Where are the women in this city

I think  I keep saying .."When I was in Bombay ..."  a lot.

I loved it there, and I have not seen even a part of what Bombay had to offer. I loved the food.. I loved the freedom it had to offer... But now when I think of it what I loved most was the friends .

I met my husband there, we were just two mallus then.. meeting on weekends as part of the mallu gang get-together. And then we fell in love. I am happy with him today but I know that we would not have fallen for each had it not been the friends we had around us.
Life was so filled with entertainment and fun that I had to consciously take time off to call Amma back home.
Come weekend and we would all get together at one of our small flats and then decide on the menu..cook together / order stuff.. play cards.. fight.. sleep .. movies and then presto it would be two in the morning..and then someone would want to see marine drive just then.. we would take a cranky cab and go to see the queens necklace. Life was good.

Then we were all set to get married and he got an offer from this place. It was close to his hometown and that meant  a lot. Amma was alone at home and I felt I should be back too.. A few friends genuinely tried to talk to me out of it. But I decided that it was what his heart wanted and it was a good career opportunity for him..albeit a bad one for me.

We came here. I regret it :)

Since the past 5 years I am constantly searching for friends. Friends with whom we can share a lazy weekend. Friends with whom we can hop to the mall with. A friend to go window shopping. I attributed the lack of it to myself. Now I know its not just me. Its the place. This place is so full of the good Indian girls and I will never be able to find her here.

Now and then I meet people I like... but friendship ends at office here. Not more than that. I am still waiting .. now that the baby is growing up.. i get more space .. i can handle him while shopping... but i need a girl/woman friend. I hope I find her soon.

Help me , will you ? She asked him.

Her head felt so heavy. It was as though there were hundreds of rubber bands stretched within. 

She spoke to him about it. He was angry again.

She told him that she needed help. He asked her to get out of the mess before it was too late.

But she could not. She did not know what exactly the mess was. He did not know either.

But she was not her usual self. Usual as in , herself a few months ago.

The panic was rising. The panic was killing her.

She was having trouble with her ears too. The doc asked her if something was bothering her. She said NO coz her mom was near.

She was smart, she was a happy go lucky gal who had whatever she wanted in life. 

She topped the scores though she didnt put much effort and there she was ready to fly.

A few mistakes , emotions and sentiments made her choose the wrong career options. And then time flew fast and it was beyond her control . She was swept away by the flow. THe money kept coming and she daily slogged coz the money kept coming.

Then came her wonderful years of being the new bride , of being a wonderful momma and a good daughter.

Then she started losing herself. It started when he lost his cool over everthign that she did. 

And then she started to keep away from him to escape his wrath. The words , the temper .. she thought it was better if she was physically abused.

She kept to herself coz she did not want any1 to know about how she felt about him. She loved him. SHe wanted him to have a good name . she did not want to let others know that there was trouble in paradise. She tried to keep it within. She put on a happy face but he saw it through. He realised his mistakes but she was by then deep in her shell, in a world where she had none. He tried to bring her back but she was afraid of him . She could not even make conversation with him. He was an alien.

She started to shut people out and then she was being a vegetable. 

She wants to come out of the deep mess , the mess she cannot explain, the mess she does not want to jump out of. 

Help her , will you?

On a positive note..

I have been a cribby of late .Have to change the line before the negativity gets the better of me.

Thinking positively, I do not have a lot to look into but I do not have lots to complain too.
I was the high energy one who wanted to to make the best use of every moment but now I am sinking into the shell so deep that I ve become the lethargic one. But then again thinking over it , I find so many around me who suffer.. who have had so many bad experiences that they cannot get over with.

I think of those times where I could have gone terribly wrong. I am reminded of those days when I fell in love, or so I thought , with a guy who would have been so wrong for me. Breaking out of it was a huge issue coz this is Kerala. Coz breaking out of a relation means u are a whore. I still cringe when I am reminded of those days. He trying to blackmail me , to lure me back. I had no major issues with him but I realized that he and I were so so different and so so incompatible. He was good as a friend. He was not abusive. But I still frown with worry when I think , what if I had given in to the pressure ..

I should be and am thankful to God for making me see things the right way at that point. I know I hurt him. But I couldnt go along just to make the people around happy.

I was inspired to write this post after reading Nags post on  Small-blessings .

Thank You for pushing me out of that negative mess that i was going through.

Let me be me ...

Where is the high energy me ? I do not have a clue as to how I can smoothen it out.
Understand me for once, I am no God , I am mere human.

I will make mistakes. Please , for heavens sake, do not eat my head for it.

If u want to get a job done ur way , then put ur head into it sometime.
Do not wait for it to be done to blast me on its bad execution.

