Neither here nor there. Ergo, nowhere.

Having lived in 6 countries and moving to the seventh now, I often feel that perhaps I will always remain an outsider. Sure, I love the experience in these foreign lands and the cultural soy sauce that accompanies the concoction, but I do sometimes crave for the familiarity of home. Home being India. Home being where you are not looked at curiously for your skin color, your accent or your culinary taste. Home, where you are accepted for who you are. 

This is however an illusion and nothing more.   Anytime I need a reality check I think about applying for a visa for any country while in India. I have had strange requests from agents and VFS- no objection certificate from my husband- which prompted me to change my status to single on the visa application, to a letter stating why I am not returning to India on departing from a certain Schengen country. Answer being: since I am going to UK to take up employment. But clearly that's not good enough. Either because of my nationality or some profiling formula- I am not eligible to travel at whim. And should I want to, every agent involved in the process will frown their eyebrows and look at me with eyes riddles with curiosity and a degree of frustration. "But you have to come back to India!"

I understand basic checks for issuing a visa but I don't understand the increasingly skeptical eye that every visa applicant must be scrutinized with by the embassy employees. I don't think I have been asked for a no objection certificate or such a detailed letter when applying for visas outside india. Why is it that we are faced with such cynical and skeptical scrutiny? Ok, I might know the answer to this one. I might not fit the description of a typical traveller going to Europe or Hong Kong all by herself at that, which could raise eyebrows. But still. One would think that once someone has developed a certain travel profile or some credentials by virtue of education and a clean record, this would not happen. 

Reasons I am beginning to adore London

1. Tea is available everywhere all the time. One English breakfast please. 

2. The food is amazing. You can walk into a restaurant and be amazed, even if you haven't checked its reviews or ratings on trip advisor

3. The tube is clean and efficient. Love the plush seating on some lines. 

4. Peoples propensity for being polite appeals to my innate apologetic nature. No longer do I feel sorry for saying too many sorrys. 

5. There is history everywhere.

6. Prince George.

7. It's a melting pot of culture. In little under two days I have had interesting conversations with a guy from Jamaica planning to open a restaurant serving West Indian food in Goa and a Sri Lankan who speaks Tamil and had many insights on the political situation in his country. 

8. Miss selfridge, top shop, Hamleys, boots, marks and spencer candy

9. Landmark hotel. Enough said. 

10. A city on the banks of a river has a charm to it. Budapest, Prague, Banaras, Frankfurt, and of course London.

2015

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May we be resolute

In our conviction,

Strong in our severance

Of the weight that binds us.

May we love with abandon,

And without conditions.

Loving to love,

and not to receive.

May we be kind and gentle,

not only to others

but to ourselves.

May we nourish our souls

with adventure, and peace.

May we find in our hearts

to find the forgiveness,

that deserve to set free

the cobwebs of the past.

May we be true,

first to ourselves,

and then to others.

And may we rise each day

with humility and grace.

Possessions

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I don’t have baubles

Or pearls

Nor assets abound

Or houses or cars I possess

I don’t have shiny shoes or

Chanel bags

No summer cottages nor ski cabins

In my repertoire you will see

I only have a heart,

With a void, if you will

To put the love of places I traveled

To carry with me for eternity

The smiles found on a journey

The glances exchanged

on a turbulent road.

Selfless Songs

Songs have the ability to understand my emotions. Sometimes they are even capable of extracting them and keeping them safe.

Time moves on, but when that one song entertwined in that heavy emotion comes on, the song almost persuades me to accept those emotions once again.

And then I do, for just a minute, let the emotions wash over me. I revisit all the pain, the sadness or the joy and madness.

Then I offer the song, the emotions once again—it accepts them. No questions asked. Until the next time the radio gods decide it's time for me to revisit those days, those  emotions, I am back in the real world. 

Dare I trust you, Delhi.

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You usher into an elevator or a car full of strangers in Delhi, and people steal their eyes away from you, scuffle into a corner, avoiding all contact. Me, I am trying catch someones eye, to say hello or exchange a smile. Do we hate and mistrust each other so much now?

