pain...

perhaps that's the only emotion that i can feel now..

as i skimmed through the news papers i had been so avoiding since the 28th, there was no way the tears so carefully stored somewhere for some happy occasion could refuse to come.

long time since my grandfather died, i howled. i howled for all those people in all those pictures who were caught in the photographers' cameras in muted despair. yet, and yet their screams seemed to be reaching out to me, blaring at my ears, causing the uncomfortable vibrations in my heart. i howled for sabina, whose last msg to her husband 'I still love you' seemed to me like the truest truth in the world today, something her husband would live with for the rest of his life. i howled for those husbands who never received their wives'  last word, or could send one. i howled for those who died hand in the hand. i howled for khusboo who would have married her love this week in a lavish wedding. i howled for the those wives who refused the money colored with their husbands' blood from the hands of politicians nowhere less responsible for them. i howled for those not lucky enough to be re-united. i howled for those who took away their beloveds in pieces. i howled for the 20 cremations at charni road. i howled for all those who died.

waqt ke sitam kam haseen nahi
aaj hai yaha, kal kahi nahi

those who were there till yesterday, are no more for some today. i howled for them.

and i howled for myself. because i was confused. i had always believed that terror has no religion. it is not islam who is responsible for all the deaths in the name of terror today. but suddenly, all my cultured belief on the goodness of man, and 'islamic terror' as just a concept structured by the west to make the oil producing countries their 'target enemy' was falling apart. for a few hours after the magnanimity of the situation in Taj, Oberoi and others at Mumbai hit me, i was frantically wishing for all of Islam to be dead and gone.

i am sorry.

then suddenly, i realised, if my wall of faith for 'faith' and knowledge of how the state functions to keep its ruling class intact could fall apart so easily with one gory incident, what about those who either never thought about it, or were even a single percent fanatic? if i who could see through the fact that there was no way 20 odd people carrying open ammunition (not hidden i mean) enough to kill 5000 people could rent a boat from gujarat fisheries, come to mumbai through the sea near the Taj (an area of high security because of the research center at sea right there) carry the ammunition all the way inside the Taj and hold up entire Mumbai for more than 60 hours without state help, could panic and blame a religion just because the terrorists were named ajmal and abdul instead of ajay and abhay, what would happen to those children whose parents barred them from playing with the ajmal and abdul in their compound? if i who have a muslim for a roommate and one of my best friends, who has read the poetry of love, revolution and beauty that faiz writes and realizes that terror is an old state-tool to keep the ruled under the illusion that they need the ruling class to rule them and protect them could hate the moment Islam was conceived, what would come of those who didn't cross a street that had a masjid, or wouldn't talk to someone for he had a beard, wore a skull cap and said assalam-walaikum as a greeting? couldn't the country be thrown in chaos by the same feeling that i had a few moments ago? wouldn't there be murders and kills just because of this one feeling that muslims all over the world are terrorists?

yes. and that is the pity of the entire human kind. feelings are contagious, more so if they are murderous.

i have said i am sorry for the feeling i had. i am sorry for letting it stay the long it did. i curbed it immediately from my heart the moment i realized its nature. i am sorry for i fear that what one of my fanatic friends said would come true, 'when you will lose someone in one such terrorist attacks, you will stop your shit about terror has no religion'. i am sorry for not being able to do anything about the same feeling in him, in thousands of my brothers and somewhere, dormant inside me. i do not want what he said to be true. i do not want chaos in my life. i do not want to hate god, or allah, or for that matter whoever he may be. for things like this, let my already slipping faith in religion and god die all over again. i need help.

we all need help. lets help each other. lets give each other the belief that the survival of the ruled is in staying united and not let schemes, of the monstrosity as this shake our faith in each other. lets help each other to believe in the good that man has within his heart. lets help each other to cry in the other's sorrow and laugh in his happiness. lets help each other to bury the dead and cremate them. lets help each other for the very fact that now, it is not god who will come to our rescue. it is us.

the bigger the obstacle the greater the glory in achieving it.

let's go ahead rid each other of the pain we all feel. the pain of disbelief, the pain of confusion and the pain of a failed faith in the existence of god. lets go ahead.

second consecutive day in the JNU library...

