the big move

Having lived my whole life in one city, in one country I must admit that leaving everything I have ever known behind and joining my husband across the world was, well, challenging. We were moving to a small industrial town of Duisburg in Germany. Looking at the place on google, it was the least fascinating of all the cities in Europe. I had no idea what I was in for, but I knew I that my ‘year in Europe’ sounded super cool, and nothing else, it would make for a great hashtag for social media.

My husband had one shipment from his company that allowed him to send everything he needed to this new unknown place. That was left up to me. I must admit I had a bit of a panic attack. Sending a life in a cardboard box seemed too daunting for me. I carefully chose toys, books, clothes and food that we may possibly need in this new unknown. Despite my midnight google-ing of this small town, I had no idea what it had to offer. Let me let you in on one of the most random panic questions that crossed my mind: “What if they don’t have Rice?”
Well, spoiler alert, they do.

The first week I was here I could only think of the things I left behind. Travelling with two suitcases packed to the brim with ‘stuff’.

I am no Marie Kondo, but I honestly don’t miss the cupboard bursting with clothes. I don’t miss the toys overflowing from boxes, although perhaps my 4-year old may disagree. I don’t miss the travelling to work, those grueling two hours in a traffic jam. I don’t miss the heat. I don’t miss the pollution.
I do miss some things though. I miss a friendly face in the office. I miss talking in a language that people understand. I miss not standing out like a sore ‘brown’ thumb. I miss my son having the time of his life with his friends, he’s not made any yet here and that is quite sad for a mom. I miss having adults to talk to during the day. As much as I enjoy my son, there’s a limit to the amount of 4-year-old conversations I can take. I miss not converting everything into rupees (yes, my middle-class self is still doing that, do not judge me) I miss, and this may seem strange, ambient noise. The first night I was here I swear I could hear my own stomach rumble (very disconcerting that). I miss my dad. I miss my pillows. I miss chaos.

Having been here over a month now, I realized why I had so much panic as I packed. Because deep down I knew that the things I would miss most of all… could never have been sent in a little cardboard box.

promenade of numbers

There are Six guys, all dressed in black, taking turns to jump from a grassy patch to a slab of concrete about four feet away. I hear claps, as one of the guys makes the jump, the second guy flexes his arms, and spot jumps, prepping for his turn. I'm not sure what the purpose is, maybe it's a new exercise fad? Or perhaps a new Olympic sport? Whatever it is, these guys All have an uncommon interest in it.

There are Five people standing in a circle, a man in dread-locks plays on a small drum, the others hoot and chant. They all look like a rave party in Goa threw up on them. I spot the neon-coloured embroidered "Om" fanny pack from a mile away. I glance over as a crowd begins to form around them. The louder they play, the bigger the crowd. It is some kind of 'drum circle'. The crowd doesn't understand what these people are doing, but in India it doesn't take much to get a crowd.

There are Four middle-aged women all in 'shalwar kameez' and brand new Nike shoes. They squeeze together on a a single bench, all trying to get a word in, gossiping on their routine evening "walk".

There are Three young girls dressed in small shiny clothes, ready for the night of clubbing they have been preparing for. They pose with each other, in every combination possible, and finally ask an innocent passerby to take a picture of them. They all secretly hope they look the best, so it can be their Facebook profile picture.

There are many Two's: couples sitting under trees, on benches, in the bushes, on the rocks. There are crowds of them, each engrossed in their own private moment. Some are in the middle of a lovers quarrel, some are about to kiss, and some have been together for so long, that they stare in opposite directions, but still hold hands.

And then there is the One, Me, walking home from work, slightly hunched from the weight of the world. Bag in one hand and a bright golden inflatable guitar in the other.

bucket list

Okay, so I’m not dying. But I am turning thirty in a couple of months and I am appalled that I have already reached my thirtieth year of life and I have hardly done anything worth writing about. Ergo, I have formed a mini bucket list of stuff to do before I turn thirty-five (I’ve taken the liberty of giving myself 5 years extra since I’m not likely to accomplish much in 2 months.)

