Tag Archives: Rant

Arrogant …. Hmph!

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There is a certain group of people who think I am arrogant.

So far so good.  I don’t care a rats arse what any other person’s opinion of me is.  I ain’t here to make friends and influence people.  I am here to live my life the best I can, still being myself.  Yes, the so called “arrogant” myself.

It started bothering me when people close to me got brainwashed into concurring with this person(s)

Or did they agree with this person(s)?

Now that was an uncomfortable thought.

So I started researching the term arrogant ….

Dictonary.com says that arrogance is

offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.  It gives synonyms like haughtiness, insolence, disdain.

That does not fit too well.

Urban dictionary says :

When a person is led to believe that they are in some way more superior to everybody else. Pride is fine up until a point, but as soon as you believe that you are in some special way better than everybody else, you become a dickhead.

and

Someone who is full of and thinks very highly of him/herself.

Oye hello!  This is why I blog!  Because I am so full of myself!

But I beg to differ.

I am sorry, people close to me, I do not have arrogance, I have pride.  This pride comes out of living my life and recognizing my own worth.  I have pride that I have borne the brunt of responsibilities that could have crippled lesser people.  I have the pride of a person who has been earning her own keep and supporting others since the age of 18.

I also know one important thing, something I have learnt in life.  People try to undermine other peoples’ self esteem by calling them loser, wuss, and even arrogant, so that the person can be brought down a few notches – so much easier to use, abuse, manipulate and humiliate.

I am not arrogant; I am just an insolent person who knows her own self worth and does not want to be used or manipulated.  This is a woman, too full of herself and will not change.  Burn if you must, but that is me.  This “ME” was born out of 50 years of walking this earth.  I ain’t gonna change it to suit your purpose. I wont be manipulated!

People criticize because they lack self esteem themselves.  They need to take cheap shots at others, because they themselves feel insecure.

So, people close to me, please grow more responsible and better human beings yourself.  Stop being a burden on others, live life on your own terms.  Be free!  If you do that, you will not feel the need to take cheap shots at others.

Arrogant, as per Urban dictionary, also means

A person who’s insecurity is disguised as confidence. Mostly in cases of taunting.

 

I think it fits your profile.

 

So “Arrogant” who?????

 

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

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This was the cry of the oppressed peasants during the French revolution and is now the national motto of France.

Let me quote Wikipedia here on what these terms stand for.

“Liberty consists of being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man or woman has no bounds other than those that guarantee other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights.”

Unfortunately in our side of the world, we tend to stand judgment on others, discuss and argue to death about certain issues that definitely belong within the purview of the natural rights of another person – like his/her sexual choices, food habits and when we are pushed to the wall, we use arguments like “culture”, “ethics” and “morals” to defend our right to dictate  other peoples’ choices and condemn theirs – just because we find them inconvenient.  In fact honor killing by parents or this sad and sordid case of a mother posting her daughter’s nude pic on the internet would not happen if us Asians truly respected our children and treated them as responsible adults with the right to choices and privacy.

Equality is another impossible ideal.  To quote Wikipedia again : The law “must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.”

But in our corner of the planet the law is a chattel or slave of the rich and powerful.  The poor are at the mercy of police and influential despots.  We have a Mayawati who tramples the rights of the dalits who voted her to power, we have a Kalmadi and a Raja who are sure that the law will look the other way and they wont get punished.  We have parents who think their children are puppets – a school of thought beautifully portrayed by Rishi Kapoor in the movie Patiala House.  The repression, the over bearing behavior put my teeth on edge.

Fraternity : “Any man aspires to liberty, to equality, but he can not achieve it without the assistance of other men, without fraternity”

Tell this to an Indian, who has been schooled well in our schools and colleges, where cut throat competiton started in pre nursery and has been the only constant factor in his/her otherwise diverse life, and that person will laugh at you.  We look at our fellow man as a competitor, and are ready to snatch, grab and back stab.  Not only that, we discriminate between the fair and the dark skins, the castes and the sexes.

I wonder at the future of my country – that I love dearly.  More than that, I mourn at the state of the ideals stated above, ideals that I cherish more than any thing else in life.

I long for a revolution – that will grant us the ideals.

