The Freespirit

For the love of a mutt

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 04:07:00 +0000

Ma and Coco. Circa 2006

Nearly 8 years ago he entered our lives, that dirty brown mutt off the street. My mom brought him home when he was just a few days old, to combat her empty nest syndrome. I saw him whenever I visited and initially refused to get attached to yet another pet. I had lost Whiskey the kitten and Goofy the puppy already and it was just too painful.

But I hadn't counted on Coco's seductive charms. He jumped on me and slobbered all over me every time I visited, like I was the lost love of his life. Slept by my bed side, even tried snuggling into bed with me a few times. Ransacked my suitcase, chewed on my shoes and then looked at me with those adoring chocolate brown eyes and all was forgiven.

My mom turned him into a Thayir Saadam eating Tam Brahm dog and whenever I visited I would sneak him canned meat and other not-so-brahmin-approved-goodies from pet stores and that was possibly why he was so fond of me. I was the hand that gave him a taste of those yummy treats.

My dad told me stories of how Coco would follow him all the way to his lab and hang around the students or just lie down by his feet while he worked. He lived for the long walks with my mom every evening, exploring every bush, every tree on the way, trying to make friends with the street hardened dogs.

It was hard not to fall in love with that stupid mutt, however hard I tried.

And today, I found out from Aarthi Chandra that he is gone. It's been a month and a half since he went missing as he tried to run away, terrified by the Diwali crackers. After spending 3 days locked up at home, the freespirit that he was, he couldn't stand staying indoors and sneaked out the gate when it was opened to let some visitors in. And that was the last anyone saw of him.

Search parties, posters, visits to our old home.....he is nowhere to be found. And after 6 weeks it's difficult not to give up hope. He doesn't know how to survive the streets. This is one dog who had no concept of being a dog. This was a 4-legged creature who was confident he was human. He couldn't understand why the fierce street dogs wouldn't play with him and kept snarling at him.

The hardest part is not having closure. Not knowing what happened, and knowing how scared he must have been, all by himself. I am trying not to think of it and focus on the happy memories I have of him.

I went back to a post I wrote about him, when he was a year old. It put a smile on my tear-drenched face.

I love you Coco. You taught me unconditional love. And Amma was right...you will always be my little brother.

Lessons from the Quake : Do not take the lift

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:55:00 +0000

So, there I was enjoying a day off, catching up on my reading in bed and suddenly I feel the bed shake. I get off the bed and peep out the window and find other faces peering out their window in the building next to mine. Ok, so i didn't imagine it. Now, I live on the 17th floor and up here, you can really feel the building swaying. For a few moments it felt like I was on top of a palm tree in a gust of wind.

Now I've experienced this before in 2007 and dutifully blogged about it at the time. Then it was the result of an earthquake in Sumatra Islands in Indonesia, 8.4 on the richter scale. Nasty business that one. So, when I felt the building sway the same way, it was déjà vu and I knew, this was serious.

OK, next step, grab phone, wallet and keys and run out. Just then my phone rings and it's my old friend Suresh Venkat on the line. Considering he rarely calls me, this is indeed an earth shattering occurrence. (yes, pun intended) As I tell him that I am possibly in the middle of a quake and run out the door, I make my first mistake.

I decided to take the lift, forgetting every single safety warning about NEVER going for the lift during fire and quakes.

Looks like every one else in the building made the exact same mistake. The lift stopped at every floor and gradually I am forced into the corner at the back quashed in next to an old chinese gent with a hearing aid on my left and 2 young chinese girls in front of me. Along the way we gather a tiny, possibly new born baby with its nervous parents.

2nd mistake - Should have gotten out when it started to get crowded and the lift was still stopping at every floor.

By the time we reach the ground floor, the lift is packed like a can of sardines with 15 of us and it comes to a stop with a THUD! We wait for the door to open...nothing happens. Then suddenly the lift is moving and we go to B1. Another THUD...then silence. Doors do not open. Just as we are recovering, lift starts moving again and goes all the way to B2 and this time the THUD is massive. The old gent loses his balances and staggers. We grab him before he falls...but then where is the place to fall?

B2 is the absolute lowest the lift can go to and the doors refuse to open. A guy in the front rings the alarm bell for what feels like hours before a security guard answers on the lift intercom - "Any problem?"

"YES!! 15 of us stuck in a lift in Basement 2 after feeling 3 massive THUDs and a tiny baby bawling its eyes out. IT IS A PROBLEM!"

Guard assures us that he'll get to it immediately and we wait patiently. Well, as patiently as one can in the circumstances. The baby is really at it by now and the lift is getting hot as hell. The mother and father try in vain to get the little one to stop. Suddenly a lady next to the mum says, "do you want to feed her? We'll cover you and you can move to the corner."

Miraculously, that works. I am quashed in one corner and the mum feeding the baby on the other.

Suddenly, the old Chinese guy says - Did anyone ring the alarm?

"Err, ... yes Sir, we did and we are now waiting."

10 minutes....no sign of guard. We ring the alarm again. This time the guard says he is waiting for the lift technician to come and he is on the way. He needs another 10 minutes.

By this time, everyone is getting fidgety. 15 people in a small lift in basement 2 with very little ventilation is NOT pleasant. Two guys in the front try to pry the door open in He-Man style. There is a lock on top and the doors don't budge. The He-Man wannabes give up eventually.

Suddenly, we can feel the tremors again and this time its SCARY because there is no where to run!

The shaking stops as suddenly as it started. I swear I can hear someone murmuring a prayer. Throughout all this, what am I doing? Since there is no signal in the lift and I can't live tweet this earthquake experience in true social media diva style, I am taking notes on the iPhone. Yes, unbelievable, I know. Some cry, some pray and I tweet. Maybe that's my salvation!

Finally, after what feels like hours the rescue brigade arrives and the doors are opened. As we all rush out to get some air, an Arab girl who got in on 16th floor just after me, stands there looking completely disoriented. I ask her if she is ok and she looks blankly at me for a second before saying - "How do I go out? "

Basement 2 is the car park and clearly she has either never been down here or is still reeling from the whole "building-shaking-thud-stuck-in-lift" ordeal. So, I grab her arm like the good samaritan that I am and lead her out the ramp that goes to the ground floor. We come out into the sunlight and I've never been more thankful for the harsh, humid heat of the Malaysian sun.

And my phone rings again, now that I am out of the lift-basement area and signal is back on, its Suresh Venkat again - "So, I really did shake your world?"

Yes Suresh, this time, you really did!

The delightful world of Suzie

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 07:28:00 +0000

Four days of being confined to bed with no strength for anything except turning pages, meant that I did a lot more reading than usual. I couldn't have asked for a better book than Richard Mason's "The world of Suzie Wong" to keep me company and take me back to 1950s Hong Kong, to places that I am so familiar with in their post Y2K avatar.

In short, its a love story. A prostitute with a heart of gold meets the poor white artist trying to find himself, against the backdrop of colonial Hong Kong in the seedy by-lanes of Wanchai's Nam Kok hotel. They fall in love over the course of the book and a lot of emotional drama ensues. But that's not why I love this book, addicted as I am to sappy love stories. In fact there is nothing particularly original about the story.

What had me hooked is Richard Mason's ability to tell a masterful tale, in an engaging, entertaining manner that evokes a distinctive sense of a specific time, and to share his experience of an exotic era that will not return.

Wanchai as I know it today, is probably not that different from the Wanchai of Suzie Wong's story. The Chinese girls in silk cheongsams have been replaced by Thai girls in barely-there cheap miniskirts and plastic go-go boots. Business is not restricted solely to sailors whose ships dock for the week. And on digging around a bit, I realise that the Nam Kok hotel where all the action takes place in the novel, is based on what is today the Luk Kwok hotel, which is in fact a rather smart, boutique hotel which has never been host to the 'yum-yum girls' or their trade. Either today or in the 50s.

I found that the book had been made into a hit Hollywood movie in 1960, though upon reading the plot I realised I don't want to see it. The images of Suzie and Robert, the protagonist on the DVD cover are not the images I have in my head as I read their story. Suzie Wong is one of those amazing ageless characters. Funny, intelligent, vulnerable and so absolutely human that you want to slap her when she does something stupid and cheer her on, as she makes hesitant attempts to break taboo.

The book was first released in 1957 and was apparently a huge success. Richard Mason died in 1997 and never really wrote anything this successful after "The world of Suzie Wong". He reportedly said he didn't have any good stories left to tell! Penguin recently re-released the book and that's how I found it in Hong Kong airport 2 weeks ago. If you live in Hong Kong, have ever been to Hong Kong, or just love a good story, I recommend it highly.

Here's a preview from Amazon.

Book Review : Bali and the Ocean of Milk

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:08:00 +0000

Some times a book comes along that leaves such a lasting impression that you want to recommend it to everyone! Nilanjan Choudhury's Bali & the Ocean of Milk, is a rib tickling take on the old 'Sagar Manthan' tale from Indian mythology where the Gods and the Demons come together to churn the ocean to produce nectar.

Indrah, the king of Gods is facing ageing issues. Bali, the Asura King has his own issues with back-stabbing, power hungry courtiers. And the Holy Trinity that controls the universe is made up on Jai, Viru and Sambha, in an obvious tribute to Sholay! There's war, treachery, lust, vengeance, unexpected twists and turns and much, much more.

