Rant Alert!!

I don’t think I will make any introductions. I need to rant, crib and vent it all out. And I will do so in a much organized bulleted manner just make sure I have put it ALL out there. So here I go-

• I am terribly overworked and severely underpaid! I don’t mind doing a lot of work but it would be nice to be compensated accordingly!!

• I hate Delhi traffic. Also, I hate the traffic in Calcutta and Bombay (and yes I would forever call it ‘Bombay’) which limits my choices of metropolitan living in India to one city! *Sob*

• I am bored with Delhi (there I said it out loud). And considering the rant mentioned in the bullet above I don’t know where to go!!!

• My mother has postponed her trip to Delhi by ONE week!! *Dies of shock just writing this* And don’t judge me. It is very hard to wait for luchi and aloor torkari and chilly chicken for ONE more week!

• I keep wanting to run away. I try not to want it, you know. I try telling myself that this need of running away is NOT actually going to take me anywhere so I should be happy and content with where I am and what I am doing. And that telling myself DOES NOT help.

• I miss living in New York! I miss the walking, the subways, the freedom, the summer and the tall skim latte at Starbucks. That city did magic to me, I tell you. *Sigh*

• I also want EVERYTHING. Yes. I want everything and want them right now. I have told myself, I tell myself everyday actually, that one should not ask for everything and one should count her blessings and smile forever and that it is practically not possible to obtain everything unless you are literally floating in money (by which I mean hard cash) these days. Doesn’t help!!! I still want EVERYTHING.

• I want a job in one of those travel shows. No. Wait. I want a job in one of those travel FOOOD shows.

• This reminds me that I am getting fat. I have put on many many pounds of weight over the last six months. Which had not bothered me at all except these last two weeks when I could not fit into  a nice tee and when R realized that his trousers were feeling tight-er around the waist! So realization happened and we went around Gurgaon hunting for THE gym with THE machines and THE deal and THE location (see, that wanting everything again!). After a week of ‘checking things out’ and ‘weighing our options’ last evening we zeroed in one place. The gym looks a little flamboyant (it has pink green and red lights in the reception with white couches and the staff wear purple shirts with black pants and purple tie with black stripes) but it has a lot of equipment, interesting group classes and spinning classes which apparently make you lose 800 calories in one here! I can already picture myself sweating it out and then donning a bikini and labeling myself super hot super soon! Aah! Such good thoughts, I tell you.

Now. Having said ALL THAT and being on the other side of fence where the grass is supposed to be greener and stuff let me tell you what the truth is (and the reader MUST remember  that such reality escapes the resident of greener pastures very very frequently)-

• I actually like my job. I do a lot of work and not in the perfect working conditions (imagine being on the top floor of a run down building without fully functional air conditioning when it 46C outside!) but I really like what I do. Compensation is an issue but I did jump into this headlong knowing that compensation would be an issue. So it’s okay, I guess.

• It is for the same reason that I do the one and half hour commute one way everyday to get to work. I really do like it THAT much!

• I AM bored with Delhi but then I get bored with anything that looks permanent. I need change all the time!

• Yes. I want to run away.  I want to go and live very very far from here. Far from all my problems, my nightmares, my anxiety, my constantly looking over my shoulder and my worrying about my mother. I think the last bit tops.  *Sigh*

• That’s a part of the reason for which I miss living in New York. I was safe, I was free and I was very far away from all the problems back home. (But then one can’t run away forever. Can they?)

• And I can rant and crib about not having everything without actually ever having them all. So it’s all good, actually.

So dear God, thank you for a life which is not half as bad as I make it out to be, thank you for the wonderful mother, thank you for R, thank you for my friend of twenty five years, thank  you for my other friends who I can ping on g-talk at any time of the day and crib my heart out while they fight deadline at work. Thank you for the job that I wanted and thank you for all the comfort that I have right now.

There!  I feel a little better and I hope the Sunday will go by without much ranting now.

I promise a better post soon!!

