The right to my life

My needs are very simple.My wants are very few.
I donot wish to hurt anyone.I hope my words do no harm..

All I wish for, is the right to live My life on my own terms.



I do need a family-A husband, kids and a home of my own.
I wish to work, I wish to think, to dream and to dress and to
make each moment count.


Dont I have the right to choose.
To decide who will be my better half.
To have a career of my choice
To dress and speak and think as I wish?

Should I be against my will, forced to speak to people

Forced to make a choice of One from the many I dont approve.
Should I go against my conciense , and nod my head,

smile, act demure just to keep others happy.

Should I still keep believeing that everything that happens,
Happens for good..


I do still hope for the best, Though I have lost my faith in prayers.

I do hope that at the end all my tears and pain wouldn't be in vain.

We shy Indians

Hmm ... was thinking of something interesting to write about. As said in my previous post, arranged marriage vs love marriage is still the hottest topic on my palate, but I'm still too hot headed after arguments with the home front, that I'm not in a mood to write about anything related to marriage, till I become levelheaded about the whole business.


But thinking about the Indian traditions, and going through couple of oldie songs on the youtube, brings into mind some interesting observations.... you guessed it right...The portrayal of love/romance/ anything for that matter, which has to do with a man and woman becoming intimate, and how delicately the topic used to be handled by the movies of yesteryears..


The hero and heroine would inevitably have atleast one courtship song , where they hug, run around the trees, and do all possible gimmicks, but when it comes to a kiss on the lips, there would always be the famous pause, and the heroine would, with a shyness (that-was-not there till-now), tilt off her head and run off back into the trees, or down the meadows leaving the flabbergasted hero looking after her with an expression which can be more equated to indigestion , than romance or sadness over a just missed chance..

Indian heroes of yesteryears are not to be underestimated though, coz they have a never say die attitude. They will remain dumbstruck for only a brief second, after which they would bound after the heroine singing the next line of the song..

Those of you who deosn't exactly understand what i'm saying , can watch Yeh Wada Raha( un remixed original version with Rishi kapoor in lead role) on you tube.( You can watch almost all movie songs of the same era , which would inevitably have similar scenes).

And in situations which inevitably needed the protrayal of scenes more intimate, the camera, would be discreetly turned to focus on, more symbolic imagery, of a bee sitting on a flower, or two lovebirds on the tree, or two flowers rubbing at each other in the breeze...leaving the rest to the viewers ( wildest) inmaginations.. :D

I remember all the fun we girls had in our ladies hostel in Chennai, when any of these oldies were screened..These scenes had all of us rolling on the floor with laughter, much to the indignation of our old cook Laksmiyamma, who had the deepest disregard for the bold portrayals of newage cinema.

"Idhil enna thapu irukku?" ( What is wrong in this )she used to ask.." Ippo ellam vekkam maanam edhum illama padam edukkaranga. Enga kaalathil cinema ellam evalo decent aa irundhadhu..paaru... " She would start off and I being the most silent member of the group, would inevitably be dragged in to support her.. "Nee sollu neethu.. Idhu dhaane decent movie??" She would finally turn to me for support.. I would manage a feeble " Aaama Lakshmiyamma, evalo decent acting.." before collapsing on the floor with the other girls..and gigling my heart out...
Those were the days..


And likewise the imagery would be a hawk attacking its prey, or cat pouncing on the rat, for the more sensitive rape scenes, accompanied by the wierdest of screetching noises.Old malayalam movies, esp the ones with K.P.Ommer as the villain and Sharada as the hapless heroine, are typical examples. Our elder generation were definitely a wise lot when it came to expressing feelings without violating the code of ethics, I should say..

I remember my school days , when Anil Kapoor,Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi, were the hot picks of Bolloywood cinema. Back those day's Doordarshan was the only channel, and we had a program called Ek Se Badkar Ek, which showed clippings of songs, in between some comedy skits.The top 20 songs for the week would be shown, and the program was a big hit with us youngsters. Since the program was aired after 10 in the night, our parents didnt necessarly approve its viewing, and we kids used to take utmost care to make sure that, they did not come into the room , when some controversial songs were running....

Now , we had our own way of categorising songs.. They were categorised based on the harm that would befall us if any parent walked into the room and caught us watching this stuff. Songs of Govinda and Karishma were branded harmless, as there would always be 50 more people dancing with them in the background, and the songs would mostly be comical. Anyways my parents and uncles, knew very little Hindi, so they couldnt make out even if the lyrics were a bit raunchy. Equaly harmless were those songs when the hero and heroine used to run through the meadows, or hero used to dream about his girl..Songs like Ghar se Nikalte Hi, and Ek ladki ko dekah fit this bill.

But there were cerain songs, which were supposed to be kind of adults only. These were shot in a blue light, and the hero and heroine had all sort of " romantic expressions" and actions, to further ascertain the fact that it is a " very hot" song.. eg. Tu Mile from movie Criminal, The Anil Kapoor-Sridevi song from Mr India etc..,Now these were the songs we had to be very very cautious about. If anyone stumbled upon us watching these songs, we were dead meat.. So we usually had the youngest cousin stand guard at the entrance of the room ( offourse he would have to be heavily bribed), and signal if he sensed any impending danger of parental intervention while we watched Nagarjuna open mouthed..

All those times, still bring a smile when I think of how naive and innocent we all were ...

I think we as a race still have issues accepting open display's of romance, atleast on Indian cinema's. But we dont essentialy mind it while watching english movies. I remember watching the 2007 Mani Ratnam movie Guru. The movie has a scene, where hero Madhavan proposes to Vidya Balan, and ends up kissing her. I personally felt it was a wonderful and sensual portrayal of two peoples feelings . I was pretty surprised at the reaction of couple of my friend's towards that scene, which they felt was " not at all needed and just added in the movie for Masala purpose". Trust me, these are guys who wouldnt mind watching scenes more bold and direct, when it comes to an English movie.