well well... i am sitting on the computer adjacent to the one i had hijacked yesterday...
but there is something else that drives me to write this now...
i can see the same neem tree where the little bird sat yesterday, and the same sun trying to cast shadows...
but the tree reminded me of something else today...
a train of thought had followed when i looked at it. they worship the need tree somewhere in this country. i guess, it's not the neem, but the banyan or the peepul..i was confused when the thought really occured, but this fact took me to the day when i had seen the story of the world's origin in a serial called Jai Ma Vaishno Devi.
Not that i am an ardent fan of the serial, but the actress who plays the goddess if BEAUTIFUL! Anyways, coming back to the scene when the goddess is looking for someone to start the world with, in short do 'shrishti rachna' and decides do so with the man created out of the 'tama gun' in herself after the men created out of 'sat gun' and 'raj gun' refused to indulge in procreative activities with their 'mother', I realised discrimination against women had begun much before life became so difficult for an ordinary woman in this world.
Shakti surrendered all her powers to the man she created, 'Shiva'. Shiva became 'ardhanarishwar'. I do not know if it actually happened. I do not hold any authority over these topics. i don't know if she actually did it, or made to do it by the man who told this story for the first time. but the story of the Goddess who had to surrender all her powers before wanting to start a family to a man she herself created seemed like 'oh i have heard that before!' doesn't that happen to women all over the world?
i know, i might be talking of a past. 'come on, women are empowered today', 'they are educated' they know what's good for them, 'they rate their career as their priority' etc etc. but this happens to a rare community of those women who have been lucky enough to get education and understand what Bouvoire said a long time back, 'one is not born a woman, one is made a woman'.
Even today, as a survey done by my friend Imran from the center of Law and Governance will tell you, women face discrimination. harrassment is another truth many happily, unfortunately and deliberately ignore. market places, colleges, cinemas, etc have stories of women being discriminated against on the basis of gender, caste, region etc. I believe i heard a saying once, 'if you have sinned for 7 incarnations, you are born a woman, and if you have sinned for 14, you are born a women of the lower caste'. My heart weeps to say that there are many generations in this country and many in the world who have taken this seriously, whether they have heard it or not, and indulged in centuries of oppression of a class that if free, could have made much better of the world than it is today.

in the JNU library...

drooling from the right corner of my mouth, as i was looking out of the windows of the cyber library, through the beautiful beige sun shields put up there with the afternoon sun trying to get past them and reach us to create unfinished, abstract and somewhat beautiful shadows near the uninterrupted power supply box for the computers, at the tiny silhouette of the bird sitting on one of the branches of the huge neem tree right outside the window, i was thinking of one of my friends who by now, had become one of the prominet literary figures of young indian literature. he is my age, and somehow that is something my ma cannot seem to digest...she loves me and thinks i have the 'potential' to win awards nobody of my age has ever received. i was thinking about how lately, i have lost my touch...not the touch, but the 'touch' that transforms something mundane done by me into a miracle. not that it is not giving me some peace of mind. I was happy at, presently having no hopes from myself the unfulfillment of which would cause pain. Suddenly when i was basking in the happiness of being 'hopeless', i thought of the hundreds of students that studied here. i craned my neck to look at some of them who were sitting with their minds thinking of nothing else but what to write in the flat computer screen glowing in front of them, for the next term paper, the next research topic and the next seminar presentation. Working 25 hours a day, these students want to make a mark in the scholarly sky of JNU...some of them have political ambitions, some social and some intellectual. Take our president Sandeep. One of the most politically sound people I have met, who eats, drinks and breathes his brand of ideologies. One who sincerely, in the heart of heart believes that the world can be made rid of discrimation. he has hopes, for himself, for his people and for his ideologies...and he is happy that he is relentlessly working for them. take my friend pamir, he has hopes that he will find love before he turns 31 (that's what is the age that his kundali says when he will get married) and he is on the look out for it...take my room mate khadeeja, she hopes that she will read 5 books in one day and finish a term paper for one of the most kharoos teachers we have and impress him to get at least an A-...take the 199 students sitting in front of 199 hi-tech latest computers (the 200th being hijacked by me to write this) who have hopes of clearing this years UPSC, JPSC, RPSC, PCS or some other such examination with a CS in the end, researching, reading, writing and submitting their synopsis in 10 days and yet, manage to pass it and work online for some organisation or the other which pays them while doing their MA or m.phil at the same time. They all have hopes. hopes keep them going. a hope to reach that stage when hopes will not be very scary. when hopes, yours, your parents', your peers won't hound you every night in your dreams and leave you awake with their weight pressing mercilessly down on your chest. when i look at the faces of the 199 intent people bent on their computers, and am now trying to pretend that i am the 200th one doign the same, wiping the drool that has dried up by now...a hope silently creeps ininto my mind as well...probably, i can hope to be 'hopeless' a year or so from now, if i start working for that...probably i can prove myself once and for all and be done with it. not a bad idea. but that calls for a year of work and research and all that JNU students sitting in the library do and i don't. but yes, for a 'hopeless' fun filled and no holds barred life...it's worth taking the risk!

