Your only competition is yourself

Meh. Who am I kidding?

The past few months have been hard on the ego. I tell you ego is one canine of the female species.

Like I am sitting today lolling in my bed, in a pair of lame shorts and trying to find something on TV worth killing time. And there is nada. I mean I can watch only so much CSI on Fox Crime and only so many re-runs of Friends.

I can go out and watch a movie. Alone. But you know that’s where the super ego would  begin its tantrums. As I said my ego, lets call her E, is a super bitch. She wants everyone to think I am the smartest, the prettiest and the funniest person in the world. So when I need to go to a movie alone E is telling me “Your 26 and you are paying for your movie and watching it alone, sucker!”. On the other hand E is currently telling me “You are 26 and you are in your shorts and unwashed hair on Saturday night. You are the life!”.

So you see its hard to win with E.

Like waking up in the morning and getting ready for office with E telling you “Oh, that chocolate bar you finished yesterday mid night-look you can see it hanging over your belt” is not the way to start a day.

It gets progressively worse.

A meeting where desperate CP is going on.

E: “You remained quiet throughout. Everyone thinks your dumb.”

Me: “but..but  that project had no impact on my area!”

E: “So what? You could have offered some cutting insights to others. No use now-your dumb”

Me: (Sob)

So you see its pretty hard to compete and win with yourself. Harder than competing with others ever is.

Me(to sales girl): Do you have this in medium?”

E : “Lolz..as if ..woman ask for an L..whom are you kidding?”

E is judgemental. E is a people pleaser. She wants everyone to want to be me.

But thats not gonna happen. People have happy lives all by themselves you know. So you have to keep reminding yourself  with something like ” Look E, I live in an over expensive apartment, I drive my own car and I even own a pair of semi known designer stilettos. Not all 26 year olds can do that”. “But you cant walk in them..nananana”, E might say.

Then I should respond” I chose not to wear them everyday and break my spine and cause my knees to disintegrate at 30. If I wear flats every single day of my life its for my comfort! And yes that Lindt bar was so worth the muffin top!”

Its difficult to constantly battle inferiority complex on a day to day basis. To judge each word coming out of your mouth. To compare your life with those of others and wallow in self pity.

But I am at it. Everyday. I am sure E and I will share a common view one day about my self worth being equal to a gazillion bucks. Just dont hold your breath for it.

 

Profound love?

“We all dream of that chance meeting, that moment when we feel we are really living”

-Sunday Telegraph’s review of “The bridges of Madison County”

I have just finished reading the book-The bridges of Madison County.

SPOILERs ahead

It tells the story of a married but lonely Italian woman-Francesca, living in 1960s Madison County, Iowa, who engages in an affair with a National Geographic photographer from Washington, Robert Kincaid who is visiting Madison County in order to create a photographic essay on the covered bridges in the area. As dreams and responsibilities of a real world clash the ill-fated couple decides to part-their 4 day love affair defining the rest of their lives.

Hold on. Wait a second. A brief encounter whose passion will last a lifetime? Is it a Mills and Boons I picked up or a classic which is one of the highest selling books of 20th century.

Maybe am too cynical and world weary. The book is good, the language so simple yet you can feel the dusty afternoon Kincaid drives upto Madison County. The covered bridges and the gossip at the local saloon.

But can someone really experience true love-the once in many life times certainty in 4 days? forget in 4 years or in 40 years?Is true love really being swept off your feet by a exotic stanger who lives a life you can only dream about.

Infactuation-maybe. Lust-maybe. The heady cocktail of attraction and taboo-most definitely.

Why is that great love stories are often the ones that are ill fated? Where lovers see each others reflections and fall in love? Where they kill themselves because they cant spend a life time together?

It is because the heady, giddy feeling will never last a lifetime. Science tells its unsustainable neurological phenomenon-that our nerve cells light up at the sight of a beloved but this consumes an incredible amount of energy. To seal this initial bond to something stronger-a bond called affection it pumps enough pleasurable chemicals equivalent to a high dose of a good quality drug.

