shopaholic!

this country is crazy! the markets are so fabulous, there's a product for every conceivable need under the sun. you could literally say something like - i need a motion sensing, daylight sensing light that will switch on when i pass by but not during the day, and they would ask you if you want that in white or yellow. customized goods right at your wallet-tip. in india, when you need something for a specific need, you have to see whatever is available in the market and then adapt it to your use by making some modifications. heck, i couldn't even find a wire rack to place in the wardrobe as additional removable shelving! but here, there are so many options that it's bewildering at first! and boy, does it make you go mad! it seems like i've spent the past one year just salivating and buying, buying, buying, until i'm numb! but now i think it's beginning to settle down a little. most of the things i needed around the house are here. i still do keep getting tempted by new stuff, but now it's down to space vs. need ratio, so lot of the superfluous gets weeded out. i feel i don't have anything else to do, i'm getting bored so i keep rearranging the furniture and buying more stuff for the house. once my baby is in school/playschool, i can start working again and i won't have the time to bother with all this stuff. one can always hope! :)

expectations

sometimes it's hard to live up to your estimation of others' expectations from you. when you're in school or college, you have so much potential... or at least people think you do. so that when you're at home, not working, maybe looking after kids, you feel the weight of their collective disappointment in what you made of your life. when did it become so taboo to be unemployed? liberation is about the freedom to make choices, not the enforcement of one set of choices as opposed to another. being forced to work is as bad as being forced to stay at home. but then, nobody's forcing you for anything, it's just the voices in your head judging you. maybe they will eventually help you get out of inertia when it's time, but for now, they're a pain in the nether area!

tough times

it is so difficult, ever since i became a mother, to see or hear about any child in any kind of pain. i didn't understand what it's like to see a child suffer, until i had a child of my own, because i just didn't know how a child is loved until i did it myself. 

epiphany

sometimes a thought hits you like the headlight of a train. sometimes it's a person. a person so out of the ordinary that you find it hard to believe that they exist. a person you worship, almost. doesn't mean they got an easy life - far from it. being extraordinary doesn't make you any friends in this world. but you feel humbled knowing that you know they exist. i knew a girl like that once.



we need heroes! is that why we created god?



it's awful to hero-worship. u're setting urself up for a fall. it's impossible to make anybody into a hero without ignoring all their faults, and when they become so apparent that u can't close ur eyes anymore, baraboom, there falls the edifice. that's why it's safe to believe in god, because there's no visible flaws that will manifest themselves. unless u start believing ur life is ordained by god, and then blaming god for all ur problems. then u've got back to square one, basically.

Einstein spoke, and it was so...

One of the smartest men in the history of mankind spoke thus:

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving..." - Albert Einstein

Why are we on this earth? Why do we have no clue if we have a purpose or a destiny to fulfil? We can believe whatever we choose to believe, make of this life whatever we wish, and die not knowing any better than what we were born with - is there a larger purpose to our existence? I suppose in a way life is an end in itself - experience makes it worthwhile. Fall in love, have kids, walk the magical path of sensual exploration. And then die??? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust??? It's like training a resource for months and, just when he's fully trained and ready to work, firing him! I guess that's why we like to believe in our immortal souls, to convince ourselves that our actions have some larger, eternal significance.
Perhaps the idea is that one particular individual is not significant, but the work of mankind adds up over the centuries and results in progress. So many great scientific minds have expressed gratitude for the shoulders of the giants they stand upon every time they switch on a lightbulb! Yes, that is true - if it weren't for men far more gifted than I who have gone before me, my life would not be what it is today. I take it for granted, shrug my shoulders, and pass on my two bits to the next generation, but if you think for a bit, you are benefitting from other men's genius without having done anything to deserve it! Are we really just bricks in the wall, who slowly fall in place so that other bricks may lay on us? Then why do we have ego, self-consciousness, self-love? It seems like such a wasteful and redundant emotion in such a marvellously cost-effective world!
Perhaps it is as Einstein says - we can get glimpses of true purpose in a smile on a beloved face. We do our best according to our lights, and that's all there is to it. Perhaps it doesn't mean much to the universe, but the way we're constructed, if we've got love in our hearts and a song on our lips, it's pretty much all we asked for! :)

