The mystery of the silence

"What the *&^&^%!!! Why cant she say something back!!!" Used to be my reaction when I would watch those tension ridden scenes in Bollywood or Tamil movies where the Hero or the Mom In Law would say something super rude and the heroine would just stare back without a retort. And I would be seething inside! Totally relating myself to the crying Heroine, I would rant and storm about the villanous antagonists who were setting themselves against the leading lady. But I NEVER did understand why the leading lady wouldn't retort with something clever and equally evil! I would be creating my own scripts for the lady (of the hour), and imagining her seeking her verbal revenge on her torturers!
What mystified me even more was why many leading ladies wouldnt speak out even when they had something to say in their defense....something which would prove their innocence in a situation where they were being victimized for something that was not their fault at all. Being a pretty vocal person myself, I could never understand the reason for taking blame, criticization, etc when I didnt have to or when it didnt apply to me.

But off late, I have been seeing a slight change in my own attitudes and behavior. Surprisingly, I found myself in 2 to 3 situations where I was in a position where I had to be silent even when I knew that I could extract myself out of a situation with a few well placed words.I couldnt even express my own deeply felt emotions and feelings and was stuck with them in my throat and staring at my "antagonist" of the hour!!! Noooooooooooo!!! I do NOT want to be THAT lady. I mean, come on! I have spent hours creating clever responses to difficult situations and when the situation presented itself in a silver platter, I was struck dumb!!
For the past 25 years, I have never had a problem expressing exactly what I felt in words. It's one of my gifts. It is one of the similarities I have with a long standing friend of mine. But off late, I found some instances when I couldn't even tell HER some things that were foremost in my mind!!! Wow!! Times do change and so do people!! I never thought I would see the light of the day when I couldn't spout out my mind and share my thoughts exactly as I thought them. Is this part of growing up? is this some emotional growth or (on second thoughts) emotional stunted growth that happens eventually to all people? I don't know. But you know what - it actually feels good to not lay all your peanuts on the plate!! Like your own little personal pearl of thought that you don't have to share, for it may not be perceived the same way and in being perceived differently, may lose some of its eloquence that was present in the thought originally....or just because you don't want to share it....because you don't know how! Iam unable to put my finger on it.....on the feeling that drives this behavior....do you know something about?

Isnt Money a beautiful thing??!!

I know the title sounds like an exclamation of Joy from a materialist...But this was the thought that I had when I saw the below picture on the walls of a War Memorial built into a historic Prison site in Seoul, South Korea.

In the War memorial, I got to see various kinds of torture chambers that the Japanese had used on the Koreans, during their invasion of Korea and the Korean fight back for freedom, from 1910 to 1945. I even got to see a moving testimony from some of the men and women who had survived the war and lived to tell the tale, of how heartless the imperialists were. Some of them in the video had no hands, no legs or no nails, as they were cut off by the Japanese torturers, but they somehow had a heart strong enough to fight through all the hurdles and bring freedom to their country!

Intrigued, I started a conversation with the War memorial-museum Manager who was a seeming lady of around 40, and she said with barely suppressed emotion, that "All we are expecting, is a 'Sorry' and an acceptance of the troubles and tortures that the Koreans have faced by the Japanese.If not for the innovatively designed torture chambers reserved for the Korean freedom fighters, we deserve an an apology at least to the 'Comfort women' who were exploited in ways unimaginable by the Japanese military...But even a simple apology is not something that the Japanese are ready to give."

I came back home to Shanghai and narrated this incident to some of my friends, and their response was an angry eruption, but a totally expected one. "They will never say Sorry. Why should they? Unless they are pushed into a corner, they will not. Its all about the power game and about who plays their pawns at the right time to get the right result! Right now, Japan is in a position of power and will not bow down, but maybe sometime in the future...." and they wistfully looked with glazed eyes, into a future, where I imagine a Japanese official is on his knees offering them a lengthy apology!