Hell, forget that, I long for the thrill of marching in a procession at Jantar Mantar yelling at the top of my voice

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I’m okay, you’re not!

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This is a post I was trying hard not to write. Then Monika’s post tipped the balance.

Why do people get mean, cross boundaries and say insulting things? Because they are not okay with themselves. So they have to diminish another person to feel good about themselves. That is the truth. I have encountered it often enough. It does not hurt me, because over years, I have learnt to brush it off.

The first time it happened was when a cousin of mine displayed great insecurity about my sitting next to her husband and discussing (of all the non-topics) Morarji Desai! When I asked her what was biting her, she said nothing, but during the course of the conversation she called me a divorcee not once but twice. I got the message, though it hurt.

Over the years, I have developed a simple system. If any one tries ever so sweetly to diminish me, I look the person straight in the eye and smile – because I am not seeing the person, I am seeing an irritating insect. The kind of insect that buzzes around, but does not have the guts to take me on. The kind that is ineffectual, irritating and can only harm a person who has self esteem issues.

There is a breed of women who love to try and bring others down on superficial issues like sense of style or weight issues.

I have friends who do that. You know the kind who love to brag about their perfect lives, their sons who earn mega billion bucks, their perfect husbands, while saying wordlessly, “Poor you, you are so alone!”

Heck, I feel sorry for them. They need others, lean on others to be complete. I am not a superwoman, I know I am alone. I am dealing with it and will continue to deal with it. May be I am biased, but my sons are worth more than yours, so suck on it!

I have a friend who refers to my weight, in a pretend teasing way. Girls, a word of advise. Calling me “Dumpling” or “Pillsbury Dough Girl” or any such epithet is not on. It is neither funny nor cute. Suggesting me diets when I have not asked for them is also not on. Call me an elephant and you have crossed serious boundaries. If I do not respond in kind it is only because I can see through you and your pathetic self esteem issues and I chose to be magnanimous.

It is not worth my retaliation.

That is because

I AM OKAY, YOU’RE NOT!

A Tribute to Tejaswee Rao

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It was a sad week for us. Our friend IHM wrote asking for our prayers for her daughter who was seriously ill.  We prayed, we were anxious … but this blog entry of hers broke my heart ……

SHE WILL LIVE FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS
Born: 19th Jan 1991.

Died: 11th Aug 2010.

Death be Not Proud

A poem by John Dunne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,

For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.

I could only weep.  I have spent a sleepless night, because this death brought back memories I’d rather not revisit.   I was 23 years old when my friend, my partner in crime, my younger brother left his work place to come home.  He never made it, his body was brought home by my father.  He was 22 years old.

It is easy to say “Be brave.”  It is easy to say that we are born alone and have to live our lives alone and then we die alone.  It is easy to say a whole lot of things, but our mind, our emotions, our heart keeps on screaming “Why God Why?!!!”  My mother kept weeping “How do I erase 22 years of love and memories?”  I was deeply affected too … I mourn him even now, at times, How do I stop thinking about that thankless job that I took upon myself …… packing his clothes, his shoes, his books, his personal effects and then driving down to give them to charity? I have done the same chore after the death of my father and then my mother …..  I hate it.  I kept his diary with me … I still have it.  He had dreams, he had the youthful optimism of a young boy wanting to conquer the world.

I have watched my parents die every year, slowly after his death.  It is such a huge loss.  IHM is a very strong person and she is dealing with grief in such a dignified way.

At times I want to go up there and fight with God.  It is unnatural for children to go before their parents.  It is not fair.  No parent any where in the world should be forced to deal with this sort of thing.

Sometimes I think this world sucks big time.

I read Tejaswee’s blog last night – could not sleep.  She was a wonderful girl, confident, articulate and intelligent.  This is not surprising – her mother is a wonderfully confident and expressive woman with oodles of common sense.  I wish I had known her, and I wish she had been allowed to live on this planet.

Goodbye Little Girl …… really wish you had not left so soon

An English Translation of a French Poem

On the Death of Young Girl

Though childhood’s days were past and gone
More innocent no child could be;
Though grace in every feature shone,
Her maiden heart was fancy free.

A few more months, or haply days,
And Love would blossom, – so we thought,
As lifts in April’s genial rays
The rose its clusters richly wrought.

