Days like these

Days like these, I just want to curl up and die. These bouts of curling up and dying are usually preceded by long inspections of blogs and writing which goes on with much gusto. It’s when I begin reading mine that I want to fling myself off the window.

Nothing happened, no one said anything. I just want to hide from my memories. From things I have said so far, from embarrassments, from my judgments of people, from the me from 7 years before and also the me from yesterday. And to pick a Sunday to do all of this is such a shame!

When I turn to writing to get rid of this slimy feeling, I end up reading my old posts and want to throw up all over myself.

It’s sad on so many different levels. Just when I’m about to recover from this depressing blahness, I begin to review my behavior, online and otherwise throughout the week and it kills me to not have found a place already where I can pelt my head.

This is a rant. Now I don’t know what to say so I’m Just going to sleep.

Pah. This sucks.

Why can’t I write?

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Never Mind

Cumbersomeness always reminds me of cucumber. You know in the way my sister thinks she looks like Abhishek Bachchan if she screws her face up really hard? Also pretty much the way my cook resembles Lauren Graham. This post is meaningless, more or less as meaningless as my previous ones.

Have you ever wondered why people do that? Criticize themselves before other people do? What is the point? Is it something along the lines of “Ha! I knew that and I said it much before you did so your observation is as pointless as my post?”

Why do we have to be so defensive all the time? Let me rephrase it. Why do I have to be so defensive all the time? I do not know what letting go entails seeing as how I have never once successfully let gone.  Of people and their madness, their criticisms, their accusations, their judgments, their actions, their nuisance, their assumptions.

More than my inability to let go, what’s astounding to me is the way other people do let go; and effortlessly so. Nothing bothers them. For a long time I believed that they pretend to be all unfettered but deep inside they are pulling their hair out. But now I am beginning to think that that may not be true. They don’t have to pretend. They just are unbothered about the list of things that I seem to be married to.

How do they do this? Cheerful, never defensive, always knowing what to say or do when people talk crap about them, to them. How?

Maybe they are not so attached to themselves. Or maybe they are too attached to themselves. Whatever. I forget why I started to write this so never mind.

Poof

My earliest memory of sneaking into a girl’s bag dates back to 1995. I lived in Shimoga then. I remember the house very well. I was taken there by my mother in an ambassador car from mangalore. I was disappointed the first time I was introduced to the house because this house wasn’t a Duplex, just like the previous couple of houses. Not Duplex. I had a strange fixation with Duplex houses ever since I had watched it being repeated in many Hindi movies. Mr. India, Hum aapke Hain Kaun? and Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar ke. I wanted a room of my own and I wanted it on the first floor.

This did come true, to which I will get to, not anytime soon.

The house in Shimoga was on the ground floor. It opened to an unusually long Veranda and cut right into an even longer hall. There were three bedrooms. Gran slept with us, in the children’s room, while grandpa occupied the bed in what was supposed to be Dad’s office. Mom and dad were in the room on the farthest corner of the hall.

My sister and I were always late to school. And this was shocking for most because our school, Educare Academy was on the next street. We were ALWAYS late and owing to that, I hadn’t the faintest clue what our school anthem was, never having had to sing it. I had a depressing time in this school, I didn’t have any friends. And this makes me sad now. I think it had something to do with my tardiness and the fact that I failed. A lot. But dad’s influence made sure that a lot of teachers were my friends (read: they had my best interests at heart).

This girl Rashmi was the class topper. She was fair of skin, rosy lipped bitch, popular and really cute. Her competitor was this boy called Ashish whom I was madly and deeply in love with. Naturally, Rashmi became my nemesis. She was probably the defining moment of all my forthcoming obsessions with women I wanted to become like.I was fascinated with her. To make it worse, rumors had it that she had blood cancer, which of course turned out to be bull shit. Nevertheless, the news of her impending death made her seem all the more desirable to me.

