Choked

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Sitting in front of the comp,
Yawns coming on with utmost show and pomp.
Struggling to think of writing good,
Feel Inspirational, wish I could.
Switch on TV, a Kannada movie pours light into the hall,
I am told the hero is my favourite but I have no recall.
Look at T "give me a topic " pleading in eyes,
But he is busy chatting with the Watch India IPTV guys.
The little one lying beside me with legs strewn around,
Tightly closed eyes but not a wink of sleep bound.
Words not pouring but running out of time,
Why does my poetry end up with a rhyme?

Alarming truth

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Alarm clocks are supposed to be a man's best friend. They are supposed to enable a person to be at the right place at the right time. For me however none of this is true. Alarm clocks dont help me. I am from the school of thought (like my father advocated) that everyday should be started early. Being a staunch follower for the past so many years my alarm is always set to 6 AM. The kind of alarms have changed from being a yellow colour steel one which goes 'rrrrrrrrrrrrring' to the plastic 'keek keek' to the digital 'kook kook' and the ultra modern cellphone with a choice of numerous tunes. But the time has remained the same - 6 AM. Every night I plan my mornings elaborately with a lot of micro management. 6-6:10 brush teeth, 6:10-6:30 yoga, 6:30-7 gym and so on and so forth. I sleep, the alarm rings, I continue to sleep, a howl is heard (a very desperate one), i am shoved, i get yelled at, T sits fully awake and switches off the alarm. I continue to sleep for another couple of hours. The routine is unfailing.
On the off-chance that I indeed have to do something really important (routine like above is just normal, not important and all), like an exam, I set the alarm to ring earlier. Now I have a problem that my brain just ignores the alarm bells that are set off by my ear. This has happened around 365*n times till now and I learnt somewhere that the brain just needs 25 times to form a habit. So what do I do? How do I wake up at the right time? I dont sleep. No, seriously. I dont sleep in the night. And if I do doze off I wake up every once in a while and note with satisfaction that I still have time. My brain doesnt shut down the activity or the adrenaline. So I sleep, dont sleep, continue to not sleep, wake up before the alarm rings, switch off and get to work. This is also an established pattern.
And then there is a third dimension, an internal clock. This one wakes me up everyday at 8 AM. And there is no reset button!

Ah?

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Have you experienced a pain of the kind where you cant pinpoint to one spot and say thats where its paining? Today I was afflicted with such a pain where in I was not sure if it was at the top, middle or lower part of my back. Its been a rest and relax day with no thoughts going through my head. T was a sweet heart enough to do all the cooking and taking care of V. I feel blessed.
Tomorrow will be another day, filled with sunshine, love and dreams. Till then...take care :)

And in other news

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The Anna Hazare show now has "slap"-stick comedy routines in a bid to increase TRPs.

Rahul Gandhi is preceded by a gunny sack at election rallies. The produce will be recycled at the opposition party rallies especially those of his "bua".

Salman Rushdie attended Jaipur Lit Fest on proxy. Every invitee talked about him more than their own works.

Indian kids around the world lose weight as their mothers refuse to hand feed them. The kids are also no longer the top performers in schools abroad given the lack of sleep stemming from nightmares of sleeping by themselves.

Barkha Dutt is doing wartime reporting again. The war is on her. 

IIPM like Shahrukh Khan never goes out of news even though there is nothing new. 

Bollywood takes Oprah Winfrey by storm. "The "Taj Mahal" was even wedged into fifth of the backseat of a Rolls Royce to demonstrate bonding. 

Priyanka Chopra knows there wont be "maafi" for her eighth murder and therefore adopts Gandhigiri and thanks Katrina for performing the song of the year.

Ajay Devgan might win the best supporting actor for the movie Tezz. The event organisers would have been forewarned by the Mohanlal fan association.

Chethan Bhagat sets a new trend by signing book contracts with Bollywood production houses rather than publishing houses.

Cricket was played better on Twitter than on the field. The Indian team will play the next virtual world cup on home ground.

About Blogs, Egos and 1000 worders...