Let go of those thoughts in your head. I am no way superior to  you.
I am not . I am not . I am not.
I believe in values. I believe in doing good , more good to those less privileged.
I know you believe so too.

You think I snub u . I dont. I dont.
Am not your enemy. You do not need to prove each time that I am a fool.
All this has been doing more damage than ever.
The ever confident me has gone back into the shell. I stammer when I speak.
My to-be collage appears blurred.
I do not want money. I ll make tonnes for you . But gimme happiness. I need it , i need fun, I need peace.

The panic attacks need to go. Oh !!! whom do I talk with.

Me with all the liberal ideas. Me with all the strong opinions. Where do I stand now.
Among the set of women who endure anything?
I want to be the old confident me. But Pran, I want him to grow up with ur love.
And so I go ahead , pretending that nothign has happened. I hope I can get today out of my mind soon too. 

God and we

I used to think of me as an angel. 

After being married and dealing with people to whom I get irritated without much reason , I have to admit that I am no angel.

I believe in being good to the poor, helping them financially as much as I can.

I ve always seen amma and achan doing that. I ve never seen them refuse a loan to a maid or a vendor . 

A lot of them misuse the trust, but they still continue to be the same. 

I tease amma about it, she pays the fish mongers extra , the ladies coz they are always in debt and trouble . 

Many a time we lose a good supply of fish coz the lady cannot pay amma and she stops visitng our house.

Amma for that matter does not ever expect that anyone poorer than her has to return the money.

Well, yes , many find that silly and foolish of amma . 

On the other hand she never forced me to pray, she never tells me that today is Akshaya tritiya ..have a bath before u have a morsel of food.

My laws are framed that way.. I understand and believe that there maybe logical angles to fasting. 

I mean , today is a monday, girls should not have rice at night.. says the MIL. 

I do not uinderstnad that logic.

I can only take it as a rule that was set by the grand daddys bcoz say the moon was closest to the earth, digestion wud be less on this day , so eat less.. 

And then there were many who wudnt obey and then they put in the name of god. 

But with each passing day I hear more and more such rules. They make new ones every year I guess. 

On the day of Vishu.. they woke me up at 3 am ... took me to the Kani and yeah I opened my eyes.. ok so far. I said a quick prayer in my head .. 

No that was not enough. MIL asked me .. sit down .. touch all the gods..pray like this..pray like that..pray for that.. and then the crowd sat around to judge how I was praying.

I could not. I pretended to. But I had the fake look in my eyes. 

I cannot understand why prayers and god have to be associated with dignity as it is coming to be. IfI pray lots. I am good.

People praying to get attention. People boasting about on how much they pray. God !!! 

My in-laws on the other hand are not so bad. But this  trait really puts me off. 

I want to tell out loud that u need to be a good human being .. The God that I beleive is not one of us. 

I cannot imagine him telling me.. see u ate non veg on a monday evening in 2012. So u go to hell. there that s the way.

U touched me when u had a period. Go go..hells the place for u.

OMG!!!

Pepper Doggy

I love the way you love your books.

Pepper doggy story (stoly , as u say it)
Barney story
noddy story
baby book,
animals book,
veggies book
stickers book

I hope you always love your books . Not that I like that you need a book to go to the potty even now.

The line between solitude and lonliness

He complains that I am a cribby , of late. Yes , I am.

Being 30 is not easy. Never did I imagine , never never did I think ,
that age would have so much importance on one's well being.

The silence is deafening.

This place is to blame. Not my age , or so I think at times. Not having frens with whom I can have a laugh is so damm depressing , all those who are over 28 are married with a
kid or two like me. But they are those mummy kinds with whom I can talk and
share thoughts and words on diapers and diaper rashes. But beyond that ,
they do not connect with me or my thoughts. Those below 24 , do not want me
in their group coz I am a lead, I am a senior. They probably bitch about my
crowd a lot and they do not want me there.

Its a tad bit different for a guy, the young gals do welcome guys of my
league into their crowd. But women are a big no-no.

I think I behaved the similar way too when I was a fresher. I was wary
about the senior women.

I love solitude and enjoyed the silence initally. But it soon drifted to
lonliness. I did not have a FB account till a few months ago coz I didnt
have time for it. Then I moved to this organization and I have no frens ,
no gangs , no sneaking coffee hours... So I have all the time in the world
for FB at office. And lonliness makes me check it every now and then .
I miss those coffee moments we had till few months ago, waiting for the
coffee breaks.. an hour or more of laughing and talking casually. Now its
coffee breaks with the moms of this new org. I go along discuss something
boring , read the days newspaper , go back to my seat .

Restless..

A lot of the time now, I feel super duper restless.