On Children’s day, the boys and girls were supposed to wear color dress and dance with each other. Rashmi and Ashish danced. Burnt my ass. I danced with some loser who made me cry. He broke all the nice beads on my frock.

This one time, during P.T hour we were made to play a match of running race against the boys. What’s up with this school? Why are they doing this to kids? Setting up boys and girls against each other in small budget remakes of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak scenarios? Anyway, Rashmi and Ashish were captains. They had become good friends after the dance I guess. I remember running for the damn race and falling on my round and heavy face. My head was always too big for my body. I had skinned my knee caps  I stood resolutely in some corner, not crying but hungrily eyeing the puppy friendship those two shared.

That was my first taste of envy. I took excuse from the teacher and walked back to the classroom alone, defeated. I sat in Rashmi’s spot and wondered how life would be if I were her. I saw the board from Rashmi’s eyes, the rest of the class and most importantly I tried to see myself from where she sits. I wondered if she knew I existed. I saw her bag and was immediately aroused by the thought of taking a look at all of its contents. I wanted to see if I can recreate what existed in her life so as to make myself as awesome as her.

I didn’t find anything of interest except the mickey mouse souvenir from Disney land that she would constantly tempt the class with to keep them quiet, Class monitor, as she also was. I considered stealing it. I even took it to my bench but then I chickened out. I was already in a lot of trouble. I returned her mickey mouse and closed my eyes for a bit on her bench.

I remember going to her house once. It was a Duplex house and I fell harder. I saw that she had a room of her own, on the first floor. I remember having cursed her for living my dream. I don’t remember much of what happened later. I moved to a different city and therefore to different girls and their bags and to boys who liked them.

The second time I tried peeking into a girl’s bag was when I was a little older, in 1998. I was in Belgaum, in St. Joseph’s School. It was an all girls’ convent. I had friends here but I was, as usual a second fiddle to a pair of best friends. That, to my annoyance, seemed to follow me even to my college days. Her name was Gaana. I couldn’t really peep into her bag because that freak always carried it with her. But I did fancy her.

Hell, most girls in my class fancied her. One even went to the extent of imitating the way she sits and got told off for doing it by another girl. I felt bad for this mimic. I cursed her stupidity. It was something that I did too, undercover of course and she had to go and do it openly. Because of that stupid wretch I couldn’t imitate Gaana for 2 weeks.

Many girls have come and gone since then. The one in my life right now is super awesome. But it’s funny how my mind brought back those 2 shapes I thought I had forgotten. And now I am wondering where Ashish went. And now I am beginning to think I never was madly and deeply in love with him.

 

What should I name this?

There’s this college in Bangalore. Let’s just say the name of the college rhymes with insane. There was a group of about six friends. They were all good initially. And then they all got phones. Or their siblings got phones. And it all went downhill from there. The pigeon sisters were always “good friends”. No nothing sexual about it. Just that Simran was somewhat possessive and jealous about Sanjana. Sanjana knew this but out of a kind heart, always overlooked it and was basically good to everybody.

There was also Suresh, Michael, Vicky and Priyanka.Priyanka didn’t have a mind of her own. She wanted to please everybody and for the most part kept falling under Simran’s clutches. Or somebody else’. Priyanka was previously friends with Jhanvi and Urmila. But she sensed some fucked up vibes between the two so she left. She then found the pigeon sisters who, as she came to realize later, were far worse.

Suresh fell in love with Sanjana and this drove Simran wild because most boys and girls were fond of Sanjana so Simran was always left wondering if she was not as attractive as her bestie. She didn’t have to worry much because Suresh had a very timid and loving girl friend outside of college, whom he was going to break up with, shortly. Moreover, Sanjana was more into Michael and Vicky. Not so much Suresh.

Days went by, Suresh grew restless. He broke up with his girlfriend. He wanted Sanjana desperately. He proposed. She said no. Around this time a boy called Dev had been noticing Simran. He pursued her, she liked him too. Suresh helped them out. They started going out.