Nilanjan Choudhury is obviously a genius who probably smokes the same high quality ganja that Jai (the Destroyer) in the book is always high on, to come up with this crazy, but absolutely hilarious contemporary take on this ancient tale. Some totally cooky stuff that had me rolling on the floor

1) The churning team consisting of 6 Devas and 6 Asuras is called Ocean's Twelve!
2) Indrah uses Molten Midnight by So'Real to cover his greys.
3) Oh, he also steals his girlfriend Urvashi's 'My fair Lady' cream that he furtively applies at night.
4) Prithvi, the earth Goddess sounds a bit like Arundhati Roy!

Oh, there is so much more....even Taliban type brotherhood that wants everyone to live by THE BOOK.

To you I say, GO GRAB THE BOOK. NOW!

Oh hey....there is a book extract here if you want a quickie sampling.

RIP Nagu Thatha

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sun, 30 May 2010 11:08:00 +0000

It seems like the only time I am able to write lately is when someone dies. Is that what the whole tortured artiste thing is all about, I wonder....

Last night I was out at a dinner for the cricketer Muralidaran, with who I have been shooting for the last 2 days as our new brand ambassador. Its been 2 days of hectic shoots, running between studios, coordinating with the ad agency and the production crew. So, at dinner, I decided to take a break and not look at my phones and just relax and let go. After dinner, I ended up at a party of Indian expats and still refused to look at my phones. Little did I know, that decision would come back to haunt me in a few hours.

On my way back home at nearly 2 AM, I finally brought the phones out only to see several missed calls from my mother. At that time on the night, a series of missed calls from her can mean only one thing - bad news. My maternal grandfather, Nagu Thatha died around 8 PM, India time in his sleep.

Nagu Thatha, the guiding light of a family of over 20 odd people, a humanitarian before we even knew such a term existed, a man who put nearly ten kids through school and college, not all his own, who took care of everyone who came to his door, and who unfortunately didn't really know who he was in the last few years, passed on at the age of 87.

When I think of Nagu Thatha, I think of a bright blue Mahindra Jeep. His pride and joy, as an engineer with Mahindra and Mahindra, a company he worked for all his life, where he rose from being a humble mechanic to a senior service engineer at the time of his retirement. I loved that jeep. I associated it with trips to the Marina beach every Sunday evening when I visited him and Paati during school holidays from far away, landlocked Kanpur. The 2 and a half days it took by train from Kanpur to Chennai in those days, I spent dreaming about being picked up by Thatha in that blue Jeep at central station. I've spent hours playing hide and seek with my cousins using the Jeep as my favourite hiding place. So much so that if I went missing Thatha knew to look for me in the Jeep first.

But there was more to Nagu Thatha than just a Mahindra Jeep. It took me many years to realise that he was the sole bread winner of a large family of over 20 people which included not just his wife and kids but his brothers and sisters and their families too. And all in a little 3 room house in St.Mary's street in Madras in the 50s and 60s. How he managed that on the salary of a mechanic, is a mystery I'll never be able to solve.

His favourite pastime of course was scouring the pages of the Hindu Matrimonials section every Sunday morning! The number of alliances that have been made thanks to his sharp eye and the Hindu Classifieds deserve a book of their own. My parents owe their union to that hobby! My paternal grandfather showed me a scrap book many years ago in which he had pasted a yellowing slip from 1975, of the ad he had put in for my father who was then an impoverished Post Doctoral student at Harvard. Of course, the ad sounded like that of an ideal groom. US educated scientist, Brahmin Iyer boy, coming home for 2 weeks to select a bride. This was 1975 and the supply was much lesser than the demand! Nagu Thatha once told me how he finally made the decision that my dad was right for his first born daughter.

He wrote 'yes' and 'no' on two slips of folded paper, dropped them in front of the altar of assorted Gods my grandma kept in a corner, sent up a prayer and picked one slip. The answer was YES. The simplicity of how he arrived at a life changing decision for his eldest daughter never failed to amaze me. But that was the power of his faith. And I found myself resorting to that exact method of arriving at a decision many a time in my adult life during particularly confusing periods, without consciously realising I was copying what my grandfather did many years ago.

I was his eldest granddaughter and the one that he didn't quite understand in later years. All the other grandkids were doing fairly straightforward things, working in companies he had heard of, or at least in professions that he had some understanding of. I don't think he really knew what I did for a living till the end, though he was aware that it involved a lot of travel. In the last few years, every time I saw him, he wanted to know two things - which countries I had visited and when I planned to get married. I don't think he quite understood the concept of me looking for Mr.Right. He still held out hope that Hindu Matrimonials will come to my rescue and tie me down to one country at last.

The last time I saw,was about a year ago. He was frail and confused. The famous 'Khandaani Toppai' that has been passed on to his son, my uncle was long gone. He spent all his time watching TV, flipping channels. He never really came to terms with being a retired man of leisure. He was constantly looking for work after retirement and held at least 2 major jobs for a few years after, including one in blazing, hot Vijayawada where he dragged my grandmother to, much against her will. But the last few years since he came back to Chennai, he was never quite the same. A man who was the defacto head of a large clan, the one that everyone turned to for advice and guidance, the one who went out of his way to help anyone and everyone who came to him, much to my grandma's annoyance.....he was fading fast. He couldn't walk or bathe without assistance. I hear in the last few months, he didn't even recognise his own younger daughter, my aunt. He slept most of the time and woke up only for meals.

And last night, when Paati went to wake him up for dinner, he didn't wake up.

Rest in Peace, Nagu Thatha. You will be missed.

Stranded in Nairobi

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sat, 22 May 2010 09:08:00 +0000

Recently I went back to my favourite continent...a journey into the heart of Africa. And when I say heart, I really mean the literal central part of Africa - Rwanda. A country that's known as the land of a thousand hills...the Switzerland of Africa!

My first trip to Kigali, the capital city was in October 2008 and for several reasons it was a trip I won't forget easily. For one, it was one of the most complicated routes I have ever travelled with so many stop overs that by the time I reached Rwanda, I really didn't care about the beauty of the hills. Secondly, I was on a plane 35,000 feet above sea level, travelling to the dark continent on the day of the festival of lights - Diwali! So, I had reasons to be biased against Rwanda even before I arrived.

But once I recovered from a good night's sleep and had the opportunity to meet people and look around the city, I was hooked. I'm very familiar with Uganda and Kenya, two of the neighbouring East African countries and I expected Rwanda to be similar. In fact, the only thing I knew about Rwanda was the genocide and I wasn't really expecting much, when the invitation to attend the East Africa Business Forum appeared in my mailbox.

But that trip in 2008, changed my perception of Rwanda drastically. I learnt so much more about the country, its history, the culture and most importantly the foresight and vision of President Kagame who has turned a warn torn nation around, literally on its head! Everyone I met from business people to government authorities were so switched on and clued in to everything. Young, vibrant, dynamic and forward thinking are some of the terms that come to mind when asked to describe the people that are in the administration.

So, when the opportunity arose to go back to Rwanda this year, I jumped at it. Of course, one thing that hasn't changed is the complicated route one needs to fly from Malaysia to reach Kigali. Only 6 airlines worldwide fly into Rwanda and my complicated route included an 8 hour journey from KL to Dubai, a 3 hour stop over in Dubai, then a 5 hour journey from Dubai to Nairobi, a 5 hour stop over in Nairobi, and finally a 2 hour flight from Nairobi to Kigali on Kenya Airways, the pride of Africa!

The journey started on a pretty good note. I got upgraded to Business on the first leg from KL to Dubai on Emirates. A blessing on a long 8 hour flight. Once in Dubai, I managed to find some books I'd been looking for, for quite some time at the airport, which kept me in a pretty good mood. The flight to Nairobi was uneventful though I was dreading the 5 hour transit, as there really isn't much to do at the Jomo Kenyatta airport. I found myself a corner at the Java Lounge, the popular coffee shop in the airport and got down to catching up on emails and people watching alternately, while I waited for the 11.40 pm flight.

A group of British soldiers trooped in at one point providing much needed eye-candy relief and I could swear one of them was a dead ringer for Prince Harry. A random guy picked up a conversation with me and turned out he was waiting for the same flight and proceeded to tell me all about his agri-products business in Africa. After several rounds of strong Kenyan Coffee and stimulating discussion about agriculture, it was time to board.

At the gate, I found out the flight actually goes all the way to Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi and stops at Kigali on the way. Got into the half empty flight and found I was on an empty row and stretched out from exhaustion, hoping to wake up only once the plane touches down. Alas, that was not to be. 15 minutes into the flight, we hit turbulence and just like in the movies, there is a sudden flickering of lights in the cabin and everything blacks out for a few seconds. Captain requests everyone to stay strapped into their seat belts. The meal service that has just started is suspended. I reluctantly get up from my horizontal position and once again there is that scary flickering of lights. This time, its scary.

Suddenly, the purser announces - Ladies and Gentlemen, we are returning to Nairobi. Please have your seat back upright, tray tables folded and fasten seat belts.

Eh???? We wait for an explanation. None is given.

30 minutes after we have taken off from Nairobi, we return. Finally, after safely touching down, the captain announces that there was a electrical fire that necessitated the return! Shock, surprise and relief mixed with confusion fills the cabin. So, we're offloaded and told to expect further instructions from Kenya Airways on ground.

