Feeling Blue

Having given up on ever understanding me, my parents have started seeking divine explanations in the hopes that fate, cosmic interventions and destiny all play a stronger part in my life than my own choices do. Possibly because they don't like the choices I make or hope to counter them with some help from the stars. I still haven't resolved the inner debate on fate vs choice and while I have my fair share of eastern fatalism I do like to think I have control over some things. 
So when there's a question of fate can horoscopes and astrologers be far behind? I don't pretend to know much about astrology and since I haven't delved into the science it claims to be based on I prefer to be dictated by, for lack of a better word - philosophy or systems of reasoning, that I can actually make sense of.
The root of this whole rigmarole of an explanation lies in a very recent analysis made by an astrologer about, not the havoc planets and constellations were wreaking on my life, but the effect colours were. Yep, that's right.
Ok so I know blue is a 'cool' colour, red is a 'warm' colour and all the frequency stuff and green being soothing but I hadn't realized that astrologers had started including colours as makers of fate in their repertoire. I actually wonder if having run out of regular reasons like planetary misalignment and warped orbits wreaking havoc on my life the astrologer had to pull something out of his hat in desperation and voila! colour it was!
Whatever may the case be, a slight twist to this is that the guy actually got it spot on that my curtains were blue. He then theorized that the blue colour was to blame for a number of unnamed things and I need to immediately drench my life in yellow. This is the part I really hate - when a wild guess mixes with the little bit of eastern fatalism streak I have and messes with my mind.
 A small part of my brain is egging me on to go on and experiment and change my curtains to yellow; after all it's harmless, they're only curtains and it's not like I'm going to change them and then sit around waiting for yellow to work its miracle and transform my life. "What if there are golden opportunities I've been missing which I won't even know, because my curtains are blue?"
That's when the inner struggle begins.
"So you think if you change them everything will start going right? What's been going wrong anyway?"
"Well but how do I know they can't go more right than they are going now?"
"But if they go along the same as before will you start getting annoyed at yellow for not doing it's work? Or if something great happens it's no credit to you and it's all credit to yellow curtains?"
"Ummmmm no, but I can just change them and then forget about it. No harm right?"
"What if something not nice happens? Then you'll start thinking you were better off with blue"
"Uhhhh maybe"
"And then you're going to stop thinking you're responsible for anything that happens to you and ..."
At this point my mind descends in to general chaos.Do I need the crutch of this mumbo jumbo? Dare I invite the wrath of the colour deities?  This, over the colour of my curtains, mind you.
The jury is still out on this one. In the meantime I will listen to "Yellow" by Coldplay and hope that it counts in some measure against the cosmic war blue is waging on my fate.

India shining. But do you guys have ketchup?

Some years before the Indian IT storm hit the world and made people sit up and get acquainted with the actual India as opposed to their romantic notions of it, I happened to be in my role of 'foreign student' in Canada and fielded many ludicrous queries, all to do with people's perceptions of what India and Indians should be like. Most of them were amusing, some quite dumb and a few downright offensive - at least then.

In retrospect all these questions and comment were funny and good fodder for a post. Some were of course the expected ones but some really creative ones left me quite speechless momentarily! Here goes

This is six months into my first year and I'm eating in the campus grill with a friend who I've gotten to know quite well and watching me eat fries he suddenly asks "Do you guys have ketchup in India?". I'm not the authority on what the mark of a developed country, but apparently ketchup is.

Then there was a time I was returning a few library books and got chatting with the librarian who had a pleasant enough conversation with me but I could see by the end of it wanted to say something but didn't know if she should. So mustering all her courage she complimented me on my fluent English considering I must have learned it only in the last two years or so. I mean the English part is a standard question but this was the first time someone assumed I picked it up in two years!

 Another gem from ketchup friend - "how did you get to the airport to catch your flight to Canada, I mean are there roads and cars?" So we can have international flights going around the globe but we're going to bloody make sure noone can take those by not building any roads to the airport.

I don't know if it's what they show on TV and news and documentaries but when someone asked me whether we have bathrooms in India, I really wanted to sue TV channels for the broad, generic and stereotypical portrayal of  India which I think influences the perceptions of most people quite a bit.

These were the ones that stood out in my memory, there were plenty of smaller such incidents and after a while I gave up trying to earnestly explain the reality behind their assumptions.

You know you're from a small town when....

1. When you go back to visit, within an hour of your arrival, most people you know have heard that you're in town. Without you ever telling anyone explicitly

2. When your parents and their friends sit and talk it's not unusual to hear stories dating way back from THEIR high school days 30-40 years ago

3. You have credit with almost all the neighbourhood stores, and some of the ones in the 'main market' as well.

4. Any place more than 2 km away is 'far'.

5. Your provisions & groceries are almost always bought from the local store or sabji-waala, who more often than not lands up with his cart right at your door every morning

6. When some random person in some random location of the world asks if you happen to know such-and-such person because he happens to be from the same town as you, the most likely answer is 'yes'.