BRING IT ON!

brain scan?

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tkrbmribmokmbgitmboitmv iovm img v] mvw]eo gmeromg oempowe ]me]w pogmpmweinb]vm ]rwe]rt]b m pmw vmwpormgw mowi gowirng oviwe oirngiw nggigjhpiohgpownbw c]wp ngirgn[w' nwirjgpoiwjo4i3gnoiwn n[oiwig nj oijio[nm UPSC vpwm[pwoe]pwokrmpemwpom opwmvopwerkgporkg[pkwrp[k[pomwopermv[weopnbwot[ij[wnbn[wojbw9tj0wt9j094j=wjb 942=j9= nj0rni 0934jt904j90 n0nmf 3j092jt902j j0923j409243ktj 90j9mf903kf09324t049042 i09 jgt0934jgf0943igtf0943kgng90gvjijrgwopemjguthg8thg9rkgroewrkgjpworjmgoi5024jg290jhg

that would be exactly how my brain would look right now if you took a 'blog-imprint' of it...

written in typical womanly frustration...no it is not pms...

it is so difficult to take airs from someone, right? specially when it is someone whom, in ordinary circumstances you won't even look at...let alone fight with?

awwwwwww...it just rips my nerves apart to do this...but i guess...stuff have to be done to survive in this world...

just an old memory...

i come from a college where every extra curricular activity was the topmost priority for the interested students, much to the displeasure of the teachers...and with the weapon of internal assessment (now what that is, is another story) the teachers threatened not to give us any attendence if we do not attend classes on the pretext of dance or music classes...

so, it so happened that the theatre group in the college was a bit over excited about their participation and probably their very existence...

now i had many friends in the group...lots of them...a few were seniors as well...

i was in the second year the time this memory happened. one of the members of the group who had passed out of college that year but was still very much in touch with her group mates, came to college... we were sitting in the auditorium at that time...me being a part of the group that year was involved in their practice sessions.

now this particular senior i am talking about walked into the auditorium like the leader of a female elephant herd walking into the water pool and the others making way for her...

so she walks in...its almost a year after which she walks inside the auditorium and feels the air...she takes a deep breath and expresses her desire to walk on the stage... we are just too happy to oblige...

we make way and she takes the coveted steps on the stage after almost a year and says...

'orgasmic'

someone standing beside me and watching the entire episode muttered in my ear, 'have i heard wrong? shouldn't it be nostalgic?'

i don't know, but her expression made me relate so much with her...
not the feeling ofcourse (come on, i was in a girls college and in my second year only!) but the way she expressed all the joy, the sorrow, the excitement, the pleasure, the pain in just one simple word...it summed up all the literature for me at that moment...

sushmita sen once said, 'if you are having sex, god bless you with an orgasm' ...probably the fact that women do not have too many of these made her understand and relate this emotion to what she felt at that moment...

too many orgasms here right? i hope my mum doesn't read this... he he...

relief...

relief...
it just sweeps over you, doesn't it?
or makes you leave yourself in its arms like the last time you did at the dance with the guy you had a crush on, doesn't it?
it just leaves you feeling phewwwwwwwww...
almost like the bliss after a night of love?
almost like after your first orgasm?
it just is so relaxing that everything else matters so freakin less...right?

i just felt all this at the same time today...

just appreciating something we seldom talk about...

relief...
thanks for coming to me...

and ma...

boyfriends couldn't care less...