I want to start by concentrating on writing my book. This has always been a vision I have had, and one of the big reasons I spent fifty grand on a laptop. Sadly, I have spent most of my time watching movies on the laptop, and hardly any writing. MS Word is the least opened software on my computer. This has also suddenly become a priority after I found out that my trainee has written a book, which is in the process of being published. (I could make excuses that I have worked for 7 years and have had no time to breath, while she is fresh out of summer vacations, but I’m not going to go there.)

I want to travel to an exotic country, with or without a companion. Maybe Greece. I’ve always wanted to go to Greece. My fear of travelling alone, dying in a gutter with no passport and identity and then being an unclaimed Jane Doe in some foreign land, should soon be overcome, because I am determined.

I want to work somewhere other than this city. I want to experience what an advertising agency is outside of this ass-licking place. It’s probably more ass-licking: different asses, same frenzied licking.

I want to learn how to perfect the art of everyday makeup. I don’t wear makeup and most days I look like a dead person. Pale lips, dark circles around my eyes and an overall pallid tone. I want to look stunning (like I did for an hour at a shoot when a makeup artist took pity on me and made me beautiful in his spare time)

I want to be proposed to. Okay, so this I cannot control or plan. But I’d really like to know that someone out there wants to spend his life with me. No one has ever popped the question. I may or may not say yes, but it’s the thought that counts, doesn’t it?

I want to have a 'go-to' group of friends. The people who are there when I am down, or have a crisis or anything else. I want to have a really good friend who is not high-maintainance and who wants to share/solve/cry about life's big issues.

I want to do up a house. Pick the curtains, shop for groceries; be worried about what to cook for dinner, stress about the prices of potatoes. This may sound strange, but I have never lived alone. And I don’t want to never ever live alone. I want to experience what that is like.

I think that’s enough for now. Don’t want to over do the list and be disappointed when I’m not done, sounds reasonable, right? It’s true, I’m older and wiser…

high potential...

it's normal

I woke up this morning feeling alright.

Then my aunt asked me what my ex ex boyfriends last name was, and I told her.
She showed me a picture of in the newspaper.
It was a marriage announcement.

I know everyone my age is getting married, so it’s not that I am shocked.

I’m just sad, even though it has been almost 8 years.

And it’s normal.
I'm sure it is...

shock

I’m not one for grapevine gossip. I don’t like it and I think most of it is just made up rubbish.

But when you hear something over and over again, about a few people you know, and it’s all within the advertising fraternity…one tends to have no choice but believe.
I’m hearing more and more stories of people in advertising who are cheating on their wives/husbands. Most of the time I dismiss it, but then it comes back stronger and with more details.

I don’t know if it is this industry or is it the people? Does this happen in every line of work, and so blatantly and rampantly? I could blame it on the industry, with its long office hours and days spent away from home on shoots and researches and meetings. But come on, just because you have work away or a late night doesn’t make you a cheater.

In the past week I have heard of a couple, both in advertising, who are now getting a divorce because he has realized that he is not compatible with her. I have also heard of a married man sleeping with anyone who is willing in his office. While his wife, also in advertising is oblivious to it. It’s disgusting.

I may be sounding like a pious soul who has not a wrong-doing to my name. But I guess I am one of those people who believe in the sanctity of marriage.

So sue me.

plummet

I was talking with one of the guys in my office when a senior walked by. He continued to talk as she passed, but he kind of got lost and mumbled some rubbish. I snapped him out of it and said, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He looked at me and said, “Oh sorry, I was staring at her ass”

“You find her hot?” I said, mildly surprised. She is a rather attractive woman.
“Smokin’” was his eloquent reply.

He continued, “All the guys think so…and they think the same of (cannot-be-revealed name here) too!”

“What? Wow… Do they think I’m hot?” I asked coyly.