One of the more pragmatic ones however said, " But today, we need them. Our country is not yet so self sufficient, that we can afford to spoil our relations with Japan." How true!  From electronics, to heavy machinery, when it comes to quality products, the Chinese localites prefer Japanese products and so do the Koreans. When we look at the trade charts of China and Korea, Japan is high up on the %age of trade that the countries carry on with each other.

On one hand. we have the foreign ministries of Korea, China and Japan trying to solve various bloody land disputes even today,which positively laughs at the idea of the countries having any other meaningful relationship, and yet, incredibly, on the other hand, we have the economic ministers drafting new and improved trade policies to enhance trade between the countries. Well yes, the countries are still struggling hard to find their peace with the bloody past that they share. But the beautiful master plan of providence has balanced the resources of the countries in such a way that, both China and Korea, because of necessity, require to maintain an intensive trade relationship with Japan and vice versa. Maybe this is Nature's way of forcing them to make peace with the past, by making them deal with each other through an unemotional monetary relationship that contributes to their countries' growth and their people's happiness, and thus could be an indirect balm on the wounds of past! If Money can actually bring countries together, can make them forget a horrific and bloody past and shake hands in the hope of a better tomorrow, isn't it a beautiful thing?

Dealing with stuff....

When you have a huge generation gap between ur siblings, you'll know what I mean. WHen they do grow up, you have a second round of adolescence - a second chance to do all the stupid things that you did before or werent bold enough to do!

Now some will take it and let them have their adolescence instead of being the elder sibling telling them what to do and what not to do.....but some will do just that! Now u cant say either way is wrong, one is done with a desire to let them live their life and another is done with a genuine concern...

Is there an optimum approach? I dont know,and I sure dont wanna know....Lets just do our thing right...why does it always have to be the right thing?....sometimes it could just be "my" thing! ...

Change...again!

I always have mixed thoughts about change...any kind of change for that matter...
I still remember when I touched and felt every fiber of my old home in Bangalore 10 years ago, before i had to move to a hostel...for the very first time in my life. I was excited till the day before. But when the time came to leave, I had no idea why the hell I was going through this seemingly ultra stupid adventure! I mean....who was I kidding? I was totally gonna miss my Mom's food and my brother's banging my head with a bat and my Father's heavenly voice waltzing through the living room. But then, that didn't change the fact that I ended up in a totally new place with new faces the next day.

Not that this has anything to do with anything - 

I just really liked it!

When I moved from India to China, the last few days in India, every day saw visitors streaming into my house saying "good bye"! Every time I heard new footsteps at home, I thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life by moving to Shanghai - I mean, for heaven's sake, they eat snakes there! How can it be possibly be a good place? But that didn't stop me from catching my final view of India from the flight and marveling at the jewelled beauty that my country was,before beginning to pray that Shanghai didn't turn out to be the gargantuan devilish destination I had convinced myself that it would be.....
So the common thread in each of these "change" related situations is that no matter how bad I felt about it, I DID it.It didn't have the power to stop me on my tracks and turn back. It just made me cherish my previous memories with a vengeance!
Now, in the same strain, Iam moving houses in Shanghai....and I am feeling really really wistful....If only..

Its the usual question - WHY? God! Why??

My 2 roomies (a German guy and a German girl ) are really awesome. Really. They know when to talk and when to give u space. They don't care about a dirty kitchen and ALWAYS LOVE my cooking....they are constantly surprised by how awesome Indian food is, and fill up the larder with fruits whenever it gets close to empty. And they dont mind being a little late to office to accommodate my errant bathroom schedules...And best of all, we all LOVE the same TV Series so weekends are sometimes a lazy haze with beer, bagels, cream cheese and a sitcom of choice....(the current 'house fav' is Boardwalk Empire....I am not in awe of it, but they both love it,and I don't have the heart to tell them that its not all that awesome:-))...and now, after all that, this weekend we part. Its not like we will never meet each other. we have the same social circles so we will still bump into each other...but it just wont be the same....
I can only hope my new home is a 'homey' as this one....Miss u Isabelle and Rapheal....thanks for making this house a home for me!

They Did all this and more!!!

