Ok so here's what Facebook has revealed about me. I have the intellectual capacities of Leo Tolstoy, sex appeal of Marilyn Monroe, the good heartedness of Beauty from Beauty and the Beast

I am sick of people reaching conclusions about me, all of which go so horribly wrong

I need to get back to work..

I now have a mellower view of people who have stayed exactly where they started. It's not that they didn't want to leave. It's just that nobody was willing to have them.

So how does one become friends with one's ex? This thought has been coming up to me a no of times especially after I saw 3 of my friends exchanging messages with their exs on Facebook. and by messages I mean pretty cool and casual messages, just like you would like to know about the latest updates on your acquaintance's

ahhh..the pleasure of having the entire office room to myself while I listen to my favorite songs..wish it would stay this way....

My dilemma of the day: what do I do when I return back from work? Do I pore over my French text-books, sacrificing our daily dinner at the hands of our domestic help or do I try out new recipes for a dinner that can compensate for my lunch fare of roti and sabzi everyday? I cooked a delicious egg-curry with mustard paste yesterday which came at the cost of my French revisions. What do I do tonight?

So another lovely weekend comes to an end and another mad week begins at work. It's back to the old routine that had completely taken over my life from August to November last year, simply because I had started learning French in the evenings after work. And had to give two exams in 3.5 months. And also had to travel on work, and write my paper for the Hildesheim conference. Now I must admit that I just don't have a flair for languages. Even though I have done very well in my course, I have found that I need to keep up with a new language on a daily basis if I ever hope to grasp any of it seriously. So I am beginning my advanced course from today, and I am desperately hoping that I haven't forgotten all the basics that I learnt last year. Coz that would be a real shame!
Oh and the books that we bought from the bookfair: I bought only 2,not succumbing to my temptation and successfully sticking to my resolution of not buying any books till I finish the ones I already have bought. In fact my book cupboard is bursting at seams with the books that I hope to read someday.
A bought 3 books, each so disconnected from the other that it would be very difficult to draw conclusions about A, the Reader from the books that he bought. I mean what can one say about a guy who buys Ibn-E-Batuta's travelogue, a collection of love poems in the long-forgotten Prakrit language, and Salim ALi's autobiogarphy?

It's been more than a month since I blogged last, but with the change in jobs, blogging seems harder this time. With the increase in salary also comes the greater scrutiny of what you have been up to everyday. In fact every time I have started typing out a new set of words, I have expected my new boss to come inside the room and demand to see what I am up to. And with no computer at home, this has almost stopped my blogging. I have had so many blog ideas since December: talking about the movies I saw, the books I read, the lovely jungle safaris in MP that we went for, even about the new place of work..but something has been coming up which makes my divert my attention to something else other than the blog at hand. And now with the advanced French course re-starting from Monday and another abstract submission that I am planning, I would have to really struggle to find time. But I would try to do at least one post a week. Now that's my third new year's resolution, the other two being baking and swimming. Ah...the efforts one must make to add meaning to one's life!

A surprising Monday....managing to pack in a lunch and a movie, in between visits to an ENT surgeon, a general surgeon, a dentist and an X Ray lab.

Onno Kothao, Onno Konokhane

Ahhh..finally a long over-due uninterrupted blogging break..thanks to a half an hour delay in my flight schedule. Now I can finally get around to typing out the post that I started writing on pen and paper, and so it follows:
I have had a very hectic week at work which is nearly snapping at my mental energy level. I have been continuously on travel since Monday, packing in more than 10 hours of work days, in the company of a senior medical doctor who is sometimes forgets that there are people in his team other than HIMSELF. However, I don't deny that being part of a government health programme evaluation team has its advantages. In fact all the 'mai-baap' attitude put on display since our arrival on Monday morning is quite heady-along with the white ambi with stickers in front telling the world who we are,the obsequious smiles on the faces of the people around us, the air of expectation that hangs around the people we meet, the attention that our impromptu meetings in villages draw, the doors to the highest officials in the district opening magically..in fact its quite easy to understand the lure of a sarkari job in India. Who wouldn't love the attention, the best of all creature comforts that sarkari money can buy, the options of making some easy money on the side?
But I digress. The reason why I had this sudden urge to put pen on paper during a meeting with rural health workers is the emotional disconnect that I am currently feeling with the job at hand. I think I am mentally fatigued. My mind, always used to being stretched like an elastic to give more than hundred percent in my job, is finally rebelling. Therefore the meeting sees me pretending to write down the minutes, whereas I am furiously scribbling away, writing something else altogether. All that consumes my mind is where else would I like to be. And my mind throws up a prompt answer. Far away from here. Somewhere where the sky is blue, the sun shines bright, the pine-scented air blows across, and there is always the magic of the white mountains on the horizon. There. Where I can reach people but no one can reach me, me with my long walks through the wooded paths, waking up to birds chirping, and falling asleep in the balcony reading 'The Kindly Ones'. Yes, that's where I would like to be..not here, not here.

I have never been heavier than I am right now at almost 60 kgs, which is about 5-6 kgs heavier than what I ought to be. I have never had a problem with my weight before, and therefore dealing with this is unchartered territory. Of course I know what the answer to that is: to get up early in the morning and go for at least long walks sustained at a furious pace. But even the prospect of an approaching lifetime being over-weight is not enough to motivate me to give up on one pleasure of life that I still cling to: waking up late in the morning, postponing the beginning of the day till it can't be ignored any longer, the feel of the soft duvet against my skin on cold winter mornings..

Leaving..

Finally I can breathe easy. At least my desperation to get myself out of the professional rut that had swallowed me for the last one year will not cloud my mind anymore. The feeling that I was a mere footnote in the running of the organisation and that I was not doing justice to my capabilities by sticking on may now be a thing of the past. Why I say 'may' is because like all things in life, I am also treading into the new job territory softly. Since I live most of my life in a heightened state of awareness about what the future may bring, I do not throw myself headlong into any new experience without also thinking of the ways in which it can go wrong. Is this pessimism? I do not know. But this is certainly a defense mechanism that I have built up around myself just to ensure that my heart is that much safe if the dream breaks up ever.

Another gem I came across on a friend's post:

Not nothing (by Erich Fried)

without you
but not the same

Not nothing
without you
but perhaps less

Not nothing
but less
and less

Perhaps not nothing
without you
but not much more

Weekends are the time for coupling and warm embrace, and emotional disconnect from the rest of the world.

Sometimes I need to get used to my own insignificance.
"... At most I am a heavy and clumsy pestle
Mashing good and bad together
For a little taste
And a little fragrance.
Arrows do not direct me. I conduct
My business carefully and quietly
Like a long will that began to be written
The moment I was born.
Now I stand at the side of the street
Weary, leaning on a parking meter.
I can stand here for nothing, free.
I'm not a car, I'm a person,
A (wo) man-god, a god-(wo) man
Whose days are numbered.”

Love After Love: Derek Walcott

Just saw this poem on a friend's page on Facebook and connected with it instantly. How often do we forget to value ourselves, swayed over by our love for others.

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

I now have a mellower view of people who have stayed exactly where they started. It's not that they didn't want to leave. It's just that nobody was willing to have them.

I am counting hours, waiting for Friday evening. I look forward to spending the weekend doing nothing. Maybe just curling up with the as-yet-unopened Puja Barshikis that Maa and Baba brought with them from Cal. And maybe, just maybe, brushing up on my French lessons. And what about having some biriyani? And to top of it off with ice-cream with brownies? Ahhh..what bliss!