Michael was playful, happy and naughty. Priyanka was shy, depressed and quiet. The phones came. They messaged through the night and well into the wee hours of morning. They grew feelings for each other. They fell in love. Suresh helped them accept this and they started going out.

Sanjana felt left out because everybody else in the group had someone. One night she dreamt about Vicky. Vicky was OK with anybody. Suresh helped them. Sanjana and Vicky started going out.Suresh wound up alone and irritated. Michael saw this. Didn’t want to leave Suresh alone. Tailed after him much to everybody else’ chagrin because he left Priyanka alone. Priyanka didn’t mind much because she sympathized with Suresh. Suresh was an older brother sort of figure in her life.

Simran and Dev started to distance themselves from the rest because they started to feel uncomfortable. Suresh was getting a little too aggressive. It became hard for them to cope up with his mood swings. Simran dragged Sanjana and Vicky. This meant that Suresh, Michael and Priyanka wound up with each other. Suresh didn’t want to push his presence midst Michael and Priyanka but kept himself there anyway. It wasn’t jealousy as much as it was an inability to understand why he couldn’t find anybody.

This inability slowly grew into helpless frustration and more often than not, Priyanka was a victim to his sudden outbursts. Priyanka couldn’t understand why he targeted her. She didn’t confide in Michael about this knowing full well that he would simply tell her to forget it. Friendship was too important for Michael than much else. Priyanka knew this. And that’s why no matter how hurt she was she didn’t tell him about this.

She was trying hard to be a “good” girlfriend. All appearances of good come with a heavy price to be paid. And her price was her sanity. She was going crazy. She was confused all the time. Confused between what she wanted and what had to be done. Confused between what she wanted and what others wanted of her. She wanted a normal love life that Michael couldn’t give her. She accepted this and corked up.

Michael noticed this but maintained silence. Jhanvi and Priyanka were drawn close to each other. Jhanvi, above everything else was a wonderful friend. She, like Michael put friendship above everything else. She loved Priyanka and Michael. She confessed to Priyanka about having loved Michael once but denied being in love with him anymore. Priyanka believed her. And didn’t ask more questions.

A little later Dhanush came. Vicky and Suresh saw a lot of their selves in him and welcomed him into the group. Dhanush had contacts. With pimps. Vicky and Suresh decided to do it. They had Dhanush call the pimps. The pimp got two prostitutes. They all went to a place where they could all fuck in peace. Michael went with them.

First Suresh went. Then Vicky went. Then they all forced Michael to fuck. He didn’t because he didn’t want to cheat Priyanka. The others called him names. They called him a no man. They laughed. Then they all forgot about it and went home to sleep.

Sanjana could sense something was up. She confronted Vicky. Vicky got pissed and wound up telling her about the prostitutes. She broke up with him. Next morning the group found out about the break up and tried to patch them up. But they remained broken up. A week went by; Sanjana and Vicky patched up but refrained from announcing it to everybody. They wanted to test Michael. Because somehow the clouds of amnesia and drama rained upon them and they forgot about Vicky’s tryst with the prostitutes and wanted to blame someone for the break up. They saw Michael. Blamed him. Priyanka was as usual, lost.

She couldn’t help herself for nuts, let alone helping anybody else. Dhanush, Suresh and Vicky ganged up against Michael, the sole virgin in the group and blamed him for the break up. Michael was hurt. He distanced himself from them. He got close to Priyanka and Jhanvi.

Rocky liked Jhanvi. Jhanvi liked rocky. He had a girlfriend in another city. Jhanvi went out with him a couple of times, liked him more and they started seeing each other. Sometime after a three weeks, the cloud of realization dawned on Jhanvi. She didn’t want to be the other- woman and called it quits. She didn’t want the added baggage of dating somebody who was already committed. She deemed herself incapable of such monstrosity and looked outside to see if she could blame somebody. She saw Priyanka. Blamed her.

