THE WEDDING DAY

June 2004.. As the rains drenched maiden earth and as the smell of wet sands tickled my nostrils, i could hear the wedding bells ring.. I was clad in the traditional red robe.. There were five or six ladies around me..decorating me with golden ornaments..meanwhile not forgetting to update each other over issues like "the neighborhood girl eloped with some guy from another caste".. how the girl's father cursed her for betraying the entire community..about how much cash somebody offered to the family of some guy who was a doctor in the U.K. so that the guy would accept his daughter's hand... blah.. n blah.. n blah.. God knows how they manage to get such nonsense news.. All i was bothered at that moment was about the heavy load of the flowers i had to carry.. used for decorating my hair.. God...
After the whole "dressing up" part, i was waiting in the dressing room, waiting to be summoned by the priest. As i sat there, i recollected how happily i spent those three months between the engagement and the present day.. I still remember..how i spent hours over the phone..talking to Ambi.. knowing each other.. fighting for silly reasons at times.. The more i knew him, the more i fell for him..The thrill of our first kiss still lingers in my mind.. Ambi was humorous, caring, truthful, decent, and above all i valued him for the amount of respect he had for every other person..
Everybody, while awake 16 hours a day, has some tableau image in the corner of his mind.. One carries it along wherever one goes..just like how some carry a bottle of water or a hand kerchief.. and feels it while indulged in any activity.. Some image that gives him a moral boost.. It becomes a part of him.. For me, that image was all set by then.. there was someone to fill my emptiness.. It was Ambi.. Still it is.. The only difference that has occurred is that right now there is somebody flinging stones in the still waters of my mind.. and the image..its kinda rippled..
I was feeling totally complete in life.. until that day..that ill omened day of my life.. that Sunday in the month of May.. thats when Ambi confessed that he would not be able to take me along with him for another four or five years.. There was no mirror where i could reflect to see my expression at that damn moment.. First i thought it was some kind of a joke.. Then i realized he was serious.. I did not understand how to react.. I just wanted to escape.. Or hide my face somewhere.. Or badly wake up from this, if luckily it happened to be a dream.. But No!.. This is in real.. My cousins were waiting outside.. Calling out for me.. asking me to hurry up.. I followed them..to some theater.. We were there to watch some movie.. I think it was "Star Wars - Attack Of The Clones".. I could see vague scenes.. Some dark shadows and people dressed in black robes.. Aliens.. Fire.. Wars.. But there was a bigger war running in my mind.. I was numb.. Then suddenly i realized what actually had happened.. I just got up and walked out of the theater.. There was somebody following me.. think it was my cousin brother.. I was BROKE.....TOTALLY BROKE!!!!!
-PRIYA

COMMITTED !!!!

Ambi and I got engaged in a week. That was the day i first visited his home in Chennai.. His home where he spent his entire childhood was an old fashioned traditional construction and the air around the whole place announced the extend of narrow mindedness of its inmates. For the first time I felt i was gonna be rehabilitated in the wrong place. But i remembered what my mom had told me.. "Don't worry, you are not gonna stay here anyways.. Once the knots are tied you are gonna have your own way of life in an entirely different country with Ambi"..
Though the sermons had enough stuff to relieve oneself, i still wasn't convinced. For once, i felt i was standing against my conscience. I could sense that my outlook about life is never gonna match their's.. Not that i was one among those ultra-modern feminist women folks who never left their beds without a lipstick, but in that i preferred to take life in a practical sense, adapting to whatever novelty was demanded in each situation. Still!! For that green-card??? I swear..I cant believe i did that..!!! I decided to keep mum and go ahead with the commitment.
The principal reason why i had torn apart that brainy buddy's (Vishnurao Iyer) profile was b'cz he was born in a family where his ancestors were temple priests, who followed very strict religious norms in their family.
Here things were not strict but totally in the opposite extreme. Leave alone the usual "Brahmin" norms, they were not even behaving as normal human beings who expect a minimum privacy in their own homes. Ambi knows no tamil (Regional language of Iyers).. Their home was some kind of a lodge.. Anybody was welcome .. to open the fridge.. to enter the kitchen area.. to use the bedroom of one's choice, even your personal lap-top, even if you were the driver of the neighborhood.. Damn!!! One had to be conscious in one's own home.. Well i'll come to this topic later on!
As for now, i stood as a slaughter goat while Ambi carried on with booking me up as a life partner with a Solitaire Diamond Ring.. Alas! I was engaged.. I now had to scribble on top of wherever i had declared "Single" and overwrite "Committed" ..

