can you grieve the death of grief?

there is this blog that i spent quite some time reading. i'm too lazy to figure out sidebars and stuff, i don't know if blogiquette permits you to link up random strangers ( mycotoxin could figure it out, but i think he is in prison or in a coma or abducted by porpoises) and i am also a bit retarded when it comes to html. so i just copied the link here
http://chicklitindia.blogspot.com/
i was reading some of the older posts and it is sometimes an intensely emotional blog, that i couldn't help relating to. i don't know if i'd have the courage to be so open about all my fears and grief, anonimity does offer you the option, but i am a greater coward. i don't know if i'd be ready to lay it bare for me, to see for myself and face my demons.
reading her bit, i was assured. at least of of one thing - that i do not feel some emotions by myself and that there are other people who go through similar motions, who tread those same paths.
having gone through my own bit with my own K ( my own, hah!), i was remembering some things i've tried hard to forget. i was so unsure all along whether you are allowed to grieve the death of a relationship that never was. i could not figure out what to do and what to feel. except sometimes, when i cried, i would feel so guilty and tell myself i am not entitled to those tears.
i was very shocked to discover today, when i was reading it and as i am writing now, that something that took so much out of my life at one point of time, has lost all meaning. i amost felt sad to realise i do not feel sad about it anymore.

i am mildly bored. now. and too lazy to bask in the glow of an evening well-spent. calvin and hobbes is ( are?) reserved for when i'm more bored. i took blogthings and was told that picasso should have painted my portrait. i am pleased but not as much as i should be. we had a small print of a woman grieving with her face towards the wall. with my imagination fired from a trip to my grandmother's place, throughout my childhood i thought it was an obscenely intrusive picture of someone using an indian toilet.

Who Should Paint You: Pablo Picasso

Your an expressive soul who shows many emotions, with many subtleties Only a master painter could represent your glorious contradictions

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

achievement

i woke up today. the highest point of the day has already been achieved by the mere act of waking up. if you get monday morning blues on a friday, what do you call it?

another day

i spent the whole day today trying to get my bank to let me deposit a check. apparently they have never seen checks like the one i produced, before, never heard of my former bank ( not very surprising, very few people outside PA had) and did not know what to do. i went to 3 different SBI's to figure out what i can do with the money that is rightfully mine. its not only the incompetence, but just the sheer ignorance left me feeling extremely frustrated.what was also bizarre is that all the people i talked to, irrespective of whether or not they could do the job they are paid to do, thought they were very entitled to know everything about my life, inside out, left to right and so on. and after asking seventeen thousand irrelevant things, they all told me, with benign smiles, they did not know what to do.

i had to take the day off from work to settle something, that, after all the hassle, took 15 minutes to be done. it did not improve my mood when i was told that processing everything takes at least six weeks. my hazy, sketchy dreams of a measly five day vacation went kaput. i was already nearing the limits of my endurance, having dealt with traffic, one-ways that lead nowhere, a driver that had to be told where park-street is and an occasionally working mobile phone that was created solely for the purpose of making my life a miserable wreck.

i felt marginally better after meeting with my one of my oldest and best buddies. what was meant to be a quick mutual venting session and lassi stretched out for an hour and five minutes including leisurely trips to the atm, speculation about whether eating fruits on the road cause cholera (the vendor glared us away, neither of us are very brave), gloating over new shirt and new wife( him) and feeling slightly deprived about wearing old salwar suit and singular lack of spouse or anything in that direction (me).

five minutes after i came home, i recieved a happy phone call from shrams who became YM enabled today. in a gesture of solidarity and support i came online only to find her getting disconnected every 39 seconds. i had to spend considerable time and money (Rs 17 is no mean amount) trying to get her to be a respectable netizen. i also ended up having a very heavy discussion with gullu on the dynamics of being a junkie and somehow the concept of virtue came into it. i was trying to save some of that conversation ( do not spell the word archiving here). i found it immensely blogworthy, but then ofcourse my pc crashed or hanged or hung.whatever. i was also told that an extra-marital affair is something that is entirely the business of two consenting adults. couldn't help feeling that there is also a third non-consenting adult who suffers the most, but technology prevented me from continuing that discussion any further.

