Category: Uncategorized

Valley of Dead to the City of Living

The warmth of the sun was a welcome change from the chilly winds. Armed with dark glasses and no warm clothing we started on a guided tour of Luxor early in the morning. We were staying in the city of the living (that’s what Luxor is also known as!) and we were traveling to the valley of the dead! Having already seen the light and sound show the night before I had a general idea of the Egyptian mythology; my head was filled with all the Ramses’ (they were real pharaohs, by the way). The stories of Osiris, Isis and Seth were all trundling along in my mind along with the wheels of the mini-van we were traveling in.
 I always used to wonder as a child about a spot where there is rain on one side and it’s dry on the other and sometimes used to run in the rain hoping to find the spot, but never did! As we moved towards the Valley of the dead we were actually moving from the green banks of the Nile towards the rocky and sandy mountains and within seconds we were in the desert! It was awesome! It’s like life and death were existing side by side. The tarred black roads were actually a dividing line between these two phases.
When we alighted at the Valley of the Kings the heat was balmy, there was a gentle breeze blowing and the weather was pleasant. It was around 7.30 in the morning so the sun was not yet burning. The landscape was bleak – sand and rocks everywhere and towering mountains in the background. It was a long walk to visit the tombs. On the way we were assailed by the sellers of scarves and artifacts, being Indian and used to such things it was easy for us to circumvent all business proposals with a simple “la…a” (that’s Egyptian for NO!)
The tombs were gorgeous! Just imagine more than 3000 years ago these people made these tombs, coloured them and decorated them with precious metals and stones without the aid of any modern machinery! It’s sad that what remains is only a faded Xerox copy of the original. We visited only three tombs and it was tiring, going deep into the mountains on steep stairways and slopes. I being me, let my imagination run riot and felt sorry for all the workers who would be doing that at least twenty times a day for the tombs to be ready! 
We then moved on to valley of the queens. Unlike the valley of kings which was exclusively for the king, the valley of the queen also housed any child she had and who died young. The stories that were written in hieroglyphics on the wall of all the tombs were similar though interesting. The last thing we visited in the desert was the temple of Hatsheput a unique temple indeed, her history is story by itself!(maybe I will bore you with that soon!)

The trip back to the city of living was like the dead being dragged back to life! We were dead tired! So the Luxor temple did not get the enthusiasm it deserved simply because of the heat and the fact that too much of history had been crammed down our throats! But it was beautiful nevertheless and at least I appreciated the many legends and facts that are interwoven into the existence of this temple. The huge towering columns, the rows of sphinx that welcome you into the temple and the most fascinating thing- the temple has five signatures on it – the ancient Egyptians who built it, the Coptic Christians who came at the fall of the Egyptian civilizations, the Nubian invaders, the Greeks who came with Alexander and built the temple of Aphrodite at the entrance and the Romans who have built many pillars in the main courtyard !
The ancient Egyptians like Hindus believed in afterlife. They believed that the life we call real is actually a stopgap before moving into the real eternal life where there is no death or sorrow only happiness. The reason why there was so much preparation for afterlife; the reason why pyramids were built; the reason why the tombs were filled with every evincible comfort that a man needs!
Hindus have always believed that the life we lead now is “Maya “or illusion and the interesting fact is the water is called “Maya “in Arabic – both water and illusion are fluid and deceptive and can take any form the mind desires it to.
So the valley of dead was built in stone for permanency while the city of living was built with mud bricks for temporary shelter!

Earrings and Imperfections!


