While i pretty much enjoy the fact that i am a bad person most of the time, sometimes i wish i was able to see a bit beyond myself, if only for the sake of the few people in life i love. Which makes me wonder whether i am mellowing with age. A thought that makes me uncomfortable.

i am very selfish. It is a fact. i could not have inherited it from my mother because she is someone who is so giving, so kind in spite of the hardship life has thrown at her. It cannot be from my father either because he too is generous, sometimes too much for his (and our) own good . Well, from whichever gene pool i inherited it from, i am saddled with it. Though it is not something i am ashamed of. i am selfish because, well, i don't know why exactly.

But sometimes, when my selfishness gets in the way of the happiness of those i hold close to me, it saddens my heart (oh yes, i do possess one even though it is black).

Sometimes, i do envy those who seem to find happiness in other's happiness. Something i feel i am incapable of. You see i have to be happy myself for me to even think of making anyone else happy.

Which explains why i have always end up hurting the people i love the most. Because they expect things from me that i cannot give since i do not possess them. And while i try to exonerate myself saying it is their own fault for having expectations in the first place, sometimes, just sometimes, i wish for a drop of kindness in me.

And i am drinking juice that is beyond the best-before-date. Why, i don't know. Do i expect to find that elusive drop in 'expired' juice? i am so fit for the loony bin.

Life ...or the lack of it

The view from the window has changed. From trees well-clothed to naked ones shivering in the wind. And i wonder whether the branches are happy to be alone for some months without the weight of the leaves clinging to them like responsibilities. Or whether they miss them, their whisperings and dancing..And i wonder why i try to read too much into things that just might have no meaning.

Talked to SC after such a long time. Times were when we spent more time with each other then our respective life partners. i miss the corner of the project room that we had reserved for ourselves when we moved into the new building. We used to sit next to each other and gossip like two old ladies. And fight like cats and dogs. i miss the way we used to bully the kids, rag them till they begged for mercy. Oh such wicked souls we were and i hope we still are. Before leaving, i told him to keep my cubicle intact for me in case i come back and rejoined. i forgot to ask him whether it still is empty or whether someone has been allocated to it.

And i am not on talking terms with him. Which is difficult since it is one way. It started off with a small tiff and since i do so love being bitchy, i decided to see through him. He, being so good natured and all that, was cool after a few days. But not me. No, no. Since i have a propensity of bearing grudges (albeit for a short time - if there is anything like bearing a short-term grudge), i ignored all of his advances to bury the hatchet or whatever it is that we are supposed to bury. But i am not yet unsalvageable - i was good enough to point out by pantomiming that he had missed a call when he was in the other room. Of course, i could not ruin my hard earned reputation as a bitch by going over and handing him the phone when it rang.

i wonder whether i would be able to take over the reins in hell.

and the valley was really green.....

It has been a long time since i read a book and not wanted to reach the last page for fear of losing the pleasure of sinking into the words. And such a book was "how green was my valley"...

Sometimes the written words takes me to places i probably would never go. i could almost hear the nightingales singing. So heart-warming a story, so elegantly written. It somehow reminded me of "to kill a mockingbird". Maybe it was the way both the stories touched my cold heart.

And my heart is glad to know this is but the first of a series of four books. So i will be hunting for the next three -Up, into the singing mountain; Down where the moon is small and Green, green my valley now.

And on a completely different (and bitchy) note, it tickles me pink sometimes to read the news on e-pao.net because whoever is reporting seems to think big and difficult words make for an impressive article/report (and the usage and grammar making me wonder whether there is no editor for that news service). Yeah, i am snobbish. But i just wish they realise that there is elegance in simplicity. No offence meant to the site though because i rely on it for news on what is going on in the valley of mine that was also once green.

How green was my valley

i picked up this book on a whim. Heard about it before but was not sure whether i would like it. And god, i love it. i am about halfway through and i am left wondering why i didn't read it earlier. Obviously because you did not have it. Oh shut up...(that is one half of me talking to the other.)

"Not that i am not satisfied with what i have become, or that i am where i am. Only that if i had not think things for myself and find things for myself, i might have had a happier life judged by ordinary standards....."

--- How green was my valley by Richard Llewellyn

That is exactly how i feel sometimes.....

Swearing my mouth off

i actually grew up in a nice family - difficult to believe when you consider how i turned out! A family where swearing was not allowed, where you were supposed to answer with 'Aiga' (a corruption of the hindi word 'aagya' - 'your command')whenever anyone called you. So i grew up not dirtying my mouth with Manipuri swear words. Some of my classmates used to pepper their sentences with words never heard inside our house - even today, i do not know the meaning of some of the swear words. The strongest swear word i used was 'hingchabi' (witch).

Then high school happened. So i graduated to using 'damn' and 'shit'. But never at home.

Then i moved to another city, another life. Hostel, new friends...And since i was/am no angel and home was so far away, swear words came into my life. Fast and furious. To make up for all those lost years. And one day, i gathered enough courage to say the F word out loud. i don't remember whether i felt liberated spitting out that word. Like they say, the next time is always easier - be it murder or swearing. At one stage, i used it pretty liberally - to emphasize my point or just to shock people and myself. Since almost everybody else around me was using it, it felt less obnoxious.

