inflation? or just bad luck?

right.

so apparently, you cannot dream of buying a decent, little fancy, suit piece for less than 2500 bucks these days in this city. and i used to think 2500 rupees is a hell of a lot of money.

but no.

if you go into a shop, whether in rohini, rani bagh, lajpat nagar, south ex (even NALLI), and say "budget is 2500, i want a moderately fancy suit material" the shop keepers look at you like you're from a different planet. my family members consider me very picky when it comes to choosing clothes. i dont think i am all that finicky. all i want is clothes with no paraphernalia attached to it, no feathers, no unnecessary oversized sequins, and no garish colours. is that too much to ask for? i think not. but apparently, such simple, yet elegant suits are now priced above 2500 bucks. the nalli guy tells me slyly "mam you cant get the kind of suit you want within 2500" and this is NALLI we're talking about.

i fail to understand what the problem is. is it within me? am i incapable of picking out clothes and taking decisions? are people around me lying when they say "i dont like anything here"; maybe they do like something and are just scared of me to try and convince me to buy something? is delhi just too overpriced? or is my budget too low? mind you, my initial plan was to spend max 2000 bucks. what a joke.

so like i was wondering; is it inflation, or just my sheer bad luck?

Bitter Chocolate- Revisited

This is a piece I wrote about two years ago, as catharsis. In the past 24 hours, two conversations have reminded me of CSA again, so it felt appropriate to put this piece up here.

****************

A teacher recommends three books in her class. The students take turns borrowing the books and share notes.

“So how was bitter chocolate?”

“Umm, depressing yet amazing…very well written…you should definitely read it.”

So I get the book and start reading it. The book begins with an author’s note which churns my stomach. Ok, its ok, just a book, I tell myself. Except that no one told me that it’s not JUST a book. Bitter chocolate is an experience, albeit a traumatic one at that, which makes your mind go totally haywire. But first, let me tell you about the book in much the same fashion as Pinki Virani, the author, writes it: dripping with facts.

Bitter chocolate is a book about child sexual abuse in India. It is divided into three notebooks. The first deals with what CSA is, the statistics and the effects of it. The second notebook gives two detailed case histories. Finally, the third notebook talks about the healing process, recovery of CSA victims and their families. The book is interspersed with several real life case histories.

The book ends with a list of books recommended by the author on CSA and related subjects, such as marital abuse. It also contains a small compilation of contact details of NGO’s working in the area of CSA, in the major Indian cities.

Now that the facts are over, let me come to the real thing- Bitter Chocolate was a harrowing experience for me, which shook my very soul. I was never ignorant to CSA/sexual abuse before reading the book: the countless OPRAH shows which I have watched on the subject will vouch for that.

But this was different. Very different. Perhaps it was the Indian context, perhaps the cold bloodedness of the hard facts or perhaps it was the sarcasm underlying every word in every page of the book; I don’t know.

But I know that I will never be the same again. I am seeing every human being in a new light, in a new perspective. Every male seems like a potential perpetrator of CSA. Looking at every woman and child makes me question: have they been sexually abused today? Or yesterday? Will they ever be sexually abused at any point in their lives? Oh leave aside strangers. I have started to doubt my family members, my friends, their families, neighbours and about countless people who I have ever known in my life: all of them seem like they hold some secret related to CSA….do they?

None of these emotions are in any way exaggerated or written for effect. Not even the fact that after I finished the first notebook, I stayed up all night crying inconsolably, questioning just about everything in this universe.

Would I recommend this book to anyone? OF COURSE and not just to anyone, but to everyone who cares to listen. To everyone who has ever loved and trusted. Essentially to everyone who knows how to read. It would be to create awareness, to make CSA a dining table conversation. But more than that, perhaps I would recommend it to people in hope, that someday, someone, somewhere would read it and find peace, even for a few minutes. Or better yet, prevent CSA from taking place.

Would I read it again? Or rather, do I have it in me to go through the whole ordeal again? Honestly, I don’t know and I can’t say.

So coming back to the question: how IS Bitter Chocolate? Simply put, an experience.