I was switching channels ( a very rare event by the way, I normally do not watch TV)- The thin anorexic girl sashayed down the ramp with some itsy- bitsy  pieces of cloth placed in strategic positions. Not that it would have mattered if they had been missing! I mean (even though I am not a man nor have I got the other “tendencies”) how can you get turned on by a skeleton? I got stuck here not because of the wonderful haute couture but because this “beautiful waif” was pierced all over her body! She had a ring in her belly button; her nose and ears were of course pierced; she had one on her cheek bone and one on her tongue! She made it a point to stick it out to the camera and I felt so gooey after that you just can’t even imagine.
I got my ears pierced after a lot of cajoling when I was about ten and then it turned septic because I insisted on going swimming and of course the hole closed and no one bothered me about it for a long time. When I was sixteen, an aunt insisted and she took me to a jeweller and got it done! But the hole’s fate was identical and I think everyone sort of gave up! But when I turned eighteen I wanted to wear a pair of earrings so got it done by the “gun” method and this is still alive and kicking! Though for y ears I could not indulge myself with the fancy artificial earrings as the great big ears would turn septic! I did not want to go through the torture of the process all over again so I was stuck with a pair of gold earrings (Guaranteed not to turn the hole septic!) In short- my brief foray into the feminine world was in a state of limbo.
When I got married I was given numerous gold earrings as gifts. For one whole year I played “being bride”! I changed them and my bangles to match the sari I wore (Believe me almost for one whole year I used to dutifully wear a sari whenever we went out and that was everyday!) It was too good to last; the first offspring made her appearance and I forgot about dressing up. Life was all about how to feed, clean and put the little one to sleep! In fact sometimes I would forget the earrings all together!  Once I had to attend a wedding, I took out my heavy jewellery set with an equally heavy pair of earrings; they wouldn’t go into the hole! I did all sort of acrobatics to get them in, it did go in but my ears were sore for at least ten days! I decided then I would wear a smell ear top always as the process of going through the torture would be too much!
The fashion of making multiple holes in the ear had begun when I was in college but I had never dared to indulge in it. I admired other people but I never ventured into this supposedly uncharted territory! (I used to wonder how and why people go for such things- I use the word “people” because the men had also started …….) The history of piercing a hole in the ear is fascinating! Most ancient civilizations had this ritual. But the one I believe in is – There were a lot of human sacrifice in the ancient times. For this sacrifice they needed a perfect species, so beautiful maidens were put up on the sacrificial alter and hacked with the ceremonial sword. One of the clever parents (most probably the mother) decided if they were to make a hole in the ear of the child he or she would not be perfect anymore and thus would be bypassed for sacrifice. Then slowly after this they must have discovered that they could decorate this and lo and behold the first earrings were born!
The ear piercing holocaust continued to encompass my life for the next ten years. The first born had to go through it (she had inherited my genes so had to go through the cycle!) She also had to get it re-pierced at least twice.  The second born had hers pierced when she was four months old; my south Indian friends advised me that when the child is so young her ears are soft so the pain is minimal and her resistance level is so high that nothing would happen to it. So there I went the jeweller shop and went through the whole process. (Thankfully my sister was there to hold the baby!) Alas! We discovered my very dominant septic gene was present here too! And there again the unfortunate cycle of piercing- septic- healing- and back to piercing! The days I have spent with the two heads smothered in my lap while I clean up the area with dettol, put Neosporin ointment on the offending place and still keep the thin gold wire in with the hope that the hole would stay put cannot be chronicled!
Like one of my elderly friends had advised me, bad things cannot go on forever, take heart! This period in life is over. Both the young ladies have decently pierced ears and are enjoying being girls; wearing different earrings and changing them too (Though the terrible teenager still needs my help!). There were short bursts in my life when I was a little free from child rearing when I would go into what I call my feminine phase, I would buy a lot of earrings; match them with the dress I would wear; religiously remove them before I went to bed (the scare of a oozing hole was still there!).
Now that I am at home most of the time I forget to slip them on and only wear them when I go out. Thankfully these days the earrings have very thin needles so they go in without a fuss but I still can’t wear my wedding ones.
The one positive thing in all these tribulations is – Most women of my age have ear holes which have become too big as they have been ill-treating these signs of imperfections and some of them have even had to stitch them up! But mine are still very small and I think I can avoid that surgery till I die!

The Smoldering Coward!


