10 Reasons why I wont watch Endhiran again

10 (DOT) does NOT qualify as a punch dialogue.

9 Calling the world’s most advanced Robot ‘Chitti Babu‘ is like calling the Macbook Air ‘Abitha kuchlambaal‘

8 Rai doing the chicken dance with a feather headdress makes me crave KFC.

7 Rajini does not have a single ‘copy-worthy’ hand gesture through the movie.

6 I have lived with mosquitoes for 24 years and I still can’t seem to communicate with them, 2 weeks after the robot is powered he has a full length discussion with them. I am jealous!

5 If Aishwarya Rai is a medical college student, I am in elementary school.

4 Rajini is fair-skinned in the movie! WTF! looks like all the Fair and Lovely he used in Sivaji paid off

3 I feel sleep  during the climax! If I wanted to watch 100 people making 100 different formations, The CWG opening ceremony is a better bet – more colour, better music plus I save Rs.120 on a ticket.

2 It is very unfair that Aishwarya Rai gets both the super-star and the world’s most advanced robot.

1 I find the several nonchalant comparisons between ‘boyfriend’ and ‘toy-friend’ a bit disturbing. Amen!

My thoughts: Let me assure you I thoroughly enjoyed Endhiran, well who would not? The movie itself is pretty entertaining with allows for some amount of introspection, which no Indian movie does these days. Rajini as the robot is amazing – his acting is spectacular and for once, I completely agree that he is so much more than just style. Some of the dialogues are witty (like the robot saying Version 2.0 and Happy Diwali just before he fires at the policemen) and some are thought-provoking ( like when the Robot saves a naked young woman from burning and says “so what if she is naked, she is alive”).

The computer Graphics are amazing, more advanced than anything seen on the Indian screen and reminds me how far the Indian VFX industry has come since our first production Hanuman. The execution of the robot duplicates was near flawless, except for a couple of close up scenes where you could clearly see the difference between the robot’s face and Rajini’s.

Aishwarya Rai, save for her false eyelashes and 5 inches of makeup still looks pretty darn good for a woman nearing 40 but Rajini steals the show – again. Does that man ever age?

Do watch it once

Enough with building temples and mosques, Let us build India now!

Today I realised that the people I live with are not Indians. Yes, our passports, ration cards and drivers licenses might say so, but we are not Indian. It is a lie –  we are a bunch of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists  and Jains, randomly placed on a triangular piece of land covered by water on three sides.

Since we are placed on this land by chance and absolutely not by choice, we really don’t care too much, infact we care so little that we begin to border on absolutely dumb and hopeless.  In the beginning, we let the Greeks. Mughals, Turks and just about anyone who dropped by for an unannounced visit  invade us and rob us of all we had, of course we didn’t really care then because we were too busy fighting with our neighbours. Then a few hundred years later, after we lost much of our wealth we still had not learnt our lesson. But then, since we were such a rich country anyway, we somehow sustained ourselves. Soon, the British and French and Portuguese came in, of course, we were too busy bickering amongst ourselves, comparing the sizes of each other’s thrones and harems to realise that we were being colonised and treated like third degree crap in the place where we had the highest rights. Ofcourse, once we had lost every ounce of self respect and just about every natural resource we ever owned , that is everything from our crown jewels to our most authentic recipe for chicken tikka masala, we finally decided – ok maybe we should stand up to them? And thus rose a generation of brave men, who laid down their lives and everything they had, all so that we could stop paying tax for even the salt we consumed with our food.

So finally, on August 15 1947, after being invaded by every known civilization in the world and everything including the shirts off our backs taken away from us, India became free again. We has no money, no resources, way too much population and absolutely no plan. “But we will survive we said, Hum Honge Kamyab. We have nothing but we have our pride. We will make this the best country in the world. Mera  Jaan Hindustan”

Fast forward to 1990 “ Our oath of Hum Honge Kamyab and our ahem… national motto ‘Unity in Diversity’ is just as  true as Suresh Kalmadi’s claim that the opening ceremony of the CWG in Delhi will “be the best opening ceremony or the best commonwealth games ever.” Our new motto is no longer ‘let us make India the best country in the world’ but ‘ let us leave India to migrate to the best country in the world”– be it USA, UK, Australia, Singapore or Somalia.