ya, that's true...
no, it's definitely not..
these are my answers to the two questions that would pop into the minds of people who actually bother to read my blog... (i am not sure there are many, but i like to be optimistic)
it is true that i think like this and no, this is not another male bashing site of a disillusioned feminist just out of an english honors course in college...
it just says from my experience...
naaaaah...me have not been lucky enough to have many of them...boyfriends i mean...but somehow this very fact makes me a non-contender in the race of boyfriend collection, and thus, i have many friends who share there deepest and darkest secrets with me (it's not as bad as you think) and i am something of an agony aunt in some wierd magazine that is published by some wierd people and read by wierder ones.

an expert in relationships this makes me i am sure...
one thing i have seen everywhere, don't know whether this makes girls the whiny, complaining creatures that they are always made out to be or the boys, the ice cold personalities who care about nothing else but having an arm candy...
times have changed without a doubt with girls having their career as their first priority, family second...but the basic college going girl remains the same..
and there is a separate thrill about this entire thing that i feel in these relationships that makes them effervescent...
whatever!
what i was talking about was that probably guys do not care about what the girl's family thinks about him like the girls do...
it doesn't really matter to them...
what the heck..
i m not being able to put it the way i want to...
i hate when this happens
whatever...
i will pick this up sometime else...

old spot of gold...

its freakin hot here in delhi...
and all those who study in jnu or anywhere in the city, and who are originally from colder regions of the world will understand what i mean...
the road actually seems to be made of fire! you walk, you get scathed, you ride, you get scathed, you exist and you get scathed from head to toe in the heat...
in this heat, sippin' on a cold drink (it says orange on the label but has wierd taste that has nothing orangy about it except leaving you tongue looking like as if you just puked 2 litres of orange dye), i suddenly remembered what it was to actually taste a thanda...
the cold milk with a hint of rooh-afza, the nimbu paani ma made back in assam, the thandai with lots or kesar and other secret recipe stuff that mum never divulged in front of the neiborhood aunty...or even our very own goldspot!
ah...
how i remember the old cold drink....
it almost meant a treat when dad uttered the word almost 12 years back. cold drink meant gold spot and gold spot meant cold drink...guess it was only after a very long time that i learnt to say pepsi or coke or anything like that...for me, it was always goldspot, with the latest additions to the market it only became black goldspot...but goldspot it was...
i still love that drink...and just for the sake of nostalgia, the belief that the world stays as innocent as it was when i was a kid, the hope that i may return to childhood once again and find that old spot of gold that my sanctuary was, i would love to taste goldspot again..
just to cheer myself up, when i have a labrador retriever as a pet, i am gonna name it goldspot!

i am so freakin irritated with the 'can we have friendship?' 'can we friens???' ' do we have friendship' and other super stupid questions that i am forced to face in community sites...

without any warning...such question, hideously, atrociously and outrageously grammatically wrong jump at me from the computer screens at all times from the pc window...mornig, evening, noon, night..they leave no space to breathe...and that too when i am NOT drop dead material! gosh...people can go to lengths of desperation...

and i though community sites were meant to get in touch with ol' friends...

whatever...

it's almost as disgusting as someone pinging you 'hey, how are you' right in the middle of an important piece of work you might be doing...as if people take for granted that 'net pe hai to velli hi hogi'...

gimme a break...

a chat i had with one of my dearest and closest friends...

The following is a chat i had with one of my closest friends Shruti Sareen (SS is what I call her).
We have a bond that cannot be easily understood by many...we hurl insults at each other at the drop of a hat. Someone who would overhear would have his eyebrows disappear into his hair, but we never mind...

One of our english teachers told our class one day that at one point of time in the history of English literature, insulting someone (the art of satire and lampoon writing) was one which demanded the most wit and cleverness... Since then, its been our (me and SS) solemn duty to keep the world of Dryden and Pope alive (within ourselves ofcourse..both of us being aspiring writers, i am sure we are going to hone our skills practicing at each other before the world is ready to fall prey to our 'witticisms')

Here is a practice session...

Mind you, Shruti is one of the people whose fashion sense i grew up to admire
(thanks to fab india, sujata, dhara et al)

And shruti, if you are reading this, I am sorry!
You can call me as many asses you want...


Shruti: maddy

me: hey! sss

Shruti: SSS??

SS or ASS??

me: same thing...

not much of a difference u c...

Shruti: hehehe

tu bataa, whats up?

me: nothing much...

writing on ma blog...

Shruti: sometiems i remmeber all the insults you've given me... esp "in god's world of fashion, you are a production malfunction"

me: i said that!

man...