maybe my next bit should be on the much diputed anmd discredited concept of virtue. but i so much wanted to record for posterity how our electric line was cut off, and the man climbed on top of the howrah bridge to find food and what my brother told me in strictest confidence about bhishmadeb
("when asked apni faiyaz khan-er shishyo holen keno? tate bole je nasiruddin dagar ar faiyyaz khaner moddhe competition hocchilo. ta ekdin nasiruddin shaheb jama khulte dekhi or gayer mangshota bhalo na, tai faiyaz khan shahebkei first kore dilam").and how gharanas are made.

Not all true, is it?

The following is a part of communication I recieved from a friend of mine.

Dictionary for Decoding Women's Personal Ads:

40-ish ........................ 49.
Adventurous .............. Slept with everyone.
Athletic ...................... No breasts
Average looking .......... Moooo.
Beautiful .................... Pathological liar.
Emotionally Secure ... On medication.
Feminist .................... Fat
Free spirit .................. Junkie
Friendship first .......... Former slut.
New-Age ................... Body hair in the wrong places.
Old-Fashioned ........... No BJs.
Open-minded ............. Desperate
Outgoing ................... Loud and Embarrassing.
Professional .............. Bitch
Voluptuous ................ Very Fat
Hugh frame ............... Hugely Fat
Wants soul mate ....... Stalker.



I forwarded it to the usual people. The responses from the women were almost identical. I guess I's mail sums it best "jeeez...not all true.. is it?"
The men. Less said the better. Mycotoxin had a few add-ons to prescribe. His corrected version stands at:


Dictionary for Decoding Women's Personal Ads:
>>
>>40-ish ........................ 49. a healthy 55 more likely
>>Adventurous .............. Slept with everyone. why the past tense?
Definition of a slut - sleeps with everyone at the party
Definition of a bitch - sleeps with everyone at the party except you
>>Athletic ...................... No breasts. but the butt will more than make up for it
>>Average looking .......... Moooo. yep.
>>Beautiful .................... Pathological liar.
>>Emotionally Secure ... On medication. or dysfunctionally multiorgasmic.
>>Feminist .................... Fat. and hairy.
>>Free spirit .................. Junkie
>>Friendship first .......... Former slut.
>>New-Age ................... Body hair in the wrong places.
>>Old-Fashioned ........... No BJs. or much else.
>>Open-minded ............. Desperate. and everything else.
>>Outgoing ................... Loud and Embarrassing. and will puke on you at parties.
>>Professional .............. Bitch. or too expensive on an hourly basis
>>Voluptuous ................ Very Fat. but jiggly.
>>Hugh frame ............... Hugely Fat. one roll and it's all over
>>Wants soul mate ....... Stalker. and if you're reading this far, she's close to finding one.

The temptation to blog an omnibus on respect towards womenkind did fleet through my mind. But the dysfunctional idiots already live that lesson out in their lives , thereby robbing me of the right to preach. Not that I need a "reason" to jump up on the pulpit. I would kill 6 people anyway, if i didn't find it hilarious.

I woke up at 6:36 today. I already feel tired. think i'll become a lazy housewife and do away with the need to wake up AT ALL in the morning.
The Southern Wonder had the idea that we could all go gymming at 5:30 in the morning. Brings it up in conversation every time we meet.So far i've refrained from hitting him, but today i'm not in such a charitable mood after experiencing early morning, first hand.
Not that i have anything against morning people, I am friends with some of them. Mycotoxin, for instance, wakes up at the crack of dawn to go running ( ughhhh).
What I resent is the assumption that this is the Only way and if you are not your brightest at 5 f'ing AM then you are a sociopath.
I have to get a shower, get ready and go out of the house in 23 minutes and i do not have the energy to move a muscle.