 ********************

the rape of a country

a friend of mine asked me "have you been blogging recently (about the blasts)?" i shook my head and said "nope. everything i want to write, has already been echoed in many many forums, and how. so let's see."

i have read MUCH over the past week. anki's blog was one of the first blogs i read, and which truly touched me, for its simplicity. i have been following rahi's blog and adi's blog quite religiously over the past week. I wasn't brave enough to see the news for hours at a stretch, preferring to go to my beloved rediff.com for regular updates instead. i read the newspapers, read many a sad story of brave people and everyday Joes dying because some sick people decided to bomb Mumbai. 

There are many stories which broke me apart and tugged at my heart. Aashish Chaudhary's story. The story of a family friend's son's friend who went to Leopold for a coffee and died. The  IITian who was supposed to be married in a week to his college sweetheart and died on the spot at Leopold. Baby Moshe's story hurt tremendously, because right when I saw his cute little face on the television, oblivious to the fact that his parents will never come back again, I was playing with my seven month old nephew. The story of the Taj manager, who saved many, but whose wife and children perished in their suite. 

Children have been orphaned, parents have been left childless. People have lost their spouses and best friends. Lives have been ruined, scarred forever. It's a horror, a tragedy which surpasses 9/11. 

I am one of the lucky people, whose life hasnt changed much over the past week. A surge of emotions has come about, just like it did during the Delhi Blasts. There is immense anger at the politicians (i dont even want to start about them- this is the reason why im so apolitical and i declare all politicians chors.) I feel helpless at the idea that anyone can come and rip my country apart and all we can do is watch, because our leaders are too busy engaging in personal vendetta and minting money. I feel hatred towards the governments that have allowed terrorist camps to mushroom rapidly. I am tremendously sad, for all the people who have been hurt by this, directly or indirectly. I feel proud of the average people of my country; the policemen, the NSG commandos, the staff at the hotels, the people of the sikh community who tirelessly served food and drinks to the commandos; i salute the many nameless souls who will perhaps never get a mention for their deeds. It's people like these, who are the soul of this country and who are perhaps, the only hope left. 

I don't know how much good political resignations will do. I don't know whether these rallies that citizens across the country are organizing will be effective. I don't know whether these forwarded mails, appealing to everyone to mail their local MP and the PMO, will be worth anything. 

But i hope it all works. Let there be no more Baby Moshes.

Destiny's Child

My first memories of life are of the tiny, cramped infant ward of the orphanage where I spent the formative years of my life. I can remember the cries of the other infants, some for food, some for water…some for love. I remember being the only infant who never cried, whether it was for hunger or thirst, and definitely never for love. The doctors and nurses would often come and examine me, sometimes thrice a day, as they were worried about me. I loved the attention and basked in it. I liked the glory of being the ‘child-who-never-cried’. Even as I was growing up, I never talked to anyone, preferring to nod and shake my head instead. And I enjoyed the silent attention I got; the whispers, the gossip, the so called ‘theories’ of why I was the way I was. I preferred to be by myself, not depending on anyone for anything. Dependence, for me, meant weakness. So life resumed in a silent and orderly fashion until one day, fate decided to turn my perfect life around in the most unbelievable way possible. 

It was a Tuesday, I remember, and I was walking back from school, as usual preferring the uncommon route back to the orphanage. I must have been all of fifteen years old. As I was walking back, the plastic bag which had conscientiously held my books for three whole weeks started to tear, and finally let go. My books, adhering to the law of gravity, fell with a loud thud on the road. As I bent down to pick my books up, I heard snatches of what sounded like shouting in the otherwise lifeless street. My curiosity took over, and I walked towards where the sound was coming from. It seemed to originate from the other side of the cement well, I soon realized and kneeled down to look through the tiny space towards the side. A man was tied to an old rusty steel chair in every way possible and another man (looking very much like the innocent faced head of my orphanage) bent down and to my utmost horror, lifted a long shiny black knife, which positively glistened when the rays of the afternoon sun caressed it. Slowly, he started to stab the man repeatedly, in various parts of his body. With each stab, the man groaned and screamed, struggling to escape, to get away from this torture. But in a matter of few minutes, a tired moan ended the story. He was dead, I realized. And the killer started to laugh, a shrill yet confident laugh which haunts me to this date and comes back every time I…anyway, I ran; perhaps out of fear, perhaps out of wanting to escape the situation. So I ran, as fast as my legs could take me, to the orphanage and flopped down on my mattress. I closed my eyes and the entire incident replayed itself in my mind. As my mind dissected the incident I had just witnessed in various ways, to my utmost surprise, a smile, or rather a wide grin formed in my face, leaving no doubt in my mind that…that this was it. This was what I was destined to do. 