I had to write this because I was needled to the point of no return! I was tagged as a coward because I refused to dare to go where the “Brave” had treaded!
If knowing that I would die if I were to jump off a cliff and so not jump and be labelled as a coward then be it- “I am a coward” If knowing that I would burn my fingers if I put them into a fire and not do so and be named a coward then I am one definitely! If learning from my past mistakes or from the mistakes of the others makes me known as living in the past then be it.
Once, long time ago, someone had angrily told me that the only thing that I have done right in my life is to have listened to my elders! My hurt and anger for that statement has dissipated with time. The spark of rage which ignited me to write this has also died down though  it is still smouldering!
I need to explain my views- One that, if it is change we are seeking, then there are better ways of change – not from the frying pan into the fire type of change! If you are caught between the devil and the deep sea which side would you choose? I would opt for the sea because there is a chance that you might come out of it but the devil never pardons his dues. It is the brave who dare to explore uncharted territories but it is fools who walk with their eyes blindfolded!
Was Einstein a brave man? Or was Amundsen a brave man? Or was Socrates a brave man? Three different men, three different fields and three different ideas of bravery! According to me they were brave not because they were successful (Socrates was killed!) but because they had the courage to move in their uncharted territory without hurting anyone. Their work; their lives; their ideas live on as an example of what bravery is about. Amundsen was a brave man but would he have gone to the South Pole without his warm clothes or sled or the dogs? If he had then he would have been a fool!
Dreamers of Utopia are like Keats- create a lovely work of art but other than a few minutes of pleasure it does nothing- it doesn’t even make you think! It is true that if we did not dream then nothing would change and that would be the biggest tragedy possible. If an architect just dreamt and not build his dream would he be respected would he get his next assignment? 
I am no philosopher nor am I great scientist nor am I ever going to do anything which will change the face of the world. I am an ordinary human being who lives from day to day, who dreams of her own Utopia without involving others, who empathises with the people of Japan as they reel under multiple problems, who believes that being cautious is a way not to get hurt, (there are people who believe that only the brave get hurt!)
What I do believe, is that in this world, where there are millions who do not get enough to eat, who are these dreamers to take away that one meal from them? Who are they to take away the freedom of thousands of young girls from being able to walk on the road alone? Who are they to take away the livelihood of at least ten thousand people? They would be justified if this was a temporary phase- but do they know how long it would take for their dreams to be fulfilled (if ever!)? What right do they have to trample on a million dreams to make their own selfish dream come true?
Freedom brings a lot of responsibilities- I think we realise this when we leave college and start working! I believe that romance is not about negating reality it’s about finding positivity in the ordinary. I believe that bravery is opening doors not closing them behind your back! I believe that cowardice is refusing to face the truth! I believe….. Too many to list here…..
This is my view, you are welcome to yours but do not call me names is what I request.

