Its that time of the year again. The time of resolutions - relooking those you made for this year and (re) writing those for the coming year. Some standard resolutions I've been making (and rewriting) year on year since my early teens, (these are still relevant btw) are:

1. Will lose weight
2. Will talk less
3. Will read more

As useful as sushi in a storm. As vague as the sense of direction of an average Hyderabadi. As pointless as a lone cloud in a vast desert.

This year, however, I'm a changed woman with changed resolutions (look out for the halo the next time you meet me!). But of course, I'm not sharing them here. Then why this drone-of-a-post, you ask? Well - it is to record, as a reminder, that moment of reckoning. To warn myself, not to lose sight of those goals. To know what not to do.

Here's to a new year, a new beginning. Yay to 2009!

PS: I'm not doped or drunk. I do realize there's a whole week before the New Year begins. Its about the sentiment, you fool. Its about the realization. Om Shanti (I'm at peace).

Inspired by a 'mid-week humor' forward about what to expect from a North Indian wife versus a South Indian one, I bring to you, in association with QQ, *trumpets*, the travails of living with a North Indian Man. To give you - the rare but eclectic reader of this blog, a perspective - I am a South Indian tied into living with a North Indian and QQ a North Indian, as she claims, is trying to cope with a South Indian under one roof. Respecting chronology, I'd rather you read her valuable and as ever, true and heartfelt and bodily-endured insights & facts first. Then, if you are:

1. A North Indian gloating in pride


2. A South Indian angry and seeking revenge


3. An indifferent but curious seeker of the truth,

...read on.

A North Indian guy:

1. thinks anything in the liquid state is substitutable for dal and is meant to dip roti into - even sambar


2. has a family that can form a whole orchestra - with backups for each role, mind you, without any external support. E.g, tauji on tabla, mausi on mandolin, taiji on tanpura, bhabhi on baansuri and so on.


3. thrives on c-grade, double entendre filled- mithun chakraborty movies like gunda. - (while we're at it, check out the fan following for this http://gunda-faqs.blogspot.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunda_(film)) and gifts a copy of this movie to all near and dear


4. whose idea of a vacation is walking the narrow, dirty, filthy lanes of Benaras


5. thinks gourmet cuisine is kachori, jalebi and rabri


6. expects men in any part of the world to respond to the universal call of 'bhaiyya'


7. NEVER EVER covers vessels with lids - even if they happen to be in danger, lizard/spider-infested zone


8. comes with an in-built chip-on-shoulder as the fair-skinned aryan, being superior to dark-skinned dravidian


9. has a name that is as commonplace that it can be spotted on a wine shop, a butcher, a general store, a lorry transport office, all at the same time - in any remote part of North India


10. has a family in which women cry - in joy/in sadness/at weddings/at funerals (obviously)/at housewarming ceremonies/in illness/in family member's illness/at death in daily soap/at illness in daily soap..and so on
    and of course, my favorite about North Indian people - everything south of Bihar is 'Madras' and the natives, 'madraasis'

Its amazing how work, and what happens while you're at it, can impact your life.
After all, it is meant to be a means to make life more liveable, for what you get from it - monetary or non-monetary. But somewhere, it just takes over your whole being, almost possessing you. So much so, that you and what you want to be or do, cease to matter. It invades and pervades your system. It clogs your nerves. It dulls your brain. It breaks your heart.

It also makes you post miserable stuff like this.

If you're reading this, sorry for the rant. I'm in one of my 'who am I and what am I doing with my life' moods. Which is pretty much me, lately.

