Two to tango....

"Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart."

~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

As a kid growing up in India, I used to come across several stray dogs in the neighbourhood. Most of these dogs, emaciated and bodies covered with sores used to incite feelings of abhorrence and disgust in people who came across them. Paranoia of rabid dogs usually induced people, especially kids in the neighbourhood to chase these unfortunate animals out of the area mainly by throwing stones at them. Sometimes when the stones found their target, you would hear the pitiful cries of the animal while it scurried away, badly limping. The squeals which you would expect to die would later be picked up octaves higher when some other kid would direct his meanness on the ill-fated dog in the neighbouring streets.

Lately reading about the Iranian woman Ashtiani in the news, condemned to a stoning sentence for adultery, I am vividly recollecting these stoning episodes of dogs from my childhood days. It is sad enough to witness such deeds against stray animals, but likening a human to a mere animal and subjecting him/her to such draconian penal codes, it leaves you wondering if humanity is really prevalent in these days. What use is morality when you kill the very seeds of compassion and empathy in a society?

I am struggling to understand the macabre connection of stones and adultery in most cultures. Yes everybody is fully aware of the punishment for adultery in both the Old and New Testament of the Bible, but did not the Lord Himself condemn this barbarous act? In the Indian myths, we have the story of an adulterous woman turned into a stone by the curse of her husband? Atleast, the Indian race given their gentle disposition and less inclination towards violence, gave the woman a deliverance from her ordeal than an actual punishment - in any case here the woman is not subjected to judgement or ostracism or even traumatic experiences unlike her modern day counterparts.

As much as I would like to write about the grave injustice of the harrowing ordeal this woman and few other females languishing in Iranian prisons are undergoing, I can truly see the futility of my words. The international intervention and scrutiny this case has received has still not seen the liberation of this woman. Nor am I going to rally my sagging spirits and cast my stones against the Sharia Law especially in the holy month of Ramadan. Besides not fully equipped with the knowledge of the Islamic faith and principles, I would merely be seen as someone baying at the full moon. Neither am I going to empathize with these women who are very unfortunate in living in the wrong society and in the wrong culture nor condemn their folly when they ought to have been fully aware of the consequences of their actions living in a non-secular country.

But my curiosity is about the men involved in these acts - where are they in the picture? Why is the media silent about these men? Are they not worth mentioning because they have been acquitted of their guilt or they never were found to be guilty in the first place? Where are the men to catch the "fallen" women as the society labels them? Why does it take two to tango but one to burn at the stakes - in this case the women who are stoned? The reply, my dear genteel folks, even though stoning is not a gendered punishment, usually the men are allowed to get away with adultery given that polygamy is never frowned upon in the Islamic states.

What words of comfort can one offer these women, who perhaps driven by inexplicable needs have chosen to break the rules of their marriage but are now left to languish and wallow on their own in the aftermath of their passion - bereft even of the solace of the ones they sought earlier? How pitiable is their fate if they are discarded and thrown away even by the very men they chose to violate the sanctity of their marriage for? These women, left alone to face public scrutiny and ostracism and subjected to harsh judgement in the eyes of their loved ones -- have they not already died a little - what more are the courts going to achieve by flogging or stoning a lifeless corpse?

Alas, the saga of the Scarlet Letter repeats again........

Two minutes please.....

"The BEST part of waking up? Hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep."

- Anon

- It is 6.45, are you not getting up?

- Mmmm, 2 more minutes.....

- It is 7.00 !!! It is your turn to go early to work, remember !!!

- Yeah, yeah I do........just 2 more minutes please....

- It is getting late, you don't want to be late....

- I know, I know........I am getting up....soon...

This is how my mornings begin, with almost an identical conversation every single day........well and truly I can never boast of being a morning person.

I gather myself groggily from bed and with all the longing a mother has for her newborn, I turn back and give a yearning look at my still warm bed. I envy the slumbering family, their few extra minutes of sleep while I trudge slowly towards my shower. The cold manages to seep through, despite my heavy layers and I shudder at the prospect of getting ready for work. I am tempted to get back into the bed and snuggle under the covers but work beckons.