But God had destined otherwise,
And so she gently fell asleep,
A creature of the starry skies,
Too lovely for the earth to keep.

She died in the earliest womanhood;
Thus dies, and leaves behind no trace,
A bird’s song in a leafy mood, -
Thus melts a sweet smile from a face.

General update – translation – I just wanna chat

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First of all, I know I know, the blog seems colourless compared to my blog in the yesteryears.  Kya karen, my blog design had a trojan.  I hung on to it for dear life …. but had to discard it.  You guys would have abandoned me on the wayside, and I love you all and want you guys to visit and comment.  So adieu fancy blog design.  I have shed bitter tears, implored on Godji to curse all virus and other meanos.

But I have a very big axe to grind with Godji.

I’ll tell you why

1. Mayawati got that humongous thousand rupee notes garland on her birthday today, worth 15 crore or something.  Well, I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago.  I did not get even a marigold ka haar, let alone the thousand ke note ka haar.  Kyon bhai??  Simply not happening.  What has Mayawati got that I dont?  No – dont answer that!  It was a rhetorical question.

2. Another axe to grind with Godji ~  seems like all the Godmen in this country have a hot and happening sex life.  We dont :(   This is not fair.  I mean I can understand if yogis have a rocking sex life.  They eat right, exercise so their libido has to be up. ;)   What about these Godmen?  I mean just telling people to pray and meditate and dishing out commonsense and feel good mantras and gyan should not be reason for them to have all the money, the adulation and all that sex.  Aur ab this malaise is international.  We have swamijis here and priests abroad.  Kya ho raha hai.  They are having fun, bad sort of fun, sometimes evil, sometimes kinky, and here we have dull and drab lives.  Godji kuch toh socho!!!

3. Godji, my third point ~ Mera pretty pretty blog design.  Damn trojans killed it.  They effin ate it up.  Sob!!!  I am teaching myself HTML and weird stuff so that I can design me a nice header.  I am fifty years old dammit and the grey cells are not as agile as I wish they were.  Okay, I’ll behave…..  Sorry about that ;)     I am such a ham!  I simply cant resist turning the senti stuff on.  Actually I love the challenge.  I assure you, I will make me a header that is nice.  Godji help me please.

4. I have just had to refuse 6 people who wanted to help me save taxes/give me loans/issue me credit cars.  Darn!  At least there are folk out there who think I am rich.  Godji kya kartey ho yaar?  Mujhko style de diya, without the substance.  Simple hai, make me as rich as I apparently appear.

Sigh I have vented.  Now I shall go back to HTML, PHP and other sundry alphabets that will help me personalise this blog design.  Nice talking to you Godji and nice talking to you dear reader.

See ya

The reason I did not do a women’s day post

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I got countless messages and mails on Women’s Day. Somehow they did not move me ……

One of the most infamous lines of Tulsidas were

Dhol,gawar,sudra,pashu, nari sakal tadana ke adhikari

A drum, a village idiot, an animal and a woman, all need to be beaten ….. have the right to expect being beaten ….

Times have changed. Apart from the drum (unless its the electronic sort) none of the others need to be beaten. However the other alternative is also a stick …. in the form of a crutch. That is what reservations are, these stuff like “Ladies first” and the oh so patronizing platitudes about the gentler sex are.

I dont agree with them. I dont believe we women are lesser than men, or on contrary, better than men …, or less corrupt or less blood thirsty. We are just different.

Once as a child, I heard one of the ladies who belonged to my mother’s kitty and card parties defend her decision to enroll and keep her handicapped child in a school meant for normal children

“If I put him in a school meant for handicapped people, I will cripple him from day one. He will only learn to beg and then demand special concessions.”

No, she did not think that she was being a bad mother, she insisted that it was good for him …. and it was! The boy (Nirmal remember those days?) learnt to play cricket, wield a hockey stick and also to study with normal kids. He is blind from one eye, had a club foot, could not write with his right hand but so what? What he learnt was that he was no less than the other kids. So what if he could not make it in the team, he was equal to other kids and that made him a winner! Today he is in the IAS and doing well for himself.

