Manners maketh a man; what about the woman?

Manners maketh a man. Charity begins at home.

I don't know why i kept parrotting these age-old adages in my mind until i could no longer hold back but had to ink it in black and white.

It's a small world. I am impressed. More so, by the impressions made by a few small minds.

Myopic attitude by a high myope,  if i have to sound euphemistic and precise, both at the same time. How would one react if one were to bump into a college senior, albeit an acquaintance? I have a great memory, touchwood! I could recall right upto her name.

And there she acts - as if she has never ever seen me. Speaks for her poor memory - still acceptable; while I'm running my mental search engine, matching the features of those unmistakably popping eyes...I remember every detail of the eyes, bcos I'm an eye mechanic you see! ;) I ask her college of graduation and Madame says - - -. Now i know!!! Then i ask her a leading question, "MBBS from...?" ! She had to blurt out, "KMC". There, I gotcha! I am sneering in wicked mirth! ;)

Then i try to find out if my first impression (made more than a decade ago) still holds true. Nudge her with another question, about her PG college. Now, that's a mofussil centre. No wonder she chose to say - - - to my very first question. One's formative years are the MBBS days - the memories of those six years you carry all along proudly.

Hahaha.. well, people never change.  And first impressions seldom do.  The inferiority complex, guised as a pseudo-superiority complex, stays put!

Now, the best part comes when I ask her something related to baking my clay. She seems to suffer from selective auditory impairment. Wait, is it selective auditory processing? Maybe, we'll have to put her through some functional MRI studies. Good for her that I am thinking of fMRI - no radiation exposure. Well, you see she is already handling too much of radiation!
She left without an element of elementary courtesy. God, why don't some people grow? Small minds! Do manners really maketh a man? What of the woman? The woman was already made! ;) Move on, I say(to myself).

Single ladies and armchair daters, this one is for y'all!

What's on my mind? Some random thoughts for my single lady-friends.

You may be the no-nonsense girl but expect your man to be "the man". He cannot be an armchair dater. You know what i mean by that! 

Happy with Whatsapping, wants you to come over to some place closer to his workplace not because it is an extraordinarily mushy place but bcos it saves his petrol costs; wants you to pay for the date bcos you chose the place and the menu (Yes, I am old-fashioned). Isn't he supposed to be a gentleman wooing you? He is not expected to sleep through the date, for you are not looking for the frustrated insomniac.  If he suddenly gets busy with his appointments, do remind him that you have better jobs (better paying, as well) than does Mr.Busy. 

P.S: Please do not extrapolate any of the above gyaan to my personal life. If you do, rest assured that you will get a piece of my mind, absolutely free! ;) :Pwink emoticontongue emoticon

The pain of pregnant silence

The pregnant silence between  people can be more painful than the pains of labor. One is laden with the the burden of the memories of the past. Suddenly, all those lighter moments lose their buoyant spirit and sink to be drowned by heavy emotions. Every spoken word mocks at the heart and every unspoken word gnaws at it. The ego's selfish need to maintain societal riches wilfully betrays the alter ego.

Why does a poignant piece of writing  always have to emerge out of a deeper sense of hurt?

When the men listen!!

Women often crib that their men don't listen.

What would happen if they would always listen and sincerely at that? Wouldn't we end up sighing and crib again that the men don't talk!!! ;) Exactly!!!

I am tired of talking and want him to talk. Or rather, i want to listen. Sounds unbelievable? Yes, i do want to listen! He has impressed upon me that listening is a noble quality worth emulating. So admirable that i am impatient to adopt and practise it. Just that he continues to listen and i am itching to listen!!!

Very often, i check to see if the call is still connected with the pregnant silence weighing me down. While i have a silver spoon stuffed into my mouth, he keeps laying golden eggs at the other end. Speech is silver, silence is golden, it seems!  The silence is dotted with "hmmm..hmmhmm" at regular intervals. Regularly long intervals, like a first-degree heart block! At times, they become increasingly longer until i end up skipping a beat! Occasional crackles enliven the monotony of the hmmm's, something to finally break the rhythm and i thank my stars for making him giggle and open up!