So is it a stamp of decency that we are expecting from anything Indian? Similar to what the desi's feel when they are outside India..As long as the couple kissing by the roadside are not Indian, we dont mind, but the moment we realise the pair is Indian, or Asian for that matter..we feel our blood boiling over with thoughts of our sanskar being polluted.
Why did/do we have a problem with open display of romance? Not that I am a champion for that cause.( I 'm a very private person, and would like to keep certain aspects of my life hidden from public interference...)but just curious to know others thoughts ????

POXY DAYS

After evading the rendezvous with Ms Varicella Zoster, for nearly all my life time..I finally had the encounter with the spotty darling, last week..and frankly my life has never been the same again... So here I am, enjoying my poxy days, in my little room overlooking the garden, at 52 Fairholme road, Croydon.

The first days were not so eventfull as I was feeling listless and drained.To top that, there was the dread of scarring myself for life. By the 3rd day , I was more or less back on my feet and contemplating new nonsenses to while away time, while awaiting the gracious departure of Madame Varicella.Now its more than a week and I am more or less adjusted to the lonely existance of the one who is condemned to solitary confinement.

Life follows a slightly ( seemingly) boring yet predictable pattern. The only visitor is my landlady, who comes exactly 4 times a day to bring food, and to take away the empty plates...Now dont get any ideas, that she pushes the plate under the door n all..:) coz couple of my friends were particularly interested in that bit of detail, when they called up.

Since having a bath is prohibitted until all the spots dry and scab off, that reduces a task from the daily chores.( Those of you who are wrinkling your noses..I dont stink. I wipe myself daily with warm cotton soaked in dettol, and rub Vitamin E cream over the spots..)

I now zealously have all the Iron and Vitamin E tablets that mom had lovingly packed for me when I came over, the existance of which , I , so inconsiderately had forgotten till these days. Suddenly the prospect of developing scars, became so scary that I hunted down the pile, which lay abandoned at the bottom of my wardrobe, and am having them at the rate of 1-2 per day.

I have come to dread the prospect of eating though. No non-veg( not that I am a tryanosaurus), no fat, no spices and definitely nothing too salty..Equates to bland food 3 times a day :(

Except for these unpleasant nittygritties, life over the past week , has been fairly entertaining.
I now have all the time in the world to ask myself, all the stupid/serious/seemingly serious qns about life..and try to prod my mind into coming up with some usefull gyan...
Couple of of them are:

1. Are viruses male or female? I dont know why, but i think of Varicella as female.Anyone who reads this and knows the answer, please help my poor soul.

2. Are arranged marriages better over love marriages?. Now this is the result of the ongoing conversations with my folks back home,coz i like any other Indian girl of marriagable age has to face the judgement day one day. My thoughts on this are too elaborate to be included in this, blog..so will update the same in a later post.

3. What can we eat, while having chicken pox? Surprisingly the answer on net was , anything you feel like eating. so im not sure why im made to eat this bland stuff daily.... yuck..

There are couple of more mundane qns, but none are worthy enough mentioning here, so skipping them .

I now have all the time in the world to catch up on all the news channels..and boost my G.K., which was beginning to look like a starvation victim from Africa, after 4 years in IT with nothing but Cobol and JCL running through my little head..

All the time to catch up with old friends, pep up my blog, orkut 3 times a day...do a lot of virtual socialising...I have beome so good at it now, that I maintain a good rapport with couple of friends, without ever having spoken to them for more than a year...Its a scrap here and a ping there...but at the end of the day, you are in touch.

In the evenings I watch the kids play. To be frank I was surprised to learn that I'm surrounded by kids, in this neighbourhood. Yeah..I used to see them march off to school in the mornings, and in February, when the snow fell, I had seen them all out there making snow boulders and snowmen, but had never acknowledged their existance . Now they are my essential entertainers. I watch them playing and rambling in their backyards, while I , quarantined from social contact, sit behind closed windows, with a hot mug of horlicks and my lappy and watch them at play.

I now know, that the neighbours to our left, have a baby in the house.The ones to the right have a boy, a girl, and a cute cuddly chweet baby whose antics in his play pen are enough to lighten up the drabest of days.To our immediate opposite, we have a chinese family with a largely unkempt back yard, and to the left front, we have the mauritians, who have loud , raunchy parties or barbecue, every other day, with a thump thump background score of salsa music for accompaniment.

Then there's always good ol Disney to count on..have gobbled up most of the animated movies..

Also took upto learning some creative stuff, by downloading the trial version of Adobe photoshop. Created some crazy pics of mine ....but the result was pretty decent.

It is strange , how the lonliness afects the soul. Simple things like a stirring breeze,coupled with the right music, can stir a lot of emotions in you.I was simply hooked on with the Sawan barse song, from my school days, and recorded couple of videos, of the wind shaking the leaves of trees in my back yard, with this song playing in the back ground.. crazy things to do, but boredom forces your mind into the unknown realms of creativity.

And if this is not enough entertainment ,I do sometimes count my spots. Ahem..ya i do look like a character in Disney's 101 dalmations, only difference being, my spots are red and not black. I do get a sadistic pleasure in counting my wounds, and contemplating when each one would heal.

Ah..and what else is more romantic than the haunting melodies of the shayari's and gazals, to spice up the lonely nights...To be lost in the sea of the magical lyrics, letting one's soul roam in the musical heavens, and find comfort and solace in the soothing words, as the body and mind drifts of to sleep and the the heart stays awake thinking of the beloved...

Thus my poxy days go on.