Musings after a Year

Its been a year & I am still numb with feelings. Cant believe I have been married for a year now.
Mr P, wonders loudly at times, how did he end up agreeing to marry a feminist like me .... but ..... firstly I dont agree I am a feminist and secondly he doesnt remember "agreeing (explicitly)" to marry me. so then maybe, thatz what "made in heaven" is all about uh! :)

After 1 year of marriage ....

Its still difficult to cultivate the "My husband-My wifey" kinda feeling.

We are just friends the difference being "We live togather" & fight a lot. Initially we used to have a 3 to 4 day gap max before which we were bound to end up head along. Now-a-days travelling takes up a lot of time & energy .... puts our schedule all haywire ...cant monitor it that closely.

Hez the one to whom when I talk about people/friends/relatives, my feelings about people I meet, discuss opinions/perspectives on social issues, bloggers I like, books I read(you know the kind of things lovey-dovey couples in movies & magz do)..... tells me "God, please not again, you have already told me this" and then I go on to tell him "I know, I do that and tell him how I kept telling Hansi for a whole year that I bought a digital camera" and he cuts me in between with "you have told me that too". (my friend was a lot patient)

Someone with whom I fight tooth to tooth, bitter and bad and frank opinions on the face & sometimes just say mean things to get back at each other.

I listen to someone daring to tell me how weird & orthodox my thoughts are.

We fight like we dont care if it ended here and then make up the next day or the day after or atleast the day after that. The living togather factor just takes away a lot of options like "avoid each other", "prolonging feeling of irritation", "keep poisoning your own mind againist the other" ......... all these nicities you cannot afford when living under one roof. Also when you are staying with your parents you cannot have the luxury of throwing things at each other, or breaking his prized posessions or yelling loudly but then that invites a lot of creativity wherein you can make the least noise but the max impact.

And we argue about how the other person isnt caring or understanding or whatever is the adjective only for the other to start listing things under the specific category that each does. (Mind you, this takes a lot of memory & spontaneity to recollect and analyse it to fit the specific category under scrutiny at that point of time.)

All said & done, I think, I accept now hez family.....how else can anyone get away with all the mean things said & done. Now if thatz the husband-wifey kinda feeling then maybe ..... :)

Silence

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

These 2 proverbs probably echoed my thoughts as a Teenager. In school, college, home, church probably till my early twenties. If I had an opinion I had to say it. Debates & elocutions were my favourites. Every issue was taken so personally & I was

adamant at making sure the other person understood and I also lost a debate bcoz I kept repeating myself and stressing the same points, all bcoz I thought no one understood or agreed to my point of view (should have concentrated on the award).

Then I heard these & Observing people react grew on

"Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much."

"No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut."


And then I still had an opinion but would have my take on mouthing it or not. Even now it matters if the other person understands but then I concentrate & try more on saying as little as possible while conveying the message.The advantage of saying the least is there is very little space for others to mis-understand and mis-interpret.

Couple of scenarios

1) OK, I am discussing an issue, I take a stand on it just for the heck of it(old habbits die hard), the other person has a point and I agree(actually), I realize I am talking bull-shit and dont wanna drag it any longer, I just bcom silent & leave
it to the opposition to make whatever he/she wants of it. But thatz the same reaction when I am really mad and cant say any more but then I would want to trust the person's instincts to play the record thru latter with a cooler head.

2) In the same scenario above after an hour you could also say ...thatz exactly what even I am trying to say and make the opposition look like a complete ass. Thatz again when I go silent and stare wishing I could tie that person's hands and legs to a pole and practise some boxing shots.

3) Next, OK, I just heard something and I totally didnt like the idea but have to play along for whatever reasons and I react, infact I over-react and my voice is rising and I hear a inner-voice "SHUT UP ....... You are over-reacting". And then
I just shut up & get back to a good mood but then I have managed to switch off the other person completely and the person has no clue of my angel called "inner-voice" and calls me a devil & a hypocrite. Maybe should work your way out of the argument and admit upfront then maybe you wouldnt be accused of being a hypocrite

4) I am arguing but inspite of having a valid point the other person's authoratative, repeative arguments at a decibel piercing into my ears and I have no mood to match that bcoz it would almost resemble one of thoes scenes in mahabharat during the war where 2 soilders raise their bow & arrow and keep yapping mantras for an entire episode with stupid 5 advs in between and then shoot only to meet in mid air with some sparkles and disappear with the title song. what a dissappointment!!!