The Wise never advise


Why does it take age to make us wise? Is it wisdom that makes us stop giving advice? Is it just the fact that we are too cautious to take the right step? Well I had the privilege to be invited to a talk by three young people who were proud of their achievements. I went with an open mind to receive wisdom. 
I still haven’t crossed the barricade of using 7 percent of my brain! But these days because I have the time and inclination I have decided to enrich my mind (Though being stubborn it’s a Herculean task!) through various ways and means. I read the newspaper, watch news on the TV, surf the net and debate with anyone who has the time to spare! I am after all unemployed (my resume now reads a tolerable housewife, termagant wife, nagging mother…….)
There I was in a darkened auditorium listening to the ideas of these youngsters. There were wonderful things they had done; they had made a difference to the world; they shared their dreams with the audience. Dreams of a wonderful political system sans the corruption and bureaucracy and the red tapism that comes with it; dreams where everyone was honest and safe; dreams where all were equal leading to a classless society; where life was one big party! (Their words)
Did you notice that I put an exclamation mark at the end of the last paragraph? Let me clarify it was not put there to express my disbelief. It was put there to show solidarity. How you may ask? Well I was young once, I too had had these dreams, but age and experience took them away ruthlessly. I remember my betters advising me about certain aspects of life and me mutely listening to them yet never accepting the facts. Like someone said advice is for free- the wise never give them and the fools never take them! So why give advice?
I was swallowed up in the darkness. Yet for a moment in time I was back in my University auditorium getting up to enter the limelight to argue and discourse on this Utopian picture being built up. I had unconsciously risen and then sanity took over and I slowly sat down to clap for the speaker. I had never felt so impatient in my life; I felt claustrophobic and rose to leave the place as silently as I had come. I felt old and tired- there was this beautiful picture painted with hesitant words which I know and most of us who are prosaic know is only a fantasy on one hand and on the other hand I saw a rudderless Ship drifting on the vast ocean of reality! 
There are too many adjectives to describe my feelings at that time but what they need is not adjectives, they need guidance, love and practical inputs. Who will give that to them? Junu says it is easy to give armchair advice and how do I know what they are doing is not right? 
Well I am trying to be wise, so have not proffered any advice but what I know is that painting a picture is much easier than constructing one. As I analyze myself I realize that I am finding what the wrongs are and not trying to highlight what are the rights in the ideas. But I beg to remind all that one small screw not tightened can lead to the collapse of the building and there is no scope for mistakes in real life. 
It is absolutely necessary to encourage a child when he has made mistakes for he needs it to build his confidence; it is equally necessary to be brutally honest with a young adult’s tentative foray into an uncharted territory for this is serious and real!
What right do I have to crush someone’s dreams? Should I not let them make and learn from their own mistakes? Unfortunately I am a mother and this makes me feel for them; I am like the blind seer who sees yet cannot explain how; I hope for once that I am wrong and they are right!

Chat Hieroglyphics

“<3, Rofl, xD, Lol, :P” the list is endless! But these symbols of chat culture are like an epidemic, it has even infected me! Normally my g Talk window is always open (though I keep my status as “busy”). This is primarily so that my first born can ping and see if any of us are online when she is free and if we are, we talk. As the family rebel is always online she talks with her sister most of the time but sometimes I do get to talk and this is where the fun comes in. The budding adult thinks she knows everything – she decides who is speaking (as we both use my id) by the way we type our response. Unfortunately for her I have been infected by the chat hieroglyphics and have started using this very frequently and when I type in “LOL” or “rofl” she thinks it’s her siblings and she yells at her for fooling her! What fun I do have in such circumstances, in fact I am almost rolling on the floor laughing at this!

When the SMS culture first began I was the last one in the family to start using it! This was mainly because I was too lazy to tap thrice to get the alphabets right! It is very frustrating to want to type “cannot” and end up writing “bammot”!

The girls started growing up and they each got their own cell phones and became really good at this vague art of sms-ing but I continued to avoid using it! Then I decided enough was enough and bought myself a touch phone with a QWERTY letter pad with a stylus et-al! This was one of the first touch phones in the market and thus not as sensitive as the ones nowadays, so there I was again trying to turn the phone horizontal to get the QWERTY pad out and the stylus all ready to type and more often than not it would refuse to behave, like an unruly adolescent and I was stuck with tap tapping thrice to get my message sent!

I still have this phone though the other family members have upgraded themselves to technologically better ones and thus my messaging is still at the pre-primary level!

My lovable teen loves to sms. When she is getting bored at school or if she is alone at home I get a lot of hearts and kisses through these symbols plus long rambling messages just for the heck of it. I normally respond only when there is some kind of question- with a yes or no or go ahead or a wow depending on what is expected. But as you would notice, mine are one word smses, sometimes I have sent a “?” instead of a “why”! Most of the time I do not respond as I believe it does not require an answer and why waste good money when it’s not needed? The hubby is also kind of addicted to it and I treat him in a very similar manner.

I have thus been voted as the coldest and the most unresponsive creature on this side of the world! In fact all of them discuss both in front and behind my back about how I respond to their various messages and of course ROFL

Here I would like to clarify that I love to type on g talk as I have the computer keypad in front of me and I know which key is where! Of course having been infected by the short form virus I have started using them here (hence the confusion of my elder one). But I am still a novice at creating the various smileys’ using the different characters. I still do not understand why they are called smiley when they are sometimes sad! Oh I forgot they are now known as emoticons!