Even as a child, waking up early used to be the bane of my existence. My dad was fond of repeating the well-worn phrase "The early bird catches the worm". I ended up pitying the worm for waking up early and getting caught but yeah try telling my dad that........as a result, I used to bid a tearful farewell to my beauty sleep every morning and fervently attempted to master the art of sleeping with my eyes open. The moment he stepped away from the scene, I used to sneak back into my bed and slip into an uneasy but nevertheless welcome slumber......my ears sensitively attuned to the sound of the bathroom latch opening, an indication that my post at the study table has to be resumed. Passing years have not made much of a difference......I now sleep with my ears tuned to the alarm tone on my mobile. What can I say, I am totally powerless under the mighty spell of sleep incarnate, Somnus :)

I have come across people who not only have an in-built alarm system but are totally immune to the captivating charms of the snooze button. The concept of a sleep-in on a cold wintry morning under a warm blanket is totally alien to them. Come rain or shine, they are up at the said hour every single day. To these friends, I can only say that they are missing out on something so delectable an experience :) Despite the heavy pounding the snooze button receives every morning at my hands, we are best buddies and it is only fair I elucidate the nature of the tenacious hold the button has on me.

On a deeper and somber note, sometimes I wonder if I am hitting the snooze button on my life too. Am I afraid to step out of my comfort zone..... am I wary of tilting the fragile status quo in my life and embracing change? At the crossroads of life, am I taking refuge in the familiarity of the past, putting away major decisions that I ought to take rather than face the dark unknowns of the future? I am reluctant to find the answers for my question or facing a truth that has been staring in my face too long.......perhaps I ought to put a snooze on this question as well :)

The hot shower wipes away the remants of sleep from my eyelids and puts a spring back into my step. I now proceed to wake up the kids and well no surprise, I hear my daughter giving me "the two minutes" routine as well. Ha ha, there is no escape from my slumber genes, is there? I give her a warm hug, happy to have spawned another "snooze" addict into this world and proceed to wake her up gently to face a new day outside the barricades of sleep.

My latest affliction....

"We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops."
-- Henny Youngman

I do not remember when exactly the symptoms crept on me but sure the diagnosis caught me unawares. On hearing my latest affliction, I did run the full gamut of the emotions as postulated by Kubler-Ross : denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I lasted a bit longer in the denial phase arguing that the symptoms were perhaps temporary in nature and would pass soon. But little did I know then it was a condition to stay.

The medical term for my condition would be "sale-philia".......more colloquially, the lingo in use would be "sale-fever". Increased palpitations, feverish gleam almost bordering on manic proportions, at times sale induced catatonia are few of the symptoms that the placard "sales" in retail shops induce in me. However I have heard of people affected more severely and in some cases the behaviour of the crowd that throng a sales can become unpredictable, sometimes inciting mob frenzy as well.

Despite its roots shared with its more severe sibling condition "shopaholic syndrome" aka "retail therapy syndrome", I was relieved to hear that my condition is less grave and is sometimes seasonal. The medical team is still baffled as to whether this condition could be genetic, but apparently it looks like the case atleast with my mom and I. However the experts in the profession gravely state that despite its non malignant nature, sale-fever is widespread in occurrence, affecting both gender but mostly women regardless of age, background and financial status.

I also learnt that this condition, though disabling the rationale and sensible section of the brain temporarily throwing the victim into a sale-induced stupor, it also, in some cases, enhances the grey cells in some women to learn the other language equivalent of the word "sales". Sadly, I can corroborate with this fact, as during my 5 months stay in Italy, one of the few words that I managed to learn was "saldi"......of course one would know what it stands for when reading this post. Likewise my mom, despite her staunch refusal in learning the Queen's language, can, easily and correctly without anybody's help, pick out the word "sales" with her rather sharply tuned retail antennae.

Well, as with major afflictions, this life-style threatening condition also has its support groups. Usually victims gather at these meetings with full of remorse over their latest forays into bargain sales but not before proudly displaying their acquisitions still complete with their tags displaying their discounted prices. Despite the numerous vows and painful reminders of the long list of credit card expenses blacklisting their name, most of us are repeat offenders still struggling to break out of this condition. Meanwhile not just the spouses complain, but even our closets do trying to contain all our purchases.

PS: This post was written in remorse as a self-flagellation act after yet again spending (3 times just this week alone and it is not even mid-week yet) my hard earned lentil sorting money on stuff that I most definitely do not need. Er, having said this, I still have a few sales to check out the remaining week.

The hues of my life....

"Life is like a rainbow.....you need both the sun and rain to make its colours appear."

- Anon

It was a cold and dismal day, the continuous rain making it even worse. Days like this remind me of our judicious (??) decision to move interstate where the Victorian weather is as finicky and unpredictable as my moods. After a long day at work, especially being on my feet and the monotony of the work hardly offering any respite to my unwelcome train of thoughts, I was glad to be out of the workplace. Thankful that the rain had finally eased, I get into my car hastily turning on the car-heater on full blast. As I drive past the gates, still struggling to shed off my gloomy thoughts, I look up at the sky to see the most beautiful sight. Rainbows are still capable of producing that wonderful jolt in my system and this particular one, a huge complete semicircle of vibrant hues was a top contender for the most perfect one I had seen in years.