Why can't you talk? Why do you let me do the talking all the time? I'm tired of talking. My jaws are aching. Please, i want to listen to you. Please, please, please! I'm reduced to pleading him to talk. See, I'm still the one who is doing the talking. Walking the talk, sitting the talk, rolling the talk!! Both of us are too tenacious to let go...him, of his passively mastered act of listening and I, my eagerness to show off my listening skills.

If at all he has anything to say, it would be, "Doodh pi liya?" I have seriously come to doubt if this "Did you drink milk?" - the oft-repeated line of the clean-shaven Amul baby, is meant to comfort me into drinking milk or to provoke me out of my serenity!  A sauve innuendo that i see through. Rest assured sweetheart, my grey cells are  fuelled by adequately tanked glucose!

I did some Google search only to find that the much-searched ones are about how to make your husband listen. I was excited to spot one which screamed, how to make your husband talk!! Well, that is, after a fight..sigh!

Now, why don't you hear me out? That i want to listen!!!

Disclaimer: Imaginative story! If anyone wants to think it's my story n my husband, show me the fella first!!! ;)

Is it wrong to cry?

Is it wrong to cry? Sometimes all i want to do is just cry. Is it because of the muddled up hormones or the disturbed harmonics of thoughts?

I need to let out my dammed-up tears..lest the dam would break through, unleashing destruction around. However, i am too strong to cry. In such a case, the accumulated fury is bound to implode, destroying the self.

Crying is considered a sign of weakness. Why can i not expose my weakness? I wish to be a climber growing around a strong pillar of support and under comfortable shades. Why am i expected to be the lone tree braving all odds and sheltering others?

A feeling of hurt haunts me when i least expect it, eroding my spirited self. As these winds of erosion blow across, they scatter seeds of vulnerability. Would they sprout within my gullible senses and get so deeply entrenched that I would be unable to weed them out later?   Like the innocuous-looking peepul discretely growing into the inherent strength of a monument!

The hurt soul can take in just that much! Is it still wrong and weak to cry?

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Sunday Randomness

Void - Almost everyone I know has a "void".

What causes the void? Are we born with it or do we acquire it as we get cultured by our environment?

The awareness of this void sets in as we add years and experience in our kitty

If it were a vacuum, it is self-serving. A vacuum exerts such a pull that the space should get filled in.
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Why do we need someone or something to fill this void? Work, hobby, friend, colleague, pets - something to occupy that free space. We are constantly on the lookout for one.

Is it the noun or the verb that we are talking of?

Do we experience a void? Or the need to void?

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THE BALANCING FORCES

When a friend asked, what I meant by "neutral friend". I responded immediately, "A friend who doesn't tip the emotional balance." Period.

My mind's ramblings continued...

Centrifugal and centripetal forces  act to keep us balanced..to stand on our feet. On the x-axis, that is, with our feet firm on the ground. I heard someone say, "When you can stand, you should walk". A tight-rope walk with more forces waiting to act.

The forces on the y-axis act to disturb the equilibrium, sweeping us off our feet. But we aren't complaining! We are too happy to let down our guard. Ready to be blindfolded or even blinded and ready to take the plunge! Where to? Already fallen(pun intended). Some are elated to cloud nine, before the free fall happens.

The Z-axis - the quirky forces of our minds with unlimited potential. As we move on searching for our purpose in life, there are many bruises as one flounders in this space called mind, lost in its vastness. We hold on to the fire of hope as we grope around to find our way. Sounds assuring.

However, that fire of hope is waiting to be smothered because someone is gulping the oxygen down the already trodden path. The porous ground beneath your feet, is waiting to slip between your toes.
Sotto voce, you know there are more dimensions to this. Now, let me call it a day.

The strokes - from the graphite, the diamond

Written on 25-NOv-2014

    I am trying to coax myself...to gear up my spirit and move past this impasse hoping that this too shall pass. 

    I've taken time for the whole process - of taking it in and ruminating. As the images and memories flash across my mind's eye, the pleasant nostalgic stroll is engulfed by a wave of sickening nausea. The emotional churning is intense. The retching and its aftertaste leaves me bitter.  I can sense a storm stirring up a cauldron of turmoil inside my being which threatens to throw up any moment