He hesitates, “Er… yea, of course you are.” Comes his fake but over enthusiastic reply. I stare at him, hoping to penetrate his brain with my Truth Eyes.

“You have a GREAT personality! And amazing eyes… and a sense of humour…”

Hmmm, he lost me at Great Personality.
I plummet into the depths of depression…

anti-body

For the first time in my life, or perhaps after the longest time, I am having a huge complex about my body.

I past a Mad Over Donut shop the other day, and I had a mini craving. I walked in and I looked at all the delicious chocolate filled donuts and I had a vision of myself as an obese woman stuffing my face with donuts. It was not pretty. And I walked out immediately.

I am beginning to despise my shape. And that’s not all, I have begun to obsess about other women’s bodies in comparison to my less-than-perfect one (and that’s a first)
Everyone around me seems to be whizzing past me to the ‘Slim Side’, leaving their chubby-ness behind. And the aforementioned chubby-ness is losing grip of them, slapping on to me and clinging desperately on for dear life. Okay, not literally, but I was having one of those Ally McBeal moments.

Speaking of chubby friends moving to the ‘Slim Side’: My cousin, who has always been a large girl has suddenly rapidly lost tons of weight. So much so she is being complimented all the time by people around us. When I asked her how she was doing it, she merely said she washes her clothes everyday and that’s how the weight is staying off. That’s bollocks. And I am jealous.

My colleague has lost an amazing amount of weight too. She is being complimented every single day too. She only eats sprouts though, or rather, that’s all I have seen her eat. I say you can’t live on sprouts for the rest of your life right? Right? But I am jealous.

Another friend is losing weight every minute, or so it seems. She is doing yoga and walking. So what is she doing that I am not? I walk too. And run sometimes. But she is looking so good and I am still a ball. Yup, jealous.

And then there are those friends who are just lucky and shaped wonderfully by default. My friend has a gorgeous body. Of course she is younger than me, and has age on her side (ahem, ahem) But, having said that, she’s one of those bodies who don’t seem to put on weight. Ever.

Jealous.

And then I think, “You’re a horrible person, she is your friend, I should be ashamed of myself”

It’s not like I am obsessed with being thin. Nor do I think I am extremely fat. I just do not like my shape the way I used to.

In fact, another friend, an older woman, (who I am also extremely jealous off, by the way) has three children and what I consider to be an amazing body. She is well-endowed on top and not so petite on her bottom, and man, she is hot. I wouldn’t mind having a body like that too.

I don’t want to be a size 0: I just want to have a shape I like for God’s sake.

am i?

I have this friend who I consider to be a very close friend. Or at least I did until something very bizarre happened.

I was invited to a party, I was one of the few non-family members that were invited. I thought I was being a good friend when I tried to help her serve the appetizers etc.

I was wrong.

The next day, when I called to tell her how fabulous everything was, the food, the drinks… the whole party, she said something very strange.
She said, I’m saying this because I love you, but I will never invite you to a party again. You annoyed me. You kept coming into my kitchen and you were always in my way. I hated it, and I couldn’t handle it at all.

I was so hurt. Then I became angry. Then just plain sad…

I haven’t called her. And neither has she called me…
I’m not sure who is wrong anymore.

It lead me to remember a quote…

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?”
~ Albert Einstien

Am I?

old joy

I taught an advertising class for a communication college a week ago, and I was faced with a bunch of 21 year-old wannabes.

I remembered how I used to sit in the back of my class, writing chits, making fun of my Anthropology professor, as she struggled to speak about some random tidbit of irrelevant information. And now, here I stand before a class of fifty students, all looking at me up and down, all wondering if I am good enough to even teach them.

But I tried to be cool. I tried to talk in a casual tone.

I remembered again how my communication class used to make fun of this fuddy-duddy advertising woman who would take our class. She had no real knowledge of the profession and her entire personality annoyed me. And then again, there I was whining on about the importance of knowing what you are selling to a bunch of blank-faced children.

I tried to make it as interesting as possible; I tried to sound less like a “teacher”.