BACK TO MY STORY

I've been drifting away from my story for sometime..Well , sorry for that! O. K , Where was I? Yeah ! About the guy whom my parents chose for me. The day had finally arrived when Ambi and his family were coming to our place for an official visit. In India it is called the "Ladki Dekhna". The guy and family are supposed to visit the girl's home and evaluate how the girl looks and whether the family seems financially sound.. Hmmm.. I kept repeating to my dad that i would rather run away with a beast than marry a cock with a broken crown. I was all set to revolt against the whole thing..
I was busy getting dressed, trying hard to drape me with that long piece of cloth called "Sari". Suddenly i could hear noises outside. All of them had arrived. I peeped through the window expecting to find some monkey faced fellow who was "white" than fair in complexion.. consuming all those laddus fried in ghee n loads of curd rice.. But contrary to what i expected, i found a handsome young man walking towards our door with a glow in his eyes and an innocent smile on his face that shone like a moon.. I was flat at the very first sight..i swear..his eyes..that still gives me the kick whenever i look at him even today..
We talked for about an hour in privacy..about his job, my studies and ambitions in life, about our family n all that.. But i couldn't take my eyes off his face.. He seemed to be a nice man and i nodded "Yes" to the first alliance that knocked the door of my life.. meanwhile, not forgetting to tear away the profile of another alliance..that of an equally eligible bachelor.. His name was some "Vishnurao Iyer".. who was then an upcoming civil servant..
Was that a beginning of a dream come true or that of an unannounced disaster? Lets see..

-Priya

Prayer and Serinity.

Today is Sunday..lazy lazy Sunday..Dozed away watching "The Scarlet Letter" last night..Some sensible movie which tries to analyze a dispute between what in fact is morally correct in the eyes of god..Lying on my bed..gazing at the blurred picture of lord Krishna hung on the wall,i was trying to plunge into a discussion with my inner self over what in fact is the essence of a prayer.I grew up listening to stories of king Akbar and Birbal (One of the nine jewels of Akbar's court comprising of learned men,poets and advisers). Once there was a dispute between the king and Birbal over whether faith of man was superior to the prayers offered by Sufis(messengers of god or priests). The king believed that prayers of mankind would reach god if and only if offered by the Sufis who were supposedly very close to the supreme entity. Birbal believed in the contrary. But he had no sufficient evidence to this. One day the king gets an invitation from a nearby kingdom to visit a sanctum which was well known for the miracles of a Sufi saint. The king, who was in preparation for a war decides to visit the place and offer his prayers for victory. After the visit, the king continues for the war and undoubtedly seizes victory. The king now confirms his faith in the powers of the messengers of the god. Birbal now interrupts the scene and invites Akbar to visit the sanctum again.. There Birbal exposes the fact that the sanctum was created artificially over the king's own robes and there were no Sufis. This proves to the king that it was the faith one has on oneself that leads him to victory.. Hmmmm.. Interesting ain't it?
So what in fact does prayer mean to me? They say, god resides in oneself. God is nothing but the power hidden in oneself and this can be awakened by concentrating on building a destiny which has a righteous outcome, formulating a path of truthfulness towards the destiny and building a confidence level or faith in achieving the same. When we pray, are we actually trying to build a conversation with an idol of stone or wood? I don't think so. All of us have a disturbed mind with millions of options about our goals and million other options defining the path to be taken towards them. Prayer is a brief period of time when we prioritize, analyze and finally decide on what is to be done and how. As far as I am concerned, I believe that the concrete structures named a temple, church or a mosque provide nothing more than a calm ambiance for a focused mind. Ultimately it is that subconscious inner mind of ours that masters our decisions..

So again, I ask myself, what is it that builds our inner mind or the subconscious self? Good question. Basic character of a person molds by the time he is five years old.. Why does this happen? Possibly because our inner mind is more open to the world than our logical part during this period of time and attempts to grasp the instinctive chemistry of life. Hence the solution is to attempt a command over our inner self.. And the initial step to the art of self mastering is self realization. This is where a prayer comes handy.

