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Feminism defeated?

March 7, 2006

Today – a day before the internationally celebrated International Women’s Day – is one of those many days when my highly opinionated feminist ideas of living are conveniently forgotten, for I want to chuck them aside for a moment just to look like the women at the Oscars. A Jessica Alba body would be nice, but then it may just be easier for me to achieve a Salma Hayek perhaps.


Its not so much about the lost cause of feminism as it is about the alarming rate at which one seems to put on weight in this god forsaken country!! So honestly, yeah you can't blame a country for my current size (I am almost the size of a country now) but I blame Coke... they lied. Diet Coke is not a supplement you can depend on when you're trying to go on a crash diet!

So I had to make the hardest decision of my life today - I must stop drinking coke, and begin to drink water when I'm thirsty as my forefathers did before my time!

P.S: Tea with three sugars and 2 creams is OK. After all baby steps is where its at!

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Home of my dreams

Typical human discontent, this couldn't be.

Everytime friends discuss buying a home, the options, the towns, the choices - my mind stops working, and I give a little sub-conscious shudder. Make a home here? Oh God NO! "But why not?" friends ask, "Don't you like New Jersey?" Well, of course the answer is no. No, I don't like New Jersey. But its not just that. This just doesn't feel like home... just doesn't feel like I could be Queen of my castle here, in this huge land of big opportunities.

Am I like Jhumpa's Ashima and Ashoke, just another first generation immigrant, who feels it her duty to be in touch with all things Indian? My mother would laugh at the mere idea... I stayed away from all things Indian even in India... Nothing in New Jersey could inspire me to pursue that path!

Move to another state perhaps? The mere thought is frightening. Not big into social gatherings, but I love my daily portions of people. The complete lack of it would render my mind, emotions, senses useless. Things were different when I was in Buffalo... I was studying at the University then, that's a whole different eco-system that you can never get over, regardless of what country you're in. But now, it would be impossible to move elsewhere. Elsewhere where there are no avenues open to meet people like in New York City...

I think the matter is quite simply stated - home is where the heart is. My heart is still in Nasik... I'll complain, hate it most days, but nothing can replace it... I'll always miss home... perhaps return to it someday when I've had enough of my "real-world" adventures...

Here's one for the motherland :)

Home of my dreams

I break into a cold sweat
At a lingering thread
Of a dream
Falling, weightless
Into the darkness -
In a short, abrupt scream

What of this fear?
Me, I walked away
From a place dearly loved
In search of a home
For my aspirations;
Anchored instead to a hostile cove

Perhaps, off-course,
But now my ship has sailed
Into an obscuring fog -
A warm blanket -
Whilst livid waves yip at its sides
Like an unfriendly dog:
My first mate at my side
He and I sealed our fate
To ride this storm together;
But the comfort it gives
Is dwindling; Will the warmth remain
After years of this dank weather?

Yes, I've walked away
From a place I loved:
Wine country, undiscovered
Little knolls, and tall grass;
In my backyard we loafed -
Me and my dogs, untethered
My head in their laps
Eyes on the blue clouds
Dreaming up a life
Of free choices, of travel
Hippie-dom, of being chic
Far from bourgeois strife

Yet in a blink my ship has sailed
There's no looking back:
Strangely bridled in my free rein
Unspoken, then cacophonic
Unclear, then vivid
Boundaries forever spring
Lying hopefulness
Of a lost childhood
No longer protects but stings
Truth sometimes bitter
Mostly bland, that once was
Pictured exciting

All this and then some
Part misgivings, part fear:
In their wake, wildly clutching
Frail gossamer strands
Of fragile childish wishes -
Made on falling stars, in evening skies -
For a home just like this one
Somewhere in Neverland.

As evening comes
Yapping pups and I
Return to a home once loved:
As the doors shut
I fall weightless into darkness
Jerk awake, back to my groove

(c) VedicVerses

Monday, January 23, 2006

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Yet another tragic love affair
Began with a notably dignified air.
Amorous friends, I've made a few
Romantic tales painted grey-blue
Each one told avec savoir-faire!

Years have passed since puberty
All friends look to lose their liberty
Nuptial news float through my little town
Match-makers all too many abound
Anxious matriarchs swap ideas at the Rotary.

Winters are cool in this tropical place
Perfect setting for all that wedding lace
At dusk the elders gather for a collective swig
They feast, they sing, dance an inelegant jig
As the newly-weds swing to a different pace.

I share in their joys virtually
Slouching by a 17" screen
As the celebrations wind down
And seeds of future dreams are sown
I settle into a fleeting melancholy.

Life goes on for each new couple made
Soon out of touch with the class of '98
Is that the outlook?
Not a single pal off the hook?
From youthfulness to an aged jade?

In a corner all sulky and blue
Surfing sitcoms where friends are true
A gentle arm reaches out
Cuddles me as I pout -
Just one of those doldrums he often sees me through.

(c) VedicVerses