Shruti: and I do not deserve it!!!

me: i am damn intelligent!

Shruti: why???

me: to furnish something like that!

that's not cool, that's simply KEWL!!!

Shruti: yeah, you called yoruself wittier than Dryden

me: he he...

Shruti: dryden would eb ashamed if he were alive

me: duh!

me: see, that's y u r an ass...

Shruti: uff!!!!

me: dryden would be proud!

Shruti: only, yiou're a bigger one!! that's the only differnce

me: ya...bigger asses make one look sexier...

you don't understand, that's y, u c, production malfunction...

he he...

uff! i will kill myself with all the wit i have one day!

ha ha...

Shruti: ugh!!!!!

ASS!!!!!

what logic!!!!!!!!!!

me: BIGG one...plz add...

he he

Sent at 8:03 PM on Friday

i am his father you see...

i came across something really hilarious today...

there is apparently a law in US which prohibits parents from hitting their kids...at all...

so, once so happened that an indian father, who had gone to the US to earn money and had struck gold amongst the americans (with average intelligence judging from the choice of their president) had a son who was as vain and stupid as his fellows owing to his birth there...

this son was a wayward fellow with very little to do except lootaofy his father's wealth and sleep with different girls every night...

so one day, when his dad had too much...he went to the party his son was attending, boozing and dancing in, and gave one tight slap on his cheeks right in front of every other gora friend of his accompanied by one long lecture on his origins and traditions (not a single word of which was understood by the gora friends who were doing nothing but enjoying the fight and later on, getting bored with a fight not even in their own language)...

he then dragged the son by his ears and threw him into his room, with the warning 'aaj ke baad ghar ke bahar kadam bhi rakha to taange tod ke haath me de dunga...samjha...'

now you must be wondering what the freedom loving son was doing all this while...

the son, till now kept quite with occasional utterings of american slangs and verbal abuses which were so fast and inaudible that he father had not bothered to listen to them...but now, when he was left to the solitary confinement...he took out the latest weapon of the youth, the mobile phone and called another of his gora friends whose father happened to be a lawyer...

now, an hour later the police of the great america was at the doorstep of our Indian parent, just when he was contemplating the release of his son from solitary confinement at the behest of his wise who was constantly uttering, 'aap bhi na...mere hi bete ke peeche pade rahte ho...'as if her husband's son was supposed to someone else! the police came and arrested the father on the complaint of the son that he was physically abused and humiliated by his father in front of his friends...the father, speechless had no other option but to follow the american police outta his own very door man!

after one whole month of imprisonment, the father came out of jail when his son took the complaint back (ofcourse at the behest of his mother who again was saying 'tum bhi na...kaisi kaisi baato ka bura maan jate ho...') the moment he came out, he called his travel agent...'two tickets for mumbai, tonight's flight immediately'...

the tickets were booked and the father and son duo boarded the plane... (dad, why are we going there? there would be no McD's ya man...come on...so hot! so dirty! etc etc. the dad kept mum)

they reached mumbai...(when are we going back dad! come on man... you don't even answer me!)

airport of mumbai...father and son come out... (man...it's so freakin' hot here...i dint even get ma laptop and i-pod man...this place is so backward man...)

as soon as they touch the bare soil of mumbai, (dad, i will call the police if you don't answer me right now...) the father turns around and strikes one, two and three slaps on his son's red americanized cheeks...

people nearby rush to the boy's help and ask the father, 'what happened? why are you hitting him?? shall we call the police???' to which the father answered...' i am his father, aur mujhe ise maarne ka poora hak hai...'... the crowd realised, 'you are his father! oh, then we are sorry...please continue...do chaar aur lagaa dijiye...zaroor kuch kiya hoga...shakal se hi Bush ka santaan lagta hai...india me bacche maar maar k hi seedhe hote hai...'

now what would that mean?

i open this topic to the house....

the love of anonimity...

people love being anonymous right?