Priyanka was a spineless thing. She accepted the blame, faked the guilt and tried to move on. But one question remained: At what point did she unconsciously hold a gun to Jhanvi’s head and force her to do it with rocky? There was also this other goblin crap that was bothering her. Suresh.

Priyanka was shocked that Suresh fucked. She was even more shocked that he had forced Michael to fuck. She cried and cried and everybody who could pay attention consoled her. Suresh saw this, felt guilty for 2 days then said fuck you and forgot about it.Priyanka cried. People told her to grow up. She said OK and grew up.

The clouds were lifted off Sanjana’s head; she broke up with Vicky. Again. Vicky wound up hurt and alone but within weeks found himself Aanchal. He lied to her about his past. She believed and was glad to have found him. Sanjana and Simran kept themselves away from the rest of the group and the class. Sanjana started going out with somebody else, whose name and face are still a mystery. So this angered Vicky. He wanted to ruin her. He called her cheap names. Spread crazy rumors about her. Priyanka meanwhile had become a feminist, took it upon herself to defend Sanjana and attempted to chastise Vicky.

She spent days, months trying to support Sanjana. Beyond everything what drove her to support Sanjana was the feeling that it could have happened to anyone. Betrayal by a boyfriend, that is. The pigeon sisters later blamed Priyanka for messing things up. They didn’t believe her. Priyanka cried. People told her to grow up. She said OK and grew up.

Meanwhile Vicky wanted to destroy Sanjana. He found some letters that Sanjana had written to him back when they were in love. He wanted to blackmail her. Priyanka made some noise. She told Aanchal. Aanchal told him not to do it. His friends told him not to do it. He budged but made life hell for Sanjana during classes. She complained to the principal. Principal called her parents. They stopped her from coming to college.

Simran wound up alone. She cried in class. Priyanka felt bad. Despite warnings from Michael and Jhanvi, went ahead and consoled her. Simran said thanks but no thanks. Priyanka cried. People told her to grow up. She said OK and grew up.

Things got crazy around graduation.Priyanka called Dhanush a Dog. He heard. Got mad. She apologized. He challenged her, told her to wait and watch which couple in the group would last longest. Suresh watched from a distance. Enjoyed. Michael cried. Suresh felt bad.

Michael and Priyanka decided to distance themselves from the group. Exams neared and as was typical during all exam seasons; Suresh, Vicky and Dhanush called Priyanka for help. But Priyanka had grown up. She said fuck off and put the phone down.

By this time, Suresh had successfully procured himself a serious girlfriend; Two serious girlfriends actually. Kamini and Smita. They both knew about each other. Because Suresh was an honest asshole, he didn’t want to cheat. The girls were waiting for his decision to pick one. He couldn’t make up his mind. Months passed. He decided to pick Smita because they had spent a lot of time together doing it. Moreover, Kamini had a strict father which meant she couldn’t do it with Suresh.

During the exam Dhanush called Priyanka a bitch. Priyanka wept. Went to Michael and complained. Michael was upset.

Priyanka started accommodating fresher problems. She took Jhanvi to Michael’s abode. Jhanvi got over excited and decided to make Priyanka’s personal life her own. Priyanka got pissed. Told Jhanvi to back off. Jhanvi got pissed and didn’t back off.

Meanwhile Sanjana rejoined college because Vicky had graduated. She befriended Priyanka because she wanted question papers and study help and knew that Priyanka would come running to her from all directions to lick her ass no matter what. Michael warned her again, Priyanka said it’s ok.

Vicky came to college, apologized to Sanjana and they became friends again. Soon after this, Sanjana stopped talking to Priyanka. Priyanka wondered why and corked up.

Sanjana started telling everyone that she and Vicky would still be together but Jhanvi broke them up.