note to self

i bought a pair of bright yellow rubber sandals from bata and i'm insanely happy, for the moment, just looking at them. there can be no problem that can't be at least partially solved by buying new shoes. one can never have enough shoes. or problems big enough to forget shoes. if you can't buy shoes, get slippers or sandals. everything works.

two of my friends are going through major life altering changes. its taking a great emotional toll on them. i feel so bloody helpless that i can't do anything to make things easier.
its such a bunch of crap to profess support, what can you bloody well do? you can't bear the emotional bruising on behalf of them , you CANNOT share the pain no matter what the shiny pop-psychology sprouting volumes say, and empathy - feeling the emotion, albeit second hand - does absolutely nothing to make things better for the people concerned.
i can only be witness to rage and sadness, i can only be witness to grief and an attempt to move on beyond that, i cannot do anything more. i can't heal them , i can't make things as good as new. i can only fail my friends. i wish i knew how to be a better person.

Yes baby!!!

You Are Scary

You even scare scary people sometimes!

How Scary Are You?

I'm so amazing

This is neat. I particularly like the section about slowly bringing out beauty around me. I tried it on my next door neighbor. As we were trying to decide whether wine brewed in Grover's vineyard is wine at all, I got to see her slowly breaking out in hives. You Are Rain

You can be warm and sexy. Or cold and unwelcoming. Either way, you slowly bring out the beauty around you. You are best known for: your touch Your dominant state: changing

What Type of Weather Are You?

disclaimer

the link on the sidebar that promises a divine man is a screaming lie. actualy it leads to a blogger who is going to die very soon. hopefully, very painfully too.

hunger pangs

its very hot and i'm hungry. people who try to sell the idea that heat kills hunger should be made to starve in sub-saharan climates for days.i had grand plans of indulging myself with a huge north indian dinner. if there is soul food , it is tandoori chicken. a close second is chicken biriyani.and the takeaway five minutes from home serves both.

the plan was going along fantastic lines, till my father decided to contribute his two pence's worth( he was feeling guilty about sitting at home playing solitaire on his pc, while the rest of us had a long working day). my progenitor benevolently called the chinese joint in the next block, and was interrupted mid-call by my mother who wanted to go out.the arguementative tradition is well-preserved in both my parents and it was a 30 minute long patient discussion - the kind where seething people talk in cold, well-modulated voice.

i did not want chinese food. and this morning my father admired my new half-mojris, slid them on his feet and asked me if he could wear it when he wears indian clothes.( i do not have boat like feet, i just bought shoes a size larger because i like the colour and i like buying new shoes.) he also proceeded to use 'indo-chic' and 'metrosexuality' in the same sentence. i gave him the evil eye and have tried to be markedly cold towards him. i don't like my parents "cool". sheer laziness, however, prevented me from taking up my mother's suggestion that we all dress up and go out. diplomatically, i excused myself and went to change the lightbulb in the guestroom.

didi, our housekeeper, who i suspect can trace her ancestry to attila the hun, solved the issue by noisily banging the dishes down on the table, set with food she believes in. now, that is something we all treat with extreme caution. sometimes she produces food you can die for. but on other numerous occasions, being an independent spirit, she experiments with culinary art, leaving a lot to be desired. both my parents are extremely scared of her. she has been with us since time immemorial and has given me and my brother some of our most memorable spankings. she is also one of the steadiest of our emotional anchors, but that does not take anything away from the fear factor.

this is one battle where i decided discretion is indeed the better part of valor. i pleaded the need to get some more work done and slunk away.i should have stood for my rights to eat the kind of food i want. i should have pointed out that i'm an adult, but never in the last 9 months have i won with that line of arguement.

i do not want any introspective insight regarding my unevolved persona. at the moment i'm miserable and i'm hungry. very hungry.

ps. in a display of twisted up cosmic humor - the book lying on my table is Ben Okri's The Famished Road

my friend mycotoxin

One of the favourite objects of my demented affection these days is Mycotoxin.I do not mean the i'll stalk you till i know how many veins are in your eyeballs kind of affection, but a more i will not kill you if you call me a cretin.Not that he dares call me a cretin to my face, he thinks of it often , but has enough good sense to refrain. Well, most of the time. Last evening, he called me a goat, but I accept part responsibility for that.

