Fidgety Foots

120 seconds a day = one post.

Whether I have anything to say or not.

An exercise in consistency.

Great movie, great acting. So many movies have that.

This one could be the story of our marriage in a parallel plane.

April was me, amplified. Her aspirations mine, her thoughts mine, her coping mechanisms mine. Frank wasn’t quite Sunil, but his reactions could well be.

I can see how screwed up April is, how extremely wrong, but I can’t help but understand her.

Be still my raging mind
Ignore the future
Forget the past
Come back to me

Just when I thought I had silence, a possibility came screaming along. Now I balance excitement and equanimity.

“Kayena vaacha…” - my actions, words, mind, senses, intellect, nature and habits I submit to Thee.

Thee? Who? Which? What do I submit to? Confusion has reigned for 32 years (or ever since this verse was explained to me, probably when I was 5-ish). I think it’s a beautiful expression of surrender and poetry which has always resonated with me, I just didn’t know how to interpret it vis-a-vis life.

Now I do. And it makes sense. And it’s not high-falutin’…it’s gloriously selfish and totally in tune with the natural state of all humanity and a great life-coping-strategy overall. I think I always knew it, just forgot it along the way.

…in a bus fire. News like this is barely a blip on the Indian radar, lost in the excitement of celebrity marriages/gaffes/page 3 news. 63 people killed…yawn.

We’re so indignant about the manner in which the people at the Taj died, not the actual death toll.

No wonder the terrorists targeted foreigners. Hum log ka bharosa nahin - we may decide not to be outraged after all. An ignored fidayeen is an unfulfilled fidayeen. No virgin for you!

We went to Mithibhai college’s “open house” to collect S’s exam papers. BTW, “collect” is a euphemism for “read in a room and give back to the shouting professor”. When we got there the classroom was in chaos. All the profs had amplifiers in their voice boxes and were bellowing with abandon at the students. Ss roll number had been called and she had missed her turn so NO PAPER FOR YOU! COME BACK ONE DAY! The notice had said to collect papers “between 12:15 and 1:15pm” but actually meant “arrive at 12:15 or forfeit paper privileges”.

Poor S - exam tension was prolonged. Luckily there were many other students in the same situation, some with mothers in tow. We all were strategizing ways to get the papers early. Of the presiding teachers, there was a salwar kameez clad battle axe whom no one wanted to tangle with and a harassed man (HM) whom all the women honed in on as a promising target. Suj told the him that she had just flown in to the city and was leaving in half an hour so needed to see the paper immediately The poor man didn’t even question the preposterous story, just told her to wait an hour.

In the meantime the mommies were getting irritated. One woman told HM that she worked far away and the notice was misleading. Another asked why they couldn’t give the papers now that all students were present. The crowd became progressively more agressive and angry and HM was breaking into a sweat. Suddenly the mommies and the children started chanting “paper do na sir PLEEEEEASE”….in unison. Janata ki jai ho! The poor man started handing out papers.

On to a pet peeve about our masha-allah education system. What’s the meaning of handing out exam papers but not allowing students to find out why they got a big fat O on answers?? The english paper we got had baffling x’s and Os but S isn’t allowed to ask why. So learning goes down the drain, testing is ineffective, students are baffled and teachers garner power without accountability.

As we walked out of the airport, my SIL was waiting for us and we were talking a dime a dozen. Still talking we walked toward the cabby area, interrupting our conversation for a second to ask ‘humara cab kidhar hai’, barely noticing as the cabby loaded us and luggage into the car. When we were asked for the chit at the gate there was a flurry of confusion with everyone searching bags and asking the others if they had it. Then the cabbie spoke up: “aap ke jeans pant ke pocket mein hai” (it’s in the pocket of your jeans pant), and sure enough there it was, sticking out of my front pocket!

I was thinking about the homeless man this morning (you can guess where from the title), here’s the output.

Woh khada tha freeway ke kone pe
bhooka, pyaasa, board uthaaye
hum zindagi ke bhaag mein daud rahe the
chah ke bhi hum ruk nahi paaye

Spelling is iffy - long time since I wrote devanagari

On a gchat status:

“Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds discuss ideas”

My mind is sometimes small (bitching is better with a single target), mostly average and rarely great.

In my current PMSsy state it’s all small…

…is to a week what morning is to a day. The evolved are reborn every second, but I’m not there yet. For me, the beginning of the week wipes the slate clean and brings possibility.

Last week was super rough at work, with layoffs and tension and very long hours. This week I’ll keep the very long hours but ditch everything else.

Tally ho!

P.S. On being reborn at intervals - I try to achieve the slate-cleanliness/past-dropping every morning, but some days are so shitty and so long that you tumble into bed with the weight of the day pressing into you, and it hangs over (pun intended) the next day. The trick is to unwind/forgive/forget before bed - but how to that when the brain’s a-churning?

Weekends are a different texture altogether. It’s hard to carry Friday into Monday, esp for the memory-challenged  (like me).