Maybe it’s time to get myself a new phone with a physical QWERTY keypad so that I can send long useless notes to all of them. Maybe I will send copies to them so that they realize that I am not wanting in my sms savviness! Maybe I will scour the net for the latest short forms in messaging and forget all my grammatically correct English. Maybe it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie……

Psychological crimes and “Shift+ctrl+del”

The young girl of nine years had a stubborn mulish look on her face as she was paraded from class to class with a page torn from a handwriting note book stuck on her back. She never went back home and cried about this, neither in front of her mother nor while she was alone. It made her resolute to two things- one never to show her emotions in public and second to never let herself be put in such a situation that she has to face humiliation.

The little girl grew up to have a legible if not wonderful handwriting and went on to major in English literature as if to show that particular frame in time – “see me now! I can do better than you think I could”!

The wound has healed over the years and the scar is invisible. If and when I think of that episode I am filled with mortification! Just imagine if that had happened now, the teacher would have been sued if not jailed! But I think I should be grateful to that teacher because it was the first battle of my life and I won it hands down! It gave me the confidence that I lacked until then.

I have had many episodes in life where I have had to bear a lot of hidden innuendos. I had two ways in which I could have dealt with them – one by open confrontation or two by keeping quiet and bearing with it. I have done neither! I have tried to create a “recycle bin” in my brain in which I dump all the “trash” and do not look at it. But unfortunately I have not used “Shift+ctrl+del” so it’s still there and they do pop up once in a while to bug me and no anti-virus works here!

“Spare the rod and spoil the child” was an oft repeated maxim while I was growing up. But how many of us have the strength to bear the burden of the “rod”. There are many who must have been psychologically scarred because of such episodes. I had a wonderful family background which gave me the strength to fight back and change the episode to my advantage but what about children who do not have family support?

Now days life in school is so much better and fun than our days. At least legally there are a lot of laws which can help. But not all the evils of schooldays have been eradicated. Bullying is still a part of many lives; though teachers do not use the rod any more there are many who use psychological weapons to demean and harass a student and vice-versa (Students are more powerful now and have been known to harass teachers!) When you hear about the ragging that goes on in many colleges it makes you feel sick with anger and helplessness.

I feel people who perpetuate these kinds of events, are worse than murderers and should get life imprisonment! The murderer has taken a life but these people make you go through death umpteen numbers of times! Everyone has gone through at least one episode of discomfort in various degrees in their lives but it’s all about degrees! The little boy who ties a tin can on the tail of the little kitten would not repeat it if he were to be censured softly but many a parent think it’s clever or cute if he does so!

The one silver lining in the dark cloud is that there are lots of help available everywhere, such episodes are talked of openly and without the sense of shame it earlier had and it is actually a process of hardening and making us tough to face the real world.

These things do spill over to the domestic life and the reason I write this today is because I recently heard a story of domestic violence and the child had no go but to mutely ask for help through a poem and whether it got any help or not, is a part of a worldwide guilt. I believe all of us are responsible for all of us!

Of Crushes, First Loves and Romance……..

The other day I was browsing my face book page and looking at the status of my numerous “Friends”. The inverted commas are there because they are termed as that, but most are my ex-students, some are my relatives, some are my children’s friends and the rest of course are my friends in the correct sense of the word! But if you were to define friends as being people who are of the same wavelength as you and whose likes and dislikes are similar to you then most of them would come under that heading!

To get back to my activity- I noticed that many of my ex students, now all young adults were “in a relationship”; some were proudly advertising their “single” status and some were without any status! Well this really put the reels of my life on a rewind and I started thinking of my crushes over the years! I remembered my first love when I was about Nine years or so (He was shorter than me!). You may not believe it I seriously started listing all my crushes one by one in my mind and the whole exercise was a very pleasant one. (I hope this is a normal activity by women of middle age!)

