Becoming M'umma' !

For the 32 weeks that I carried you, I insisted at every doctors appointment that I was going to push you out and I would not 'allow' them to cut me up.

I labored for 18 hours but you had no intention of coming out. So I finally relented and asked for an Epidural - the minute they administered it through the pinprick in my spine, my hips down, it felt warm and buoyant and I thought finally I get to enjoy my labouring as well.

However, the minute my body relaxed, you also relaxed and I think all the warmth made you sluggish and you pooed inside - so within seconds it had become a tense moment where your heart rate had started plummeting. I was rushed into the OT, all along I kept thinking you were a boy and that you would fight back - but everything happened so fast, I felt that I had zero agency' during this time. I have never felt more helpless - intellectually and physically.

The only familiar presence in that cold/steel OT was your dad - they cut me up, I could hear so many non-sensical childish conversations of a bunch of new interns who were standing at my head, I could feel them take you out and I heard the feeblest cry from you - even the din from the AC seemed louder. I could feel the doctor tugging and pulling at my abdomen to stitch me back and then your father came next to my head and showed you to me, you were sleeping, all wrapped up, you were finally out in this world and oh my god - you were so beautiful, with the plumpest, pinkest lips that looked ready to pout.

I think 'we' fell in love together and I remember saying - o she is preeetty!

After that, once my anesthesia started wearing off, I remember crying uncontrollably - all the nurses and young doctors who were there could not understand and I was out of control - I cried and shivered as they shifted me out of the OT bed and trolleyed me back through the floors to my room.

I had an overwhelming sense of having failed you and your father because I could not push hard enough and chose the epi. But that night something else also occurred which has taken me 13 months to recognize and be thankful for.

Somewhere deep inside of me, there is a part that is superior, more evolved than the amateur, struggling flawed person that I am - and this place knows that I will be honest and true to you as we grow together. And you will see me fail so many times, but you will know that I will rise and I will teach you that!

Its been several years since I have had pets, I had them when I was born and the few years that I did not have one - were long and I would say extremely uneventful. I must clarify that I love animals - really even rats if I could just blind myself from looking at their tails! But mostly I have had dogs and the small variety - what many may consider show pieces, may I please dispel such blatant maligning of such species who are brave and extraordinary in their own little ways.

Of the last two pets that I have had, they have been so to say more of the impish kinds. They are small, furry, essentially snub nosed so very hard to muzzle kinds.

Now what I am unable to deal with or atleast fail each time to deal with is when upon seeing the photos of my pet, I am told how similar I look. Now I love my babies, they are my world, I take them out for walks, I feed them and then ofcourse I even talk with them.

But must I look like them.....? One of my colleagues suggested that often dogs look like their masters and masters often reflect the same - really- Now I thought that happened with couples who've grown old together.

But in many ways I do grow old with my dogs - I love them more everyday, I deal with their pranks everyday and I feel they make me happier everyday - so I guess then I am fine if I am associated to my source of happiness!

The last few days have gone by, as if hurried by. There were ever so slight peaks into understanding human nature, the ways of the world, my darling sister left for Mumbai, my boss took credit for my groundwork without even flapping an eyelid, my boyfriend left for his hometown for the exams he is to sit for, one of my girlfriends is proverbially in the wrong place at the wrong time and my mind has been in a zone of subtle restlessness.

So I dug deep into the recesses of my mind, in an attempt to recollect a particularly hard time when taking a decision seemed all but impossible. I did find something to give me solace- the I-Ching.

What it is? How it works? Is not mine to answer. Infact I do not wish to divulge more into this -

So as a consequence of much activity I have been unable to achieve much in terms of my preparation. I dont wish to worry, so I will push myself not to.

the question therefore in this stage is what can I do to sustain my perparations? Especially when I feel things slipping towards the worst?