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...thus, provoking another rant, be so warned! I embarked on this year with a promise to myself that I would keep in touch with my inner writer self more ardently than before. 

I started blogging as a conduit for my thoughts and somewhere along the way I got caught up with the hype around it. My blog moved on from self expression to playing to the gallery which mainly constituted at that time of cousins, best friends, the loyal hubby and the odd stranger. I made a few cyber friends, very few I must say, and got blown into a balloon of false pride. "I had to be super good when I write". "It has to be the best or not at all" were the kind of excuses I was giving myself for not being able to do any readable pieces. While I went on to write a few posts in those early heady days, the writing did not, in my eyes, look mature. It did not reflect my uber-cool opinions and hey I did speak about a lo..oot of subjects even then. The blog slowly spiraled down to an ego game. Write a post. Constantly refresh blog page. No comments yet. Continue refreshing. 1 comment. The acclaim is mentioned to my parents gleefully to entice some pats. This strategy I soon realized was not sustainable. I could not take the depression of having mountains of work and paltry or no comments on my blogs at the same time. The all important writer's block is conjured up and the writing is halted. Then a lot of travel happened post which motherhood dawned and action was back on the blog for some time. Only now every other post seemed to have a connection to the antics of the little one. (It somehow continues, see there is already a mention in this post.) I did get a lot of feedback during this phase but what irked me is the manner in which I was getting it. Most of it was verbal, some of it over chat and many over phone conversations. No comments on the blog itself. If one thought I wrote a certain piece well, that person ideally should have left a comment on the blog. What I wanted to explain to them (and I never have) is that comments beget comments. I think, in general blog readers find it easier to say something if they see that they are not the first.  By then the rigors of life overwhelmed me into another hiatus. I knew I had the time if I wanted but all I wanted to do in it was sleep. I wasn’t sleep-deprived or anything,, just plain lazy. Then a habit breaker of sorts happened last year. I suddenly had too much free time on my hands yet I was looking for various alibis to cover up my non-performance as a writer. 

Flash forward to the present. 2012 presented me with a new place, new ideas and a new eagerness. I channeled all of this into motivating myself to write. I have a few ideas including a collection of short stories. All quarter baked and typed in my brain for the exclusive use of my non-existent memory. I am gifted with fore thought. Too much of it. So much that if I dole out a bucket each then I can easily cater to a couple of hundred people. There is a slight problem however, I forget the present. It’s as if my mind has gone beyond today and concluded on what’s going to happen in my life next month and is already tackling the issues arising from future situations. That means I am thinking about the economies of publication, even before I have shortlisted the mode of publishing, long before even writing the stories and leaps before I even think through them. Now I have successfully confused you into wondering what this is all about. To tell you in short, read till the end. At the turn of the year, a lot of apprehensions of 2011 vanished from my mind and in place was a clean slate. 2012 would be what I decide for it. I decided to pick up the pen, stick it in my knot and start typing one post a day. I would write what I want to without bothering to see whether anyone posted comments. Since the social dynamics have changed from the last time I blogged incessantly, I found it meaningful to provide access to what I wrote on Facebook. There is no harm in baring your soul and not getting an echo. I am just happy to note that I have done whatever I could do to get it out there. I have so far deluded myself from going into an "I am not good at it" hole. I have been there done that. It was not difficult to jump into it given my craving for fame. But it has taken a long while to grapple out of it. I now look forward to the everyday challenge of thinking what to write about. The writing itself does not take too long but the thought behind it does. Sometimes it takes me the whole day and I am able to submit the post just in time before the 12 gong. At times I feel like asking for topics that I could write on, much like the essay writing competitions in school. That was simple. If you know what to write about you can fire your imagination faster. (I guess it’s the same lack of creativity which ensured I could never paint even though I used to be a very good "inspired" artist as I was growing up). I am not one for exhibitionism and I think I love to write because it gives me the anonymity and an alley to hide behind my topics and story characters. I hope to continue this tradition well into the second month. I definitely want to extrapolate this into something bigger. 