Work – what comes in between sets of weekends
Life – what comes in between sets of Work
Pay – what you put up with Life for
Holiday – what you need the Pay for
Joy – what you experience on a Holiday
Depression – the after effects of excessive Joy
Numbness – the hungover feeling after a generous dose of Depression
Ecstasy – a brief interlude succeeding Numbness, during Work, between two Holidays
Lost - Me, while writing this post
Confused - You, after reading this post

You're down with a fever. Great. Sit home and read, watch stupid sitcoms and soaps for endless hours. You're down with chicken pox. Not bad. Hog the attention and the food. Just tolerate the itchiness but you could read and sleep and sleep and read and eat and read. Whatever. You just had your tonsils removed. Splendid. Down tubs and more of ice-cream and you could still ask for more.
But conjunctivitis! Nopety nope. She's the most torturous of them all.
You cannot read. You cannot watch television. You cannot random surf the net for stupid, aimless blogs such as this one. You cannot meet people. Worst of all, you cannot shop. You cannot go to work (not that one would want to... but I'm trying to prove a point here!) You can only listen to so much music. So what is it that you can do?
What you can do is keep cleaning gooey, -icky stuff off your eyes. Pour gallons of drops into them. Feel the bitter taste of those drops travelling down your throat (yes, that happens with the eyes too, like I just found out). Try to sleep and end up with a headache worse than you had earlier. THAT's what you can do.
And if you happen to have viral conjunctivitis - the one that lasts longer, much longer, you have no choice but to 'let your body fight it out' (like the good ol' doc said). Now if urges-to-binge are the only things you're body has ever fought, you can't quite trust it to do a good job, can you?
So here I am. Waiting like a prisoner who know his term is coming to an end, but is not quite sure, when. (umm, well... if you know me you already know my penchant for drama, right?)
But like they say, one should look at others' sorrows when in the dumps and you'll start counting your blessings. So when I have friends who've had fancy-sounding but life-altering problems like - chalazion, Rubella, marriage!, I can only feel better (of course, not discounting my sympathies for QQ and RK for going through some of the above) about my condition.
Joie de vivre!

Have you ever:

1. Felt that you were made for better things than 'Ctrl+Tab'bing between excel sheets and powerpoints and trying to compile never-ending reports which you always knew would end up in trash, unopened?
2. Felt you deserved a long, fully-paid vacation in an exotic location for putting up with your boss/es, colleagues, peers and DR's mood swings and manifestations of nicotine deprivation? (theirs, not yours, silly)
3. Felt you were the most under-utilized, under-rated and over-worked employee of the year?
4. Felt like giving it all up and sitting at home - reading chick-lit, watching back-to-back episodes of SATC, Friends and others?
5. Felt like you'd have been better off in the Jane Austen-ish, Victorian era where all you had to do was dress up (or down) for meals and everything in between? (Actually, even I'm not sure how I'd like a life of just that - plus I cannot sew a button back on, forget anything else: case in point those abandoned trousers at the back of my wardrobe; so maybe, I'm not all that Victorian either)

A long long time ago, in another life, I'd read a really good book by Groucho Marx (forgotten its name - think it was 'Groucho and Me' or something). Instantly fell in love with the man for his stylishly self-deprecating wit and sometimes-sassy humor. Found some of these lines on a site dedicated to him. Have highlighted my favorites in bold. Savour this.
PS: Have overpowered the feminist side of me and overlooked some of the male chauvinistic comments below. Suggest you do so too. Just shut her out for 2 minutes, and if you haven't, don't blame me for what happens next.

How do you feel about women's rights ? I like either side of them.
Here's to our wives and girlfriends...may they never meet!
Mrs. Teasdale: He's had a change of heart.[Groucho]: A lot of good that'll do him. He's still got the same face.
I sent the club a wire stating, Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.
Send two dozen roses to Room 424 and put 'Emily, I love you' on the back of the bill.
I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
A man is as young as the woman he feels.
Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
I didn't like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions-the curtain was up.
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
There's one way to find out if a man is honest-ask him. If he says 'yes,' you know he is a crook.
To Margret Dumont: "I can see you and I married. I can see you bending over the stove. I can't see the stove!
Dig trenches? With our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing..if you can fake that, you've got it made.
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
She got her good looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon.
I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.
Remember men you are fighting for the ladies honor, which is probably more than she ever did.
Paying alimony is like feeding hay to a dead horse.
Last night I shot an elephant in my Pajamas and how he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
We took pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed. . . But we're going back next week.
Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.
I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. (I personally identify and empathise with this one!)
Marriage is the chief cause of divorce.