Its 12.30 am. There are no Kenya Airways staff at the gate. No one to tell us what needs to be done. A group of really angry and tired passengers are left stranded in the middle of the night and the 'pride of Africa' has gone missing. A Kenya Airways Paris flight is boarding and one young girl is at the counter. The stranded passengers descend upon her like a flock of angry geese and the poor girl is left in tears as she doesn't have a clue. She is just boarding the Paris flight. Passengers are getting tetchier by the minute. One of my phones is dead and the other is dangerously close to dying. I don't want to go too far away from the group in search of an electrical socket to charge my phones. Eventually I find a dodgy looking wall socket with half the wiring out and try my luck. Voila, it works! I park myself on the floor next to the dodgy socket and am busy Tweeting and facebooking my woes.

Frayed nerves, exhausted and travel fatigued, people are getting angrier by the minute. Kenya Airways doesn't seem to care since they haven't deemed it fit to send anyone over to keep the passengers informed. Finally at 2.15 AM, a KQ official walks in and announces that the next flight to Kigali is at 11 AM the next morning and passengers were being put up in a hotel for the night. My conference begins the next morning at 9 AM and clearly I am going to miss the opening session officiated by President Kagame, thanks to Kenya Airways.

But the nightmare is not over. We clear immigration and are told not to worry about our checked in bags as they will be held in storage overnight. We are asked to head to a KQ counter that will give us our hotel vouchers. Once again confusion arises. The counter is manned by one person and there are over 100 passengers. The official behind the counter looks clueless and has no answers. As everyone crowds around the counter, suddenly the conveyor belt nearby starts moving and hey...what do you see - the bags that are to be held in storage overnight by KQ! Obviously, someone forgot to inform baggage handlers. So, there is a mad scramble as everyone tries to get their bags and once again chaos reigns.

Finally at 3 AM, several groups are segregated and each group is escorted to a van waiting outside that is to take us to the hotel. But wait...this is a 20 seater van, with 30 pax in each group and luggage! But Kenya Airways, the pride of Africa, is unfazed. We are all loaded into the van with our luggage and packed in like sardines! Suitcases and bags of all shapes and sizes are loaded into the van and stuffed into every available surface.

3.30 am - We are at the hotel and told that departure for airport is at 7.30 am for those headed to Kigali! And those going to Bujumbura leave at 6 am!

I fall into exhausted sleep and after what feels like only a few minutes, the alarm goes off. A quick shower, a half decent breakfast and its time to leave.

7.30 AM - luggage and people loaded into van. But van doesn't move and there is a commotion in the lobby. Turns out the hotel claims a guest has eaten a Kit Kat and had a Pepsi from the mini bar and has not paid for it. The guest says he doesn't even know where the mini bar is and he was so exhausted when he checked in, he went straight to bed. Argument ensues and guest is mega offended and refuses to pay on grounds of principle.

The hotel manager is yelling that he won't let the bus leave till the bill is settled. The guest is yelling back that this is blackmail and fraud and cheating.

Eventually, a Brit guy sitting next to me yells out from the window - Oye, how much is that bill?

8 dollars!

He pulls out a $10 bill and hands it out the window to the hotel manager and tells him to put a lid on it. Literally! The bus is released from the hostage situation and finally we are on our way to the airport. We re-checkin, get new boarding passes and hang around the gate. Finally at 11, its time for take off and....a passenger is missing. His bag is checked in, but he is missing. Which is not surprising because Kenya Airways made no actual announcement about the boarding gate. The electronic display at the departure lounge did not indicate the gate number. And the only reason I found the gate is because I walked up and down a dozen times and finally found the board for Kigali hanging in front of the gate. Which is perhaps what the others did as well, except this one guy.

Finally, his bag is offloaded and 20 minutes later, we finally take off. This time, when we touch down, I am actually in Kigali!

I had a fantastic 4 days in Kigali meeting some of the brightest people in the country. And that's what makes all of this drama worthwhile, because Rwanda is truly a country on the move. Officials are solution oriented, bureaucratic red tape is minimal, corruption is almost non-existent and everyone is so open and approachable!

Two restaurant recommendations - Republica and Shokola! I visited Republica even during the 2008 trip and loved the log cabin feel to it. Fantastic food, great music and lovely ambience.

Shokola is a Mediterranean restaurant with an amazing menu, ...yes even for my vegetarian palate. Huge, open spaces, Arabic/Moroccan themed loungy décor. Looks absolutely ethereal at night.

I was sorry to leave after 4 days...would have loved to go to the Gorilla park for a bit of the touristy sights. But as always, work calls. Thankfully, return flight from Kigali to Nairobi was on Rwandair which even if not fancy was at least on time and the staff were polite and friendly!

I hope, soon other airlines would start flying into Kigali so that people have options other than Kenya Airways to visit this beautiful country!

For Kafs, the best friend a girl can have

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:46:00 +0000

My closest friend died last night. And I am angry. Angry that he died so young and abandoned me just like that. And angry that I didn't even find out till this afternoon. Cardiac arrest at 32! What kind of world are we living in now?

Kafs, you were there for me through so much all these years. And now, suddenly, you are not. And I don't know how to deal with it. I don't want to believe that you are no longer just a phone call away.

I don't know how to describe my relationship with you. I still remember the day I was introduced to you on the steps of that awful pub, Bunker, in Bangalore all those years ago. Those were still my teetotaller days and as I was sipping my lime soda, you were detailing the virtues of mixing some vodka in it to spice up my life. You asked me out that night and I only went on that drive with you only because you were so sweet and funny.

And what a drive that turned out to be. First you got pulled up for suspected drunken driving and you quickly handed the Kingfisher bottle to me and flashed that loony smile you are so famous for, at the cop and said, "She is the one drinking. I am just taking her for a drive to sober her up!" And to think, the guy actually believed you and looked at me disapprovingly - "Maydam, you are ladies. You should naat be drinking like this." And you had the cheek to say, "I told her saar!"

Ten minutes after he let us go, we found that homeless guy passed out in the middle of the deserted road. Anyone else would have just driven past. You stopped, looked at me and said, "give me a minute...i can't just leave him lying there. I have to move him to the side" and jumped out before I could say anything. Back then, I thought you were just trying to impress me. It would take me much longer to realise, you didn't care what I thought. That was just you. No hidden agendas.

And that was also our first and last 'date'. I can't remember now why the date didn't go anywhere, but what I do remember is that we were inseparable after that. And my presence glued to your side lost you many an opportunity with hot women who'd think I was 'with' you. I practically lived in your house. You threw me birthday parties, tried to set me up with strange men who you insisted were 'husband material', gave me hankies and shoulder when I needed, loaned me money when I was broke, fought many a battle for me and were my designated driver to go everywhere! Even your mom took care of me when you were not around and your maid made me many a delicious lunches and dinners.

You also finally, successfully got me to start imbibing alcohol and dealt with my drunken brawls and occasional passing out. I even wrote a post three years ago about how you dealt with one such crazy misadventure after my house party. When I sent you the link, you said - 'glad you portray me as the gentleman I am not!' But you were Kafs....in your own twisted, demented way, you cared about people close to you and you took care of them.

Oh how much we fought! How I disapproved of your various 'bimbo' girlfriends. And hated that silly card game you insisted on playing every time we had a house party. And argued with you over your incessant smoking and drunk driving. Remember that time you got so drunk and drove off from the party at Speedzone into a field and called me to come and find you coz you had no clue where you were! I was looking for you till 5 AM till you just curled up and went to sleep in the car. Only to wake up the next morning and find you were 15 km outside Bangalore on a very angry farmer's property. How much I yelled at you that day! And you just flashed me your loony smile and said," just chill ya babes. I'm here now and I'm fine and I made my first farmer friend!" That was just so typically you!

You were there through so many turning points in my life. And even when we didn't live in the same city anymore, I loved how we could just pick up from where we left off after months of not having spoken to each other. I moved to a different city and you moved to a different country. I'd still go to your place when I was in Bangalore and hang out with your mom and the cats. Then you came back and I moved to a different country, while you went back to your favorite city.

And that's where I saw you last. Diwali 2006. I was lonely and homesick in Malaysia and the festive season was looming large reminding me of how alone I was in this strange new country. I hadn't spoken to you in months. I picked up the phone on a whim and asked you what you were doing during the holidays. You didn't answer my question. You knew immediately from my voice, even though you hadn't heard it in a while, what I was feeling. You said, " Get your butt here Rams! Why you getting so formal and all with me yaar." And so I did. A quickie 3 day trip to Bombay in October 2006 to celebrate Diwali with my favorite person in the world. A trip that I'll never forget. Once again you were there for me when I needed you the most.

After that I made it a point to definitely speak to you every Diwali. And last Diwali was the last time I spoke to you.

So many memories...so many stories. Where do I begin and where do I end?

Knowing you are not there, smiling your loony smile under that scraggy beard you insist on sporting, with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, telling me to just 'chill yaar'.....is very hard to deal with. I don't want to believe that you are gone. You are too young, too full of life to just not be there anymore. Remember we promised each other ten years ago, if we're both single at 30, we'd hook up. And you called me on your 30th to ask for deadline extension to 35! You can't bail out now. Its not fair!

I miss you Kafs and nothing will ever be the same. I don't want to let you go.

My personal Sex and the City moments

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sat, 16 May 2009 06:31:00 +0000

So, the first decent guy who asks me out after my rather spectacular 'disengagement' (that's what i'm calling it...break up sounds too trivial when we are talking about an engagement that was to lead to be a fabulous beach wedding in Goa) turns out to be quite interesting.