5) Someone is mad at you & you just remain silent for the entire sermon, give no reaction but act dumb and deaf. Helps save a lot of energy and you can meanwhile keep collecting all the ammunition that were hurled your way. Hurl it back latter
periodically.This would have the max effect & satisfaction. You said this and I kept quiet and You said this which means "and your own bullshit interpretation". And surely since it was a sermon, you have lots to mis-understand and twist and turn and
with couple of such twisted statements you can turn the machine Gun and start shooting the long list of what you wantedly mis-understood. This will surely leave the other person spell-bound for sometime bcoz he/she is just trying hard to recollect and wanting to kill themselves for giving you so much ammunition. I have been the victim to many such and learnt my own lessons the hard way.

These are just observations of mine. Use it and know when its being used.

I am a sentimental peace loving person :-).

Our Lifts

What is the probability, of getting into your office lift of 6 levels with 1500 employees at 9:05am and having 7 people enter in it with you at level 0 and none of them seem to budge once you have pressed the button to the 6th level AND AND AND the lift stops no where in between level 0 & 6.
While you do the probability math, let me tell you, it happened for the first time to me in the last 3+ months. And should I consider myself lucky ..... too trivial to count maybe .......but surely a relief. Generally its like the mumbai local train at peak hours, over-crowded and seems to stop at every floor and some get off and some get on board but its only when you are almost about to alight, there seems to be some breathing space in there.

Calvin & Hobbes

One of my favourites. Here are a few comic strips. Click on the strips for better visibility unless you are doing some ind of a Eye Test here.

1) Paragon of Virtue


2) Lets settle this!!


3) Christmas Tree


Will upload more soon :).

Tell me your Dreams

These days, one of the first few questions we ask each other at home is "Did you see Daddy"?? Been quite a while since any of us saw him. Right now arranging for the last wedding in the family we so much wish he was around. Dad arranged 2 weddings here and 1 back in his home town with a lot of enthuthiasm. He loves meeting people especially our relatives. He did meet everyone who mattered to him during all these weddings. Stories about his childhood included all kinds of people. The family history surely is worth listening to, it usually revolved around our great grandfathers, priests in the family, how my grandfather became a priest, the Golden cross, the farms and farming, the lakes and boats, the old house structure, the Huge church lamp, the escape by crossing seven rivers, our great grand mother and her peculiar habbits, the church graveyard where they went for a stroll after dinner, ghosts & the Faith and the list is endless.
I still remember, during summer vacations, when we used to abandon the cozy bed and move to the floor in the drawing room for a good night's sleep, from one topic to the other we would finally be hearing to one the family stories late into the night. It was nothing less than a fairy tale.
These days, while we are busy arranging & inviting people for the wedding that needs to be arranged in a very short time span, we wonder where Daddy is. Maybe he is as restless as we are till the wedding is through, maybe he is monitoring everything we keep jotting down in the "To Do" list into his Diary (His obsession with diaries will make a different blog all togather), Maybe he is the one whoz arranging all this bcoz 2 weeks back we were just standing with tons of things to do and couple of dates and suddenly now everything seems to be in place just the way he would have liked it.
Today morning as I and mom were discussing dad, why he doesnt seem to be coming up in any of our dreams when we all really want to see him, my sister said she thinks, hez not gonna miss this chance to meet & invite people so he is equally busy inviting all the people at his heavenly abode. :-) Thinking about it.......Hmmm .... there surely is a whole lot of people he loves & cares for even there.

Bad Mood

I am so damn fumming with anger and dont have a single outlet right now. Just wish I could &^%&^*+%*&, dont know what but still.
Need to get it off. Need to pass some 10mins before I start off to do what I started to do bcoz of the bloody electricity. Wonderwhen is the electricity going to get back in shapenow. 9-11 power cut ona sunday morning ..... what a shame. %^$^%$^^%&^*+. And I wonder whatzup with this netcafe.... tried checkingmy blog comments but they appear so small, cant read athing sitting rightinfront of it ..... and this damn keyboard ...why does thespacebar never work. And this littleboy sittingnext tome is starring at my screen ...wonder if he can read anything

Of all things Good and Bad.....