While we continue to stay apathetic to the landmass we live on, Mother India gets a bit wary. After exhausting her bounty of oil, diamonds, gold and mineral resources all on India, she decides to bless India in another way, she decided to give us some of the worlds smartest people ( yes, I know we disagree after the Ayodhya verdict) but I am talking about the Sabeer Bhatias, Narayan Murthys and Rajat Guptas – the ones who conveniently stay away from politics.  In the last minutes, just to make doubly sure that we don’t get invaded again, she decided to bless us with some decent military strategy and generally warn other countries to stay at bay. But does this stop us from destroying ourselves? Hell no!

So what if other countries do not want to invade out intellectual property, let us go there and get invaded. Let us travel across the seven seas, pay a whole lot of money to be taught that our country is a third rate underdeveloped country, get insulted, get called a stinky Indian BUT let us not take anything into consideration and  give our brightest most brilliant ideas in exchange for a few dollars. Yeah, afterall it is all about the money.  If this is not good enough, then let us, go one step further in the whole apathy to our landmass thing and elect the worst possible people to rule us, but not moving to take the trouble to cast a vote. So what is some old dude died to give me freedom, it is not like he was Kurt Cobain who Od-ed to give me great music. Why give them respect?

As time went by, we got more and more apathetic , we started electing stranger and greedier people to be our leaders, but then the apathy was not enough to cause us to ruin ourselves like we had done before, so many times in the past – so we said, hey we just realised we are all of different religions, so instead of living mundanely on this landmass, let us make some outrageous statements, instigate each other and then maybe kill each other, this way we can cause more ruin to ourselves in a shorter period of time, the greedy leaders agreed – it made them more money and gave them more power and soon we were back to killing ourselves.

2010

Mother India tried even harder to help her landmass restore her balance. We might just be getting there – with a few fancy advertising slogans like ‘India Shining’ and Incredible India. Yes, the North Indians (defined as anyone who speaks Hindi)  still don’t particularly like the South Indians (anyone living south of Maharashtra) and vice versa but there is no brutal killing.

In a stroke of pure genius, we decide to divide the population again, this time bringing up a 60 year old debate about religion. Let us make the tragic 1992 happen again, we say – self diving not just the land where Babri Masjid once stood, but in that act yet again diving India into Hindu-Muslim communities. Yes, we rub our hands in glee – let us make a seemingly fair judgement, get extremists to talk about it on television and sway the public and let the riots begin!

Note: I am not on either side, be it Ram’s birthplace or a mosque ( despite the court ruling that it is not a mosque) it was still a 500 year old INDIAN building and one of beauty. One which SHOULD not have been tampered with, why were we never thought the importance of monuments?.  Why is the media and every news channel referring to Indians as the Hindu and the Muslims ? We are Indians first then Hindus and Muslims, and are we ever going to realise that or is it that the media and the politicians do not want us to? Why could the space in Ayodhya not been made into the next IIT or IIM And finally, does this mean we forget about Kalmadi and let him go scot-free? I hope not! Well these are questions I want to ask our government and I want answers now..

Commonwealth Shames

A friend’s status message on facebook recently read: The commonwealth games should be renamed the commonwealth shames. I agree! As of today, 4 of the top athletes in the world have refused to attend the 2010 Commonwealth games in Delhi – the reason? Security Concerns – Plain and simple. Phillips Idowu, world triple jump champion even came up with a fancy quote which went something like this “’Sorry people, but I have children to think about. My safety is more important to them than a medal.” Now, that makes me proud – really. A country of 2 billion and we can’t make a few hundred athletes feel safe visiting us during a high-security event.