Then work happened. And the F word went hibernating, unable to withstand the niceties of office life. Out came small-time galis. And from K, who used to be my next door cubicle mate, i imbibed the habit of saying 'sala'. 'Sala' became my favourite swear word. When SC and i used to have our everyday fights in the office, it would go like 'tui sala' 'tor khandaan sala'...

Then 'harami' came into the picture and sala and harami made such a nice pair. Of course, i never could bring myself to say harami out loud for the whole project to hear. i only used it with SC and SM in private. And we came up with this beautiful gali - salami (sala + harami). So we used to go like 'Salami' and no-one was any the wiser.

Since moving here, i don't have anyone to swear at. My new colleagues are squeaky clean and i am afraid they would go up in flames if i were to swear at them. So i only get to swear when i talk to SM or SC or when i chat to SN (the poor girl - she has now resorted to swearing - i am the bestest bad apple around). i use the F word now very sparsely. Sometimes when i am angry, really really really fire-spitting angry with him, in my posts when i am really disturbed, sometimes silently in my head when i rant at life...

But till today, i have never been able to swear in Manipuri. The only time i ever said a bad Manipuri swear word was when i was really small and i was used (very willing, i must add) by all my bigger cousins as a parrot to say the things they dare not. i remember being taken to a tailor's by my teen-aged cousin along with her friends and all along the way, they taught me what to say. i was a very eager beaver then and i remember reciting their script complete with swear words at the tailor! i don't remember whether i was punished when words got around about it. But that was the last time i ever sweared in Manipuri. Sala!

existential nonsense

i look out from the window and see the golden leaves swaying in the wind and wonder whether they know it would not be long before they fall down. And i wonder about life, about hope, about love. i have one moment filled with this incredible lightness of being - when you know nothing matters in this life. But soon, that moment is swept away, as always. And i find myself back in the land of the living and worrying lot.

Why do these thoughts torment me? These thoughts of not knowing who i am, what i really want in life. i am the kind that would miss out on life because i am too busy trying to find the 'meaning' of my existence. Only to realise that life has passed me by while i was busy trying to figure it out.

For someone so intelligent, i can be such a fool at times!!

love...

"...Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving something more than that thing loves them. And after a while you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can hurt you no more."

--Ray Bradbury's the foghorn

@######$%^&

It is just so hopelessly frustrating when you know the place you call home is overrun by such f%^&#$^@# morons. i am talking about the so called student unions who are forcing schools and colleges to boycott classes - the fate of the entire student community held at ransom by a handful of people who call themselves students.

Who are these people? What right do they have to force thousands of students to give up their studies to further their cause - whatever their cause is? You begin to despair for those students with dreams of pursuing higher studies. Apparently, the student bodies are threatening the board of education not to go ahead with exam plans. They talk about right to life and they play with the lives of thousands.

Now where are those so called saviours of our society? Where are those meira paibis? They will never be there when it counts. i guess they are too busy 'collecting' others' hard earned money or too busy meting out 'justice'.

When will this madness cease?

quote unqoute

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others”

--marcus aurelius

the art of sulking

Some people are born to be nice. Some to be famous. i was born to be a sulker. To sulk over everything and nothing. To sulk when he cannot read my mind and do or say the things i expect him to without my prompting him. To sulk if the sun does not shine on days when i expect it to. To sulk if things do not go the way i want them to. To sulk just because i feel like sulking.

i love sulking. In fact i think i am addicted to sulking if there is such a thing as getting addicted to a state of mind.

If my mother could be believed, and all mothers should be believed, i have been sulking since birth. Sometimes for valid reasons.Sometimes for no rhyme or reason. Which makes living with me a kind of art - to decipher the reasons for my sulking and wait for it to end. When i sulk, all i want is to be left alone, not to be talked to (or talked about), to wait for it to subside just like you wait for the tides to ebb.

i can sulk for days. i can sulk for weeks. i can even sulk for a month - though the last time i did that was about a decade back. Now that i am supposed to be a responsible adult - whatever that means - the most i can afford now is days.

i love sulking because i think it gives me a chance to withdraw into my shell without anyone prodding and poking me and i get to talk to myself for hours! If i had any sense i should have denounced this world and be daydreaming in some dark cave somewhere in the himalayas. But i guess it is too late now that i have managed to get myself shackled to ties of love.

So i continue to sulk. As a devious means to get my way. Sometimes to get out of fights. Sometimes to pick fights. To escape.

The more i reflect on my nature, the more warts i find. The more warts i find, the more besotted i become with myself. It is almost as if my mind is trying to compensate for the lack of love a nature like mine would most likely encounter. It will forever remain a mystery to me why i am still loved by everyone i want to be loved by. Maybe they fear i will start sulking!!

P.S. Apropos of my previous post, my sister finally did the needful. Which made me realise that i am only taken seriously when i am angry. Now, who can blame for being such a short-tempered hag?