I started in the orphanage, giving the honour of being my first choice (victim has a very morbid ring to it) to one of my roommates. I did everything as I had witnessed it, with the exception that I gagged him. The moans and shouts went completely against my quiet demeanor. And it was carried out just as I had imagined. However, nothing could prepare me for that indescribable feeling of pleasure when the knife entered the soft flesh; my blood raced inside me and goosebumps formed all over my body. It gave me an immense high, greater than any drug can give man. It was intoxicating, the feeling of power, of giving the gift of death to unknown people, from all walks of life. Some were doctors, some writers, some businessmen and some average working people. But binding them all was me; I gave them the gift of death, the chance to live life again. And so it went on, till one day, destiny decided to catch hold of me and change my life again. I fell in love. 

She was ethereal, arresting me with her cognac eyes and pulling me towards her like a magnet. Everything about her was perfect. And all her perfections began to cause imperfections in me. I could no longer think of anything else, and my sleep was gone for good. I couldn’t gift anyone death for months altogether, which made me even more restless. For the first time in my life, I was hungry…for love, belonging and security. Until one day, it struck me that I couldn’t fight my destiny any longer. My destiny was to be the giver of death, and I couldn’t escape that. So I did what my instincts told me to do; I gifted death to my beloved. It was done like all the other times before, except that I didn’t gag her…I wanted to hear her voice. But when it was over, I didn’t feel powerful and I definitely didn’t feel proud. I felt hollow from inside, as if someone had ripped my insides from me. As I looked at her limp and lifeless body, tied to the steel chair, I felt something strange. I was crying, I realized. I wept and wept, for my lost love, for my destiny and for my growing hunger. 

From then on, no matter how hard I tried, no matter who or how many people I murdered, I couldn’t fill the emptiness inside me. Regardless of what I did, I could never go back to being the person I used to be before she entered my life. I wept often, thinking of who I might have become, had it not been for my destiny. I had turned into a serial killer, murdering innocent people and robbing their lives. I had become so engrossed in the power and attention that I had convinced myself that I was doing the right thing. I lost all connections to the world and became a wanderer, aimlessly passing from one place to another. There was no goal, no aim in my life, as days, months and years flew by, escalating the grief in me. Until one day, my destiny called me again. And I smiled, the same way I had years ago on the orphanage bed. I went back to the town and the street where it had all started, where destiny had called me for the first time. Except this time, I was on the other side of the cement wall. I sat on the steel chair and lifted my knife. I could see my own face, staring down at me and telling me that this was it. And suddenly, a smile began to form, as the knife slowly slid into my flesh…

 -September/October 2002

My Place

I was walking in the soft silky sand.
Huge waves were crashing in the distance.
People were laughing, surfing and talking.
But I was alone. All alone.
I walked towards the water,
Looking in the distance.
It was big, so big,
That my problems seemed small.
When the cool water gently touched my toes,
I forgot everything,
My anxieties, my tears,
My hurt and my fears.
But as the water left me,
It all came back.
And I was alone. All alone. 

-9th April, 1999

November 10th, 2008

One of the best days in recent times! Not one, not two, but multiple good things are happening! Oh what a feeling!

a quick roundup of the happy things that are happening:

1) A friend's offer letter came!

2) My sanskriti blog post was recovered!

3) Another friend took a strong and long pending decision :)

4) Orkut/facebook/all blocked sites are unblocked!

5) Internship tension is going to be taken care of !

