Quandaries (with a side of bad cheesy poetry)

Such a quandary!
What do I do?
Why be happy with one kiss,
When I actually want two?

It's the wrong kind of guy
Who makes my heart yearn
Yet again, oh yes again
Will I never learn!

To be satisfied
With what I have within
To be content and happy
With a wonderful (grimace) grin

Back to square one
How did I get here again?
(That's rhetorical, you know
Yet always asked times ten)

Angst-y ramblings

Maybe I should tell him how I feel. How I think I'm depressed and he should stay away from me for the sake of his own heart. maybe then he'll see me as brave and strong and all that shit and he'll want to rescue me and yes! fall head over heels in love with me.

i'm not really the kind of person who is the subject of mad passionate love. i don't think i have those qualities in me. i do want it, there's always the hopeful bit in my heart that wants it all. then there's the realistic bit which goes, fuck that shit, none of that's ever gonna happen to you. you may as well get yourself out of your own well of self pity and pull yourself together and think of realistic things. like getting another job. or finding fulfillment in other ways. am i not that se;f-proclaimed "strong independent woman" who doesn't need a man to pander to her wishes and pamper her off her feet?

i don't need the dream destinations and the walks by moon light and the surprises at my doorstep and the flowers and the shopping and the cuddling under the sheets while watching a horror flick and the long long conversations and some silent companionship. no of course not! that's someone else, some needy, wimpy little girl, who may have grown out of her pigtails bt never grew out of her dreams.

i wish i could deny all that, but i can't. that's me. i'm the wimpy pig-tailed little girl. i'm the realistic feminist. i'm the one who wants to fall in love with someone and have them fall in love with me. i'm the one who scoffs at needing a man in my life.

i'm a mass of contradictions. (Is angst-y even a word?? I'm a grammar nazi to everyone but myself)

i tire myself out with all my angst. i wish i could stop. i don't want to be this whiny person and can't imaging anyone wanting to be with me coz I wound't want to be with me.

i read somewhere, when you're listing out things about your perfect guy, list out things that make you the person you want to be. then find someone who will help you get there. no fucking help that was, since i have no fucking clue what i want to be.

maybe i need more sun. i see no sun during the entire day. maybe that's what keeps me so gloomy. i could pass this off as seasonal affective disorder, except it doesn't really have a season. it just is, the whole year round.

i want a white knight. no i'll be my own white knight.

i need to be saved. i can save myself!

well at least the tears have stopped falling.

wow
who'd be crazy enough to want to take this in hand?


PS - this proves it; i'm definitely capable of being a full-on drama queen
PPS - at least my sense of humour's back :)

Things that keep you up into the wee hours

I seem to have these 2-year cycles! Every couple of years, the writing bug bites a chunk off of me and my writing hand decides to wake up.

This particular urge was set off around 2 am last night. It's funny how often you get the urge to write at the precise moment when you know that you should be doing something far more important, in this case, sleeping. But, that's the way it is. It's difficult to put into words at 3 pm what I was feeling at 2 am, but I'll give it a shot.

But anyway, to get get back to my urges, this one came on after I'd finished yet another romance novel a la Mills and Boon by which time it was after 1 am so I reluctantly shut my laptop and closed my eyes. Unfortunately, it didn't work the way it was supposed to. Usually, when I close my eyes, I'm asleep within minutes but this time, the Sandman was obviously taking a night off.

So I got to thinking about the book I'd just finished reading. The one with the perfectly arrogant hero, sassy and beautiful heroine and passion to send your heart racing into the stratosphere. We all read these, we all sigh over them and then we forget them because we know that, much as we wish it were true, that guy does not exist in the real world.

Only I couldn't stop thinking about it. And wishing for it. And then it hit me - what's wrong in wishing for it? Yes, it's unlikely; yes, it's nigh impossible; but then, I already know all of that. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, not someone who pines after stuff that's unattainable; a practical person. I don't do that, at least not after the initial 10 minutes of the "damn if only I was in that book, life's so unfair" tirade.

And so I thought, why not wish for it? Why not want a guy who is strong, funny and intelligent, someone who adores me from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, someone who I will love with all my heart? I sure as hell deserve no less.

Even in this world of cynics, I believe in my happily-ever-after. I believe in all the mushy stuff, the floating hearts, the coincidence-that-isn't-really-coincidence-but-actually-serendipity, and in Mr. Right. Am I setting myself up for disappointment? Probably :) But it won't stop me from dreaming.

