More blues!

I've officially had the worst month ever career wise - bad news followed by bad news followed by worse news. It's like whatever I have touched this month [and by me, I mean whatever my boss has been involved with as well - so I'm not the only panvati] has turned to dust. We are like the anti-Midas!! I've had inlays been changed the day before delivery - tracklists changed 2 days prior - contracts negotiated and then fallen through - content sent and then dropped! If you could name it, It has happened. I don't know if I mentioned earlier but I was not exactly thrilled with my increment - disappointed is a word tht I would use and now I find that my contemporary from B-school & ex office has been offered a job for 2.1 times my salary! If that does not cap off a spectacular month, I don't know what does!

I is sick!

As I successfully predicted earlier, I have fallen ill - nothing major - just the regular - bad throat and mega sneezing. I don't think I actually have a cold but the only way my body knows how to eject anything is through my nose - so even if I have a fever and it's about to break - starts the ah-choos which are violent shakes which leave me exhausted - which I might add has been the case this sunday. AND....there has been noone to fuss after me - say Baby! Can I make you tea? Baby can i make you kichdi? I have survived the entire day on cups of tea and toast and cheese spread - for a variation at dinner I had chapati and cheese spread. Yes! ok this is a whinge fest but I'm allowed to be grumpy and depressed - I'm sick and it's my blog!

I watched ' Khuda Kay Liye' yesterday which is a film whose editor needs to be shot! The film could have easily been shortened by half an hour. The one thing that makes me happy about the movie is how they portray the americans as idiots! Very few films tell it like it is and this one very successfully does even in terms of how religious leaders twist the words to suit themselves and their vision of good and evil.

I've been reading a lot of what I call Christian fiction which is mystery/suspense type novels but based on the bible etc and I find it fascinating - apparently the origin of christianity is so murky and the reasons for it to become a dominant religion. In 'The sign of the cross', the whole crucifixion and resurrection is staged, and in 'The Templar legacy', there was no resurrection. and the question posed in the book which everybody needs to ask themselves is, if you did not know you were going to be resurrected, would you still follow Jesus Christ? I think yes, because his teachings are right - Buddha does not promise eternal life but he still preached a good life. I think the romans were obsessed with immortality and to them that seemed to be the only way to create a mass following. In the oriental world, in India. Here the trick is to leave it all behind and escape this cycle. They both promise freedom but through different means.

notes to myself!

So the parents have left on holiday only for 2 weeks mind you however I have a list of instructions that will last me a whole year to complete!

• Double lock the door at all times
• Don't come home alone
• Don't leave the house after you come in
• Pay the maid
• Clean the house
• Do the washing
• Buy food
• Eat Food
• Go to the Dentist
• Put off the AC if using it
• Don't use the AC
• Keep the third room closed
• Have friend's stay over
• Get online everyday
• Don't call

what the hysterical part is they left this morning and I have a bad throat already! It's like I wait till my parent's leave to fall sick- I've always done it - then I will struggle through - go to the doctor by myself etc etc. I remember this one time I was not well, did all of the above and carried on through life and the minute I opened the door to my mother, I collapsed and was ill for 2 weeks!

I've been living a very peaceful life I think with very little drinking forget excess! In fact a couple of weekends ago - I was out till 5 and I managed with one vodka-oj the whole night - of course there were the cokes and the Fresh lime soda to see me through but still....I've been watching very little TV and of course no movies [grrrr!!] but on the whole I think in the last year, I've read more than I had in the year before - so there was some benefit to changing the job - at the very least it gave me time for my life and everybody knows the best thing I got out of it!

Coming back to my mom's list, after she repeated it to me at least 5 times in the last month, I finally snapped and noted that this is not the first time that they are going on vacation ever consdiering they are out of town every 3 months or so - and plus I have lived away from home for 3 years so it's not like I'm absolutely incapable of looking after myself - I admit I don't exhibit the signs much but wtheyyy I don't need to!! A couple of days ago, there was no food in the house and my mom was exhausted so I got down to making myself scrambled eggs and my parents came to the kitchen to stare in wonder at this feat. I was like Dude just coz I don't doesn't mean I don't know and at the end of the day in response to the million queries of what will u do when u get married - Have phone, will eat!!

WTF??

I think it's something about the onset of summer, or maybe it's daylight savings in the more advanced countries, but it seems to me that lethargy has set in and noone seems to be saying anything anymore! I for one, have actually read a couple of books and seen one okayish movie Race but nothing that motivates me to run to a computer and share my thoughts and opinions with the world. In fact, I am just apathetic about most things nowadays! The scary thing is, I went to one of my favourite haunts - Hawaiin Shack - named because of it's waiters wear Hawaain print shirts - the decor is actually rustic log cabin but I digress - the point being - I went and left within half an hour - I agree went after okayish movie but still a glass of wine and finished!!?? What am I coming to? Then went to meet another friend and favouritest haunt of all - Soul Fry - wrapped that up in half an hour as well - to do what? u might ask - this is the scary part!! I went HOME to SLEEP!! everybody knows I luurrve my sleep but on sunday and Monday morning certainly not Saturday nights! Yes! This was a saturday night as well!

Other than that, it's been the usual - Work, Yoga and home - went to Delhi again last week where met up with old friend and got loads of gossip about ex crushes, people who had crushes on me and so on..so worthwhile trip on the personal front - will see about professional! Went for dinner with the boy and discover will have to change the duration of the holiday since need couple of days off in June for..u guessed it? A marriage! Yay! full marks to you!