Almost close to breaking the speed limits, I rush to pick up Mugil hoping that the rainbow would last till he gets to see it as well. Perhaps something to cheer him up while he misses his sister who is away spending her school holidays with her cousins. I pick him up and drive nearby to an open field and park the car and show him the plethora of colours in its resplendent glory. I watch him, at a loss for his usual babble, awe-struck at the beauty and we both spend a few minutes of silence while the liquid sunshine bathes us with its feeble setting rays.

Inevitably, as if I could already foresee what his next words would be, he asks if we can climb the rainbow and see what is beyond it. Of course, the child within me rushes to answer him with the fairy tale of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But I bite down the garrulous flow that threatens to spill out of me and wonder how to explain the phenomenon of rainbows in simple words to a kid who strives so hard to be on equal footing with his sibling despite their differences in age towards understanding the mysteries of science and nature.

At around the same time my mind wanders to the biblical explanation of the rainbow. It symbolises the Lord's promise to mankind and a sign of the covenant that God would never flood the earth again. I let my imagination run wild and can almost visualise pictures of Noah's ark tossed by the tempests of the flood and in the end, the majestic rainbow, bringing promises of new land and new life. How many of us wait for one such rainbow to materialise in our own lives - with no signs of the storms abating, left adrift in a rudderless raft tossed by the tempests of life, with no shores materialising on the horizon, perhaps we too wait for one such divine sign to be the harbinger of glad tidings and hope.

With all these thoughts clashing within me, I proceed, rather contritely to give a watered down version of dispersion and refraction from the rudimentary physics lessons of ages ago. I watch him trying to understand my words as I strip the magic of the rainbow and present it to him without any trimmings. As he tries to pronounce "refraction", I hear the uncorrected lisp, a harsh reminder of the time I had been away from him. He giggles at his own attempts, his tiny face, a miniature version of my own unflattering features transformed with that heartwarming smile of his - the sight sure did warm the cockles of my heart. Was I searching for my own rainbow when I had the pot of gold beside me the whole time??

The glint of his smile, my own unshed tears.......perhaps Mugil and I have created our own rainbow, who knows.......the glimmer of a faint hope and smile touches me while I try to take strength from the hues of my life !!!!

The New Beckham kid !!!!

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.”

- Bill Shankley

When I saw the school weekly magazine advertising sports practice for all graders (after school hours), I was quite elated. Apart from gaining a few more hours of respite from nagging kids, I was also happy that my offspring cast in the same mould as her couch-potato mum would really benefit from a bit of intense action. Both Anna and I made up the crowd of spectators at any sport right from our own school days - him given his rather dense myopic eyes and I being the only child of overprotective parents. Frankly said, most days I believed my shadow was made up of three figures - I could not even compete in 50m races without their chants of "be careful baby", "don't trip", blah blah so much so that I considered physical education to be more mentally stressing than physically exhaustive :)

So right from the day Madhu started school, I was intent on getting her started in some kind of sports but never got around to doing it given my own absence from home and other zillion things to take care of. Like most of my plans with respect to health and fitness regime, this one too never got to see the daylights. So it was indeed a blessing to see that the school had organised sports sessions and that too free ones ( as part of the state's student health awareness programs) for their students.

I signed her up for football and netball and the day I take her to the football session, I see only two girls (including Madhu) at the turnout. With slight apprehension gnawing at me seeing several boys milling around, I hastily look around for their sports instructor for some reassurance. To the contrary, I see him chuckling at the girls and asking me "so your girl wants to play football?" I then confess quickly saying she wasn't too keen but that I would like her to have a try at the game. I then leave the playground to come and pick her up an hour and a half later.

Later, I sense a slight prickling of guilt when I see her dejected form at the gates and her rather sullen reply that she was finding it hard to kick the ball. As we enter the garage, I tell her that I will buy her a football and we will take it from there. She then rushes inside the house, rummages some boxes in her closet and I hear her crowing winningly "we already have it". I peek into the room to find her brandishing a rugby ball and look at her questioningly as I was expecting to see the familiar spherical shaped ball. She answers quite laconically "the football" and then realisation dawns on my rather embarassed face.