It saddens me that a country that thrived on the values of community and camaraderie, has given way to collective paranoia, mistrust, and snap judgments.  The perversion of the system has permeated deep into our psyche. The poor are not to be trusted since they will steal. Why? Because our state can not provide for them. So lets shun them, and ignore them. This is the caste system with an economic seasoning. But whom do we trust really? And can we blame the poor for being opportunistic? What with the BMWs and Audis running wild on the streets of the metropolis', while some don’t even have a whole cloth over their naked body, can we really say that those who do not have a square meal on any given day, be content with their situation? 

I can only speak for myself, but I do feel that if I hadn’t eaten for days, and didn’t have a warm coat to protect me in the winters, my morals would be shaky too. Would I be able to speak of integrity, and morality, and honesty? I can’t be sure that I would. What recourse then we have of making a better society, a society built on trust and camaraderie? I want to say it should happen organically, but this idealistic view is a tad naïve. Unless our government does something to build institutions’ that provide food, shelter and overall physiological security to millions, I don’t think there is a solution. I only see an institutional recourse at this point, nothing else. Sure, each of us can do something everyday, and we shouldn’t shirk from it, blaming the governments reluctance or absence. This Hawain parable speaks to the very issue:

A man goes out on the beach and sees that it is covered with starfish that have washed up in the tide.  A little boy is walking along, picking them up and throwing them back into the water.  "What are you doing, son?" the man asks.  "You will never make a difference."  The boy paused thoughtfully, and picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean.  "It sure made a difference to that one," he said.

So note to self and anyone who may be reading this: smile away, make a conversation, break the ice, stop shoving each other in queues, and for gods sake, please don't make me feel that my non-aggressive stature is a shortcoming. Living with patience (less honking at cars, and more deep breathing), love (if someone shouts, be kind to them), and forgiveness (you know that lady that jumped the queue, forgive her, don't fume).

The tide will rise, till it does, each one of us must.

Shorter Hems, Grander Dreams

Somewhere over the Suez Canal, June 15, 2014

The last two months I spent in Delhi – the first prolonged duration since 2008, I felt I had skipped over a lot of transformations that had happened in Delhi the last 6 years. Since I don’t know that many people in Delhi anymore, my observations came from public places like malls and streets. Girls were no longer afraid to wear shorts skirts or bandeau dresses as I once had been (or still am) in New Delhi, in fear of inviting lecherous glances, and an increased probability of rape. Please note though there has been no empirical study of the victims clothing type in rape cases. Though I wish we never have a big enough sample to do this study.

Coming back to backless halters. I must salute all the women of Delhi who have decided to throw away the veil of traditional clothing and discretion with abandon, not giving a hoot to what others might say. Now that is kicking clichéd and archaic sayings in the balls which come from the gut of rotting old misogyny. Sayings like “Girls who dress like this [ Insert miniskirt/shorts or other such clothing suitable to Delhi heat here] are not good girls and our boy should not marry such girls” and sayings like “ she is a whore since she is dressed like that”.

So congratulations once again girls, for throwing a balloon of many fucks not given in this direction.

While my observation ended, my introspection began here. I hoped that this change is not only outward, but also accompanied by a transformation within onself. A catharsis where a 21-year-old girl decides to question her parents as to why she must get married now? A change where a girl who decides not to wed is strong enough to withstand the character assassinations that may come her way just like she battled the guy who looked at her maliciously when she wore that maxi dress. A transformation where a girl makes her own rules, just like she wears clothes which she chooses herself and not ones chosen for her by the society. I hope that as the hems of skirts get shorter, the dreams grow bigger, grander. I wish that as she fills her wardrobe with her favorite accessories, bikinis, and dresses, she makes up her mind to move beyond the life created by her society, and explores the myriad of beautiful, fulfilling paths that don’t all lead to a college degree attained solely to attract a suitable husband.

Summer Haiku

I Am Not Different.

I think I read this somewhere recently: “Feminist until a girl is married”. Strangely, I think I have never felt more anger towards  the issue of female repression since I was married. I guess, one really needs to be over into the dark side to know the extent of monstrous holy mess that constitutes it’s core.

Needless to say, the moment a woman marries, she opens her life to a barrage of inappropriate questions related to her womb—when do you plan to have kids, how many, and the onslaught continues. Perhaps, men get asked the same question too, but let’s get real, woman’s fertility is often synonymous with her ability to find and even retain a groom in India at least.

However, let me set the record straight: I am a feminist, I am married, and no I don’t have any plans of bearing children. This is my choice at the moment.