We met at a friend's party a few months ago and I remember thinking, there is no way this dish would be single! A month later a chance meeting led him to 'see something in my eyes' (his words, not mine!) and he asks me out. Now this is the first guy I am going to go out with after having been in an 'engaged relationship' for nearly two years. I've been out of the dating scene for a while it seems.

The first week is great. We meet every evening for dinner and find loads to talk about and I'm thinking the Chemistry is amazing. I do my usual neurotic thing, psycho-analysing everything, trying to figure out what's wrong with him. My friend M thinks I am nuts and should just chill and let things take their course. By the end of the week, I am convinced this is going somewhere. And that's when I find out that I wasn't being neurotic without reason. The man I am dating is....how do i put this the right way.... The man I am dating is in love with Jesus!

I kid you not. The first decent man to ask me out in months turns out to be a Jesus Freak. At the end of that first week, I leave for a business trip to Colombo and that's when the full extent of the Lord's influence over my JC lover comes to light. I get text messages from him every morning wishing me a blessed day! And inevitably our nightly conversations turn to the Lord and how JayZ (that's M's nickname for him and that's what we shall use to refer to him in this blog) is God's special son.

I am torn now because I know JayZ and I have great chemistry but I am not sure how to handle the JC obsession. I am pretty secular and while I have been brought up in the Hindu faith, I respect all faiths because ultimately i believe they all teach you exactly the same thing. What I don't know how to deal with is this rather overt display of religious affection. I mean, i have my faith and my way of praying but its a personal thing for me and I never talk about it with anyone or impose it on anyone. And here is this guy I am really starting to like and he seems intent on discussing the Bible with me at every given opportunity.

After my return from Sri Lanka, we have a serious chat and he tells me its his "heart's desire" to be with someone he can pray with. By this time, I am trying not to freak out. So, I ask him if this is about faith or religion. They are two different things, as far as I am concerned. He says, its faith. Ok...that I can deal with. I have my faith and I respect his. I don't see a problem with this. I tell him as much and I explain to him that I like him and the connection I felt in the first week with him was strong enough for me to take this seriously. He says, he felt it too and hopes I can see how important his faith is to him.

We decide to leave things as they are and try to make things work. Then one morning I open facebook and find his status message - 'Its been a stressful week filled with deadlines, but with Jesus behind me, I can do it.'

I almost fell off my chair in the office. Later that weekend I visit his house and find 'Jesus Saves' posters everywhere. By this time, I am mentally hyperventilating.

BTW, 3 weeks have passed by now and he hasn't made a move. You know what kind of move! It's bothering me and I am wondering what's taking him so long. So, painfully conscious of what I am about to say, I bring it up with him. Even as I am saying it, I know its sounding strange and silly. But its bothering me and I need to get it out of my system. In hindsight, the answer shouldn't have surprised me, but I have to admit, in that moment, I was dumbfounded. Apparently, with Jesus watching, we weren't going to ever move beyond first base.

That's when I realised that that I was competing with Jesus for JayZ's affection and well, as much as I didn't want it to be a contest, that's what this was turning out to be and clearly the Lord trumps all.

So, that was the end of my first dating expedition post the disengagement. No one said this was going to be easy!

Buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky...

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:07:00 +0000

This last week has truly been very weird for me. I am rather embarrassed to admit the reasons but then, I wouldn't have anything new to blog about!

So, Monday started off as any other chaotic Monday morning and my best friend from work, M was to take off to Australia for a 3 week break that evening and I had made sure to bring my Grace Kelly coat to loan her for the trip. Both of us were caught up in endless meetings and it was after 5 PM that she managed to show up at my office to pick up the coat, just in time to rush home, change and make a dash to the airport.

At 6 she called to tell me there was a last minute controversy around her break and how she was supposed to have got more than the usual approvals due to the longish period involved. We discussed her options, I gave her some advice and we hoped for the best, as I dashed off to another meeting. By 7, I figured she must be on her way to the airport and called her only to find out that she just cancelled the trip in the end due to the major political drama that was starting to brew around her little vacation!

As any good girlfriend should, I offered my shoulder and that age old remedy to all problems - a trip to the pub to drown one's sorrows in alcohol. Little was I to know that by the end of the evening, she would be slinging me over her shoulder to get me home.

Lest you think I just got legless on countless margaritas, therein lies the twist in the tale.

So, I try to finish up at work and I am starving by this time. Its a Monday night and the week looms large ahead. So, I'm thinking, one quick drink, some dinner, some bitching and I am on my way home. So, I get to the designated pub, find M has started on the alcohol intake with her neighbour B and is halfway through a jug of Long Island Iced Tea. Because I was starving, I am thinking, its better I get some food into myself before I start on the LIIT. B helpfully offers me a lunchbox of brownies she baked that afternoon at home. I take one look at the gooey chocolaty slices and throw caution to the wind about calories and start to dig in. The brownies are delish! I love how they melt in my mouth. Before anyone realised, I am already through 2 of those heavenly slices and about to start on the third one. B gives me a hesitant smile and says...."errr...glad you like it, I have more at home that I can pack for you. BTW, there is a special ingredient in there."

As I am munching away on my 3rd brownie, I am nodding enthusiastically and say - yeah yeah, pack me some. This stuff is fantastic. What special ingredient?

B : Can't you taste it? I know I used very little but you might be able to get an after taste....

I stop for a second and try to feel for this 'special ingredient'. Then it hits me suddenly....these are Space Brownies!!!! (children, go google it if you don't know what I'm referring to, coz i am not linking it from my blog!)

I start laughing at the irony of it, because I have never even smoked a cigarette before and here I am overdosing on Space Brownies!

But I don't feel any different and my food arrives and I have poured myself the first glass of LIIT. All is well with the world for the next 20 mins or so. I finish the first glass, i am halfway through my food and have just poured myself a second glass. The bitching session is in full flow. Suddenly, it happens.

I feel like I am floating. I know I am sitting there and laughing away with these two women, but at the same time I can't shake the feeling that I am floating. I drink some water and think, i better go easy on the LIIT. I stuff more food inside of me hoping to neutralise this floaty feeling. Nothing changes...in fact, it gets worse. I feel like my head is spinning. Not the 'oh-I'm-drunk-and-the-room-is-spinning' feeling, but like my head is a top and its spinning like on its axis. Slowly at first and then faster and faster. I grab M's hand and tell her I'm spinning. She takes one look at my face and knows what's happening.

M: how many brownies did you eat?

Me: Three...maybe more. dunno...lost count.

M: Damn...ok...calm down, take a deep breath.

Me: I am calm. Perfectly calm. But my head is spinning.

M: You need to throw up. Let's take you to the ladies.

Me: err....i don't think I can get up. I don't feel my legs anymore.

M & B looking very alarmed : We'll take you. You HAVE to throw up.

They literally hauled me up and dragged me to the ladies. Once in there, the deterioration was rapid! The irony is that I was sooooo conscious of everything that was happening and what I was saying and what was being said to me, but it was like having an out of body experience!

I am embarrassed to admit, I have a vague recollection of curling up on the bathroom floor and wanting to go to sleep. (Thank God for upmarket pubs with clean bathroom floors!) I can hear B telling someone else in the ladies - Oh she's not drunk...just not feeling very well! At this point, I believe i was slumped on the floor with a wide grin on my face!

Soon, everything was moving in slow motion. I remember telling M everything was soooo sssllllooowwww. I remember shrieking with mad laughter while M held on to me looking bemused, trying to coax me to throw up. After 30 minutes they gave up and tried to drag me out of the ladies and out of the pub so that they could load me into the car and let me sleep it off.

I have another flash of memory where I was practically dragged out of the ladies ( apparently i loved my new bed and refused to leave!), grinning like a mad person. I think I even made some silly remark about feeling like I was a blind person being led by the hand, which at the time I thought was clever and hilarious.

I saw loads of exploding colours in my head. Also, some geometrical patterns kept swirling around. I think I even saw a rabbit on a race track (don't ask...i can't explain!).

Finally, I was in M's car. I think she wanted me to sit up, which I refused to and curled up in the back seat instead. I could hear her say - you bloody well not mess up my car!

Ten minutes later, that's precisely what I did. M was driving and heard me in the backseat and I could hear her yelling - NOT IN MY CAR!!!!!! At those words, I promptly threw up a second time and fell into deep slumber. I think M just gave up coz there was no point. Her precious Beemer was ruined anyway!

By the time she managed to get me to the basement parking of my condo, I was lost to the world. It wasn't even midnight yet! Just how she managed to single handedly drag me out of the messed up backseat and out of the car without ruining my clothes is a sign of her great resilience and smarts.

Just our luck, a big group of people waiting for the lift and I live all the way up at the 17th floor. She tried very hard to hold me upright and ignore the curious stares of the Chinese students. I have some vague recollection of this as I was drifting in and out of consciousness. During one moment of lucidity I knew I had to stand straight till we get to my floor. But that lasted exactly 3 seconds and I did a leaning tower of Pisa on M. The Chinese students were probably snickering about old ladies and how they can't hold their drink!

Aah well.

Finally, M got me home and into my bed and waited around for me to come to. The funny thing is I knew she was talking to me and I was responding to her in my head. But of course, she is not telepathic, so that wasn't working out to be a useful conversation. After about an hour and a half of watching me passed out and not move a muscle, she panicked and called a friend of hers who is 'experienced in these matters'.