I laughed at my attempts to draw attention to myself; I laughed at the blushes that used to suffuse me when I was teased by my friends with my crush of that time; I laughed at my pain and sufferings and hurt that I had gone through during those days. I wish I could advise all these young people about how to go about their love affairs (this is hilarious as I unfortunately never even had a formal boyfriend!) But the Miss-know-all that I am, I feel as if I know how to handle them with aplomb!

But seriously! Having a boyfriend during my youth, though common on the sly, never received any parental encouragement, maybe which is why I never had the guts to even dream of really going out on a date. I was and still am an avid fan of Archie comics. The American life that is portrayed in the strip was so “away” from our lives that it was more of fiction than real life, but sometimes I used to hope for an Archie with me being Betty! Our generation grew up on a menu of Mills and Boons romance (the romantic ones, not the near pornographic ones that are published these days!). We all had our share of celebrity crushes and our dreams of what we would do if they were to come and propose to us!

College was a little different. By then many of my friends were into relationships” but not poor old me. My crushes continued but I was such an aggressive and boyish young lady that most young men would love to play games with me but would be too scared to hold my hand!

Romance then was to go for movies with your boyfriend and if your parents were liberal you were allowed to go to discos. There were some parties called Jam Sessions which could be hosted by a friend and you could get lost in the crowds there. Romance then did not believe in going for long walks or writing poetry or gazing at each other as is portrayed in movies! The society was getting westernized and the changes had just begun……

Romance is so much easier now…. You get into a relationship; you get out of it; you get into a new one – everything is so simple and straightforward! The best thing is everything is public, you share your joys and happiness of being in love and sadness and depressions of being out of love with the whole world and go ahead in life. There is no looking back, no brooding over the “ifs and buts”, it’s all about burying your past and living in the present- very healthy psychologically! There is a lot of honesty involved. I remember a friend of mine, in the first throes of love, making me lie to her parents that she was with me while she went for a movie with the boyfriend!

Romance is so practical now, with emotions like uncertainty and shyness thrown out of the window that I wonder whether the emotion should not be given a new name! The freedom that the whole world keeps talking about has infused into this word too.

It is so easy to write ‘I am single again’ that the commitment of marriage and family is no longer something we can be proud of. It is so simple to write ‘I am in love’ that the mystery of romance has disappeared.

Am I being too old fashioned? I know that I am being modern by airing my views which we could not earlier!

Siesta and the Electric Meter Man

The weather has always been lovely in Alex. The winter particularly has been wonderful, weather wise that is! It’s been a pleasant 17 to 18 degree during the day and it has fallen to an awesome 6 to 7 degrees during the night. All of us are really savoring this after having stayed in South India for all of the last twenty years! In fact I did not even own any warm clothes when we shifted here (that is decent ones!). Can you believe it? The warm bright sunshine is kind of heavenly to walk out in.

Unfortunately the electricity bill which normally falls in winter is highest here. Our apartment is quite huge and windy. In spite of keeping all the glass doors closed the cold seeps in and we have to use the air conditioner to heat our living space.

Never a big lover of television other than news, I avoided going into the living room as it was the coldest and it was too big to heat with any kind of heating apparatus! Especially after the internet was resumed I just don’t go there! It is exclusively used by the other two members of the family- one who likes the sound of the TV while he is working on his laptop and the other lounges on a single sofa either watching TV or with the noise of the TV as a background while she is chatting on FB! I had enough of it while watching BBC and Al Jazzeera while the revolution was going on (I didn’t have any other entertainment!). Both don’t feel cold; in fact the young lady says she reaches thermal equilibrium in the position of lounging on the couch and doesn’t need any warmth!

So I use electricity lavishly to keep myself cosy! In fact hubby dear says, “Use as much as you want” because he gets to keep the electricity bills reimbursement for his cigarettes!

I always have a nap post lunch at about two o’clock in the afternoon, right after the maid leaves. I lounge on the bed reading – slowly getting drowsy and by 2.30 I am in a pleasurably languid state just before passing into the unconscious state of sleep. Once a month (The date is never the same!) the bell will ring when I am right on the brink of this gratifying state! I have to literally drag myself out of bed to open the door. Many a times I have tried to ignore the call but the second ring always succeeds in slashing into my somnolent state.