I feel that everything we do in life has to be a conscious decision. Often times, some things become so conditioned, that we go on doing the same thing on auto-pilot without even realizing the purpose of the task at hand. In this age of science, this level of blindness does not appeal to me. If everything is a conscious choice, then many life decisions about education, relationships and family must be questioned and examined. Only when one finds an answer that satisfies them or appeals to their sensibilities should the path be chosen. While this is a general guideline, following it is often associated with many challenges. Since most of my critics originate from my country of nationality: India, I will focus this article to the ambit of Indian society. In Indian society, collective tendencies dominate and there is little if no room for individual sentiments. While collectivism is a brilliant thing,  and makes us thrive in the sense of community, it brings with it an ugly monster of conformity. Think of it as the evil twin of collectivism. Brother Conformity wants everyone to follow a path that has more or less been followed by everyone before. Any deviation is frowned upon, and attributed to some character flaw. To illustrate: a woman’s choice to not marry consciously would be ascribed as a flaw with her personality or the misalignment of her nakshatras.

These aspersions usually find their way to women for some reason, I guess since the collective expectation of society from it’s women is high.  The minute a deviant comes to the foreground, all hell breaks lose- she is deemed “different”, “eccentric”, “selfish”. But this is just a woman exercising her individuality, her right to make a decision and break the conditioned patterns.  I think I can hear the woman saying: my choices are my own, I am not different, I am me.

Monsoon Child

Living in Europe, I would often come across these words whenever Madrid was accosted by dark rain clouds  “ depressing”, “dreadful”, ”awful”, and the list goes on. It was cited as the number one cause for being lethargic, not wanting to work, and basically being blue (or grey in this case). Coming from hot India – Delhi, to be precise, its dust laden roads testament to its aridness, I, on the other hand have almost always welcomed dark clouds and rain with a little internal jig like this.

      http://www.funnyordie.com/lists/1d2da3358d/the-best-dancing-gifs

Anyway, I thought it was us Indians who have a penchant for this strange behavior, when people in higher latitutdes with the cold and dark are driving themselves over the edge (literally), because there is such a thing as seasonal affective disorder. People even report lower life satisfaction on rainy days! [1]

I understand that if it is cold and rainy for sustained periods, which it is in many parts of Europe, people feel their lives are restricted, and this could dampen people's plans and so forth. However, I thought this certainly wouldn’t hold for Indians! We of the monsoons, and such!

In India, farmers from ages ago depended on the south-west monsoon when irrigation facilities were non-existent. Imagine depending on rain for your survival! Besides, considering that we get majority of our rain in the summer months when temperatures are pushing upwards of 40 degrees celsius, it is no wonder we pray to all gods known to us to let it rain! It is tough to let go of that deep sense of attachment to something that resonated with joy for people in the subcontinent for thousands of years.

The origin of the word monsoon is not that surprising to people in Asia atleast. Monsoon arose from the Arabic word “mausim” which basically means weather, which of course is a commonly used word in Northern-India “mausam”. Hell, we even have some Bollywood movies with that name.[2]

In India, we also have a raga in Indian classical music known as Malhar. This raga is often associated with rains and monsoons.  I remember as a kid, watching a movie where Tansen, the court singer for Akbar, was asked to sing raga Deepak to light the lamps in his court, but on doing so, Tansen started to burn from inside and then someone had to be brought to sing Malhar, to bring rain and cool his body.[3]

Whenever I am in India during the monsoon season, I always come across kids, so many of them dunking into makeshift pools and dancing in the rain. Everyone has a smile on their face, no matter if they have to wade through knee-deep water (myself included). So collectively, the Indian conscience revels at the site of rain clouds and monsoons and rain!

      http://www.theguardian.com/news/2013/jun/13/the-best-news-photographs-of-the-day

As I am writing this, I am listening to raga Malhar by Pandit Jasraj, hoping some of that magic would rub off here in Hong Kong and make it rain. I do see clouds in the distance.

I think this song from Lagaan, set to the exquisite music of the genius A.R. Rahman, embodies the sentiment that people often experience at the prospect of rain.

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[1] http://theconversation.com/here-comes-the-sun-how-the-weather-affects-our-mood-19183

[2] Picture Sources; Wikipedia.org, videomasti.net

[3] I did need to check Wikipedia to make sure this story was not a figment of my imagination. FYI- it wasn’t.