Dads Girl

I was blog hopping....something I have taken to lately...and I found this
http://www.usmc81.com/2011/12/rules-dating-marines-daughter/

While it was hilarious, I wistfully wish that my country had a similiar cultural structure where the guy-date of the day wears a tux and nervously waits at the door to pick up his girl-date for the day.

As he does so, he is subjected to the merciless inspection of the girl's parents (read above link to know how nerve wracking it can get). This is a cliched scene from every hollywood rom-com, but Iam sure it would be something if it happened to oneself - whether a boy or a girl...what say?!!

Of course, you can have the Indian version, where the boy can come cycling around the house of his sweetheart, trying to catch a glimpse of that beloved face, exchange a look, a smile and that would be his date of the day!! And if the father perchance happened to see this exchange, of course, all hell would break lose!!! There is no question of the boy saying "I will surely bring back your girl before midnight!!"!!!! I can only imagine an Indian father's reaction if any guy said that to the father and requested to take her out for the night!!

Of course times have changed and the Indian Dads have become more relaxed! The next gen girls probably have a chance of experiencing the scenario stated above....But I do wish, that that girl could have been me......maybe my daughter, if I have one, would see that day, and I would pat her head with a mysteriuous smile that she curiously tries to decipher.....well, YOU would know what that smile was about wouldn't you :-)!!

At Cross Roads...

Should I or shouldnt I?

My head's gonna explode trying to answer this question...A thought just streaks across my mind that we are fried and tossed most times not with the complex questions but with the simplest of em! Some example are  - "Why me, God!? Why me?!", "What am I DOING?", How did I get here?, What am I going to do now? and blah blah blah..if you get my drift.....

Well...who said having 9 lives was an advantage?!!

But I digress....fortunately, at this point, Iam only concerned with ONE of these seemingly easy puzzlers. I think, for those of us who take life as it comes to us, the worst thing that can happen to us is to have to make a CHOICE! Ughhh! Hell, I have trouble trying to choose between 2 pairs of shoes with same color and pattern but just different Heel lengths! (to myself - "Hmmm, maybe the higher heel looks sexier, but the shorter one sure is  more comfortable....should I be sexy (Not that I can, even if I try, ....but then, a girl can hope!)  or comfortable?"). Now thats a lifestyle choice....and THATS gonna take a much longer time.....so basically, as the smaller choices are imperatively linked to some bigger choices, I end up dreading the whole experience of making a choice in its totality!
Now, given that (PSYCHO)logical background, you can imagine my Horror of having to make a choice, now, when I have reached a cross roads in Life! 


Getting to the point....
Now here's a precurser to those who are not familiar with the (ancient) Indian way of doing things. In the west, before you hear any wedding bells or the "Dam Dam da dam", the fates would have to carefully and strategically arrange the schedules of 2 totally random people to clash and meet and fall in love! Now thats some serious work for the mother of destiny, mind you. On the other hand, Indians dont believe in giving anyone too much work. If you have the inclination, getting married in India is relatively simple. Just match your birth stars with those of a prospective partner. if they match - Boom! You have a wedding date! ( I have a HUGE grudge against the damn stars for precluding so many nice young men from making it into my prospective partner list!).
but then, yes, you must have caught the glitch by now....the issue is that the girl has to make a CHOICE between prospective partners!! Now if I cant choose between heels, How the &^%%$* am I gonna choose a life partner??!  You know, they are all nice, (well not All, but Iam  not about to abuse them all on social media, Am I?)....One has an awesome education, another looks great, another can sing like a bird, another lives in an exotic European country....well, you get the drift....
And the worst part is that most of them have unbelievably short deadlines! Today you see the guy's pic and tomorrow, you gotta write down your vows! COME ON!
Phew! All I can do is send a silent prayer to my god (Most Indian gods are couples as well, but conviniently most of them married for Love! Wonder where the arranged marriage concept came from then....anyway, coming back to the point) to miraculously make my mind when the time and the "right guy" comes along.....after all....the stars can only take up so much blame right?!!