And on the millionth day, God said, Thou shalt not write

“It was a dark, stormy night”, wrote Snoopy. I might as well begin with that. There is no way to know how to begin a book. You may have an idea, or no idea, or just want to try your hand at this writing thing everyone keeps talking about, but there’s really no way of knowing how to begin. I can imagine myself going on famously, but the crucial thing is, what about? I have lived a moderately eventful life in a moderately uneventful way, and what is there to write about in that? I may have opinions on everything under the sun, but did I ever pack my bags and shoot off to play a part in the Gulf War? No! Most emphatically not! I am a product of my education and upbringing, and would not consider any options that are not financially viable. So how does such a person with limited experience start to write a book that enthralls millions as they nod their heads in smiling, excited euphoria of shared understanding? Well, even if it fails to do that, at least a book that its writer is able to read with interest and without cringing! How do people do it? My mind is too literal to allow me to read into the daily occurrences of my existence a mystical aura or larger-than-life significance, and to be able to convert it into poetic, elegant prose. And yet I can connect word to word as well as the next guy. Is it really a divine power?

vague unrest

there really should be more fonts to write with without having to know HTML! how on earth do i use bradley hand ITC, for instance? that's what i wanna use to say what i wanna say!
so many people are doing so many good things with their lives. real, useful lives. i chose to give up my job and follow my husband to norway on the principle that it's impossible for two people in today's world to remain together and still have perfect, A-class careers. i don't mistrust that decision - being with the man i love is my number one priority and when there are such choices to be made, it's all a matter of priorities. but i'm used to working all the time, and this empty time on my hand just hangs... so heavily! there's a vague unrest in my gut all the time because i'm used to being out there, doing it, and not just sitting at home spending each day in a sort of daze, trying to be a good wife by urging myself to cook but failing to motivate myself to get up, and then feeling guilty about it all.
it's easy to say, get out there and do it! fact is, it's tough to get back on track once u've derailed a lil bit. i know i could be out there discovering this beautiful new city, going to museums, going for walks, doing SOMETHING! but fact is, it's sub-zero out there, and man i feel cold! :) so i just huddle in front of a telly all day and feel like jumping on the sofa by the time it's evening, i've got so much pent-up energy in me which doesn't wanna get spent on household chores.
i can't be like the other indian wives here, who seem to be so content in helping their mates to save the maximum amount of money by never spending a dime on looking pretty or having a good time, cooking every meal at home and dutifully folding up their desires into small lace napkins waiting to be unwrapped and lived when back home in india. i want to live now!!! but a part of me also wants to save some money so we can have a better life when we get home, which was kinda the whole point why we came out here in the first place. that, and seeing europe!
resolve for the day: nice, long walk tomorrow! donno how i'll manage with dryer duty - stupid dryer that needs to be reset every 20 minutes, or it keeps incessantly beeping, and u have to sit on its head for nearly 3-4 hours to get all the clothes done, one day in every week. ridiculous to imagine that this is supposed to be a labour-saving device, and yet it ties me down more effectively than a wood stove would have done!!! when i have enough money, i'll have a machine that does the washing AND the drying, quietly, without complaining, and then sits quietly with the clothes till i'm ready to come back home and take 'em out. when i have enough money...
is there any such thing? enough money, i mean? there's never enough, is there? today it's just me and my hubby and we run short of all our dreams, guess what it'll be tomorrow with lil kids and all their bills to be paid!!! fact is, it's a consumer market, there are more things out there than you will ever be able to buy or even need, and there will always be something fabulously beautiful that you'll burn your heart over not being able to buy! that's what the world economy survives on!!! more than enough for every man's greed, but where's the money?
are you free because you read books on people working in the gulf war, set "free as a bird" as your mobile phone ring tone, write blogs when you feel restless and spend your days hoping to achieve your goals tomorrow? always tomorrow...
tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life... what does that mean??????? it's the stupidest thing i ever heard. is that supposed to motivate me? is that the flag-bearer of a new and rosy dawn? grrrr!
"blackbirds singing in the dead of night... take these broken wings and learn to fly! all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arrive! ... you were only waiting for this moment to be free!" the beatles gave me soul-words.