It is very rarely that you find people who constantly evolve and grow,without letting go of their own selves.My friend is one such person. Open to ideas (the more controversial, the better), housing a load of bizarre and also occasionally, very useful information,excellent taste in books (not so great in people or t-shirts), a propensity towards being very kind and the most lively, wicked sense of humour - just some of the things that define him. Actually describe is a better word to use here. Definition is another ballgame altogether.He also has the unnerving ability to surreptitiously get under the skin and become a part of life.Very inoccuously.And the greatest benefit of that comes from the fact that he makes people feel completely refreshed in his company.

Incidentally, it was him that tipped me into the world of blogging and has promised to look after the well-being and aesthetic aspects of my blogs when he gets time enough.Last night, he stayed back at work very late to help me set up a few things. Very ungraciously, I logged out of my messenger , switched off my PC and went off to sleep.Not that this is a guilt-blog. (He did black-mail me a bit, but...)Seriously, he IS one of the best around.

i had a tooth extracted today. i speak in distinct igor-ish overtones, the cocktail of drugs make me feel like an earthworm, i have drooled through a bath towel and i am everyone's favourite joke. i am too dazed to be angry and i can't find energy or intelligence to sum up retorts .
it is a rare moment.
my friends and family seem to have identical thought processes. my sympathy-pitch describing my current physical state evokes them to declare sentiments that can be summarized as :
"but you were already intellectually and aesthetically challenged to begin with"
in 36 hours i'll be back on my feet and then, detractors beware. there IS something called cosmic justice.
not that i'll wait for it to happen on its own.

the downside of being dumb and indecisive

i am suffering from a pratchett induced dilemma. if i post a blog and do not share the link with anyone, then am i doing meaningful communication? actually, this is not pratchett induced. i know exactly who planted this niggling thought in my mind. my seemingly compulsive blogger friend ( i say seeming, because i am amazed to see more than an expected number of blogs traceable to him, it may be an actual fetish for all i know) who thoughtfully sends me a link to his latest blog. as always, i'm susceptible to new ideas and i think link-sharing is a great thing.
but to get back to the point, is a blog to be shared with people? you know, if a tree is felled in a forest and no-one hears the noise , is it still to be called a noise or whatever? is an unshared blog meaningful? not that i care much for meaning, i think its highly overrated, but still. sometimes it feels nice to wake up feeling i'm still with the sane majority. hence, my current obsession with attaching meaning to my actions or lack thereof.
actually justifying the lack of actions is what takes up a large chunk of time. i'm naturally very lazy. i think somewhere around the evolutionary tree there was a sloth who enamoured the primate foremother and passed on his genes furtively. they have come to revisit me with vengeance. i do not do a large number of things. when confronted with my inaction , i can't provide any satisfactory explanation. in order to pretend i'm still on top of things, i retreat to sullen silence or hastily change the topic to something less fraught with danger. of late, this tactics is not working. i have to work at finding something better to say than "umm, i don't know.but here's something interesting. do you know how much an air-ticket to burma costs?"i have to think very hard, i have to make up plausible stories and sometimes i have to borrow white lies from my father.
( i'm not kidding. i usually cannot and will not lie.since i can't claim to have many principles, this is not a matter of principles, but a simple lack of skills. over my early teens, i found out that however hard i try, my lies tend to be very colorful, intricate, interesting and obviously screamingly fake. my slightly violent Gandhian father who will not lie to save himself from a house-fly, on the other hand, provides the rest of the household with beautiful, stark , minimalistic white lies, as and when required. by virtue of being parent-supplied, these, i treat as technical non-truths not amounting to falsehood.)
but the afore-mentioned parent has of late started taking an aggressive interest in my life.on a given day, i am asked about half an hour's worth of questions regarding unsent mail, undeposited cheques, uncollected medicines, unbought shoes, unanswered phonecalls and so on. and i am exhausted from the effort.things were much better when parental communication was rationed to a 10 minute phone call , that could be afforded with the aid of a skipped lunch.but anyway, i have a more pleasant life now, unrestricted access to parents is something i treasure. well, usually for two minutes in the morning, when i get my steaming cuppa. for a large part of the day however, it takes a toll on my persona. ( i do not have a personality, so i can only use the word persona.) i'm seriously considering the option of turning into a pro-active person.the kind that not only accounts for her actions , but is also responsible for them.
i thought the first step towards that could be blogging. i do not jam up people's mailboxes or their minds. i can just blog at random and leave it at that having vented quitely ( i mean swearing at the pc is cosher). then i recieve this link and i feel something in the back of my brain going crrrrrk crrrk crrrk.i am now obsessed with the question "to share or not to share".
i am in a state that can be as near zen as my volatile nature will allow me to be. i'm not hopping mad, desperately depressed or amazingly ecstatic. my current state of mind is somewhat flat, pleasant and tranquil, without a shred of strong passion threatening the equanimity. in other words, i have nothing interesting that i'm compelled to mail or tell people about.i pride myself on dishing out only the strong stuff.
the major arguements in favor of sharing are that i can explain unwritten e-mails with a link that clues people on to what exactly i'd tell them if i were to mail them, and since i'm blogging i can always evade questions of responsibility with the phrase "poetic license".
whatever. a coin- toss is in order.