I do too...

the excitement of hiding behind the cloak of temporary invisibility is too good to be missed...

be in a secret love letter that you found addressed to you on your doorstep signed 'forever yours' or be it a comment on your blog...anonymosity sets pulses racing i must say...

there are a number of benefits however...no fear of rejection from the girl you addressed the letter to, no fear of a beating from her brothers, an excitement that satisfies you almost like food satisfying hunger, no fear of being politically incorrect in some blog or the other! oh...it has so many plus points...

i wish i could be anonymous here as well...

but pity, i have to write out some of the feelings that i genuinely feel...and they would no longer be mine without madri being attached to them...

so all those anonymous people who write here....

i love you for reading my stuff...

keep posting and commenting...

its for me i write and sometimes...probably for the love of being you too...

an 'ass kisser'?

foul language, i agree...

but could not help it...

the anguish that this topic fills me up with is incomparable...

india has the largest population of youth in the world...

and the largest BPO industry...

that day, one of my very close friends was being grounded by his two elder brothers because he dared to speak out and oppose the unhumanly treatment meted out to him back in his call center...

this is your first job beta...that's why you are on heat...wait and watch...as you settle down 'saara josh thikaane aa jayega'...'now its all right, but once you think that you want to rise above this current position, you would calm down and listen...

the elder brother was 26 years old..still eligible to be called a youth i guess??? is that the mentality of the country's 26 year old?

i know, that is what is practical...but what the heck is the use of a job if you have to pawn your self esteem for it? what the heck is the use of a job if by the end of the day you cannot look at your face in the mirror? what is the use if a job if by the end of the race you still remain a rat?

everyone in today's world is compromising on their self esteem...
today you are a team member, listen to 10 abuses, do not oppose and sometime tomorrow you are the team leader...
today you are a team leader, listen to 10 more abuses, do not stir from you seat even and sometime tomorrow you are the quality controller
today you are the quality controller, listen to 10 all the more abuses, do not get provoked and sometime tomorrow you are the Assistant vice president...
today you are the assistant vice president, kiss 10 more asses and who know, tomorrow they might just become partners to your new business venture!

but today you are the boss of some company...after listening to at least a hundred abuses and kissin as many asses, but you realise what kind of a seld esteem you have...looking into the mirror...there won't be one thing you would be proud of...result frustration...and then? ofcourse! now you have a company and 1000 people under you to kiss your ass! go ahead dude! enjoy the exploitation!

that seems to be the vicious circle...

i guess it is not enough to watch RDB, we got to act on the ideologies as well...

until and unless we are able to look into the mirror by the end of the day and say that yes, i still am my own master, we are not humans...turning into ass kissing automatons seems to be the latest success mantra,but we gotta remember that

paisa to koi bhi kamaata hai, izzat kamaake dikhao to jaane...

aur agar kamaa nahi sakte to kam se kam lutaa ke mat aao, kahi aur kaam aa jayegi...

granted the are the unbeatable side...but they have grown unbeatable in a lots of other things than cricket...be it atrocious on field behavior, unfair play, un-sportsmanship, un-gentlemanliness, irritating and annoying attitude or to put it straight, simple snobbishness and an unnecessary 'attitude' the aussies score handsdown...

i do not understand why they are treated like the spoilt child of a despot who would execute anyone who dares to put the boy straight...it seems the whole cricketing world is scared of punter and his boys...they sledge, no problem, part of the game...we sledge, breach of conduct of players, they make wierd atrocious gestures, player's aggression, we celebrate the fall of a wicket or appeal, over-riding the limit given to players...they appeal, it's out, we appeal, not out...even celebrated umpires like bucknor have fallen prey to 'australiocitis' the fear of marking the aussies wrong.

They are almost like the holy cows of indian politics, who are never wrong...

oh please, gimme a break...

it is time the world gathered up some courage (take lessons from sree and bhajji) and played the game like the aussies want us to...they are now freaking rulers of the cricket world...and in times, when we can see decisions going glaringly in favor of the australians again and again, i doubt whether they are fairly, the world champions or not...

i am certain that the aussies are losing in a game that is constantly turning out to be one among equals...

falling titans...

Heroes are so important in anyone's life. Especially in a child's life. Every child some day or the other grows up to either change his heroes according to changing priorities, or realize that his heroes were not heroic enough, had flaws and sometimes, more painfully, have crashed. It is perfectly healthy and normal when children go through the first two phases, but the last is the most painful and unhappy time of any child's life. I have seen friends and cousins go through such phases, break down and undergo humongous personality changes. This article is for me to realize how fortunate I am to have uncrushed heroes and peace. It's a piece of thankfulness to Life, for making it possible.