And in yet more news, P is coming back this week - some issue with regards to compensation not being compensated - really honestly I never realised she was worth that much*!! anyhoo - cheers to that! at least the margarita queen is back so we can have our bitch n moan sessions which have been sorely missed and are sorely needed now!!

Ok! now I think I have updated enough! will go back to hibernation and pretend I have not seen the tag of Pixy Princess - she never told me - I just happend to see it on her blog so will go back in time and not see it**! Muaah!!

* P - I just said that to piss you off! you know I love u!!

**PP - Am thinking of it and it takes time! 6 words can be my name alone!

I do! I do!

So....More people are getting married and again close to home. Let's start with the distanter ones - the boy I used to hang around with constantly in A is getting married to the girl he started seeing at the same time that I was there. In fact, I was there when he made the transition from 'just good friends' to ' more than'. And the next one is a relationship that I broke to the world - again in A, before it was obvious and before I left, I told everybody that this is a relationship and I was dismissed and lo and behold they got engaged 3 weeks ago!!

It's less that I want to be married and more that I dont want other people to be!! It's selfish I know but I've observed that married people seem to have lots less time [much like people who have just entered relationships: reference me!!] but I don't know with the sacrament of matrimony, family and those necessary lines seem to acquire importance relegating the rest of life to a lower rung. Also married people seem to have domestic woes - single people live with family or just don't care!! and even if they do, it never seems to reach that level of discussion as with the married ones.

My close friends who are married don't live in the country so when they come here, they are not in the domestic space - but with everybody else, conversation seems to dwindle. Another feature of marriage is that they come out as a couple mostly - it's nver just girl time or guy time - it's always lets do stuff together. Quite strange!

Anyhoo, I just think, it's much harder to be single, when everyone who used to share your life with has a partner! Maybe it won't be true for my friends, but it's just a scary thought!!

To be or not to be?

Today on my way to watch 'Juno' [ a film about teenage pregnancy and adoption], I picked up the Reader's Digest which had an article about a woman who had undergone invitro fertilisation and had 11 embryos frozen. She produced 31 eggs with the medication instead of the usual 15-20 that other people in the program do which is significantly higher than the one a month u are supposed to create. The thing is she had 2 children using the embryos - 4 each time before one took but she still has 11 frozen - now her dilemma is....what does she do with these embryos?? The options being donate them to research - donate them to other people in the same predicament as she was - or have them destroyed? I find this decision heart breaking.....and so morally gray, I would crumble with the burden of choice
I am anti abortion..on the grounds that you are killing a life - and have been since I was subjected to the video of a gruesome video of one in school. I agree that maybe it may not be be life as soon as you create it but by the time most people discover, a heart beat has started and that to me is life! and in the case of a teenager like Juno - if you were responsible enough to be 'Sexually active' - you have to live with the repurcussions - this is a very easy argument, I know but the alternative is very devastating - an abortion is mind numbing for most people - because at the end of the day you are destroying something that is growing within you! but in a case like this, what do you do?
This is why in some cases, science has progressed too fast for mankind - maybe the difficulty many people are having conceiving is a natural progression of nature to control the population etc etc. and there is always adoption - there have always been millions of children that are born to wrong parents and are just waiting for a chance at a half decent life. I know the question of is it mine? etc will always haunt some people but...the option of wasting 11 embryos is traumatising me. I feel for that woman - how do you make a decision like that? Destroy, research or have your offspring traipsing half way around the globe with no idea that you exist?

In 'Juno', she cannot go through with an abortion and decides to give the child up for adoption. This is the kind of film that I like where the message is good - own up to your mistakes and the world will right itself - I hope....

A place called here

I finished reading P.S. I love you yesterday - I started reading it yesterday also and finally finished at 4 a.m. I actually also bought the book yesterday after reading an article in the March issue of India Vogue on Cecilia Ahern, the author. She is the daughter of the current Irish Prime minister and get this, she is only 25 with 4 novels under her belt. This first one apparently was written at age 21 while she was completing her degree!! and when you read it, you don't think it's written by a 21 year old - I don't think at 21, I would have able to write about grief and surviving - I'm certain I could not do it now but then hey! I've dumbed down over the years. I'm a firm believer in the t-shirt slogan ' I was intelligent and education ruined me' except mine would read ' I am intelligent, work ruined me'. Working does not give u time for yourself - to read, to think or anything. We, at least I, end up obsessed about the way my life is going, what I am not doing without having the time or the inclination to do anything I really want. Most people have to struggle to find time for their hobbies, others have given up on them. How do some people know to the exclusion of all else that this is what they want to do and have the drive to achieve it? I'm thinking of applying to yet another job in the same space when I know I will be unhappy coz eventually this is not what I like doing. but my bigger issue will I like my new calling either?

The title of this post is one of her latest novels - by the by she also produces and writes a TV show, short stories, screenplays etc etc. and I think what I'm trying to get out of it is that there is no place like now - If I want to do something different, It has to be immediate!

To bring me back to the point, is a lot of people I know like to write and like to write creatively [unlike me, I suck at creative, I can only only write real life] but nobody I know has published their first novel by age 23! Apparently the publisher picked it up after reading the first 10 chapters - I might have picked it up after hearing the thought behind it but then I'm a sucker for the 'Great' love story about soul mates etc etc!

and you know what I've discovered? I like to read more than I like to write so maybe I should be like a reader for all then novels a publishing house gets - u know the person who approves or disapproves of it - hee hee!

Another thing this book brings home is that noone has a perfect life - everyone has their own issues and trials and I think most of us should just be glad that the one we face trials with are still here with us and we are not facing it alone - even if it's against a person - it is not alone!