You may see my blog as narcissistic but that is by intention. I however try to do the occasional story which might be entertaining (But I dont know why they all turn out dark). 

In case you are still on this page by the time you reach here and are wondering what my topic for today was, it was a challenge to write a post which had a thousand words :)

Origin of "Balaji"

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Right now our television choices are more Indian than when we were in India. So our days start with all the tear-jerker ETV Kannada serials and end with watching live Godly programs on various channels. On one such evening the sound of the TV, exhaust and microwave were driving my sound system crazy. My repeated requests to turn down the volume were turned down by T who was reading an e-paper. I finally lost my cool and shouted at him for not watching TV but keeping it on. He said he was listening. In a bid to catch his lie I asked him what the purohit on TV was talking about. The story he re-told for me is what the post is about.

The only female avatara of Vishnu, Mohini, appears during the Samudra Manthana, manages to successfully secure the Amritha and hand it over to the Devas to clinch them immortality. It is believed that Ramanujacharya, the patron Acharya of the Srivaishnavas, had a very strong influence on Tirupati's routines in worshipping Lord Venkateshwara. Keeping in mind the Mohini avatara of Vishnu, Ramanujacharya laid down a dictat that the Lord of the hills should be dressed as a lady (Mohini alankara) 3 days a week starting every Monday. This practice was continuing without hitches for a long time. By the 18th century, the temple had attained popularity in the far reaches of the Indian sub-continent and worshippers from the North of the Vindhyas started to visit for darshana. It is said that they referred to the Lord in female attire as "Bala" which was intending to mean "girl". As is customary, the "ji" was added to show respect.
And thus was coined the word Balaji.

The "also sang"

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Indian Classical Music is a chore.
You got it right and it is my opinion. I have not yet understood the nuances of Carnatic or Hindustani music and to say I have been around for quite a bit.
While I can for a small amount of time get involved with Carnatic music mainly because I can sing along a few, Hindustani falls flat on my ears. I dont for the life of me garner more than four words in a rendition. I think a part of my refusal to connect to Hindustani is because of death. Let me explain. Growing up with Doordarshan ensured that I would listen, to four days of uncomprehensive singing and unreasonable amounts of Shehnai, in the unfortunate event of a state head passing away. Pressure like this takes away from pleasure and pushes in dread.
In my own defence I did try with Carnatic music. I wouldnt call it entirely my doing because honestly how many tamil brahmin families does one know where the girls in the house are liberated from the ardous task of being good singers? I was introduced to classical singing only by the age of 9. Late bloomers and such dreams. That turned out to be a classical saga which warrants itself another story. By the following year I as well as my well wishers had realised a deep disconnect between the raagas and what strangled out of my mouth and I was granted absolution.
Many of my friends and relatives are accomplished singers. One of my closest friends is the best singer I have ever heard but she knows my aberration. In college, she was one of the most popular stage singer as well as gap filler. Without fail everytime she was asked to belt out another hit number from Thyagaraja's Kirthanas she would catch me rolling my eyes and would laugh heartily at my plight. I implored her to learn a few hindi movie songs, for variety I said, but my intentions were not all white.
I do like the set of songs that I know by heart including Baghyada Lakshmi Baramma and Lambodara. One of my all-time favourites is Suprabhatam by MS. I also like her rendition of "Endaro Mahanubhavulu". I have written before about a song from Shankarabharanam. I like some of the songs from the telugu movie "Sree Ramadasu". I like the Yesudas rendition of "Tulasi Dala Mulaje" and my grandmom's presentation of "Krishna nee begane baro". Since these songs are not foremost in my mind and are tucked away in some crevice of my brain which is holding on to musical heritage, I do not recall all of them.
I do have an ear for Carnatic music to a certain extent. This extent is for the songs I already am familiar with. I do not have the patience to dissect them for their raagas, taalas and such. I like them for their friendly tune and sing-along nature of lyrics. I do not possess the forbearing for songs new to me. This should explain my first statement.