On changing times

Sometimes I think I was much happier in my one room apartment in New York. I use to cry there too, you know. Very bitterly. With no one around me. But then R would come back home every night. And we would go out for walks, for coffee. Explore our neighborhood. Sometimes I would meet him in Manhattan. We would brave the crowd and walk to the theater to catch a movie. We used to take the train ride back to our apartment on those nights. We used sit side by side, hold hands and talk about the movie.

Sometimes now I tell myself I have a better life here. I have a big apartment, two maids, one driver, a big car and a good job. I don’t have to kill my back sweeping and mopping anymore and spend endless hours washing dishes. There is no waiting for the train. My career has finally taken off.

But something is amiss. We don’t walk around here. There is no neighborhood to explore. We don’t share household chores. We don’t get to see each other every night. There are no train rides, no walking in the rain and snow.

There is no time. He has his work and I have mine. On Sundays we match our calendars to find a window of few days to spend time with each other. Often we fail. We blame it on each other. He feels guilty, I cry for reasons I cannot explain. He thinks, I write.

And then we give up. Give up on being upset and offering explanations. We quietly retire to our own worlds while assuring the other one that we are still around.

We still love each other. We still want to be with each other. We would give anything to make it work. But the madness has gone. Somehow we have tamed ourselves, taught ourselves to walk and not run, go with the wind and not against it. Somehow, unconsciously, we have let ourselves be trapped in time, money, career and all things perceived to be essential in the pursuit of happyness.

And today, suddenly I am scared. I am scared that I’ll have to stop being insane. I am scared that he will stop being funny. I am scared that we are suddenly growing up and forcing ourselves to think ahead.

Are we ready yet?

I do not know.

On Mcleodganj

Have you ever dreamed of a far away land tucked away in a quiet valley of pine forests and rhododendron trees? Where the sky is a clear blue, the snow capped mountains stand tall and the rhythm of life transports you to another age altogether? Do you want to wake up to birds chirping? Do you want to walk on winding roads with leaves rustling beneath your feet? Do you want to visit a church just to hear the sound of silence?

Come to Mcleodganj then. And drown yourself in the madness, quietness, peace and chaos for once and for all.

And if you pay close attention you would hear the collective sighs of many tired city dwellers who come away to this town sometimes to pray, to savor the delicacies in road side cafes and to fall in love.

The main temple

Cold coffee, mint tea and chocolate cake at Namgyal cafe

The lovely Glenmoor Cottages

The walk to the church

The Church

This grave is over a hundred years old

The outer Himalayas seen from the Norbulingka Institute

Prayer flags

We went to Mcleodganj a few weeks back. We avoided the weekend crowd and loved the laid back days we spent there. Do stay at the Glenmoor Cottage if you visit Mcleodganj. Lovely hosts, excellent location and good food. Perfect if you are looking for some peace and quiet.

Yet, in my country…

…it all works.

Sights in Delhi on a sunny winter afternoon.

Please click on the pictures to enlarge them.

This is my post for Wordless Wednesday. Amazing how I never actually post on a Wednesday!

Diwali

is over.

The Rangoli is gone, the diyas are gone, the candles are over. R burst his fair share of firecrackers, I stood at the farthest corner possible, draped in a new saree of black and gold with a few Phooljharis in my hand cringing every time a cracker burst in the vicinity (that is to say, every other second right beside me). The lights from my balcony will come down tomorrow. Life will go back to being muchly mundane. We will all go back to work, to our daily commute, the songs on the radio and no particular mad rush of getting back home.

The Diwali ended well. With a traditional Bengali dinner complete with finger licking mutton curry, tomato chutney and narkel naru.

The Diwali brought with it a nice crisp breeze, a slight chill in the air, the mellow warmth of the sun and walks any time of the day. Yet now when the sunlight falls squarely on my east facing balcony, a slight heartache tells me I am missing something. It brings me tears of both joy and sorrow. Of loved ones coming and loved ones leaving.

But then there is tender daybreak. A new day, every day. It brings a little bit of hope for all of us. Hope of holding on, hope of letting go. Hope of being able to smile one more time before wiping away hidden tears.

Yes. Diwali is over. All that is left behind now is the strange feeling of nostalgia, the sudden feeling of emptiness. And the lamps, waiting to be lit again next year.