6) The general happy feeling due to the family moving back to india :)

What a day! What a feeling :)

Miracles do happen after all :)

would you believe it, i got the sanskriti post back! after resigning myself to the rotten luck i am often faced with, i was pleasantly shocked to get a mail from my now-official-life-saviour, saying "Is this the post that got deleted? Why can I still see it?" and sure enough, copied in that mail was the whole post. So apparently, if you see my blog from google reader, the post is very much intact (how, is completely beyond me) along with three versions of the "obama it is" post. Not that Im complaining...Im just thrilled at such an unexpected miracle :)

now althought this post is about school, and was earlier written with all the memories of school and my school friends in mind, this time around I dedicate it to my evil step twin, my life saviour and truly, my guardian angel, Ankita Sinha. She wanted me to write a post about her and how wonderfully important she is to my life (yeah she's not one of those modest kinds)...but all Ill say is that she's one of the best things that has happened to me, and she's one of the best friends anyone can ever wish for. She saved my life once before during 3rd year project time, has truly truly been there for me, and with me. Its only befitting that she got me my post back. So anki, this one's for you, with lots of love forever and ever.

***

One of my dear friends asked me this question "What does sanskriti mean to you?" Its a question i must have asked myself millions of times, since i left my alma mater, the place where i completed my school education. It's been four years since i left that place; at times it feels like another world, and at others, i can almost relive certain moments with the same intensity.

I told my friend that sanskriti was like my orientation session to delhi, to india, to how people my age are like. It made me see that indian schools are NOT like denobli school from hip hip hurray (i was utterly disappointed at that). The two years at sanskriti were like a crash course in the indian education system, rather the beloved CBSE. I learnt to memorize irrelevant information, write looooooonnnngggggg answers, really 'write' (which coming from an education system where we typed EVERYTHING was a BIG deal). I learnt how to make trial balances, balance sheets...and deal with failing unit tests and seeing marks like 65% and *sigh* 40% on my report card. i learnt the true meaning of sheer hard work, which was the reason that a failure in economics went to being a 96%er.

sanskriti is a beautiful school; for me it was love at first sight. i was coming from ISKL, malaysia which is perhaps one of the most beautiful schools in the world, so sanskriti seemed like a smaller, yet just as pretty, version of it. there are plenty of open spaces, and greenery, and mind you, it is VERY confusing; being geographically challenged till date, i couldnt find my way around the lesser frequented areas of the school till the end. my favourite places in the school? the ramp (the world's best place to gossip), the amphitheater (more on that later), the what-used-to-be 12 D classroom with the side pond, the balcony attached to the-then-11 D, the home science lab, the library (and the attached gossip room)...these are some of the places where my soul probably still lingers.

The two trips that i went on from sanskriti, were perhaps some of the best times of my life. Anjanisain, our compulsory trip to rural india, was a time of bonding. it was where some of my closest relationships and some of my BEST memories of life were formed; getting woken up on my first night (after travelling for close to 12 hours in a bus on rugged mountain roads) by samia, who wanted to the know the time (for god's sake!), the coughing which would begin in the girls' dorm the minute the lights were switched out, chatting with somya till well into midnight (we started talking just because we couldnt hear the others, but later developed our own before sleeping ritual of chit chatting), the boys singing aa bhi jaa (till date i cannot listen to that song objectively), teaching abhay "phatela jeb", shweta singing phatela jeb, the gossip sessions...for days, months and now years, the hangover remains.

Nahan was another party; it was a smaller trip, i personally LOVED the three tata sumos and i loved our big room, the biggest in fact. We got the suite, and were the subject of everyone's envy! Nahan to me is about FTV uncle, singing enrique's and boom's songs, the waterfall place (and the weird fights that happened!), pranima and neha teaching bedi and nakul how to dance under the night sky, saksham going from girl to girl flirting and bulbul screaming at nakul "he's flirting with your sister", and nakul screaming back "I cant hear...kya bol rahi hai???", the crazy ghost summoning games with the pencil, the card games, the skits we put up on the last night (my most vivid memory of that is of somya being the ever doting mother to neha), the morning trek on the last day, debjani mam correcting her eco papers with me and pranima staring at every paper and every mark, trying to convince her to be more lenient, the 20 of us fitting into two tata sumos on the way back, debjani mam telling nakul to shut up (and he did shut up till we reached school), our constant speculation on who was dating whom on the trip and finally deciding that it doesnt matter, as long as we have the gossip.