30 minutes later, as I was swimming back into consciousness, I opened my eyes to find myself staring back at some strange boy peering down at me and checking for my pulse (presumably!). A credit to my zombie like state that I did not scream. I don't think I even reacted. Just stared back at the guy while he cheerfully explained to a relieved looking M that I was going to be just fine.

The effect was wearing off and while I was still light headed, at least I didn't feel like a thousand needles poking through my skin or Diwali and Holli celebrations combined in my head. The strange boy (who incidentally was quite cute and I must remember to ask M about his a/s/l) made me lime juice, which I didn't know existed in my fridge! Citrus intake apparently is the way to go. I started to feel human again and M decided it was safe enough to leave me on my own so that she could now go deal with her messy Beemer.

I found out later that the lime juice boy took her to some all night carwash and they managed to get most of the mess cleared up. Though for 2 days after, despite another round of steam cleaning, the car did smell of Nasi Lemak. The carpet at the back is ruined though, and I must figure out a way of making it up to M.

As for me, I don't think I can ever look at a brownie the same way again. Whoever thought that at 31, I would be experimenting with stuff 17 yr olds do! Gosh, I'm a late bloomer.

No one tells you how hard it is!

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:37:00 +0000

I haven't wanted to write for the longest time. Maybe it was the dreaded writer's block, maybe i just didn't have anything new or exciting to talk about, maybe I simply wasn't ready to share...

Things happened, milestones were crossed, people came and people went and there were many missed opportunities. And yet, I couldn't find it in me to post. It's probably a year or so since I have done any regular posting. One post a year hardly counts. Work and travel can't be an excuse anymore....I simply have no idea why I didn't want to write. So, I'm going to try and end this dry spell, little by little and hopefully I still have some readers left!

A lot has happened in the past year. Most important of all, I turned 30, fell in love, got engaged, then fell out of love and got dis-engaged. 30 was supposed to be a milestone. The year one is supposed to feel like a full fledged adult and can no longer avoid being called 'aunty' by the kids in the neighbourhood. 30 was when I thought I'd have a grip on where my life was going and how i'd be able to see in slow motion a preview of the next ten years.

Friends got married, had babies, younger cousins got married, had more babies, I gained new titles each time the stork came to visit. Periamma, athai, aunty, akka....

And yet, nothing seemed to have changed.

I remember when I was 21, I was chatting with a former boss, who was then 28 and she was telling me how she had mapped out a life plan. To be in a relationship by 30, get married by 32, and have a child by 35. I remember thinking...Gosh..that sounds rather late. Of course at 21, I wasn't to know that ten years later, that conversation would come back to haunt me!

I'm fast approaching 31. I've been in and out of relationships. I still have no clue what I am looking for. And I end up behaving totally neurotic when a halfway decent guy asks me out by psycho analysing everything he says.

Where is that 'adult wisdom' I should have attained at the stroke of midnight when I crossed over to the big three-oh!? The one that should have enabled me to have these deep feminine insights into relationships and people.

Should I be settling for whatever comes my way because as my mother never fails to remind me, my biological clock is ticking? Or should I say two hoots to my shrivelling ovaries and hold out for more?

Is it practical once you cross 30 to want to be swept off your feet? Or does it only end in a resounding thud as you crash down having flown too high?

Life... and its exquisite moments

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:42:00 +0000

Finally breaking my blogging hiatus after nearly a year with this post that's actually my column for a magazine in the Philippines, run by a friend, for their next issue.

Hey, atleast I'm trying!

*****

When I was an impressionable adolescent, growing up in an India on the threshold of change, brimming over with hope, exploding with possibilities, I couldn’t wait to grow up and experience all the fun that the adult world had to offer to me. I was still in middle school, but I so badly wanted to be like the ultra cool seniors who seemed so confident and sure of themselves as they bossed around the juniors. A bunch of us would follow the girls and boys in senior year with puppy dog eyes waiting for the privilege to be summoned, to be spoken to, to be considered special enough to be acknowledged by the kings and queens of high school!

It didn’t take long for me to get there and take on the mantle left behind by my seniors and I had my own little brood of midgets following me around, waiting on me! But, already, I was restless. By this time, I knew there was a world outside of the little high school I was reigning in, where I knew I’d have to start out right at the bottom.

When I graduated high school and entered college, I was back to being at the bottom of the pile. I joined college as a naïve freshman who’d never been kissed, never skipped class, had never had to travel for more than 15 minutes to get to school and was used to being the centre of attention in my tiny high school universe which had more boys than girls!

And here I was at an all girls college, more than an hour away from home, terrified at this new world inhabited exclusively by women in all shapes, sizes and colour, where I was just another wide eyed junior and well…simply ordinary. The senior girls seemed impossibly glamorous and unbelievably confident as they sat around the canteen gossiping about the lecturers or ragging some poor freshman. I felt staid and anonymous as I tried to blend in and watch them unobserved. They seemed so worldly and to know their place in the world and all I had known till then was the little neighbourhood I had grown up in and where my high school was situated.

Those three years in college, I grew up without quite realising it. Three years of changing two buses to get to college, hanging out with women of all temperaments for 6 hours a day, trying to learn all that you can to prepare you for a career outside the safe haven of the college campus forces you to grow up in ways that surprise you as you are graduating. Because, suddenly I was that glamorous senior holding court in the canteen. The only difference was, this time I knew what my seniors had really been feeling 3 years ago sitting at the shaky table, sipping tea from a chipped china cup. While I was excited about getting out there and making my mark on the world, I was also equally terrified about getting out there to join the rat race and finding out that I was just another faceless new graduate, one among thousands, looking for a career opportunity that will define who I am for the rest of my life.

Real life was just about to begin.

Over the next few years as I flitted from one job to another trying to find my niche, before settling into one that truly made me happy, each new experience, every new job, every new relationship stood on its heads and made faces at me for ever presuming I knew anything about them.

Along the way, I moved cities, moved countries and moved from one social circle to another. Boyfriends came and boyfriends went. Girlfriends went from being giggling confidantes to girlfriends of other men, to wives to mothers. Priorities changed, lifestyles changed. In every phase, something new took on great importance.

It’s interesting how each new milestone just marks the beginning of a new journey that leads to yet another milestone. Over the years, I can’t even remember some of things that had once occupied by every waking hour, as I obsessed over someone or something.

It’s been over ten years since I graduated from college with a degree certificate that bears little or no impact on what I do today for a living.

Ten years where I’ve gone through moments I thought I’d burst with happiness or just die of depression. Loss, pain, death and betrayal coexisted with promotions, weddings, new friendships and babies. Ten years that saw me move from a rut to high places and made me wonder where my life was going.

An entire decade of moments where I wished things had sped along at all the boring and depressing points but slowed down just about enough for me to take a breath and look back with wonder at everything that I’ve experienced, learnt and am thankful for.

Today from a vantage point of being on the wrong side of 30, I can see myself in hindsight; evolving from an awkward teenager to a terrified tween to an independent and confident young woman whose life experiences forced her to grow up faster than most of her peers.

In some ways, each stage of our lives is like a metaphorical graduation ceremony. We all have these defining moments, where you know with a sense of never-before-clarity that this was the moment, we decided to make the leap from one phase to the next. You experience them in the unlikeliest places – in the subway as you travel to work, at a coffee shop while you watch the world go by, sipping a Grande’ Mocha, standing in the rain soaking to the skin and knowing this is nature’s way of washing away the past or simply waking up one morning and knowing you are different today from the person who went to bed yesterday.

And it is a series of these defining moments that ultimately shape you are.

Tag-a-long

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 07:03:00 +0000

Loca thinks I need to be shaken off my blogging inertia. I can't help if nothing exciting has taken place in my life in the longest time. Or even if there was something that got me excited, it was probably not bloggable! So, here goes the tag from La Vida Loca.

Rules of the Meme:

Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

Family

That's easy! I started this blog (well...the 2nd post at least) with a sort of fam post. These would qualify:

My mom's incessant nagging that landed me on shaadi.com is chronicled in Of single women, menopausal moms & matrimonial websites

My lovely quadruplet nieces are here, here , here and here

The amazing story of a distant aunt I admire is here

And the most difficult post I ever wrote....saying goodbye to my brother is here

Friends

Is there such a thing as an inner circle?

Hanging out with friends in Hong Kong during FIFA fever

Difficult choices in friendship here

Myself

The entire darned blog is about me! For your reading pleasure, here is me, me and more of me.

Love

Hmmm....tricky. So here is a highschool romance. Some existential issues about my love life here and something that I surprised myself by writing about.

There is that long pending post about the engagement which hopefully I will bring myself to write about soon.

Anything I like

A post that I am proud of - My take on the great Indian middle class was also my very first DesiPundit linked post.

I had fun writing this one.

Highschool Battlefield got some interesting responses.

Ok, that's it! Loca, I hope I have sufficiently proven my blogging abilities :)

I'd like to tag Dr.Mosi who has gone off blogging since he landed in Zambia. Pri, coz I've never tagged her and am sure will have some insane, hilarious stuff up her sleeve. Once again, coz he seems to be in Tag mode!

Ta-Ta!