7. The streets or roads don't have distinct names or if they do, no one uses them except when they really have to write their address.

8. Cyclerickshaws!

9. Seeing an odd horse, camel or elephant casually stroll down your street doesn't invite comment.

10. You mostly shop in multi-local-brand stores in which the shop owner stands behind a counter and pulls out stuff from shelves to show to you. When you don't know what you want he'll patiently pull out every single item from the shelves if need be.

11. The idea of international cuisine is Indian Chinese & at the most - Pizzas. MNC chain restaurants exist but people dress up to go to them.

12. A rickety chair under a shady tree functions as a perfectly good barber shop.

13. Frequent battles are waged amongst the women over the house help since everyone knows where and who they work for.

...

13 seems a good number to stop at. Would love additions to this so do contribute, esp if you're from a small town. (does that amount to town-ism?)

in a tearing hurry to be late

Indians, as most of us would know, are not exactly lauded for their punctuality. We're perennially late - for meetings, for appointments, for parties, for weddings, possibly even exams. We also tolerate other people's disregard of our time with remarkably good humour. Obviously, since we've done the same to him or her or are very likely to do so someday.
Which is why the complete absence of patience in anyone driving/riding/pushing/kicking/sitting on any sort of moving contraption (vehicle is a severely limiting word for Indian roads) on Indian roads is a complete mystery to me. Everyone on the road seems to be involved in a loony race where even the tiniest victory is achieved by incessant honking, incredible amounts of mathematical calculations ( all of which are an impossibility), extreme faith to be able to disregard the mathematical conclusion and go ahead with whatever route occurs to the driver/rider/pusher/kicker/sitter on the spur of that moment.
We danged well know we're late for whatever it is we're headed for but shaving off three nanoseconds by -
1. Honking at everything in front of you till your kingdom come
2. swerving dangerously close to the oncoming traffic or the other lane to show the guy in front of you that you mean business and pray he gives you way and scoots a bit to the side
3. risking life & limb, cutting off the other guy behind who's trying to do the exact same thing to you and zooming through the tiny window of opportunity eked out
4. avoiding the guy from the opposite lane who's also successfully carried out honk-swerve-zoom operation
5. triumphantly cruising ahead savouring the joy of getting ahead
- gives us joy only equaled by the joy Indians feel when we haggle something for free from someone.
We will wait with infinite patience for meetings to begin; if movies start late we contentedly eat yet another samosa; classes beginning late is perfect, in fact we're ok if they don't start at all and a million other such things. But put us on a road and we will turn into raving lunatics with a sole purpose - to get ahead of the thing in front of us. Somehow. Anyhow.
Come to think of it this strange behaviour is not limited to roads. It seems to apply to all things moving - buses, elevators, airplanes and even lines!
Ever waited for an elevator with a group of people? The doors would have just started opening and there is everyone scrambling to get into it. So what if there are people who might be waiting to get out. They're most likely other Indians and if they haven't learned the art of pushing ahead by now, well there's pretty much no hope left for them in life.
Lines or queues are supposed to move. In principle. In India lines just like traffic lanes are actually fictional. It's against our religion (You know all the different religions there are in India? Well it's against all of them) to stand in line. So instead of an orderly first-in-first-out kind of sequence Indian queues actually resemble a perfect model of Brownian Motion which is easily explained by the fact that everyone wants to be the first person in the line. If you try to politely remind someone who's brazenly cut in front of you that you're in line his laughter will echo in your ears till your dying day. Why do all of us want to be first in line? So that we can finish whatever we have to quickly and then spend the time saved in ensuring we're late for whatever it is we're supposed to do next.
So my fellow Indians hurry away. The next thing to be late for awaits you!

My year end recap...

Started the year with brand new vision. No really, I got laser surgery. Die lenses die.

Got a brand new nephew as well. A cute one at that.

Definitely got fatter.

Almost learned how to play the drums. Almost

Attended interminable number of weddings slash engagements – cuz1 wedding-engagement, cuz2 engagement, yeti engagement, bug engagement, bug wedding1, bug wedding 2 (to the same guy), cuz3 engagement-sangeet-wedding, yeti wedding & another two I almost made it to. Whew.

Tried Kimam paan. Never. Again. EVER.

Got a lot of traveling done mostly in short weekend getaway format & a superb 2 week trip to visit nephew. This is not counting the six times I traveled back & forth 3000 Km to home & back.

The brilliant weekend trips – ecocamping in Jan, Goa yet again in April, Suddhaghad trekking pre-monsoon, waterfall rappelling in the monsoon (awesome!), Lavasa post-monsoon, Kashid & Murud on a whim, Ahemdabad & Kimam paan in September, Panchgani & Mahabaleshwar to kickstart the winter and full circle back to ecocamping in Dec.

Spent my birthday AND new year's eve 09 on the road. The after party for both was fun though.

Improved - driving skills (that's debatable of course) & courage meter & a whole host of other things which slip my mind for some reason

Worsened - french, weighing scale, alcohol meter, road rage

Status quo on a lot of things - but that's another post.