I guess the root cause is that I do not have friends around. I have none. Other than my husband , my mom and my little poppin.

Office - I need it , i have to work, its a part of me. The new boss is killing it though.
I would not have cared if I had a ffriend with whom I could bitch about him.
And he , the boss, was fired from his previous firm, has a wife who is unemployed and two small kids to take care of. And so I do not complain. I am not that lovey dovey sweet. Its just that I fear the curse will be on me if I report his deeds , his ego issues and the like, and if the supervisors decide that he go.

I am restless. On such days , I keep log on to my  mail every few mins, logging on to FB,  lurking on the other blogs to see if any1 has updated theirs.
I promise myself that I ll start my work soon after this one last check and its noon already.
I am restless.

I wanna feel better. It doesnt help that with the baby and the chores I do not call my old friends now. I am closing all the doors. I cannot think of even a handfull of people whom I can call. I brought this upon myself.

It was work , work and rush home home.. I did not want poppin to be neglected coz I have a job , I could not take the time I spent with him to maintain relationships.  I decided so. I dont rgret it as such, but wonder if I could have managed it better.

A series of disasters

Diasters in the kitchen are still the same. Made my version of super easy biriyani a couple of times this week. I guess I should listen to it when he says that I should try and master  'normal' food before the fancy ones.

The baby is very fussy with food now and I wanted to make him eat somehow. Biriyani seemed just right . He loves it when my mom makes it. I tries. It turned out to be a fidge, a saadam and gooey. I cudnt have a mouthful of it. Somehow distracted him and made him have a few mouthfuls and pretended that it was a success. The husband wanted to know if he liked it and I said yes before throwing it out of the window. Luckily he is too lazy .
He wanted Manchow soup yesday. I asked for a bail first, it may be a flop a couple of times I said. He said , oh yes .. but addded.. a couple of flops for the same dish is ok, but it has to be right after that , ok?
Phew , what does he think? I work like him , all day long and then he expects me to cook for him and that too whatever he wants. He wants me to take care of all what the baby needs too. Well , I let it go. Cant blame him . I keep complaining all the time that I love to cook but do not get enough chances coz the MIL will not let me cook. And I messed up all the chances I had recently. I have to restart teh baking experiments. Cakes were turning out to be very good so I stopped making them. Well, when u have disasters all the time it doesnt feel right when things turn out good. No challenges. I love the jinxed recipes , I have an obsession for them . And they never turn right. I am gonna make my mom cook biriyani and watch like a hawk this time. Fingers crossed.

You changed me inside outside...

My little one ,  life is so much fun with you being here.

But then you ve changed me inside outside .. in a way I wud never have dreamed..

I guess you brought out the lady in me.. though I still revolt to many of those illogical (to me ) stuff that the others do.

Its been ages or 2 years to be precise since I went out at ease. If I do not bring you along then my thoughts are always crowded with how you are doing at home , if i do carry you along then I end up running all over the mall or being a lafing stock while trying to pull you from the escalator .. or worrying about when you will be hungry next.

A whole lot of my time is spent on reasearching about healthy food or about peadeatricians in the neighbourhood  (I should say district here)

I think I bore other mothers (sometimes fathers) to death coz I talk only about baby stuff..mostly food and docs.

I do not allow any1 to talk aloud when you aer sleeping. Mom gets fired coz she drops all vessels with a big bang when you sleep. YOur papa puts the TV on high volume. Or makes that horrid sound with plastic covers. Now , you are more accostomed coz u sleep at the movies.

I hate it when MIL watches soaps with you on her lap. I lure you far somehow.

I love te 'teeekkkaaa' game that you play...jumping over me..

I miss 'Paauuuuuuwwww' game that u used to play till a week ago, though it hurt me toones.. you used to pinch of a piece of skin with every paaauuuwww..  Do you know that the lady at the beauty parlor where I went to thread eyebrows asked me if I fell down somewhere seeing those paauuuww signs on my face

The park os our second home. On the swing you want to go 'high'

Our rented villa is your 'Olive etti' as you call it. THere is a group of apartments nnearby callled Olive and when we return back from malls/parks you used to say "olive etti" till our houese became olive etti.

The cushions are meant to be cushions only when achan and achaachan are not around. Admit it, you are a lil afraid of them

You are a star wit nicknames..you even names you grandfather one ... and call it aloud when you are angry with him

I do not have time for anything though now I ve started to read fiction at office.

I love the way you hug me.

My relation with your ammamma is so so wonderful after you came in. She adores you so so much. I love watching you both laugh and fight and play

You call you father by name coz mom calls him so. You call me by name when you want me to play with you . I guess I become your fren more than mom then...