Affection is on the otherhand is something very different from attraction. It can sustain a happiness on seeing a beloved despite countless towels on the floor, choosing boy’s night out over movie and dinner plans, of gifting free shopping vouchers to family over you.

And that is my problem with all “profound love stories”. The four days are magical because you never saw who the other person really is. You see what you want to see. You see what what could be. And can some one be such a force of nature that those 4 days define your life entirely?

I know its fiction. I know am not supposed to find logical loopholes where love is all encompassing. After all in todays world a girl giving up her life for a vampire’s love defines the standard for love, Fransesca and Robert are as real as they get. Small town farmers wife and a wandering photographer.

Love for me is NOT never having to say I’m sorry. Love for me is to kill your ego and say sorry when you have hurt your beloved.

 

Something like love

Love happens or does it?

When you first met.

You found him cute so you singled him out for more conversation

or

maybe he talked his way to your attention.

Ohh he smiles and there is that cute way he curves his mouth

or

he also thinks Edward Norton is the bestest and he even gets your humor, wow!

You look at the next opportunity to meet him, stand a little closer, laugh loudly at his joke

or

you could be actually having a conversation you enjoy, where you are discussing if gloabal warming is a just a lot of noise. But its a charade that debate, you enjoy listening to his voice and yours intermingled.

He holds your hand to help you climb a steep step

or

reminds you to wake up early.

You are not sure if he feels the same delight as you do when he meets you. He must be-he is the one who is always calling you out.

The heart races a little faster, the sky seems just a tad more blue and you seem to be visiting the salon just a bit more frequently.

Remember how it felt when you knew for the very first time that the person you want also wants you in return?

Happy Valentines day!

 

Not such an idiot really

Little late in the day, arent we-to wish a new year and then have post with a title which is obviously a play at movie being touted as “the” most successful in the history of Bollywood and which when I claim I found quite mediocre am promptly reprimanded of “failing to understand” and “being uhhmm snooty”.

I mean I really liked the movie-I laughed when Raju tells Virus exactly how an induction motor starts (Brrrrrrr..) despite it being the oldest joke in the internet, I nodded my head vigorously when Farhan says he just cant understand engineering however hard he tries (been there pal-every mechanics/physics class felt other worldly) but i cringed and cringed when a 40 year old playing a 20 year old delivered a baby through a vacuum pump. I am all for suspended disbelief, heck I must be one of the few people who actually err..enjoyed Gajini because that was hyper reality anyways-you couldnt believe any of it actually happened. But when you tout something as a mirror to our ailing education system why blow what you achieved through humor with ridiculous flights of fantasy.

So anyhow, I belong to the large number of people who pass out of engineering college every year who would have been so much happier if they had pursued fine arts. But when you are born into a middle class south Indian family there are only two professions in the world-doctor or engineer. Anything else is well just not good enough. It would be easier for me now to say my parents wanted that-it was their dream they lived through me. It would be so easy to shed a tear at an awesome career in say ad making I would have had. But I really do believe that is akin to washing my hands off any responsibility I have to myself.

Growing up I loved my arts and I loved my literature but more than those I loved a certain yuppy class of youngsters who were taking the Indian economy by storm. They were ambitious, newly rich and worked in companies like Google,Amazon in “the States”. They were the new growth engine of the country-they were software engineers. And I wanted to be part of it-part of that lifestyle that was guarenteed with that profession. A fine arts bachelors degree from a top DU college where I got admit didnt hold a candle to the Infosys job I saw at the end of 4 years of engineering. So I packed my bags and my dreams and went to my engineering degree in a non descript part of the country.

Of course life followed cliche after cliche were I struggled with subjects I didnt understand, appreciate or love. But all those do not matter in the Indian education system where the only real skill tested is your memory, which I had in plenty. Life offered a second chance to me where I could have left the tried and tested and persued what I want for my masters. But I couldnt. Doing what I enjoy is a small price to pay for secure career. And some part of me craved that success much more than writing books or making ad films. These were also my dreams to own a big house and big car and vacation with my loved ones around the globe. I could not throw those dreams away to chase a more selfish dream which really had no guarantees with it. So I played safe. It was a choice I made.