Blast from the past

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:32:00 +0000

I jumped into the taxi this morning cursing everyone and everything coz I was super late for a meeting and was about to order the teenaged cabbie to turn the radio volume down, when I suddenly heard the Radio Jockey say - Backstreet Boys, Live in Malaysia, Feb 27!

WTF! Those guys are still around? And people are still listening to boy-bands??? I suddenly had this flashback vision of my 16 year old self prancing around the room with 'As long as you love me' blasting off my Philips Hi-fi. Yeah...yeah...i went through the boy band phase. A few years ago, I would never have admitted that, but I can now safely say that all go through an embarrassing growth spurt!

I am about to turn 30 and these chaps are still around and singing the exact same love songs! OK, so 15 years ago I was mad about Boyzone and Backstreet Boys. I had their posters up on my wall and even though they all looked and sounded the same, it was an obsession I couldn't get over. I was heart broken when I read in some gossip rag that Stephen whatshisname from Boyzone was gay and I think for a brief while I even had a little pendant with Nick Carter's picture in it, hidden away under my pillow. I can't now imagine why I was so fascinated. I mean all they did was get into this V formation and the cutest guy is in the centre and they spread their arms and scream 'Baaaabeeeee'.

Every boy-band from back then, did pretty much the same thing and every time they did the 'baaaabeeee' thing, teenaged girls screamed (possibly dropped their knickers!) and asked for more! They all sang love songs, their videos featured cute blonde girls and the boys all looked ridiculously good. It was teenage girl heaven!

I have painful memories of pining for this guy I had a huge crush on while listening to Nick Carter singing 'Quit playing games with my heart'. Then when the guy finally paid me attention and I was over the moon, I remember celebrating with 'Shape of my heart' blasting from the speakers. Then, when he didn't call when he promised to, I wept along to 'Show me the meaning of being loney'.

Somehow the songs always added to the angst, the joy, the pain...

I also have some interesting memories of learning to dance to their songs. I remember, I was 17 or 18 and had just met some Ugandan students and was amazed at how well they all danced and was painfully aware of my own total lack of coordination. So, this one Ugandan guy decided I desperately needed help and he put on Backstreet Boys' I want it that way which had fairly simple beats and he taught me how to do this slow form of shuffle. Two steps right, two steps left, one step forward, bend and wiggle your ass. Or something like that. When you did it in a group of 4 or 6, the synchronisation looked great. Of course, the two steps right and left required a certain amount of grace and fluidity of movement that I don't think I ever managed to get right. But that was the first time, I managed to 'dance' and not make a total fool of myself and that's why the Backstreet Boys will always hold a special place in my heart.

And now nearly 15 years later, when technically I am old enough to have pre-teens of my own, these boys are still around, looking as glossy as they did when I was a hormonal teen and singing 'I want it that way' to a whole new generation of screaming teenage girls!

How unfair is that???

It's a girl...& a medal

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:09:00 +0000

For all those of you, who shared in my grief at the loss of my brother Major Dinesh Raghuraman, I am happy to share the news of his new born daughter, who arrived on Jan 13, 2008. Also, I am proud to announce that he is being awarded the Ashok Chakra posthumously on Jan 26 (Republic Day), which will be received by his father.

Congratulations Major Raman! I know you are watching over your family.

From here and there...

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:37:00 +0000

Last Friday I got myself into such an embarrassing situation that I just stayed locked up at home through out the weekend (err...ok, i just wanted an excuse to sleep through the weekend, but still..)

So, my work place is at the back entrance of a mall and the taxi stand is at the front entrance. Friday evenings are when half of Malaysia descends on malls with a vengeance. Screaming brats heavily mad up women with harassed husbands carrying numerous shopping bags in tow and to top it all, as Chinese New Year is approaching, the mall is all dressed up in red and gold and fake plum trees and God knows what! So, basically there is major chaos everywhere and getting a taxi on a Friday evening, which on a usual day is pretty darned hard, on such a day... nearly impossible.

So, imagine my delight, as I approached the taxi stand and spotted two red cabs waiting and no one at the taxi stand ( it was a Chinese New Year miracle!). So i started to run towards the stand but just before I reached,a family of four came out of nowhere and got into the first cab. There was still hope and I was just a few meters away and as the first cab started to pull out of the stand, I reached the stand and ran to the 2nd one and opened the back door triumphantly and tartly gave the driver my destination. Imagine my horror, when he points to the roof of the cab and says, " This is not a taxi! I am just waiting for a friend." CRAP! No flashing light thingie on top!

Jeez....WTF was the guy thinking driving a red car and waiting in the the bloody taxi stand behind another taxi. Serves him right. HMPHRF!

The CNY non-miracle then just got worse and I had to wait for the next 50 minutes to get a cab. Anyway, the whole incident just took its toll on my stressed out nerves and I spent the weekend alternating between sleeping and watching Ugly Betty (Season 2, Part 1) on DVD.

******

In yet another stress inducing event, my sister's apartment burned down in her University in New York. The sister and her flatmate share an 8th floor apartment on campus and the flatmate had 2 interviews scheduled in New York city that day. So, she packed a bag and ironed her business suit and got everything ready to go catch the short flight. She popped out to go to the bank down the road and the next thing she knows she can hear the fire trucks. My sister is at class and gets a phone call asking her to come back home. The girls get to the building and find fire trucks and firemen all over the place. They think its a firedrill and are moaning about it. Suddenly, they realise that there has been a real fire because they can see the firemen standing in one of the windows on the 8th floor. Oh wait....8th FLOOR!

While they haven't yet officially confirmed what started the fire, the girls suspect it was the halogen lamp in the flatmate's room that had been left on for some time. They think the lamp fell on the mattress (as it has done in the past) and the overheated bulb could have exploded and that may have started the fire.

Bottomline, the flatmate's room is ruined and so are her things. Just about everything in there was destroyed or molten, including her laptop. Fortunately, the sister's room while covered in soot and ash survived and she didn't suffer any major material damage. Meanwhile, reality bites and the interview still stands, so the poor flatmate runs to catch her flight in her street clothes and backpack (the suitcase and suit are gone too!).

And the sister is left to clean up and salvage whatever is left in the apartment. The Uni is kind enough to give the girls temp accommodation in a studio apartment across the road.

So anyway, that meant that my mother and I took turns from our corners of the world to be on the phone and provide moral support to the sister, who spent the weekend doing 8 bags of sooty laundry.

*******

I started the year by attending for the first time, the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, global Indian diaspora meet in Delhi. It was weird, since i have never seen myself as a Pravasi Bharatiya or NRI (Non resident Indian). Though, apparently, I am one since I haven't lived in India in 3 years. The only reason I was at the event was because my boss, who is a 5th generation PIO (Person of Indian Origin)was invited to speak in a session at the convention.

It was very strange being on the other side of the fence and watching the country I call home through a different viewpoint.

Its amazing how far and widespread the Indian diaspora is. I had always known that, but watching everyone gather under one roof from all parts of the globe is quite an experience in itself. The Brits sure did a good job of scattering our people all over the globe from Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago to Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. It never stops to fascinate me that we all looked alike in that convention, and India was the only common binding factor that brought us together, but the one common language that we use to communicate with each other in, is not even Indian!

An interesting stat, I picked up while at PBD.

--Out of the US$26bn in Forex remittance into the country, US$18 bn comes from the labourers and workers in the Gulf Countries to Kerala!

When I first heard this stat, I was amazed, but it took me about a minute to realise that those poor mallu guys go out there with the sole purpose of sending money back home. They don't go there with the hope of buying a stone cottage with a white picket fence in a quiet suburb.

*****

So as y'all can see, it has been an eventful start to the New Year. There is a lot more to come, of course.

Thank you, Come again!

More on the quads...

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:00:00 +0000

The Quads, as of Dec 2007!

Its me alright!

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 09:09:00 +0000

This is just a quick post to let my faithful readers know that I am alive and kicking and do intend to post about my crazy life. I've been travelling non stop since the end of October and its not over yet.

I've done Nairobi-- Bangalore--Kampala--Dubai--Delhi--KL (to be continued...) in the last 6 weeks and it hasn't been all that fun. Yellow fever shots, malaria pills, high sodium water, dreadful BO (someone please donate deo to african men please!) etc etc.

A lot has happened in the last few months and I shall soon find time to write about it all as soon as I take my long awaited annual vacation around Christmas.

Among other things, I will now randomly throw into my conversation whether relevant or not -" When I was having tea with the President of Uganda...."/I was just telling President Jagdeo of Guyana the other day.../President Kagame of Rwanda is a lovely man..."
(That's what happens when you end up attending CHOGM)

And meanwhile, I also find myself engaged ( a long long post of its own).

So ladies and gentlemen, kindly be patient and regular programming will return around X'mas.

I am listening to...

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:15:00 +0000

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eSnips Social DNA

...and it brings flooding back, memories of another life time.

Morning Assembly
Uniforms
Red ribbons on oily double braids
Shiny black shoes

Algebra
Social Studies
Sports day
Annual day
Report Card

lunch box
Water bottle
Green badge
Yellow duckback

That boy in 12 B who got me tongue tied each time he passed me by.
The impossibly glamorous girl in 11 A who I wanted to be like.

Simpler times
Simpler problems
Simpler decisions

Aah...to be young and worry only about homework, Unit Tests and what the boy in 12 B thinks of me.

The final goodbye

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 05:49:00 +0000

Here is a news clip from TimesNow TV, which shows the final goodbye to Major Dinesh Raghuraman and Major KP Vinay. The 3 gun salute, with full military honours.

