Santa Story

Still months to go for Christmas Eve but I will share my Christmas story. I feel lucky to be the child who was told that of course there is a Santa Claus and he watches over secretly from his den (don’t know where he lives) all over the year, just to evaluate what you deserve at the end of it. Well, this was my mother’s version and I believed it without a doubt. My belief was so firm that it often led to long arguments with my friends or anyone who tried to stand against it. (Yes I was argumentative at 8 too)

   It all changed when I was 8 and was beginning to enter the “why” era. I would put a why, how to every sentence my parents said but Santa Claus was simply sacred. His existence was my centre of gravity as I felt him watching over my every deed. Few days before the Christmas Eve, I went over to my mother asking her if she knows what Santa will get me this year. She smiled and told me that I have grown up and I should know that Santa is just a figment of imagination. I slowly moved out of the room and did not speak to anyone that night. I felt betrayed and sagged. I felt as if a pillar of existence has been crumpled. I felt the world is too bad to live

.

   Ten years later when I am writing this, I can feel the pain and twinge of my 10 year old self. But I would like to ask her to still believe that Santa is real because your 20 year old self believes he is real and is watching over from somewhere, taking pride in my achievements, shedding tears on my sorrows, smiling on my ability make people smile, and also evaluating my performance to give something someday...someday when I will really need it and he would be the only capable of giving.

Flat Cocktail!

Watched cocktail and simply didn’t like it. I was left baffled thinking how Imtiaz Ali could have written a story sewn around weak characters and empty bonds?

Cocktail didn’t work for me. And the reasons are here

1.       A rich bitch finds a vulnerable Indian girl crying in a washroom and brings her home. Overnight they become not good but best friends. Why? How? I simply couldn’t figure out.

2.       The best parts about imitiaz’s earlier outings were the real characters and the real bonds they shared. Here it was all made up and fake. Meera says,”yeh ghar aur coffee main sirf gautam ke saath share kar sakti hun. Aur yeh use kabhi pata nahi chalna chaiye”. What kind of bond does this line suggests.

3.       Saif has got into a habit of playing roles 10 years younger to his actual age. But no matter how much you swear to yoga for keeping age away, it does show! Watching two beautiful ladies by his side, when they can be easily mistaken as his daughters is indeed painful.

4.       Boman Irani is such a talented actor that it hurts to see him wasted in non competent role.

Well these were the things that didn’t work for me but it would be unfair to highlight only the downside. Cocktail has its swings too. Dimple Kapadia playing the ultimate Punjabi mom brings in the refreshing break from the monotonous characters we see daily around ourselves, breathtaking locations, and of course Deepika’s style statement.

This was my side of story on cocktail. Would love to read your reviews too.

Tell Me If You Know The Answer...:-(

Internet, news channels, newspapers, everyone is debating over the safety of women in our country after the incident of molestation of a girl by around 20 people took place. It fills me with shame and anger, helplessness and tenacity towards the attitude of the people in this country. Who is to be blamed? The girl who stepped out of her house late at night in a wild country full beasts? The men who have been brought up with the notion that no matter whatever they do, they will always have the authority to turn the tide to themselves? Or the society which has succeeded incessantly in keeping the gap between the two genders? Or the authorities who could not care less?

This takes me to an incident which keeps giving me goose bumps even after 10 years.

I remember playing on the terrace with my sister on a sunny winter day. A friend of mine came upstairs in a hurry as if someone has stolen his new pencil box and whispered something into my ear which I did not understand. “Jules has been raked” were his words. Jules was 5 year old, a daughter of a worker in our locality. She was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. Golden locks, deep brown eyes, rosy complexion and everything else you would never imagine on a poor worker’s child. After that day, I never saw her again.

I tried asking my mom about her but my inquisitiveness was always put to rest. A 10 year old will never be interested in what “being raked” means. So I let it pass as easily as it came to me.

Jules was raped by a man who was 27 years old. Her parents left the place after filing the police complaint and watching the bastard being freed in just a week of judicial custody. On what grounds you want to ask? I will tell you...The man was proved to be mentally retarded.

A five year old was raped, of her childhood, her innocence, her free spirit...

I was ten and my mind was fickle. But why did the world around me behave like 10 years old?

Why did not my parents do something?

Why was the man easily forgiven by the court and by the society when the poor girl had to be taken away by her family?

Why?

Tell me if you know the answer.

"i stood up"

Being You!

You are practical, insensitive and emotionally drained!

I grew up hearing these compliments (I choose to take them that way) from every soul who was close to me and over a period of time I started believing in them too. Acting stronger than I was, being a loner when all I wanted was a long conversation over a cup of coffee, getting on without support when a little help would have actually made it better and being someone else when my inner self was dying to surface above.

  In short, I screwed up and I am happy to admit now. I took refuge in somebody else’s perception and let it take all control. I took the practicality as my perfection and thought that any kind of attachment will cause me nothing but pain. And I actually went through a lot of pain not because of attachment but because of lack of it. The shell of loneliness that I created has left a void in me which I find difficult to fill now.   

  I can no longer fill these voids as they have become big enough to engulf me but I hope to peacefully coexist with them. Living with them every moment will make me surer of who I am and who I was being.

This reminds me of these very beautiful lines by Janis Joplin

“Never compromise yourself; you are all you have got”

DO aur DO...PANCH!!

I thank myself for the time when I started keeping journals or my spell in despair would have continued for many more days to come. It has been months that I have been whining about my precarious state of life in every possible way. Staying away from socialising, lashing out on siblings, trying to run away from home, cursing my parents for mistakes they don’t even know about and of course being unhappy to the core.

   Nothing helps but aggravates it in very possible way. But just when I decided to stop fighting it learn to live with it; a blessing clad in the most stupid attire came my way. I was going through my old journals and an entry dated 27^th June 2003 caught my attention and gave me a sudden laughter attack. It actually had lines of song from an old Hindi movie with a 2 page description of how elated and confident I felt those days after hearing the song.

   Just after I came to my senses and was about to shrug the entry as a sign of mere childishness, a sense of guilt was all over me. Guilt of letting my fears and doubts take over my free spirit and receptivity, guilt of building a shell around me and guilt of getting into the cynical habit of finding reasons.

   This world is driven crazy by reasons where we don’t even smile without one. We continue to put ifs and buts and whys to the end of every sentence. So I guess it’s time to loosen up a bit, travel back to the times where knew nothing but to stay happy and dream and let the child in us stay alive forever. Whatever happens in the end, we will happy moments to cheer and celebrate for.

Heres the lines from the ultra funny song

“ jo soche jo chahein woh karke dikhade

Hum woh hai jo do aur do paanch bana de”

J