I have a faint answer in doing my Job properly. I have been stuck with a video editing software for the last 2 days, but this is frustrating me. What gets to me even more is one such colleagues tall claim of knowing all the ropes of editing and her absolute inability to help me out on this. Really??/

So many ineffectual people working ineffectually for longest periods of time! And we wonder why the work is not good enough.

Note: Very recently one of my directors wrote an email to me which began like this "You inspired me to play with the design... much more interesting than what I was doing :)

I tried to combine your two designs," I was happy that I was able to do that!

Hope India, Hope!

I must confess this, its quite appropriate because I hardly have readers/followers and well it'll be out of my system atleast.

So very recently I attended a motivational seminar as it were. Its been 2 weeks and I thought I'd die with this but I think it must be told atleast for the sake of kindred spirits.

When a reasonably good looking young (early 30's) kind of a guy makes tall claims to 'changing your life if you attend his seminar' I think you should find out exactly what he has to offer.

So I trudged several kilometers, got lost on my way and parked my car in blistering heat to hear this man speak. I tend to observe things around me, the venue of the event was the ISKON temple, now I have heard stories and stories about what goes on there, mind you I am a narrow minded person with exceptionally limited view of things around me, inspite of such handicaps, I decided I would leave my biases outside this. There were two longest of long queues...one for men and one for women...the one for the latter was short and was a delight to be a part of...however it did not really matter because once inside, men women alike were ravenous...guess for what...hope, life change, seizing the day and everything that life is made up of...the one thing that stuck out was there appeared to be more men  in desperate need of this doze, and so many of them were young (in their 20's)...naturally the skewed sex ratio of our country might as well have been the reason.

With due respect to the said man...his intentions are great, and to add to it all...its actually free...there are no after talk offers/packages.

It should suffice to say that at the end of a 2 hour session I felt rather exhausted. His analogies examples did not work to motivate me, strangely he used a term "AASAN HAIN"(its easy) very frequently and this kept ringing in my head for several days to come. I feared some form of subliminal attack on my numerous states of conciousness' had occurred!

Attending this seminar did however quite a few things for me...I realized I dont need anybody to tell me about hope and motivation and things like that. Prehaps something about the fact that life beats you down but you get up and move ahead anyway...or something!

There were sadly a whole bunch of youngsters, people who had exams the next day, had taken off from work to be there...what baffled me was 'why'???

Its a qualitative question, I dont think there could be a fixed answer to this one, it will vary from individual to age groups, to communities as well as sex.

I am certain of the 600 odd who attended his talk, 400 would like to return, go back...please for all those who care to listen...attending and listening to someone else talk of how they overcame their hardships is so passive in its very nature. Your 'problems' will never be the same.

Life like relationships are the same...no two people will have the same story to tell

Go forth, fuck things up and find ways to deal with it. You dont need any motivational talker to do that!

Since I am only subtely speaking against his agenda, perhaps you'd like to still hear him out

http://www.sandeepmaheshwari.com/

NOTE: Any unintended harm or malice is never meant towards the mentioned subject.

The untold joys of a Clandestine Bitch!

The month of April ended wonderfully for me. As usual I went a-travelling to Purnea, Bihar. This time the purpose was to document and undertake a qualitative research of an ongoing Mother's Literacy project.

Naturally how the program is running, what do mother's have to say about it etc are going to be part of the report that I hope I would be able to come up with.

Now during the course of my stay in Purnea, I got into a bit of a squabble, it was rather mature because I was really unable to 'carpe diem' as it were and therefore was left mostly frustrated with my sheer inability already. Since I more often than not find a way to vent my anger, this time around, my beloved took the beating. I was deeply saddened at such a peculiar disposition, however, I feel perhaps, that my love for this man concerned is bigger, larger than day to day work squabbles and so we kiss and make up...

 My next best bet was to pray to the Indian scriptures that maybe, that Karma may get back at this person concerned and what many would consider to be the ideal case is if I were to witness such benevolence played out infront of my eyes.