Life's ironies:

1. Your workpile hits the roof when you've just gotten back from a nice, long vacation. So what's the point in going on one, when you're anyway going to be back to your dreary, disgusted self in a day's time?
2. You have your worst acne breakouts when you've got a : a.) wedding - friend's, or worse still your own (I've just been through this, and therefore it tops my list), b.) very crucial, long-elusive date, c.) job interview - even worse if its on VC - your zit's magnified twenty times over!, d.) meet-the-(already-hate-you) parents lunch lined up- now they have another excuse - 'she's got a very dangerous and extremely contagious skin-disease that could contaminate our whole progeny!', 'hamaare khandaan ki izzat multani mitti mein mil jaayegi!!', e.)
3. Your pickup, which is usually fashionably late, arrives just as you're about to hit your creative climax - which is now. Ciao! Shall continue...

Stumbled on this poem someplace and was totally enamoured by how beautifully the poet captures the emotional vicissitudes one goes through at the beginning of a relationship, and sometimes, all through it. Especially love the lines - 'One moment, you whisper in my ear
the other, you’ve gone too far...' So true for all those times when one wonders, is this the same person I thought I knew so well!

Can only say, 'wish someone had written this for me, how flattering would that be!'

'...For you with love'

You’re an enigma,
a spirit so carefree,
the more I think I know you,
the more you baffle me.

A reality or a dream?
I wonder what you are
One moment, you whisper in my ear
the other, you’ve gone too far...

A learner, a dreamer, an explorer
In you, I see all these and more...
Inquisitiveness, fantasies and spirit,
All blended in your core

Here I sit unraveling
the ‘mystery’ that you are
Living in ‘moments’
a life simple yet bizarre

With you
I experience passion unknown
the highs and the lows
and a yearning deep sown

You soothe my burning soul
like a whiff of cool breeze
canopy of your womanhood
has nurtured me with ease

As time drifts endlessly
and I delve deeper into you
I often stop to ponder
do you feel all this too?

Just want you to know
whatever the future may be
I cherish what we share
and - You'll always be beautiful to me !!

Out of pure personal observations (and not experiences) I hereby bring to you the MIL checklist. It could do one or more of the following for you:

• Remind you of your days as a bahu
• Prepare you for what you are in store for when you get married to your ‘boy’ (they never really become men, do they?)
• Relive what you are going through/have gone through/will go through with your MIL during her visits (more so if the visit tally is still in the single-digit range)

So off we go. Here’s what you need to check for before she’s due to make her presence felt (in every way possible):