Goodbye, my brother.

Saying goodbye is another way of saying I remember...

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:45:00 +0000

J&K: 2 army majors, 9 militants killed in encounter

J&K: 2 majors, 9 infiltrators killed

How many times have you and I read headlines like these in the last so many years and not given it a second thought? It seems like there is one such headline every few days and all we can do is shake our head in disdain and move on to the next headline. But today, I can't move on, much as I try. Because Major Dinesh R Raman of 34 Rashtriya Rifles who succumbed to his injuries last night in a Srinagar hospital was my brother. Maybe not by virtue of having the same parents, but he is my first cousin and the closest thing I have ever had to a brother in my family.

We were the same age. We grew up together a few hundred miles apart. My mom never failing to remind me that Dinesh always scores much higher than me in various exams. It didn't bother me and I didn't particularly care because when we met he was usually chasing me around with a water pistol because I was rifling through his stuff when he wasn't looking.

Even back then he knew he was going to serve in the army. I was a precocious 13 year old worried about boys and pimples and Dinesh was busy charting his army career. No one was surprised when straight out of school he was selected at the NDA in Khadakvasla, that hallowed training ground of future army officers. Over the years, we both moved around a lot but always kept in touch. He was in Kargil when the war broke out. I remember those tense moments we all spent those few months. He made it through and everyone sent up a prayer.

He called me every now and then using a satellite phone from some mysterious point up there in the mountains, never divulging his location. Stupidly I would ask, "arrey, so tell me na where you are so that I can tell my friends my brother is calling me from the Siachen glacier or wherever!" He would laugh and call me nuts.

Then we met at his sister's wedding a few years ago. We were both 25. I joked, so next is your turn kid! He said in all seriousness, "Yeah, have to do something soon. All my batch mates are getting hitched. In our kind of life, you never know what happens tomorrow." I laughed and called him nuts.

Then he got married two years ago. I flew down for the wedding to Chennai in the sweltering heat of May. He seemed quite happy and I was happy for him. Then early last year, he sent me an e mail -

"I have finally joined the tech savvy world. I now have an e-mail account! Haven't needed one up there in the mountains with the snow and ice for company all this while."

We chatted online whenever he was visiting the plains. I never did get to know his wife....she worked with an IT major and they seemed happy together and she seemed to have adjusted to his crazy life. Then late last year, she went away to UK on a project and Dinesh wanted to visit her. The Indian govt put him through a gazillion security clearance processes and finally 3 months after he had planned to be there, he made it, just before his wife was to finish her project!

In Feb this year, he e mailed me his mobile number in Kashmir, the one he used when he was at the army base and asked me to call. I kept promising to...and i never did. Then he e mailed me a few months ago and said he was gonna be a daddy! He sounded so excited. I was happy for him and I promised to call. Again, I never did.

Two days ago, I was in Chennai on work and visiting an aunt of ours and she told me Dinesh's wife's 'seemantham' ceremony (a ritual most south Indian women go through just prior to their first delivery) was on Oct 15 in Delhi. I told my aunt, "I should call him. I've been promising to do so forever!"

Last night, I answered a phone call I wish I hadn't. Now I can never make that phone call.

As the news report points out Major Vinay was killed first. The army officials told Dinesh's family that he went in to save Vinay and took 5 bullets in the process. He was injured critically but still alive when they rescued him and rushed him to the hospital in Srinagar where they operated on him. There, he succumbed to his injuries. His sister who is a doctor says the bullets hit the liver...there is not way he could have made it after that.

My grief is probably nothing compared to what his pregnant wife must feel right now. Dinesh will never get to see his son or daughter. He didn't even know is it was a son or daughter. He will never get to experience the joys of fatherhood that he was so looking forward to. He will never send me another e mail to tell me about his child's antics. And I'll never be able to make that long promised phone call.

Major D R Raman, wherever you are, we will make sure, your child knows what a brave and courageous human being you were. What a wonderful brother and friend you were. What a wonderful father you would have made.

You are the only brother I have known and I'll always miss you.

Update 1: His body was received yesterday and cremated with full military honours. Here is The Hindu story which has a heartbreaking picture of his father and sister saluting the coffin as it made its way from the airport. I can't bear to look at it or the other picture which shows his coffin with an ID tag on it. Is that what he is now....a wooden box with a tag?

How many more such heartbreaking pictures will we have to see?

How many other brave young men with hopes and dreams will be reduced to a mere statistic?

When will this end?

Update 2: I just read this on rediff. These were Dinesh's last words....and I cannot stop crying. Why, why, why????

Update 3: I've posted the newsclip of Dinesh's military funeral from Timesnow.tv as a separate post here.

You give me the shivers!

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:17:00 +0000

So i've decided to pop by quickly from circumstantial hibernation ( is there such a term?) to update my 4 odd loyal readers about a very exciting experience last night.

9/12 was cause for much excitement in my otherwise recently monotonous existence. It was the 9th anniversary of the organisation I work for and this big deal sit-down formal dinner at a 5-star hotel, lounge suit only type thing had been organised. Much fun and frolic had been promised and as nothing majorly exciting has taken place in recent times, I was looking forward to playing dress up and displaying the bling.

So, dinner is at 8.30 PM at the Hilton in Kuala Lumpur. I am told I need to get there earlier to meet & greet the VIPs. Hence, I rush home by 6:00 to start primping! (As I write this I am thinking, "jeez...i was that excited about a bloody sit down 5 course meal...i need a life!" But that's another post.) Anyway, after changing 7 different outfits, I settled on a Saree and finally had the accessories picked out and its 7.15 PM and this little red alert tries valiantly to push itself to the frontal lobe of my brain - RUSH HOUR JAM! Which means 1 hour in traffic and I was still trying to decide the colour of my eyeliner!

Frantic juggling. Spilling of little pots. Make-up smudges on saree blouse. Graaaaah!

So there I am precariously holding the eyeliner (brown, btw, for those who are interested) in my right hand, peering really really close to the mirror, making that strange face women do when applying eyeliner ( u know the one eye closed, the other eye fluttering, mouth open like goldfish thing) and suddenly I am shaking. WTF! I am not drunk yet. Or cold.

Then I realise, its not just me. The eyeliner bottle on the dresser is shaking as well. And so is the lipstick. And the brushes and bottles and everything else. HOLY MOTHER!!!! I'm in the middle of an earthquake and I am on the 17th FFFFFing floor!

Ok, so what does a normal human being do when they realise they are on the 17th floor of a high rise building and an earthquake is rocking the building? They grab the essentials and run down the stairs and evacuate. What do I do? I run to the guest room where my friend V who has just arrived from Bangalore is sleeping off her travel fatigue, shake her awake and say,"Dude, get up, or you are gonna miss this. We are in the middle of an earthquake. Isn't it awesome?"

I think V just heard the earthquake part and leaped out of bed in panic, ready to run. Then she sees me dressed in my silk finery with a delighted expression on my face, making no move to evacuate and decides I've completely lost it. She drags me to the balcony and we peer down and we can feel the railing shaking and find a huge crowd of residents who have evacuated and are standing outside looking up at the building (waiting for it to collapse, perhaps?).

V thinks we should rush downstairs. WHAT??? Is she nuts...running down 17 flights of stairs in a heavy silk saree and I'd be dead anyway! The decision is whether I wanna go buried in rubble or panting till my lungs burst/tripping over saree and go tumbling down the stairs! As I was debating this important decision regarding my fate and V was possibly contemplating a fourth option of ending it for me by throwing me down the balcony coz I had lost my marbles anyway, the shaking and vibrations stopped.

Darn! And the pots and pans in the kitchen were still upright and in their place. This was so disappointing.

So, anyhoo I am all excited about having 'survived' an earthquake and immediately called my colleague who has been patiently waiting for me at the Hilton with regular smses demanding to know where the **** I was.

Patient Colleague (answers the phone and I can hear loud music in the background) : Where the F are u? You should have been here ten mins ago!

Me: Yes yes i know. But I have a damn good reason. I was....

PC cuts in: Helloo...what? I can't hear you. The music is too loud. Get your a** here right now.

Me: No no...you don't understand. I was in an earthquake!

PC: Helloo...??? What are you saying? Say that again?

Me: I was in an earthquake. Building shaking. furniture moving. pictures falling off the wall. Scary sh**! ( As you can see, I am given to some exaggeration!)

PC: Helloo...hellooo....Babe, i can't hear a word. If you are not here in 5 mins, I'll strangle you with my bare hands when I see you. *Click*

HUH! I had just survived an earthquake and I was being threatened with murder. Life sure is unfair. Sigh...

An hour later am at the Hilton Ballroom and everyone is talking about the earthquake in Sumatra Islands in Indonesia, 8.4 on the richter scale, the biggest in the last decade with possible Tsunami warnings. Aftershocks were felt in Singapore, Malaysia and the rest of Indonesia. Buildings collapsed. Entire villages evacuated. Many people dead.

OOOkaay.. Now that is seriously scary.

This morning it was V's turn to wake me up and yell, "Hey, the building is shaking again!" I leapt off the bed and we ran to the balcony. We could feel the vibrations but they were much milder. Nothing on the dresser was moving and it didn't last long. As we found out later, these were the aftershocks of the 2nd quake that hit the Sumatra coast this morning with tremors starting 6:45 AM and continued intermittently for about 4 hours.