Having grown up in a country that always labelled soccer as football, I was having daydreams of my girl becoming the new Beckham kid in the block. Little did I realise my adopted country with all its terminology reversed, had me sending my very feminine looking and delicate Barbie girl to Australian football, fondly called "footy". Not that soccer would have been any better but footy was very much a contact sport and no wonder the instructor was having a chuckle behind my back when Madhu turned up at the session with an equally sports ignoramus for a mother :(

I look at her sheepishly and tell her I thought it was soccer that she was playing - she then explains the game to me and though I wonder why the name football for a game that uses all parts of the body to pass the ball around, I keep my musings to myself lest she gets annoyed at any interruptions from me. Later that weekend I narrate the incident to some of our Aussie friends and despite their attempts to explain the game to us and the difference between its close-cousins rugby and soccer, Anna and I, with eyes glazing over, ruefully shake her heads and give up on understanding Aussie sports.

Meanwhile my daughter still continues to plod in her footy sessions and despite being her mother in most games happily standing at the bleachers than actually playing, she sometimes comes home excitedly chattering about the kicks she had done or the wins she helped her team achieve. I look at this very sensitive and dainty girl who has started enjoying her footy sessions and could not but help feel proud when she recounts incidents where she had grudgingly won the admiration of her fellow players. I feel an overwhelming sense of achievement knowing that I have gotten her started into sports, something that I never managed to do for myself.

Sometimes as parents, we do tend to live our dreams through our kids. Though I know from my own experiences, the enormous pressure it places on the kids, in this instance I am willing to make a concession for myself knowing that I am making the right decision by getting her interested in sports. If nothing, atleast decades down the track, she won't be blaming us in her blogs, fair enough :)

Gym write-offs :))

"The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping up and down."

- Rita Rudner

- “So how much is it for the membership?”

I wait for a figure…..er, a numerical one in this case that would cause my innards to shrink notably.

-"33.50$ for a fortnight”

- “Really? Whereas it is 12.50$ for one visit??”

- “Yes”

I should have wondered what the catch was but then I rushed in as the proverbial quote “Fools rush in…”. Even for someone with very little mental agility when it comes to calculations, I do the math and figure out the membership would work out better if I were to make two visits a week to the sacred site.

- “So do you have any cancellation fees?”

- “Nope, just 14 days notice.”

Boredom is starting to set in the tones of the junior serving me…..perhaps at least here, I should have stopped and asked myself twice……but no, I was too taken in by Dame Providence and also anxious that the 17 year old might hike up the prices if I keep pushing her buttons of ennui.

- “Allright, I will take the membership, you are sure about the fees right?”

The teen just catches herself in time from doing an eye-roll and gives me a grimace which I interpret as a polite smile and am sure if DaVinci had been around, he would have made billions titling it the “Mona Lisa – II” or perhaps better “The Return of the Jaconda”.

I hurriedly fill the application form and sign my long scrawl with a flourish. The girl fills in the amount and then slowly enunciates the figure for my benefit.

- “75$ for a one-off admin deposit along with the fortnightly deduction – total amount comes around to 120$”

As I am still digesting the news of the 75$ sprung upon me, I dont fully understand the extra 11.50$ she has tacked on – perhaps fleecing me for the indubitable service she had provided.

I try to summon the right dosage of anger, but incredulity is still reigning high in my voice :

- “Should you not be telling me about these fees before I signed the registration form?”

- “Yeah I should have, I am sorry – are you still interested in the membership?”

I am starting to palpitate, even without stepping into my bodypump classes that are due to start any minute. I eye at the clock and the girl at the reception – I know I am going to regret the new few minutes of my life where I go against my common sense and my financial radar and with an imperceptible nod of my head, wilfully become the sacrificial goat at the reception of the town’s (perhaps sole) fitness club. I enter into the classes, the enthusiasm that I had a few minutes earlier all dissipated and in its place a sour aftertaste left by the monetary transaction.

An hour passes by quickly and though less enthralled by the audio tracks for the bodypump routine, I am not disappointed by the class and am hoping to frequent these sessions more in the future. With a pounding heart and quaking legs, not all as a consequence of the rigorous drill that I had subjected myself to, I drive home. No sooner had I entered the house, did I bemoan my gullible nature and render my narration with the right amount of indignant anger and histrionics to Anna, my better half (literally in all matters, especially fiscal) and the financial comptroller of the family. Contrary to my hopes, I fail to evoke any sympathy in my audience……..the end result, temperature within the house falls further by a few more degrees despite the double heating provided by the reverse cycle air conditioner and the fan-heater propped next to me.