So I pad reluctantly to the door and open it to face the Electric meter man with the bill. He is always cheerful and full of joie de vivre. I don’t have the heart to be rude to him. I put out my hand to take the bill.

He refuses to give it me right away. He insists that I learn Arabic as soon as possible and will read out the amount due in Arabic. I am able to read the Arabic numerals but do not remember the sounds beyond thirty! And as the figure is in hundreds I don’t understand a word of what he is saying. (anyway my brain is a little befuddled under the circumstance) I peer into the bill to look at the figures which he tries his best to hide. All through this exercise he will be giving me a lecture on the necessity of learning the language. He even told me how he learnt Greek when he was there for two months!

I look at him suitably shamefacedly and this cools him down a bit. He then writes the figures in English numerals on the bill and I go back and get him the exact amount and he pockets it with a “Shukaran” never forgetting to say that it is like the Hindi “Shukriya”! He warns me that next time he will not write the figures in English and strolls down the stairs.

My sleep has flown out of the window and I go and try to do some productive work and normally end up with a huge headache!

I don’t know what the equivalent of “tone deaf” is for language deaf but that is what I am. I have stayed in Mysore, Balgaum, Hyderabad and Mumbai and though I understand the rudimentary bits of Kannada, Telugu and Marathi I cannot speak them and so it is with Arabic. After eleven months here I cannot speak a sentence, though I understand quite a few of the words. I am able to communicate with my maid and that is a major achievement!

I do envy people who can pick up a new language so very easily and prattle away in it! In India you can get by with English and Hindi but here it is not so. I use a lot of hand movement inter spaced with Arabic words and the ubiquitous English to get by and hope to understand the meter man when he comes next month!

You love her more…….

You love her more…….
Our family teenager was sulking! She tossed her mane of untidy hair in imitation of a bull getting ready to face the matador and said, “You love her more…..”

It all began with the fact that we were discussing Face book (or FB) at the dinner table. Staying so far away from our first born, we keep in touch with her life through this wonderful media of communication. We know when she is happy; tired; angry; disillusioned and all the gamut of emotion a young person on the verge of official adulthood goes through!

Getting back to the dinner table… we as parents were discussing her life and the status and photographs and DP (that’s display picture to the uninitiated!) that she puts up; well we heard a small sound of protest but as we were so animatedly talking, we did not notice it. In fact I thought it was the air conditioner making a groaning noise.

“Did either of you see my DP?” this was said rather loudly and I looked at the speaker to see a flushed face almost on the brink of spilling precious liquid! Not knowing what the problem was I queried about it; then the accusations came spilling out. We were hard put to stem the flow of angry recriminations which followed the heading of this post.

Years ago, I and I think all of us, at some time or the other must have gone through the same emotions; thinking that our parents loved our siblings more than us. The reasons vary but the emotions are the same. It is definitely not jealousy because I know the cute adolescent adores her sister; it is something more primeval; it is a basic instinct of every human being to be appreciated at every step of his life. When you feel that this is not forthcoming you feel uncomfortable.

When you are a child and do not cater to social niceties you exhibit all this honestly. Soon you grow older and are advised at all turns of life to “control your emotions” you tend to suppress this feeling and put up a mask of indifference or polite acceptance of such a fact.

Now as an adult and a parent of many years I realize that normally parents love their children to almost the same degree of affection. (There are exceptions of course!) I do appreciate one child’s idea of discipline more than the other but I do appreciate the other child’s creativity more, so in the end it all balances out. As individuals we react to another individual in a unique way and no body and nothing can touch this uniqueness.

I was an introvert, living in my own world of make belief. I was never very aware that my parents were partial to my sister but once in a while I have felt it and have cried in private due to this feeling. Now as a parent myself I can look back and laugh over it.

The teenager had got it all out of her chest and was now listening to our explanation. The heat was over and she realized the truth of our words. I am glad she is not like me; she doesn’t pent-up her frustrations within herself! She had forgotten about it a moment later. I would have, in her place not said a word about it but brooded for at least a day!