Later, as I was going down the lift, one of the Nepalese security guards got in and I usually make random chat with him in Hindi, so I asked, " Aaj subah bhi building hil raha tha na? Aap logon ne kuch feel kiya?"
(The building was shaking this morning as well, right? Did you guys feel anything?)

He responds, " Haan. Aur bahut saare residents guard house ko phone laga kar humse pooch rahe the, kya ho raha hai. Hum kya neeche se building ko pakad ke rakhenge? Jab pata hai kya ho raha hai to chup chaap neeche nahi aa sakte kya? Bekaar me time barbaad karte hain!
(Yeah and many residents kept calling the guard house downstairs demanding to know what was going on? Do they expect us to gather around and hold the building in place? Don't they realise what's happening and shouldn't they quietly evacuate instead of wasting time?)

He sure puts things in perspective.

Note: As I am typing this in my 9th floor office not too far from my apartment, I can feel the building sway. Very mildly, but it is definitely swaying. Time to evacuate.

Update : This is why I felt the office building sway. 60 earthquakes in a span on 24 hours!

Hair today, gone trow!

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 03:50:00 +0000

Hair Today

Gone Tomorrow!

errr......?

T.A.J Mahal

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:30:00 +0000

Note: I take no credit for authoring this piece. This was written by my Grand Uncle Mr.Subramaniam, enjoying his retirement in Bangalore whose favourite pastime is solving the Hindu Crossword and researching the family tree. He e-mailed this to me this morning and I can't stop laughing ever since. Since, he doesn't have a blog, I'm generously donating mine as platform for his creative genius.

This piece was a reaction to the controversy surrounding the origins of the Taj Mahal and now with the Vote for Taj fever on, he sent it out to various family members by e mail, from where I faithfully reproduce below.

Dear family members,

I read the article about the origins of the T.A.J Mahal and saw some photos of the living quarters in the Taj complex which reminded me of your grandpa's residence in 75/8 St.Mary's Road, Madras and it prompted me to write to all of you.

This Professor Oak is a genius. I am very sure that his finding or rather findings on the ownership of the Taj Mahal (T.A.J. Mahal) and the Ram Janam Bhoomi are very correct and supported by the physical evidence prevailing at the (disputed) sites. Prof. Oak has hit the bulls eye.

Perhaps you might have heard about our ancestors. One of our ancestors was one Mr. Maha Ganapathi Subramania Iyer or Mahaganapathi Subramanya Sarma. His wife's name was Mahalakshmi. This late Mr.M.G.S. Iyer, h/o (husband of Mahalakshmi) was a Diwan of the Tanjore Kingdom, ruled by Maratha kings.

Our Great Ancestor late Shri Maha Ganapathi Subramania Iyer was deputed by the then King of Tanjore to be his envoy to represent his case against the proposed invasion of south--including Tanjore State--by the then Mogul empire--then headquartered at Delhi. By his wisdom and compelling logic, our old ancestor late Mr.M.G.S. Iyer persuaded the Mogul Emperor to drop the proposed invasion of Tanjore. Therefore, both the kings i.e. the Mogul and the Maratha (of Tanjore) were mighty pleased with our ancestor and allowed his to camp on the banks of the river Jamuna in Agra with his retinue.

The tension filled negotiations and the tiredness of the strenuous and risky journey compelled our old ancestor to rest for a longer period than normal. Finding him at a loose end our old ancestor ( O.A.) shot out an application to the Mogul Emperor that he very much liked the place on the banks of Jamuna where is camping and that he may be allotted/assigned a few hundred acres there. The great Mogul promptly acceded to our O.A's request and assigned him the entire complex where the present day Taj (T.A.J.) Mahal stands. Unfortunately the allottment letter and the possession certificate all were on palm leaves. The same perished after a couple of hundred years, despite our other ancestors' effort to preserve the title deeds/documents.

After taking over the site, our O.A. who had a good business acumen realised the potential of tourism and laid the foundations of the present day Taj (T.A.J.) Mahal. As was the practice then, he first built the accommodation for the skilled/non-skilled workers. You have seen a lot of line houses in Tamil Nadu. We have also lived in one such complex in St.Mary's house. Have you noticed the striking resemblance between those corridors of the residential accommodation, in the photographs and our old line houses?

Our O.A. had a bit of cash left out of T.A./D.A. advance taken and so he went ahead with the project and completed it in record time. Our ancestors belong to Tanjore District and hail from Thuthukudi/Kathiramangalam (distance between these two places being hardly 30 km). Having completed the project, he wanted to name it. He named it after his late father who was a very erudite person. He was well known for his wisdom and wit. (Do you know that my grand father late Shri K.Ramaswamy Iyer was a well known Lawyer?) His name was Thuthukudi Appuswamy Jaganatha Sarma. (Can you now recall why our Appu is called Appu?). So our old ancestor named it as T.A.J. Mahal. You would now have easily understood the T.A.J. part.

Please permit me to eloborate/explain the intricacy about the Mahal part. As I have explained in para 2 above, our Diwan great great great great (+/- one great) grand father was named Maha Ganapathi Subramanya Iyer. (Now you know why I am named as Subramanian) and his wife's name was Maha Lakshmi. He wanted that his and his wife's name should also be in the name of the Complex. So he added this mahal to the T.A.J. I would summarise it for your benefit. Taj Mahal is simply the expansion of Thuthukudi Appuswamy Jaganatha Mahaganapathi (Maha) Lakshmi.

I shall be obliged if you can possible convey this to this Prof. Oak and obtain his views so that we can file a formal claim on our lost property. No doubt there will be some expenses which you will be very glad to incur, in view the prized property we will get.

I have realised now the significance of the Lotus Emblem found in one of the entrances. The same lotus is there even now in the Lotus Pond of Shiva Temple located on the eastern side of our ancestral village Thuthukudi. I am sure with all this solid proof, we will end up quite rich--beyond all our wild imagination.

Wishing you all the best,

Mama (Subramania Iyer)

PS: I am quite willing to include you all in the above venture, provided you contribute your mite.

Where's my joy?

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 11:51:00 +0000

(I wrote this some time back and its been sitting in my drafts for a while now. Didn't have the courage to post it in a public forum. But then, I haven't posted anything in a while and right now I'm going through that who-gives-a-s**t-what-anyone-thinks phase, so while I still have the courage...here goes)

Statutory Warning : Angsty, rambling and possibly pointless post. Read at your own peril

What is the point of fairy tales other than to cause inexorable harm? I think that they are the work of the devil and are pure evil. They promise impressionable young girls a version of the world that doesn't exist.

You know when someone tells you something crazy and unbelievable when you are a wide-eyed young innocent thing, but you always kinda believe it. Like the stork brings babies, the tooth fairy, or that if you ate the seeds of a watermelon, you'll have a plant growing out of your tummy. It may sound bizarre but even today I'm terrified of swallowing the seed accidentally even though rationally I know thats impossible.

I believed in those fairies and fairy tales and Snow White and Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and of course the Prince Charming. The same sentiment ran through all the stories and what a huge fat lie it is! I believed in Prince Charming the same way I believed in all the other stuff.

As we grow up and get into the real world, we have our innocence kicked out of us everyday. In my case, what little is left is holding on for dear life and any naivety that remained, took the last bus home a long time ago.

But still - STILL, I can't quite shake those stories off. I know there is no such thing as Prince Charming, but a part of me is still demanding to know where the hell mine is? Did he have a flat tyre? Did he meet some other girl in the forest and decide she'd do nicely, thanks very much. I don't expect him to have that weird swishy hair like they show you in picture books or as made famous by the PC in Shrek. But I was kind of hoping to just meet somebody nice. Someone who'd fall hopelessly in love with me and sweep me off my feet. Damn those fairy tales!

Everything I've seen in the movies or heard sung on the radio or mooned over in books late at night is turning out to be balderdash. The same romantic myth has pervaded my life from day one and I feel like somehow I was supposed to realise and see past it.

I think the primary difference between men and women is that women are ultimately looking for love and men have to have it take them by surprise. Women are warmed up and stretched and ready on the sidelines. Men need to fall on their heads and knock them out before they realise it.

I think I just want what everyone wants, whether they articulate it or not. I just want something real. I want to experience a series of joyful moments that I can't corrupt with my cynicism or somebody else's. And I want to share this series of joyful moments with somebody and have them feel it too.

Where's my joy? Right now at the bottom of this glass of blood red wine!

How?

noreply@blogger.com (freespirit) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 03:46:00 +0000

How do you tell your best friend that you are not in love with him?

How do you tell him that this is one of the most difficult things you have had to do.

How do you tell him that you are scared that he will disappear from your life if you do gather up the courage to tell him.

How do you tell him that you need him in your life, because he is the best thing that has ever happened to you?

How do you tell him that you are having nightmares about losing him?

How do you tell him when he is pottering around in your otherwise unused kitchen filling it up with aromas reminiscent of your mother's kitchen, that it would kill you to lose him.

How do you tell him when he is making you soup and toast when you are sick in bed mumbling incoherently, that he is your family in this strange new country, and you would be lost without him.

How do you tell him, when he silently hands you his man-sized hanky to blot out your oily nose that you adore him but can't can't love him the way he wants you to.

How do you tell him that he is your rock, your emotional anchor, your soul mate...but you just can't love him back the way he loves you.

How?