You're not the boss of me!

See, here's the thing. We all know and acknowledge that the boss is the boss. He runs the show. He calls the shots and that's just the way it is. Everywhere. At work, at home, in relationships and among countries. Uncle Sam has lost his bonkers, he is slowly loosing his grit and his innate 'uncleness' is wavering. YET he is the BOSS. And probably will continue to be in the near future until someone serves him the notice.

We all have our problems with the boss. The shot calling, arrogant, interfering, won't let us breathe boss. We've all questioned his ways and his stupidity and we also know that in all probability we wont be getting any answers. But since, people like you and me who don't like to shut up for a long time, I am going to go ahead and ask some questions anyway. But first, let's start with a story.

Once upon a time, there was a small country called Ukraine. Like all other countries, big or small, it had it's problems, times of revolt and times of despair. Recently a former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, under went a trial for her corrupt little hand in gas deal with Russia. She was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment. People in Ukraine and the ever so 'good' people of Europe and America feel that she's being set up. She is being eliminated as a strong political adversary of the current president Mr. Viktor Yanukovych. So what happened next was that, our Uncle Sam stood up and said, "I object. I do not vouch for this preposterous 7 year statement that clearly isn't the just thing to do. Now, take back your statement or there will be consequences". By consequences, he meant that the trade agreement between Uncle Sam and Ukraine will suffer. So the judiciary in Ukraine have all put on their thinking hats and are reviewing the rather harsh sentence against Ms. Yulia. Uncle Sam for his part, got up, tightened his vest around the large belly that seems to be shrinking by and by, gave an arrogant nod and humph and left to oversee (read meddle) some other business.

Now, here's my question (after all this drama), that if Uncle Sam thought it right to cut off trade ties with Ukraine over Ms. Yulia's imprisonment, why isn't he taking the same steps towards Pakistan?

I've always thought, really, that the short and simple way of dealing with the devilish ways of Pakistan, was for majority of the countries to say 'No Trade until you mend your ways'. How hard is that? In the recent demise of Mr. Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan actually came out to be the second lead of the drama. The hero was of course Uncle Sam, he cannot share his limelight with the less talented, but Pakistan was the second lead. I mean, yeah the public is too busy worrying about paying taxes and planning the next meal, but we're not THAT self involved. Uncle Sam wants something that Pakistan has to offer. He wants it bad. We get it. But for how long and why are WE paying the price for it? Does the charade ever end?

Dark times lie ahead!

It's a gloomy Tuesday afternoon. Time - 4.15 PM. It's a tinge darker than grey outside. A colour to match my mood. Am all 'greyed' up inside. For the first time i feel strange in a strange land. Like I dissolved into something, something foggy. How am i supposed to find myself? Crawled up on my knees, frantically reaching out to find something familiar to hold on to, to lean against and get a sense of direction. It's scary in here, awfully silent and no matter how many times you scream to ask a question, nobody answers. So easy to get lost in a labyrinth of nothingness. So convenient. Leave the self behind, just loose yourself in this vast nothingness.

Writing this post is like waving a red flag while being buried in the fog. A way of reaching out, hoping someone sees the flag and hunts me down. Someone to bring hope, that the fog will lift and i will find my way back around to myself. A little lost, disheveled, confused by the journey but nevertheless, back.

Something Different!

How many times have you walked down a street and suddenly stopped to see a house or a tree or a small by-lane....something that you thought was never there, although it always existed but you never saw it! Walking down a street that you've walked a hundred times before and TODAY you see the nice little house, with a balcony and a kid playing in the house. Life that always existed but you didn't take notice of! Happens all the time doesn't it? These little jolts we get that bring us out of our reverie...makes something old, NEW.

I hear voices everyday. There is some construction going on just below my building, the noise and ruckus it creates irritates the hell out of me. I can hear the workers when they take a break, laughing and chatting. Just another day. Today i heard them. Not that i understood what they were saying but their voices were new to me. The rhythm of their laughter, their loud banter. In a totally foreign world, i felt at home. Suddenly, it was Mumbai and i was sitting in my room trying to concentrate on something and couldn't cause of the noise a group of people were making outside. It was the same noise... the same chatter and laughter, the same rhythm. Then again it was Chicago, i leaned out of my window to look at the workers. I couldn't make out the language that they were talking in or the words...just that they reminded me of home.