Blessed with a metabolism that even His Maker would envy and a bevy of friends willing to play badminton almost every day of the week, Anna does not understand my need to bequeath a substantial amount of money every once in a while on gym memberships. By far, Anna is the most unconventional and broad-minded Indian husband I have seen amongst my circle of friends, with a healthy respect for his equal, despite my exasperating and futile attempts at maturity. However, given my past history with fitness programs and sporadic visits to gyms, Anna is of the opinion that the only toning that these expenses have sustained are that of our bank balance L He firmly believes that any weight loss that I might have gained is more out of guilt with all the money I throw away on these sessions rather than attending them.

A few years ago, I would have bristled at the slightest excuse despite the validity of his accusations but lately I have been seeing the error of my ways and so I rather dejectedly but solemnly give him my word that I really would see this membership through. I have always been a couch potato, never one for stringent exercises or fitness regimes, but lately I realise I am not getting any younger and hence the serious and much-needed closer look at my health. Given that my food intake has reduced quite drastically lately and I am reaching emaciated standards (according to my family), I am resorting to rather painful attempts to incite my hunger pangs. Hopefully my exertions might pay off but still that has not stopped my family from wagering against my gym visits J

Anyone else wanna place a bet on my fitness expeditions ?????

PS: It has been three days since my last gym visit as I am still crawling around like the house like an octogenarian painfully aware of every muscle in my bodyL

I, the living.......

"When you see a man casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return--it is not against the swine that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little that he was willing to fling them into the muck and to let them become the occasion for a whole concert of grunting."

-Ayn Rand

I discovered Ayn Rand when I was 19 - does seem like centuries ago now :) Perhaps too late to discover a good author, but still way too early to read her books I guess. There are people who swear by her books, her principles, especially her philosophy of "Objectivism" which rapidly gained a lot of momentum and publicity....er, perhaps the latter laced quite liberally with negative criticism and censure. Despite everything, her books are widely read and even claimed to be most influential, second only to the Bible. In layman terms, she stands for individual rights and freedom, any form of collectivism is hugely frowned upon by her.

A few days ago, I wrote one of her quotes as my Facebook status message and this brought a lot of comments from two of my buddies who had read her as well. Like most philosophical works, Rand is not an easy read and I sometimes wonder I perhaps keep revisiting her books more out of a lack of total understanding of her philosophy than for her appeal as a writer. In all my 35 years of life, I have come across only handful of people in my circle who have read her and have been in a position to debate about her. Lately I avoid being caught in such arguments, as I realise the blinkers that I always wore for her writings are slowly coming off and I am unable to concede fully with the absolutism of her philosophy. Perhaps, in moments of self-awareness, in those rare moments when I can afford to be candid to myself, I am aware of my own limitations and recognising my own failures in living up to her principles.

As a child and into my teens, I used to be one of those people who would merely comment at the injustice of a system but would hide in the shadows waiting for someone else to take the lead. Perhaps this is where Rand exorcised me out of my fears. I soon saw myself growing into this non-conformist person with the least regard for rules or dogma of the society - in fact I have always been known to be a rule-breaker, a rebel in trying to adhere to what I believed in. I make compromises mostly not out of reverence for the rules but perhaps for the one enforcing it, given my own admiration or belief in the individual or the collective group that enforces it.

One Randian principle I always lived by atleast till recently, was that I do not use people for my own selfish gains. I believed I earned what people chose to bestow me with. I have come across people who exploited others for their own selfish interests and I swore never to be one of those. Likewise when I gave I always measured it based on their worth, the generosity of my own gift was a tribute to the person. Despite the precautions, despite the integrity of my emotions, as with people who are equipped only with half-truths, lately I have been portrayed as a highly manipulative person by people who chose to hide their own indiscretions behind a cloak of morality. But perhaps there is never smoke without fire.

If I had been less critical of myself, I would have swept all these comments under the carpet and proceeded on writing a post on my daughter's newly acquired football skills. But here I am, unable to digest the defamation of the only principle I ever lived by..... so I ask myself have I slackened with respect to what I wanted from people around me? Have I laid "claim" to what I believed people owed me because of what I gave them or am I in reality, a second-hander, "who could not exist except as a leech on the souls of others"? The only conclusion I arrived was perhaps I gave too much given my poor judgement with respect to people. Alas, what are the use of principles if you basically lack good judgement :)

So there I am trying to find my way in the darkness and perhaps a way of extricating myself out of the mess I find myself in. Perhaps as a first step I can start by saying I will not accept any scraps if the altruism is forced. If I take pride in being a free-thinking person, then I better start behaving as one, respecting not just my freedom but others as well.

"I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom."
"You call that freedom?"
"To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing."

A special thanks to my Randian friends for renewing my interest in her philosophy - it cannot come at a better time in my life than now.