As providence would have it, the above mentioned person was going to pay and pay oh so dearly for the much unwonted remarks of just a few hours before. She along with another were to undertake a train trip homeward bound to Delhi from Purnea. Their tickets were wait-listed-but most believed it would be confirmed by the hour of their travel. Arriving on the platform, with the train poised to leave, She checked the lists frantically to ensure the tickets were confirmed and they had proper seats...Karma be praised...there were no such confirmed seats and neither did their names show up on this list.

Return they must, it was now much more than merely an insult meted out by fate if they were to return to the hotel room in Purnea, so they paid for a sleeper class ticket and shared a single seat.

For the uninitiated, train rides of such kinds are particularly tedious- they last for more than 24 hours where you feel like you could set up shop right there. Over and above that if you did not get a place to sleep it is just painful...I was gleeful, joyous most definitely when I heard the occurence of this.

Its been 3 days to the event and I do not regret one bit of my feeling happy when I saw Karma play itself out right infront of me. I am quite certain that the bitches and bastards of this little limited world of mine would have gleed sometime in such fate that befell me. I am certain I am not immune to it in the future...but why not be atleast a clandestine bitch when I can...! 

So normally whenever a few trusted and close friends of mine suggest somethings or offer some advice, I take it...as snobbish as I may appear, there are very few people in my life whose opinion matters to me and more suitably when it matches mine.

So I took one such advice of giving myself a week to come up with a timetable that will work for me. I dont plan to quit my job because I'll go mad if I did. the requirement from this examination is not all that much, as I understand from the way my sister is studying for her semester exams in D'school.

I have had a wonderfully relaxing life in comparison, During my masters I was travelling the world, meeting new people, making journal entries, and learning maps. I necessarily believe however that every country has its own rules, if you dont rough it out on this soil, this soil aint gonna give you back much.

So here I am, back on this soil, learning more everyday of the issues that touch millions of people in this country, and trying to make some small difference- i cant but help thinking that it is so driven of the self, that ultimately I am just thinking of my goals, and ambitions and I give it the illusion of being the 'bigger picture'.

My job makes me travel across the villages of this country, I get to see children studying in schools and make shift arrangements, receiving education, dreams of becoming doctors from the remotest parts and that inspires me.

My relatives ofcourse cant help praising me when they hear what I do...They feel that I actually go and teach these kids...this perception of theirs and the inability to comprehend even the surface problems like how could I possibly teach kids in places where the languages are so different, where dialects make all the difference, and how could I be doing anything substantial by just visiting some villages for just a few days...are questions that never cross their mind...perhaps they have seen much of this world, and lived long in this country.

Not many of them listen to what I have to say, its hardly about credibility, its just that it does not matter, because it does not touch their lives. I am not a crusader, neither a saint.

So the point is that I was told by a very dear friend that it is the darkest before dawn and if there is only failure and no light, the only way out of this is to work hard, to give your mind no space to wallow or think of things past.

Plus when nothing works, when the love of my life is exhausted after numerous trials of encouraging and motivating me on this long empty road, I turn to the words of Rabindranath Tagore - "jodi tor daak shune keyu Na aasshe tobe ekla cholo re."

BE WARNED

I usually listen to music when I am at work, because it blocks the outside noise for me.

However, after listening to this particular song I was overcome with a feeling of doom, utter and complete, out of which there is no exit. I became breathless and to my mind crossed the following thought- while its correct that our life we have choices to make it great or just ruin it and never get our things together, what if there was actually no choice and it was all destined? And what if my destiny was as dark as I just felt?

Now a single piece of music could do that to me, I doubt, there are perhaps many sub-conscious factors...but this song was a trigger.

The funny bit is that the picturization and the wordings of the song are really contrary to the feeling it evoked in me-its a romantic song:

So I tried to think what about this piece could do that to me- I feel its the music, I mean just take the words out for a second, the beautiful scenery and all and what if you heard it in a place where you were all alone, there is a quietness to the song and the beats which seem waiting to culminate to place from where there is no return.

I was positively disturbed!