banal blog

ahhhh! the bliss of blogging. the sheer pleasure of uninhibited emotional ( ok, let's face it, not so emotional also) dumping on unsuspecting readers, is something to be savoured. blogs do not have the tendency to end back in my mailbox with the added inscription"explain", blogs do not provoke nearests and dearests to call in the middle of the night to demand
a) why are they being subjected to mass-mailing ( because i love all of you equally and want to tell u the same things. not like my life is the most sensational one , that i can spin ten thousand stories for each of you. duhhhh)
b) why am i taking up valuable to mail-box space to describe soda snorting out of someone's nose
( because that is the most interesting thing that happens to me on an average week )
c) what exactly did i write in a five kb mail that the server at work had firmly screened ( like i remember. how silly can people be?)
d) why am i angry/ happy/ depressed/ insert appropriate emotion?

ok, this last one is a bit of a bummer.on one level, i'm secretly very thrilled to attract attention to my emotional state and then i coyly retreat back to non-chalance, and at another level, i'm very scared to find that emotions bewilder people. a lot of them. including me. as if my generation has forgotten how to deal with one's own or other people's emotions. frightening.

thus, blogging remains the safe option. like casting bottles in the sea. writing this however, i get this spark of memory, one of those stories where a person who had sent out a bottle with his details into the atlantic, he got an awful letter from another for littering!!!

so what do i litter other people's lives with? generally , i see negativity being dished around. i mean i hardly ever recieve, or for that matter write, mails about happy things. not that i do not have a happy life. considering everything, i think i am an averagely happy person.

yet, its the minor episodes of irritation, sadness, grief , anger - those blips that dominate my communications. little things like why my otherwise nice person friend has the IMing social skills of a maggot, why do i not own a blue ball point pen despite buying several each time i go to the market, why do i feel an insane rage to see my Bare Naked Ladies CD missing and my friend's father thinks we are sharing porn; or more narcicistic bigger life size things like why do i detest it when people just take me for granted, after all i grant them the liberty by being too dumb or too inoffensive;why do i have the insane urge to upset and complicate my life even greater , the moment it reaches some semblance of tranquility; why do i feel restless though i try very hard not to; why do i give in; why do i give up; why do i keep losing the map;why do i never look back after saying good-bye's; why do i not hold people tighter, closer, safer; why do i feel sad, sometimes, when there is no good reason?

i don't know what i look for when i write about these things. after all the anonimity of the blank computer screen makes it easier to express these, but what after that? am i so socially retarded that i can't connect to people in 3D? am i so emotionally bankrupt that i am not comfortable talking about these things to people, even the ones i love?or is it an endemic generational depression that is so commonplace that there is no point talking about it?or even blogging it, for that matter.