With which happy resolution, I turned over, closed my eyes and floated off into oblivion to dream...

I got a job!!!

after 2 years of silence, i suddenly have the urge to write again. whether this urge is a short-lived one or not is to be seen :)

anyway, news from my side - i have managed (pata nahi kaise!) to get a job! it's with an organisation named Dhriiti - The Courage Within (www.dhriiti.org). we work towards promoting entrepreneurship among youth. to tell you the truth, before i joined Dhriiti, i hadn't really thought about entrepreneurship. the only entrepreneur i knew was Sujit Mahapatra of Bakul Foundation (www.bakulfoundation.org) where i volunteered for 2 years (more on that later) but it was still just another word for me. then suddenly one day my MA was done and since further studies didn't appeal to me at all, i had to get a job. i applied in all sorts of places, went to mumbai to meet a couple of people, but nothing really appealed to me.

i had sent my CV to Dhriiti and had been asked to fill out an application form (which at first glance looked easy enough till i came to the last question!). then i had a telephonic interview with Nidhi Arora and Anirban Gupta, the founders of Dhriiti, which seemed to last forever but was only 20 minutes long. 2 days later, while shopping with my mom, i got a msg from Nidhi asking me to check my mail. i got home, saw my mail which had an offer letter from Dhriiti and did a little jig around the library before going downstairs to give ma the good news :)

i joined on the 1st of june, it's been a month already, and i love my work!! abhi filhaal i have to run off home so will blog later. ciao!

Father William and poetry

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment -- one shilling a box --
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his fater, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.
-- Lewis Carroll

isn't it just delightful? this is a poem i came across in my first year of college. in school, except for a few gems, i found poems highly dull and boring. so when i entered college, i wasn't looking forward to poetry class with any marked enthusiasm.
the first surprise was my teacher, who had this great vocabulary and an amazing sense of humour. he made me feel at home at once and introduced me to the wild and wonderful world of peotry. this was a one of the first poems i studied in his class. it delighted me so much that i memorised the whole thing and nearly drove my frinds crazy, reciting it again and again!
this poem and my teacher were a major reason why i went on to study english literature in my undergraduate class. father william taught me that poetry could be as interesting as prose and sometimes more so. my teacher taught me to look beyond the lines, to appreciate their innate and sometimes unconcious humour, and for that i am grateful.

Cogito ergo sum

Familiar with Asterix? Then the above phrase must have sent you back to your childhood. It brought back fond memories for me. I spent so many years trying to figure out what it meant and I finally found the place of knowledge :D
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A218882
Their phrases are pretty handy and loads of fun. It's unbelievable how extremely serious a phrase like "I tought I taw a puddy tat" can sound. So dig in and enjoy!!

But what is so sad is that these days hardly anybody even recognises Asterix or Obelix. If I ask around among my friends, the name Asterix will be recieved with a blank stare. I feel so sorry for all those people out there who have never experienced the joy of Asterix's latest escapade or laughed at Cacofonix's latest tune. Tintin fares a little better coz of the recent cartoon series. But how can anyone appreciate Captain Haddock's rich repertoire of curses after they've been translated into Hindi? The original words have to be heard to be fully appreciated. One of my personal faves - "Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles in ten thousand thundering typhoons!" How can you not love something like that???
My father has almost the whole series of Asterix and Tintin comics. When I was a kid, I would lie around for hours and hours upon end, leafing thru the books one by one. Back then, I couldn't understand much more than the basic story, but that was hilarious enough for me. Now, when I open one of those books, I appreciate deeper layers of meaning, the slight nuances here and there. The names in the Asterix comics make a lot more sense now. Who could forget the incredible chief Vitalstatistix, the potions of the druid Getafix, the quarrels between Fulliautomatix the blacksmith and Unhygenix the fishmonger? And why would anybody want to forget anything so wonderful! My parents, my brother and me, we are all fans of Asterix and Tintin. We've read the comics innumerable times and conversations at mealtimes are so full of allusions that an outsider would feel absolutely lost.
The comics that come out today are nice no doubt, but they aren't a patch compared to the vagaries of Asterix and his horde of Gauls or to Tintin and Captain Haddock's merry curses!

Leisure

What is this life, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows;

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass;

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night;

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
- W.Henry Davies

a poem i studied in school, when i was in class 5 or 6. it's a poem which has always remained with me, specially the first couplet. whenever i read it, it seems to describe our life as it is today to a "T", and the wry humour in these lines never fails to put a smile on my face.