"Rumble in the Tummy" is the best of all. Initially it was very minimal, these days its almost like a jungle in there. Usually its ok when I am on the move. The moment I sit down or lie down, the little one is full of activity. I can feel all kinds of movements inside, just that I am not very sure if its the hand or the leg or the elbow or the head, whatever it is, its just fun to feel it. During my last visit to my Gynec, she had a tough time tracing the heart beat because the little one was busy giving her a few blows. All we could hear for a while was swishing air kinda noise zhuuup...zhhap....zhhuuup. For me, after the irritating nausea & general feeling of unwell.......this is the BEST. I just love it and even dance to the kicks once in a while. There are times when I hold my hand on my tummy, and just think ...give me a "hi five" and there just around there I would get a wonderful little kick. After hearing to my stories Pradeep tried listening to the movements inside and there he got a bigger kick :-). Probably, once outside, kicking is not going to be all that welcome, but in there, try as much as you want :-). And seriously, this puts all the debate of "wanting to be a Guy" right out of the window. Love you and keep kicking while the days are ticking.
These days probably I look fat in a weird way, bcoz I have started getting a lot of queer looks & "so whatz cooking ....any good news" or "You are looking different ...is there anything special" and "You seem to be eating full time ..... whatz up" kinda funny questions. People are really creative at trying not to ask directly and offend unnecessarily :-).

A Movie Buff I know

Watching movies is an art. sitting through it for 3 hours is patience. Tickets are very expensive and sometimes not even worth the money spent on the popcorn (thatz expensive too). The nearest one is E-square and its very crowded.
And if someone would tell me the story I would classify that as a movie "I Watched".
These are the views of Mr. P in short.

Ms X: So what are your hobbies
Mr P: Sleeping, reading, Painting & Movies
Ms X: Movies!! aha! What was the last movie you saw
Mr P: hmmmmm....... (smiles...then grins ...all the while trying to cook up a name) .... hmm
Ms X: Have you seen Sarkar? Its a brilliant movie
Mr P: Yes ...Its ok
Ms X: I love Amitabh & Abhishek in it
Mr P: Hmm ...while he is thinking (Amitabh??? Abhishek .... I dont remember seeing them ... whatever ...big deal ...maybe they were in there and I slept through)

Actually Mr P saw parineeta

I, my sis & Mr P, one sunday afternoon, sit down in front of the TV after a heavy lunch to watch some movie that might catch our interest. Mr P has the remote, channel surfing for a good movie is on ....channel-X , swades starring shahrukh khan ....... i was hoping he would stop at swades but just 5 mins and tick tick tick .... after a few more flips ...wow Aamir, saif, priety starring DCH .... I can watch this ... and me and my sis look at Mr P with pleading looks ..... he is a nice guy, he stops and we start watching, 15 mins into the movie Mr P enquires abt the story line, having seen the movie n times, me & my sister enthuthiastically fill in and give away the story ....... once the story telling is over, tick ..tcik ..tick flip the channel moves on ... my sister thought he actually enjoyed the story when she was narrating it and we both turned to him in surprise, he was more surprised than us, "so u both have seen the movie n times, I heard the story and I am ok". after a few more flips he stops at Rajnigandha, this is were amol palekar is trying to woo the heroine .... stays on for 20 mins on this one .....we are happy to watch this one too ....... we relax .... does he get her? ... comes the question .... i refrain from answering but my sister pitches in with a smile and says "yes but you should see how" and thats all ..... Mr P has watched 3 films in 30-40 mins..... hez tired ..... he yawns and he is off to sleep.

The one time I actually saw a movie with Mr P was in NEETA VOLVO, Mr P cant sleep in a moving vehicle, cant read and the window seat was occupied by me, so had no option but to watch the movie, and so we saw hungama, ofcourse I had seen the movie atleast 5 times if not more but we enjoyed it bcoz he didnt have choice. But he loved the movie. After the first 15-20 mins the movie had already been in the "I watched" category so the remaining 2 1/2 hrs was just TP out of sheer helplessness :) BUT he enjoyed :).

He still doesnt agree he isn't a "Movie Buff"