Do you know

Who composed the music for the National Anthem of India?

I bet you do not. Here is the answer.

And here is the blog that not only gave me the answer but more importantly asked the question. Good job!

On India.

So I was browsing through this website to gather some facts about our country when I stumbled across this page here.

For the ones who would not care to click on the links, the page contains a list of interesting facts about India. And for the very non- curious and lazy ones, who still have not clicked on the link, here are some of the facts that I found rather appealing-

•India never invaded any country in her last 100000 years of history (Know you know, why you were lazy to click on the link!)

•Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies, which originated in India.

•The ‘Place Value System’ and the ‘Decimal System’ were developed in India in 100 B.C.

•Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the Sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. According to his calculation, the time taken by the Earth to orbit the Sun was 365.258756484 days.

•The value of “pi” was first calculated by the Indian Mathematician Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, long before the European mathematicians.

Comment- Why can I not do the Math? Tell, tell. Why? Are you also asking the same question now? Sigh!

•There are 300,000 active mosques in India, more than in any other country, including the Muslim world.

•Islam is India’s and the world’s second largest religion.

Note to all of us- Why on earth do we have riots? It all works. It also functions somehow with all the chaos. It’s someone’s way of telling us that this is all meant to co-exist. And we should always stand united. Always. Even with all our differences.

•The oldest European church and synagogue in India are in the city of Cochin. They were built in 1503 and 1568 respectively. (Anyone seen them? I want to see pictures!)

•The Baily Bridge is the highest bridge in the world. It is located in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. (And Ladakh IS the place where I am going next! The pictures nearly killed me!)

•The Vishnu Temple in the city of Tirupathi built in the 10th century, is the world’s largest religious pilgrimage destination. Larger than either Rome or Mecca, an average of 30,000 visitors donate $6 million (US) to the temple everyday.

•India has the largest number of Post Offices in the world. (Yes you, are you smirking about the efficiency? Huh? Huh?)

•Until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds in the world
(Source: Gemological Institute of America). (And then? Whatever happened? Where did all the diamonds go?)

•The largest employer in the world is the Indian Railways, employing over a million people. (And I rest my case)

Pretty amazing, huh? Especially that bit about Maths which I absolutely cannot get over. And should we also not add “the discovery of importance of zero” to that list?

Do you have any other interesting facts about India or any other country? I am very excited about this exercise I am doing currently and would love to know! Feel free to post them here or tag yourself, if you wish.

On why I moved back

Many questions arise when one makes a decision to move from a foreign country back to the motherland. Be that from US/UK to India or US to Poland. For the Polish, I can’t answer. I don’t know why they move. Maybe they miss all the snow and their Polish speaking friends. But for myself I can speak. I know why I moved back.

You see, I wanted a balcony in my house. From where I can see people and cars and kids playing in the park. I didn’t want to do the dirty dishes everyday. I wanted a break from relentless cooking. I wanted to be able to call my family and my friends at all times of the day without being worried about the time difference. I wanted them to call me whenever they wanted to without me screaming “No minutes. Will call after 8pm!” into the phone. I wanted to have a job that I deserved and not worry about my visa status. I wanted to buy fresh fish and cook it in mustard without worrying if my neighbor would comment on the smell. I wanted to buy normal vegetables and chicken that doesn’t taste like rice and cook them with spices. I didn’t want to wait for an invitation to go to my friend’s place or my aunt’s. I didn’t want to convert currencies anymore. I didn’t want to do the math to decide if I should buy the slippers worth $20 or if I should wait till I get to Calcutta “the next time”. I didn’t want to wait for one year to see my friends and family. I wanted to wear my saree and bindi and blend in the crowds. I wanted to be able shout and scream in banks and gas agencies and post offices and courier offices to get my work done. I didn’t want to say “How are you?” to utter strangers and have them turn around and walk without replying. I didn’t want to walk around with a smile plastered on my face and say “I’m fine” to everyone when my world was collapsing all around me.

Who am I kidding? I moved because I wanted to be home. I wanted to love the rains again.