Heroes make life so much easier for kids. When some think that they would be saved from falling skyscrapers by Spider Man, Super Man or Shaktiman, there are kids who imagine these superheroes as their mothers or fathers. A huge friend circle, a family of 8 uncles and 6 aunts and almost 30 cousins and most importantly, an experience of a short, but significant 21 years of my life tell me then super dads and super-mums crash, it hurts the most. There was a friend whose father was having an affair with another woman. When found out, she expected and wanted, more than anything, her mother to go all the way and file a divorce. But when the father apologized, the mother forgave giving the reason that a wife is never really complete without the husband and ‘daddy is really sorry beta’ as if being sorry could wash out the scar and ‘everything was well’, her heroes crashed. Her father was always the hero in her life, a man who was the perfect husband, father and man. And her mother was the epitome of liberation and emancipation, being self sufficient. To discover that the hero was a common ordinary man, prone to weaknesses and the heroine, a common ordinary woman unable to take a stance of her own devastated her. Being a recluse, she had only me as a friend and confided everything in me. When she maintained an ‘oh-i-am-so-happy-for-mum-and-dad’ attitude in front of a guilt stricken parents, I saw her break down. Life was the most difficult for her as she had to live two separate lives, one of which was an entire secret. She lost her old self, and most importantly, she lost her faith in the institutions of faith, marriage, love, respect and above all, parental heroism. It incident had a marked influence on her, especially when she found years later again that her father had never really apologized and the affair had gone on. Even though she felt agitated and anguished, betrayed and angry, she never had the courage to face another downfall. I never knew what she did about this, or her parents. She soon left the country to make a life of her own in Nairobi, with an NGO, never to return.

I never could decide who was in the wrong here. The father for engaging in liaisons, the mother for forgiving them, the daughter for believing that neither was possible, or more so, the entire cult that makes parents the holy cows of a child’s life that he/she has to, inevitably fall in love with. Many will argue, as those with whom I discussed the matter of parental heroism before sitting down to write this do, that humans have to be forgiven for mistakes, no matter how big; because it is only then , that life can go on. Grudges make life miserable, and after a revenge is complete, there is generally nothing to live for. That makes things more difficult. Human frailties are the reason why we are here today (remembering Eve).

But even after all the reasoning in favor of ‘forgiveness’ I can’t help but be sure that the man who said ‘to err is human and to forgive is divine’ must have been the greatest sinner of all times…seeking forgiveness for his entire race of wrong doers from another race which doesn’t have the guts enough to seek revenge, or at least, an explanation.

Oh! It’s all so complicated! I am not even sure where to take this article to, in whose favor. Seeing this, it makes me all the more thankful to God for giving me uncrushed heroes. My father is the ‘man’ anyone could long for, a hero, a problem solver, a warrior and my mother is the damsel-never-in-distress. I just hope, it remains such and I do not have to face the dilemma of forgiving anybody, ever…because probably, I never would. Whatever…

Thank you God for making my life uncomplicated and not giving me anyone to forgive.

Thank you God for giving me heroes that can be loved.

Thank you God for mum and dad.

Thank you God for Everything.

where does the average stand in india?

my brother jumped off the first floor yesterday...dad went and picked him up, with ofcourse, two more slaps as to why at all he jumped...he never listened long enough to know the reason of the first act...my brother, was frustrated...i am too...

unfortunately for my brother, he is an average chap...in india, that necessarily means being an average in studies. he is a terrific tennis champ...'no use' screams middle class indian mentality...he is a great musician...'no use' screams middle class mentality...he simply is not interested in studies...'useless, moron, idiot,' screams the middle class mentality...

the result...being some sort of a rebel, brought up with some sense of indian respect for parents, and constant nagging and insulting of my mum and dad happened to be a lethal combination for the poor chap...and bearing the slaps and boxes from dad, all he could do was jump...

i wish, TZP was made at least 10 years back so that, my brother could have been saved...he never found the time to hone his skills with the stuff mum kept telling him...

i have always resented parents wanting their wishes to be fulfilled by their sons and daughters...i have been coward enough not to tell this to ma and pa... help me...help me save my brother...help me save ma and pa from the pain of losing their son...and daughter...because unforunately again, i am not average...and feel the pain all the more...

oh...by the way, brother is fine now...back to studies and as ma says, 'sincerely'