Sanskriti to me is also about the amazing teachers; Sanjukta mam, undoubtedly the best teacher i have ever come across, who was perhaps the best confluence of a teacher, friend and mother/elder sister figure, someone who has wisdom for every situation and every problem. She was the reason many of us did so well in our boards. She believed in our individuality, something which is so rare in a teacher. She's someone who i still have the utmost love and regard for. Ambika Mam, the strictest teacher. Im perhaps still scared of her, and would probably still shudder in her presence. but ill always respect her immensely for the way she transformed an eco failure into a 96%er. She never let me believe that i couldnt do it. Once after failing my unit test, i gathered up courage to go and talk to her about how i had studied and i dont know where i was going wrong. The way she spoke to me and the confidence she instilled in me, was heartwarming, and i remember going to school the day the results came out...and ambika mam was standing at the entrance and she hugged me ever so tightly when she saw me. To me, THAT is success. That's what sanskriti gave me.

sanskriti gave me some of my closest friends; i was lucky to have a great gang of friends in school and im still in touch with most of them, which i consider a huge achievement for all of us. we still know whats happening in everyone else's life, where everyone is, how everyone is doing. some of us are in constant touch, while with others, we talk once in a blue moon. my school friends are part of my security blanket; they are the people who have seen me grow up from a 15 year old 'phoren returned' to a 21 year old delhiite. there is immense comfort with each one of them, regardless of the nature of my relationship with them and whenever we meet, we're 16 again. 

the carnivals are the highlight of the year in sanskriti; particularly the jam session where we dance and dance and dance till they throw us out! the jam session traditionally ends with a song dedicated to the outgoing batch and the batch standing in the middle of the floor dancing one last time together. its the rituals like this which made sanskriti special.

songs maketh a sanskritian; at least they did in 'my' time. i associate many songs with school; 'flying on a jet plane', 'yaaron dosti', 'summer of 69', 'aa bhi jaa', enrique's 'hero', boom's 'mundiya toh bachke' the prominent ones. there's a story which perhaps explains this point best; many months after we passed out from school, i was at neha 1's place getting dressed to go to our awards ceremony at school where we were going to get awards for excellence in cbse. suddenly the radio blared 'yaaron dosti' and i shouted 'nehaaaaaaaaa'...and at that moment neha came running to the room and we looked at each other and grinned like idiots. neha's mom looked at us and later told my mom 'i thought only neha was like this...turns out, all of them are like this.'

I wasnt the most active person in terms of extra curriculars, but i was a proud member of the student council, as a member of the editorial board. That badge, with my name on it, is perhaps one of my most valuable possessions even after 4 years. I remember applying for student council, giving the interviews in ishwaran's room, getting selected in front of the whole school and standing on the amphitheater's stage, getting my badge on that very stage (one of my most favourite life moments). the 'leadership' camp which the council members attended where we stayed over in school for a night remains one of my best memories from student council; i remember himmat and saksham scaring everyone by randomly jumping from the dark; rishabh making fancy plans of coming to girls' room in the middle of the night to scare us, which eventually never happened, because he fell asleep (!); the constant infighting within my sub group and yet everyone saying that it was the best sub group EVER; the boys trying to climb up the walls of the amphi in the night and someone eventually succeeding...

that amphitheater is a very important place for a sanskritian; i got my certificate for excellence in psychology and elective english in 11th class on that stage. my citation ceremony, one of the most important moments of a sanskritian, was on that stage; where you stand with a diya on your hand, in front of your batchmates, your teachers and parents and listen to your principal speak the words which your class teacher has written JUST for you. i was one of the privileged few, who not only heard the words of her class teacher, but also the words of the principal, who spoke about me spontaneously. i went on that stage one last time in 2004 november, as a proud alumni, to collect a certificate and a prize for excellence in cbse.

i havent gone back since; i have heard that things have changed, and i saw the change happening when i was leaving school and on the few occasions i went back after i passed out. i dont feel the need to go back; i dont want to see new faces, new things in my school...and i most definitely do not want to be treated like an outsider. i go to sanskriti often in my thoughts, and in my mind, sanskriti will always be the place i left behind in 2004.