Aktau - white city in a desert

Aktau - white city in a desert

A musical piece that I could not help sharing

Post by Samet Ece.

The Age Old story : SAHM vs WM

http://carolynee.net/a-letter-from-a-working-mother-to-a-stay-at-home-mother-and-vice-versa/


Generally, I don’t read the WM and SAHM stories because everyone is fighting their own battles. But the amazing response this letter has got has really made me sad. Although the letters are heartwarming, it’s really pathetic that we as women are so uncertain of who we are what we want. We need the world to endorse our presence and take note of our virtues in all walks of life. From body image, to dress choice, to parenting, to being a wife. I think if we as women stop judging people around us and start to endorse and appreciate our contribution in society it will be less tears for everyone. 

One of the comments (by Vicky) to the blog is something I can relate to is below. I thank the author for sharing these words

“have been both a SAHM and a working mother. I think women who obsess over this issue have no other life, either way, and are using their kids to define who they are, which is a really easy trap to fall into. I work full-time and I am not some harried woman desperately eating my lunch at my desk and skipping coffee breaks. I have my own life, and I did when I was a SAHM mom too. Kids are only young for a few years and then it’s full-time school, so I think it’s a waste of time to worry about this. It’s part of the package of having children, I’m sure we all knew that when we got ourselves into this. I have no guilt for having worked when they were little and enjoyed my time home with them. I don’t relate to either of these posts.”

Have a nice day.

Changing name (after Marriage)

A common dilemma for women: to change or not to change surname after marriage.  I have not changed my surname after marriage. Lot of people do, many don't. So what's in a name change?

Today i go about as Aditi Pal. I have my father's surname. It definitely has a patriarchal connotation. I am openly feminist. This is an obvious reason for not going for another name change, borrowing that of my husband. I  think I would have removed my dad's surname from my name entirely given a chance. 

A brief search on the web and Googling led me to several sites with information on surnames. In East India the research says, a surname dominantly implies ones' caste. This one is a no brainier.  And another negative for the socialist in me. But again on gentler note, caste has its roots in one's profession.  Like in the West, you will have a surnames like Goldsmith, Smith, Blacksmith. I wonder if I should change my name to Aditi Geologist. I think I should bury that thought in the past as it definitely sounds ridiculous.

Elders in the family often claim, that family is a unit and it should have a common surname. This one is a strong pretext for change.  But then, this has very strong patriarchal seeds, promoting gender preferences for male child, who is eligible to carry the family name. Frankly speaking, I don't know names of grandfathers and their fathers and many fathers before them ( same with the names of foremothers too. Fore-mother is not even a word). I wonder how many of you take the family tree that seriously. You will soon realise you are unable to trace surnames or names few hundred years ago. In this case , it can be interesting for very keen couples to acquire a new surname after marriage. This way the concept of family unit is honored without shaking the gene pool protected by the male ego.

The question still remains. So why change and why not. For me being the part of the former "why change" category, I did a lot of thinking. Its not that I need to be answerable to someone but having a reason for an opinion is a good thing in an inquisitive society. So this is what I came up with as my reason. The name at my birth is like an identity tag, like a bar code, an UID.  The name I learned to read and write with much effort when I joined school, responded to when my teachers called, name on my degree certificate or signed my first bank cheque.

The thought of a name change left me feeling half naked. Like exposed and vulnerable, having no pants on. The name is something we grow with, respond to, sign on documents, get known by, searched in social network by old friends. I really did not do this to achieve a socialist, feminist,  life changing brownie point. It was just me being me.

Although secretly I wanted to be a Roychowdhury, next life.....as soon as I am born. Thats what I will be "whatever" Roychowdhury.

Reference and fun facts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_and_maiden_names#India
http://meritalbliss.com/2012/02/6-things-not-to-say-to-married-women-who-kept-their-name/
http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/Features/Miss-to-Mrs-Seven-changes-you-need/Article1-813098.aspx
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/feb/06/changing-your-name-dos-and-donts
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/9656482/Getting-married-is-simple-but-changing-your-name-is-a-bit-complicated.html
http://www.canadianliving.com/relationships/weddings/is_changing_your_surname_after_marriage_right_for_you.php

Handshake

When you grab a hand to shake,if it shakes and wimpers, know for sure the person who owns the shake is not to be trusted. He is an insecure soul, maybe a sinner or a criminal waiting to be born. Such was a handshake and it took 6 yrs to turn from hand to claw. Some people have snake like (sletherenish) aptitude. They feel threatened by any footstep around them, baring their fangs, ready to bite even their friends. For this person the desire to amass power became so enormous, that he can even use his own family to harm others around him, playing the masterstrokes of manipulation.