Every single day life gives me a chance to give up what I have to persue what I want. And every day I turn down that chance because what I have today is also something I desired once.

 

And just like that..

..I got my Mojo back.

Lets just say one quick tour of my “friends list” on any social networking site reveals “committed”,”engaged” or “married” updates. Now I can either pretend that “haha, marriage is for chumps” and go about my life or I could face the mirror and ask myself why the heck is it bothering me that my status has not changed lets see…from the past so many years except a brief bout of blissful singledom in between.

Today I was talking to another unmarried friend and we discussed how it doesnt matter that we have a better bank balance than most men have, we have good careers and are fun, interesting people. All that comes to a naught because if-she-is-not-married-yet-there-must-be-something-wrong-with-her.

And when I was busy dissing people for always following up a “hi” with a “so when are you settling down” I realised the maximum pressure was being put on me by myself. My parents havent really bugged me, all my really close friends are unmarried, the person I want to marry eventually isnt too keen right now-then why the hell am I battering myself by comparing myself to others getting hitched.

Its not a competition even if people keep comparing you to other in-campus romances. They did what suited them and you are doing what suits you. Just like some one chose “derivatives and structures” and I took “international marketing”.

After so many months I have finally found peace in knowing I am okay doing my own thing and him doing his thing. The only thing I really miss is the company we give each other in going to new places, trying new things. And that has nothing to do with “where are we going with this” , its more because there is a 1000kms of physical distance between us and a JetLight ticket also costs 12k one way.

And before I lash at anyone else for judging me, I have got to stop judging myself. I have to stop thinking that the final proof of my “achiever” status is to have a ring on my finger and a chain on my neck. In thinking all this I am losing precious self time where I can do so much for myself.

Its just a number twenty-five not a death toll to jump or perish. I dont know why I have penned something so personal without hiding it in obtuse poetry, but I actually feel a weight lift of my shoulders once I put my life in perspective.

No more self inflicted misery. I need to learn to swim, dance and drive a car before I jump into some well of self loathing. On that note-first car-alto vs xing vs i10?

 

Dreams that keep you awake.

“It’s about sex, love, relationships, careers, a time in your life when everything’s possible. And it’s about friendship because when you’re single and in the city, your friends are your family.” —The original treatment used by Crane, Kauffman and Bright to pitch the series(FRIENDS) to NBC.

I have highlighted the part that struck me as the truest.

I am 25.I am at a time of my life when everything is possible. What I want I can do? I have the energy, the optimism, and most importantly the time to do it. Two years-five years down the line, things will change irreparably and the responsibilities would be too huge to live a life for myself.

Over the last few days all of a sudden I am feeling life rushing past me. I just want it to stop and turn it around. I feel time is slipping out my hands. The window where every thing, every dream had a shot at being realized is closing irreversibly.

I have spent 18 years of my life cramming and giving exams and getting good grades. And by looks of it the next 18 trying to get a better appraisal, some loans and cultivating an ulcer.

Some friends, the boy we discuss how we had dreamed so much for ourselves and now slowly are accepting a totally different life as reality.

This doesn’t mean we are writhing in unhappiness. Hell, we are so much better off than 99% of people in the world. We work in good places, in good positions for our comparatively young age, earn enough to dream about luxurious things in times of recession.

Yet we feel we could have done so much more. Do our own thing, chosen a very different creative line to follow. Travel. Meet. See. Read. Explore.

And this is the only time we can do those things. This is the only time we can make mistakes and recover from them. Our only chance to not be another face in the crowd. Find our true voice. And that time is going away. We are changing each day into the people we will be the rest of our lives-world weary and accepting the circumstances around us than trying to change them. We are too conventional, too molded in socially acceptable behavior to really be free spirited individuals after this time passes. 365 days-that is all a year has.24 hours-that is all a day has.