I remembered how my frustrated Math professor would yell and scream for me to ‘get up and get out’ of his class, only because I was a backbencher who made a lot of people laugh. And then there I was, watching a young boy in a green scarf surf on his laptop, while all his friends giggled around him.

It took all I had to ignore him. But after about an twenty minutes of his nonsense I pointed at him and said, “You, guy in the green scarf, if you are not interested in this class, please leave because I am not interested in having you here either…”

And with that one sentence, everything I was trying not to be, I became. I became ‘Ma’am’. I became the woman they asked ‘can I go to toilet?’

I became a fuddy-duddy, advertising professional. I became old.

But for the first time, I was very, very okay with it.

poor poor you...

There is truly nothing more pathetic than a desperate creative person...
Truly nothing...

rimmer

Dear Rimmer,
It must be awfully tiring to be such a sugar-coated, ass-licking suck up!

real life is a sitcom

I just walked up to my account management guy and asked what he was doing.

Without looking up from his computer he said, "i'm finishing a PPT".

Then as I was leaving he said, "You know, someone told me that PPT (peepeeti) in Konkani means a woman's private area..."

So, i said, "Eww, i didn't know that..."

And he said, "Neither did I, but my boss just came and asked me to quickly clean up her PPT"

:P

this is what sitcoms are made of..

not so happy to me

I turned 29 about two months ago. One step closer to thirty and eight years farther away from my twenties. Days prior to the birthday, I prepped myself—I have always had a tremendous amount of fun on my birthday, and I have always been surrounded by close friends who love me and vice-versa, so why should I be irritable?

So I accepted the day. I woke up happy, I stayed happy, I was happy on the phone, happy in ‘Thank You’ texts to friends who wished me… and even apologised to those who tried to wish me at midnight, because I was fast asleep, like old people are at midnight.

The evening came, and I was still happy. I dressed and was up and ready to leave. I reached the club with two of my closest friends and I waited. And I waited some more. And then some more. Almost one and a half hour past and no one came.

Hurt, depressed and feeling extremely old, we left the club. Feeling like a piece of old poop, I snapped at one of the friends who was there. And she left too. So it was me and one other person who stuck around. And then I cried. And I cried some more.
Finally an hour later, a friend called and said he was waiting outside the club. Then I got another call and some more people said the same thing. So in about an hour I was back in the club pretending to smile and have fun all over again. Pretending that the last two hours did not happen.

About seven people showed up eventually. Not a bad turn out really, I guess I should not have expected all 20 that I invited.

So I vow that when I turn thirty there will be no big party. There will be no expectations. And there will only be a handful of friends who really matter to me around me. If they care enough, they will be there. And if they are not there, then when I turn 31, I will have an even smaller group.

And that’s the bottom line.

Theory: The older you get the smaller your circle of friends become

who says love never killed anyone...

Who says indeed...

pre-mental syndrome

Yesterday I took PMS to a whole new level.

I left my office all ready to go to meet the new guy in my life. I stood at the same spot I stand at everyday to get a cab. And I waited. And waited. And waited. For about twenty minutes I waited. And not a single cab was willing to go to where I wanted.

The poor sod who stopped his cab for me did not know what he was getting into. He slowed down in front of me, I told him where I wanted to go. He said no. I told him there was a new rule and he cannot refuse a passenger. He said he didn’t have any gas left, and the gas that he has would not even take him as far as the next road.
So I asked him why he asked me in the first place. He said if I was going somewhere which was convenient for him he would have taken me.
This is when I began to lose it.

I opened the back door and sat in the car, and in a low, calm voice I said, ‘Drive’.
He turned around and touched me on my knee, trying to explain to the ‘crazy lady’ that he didn’t have gas.

I told him not to touch me. I told him I did not care if he did not have gas, he was going to drop me where I wanted to go. I told him that there were two gas stations on the way and he could stop at any of them and fill his cab up.