I feel sorry for these poor souls, whose addiction to power and position, personal goals are so ugly. The "want" is the only palpable emotion running in their veins, easily knocking down the so called social relations of colleagues, friends, classmates.

RIP. Oneday the power drive will die and the man will stand in front of a mirror, facing his demons and staring at the hollow eyes, sans friends, sans family, sans love, sans trust, sans everything.

Generations 1976 to 2008

Stumbling on the 2 pictures sent a loving message to me, that which passes from grandparents to a child, a pure and pristine affection, that which gives us the essence of our roots. The first photo : me with didu, my favourite person with her unique fragrance, touch and blessing . Who lovingly called me Chandana, the singing bird. The lower picture is my Mom with my son, her gandchild Ayan, passing the fragrance, love, touch and blessing once again after 32 years. Something stays the same for generations, immortalised feelings and timeless love.

Motherhood

The ultra sounds are more convincing now, after 18 weeks. The picture is more real and believable. His heart beat is strong and his will to be born is getting stronger every minute.

It took quite some time staring at the black and white specks on the screen, following the somber tone of the doctor to grasp the fact that something is there, something with life, well, its actually someone. He was yawing and turning, blissfully enjoying the most serene and peaceful time of his life. I did not have the usual teary eyed response though. I was too amazed to react normally. I just let the overwhelming feeling sink in.

The truth is I am nurturing a life form and it feels like such a normal thing to do. The fact is that a biological program was running in my genes and I was not aware about it. All these years, I felt this futile paranoia of not being ready for a baby, denying the responsibility of a child. Mother Nature had her plans. She prepared me from within, since the time when I was 18 weeks in my mother's womb, it was decided that it will be my turn one day, to accommodate a new visitor and help it come to the world.

Happy motherhood to me. I just have to keep the faith alive that the program in my genes will keep running and my maternal instinct will tell me what to do. As of now I am pretty clueless about what needs to be done. It is one aspect of my life that I cannot plan; I do not control.

Blogging from Indonesia

Well havent written a single line since I stepped into the Archipelago. Mainly because my blogspot would default into bahasa and I would find it difficult to change it back to english everytime. Nothing against bahasa or indonesia...somewhere in the new life, penning or blogging took a back seat. Today is a different day, my blogspot miraculously defaulted to english and I was tempted to write again....
I am in bed rest...resting and getting bored...I cant remember the last time I was in this kind of a do-nothing state. I am so unfamiliar with this lifestyle. It was always a secret wish, that for days I will lie on bed ...and do nothing but I never imagined the truth is so far away from fantasy.

But as I write I am slowly enjoying these moments of eternal rest.

(Pregnancy-Maternity-Post Maternity: occupied the rest of the 2 years)

Good Morning India

Somehow life is tricky and plays games with me all the time. In every corner of decision making lurks the uncertainty-boogy man. I hate these times; I cringe with displeasure and pray in muted silence.

The control freak in me just hates this kind of silly situation. In midst of all these messy state of matter the solace comes from the hope of laughing about this a month later. I will then be sighing in relief that the dark clouds are a month old and nearly gone just leaving a streak of gray. My life is always a sparkling silver sky with the dark smiley face in the horizon smirking at me.

With these amazing thoughts I start the day. Every day in India is a pleasant struggle of survival. I call it pleasant because if you see it any other way you will die a million death in the agony of dealing with both public and private sector official and executives.

The ordinary day in the ordinary city of Kolkata has its extraordinary tale to tell. This is not a diary scrap like Bridget Jones whose main problems are generally around the waist or dealing with boyfriends. This is about living in the extraordinary country of India where I am an honored female tax payer. Here in this motherland, on the soil of my ancestors I am fully eligible for my peace of mind at least in the parts of my life in which has the government has a crucial role to play…for e.g health, roads, legal, police, insurance etc. But this peace of mind breaks into thousand pieces every morning as soon as I set out of the house armed with my proof of identity, passport and pan cards. Beyond this the trick is to carry tons of additional documents that I keep juggling. I need an address proof, father’s name, husband’s tag, mailing address proof etc.etc. And that is not all if I skip from one state border to the other the officials out there look at me with suspicion, and treat me like an alien intruder into their land. And I get a treatment that is appropriate for a foreigner with dark skin in the first world countries. The extraordinary part of the story is unfolding a day’s account of all my family members running from pillar to post chasing the government officials and other people like my home mortgage bank guys.