I was listening to Randy Pausch’s wonderful lecture on how he achieved each of his childhood dreams and that is what makes his life remarkable for him. And I thought well, I have a long way to go. The catch 22 is all those dreams need time which a regular job cant leave you with and money which only a regular job can provide. Or are these just brick walls there to test how badly I want those dreams? And which ones I want the most badly?

 

Maybe

A close friend’s Gtalk status message

“Maybe some women aren’t meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free till they find someone just as wild to run with them. “

PS: Its from SATC. Thanks Silvara!

 

The moment of truth

You must have seen the gameshow by now. Everyone I know has. In case you havent it goes like this

Prior to the show, a contestant is hooked up to a polygraph and asked more than 50 questions; there is no polygraph testing conducted during the actual show. Without knowing the results of the polygraph, he or she is asked 21 of those same questions again on the program, each becoming progressively more personal in nature. If the contestant answers honestly, according to the polygraph results, he or she moves on to the next question; however, should a contestant lie in his or her answer (as determined by the polygraph) or simply refuse to answer a question after it has been asked, the game ends.

The questions vary, increasing in difficulty and degree of personal nature of the questions. To date, no contestant has reached the final tier. Sometimes, a “surprise guest” – such as an ex-partner or a good friend – will come on the stage and ask a particularly difficult question. Friends, colleagues, and family of the contestant who are gathered near the player have access to a button which can be used to switch out a question once per game, an option which is introduced to them after the third question.

Personal nature means personal nature. Those questions carry an amount of money for a reason.Sample

Contestant Lauren Cleri admitted to committing adultery and that she believes she is meant to be married to an ex-boyfriend instead of her husband. The latter was a replacement question after Lauren’s sister hit the button to keep her from answering the question of whether she’d leave her husband if the same ex-boyfriend (who was present to read this question and the replacement question to her) wanted her back. She won $100,000 and went on to play for $200,000, but lost everything on the question, “Do you think you’re a good person?” She answered “Yes,” which, according to the polygraph, was revealed to be false.In May 2008, Frank Cleri filed for divorce.

Why do people like me watch the show?Can there be a better tamasha substitute than washing of individual’s dirty laundry in public?You pretend to be shocked as questions of personal nature surface eagerly waiting for the contestants partner’s reaction. As their faces shrink on public embarressment you quickly pass judgement on the morality of the contestant, sympathise with the embarrassed partner and then salivate at the prospect of the next question being more demeaning than the current. You wonder how much is this person willing to push the envelop for cold,hard cash.

Why do people participate in such a show?And why do people with dubious past/serious dysfunctional character flaws participate in such a show?Is it the money?15 minutes of fame?To clean out their closet?

Maybe in a “log kya kahenge” society like ours such a gameshow will not find contestants but if shows like MTV Splitsvilla can maybe we have can expect something like this in near future.

But my point is can you  tell the truth all the time?

All of us live our lives of hypocracy-with absolute truths,half-truths and lies. Why even the Bhagwad Geeta propounds that a lie that is for the benefit of another is worth a hundred truths. Perhaps to really grasp what I will say next you need to have seen the questioning followed in the show. How many of us can put our hands on our heart and say we have never desired at any point better parents,siblings or even a partner-maybe more successful, more goodlooking. Haven’t we felt ashamed at some practices our parents hold dear which may have aliented us from our childhood/teenage peers? Maybe you have not indulged in adultery but havent you checked out the hottie in office/class and for a split second wondered “what if”?You can say its in the mind and I have never acted on it. Again don’t thoughts lead to action and more importantly when you are hooked up on a polygraph and your mind races for the “morally correct” answer in front of your loved ones, will your palms clam and your heartbeat race just a bit to pronounce you a liar.

I think the simple statistic that no contestant has ever won the jackpot answers the question that perhaps we do not expect or desire complete truths all the time from people around us. Often walking away after finishing a particular tier, the contestants rather let certain questions remain unanswered (although certain truths may have already caused irreparable damage). Just like real life. Sometimes its better to not know the truth. Because the truth may not set you free.