Yapp-raisal

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(To be sung to the tune of Jingle bells)
Appraisal time appraisal time appraisal time all this month 
Oh what fun it is to ride
On a wave of no worry...hey!


Ah! It feels stupendous to not go through the rigmarole this year. A luxury which I am being afforded for the first time in my life. No judgement on any front. We are so steeped in the culture of answerability that guilt conscience comes before self awareness for many of us. It is only very late in life that we learn that grammatically good, better and best are all relative terms. By then we are already conditioned like bulls in the San Fermin fiesta. We don't know why we are running but mostly because the others are. Maybe the bulls also like us are scared to be the only one not running and having to face an unknown consequence. Its amazing how we submit to judgement by people who are relative strangers in our lives. Its even more stupefying how we let this judgement influence our existence. Our ears jar when it hears the now famous "but you did not do anything innovative this year". Our minds race to creatively sell our work also known as self appraisal. At the end of the day we need to know our boundaries, limits and operate within our self esteem.
Honestly, I sometimes feel the lack of deadliness and pressures to perform, especially when I don't vacuum the house or when the sink is steeped with vessels for more than ten hours. Its almost a relief to realise I am the boss! I do wait for feedback on whether or not what I cooked is edible. I also feel that I will get a 1 rating every time V is brushed, bathed, schooled, lunched by 2 PM.
Appraisals are like the matrix. You can get in but never get out!

I am feeling cooooold

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The winter has finally set in, in its full glory here. The temperatures vary between -1 and -13 these days (and nights) and the winds make it even more miserable if thats possible. I am perpetually in the state of chill. As I write this post am wearing a full sleeve shirt with 2 jackets. And 2 pyjamas to top it off! By the time I reach the gym by walk, my face is numb and the only thing I feel is my runny nose. I think butterflies are very smart with the cocoon and all that. I wish I could learn to make my own warm cocoon right now. I dont feel like watching a late night movie anymore. Its an ardous task to sit in the hall and type out this post. (I should start blogging during the day!)

Big bang cookery

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Today has been one of those days where something as simple as rice refused to cook to completion, inspite of of the pressure cooker letting go atleast 10 whistles, much to my exasperation. 
I dont know if I have blogged about it before (too lazy to check) but am petrified of pressure cookers. Inspite of, now, using it everyday I panic at the first sign of errant steam. This is a phobia and has stemmed from a past misadventure. I retract into history once again with this post. But its modern history. An incident which happened to me 9 years back. My loyal readers would have guessed the importance of that timeline (pat on your backs, muaah). It was my first visit to the US. It was my first visit anywhere. Given the fact thay I was a naive young adult I fared rather well on that trip. One night I came home earlier than my roommates and started the process of makong dinner. At that time I couldnt call this process cooking. I had not much idea about what I had to do. I took realtime online coaching from *drum roll* T! The rasam was always tasty aftet my roomie re-engineered it. So coming back to that fateful night, following T's instructions to a T, I kept rice in the cooker. I was hanging around prepping for rasam. The cooker started to make unusual noises but I failed to recognise it because of my ignorance. I moved closer to the stove and BLAM the cooker lid burst open and sprung into the air. It narrowly missed hitting my face thanks to my reflexes (it only freezes when i drive). Only when my roomies came back did I come to know that I had been using a cooker with a faulty safety valve. I did not even know such a thing existed! Anyway that started me on my phobia of cookers. For the rest of that trip I made rice only by boiling. Back in India I stayed away from the blasted thing till I had to prove my mettle in my in-laws house. For the first few times I secretly called T to check that everything was in order mechanically and mathematically. I have also sms-ed him from kitchen to hall to keep my shortcoming discrete! I finally got used to the blasted thing as long as it was normal use. The first sign of trouble I still run to T. I refuse to understand the science behind pressure cookers but more than that I refuse to stand close to it when the stove is on. I dont think I will ever get over the fear.
Yesterday I asked V what she wants to be when she grows up. Imagine my horror when she said she wants to be a cooker! Thankfully she added that she wants to be a cooker and cook cookies.