Today there are a few of these hurdles that I have at hand. My sister needs to clear a test for driving license; my husband needs a ECNR clearance. I need a house mortgage sorted. …hallelujah. That’s another chapter of this life….

My onliners............

1. Behind every successful man there is his wife, behind every successful woman there is her maid (tsk, tsk)
2. Client call response in odd early hour in the morning: yawnnnn...are you talking from my nightmare, certainly you dont appear anywhere in my dreams !!!

(Moved to page on the side bar) 

Zindagi Rocks!!!!

Life is a roller coaster ride. You never get enough of the adventure. It always keeps you guessing. There are moments of truth and there are moments of void camouflaged as truth. As soon as you touch the veneer of truth, the dust comes off it and the skeleton lays bear ...

Waiting for an Apology

When you wait for an apology,its a strange feeling. There is nothing in this world so helpless as a person waiting for an apology from a loved one. Waiting in desperation. Say the magic word and I will forgive and forget. Just genuinely tell you are sorry, tell me you made a mistake, tell me that you will never do it again, tell me , hold me and just say " sorry". Why is admitting a mistake so difficult....unless the offender fails to realize that completely. Time does not heal everything...Time keeps the waiting alive ...because for a loved one u want to wait all your life...all your life that you want to spend with him...every empty thought gets filled by the unending need for an apology.

Mumbai Landlord Encounter

Generally I write about abstract things, mostly from a spurt of a feeling. But today is a different day, I momentarily lost faith on human kind and recovered it in the next instant. The incident date dates back to yesterday. Me and my hubby went upto to our old house (21st floor-breezy thing) to meet the landlord and the lady with their lad, in the bleak hope that he will give our deposit of 1.25 lacs back after we stayed in the house (according to him and her we misused it)for a year, paying a neat rent of 14 thousand rupees per month. We got accused left, right and centre of our audacity to abuse the place, use their water, use the breeze from the window leave those few scratches on the wall. It was a bizzare meeting. I was knocked out for a while with the attack, failing to realise what the bombardment of words meant. Then I felt my blood boiling, with much effort I hid my claws and fangs. It was like the ancient prehistoric caveman drama. I started collecting the herd around me, calling the people in the building, the sceretaries, treasurer while the lord and the lady with garrulous demeanour jumped around the place. You could see their hairy bodies under those clothes, the claws reaching out to grab you. They were decided not to return what rightfully belong to us. It was not money anymore, it was food, the catch of the day, raw blood and flesh. Funny part of it all was what they kept on uttering the whole time, it was like the early cave man somehow learnt the languages of the present but did not know how to use them. They had smirks on their faces and trash pouring out of their crooked mouth. I had lost my faith that moment, no belief was left in the civilisation of my own kind, my human kind. Human feelings hit the fathomless depth of lowness. How deep would I need to plunge to snatch those notes from their hands.

Here enters my neighbour, Ashwini. She called on phone from her room to the reception desk. Surprisingly she knew my name and yesterday was the first time I came to know hers. The name and the person that instilled in me faith, belief and sense of relief. She just assured that I dont need to pay for the water as it is part of the maintainance paid by the landlord. I thanked her immensely for the supporting words. I thanked her from within silently that she came out of her comfort zone to say few words of assuarance.

The fight ended eventually, we settled for an amount although the hurtling of words never stopped. There was not a single moment when they did not abuse us. It was like that was their only language to communicate. The language of filthy abuses continued as the faces changed from the smirks to the frowns and sometimes into careless smiles.

We dined and wined and whined after the cavemen troop left. Bacardi and coke, fried rice and chicken garlic sauce drowned the angst and leftovers of the evening which left us stunned.