Priyanka heard this, said enough is enough fuck you all and decided to get things straight with everybody once for all. So what does she do? She sent Sanjana a fuck all threatening message. They fought like cats for over a month. The clouds came again and rained harder.

Vicky sent threatening messages to Priyanka. Vicky and Priyanka fought like cats. Priyanka told Michael. Michael called Vicky. Vicky ignored him. Priyanka got mad and made noise, people told her to grow up. She said Ok and grew up.

Meanwhile, Jhanvi was making no attempts to fuck herself off from Michael’s home life and this pissed Priyanka. Jhanvi started getting possessive about Michael’s people. Priyanka wondered why and decided to take things in her hands before things got worse.

Somewhere during this madness, Aanchal who had waltzed back to the desert came back because she found out everything about Vicky and how he had been three timing. She called the other creatures. They confronted Vicky. She slapped him. They all slapped him. He cried and went home.

Aanchal contacted Priyanka and told her about this. Priyanka was exhilarated. She told Aanchal about Sanjana. Aanchal spoke to Sanjana. The clouds were finally lifted off. She apologized to Priyanka. Priyanka said Ok. They became friends again.

Michael yelled at Priyanka. Priyanka said OK and avoided Sanjana. At their graduation they all laughed and smiled.

Sometime later in the year, Sanjana got married to someone her parents chose and went off.

Around this time, Jhanvi finally took the hint and fucked off.

Lily and Vincent were lovers. They broke up and got back many times but unlike the other creatures in this story, they had the dignity to not blame 100,000 other people for their break up.

Priyanka liked lily. Michael liked lily. Lily was quite different from anyone else these people had ever met. She challenged their asshole Indian morals. And that’s why Smita and Suresh could not stand lily.

Suresh, Smita, Michael and Priyanka got close once again. By this time, Kamini; as Suresh had had everyone believe was not in his life.

Smita didn’t like Priyanka. Priyanka didn’t like Smita. But they pretended to like each other. Suresh didn’t like Priyanka. Priyanka didn’t like Suresh. And they didn’t pretend to like each other. Michael pretended to like everyone and everyone liked him.

Michael got himself a car. Suresh, Smita and their other cabbage friends thought it was their car and drove Michael, Michael’s family and Priyanka crazy. Suresh taught Michael driving so the car was hijacked off to Suresh’s side for over a week. Suresh, Smita and the other cabbage people weren’t fond of Priyanka and her feminist chants. They wished Michael would find somebody else and ditch her.

Suresh indulged in throwing cruel pot shots at Priyanka whenever they were at Michael’s abode. Priyanka would make noise, go back home and cry. Michael said don’t worry and Priyanka said OK.

On New Year’s Day, something happened; Priyanka couldn’t take it anymore and slapped Suresh. Suresh got angry and left. Priyanka called and apologized. Suresh said fuck off. Priyanka forgot about it.

Suresh, Smita and other cabbage people kept making plans later and tried calling Michael. Michael didn’t go. They assumed that Priyanka wasn’t letting him go. And their assumption was right. Priyanka said fuck off to the good girlfriend ideals and decided to draw boundaries.

Suresh got mad and made an FB status update about this. Priyanka got mad and retaliated even worse. Suresh got mad and called her an ugly bitch. By this time Priyanka had grown up just a little bit so she pretended not to cry. But Michael was mad so he called Suresh. They resolved the issue on phone.

Priyanka and Michael finally broke it off with Suresh and Smita. But not fully. They saw each other here and there. Like for instance, at Michael’s house warming party. And a little later, at the Insane College get together. Priyanka was dying from the inside but she tried to play it cool. Michael’s nonchalance drove her nuts. They argued. They agreed and forgot about it.

Months later, Suresh eloped and got married. To Kamini. Smita didn’t know about it. When they came back, Smita confronted them and slapped him.

After a couple of months, Smita got married to someone her parents found and went abroad.

Vicky got married to someone his parents found and didn’t go abroad.