Many a people are in a habit of linking terms like “God”-“Prayer”-“Action”-“Fate”. Personally, I have dissected each one of them uniquely. I have already described “God” according to me in the first stanza and “Prayer” in the second. Now comes the third one – “Action”. Action has nothing to do with god. It is not an abstract image named god who is entirely bestowed with the responsibility to judge our actions. Every cause has an effect. I still wonder why people still pull in Newton’s law to prove this. It is simply an obvious fact. Whether the effect is welcomed as a good one or a bad one is entirely left to what we feel is right or wrong.. That again is abstract. Well..!!!!! You like something, u call it a good effect and hence the action that leads to the same, a good act indeed.. Nonsense..!!

Then finally I come to “Fate”. I describe fate as mere coincidence of circumstances with what we wish. You wish for something good and if circumstances coincide so as to favor the occurrence of your wishes, you call it “Good Fate”. And vice versa. Bullshit!!!!! Absolutely Bullshit!!! Ultimately the victim is “You”.. “Yourself”..

-Priya.

EQUATING RIGHT AND WRONG

What is right and what is wrong? One drains away a lot of time computing this particular Gordian concept. Its simply akin to asking "what is the shape of water"?? Incontestable..isn't it? Just as water takes the shape of the container it is taken in, so do our so called moral values. There is no rights and no wrongs. They just take shape of the society they are attached to and a mind chained steadfast to such a society prefers to believe in them. Dare to let your mind wander in freedom and you start acknowledging that every other fact or option weigh the same in a logical mind..The logical mind is the slave of emotions..emotions that have again sprouted out of what one was taught was right or wrong. Thats why i repeat that one ought to "dare" to let your mind wander. What is dawn at our end might be dusk at the other end of the earth. Such is the case of right and wrong. So one might wonder what one has to stand by when given option between the two.. Thats where one has to employ his preferential knowledge. i.e One ought to learn the consequences of each option in different situation. You are not supposed to hurt anybody.. Naturally you would not prick another with a painful thorn. But you are logically correct if this helps to remove another thorn which is even more painful.. So the logic of right and wrong of every action depends on the intention behind it.. i.e whether it helps or not in the long run.

YOU DONT CRAVE FOR WHAT YOU NEVER TASTED..

An unfortunate obese fellow was put to strict diet to cut down his calories.One among the restrictions was to avoid non-vegetarian cuisine from his diet.This guy was a hard core fan of red meat and found it very difficult to part with his favorites.His spouse who was a strict vegetarian commented "Why do you find it so difficult to become a vegetarian? Look at me,i have been a vegetarian since my childhood"....Hmmmm....Funny...right? Similar is the case when a normal Indian woman...(normal in the sense-one among most of them in India who fail to enjoy sex for themselves) happens to encounter another Indian female(say..Mrs.X) who has enjoyed every moment of life and sex with her partner but is now staying away from him due to unfortunate circumstances..The so called "normal" one feels there is nothing wrong with the life of Mrs.X as long as her monthly bills are paid off well n her purse remains pretty heavy most of the time.Such is my case right now..i'm staying away from ambi..here in India back at home..frustrated many a days..Ambi works abroad n i've been staying away ever since i was married..Four long years..yeah,he does come down once every year..Thats when i dig my cupboard for my favorite lace lingerie..
My mother in law is sick many a times..sick in the sense sick at mind..Imagine my Ambi coming down for utmost 20 days a year,n this female arranges for some nasty religious ritual for which both of us(me and ambi) got to stay away from physical relationship for three or four days..Damn!!! She feels its quite easy..For women like her, "sex" is just another luxury in life which is not to be enjoyed very often..But for me or probably for many like me,its another important basic instinct like hunger or thirst.Alright! i agree that we eat and drink from childhood.But sex,once tasted n once you get the kick of it,gets adapted as an instinct and satisfying this instinct becomes a necessity for a well balanced mental status.Hardly do these boring Indian women realize this crude fact.Here sex is visualized as some nasty thing that occurs between a couple at some nasty weak moment n women who enjoy it are born whores. ( I did not know that enjoying sex was due to some disorder in our genetic code or something like that..Whew!)..First two years of married life was as tough as crossing the sands of "Thar"..Any weak hearted soul would hallucinate a mirage..And if you happen to find a real one,wouldn't you stop by to quench yourself?..Something similar happened in my life..........................................