To Know or not to Know

What is it to know a woman's heart? Is it like what the old lady in Titanic describes "like an ocean of secrets". And to be totally fair, we can also question, how difficult is it to know a man's heart, is it like scaling the mountains.
One is the fathomless fluid, with the currents, and hurricanes and tsunamis churning itself inside out and one like the unmovable, unshakeable, mammoth and massive solid standing tall. Where do they comingle, where do they feel each other, how do they break into each other's silence. Who will be the river that carries the mountain to the ocean, who will be the vapours that rise up high from the ocean's vast blue and drizzles, snows and hails over the highest peaks. What has nature to say? what is the natural choice? What is but natural to do? To know or not to know that is still the question ....alluring and irritating :-)

Ode to Yahoo message archive

The this and that today will mostly cover things like memories, words said , feelings felt and of course an ode to the super invention called yahoo message archive. The archived chat logs are more like photographs of conversations. The smilies add to the colour. Its like going back in time and catching glimpses of the daily snapshots of the past. There are the communications with friends and foes, rediscovering the crests and troughs of a relationship, the flavour of new love, the frustrations of a worklife, the plan of a weekend, the excitement of a new buy, the taste of a new dish. All the heee heee s, all the haa haa s, all the sniffs , all the aaarghhs. It captures tit bits of trifle fights, bits and pieces of uncanny silences...and while you read through it after long long time your dormant feeling are vibrated and rekindled by the "ding", "ding" which were buzz, buzz once upon a time. The ode is not fully complete if you dont give a special mention to the lovely faces of the smilies :-), :-(, :-*, :-8, :">. Extending the topic on smilies, I do take this opurtunity to mention the latest in messenger- the animated smilies. Digressing from a ode for a little while let me put a personal view to the floor too. Generally it is seen that the more complex the tool/technology/software/gadgets become, the more you start missing the simple nuances of life, but in the case of the animated smilies, things actually got better and coming back to my ode, the moving, yawning, smiling, kissing faces still keep doing their tricks and make you do a LOL all over again. So long live my database of memories through my yahoo message archive. They stay like my own little pandoras box which I will open and close and reopen to laugh and frown down memory lane.

The Girl was left behind

My mom is sure she cant fit into my shoes, the shape is so different she gasps. I can never wear her's. My guy friends say they can easily fit into their father's shoes, and also their grandfather's and the great grand father's. (Exceptions are there to prove the theory , of course). Hmmm...The evolution just happened too fast for the XXs. The freedom gave them wings, their mind wanted to try anything that was new, anything that was pristine and not touched by the female genes. Tons of whys filled the vaccuous unknown and answers were erratic, and even to this day I am not sure that I understand all the answers. But what was happening to the XYs when the XXs were busy changing and embarking on adventures. The environmental bubble around them was the same, but the stimuli they received were different. When the female tinytot was struggling to stand on the same pedestal offered to the guy beside her, she quickly learnt new survival skills, new tactics to defend the reasons thrown at her from people defending the pedestal....

With that preface life becomes easier to explain, its but then natural, you evolve fast when you face obstacles. But if there is not evolution, will nature start eliminating selectively? Wishing the bubble around us (thats society when spelled out) will throw some real good obstacles to the boys, men, fathers, brothers and they will flourish and evolve and survive the struggle for existence and live till the doomsday of the homosapiens

The magic of new realtionship

One fine day, the magic of words began. The conversations, the pauses, the silence all mingled to one deep sense of peace.
Yes, I belong here, yes I am home. Then one fine day the finer moments lead me to a fine life.

Ending one and moving on

The water was held too tightly in the fist. It was there, thats why it felt wet always, and sticky too, like the dried tears pouring down. The fist became strength, the illusion of strength, the hope of strength. It was my fist, the water was collected with lot of faith, with the promises pushed into every drop. The fist was tighter in the moments of anger, in the sufferings of deep pain, in the agony of solitude, in the fear of the unknown, in the excitement of the new and held in the air in celebration of freedom.

Ages the fist was held, tighter with days that went, in anitcipation of the overwhelming future.They dripped daily, every moment. But the wetness stayed and the belief stayed with it. But tomorrow it will be fine, when the fist meets another clammy palm, open, with water dripping too.


But finally, a day came, when the fists were to meet. Dust to dust, just dust to dust.
Time dried the water, till the last drop, only the faint lines running on the palm, left like watermarks, spoke of another story, the lines had changed since the fist was closed. It was closed too tightly I guess, and God knows with what stupid faith. Never opened in all these years, only felt the wetness like a habit.