Months later, Simran and Priyanka became friends on Facebook. They enquired about each other’s lives. Simran told Priyanka that she and Dev may get hitched soon. Priyanka congratulated them and expressed a desire to keep in touch. She hadn’t licked ass in a long time.

Weeks later, Dev married someone his parents found.

Simran told Priyanka that they couldn’t convince their parents so they broke up.

One day later, Simran blocked Priyanka on FB. Two days later, Sanjana blocked Priyanka on FB.

Priyanka laughed. This time she had seriously grown up.

This time, last year…

This time, last year I was dumber than I now am. A lot more touchy-feely, depressed as hell because I was soon to graduate and mad with joy because a certain someone I didn’t like was getting fucked. In short, I was my normal me, I was happy. If I had any idea that eight months down the line, I would be teaching, TEACHING at Joseph’s, I would have told you to “Shut your ass” (full on Koothrapalli style)

I was less mad, less enthusiastic, more shy and definitely more obsessed and possessed than ever.

Graduation happened like a dream. Things went smooth. I joined some dumb ass Yoga class, they made me stretch and bend like a frigging wire. I wound up with low bp, fell sick and cursed. I got myself my first job in Mysore. That was a bust. Owing to some miscalculated horror some odd 25 years ago, a couple “did it” and I was born 9 months later. And that’s why I couldn’t stick with my Mysore job. Got dragged back to lala land,  did some depressed-patient drama for about a month. Found myself another job, relaxed there for another  two months or so. Made sexy contacts. Went to Pondicherry to celebrate a big event that happened 7 years before. Came back to lala land, went back to dullness.

And then things started to look up. I cleared NET and before I knew it, my life was re-organizing itself and all I could do was stand and look, wide-mouthed, the way Jack sparrow did when the weird sea creatures took his ship to the shore.

Pretty much sums up my reaction when life suddenly became terrific

                                         I didn’t even find the energy in me to feel happy for myself on my 24th Birthday. Because all the energy was directed at pinching myself to keep me from gloating loudly.

And since November 20, 2012, my life has drastically changed. I LOVE what I am doing right now. This is the absolute high point of my life. I love who I have become. I love that I’m not what I used to be. I love it even more that I don’t remember who I used to be.

The only nagging worry now is that it will all be taken away from me.

Because I am not prepared to lose what I can only call, the phase and place in my life that has finally shown me who I am and what I am capable of. I am no longer afraid of my weaknesses. I push myself to work on them when confronted.

And beyond everything, beyond all the mundane ritual of loving myself and other such bull crap, I love my schedule right now. I love my routine. I love my students. I love getting to work early. I love waking up early to get to my work. Just the thought of my table in the department, talking, laughing, dancing in the department lights up my face. Just the thought of conversations with the ‘happy child’ lifts my spirits and I cannot seem to contain myself.

Here I am, sitting on my bed, feeling happy, thinking about the door of the Department of English, the key to which is safely tucked away in my bag. And you know what is so thrilling about my tomorrows? The promise of the smell of dusty old books locked overnight which greets me at 8:40 every morning. That’s my regular dose of caffeine. And I wish, I hope to death that, that be one image, one promise that I carry to my bed every night before I sleep.

Run Lola Run!

I was 14 when I first wanted to run away from home. Dad hit me on my shin with his leather belt for refusing to make him tea. Mother still believes it was not why he hit me. It was the tone in which I refused that triggered his mad anger, she says. I let her believe what she wants to believe. I’m not really interested in how much they and I have grown since then. I’m more interested in the rebel that was born that day, just like that.

Frankly, the fact that he hit me does not bother me much now. Now that I think about those red lines on my shin, it’s clear why most of my important acts of rebellion have been staged against the periphery of home making skills. That was probably the defining moment of my life. And what has followed since then have been but just small time rebellions, all against my father or father like figures.