My BFF (best female friend) is the scholarly idealistic type. She is out to save the world …. hmmmm just realized that may be ~ just maybe ~ I am one of her countless missions … I need to call her up for clarification. Sorry for the digression – I type the way I think

Anyhow ~ she insists that Women’s Day is important for a lot of women in really bad circumstances. I cant see that! Women’s Day or Reservation of any sort is a label. It cripples us mentally. Just read what IHM says in her blog about her maid . The maid she talks about has more empowerment in her little finger than a whole lot of the Main bechari abala naari types – born to more affluent circumstances and having more education have in their entire persons.

I think we should have a Liberation and Empowerment Day for humans. A day to remind men that they do not need to save the world and bring in the bacon and look macho. For men to understand that its okay, they do not need to hide the fact that they also find the world hard, cruel and overwhelming. For them to be okay with crying or being soft, and not have others point fingers and say “Dude that is so G A Y Y Y !!”

We, as women, need that so much! When guys unbend, they will stop freaking out and trying to control us or shove us back into the restrictive moulds, in anger, in fear and with force and violence. The mould is outdated and one that many women have already broken and crawled out of – some in anger, some in desperation and so many of us in pain and for our very survival.

Women have evolved, we have changed a lot, in spite of Ekta Kapoor and our mothers/mother in laws. Those that are stuck in the restrictive mould are drawing inspiration from others that have grown out of it.

What we need is a Liberation and Empowerment Day for both sexes. We need our men, they need us. We need a joint day and together we need to learn the lesson that I found in IHM’s blog

The lady in question may be a maid by profession – but to me she is a sage! She is truly empowered and we – no not as men or as women, but as humans and thinking beings – have a lot to learn from her.

Its all about the mind, the attitude and not about being a woman or a man. I think the “abala naari” bit is overdone, and I think the “man as superior sex” is overdone too. It imposes role models and burdens that are quite unnnecessary. True empowerment would do away with labels and help us meet at the same platform as equals – different but equal.

This is a call for true equality here. Wish we get it – in my lifetime.

Some faltu ka melodrama

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You know the classic melodramatic dialogue one came upon in our Hindi cinema …. during the sixties and seventies

Hai Rabba/Hey Prabhu (pause for effect) isko dekhne se pehley meri aankehn band kyon nahin huien

Or the other alternative

Hey Ram, mujhey is ko dekhne se pehley kyun nahin utha liya

Here is a list of things that would make me say that

1. Amitabh Bacchan as Genie in Aladin

Why dudes, why???  The fake beard is horrible!   I love to believe in myths and this movie seriously makes it difficult to.  It is such a conviction-less, horrible insipid movie.  Abhi toh summer vacation bhi nahin hai …….

2. Rakhi Sawant in any avataar

I dont care if its her swayamvar or she is baby sitting some cranky little tyke.  This female is toxic, and I dont wanna see her.  Did you see the sleazy photos verging on soft porn of her’s (of course she will say look alike) doing the rounds?

3. Yet another tirade by Behn Mayawati

Not interested, dont care …. Next please

4. Yet another interview of Lalooji

Get someone else, dudes.  Even India TV is showing some innovativeness now.  The lines are old and so is the guy now …..

5. Another doomsday prediction about 2012

We’ll die when we have to, or when the dharti maata splits into two and takes us into her bosom.  Why freak un-necessarily?  While on the topic, will someone loan me a crore or two, to be returned in 2014 if the earth is still spinning on its axis :P

6. Yet another swine flu statistics

They’ve started boring me to death – without even giving me the swine flu

7. Another Munna Bhai kind of act by Sunjay Dutt

Enough already.  It was a hit, we enjoyed it …. Now you dont look hunky but chunky.  Lets give it a rest for a while shall we?

8. Another young skinny boy wearing his jeans low

Dont wanna see butt cracks.  Never wanted to and thankfully the fashion has come and gone.  Update your skinny pimply self please

9.  Priety Zinta playing item girl

Seriously lady, this is not happening!  Dont tell me you’re out of work!

10. Yet another lame ass colleague telling me how sasta things were about five years ago

I know, I know.  It pinches me too.  Dont rub it in please.  Ask boss to give us all a raise.  Do something about it.  You’ll be doing all of us a favor and will go to heaven instead of dharti mata ki godh mein in 2012

11. And lastly people who bitch about young people these days … you know the standard “Kya Zamana Aa Gaya Hai”

If I hear one more word about it, Gosh, I’m coming to your side of the town/road/parking lot ….. in my car, and I’m an awful driver, so be warned!  Times have to change and the change in youth morals is the life blood of all gossip sessions.  Agar yeh log kartab nahin karengey, where will we get our entertainment from?