It rains so often in Chicago that at first it surprised me. Loud thunders and heavy rain. I see it, experience it and am bugged by it. One day, taking in the rains and the pitter patter of the raindrops, I think of Mumbai. How similar the two cities look when its raining. So beautiful, like something slowed it down, the beauty slowed it down. It brought a warmth to my heart that was beyond words. I smiled to myself in a way that only reminiscing can make you smile.

I've built a home here in a foreign land, among foreign people. I've built a home with a man I love and who loves me. Little things, material and otherwise have given shape to our world. But sometimes, just sometimes, one has to escape to the world that they left behind to find a ground, to give your heart that something...something that is "different and yet the same".

About a girl

She sat next to me and held my hand as i cried over a broken heart. She listened to endless complaints, boyfriend troubles, impossible teenage dreams and innocent hopes. She smiled my smiles and cried my tears. She hated the people who hurt me and loved the one's who made me smile.

13 years ago i invited a girl to my birthday party. I didn't know her so well but she was a friend of a friend. Somewhere in the small, winding by lanes of Bhavnagar (A small town in Gujarat where we grew up), during the routine evening rides on "Rakhding road" (a term we coined ourselves) and endless conversations on the phone...i found my soul mate, my friend for life - Deepty.

From silly infatuations, serious relationships, broken hearts, to finally finding the one person you want to spend the rest of your life with, to Motherhood....Deepty and I have come a long long long way. The world could fall apart and go to pieces but i knew i would be safe, she was there to shelter me, to love me. She's the rock that i stand on, that i build my life around. I don't always visit it, but i know its there. Steady and solid. To lean on, to cry on. Just as she has me. Two parts of the same thing. We are the same thing. Her and me.

Just how is it that a relationship (a long distance one at that) grew so beautifully and nurtured itself into this wonderful, gut wrenching love that we share, i don't know. Maybe i never will and a part of its beauty is in not knowing.

She is entering another fantastic stage of her life soon, Motherhood. I can't imagine that girl that i shared those silly laughs with, being a mother. But then again, i can't imagine anyone being a better mother than her. With all the love and compassion and kindness in her....!! Am waiting with baited breath to hear of the arrival of her bundle of joy.....of the moment when my loving, silly, beautiful Idiot (my pet name for her) turned into a Mother!

Him, her and me..!

The bhel wala at the corner, the kid working at the tea stall, the guy who sells matching blouse pieces to women, the girl who rubs her nose every time she passes me in office, the lady who talks animatedly over the phone, the paan chewing man at my mobile service shop, the rickshaw wala...what is their story? I see these people everyday. They occupy 0.00000000143% space of my conscious mind. That is, i notice them. At times. At times i am completely unaware. I sit in a rickshaw...am staring out into nothingness or talking on the phone. I am hardly aware of the man's face who drives me all the way to my destination. Not even when i pay him do i bother to look him in the face. He is faceless for me...as are the general "public" around me. People dashing to work...people ambling along...women with their duppatas's on their nose to stifle out unpleasant smells, a 6 year old on a big man's cycle...half standing to peddle it. Its nice to take in these visuals....with music to give rhythm to their movements...they all seem to sway at the same beat. The slow laughter, the hasty run, easy wave of hand...they all synchronize to form one beautiful display of everyday acts.
I give my own stories to them....put words to their muttering lips...guess their life crises on the basis of phone conversation snippets i hear. I give them a larger than life appeal and conjure images of aliens attacking them, loved one's breaking up, life threatening diseases engulfing them and give them happy - sad occasions to live, in my head....they live a life of their own in my head for precisely 6.36 min. Then the song playing catches my attention...or a friend calling brings me back to my own boring, grounded life.
Don't we all wish at times we were someone else?!