Over the years, the desire to run away from home became more and more immense fueled constantly by their need to keep me from becoming too independent. They feared it and much to my delight, still do. It was crazy.

Attending phone calls from male friends in my PU days were challenging. This one time, when he found out that I was talking to a boy, he screamed for hours together. That evening, I remember, trying really hard to salvage the situation. Mother was trying harder. She said that some uncle from Dubai I had never met before is visiting soon. I enquired more about him. It was my lame attempt at normalizing the evening as much as I could. And even to this day I still do not know why for the life of me, I said the words I did. I wondered aloud why I hadn’t heard of him before and all hell broke loose.

He yelled at me for not knowing the names of my relatives. No, actually he yelled at me for storing the names of my male friends on my cell phone. He yelled at me for talking to boys, he yelled at me for knowing boys. Nobody at home had dinner that night. Nobody turned on the TV and nobody teased my little brother. Dramatic, I know. Like somebody died. But that’s how it has always been. Like somebody had died. It still is that way. Like somebody is dying.

I am 24 now. And I still want to run away. I am now wondering why I haven’t run away yet.

When I watched Julie & Julia

On the Evening of September 10, 2012 I was frantically browsing through my hard drive to watch a movie, ANY movie. I was restless because I was back home from work too early, like I have been; every other day, ever since I started work a week before. And this is sad because when I graduated, I had a picture of me working my ass off on a job that I really love, that I looked forward to being at; every single morning  really early and returning home late. I know right? What was I thinking?

Maybe I could have had that life, maybe not. Anyway since I’m a little too happy to talk about Richard and Emily Gilmore right now, I might as well start off with Julie & Julia. So I had the movie downloaded weeks before. It was just sitting there on my hard drive and I was wondering why I hadn’t watched it yet. I decided to watch it since I had nothing better to do and was I glad that I watched it!

The movie really got to me. The movie is an absolute delight and on so many different levels. I’m one of those people who cannot and will not cook; but drool all over Nigella Lawson’s famous chicken and other chocolate thingies.

I absolutely love watching her cook. Having said that, I love reading about a writer’s progress and especially a woman’s at that. Watching movies or reading books about women writing or working or doing just about anything that they love somehow liberates me. Mostly that’s why I love watching movies that begin with a woman waking up to the noisy Alarm clock, ONLY not to get her husband and kids ready and set to go live their lives outside but to go live her own. To get to work early or to get coffee to confront a busy hard day.

Don’t get me wrong. Because yes I absolutely hate watching or reading about women waking up to be housewives. YES, even if they are happy doing it. When I say housewife-ry, I do not mean cooking and cleaning, I mean devoting her entire life to her family and being taught not to want “more” from her life than to keep her husband and children happy.

Yes, I am one of those ‘feminist people’.

I have heard from many a people what a liberating experience cooking can be. And I have absolutely nothing against it. In fact I often dream about making a beef steak with red wine on the side of mashed potatoes, beans and mushrooms, ALL BY MYSELF. What I liked about the whole cooking experience in the movie was it seemed to liberate the women from a society that is hell bent on consuming a culture that is obsessed with borrowed and dry ideas of what success is or what a successful career is.

So even more than the cooking in Julie and Julia, I really enjoyed the way Julie Powell progresses as a cook and more importantly as a writer. It took her quite sometime but she figured out what she wants. She figured out that cooking and writing about cooking make her happy and a better person. I quite liked the idea of the deadline: 564 recipes in 365 days. And as is painfully typical of me to feel inspired by most of the movies and then deciding that I am going to do this this and this and then waking up the next morning and be my grumpy self; I decided to give it a shot and discipline myself with deadlines. The project: As many books as I can read in 365 days, starting today.

If I feel up to it, I could start by finally confronting the BBC book challenge. The challenge is to have finished 100 books, out of which I have finished only 11.

Sound good?  I just hope I get back everyday and record my updates with the books.

See ya next time, hopefully in a non Face – palm situation!