1. Leftovers in the refrigerator – anything that i.) looks more than 3-days old ii.) smells like the boy’s sock iii.) has this weird, grayish-green thing on the surface (which is called ‘mould aka fungus’ btw) iv.) has changed its color – from one end of the colour spectrum to the other, or v.) has changed shape – more like withered away on the lines of ‘what was a grape, is now a raisin’ and v.) all of the above – then even your mom (who’s otherwise usually tolerant) is sure to freak out.
2. Near-expiry Noodles/sauces/soups/masalas/legumes - or any other stuff that’s sold with a pack date and a BBD (best before date) and looks more like a pictorial representation of the Mesozoic era
3. Noodles/sauces/soups/masalas/legumes packets – that were there in the same exact shape and place the last time she came over (even if the BBD is as far as your fiftieth birthday, which we women never have, btw)
4. Clothes of the boy – hanging behind doors, crawling out from under the bed, peeping out of discarded travel bags – they are THE boy’s clothes. Ignoring them means as much as ignoring him, which shows you are not responsible enough and are incapable of taking care of her delicate, dainty darling (and his progeny)
5. Dust/cobwebs around the house – even if you’ve just pest-controlled the whole place and this cheeky li’l spider decided to be obnoxious enough and disregard your attempts and decided to spin, you gotta pay for it babe! After all, being a working woman doesn’t mean you will let the house fall into a state of disarray, right? That’s IRRESPONSIBLE
6. Pieces of crockery/cutlery/dinnerware which are in odd-numbers – a clear sign that either careless you the careless maid (never the boy, mind you, naah) has broken them – means you were not vigilant enough with yourself or your maid (she shouldn’t be handling them in the first place!). Now dinner sets don’t come along everyday, do they?
7. Pieces of jewellery – DO NOT leave around anything that’s amber-ish (not your husband, NR).. I mean the colour. It could be precious/semi-precious/un-precious, but that’s going to induce your maid to turn dacoit overnight and start plundering your place. Also, as always, it’s a sign of arrogance and negligence (my son doesn’t strive and toil and make money for you to throw around now, does he?)
8. Containers without lids – now these could be containers you got from the take-away and conveniently forgot to dispose of them, but how can they not have a lid? What good are they without one and it is a sign of arrogance of the young generation who takes everything for granted and thinks everything can be wasted away coz we’ve got the moolah to buy all u see!
9. Pack sizes of all essential stuff – (from laundry to groceries to personal care) – size everything to suit your teeny-weeny two-people household (btw, for the record, I HATE, no, ABHOR, anyone using DINK – disgusting set of jealous, two-faced people! More on that separately). Did you buy that huge bar of soap or that large bag of Ariel? Now why would you do that – don’t you know your house-help will tend to overuse all this when she sees there’s so much at her disposal?
10. Anything that’s totally new and seemingly redundant (namely, that charming coffee table, the fancy flower vase, the cozy couch – whatever) – now why would you want to add stuff to your already splitting-at-the-seams house? Did you really need that? You should be holding on till you have babies (oh no! not that territory again!)… that’s when you’ll need to buy lots and lots of things.
    
    Before I rest my case, remember, that if:
    You’ve been married for over 12-24 months (depending on where your in-laws are on the ‘broad-mindedness’ meter (I know that’s a word loosely used here, but couldn’t think of a replacement)
    You or hubby are hovering around the ‘time-for-parenthood’ age (which in turn is defined basis the meter discussed above)
    One or both of your in-laws, thinks, that they won’t be around for long (touchy topic, that one)
    all points of discussion/debate or otherwise will lead to the ‘mere khandaan ka chiraag kab aayega’ (in true KSKBT style) juncture – from where the direction in which you head is entirely, succinctly put, your baby.
    

Was wondering what'd be an appropriate way of reviving this blog when I stumbled upon this piece on an anon blog. (Don't really know blog-laws, if there are any in the first place, but hope I don't get sued for copying someone's text from someone else's blog!)

All along I thought it was just me who felt this way and was abnormal enough to merit psychiatric counselling and all. But looks like there are a more than a few extraordinary men and women in this league. So let me cut the crap and get to the point! Here are those pearls of wisdom:

As I look back on my life, one of the most constant and powerful things I have experienced within myself is the desire to be more than I am at the moment - an unwillingness to let myself remain where I am - a desire to increase the boundaries of myself - a desire to do more, learn more, express more - a desire to grow, improve, accomplish, expand. I used to interpret this inner push as a meaning that there was some one thing out there I wanted to do or be or have. And I have spent too much of my life trying to find it. But now I know that this energy within me is seeking more than the mate or the profession or the religion, more even than pleasure or power or meaning. It is seeking out more of me; or better, it is, thank God, flushing out more of me.
- From “Notes to Myself”, By Hugh Prather.

Though I'd read this book in parts (Mistake No.1) at different times in life (Mistake No.2) I don't quite remember chancing upon these lines (Mistake No.3)- probably the cheap Indian reprint I bought (Mistake No.4) omitted just this page or I was selectively blinded or some force majeure ripped the page away, waiting to shower it back on me when I was more capable of understanding it (that's holding myself in REALLY high regard right now!) - providence I call it, ignorance - my alter-ego says. What say you?