I wonder what used to happen when families were larger and there were more than five children competing for attention from the parents. Maybe the parents were too busy to pay any attention to anyone and the children were happy with this! This new psychological problem must have developed with the advent of the small nuclear family. Like a virus which has undergone mutation!

But it is on verge of extinction now, as most family like the Chinese are following the one child policy. No Sibling, so no sibling rivalry! But are we actually losing out on a healthy though negative emotion?

What is the value of yin without the yang!

"The Happy Prince"

The day started off with a bang! Literally! There was a loud sound and the electricity supply went off. I was surprised- even when there was the “revolution” going on, the water supply and the electricity had never ditched us –so what happened today?

The intelligent teenager went to check if the lift was working (saves the energy to check if the supply had tripped as this entailed going to the box; opening it and peering at all the switches!) and it wasn’t.

There was breakfast to make; the kitchen was dark; the hunt for candles ensued; not finding any I picked up some tea candles and put it on a stand and made breakfast (Thank God! There was the gas supply intact!) In fact I had rejected a lovely sea facing house because it had only electric burners- kudos to my farsightedness!

Normally the electricity is very well behaved in our area and I was sure it would soon be back. Bur breakfast got over and there was no sign of it reviving so the lazy adolescent and her father started on their way to their place of duty via the good old staircase from the tenth floor! I wondered how and when my maid would turn up and shut the door a little worried. But there was still an hour before she was due.

I suddenly realized with horror that there would be no internet- how would I check my mail, my blog, my bank accounts and my game sites? (My normal activities till my maid turns up). Oh well, the I-pad was there and I had my books on it. After clearing up, I sat down to read my books which I had downloaded. Then horror of horrors! I had actually deleted them the day before and had not put in any new ones- what would I do? I didn’t want to knit neither to stitch nor to clear up or anything worthwhile for that matter; this particular hour was given for my leisure, so I stubbornly didn’t want to do anything productive! I then fiddled around with the pad, played with “talking tom”, “finger scan” and the smurfs- still I felt restless(the finger scan had said I was restless!) so I opened the library folder and decided to read “The happy Prince and other stories” by Oscar Wilde.

I had first read this when I was in third standard under duress (I still remember Miss Angela!) and then again in the sixth standard because I wanted to illustrate some essay and this was the third time after thirty years that I was delving into this book!

I loved it! The sarcasm and irony which Oscar Wilde has so cunningly hidden into each of his sentence were so transparent and obvious to me now. The seemingly black and white narrative of the good and the bad so wonderfully utilized the shades and shadows to express all facets of the human character was so brilliant that it struck me like a slap on my face and woke me up.

All of us put up some kind of facade not so much to hide our faults but to actually protect ourselves from the harsh realities of life. Once the gilt has been removed we are all alike, ordinary to look at; with a desire for shelter, food and clothing; with goodness within us and to be accepted by God (or the unknown creator). Like the Happy Prince most of us lead sheltered lives within high walls of our palace and when we realize that there is more to life than the pursuit of happiness it is normally too late! We are not living in a fairy tale world where we can help others in their pursuit of happiness even after death.*

I continued reading the other stories “The devoted friend” was hilarious and the “Little rocket” was such a wonderful caricature of many pompous people that we know of. I started putting people I know into folders titled as such in my mind! I was being a little wicked; but how can you appreciate goodness if there is no evil to compare it with!

The realization that I had almost everything I desired yet the small scar of discontentment always itched and took away my peace for the most trivial of reasons shook me and I sat pondering on this. I never resolved this to my satisfaction……

The maid came huffing and puffing up the stairs and I got back into my daily routine forgetting Oscar Wilde and the fact that my Blog’s name has been derived from one of his famous books. The electricity came back and I was once again on the path of searching for pure pleasure……..

*there have been great men who through their writings have inspired many even after death; many who have donated their organs and given a chance of life and happiness to others but they are few and far between!