 

 

Why do you blog?

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Why do you blog?

Because I have so much to say – and no one to hear me out.

That’s bullshit
It may be bullshit but its true

I’ve read your blog – and its not the true you
Uhuh?

In any case – its only 3% of you. Oh okay, may be 45% of you. Its kind of unreal.
Oh hey – what do you want me to do – list the moles I have on my body or blog about the many times we go visit the loo i.e. me and the others in my family?

Don’t you have a life other than this blogging?
Hmmm wonder if someone asked Shakespeare this question?

So you think you are Shakespeare haan?
I write in a different genre

I think it gives you a faltu type ego, and is making you turn fake.
WTF!!!! Fake???????

Editor’s Note :Well, there might be some grain of truth in the objector …… and I do promise to myself that I will live in real time too.However that said and done, I wonder why this had to surface after the award?

My question to others on blogosphere : Do you feel that we live too much in the virtual world and turn fake for the people who know us in real time?

Txting … WTH???

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Or perhaps I mean WTF. 

 

One of the reasons I got on to Facebook and Orkut is to keep track of my boys ….. srsli. Cue for some spy flick music …..

 

And I truly fear for the future of our country when I see how these kids talk … er, write … to each other.

 

But this exchange really does take it to the ultimate …..

 

Friend 1 : dere???? and wht time do cum online…let me knw

 

Kid#2 : yaar im so sori …da thing is i have been really busy wid wrk and colg….so didnt get any time,,,but will surely call u…u tell me hws ur colg goin …enjoyinn

 

Friend : so hows lyf going on

 

Kid#2 : dis and dat. U tell

 

Friend : Wat?

 

Kid#2 : Wassup?

 

Friend : tom can u coll me?

 

Kid#2 : ya – lotz hapnin, lets cachup

 

Editors Note : This is a boy who has totally pissed me off by repeating “Nothing” continuously to all my questions about his life and college.  Humph! To continue with the conversation

 

Friend : letz meet at xxxxxx around xxxx

 

Kid#2 : okzzzzzz no prob

 

Please remember that I have graduate and post graduate degrees in English literature, write as a hobby and draft killer speeches and letters in my working life. Spelling, grammar, punctuation — these things are my world.

And my world? It is about to go flying off its axis if kids these days don’t freakin’ learn to SPELL!

Sigh. Ok. I’m dun now.

Bi.

 

 

New Delhi – City under siege

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It happens every time.  We face something like the bomb blasts on Saturday, freak out for a while and then, once we are sure the crisis has passed, we go on with our lives.  There are families to feed, money to be earned, lives to be lived.  I am sure this is what people did in wars.  For the soldiers it was their job to kill and be killed, for the ordinary people, the smartest thing to do was to avoid battle fields and carry one with their lives.  The painful reality about today’s world is that there is no clear battlefield and the people who die in these sordid wars for religion are civillians who never signed for it.  Its painful and base.  One big reason to hate organised religion – they kill people in the name of God.

I was in Delhi yesterday – had to meet a few friends.  It was disturbing to drive through empty roads, police jeeps criss crossing the city.  I felt like I had wandered into a war zone.  I also felt scared … though my friend kept assuring me that the crisis was over.  I have lived in disturbed areas like Manipur and Nagaland.  I know what it is like to be resented because we were educated and our parents had the much coveted Government jobs – but that was economics.  They were poor and we had (in their view) all the comfort.  That I can understand, though I dont like their way of showing it – by trying to burn our home or stoning our roof in the middle of the night.  But killing innocent people shopping in a market place just because you want to make a name for yourself by proudly claiming that you belong to some XYZ organisation?  How sick is that?  Is this something to be proud of?  And if this is so, then come out in the open and fight and die for your twisted interpretation of your religion.  Dont be cowardly.

Roop and Devaki have also reacted to this.  The point is – where will this all end?  Why can we not make it illegal for politicians to play the caste/religion/state card.  And as Roop has said – we have to stop persecuting people based on nothing but their religion