He told me that he was not going to go and that I was only wasting my time.
Then I yelled. I told him I had a lot of time to waste, it was only 7:30 in the evening and I would sit in his cab until he started moving.

So he did. And miracle of miracles he dropped me right to where I needed to go. On an empty tank, mind you. He was not happy, but then I don’t think he wanted to mess with the sniffling, slightly psychotic lady in the back seat.

Good for me. I got mine.

:)

I got this mail from a friend

I recommend one just enjoys and let ones self be free of any such thinking, just enjoy and fall in love, give-take whatever u feel like at least you can say I had a great time and some great moments with this person, let it happen.... it’s worth falling in love , getting loved, hurt, betrayed, or whatever at least we are lucky enough to go thru it, na?


Oh, and he is gay. It's amazing how we all go through the same damn things when it comes to love and relationships.

virtual slap in the face

Sometimes I hate what I do to myself. I hate that I put so much energy into relationships only for them to take a giant dump on my emotions. I hate that my happiness sometimes can depend on whether or not the current ‘he’ in my life is being nice to me and treating me well. I should be slapped for all the times I have preached to my friends about being your own woman, and for all the times I have told them that men don’t matter and men don’t make you happy. I have vowed to myself that I am not going to let any guy get me down, and here I go doing it again, thinking I can’t do better. Pause. This is me giving myself a virtual slap in the face. This is me sucking it up and trying very hard to feel better. I’m not going to get mad this time. This is me getting an instant new mantra. If it’s happy let it stay, if it’s crap, push it away.

stuff and nonsense

I have not had a lot to do this past weekend. And when I don’t have much to do, I start thinking. Now, mind you, this is never a good thing. But, and this is the proverbial silver lining, I do unearth some precious thoughts that ought to be archived.

Thought 1: If I wear a white, poofy dress, throw myself a huge party, invite all my family and friends, be the centre of attention and enjoy it, pose for pictures, get presents, dance the night away, vow to love myself through sickness and health and end it all with a nice long vacation...do I still need to have a man in a suit to be my groom?

Thought 2: This can hardly be attributed to me, because it came from the mouth of a very pregnant woman: It is a myth that you feel like a ‘woman’ when you are pregnant. In fact, you are manlier than ever before. First you have a beer belly at leaves you wondering if your feet have changed. At best, the most you want to do is sit in front of the television and vegetate. You crave junk food. You’re moody. You’re horny, but because of your giant-sized belly no one wants to sleep with you. You have neglected facial hair. And what’s worse, you have constant gas that seems to follow you around.

Thought 3: Recently, a friend and ex-colleague and I exchanged work. I needed a line and so did he, so we decided to do each other’s work with a fresh perspective. I know, it’s probably against all company policy, anyway, the line I did for him got approved in a flash. The line he did for me did not. Instead I had to write another line, which is not stuck in some advertising purgatory. This is an especially crap case of the grass being greener on the other side. (Okay, this is not a thought; it’s just an excuse to vent a little.)

Thought 4: Have you ever noticed how married people always tell you how awesome marriage is, and urge you to do it as soon as possible? It’s almost like a peer pressure to join the ‘cool’ crowd. This gave me a thought. What if marriage is a secret cult, which is only about stress and persecution? What if, every time a couple gets married, they have to take a vow to urge at least 3 other couples join this cult and then they get some bonus points or something...like a referral scheme?

Thought 5: I read this article about how women should not wait for their ‘Prince Charming’ because he doesn’t exist. Instead, settle for Mr Right Here and Now, who ticks most of the boxes you have in your head about what your perfect man should be. What happens if no man ever ticks the right boxes? What happens if you have 12 boxes and all the men you meet only tick an average of 5? Would that mean women around the world are so desperate not to wait anymore, they settle for 5/12?

I have to get back to work now. And besides, three days of idleness can only come up with so many pearls of wisdom, right?

damn

Is there anything hotter than a nice buff man, with a nice footballer's butt and a witty sense of humour who likes love songs?

I think not...