But what makes me even happier is the fact that – We really don’t seem to care. Really, during this time of shame, we the common people are more interested discussing Salman Khan’s latest masala potboiler Dabangg than Suresh Kalmandi’s obvious embezzling of our tax money. The commonwealth games in Delhi was but one chance to prove to the rest of the world that we are not some two-bit country which will continue to do back office work for the developed world for the rest of our lives and we failed – miserably.

I can almost point the reason – we use our country like a public restroom. Abuse it, never bother to clean up our mess and don’t care a darn about it once your job is done. We Indians really have no shame, we really do not care about what happens as long as we make a steady income. Yes, we didn’t care when Nader Shah ran off with the beautiful peacock throne, Yes, we didn’t care when victims from the Bhopal gas tragedy suffered unreasonably ( and their descendents still do ) while Warren Anderson lives a happy live, somewhere in the United States in his million dollar mansion. We didn’t care too much when communal wars rocked Gujarat in the late 90’s – I mean we were not really affected right, it was somewhere up North and we didn’t care when uneducated illiterate politicians took power at the state level and embezzled enough money to keep their next 10 generations rich and prosperous, without ever working a day, while the percentage of starvation related deaths came up, we didn’t care when the same politicians went to the center and then decided to control the whole country and it’s wealth, we didn’t care … how could I expect India to care now ?

How can a few athletes dropping out  because of security concerns, the Queen refusing to attend the inauguration of the commonwealth games for the first time in the history of the commonwealth games  and a few nasty remarks from Commonwealth Games Federation Chief Executive Mike Hooper, including calling the Games Village “filthy and uninhabitable, make us care? Of course not. Because really, what is India ? A temporary solution until we fly to the United States, Europe, Australia and world over to make our lives in a better place. A better place, where we will always be second class citizens, where we will be called brown and filthy, where we will be discriminated against but yet, to us it is a better place- better than our own country, where we are treated like royalty.

Now, if only we showed the same apathy towards religious instigation and cricket. How can a country with so much passion for the things which do not count have so little passion for the things which do? How can we just sit and watch and laugh along with the West at our won country and it’s failures? How can we sit an talk about how the country will never change, when we do not even try a make a small difference? I am not saying, be the next politician or freedom fighter but atleast change your facebook status to express your disapproval. It is us, the next generation who can change the way India is perceived world over, we can make this country a success, the only question is – do we want to?

India Insulted.

I am livid. I am devastated. I am heartbroken. I am ashamed.

With every passing day back in India, I feel cheated, not because India is not everything I imagined her to be – warm, friendly and absolutely beautiful but because everywhere I go I see my country abused not just abused but raped and slapped on her face over and over again. This gets better, it is not the uneducated who do this, but the people like us – yes, you and me, the people who have the resources to make a difference, the people who are ‘supposedly educated’, the people who can actually financially afford to be a little more sensitive to the environment and surroundings.
We spit on the roads, refuse to take public transport, cut lanes, drink and drive, park in the middle of a busy street which is no broader than 5 feet, jump signals – and then complain about the traffic! We don’t pay our taxes properly, refuse to move our behinds to go vote for a darn educated politician and as for being in politics ourselves, we scoff at the very idea. Oh yes! We all want to be leaders in the corporate world, but when it comes to leading your country into a better future, we recoiled in horror. Why? because that would actually involve courage? And yes, when someone does go out and start some non-profit work to benefit society, we don’t give them the due respect.  We don’t support them, we refuse to acknowledge their work, instead we celebrate our young women and men who go into software and BPOS’s – who cares if they are filling up the coffers of another country or making the life of the rich better? They make more money than those who are doing good for society and for us, that is all that matters.

If being so utterly parasitic towards India is not enough, we add insult to injury. We act like we cannot stand to live in this country and we must move out! Why? Because the country is pathetic – the roads, the politicians, the opportunities..everything! The ones in the country are dying to get out and the ones who have come back from out are dying to leave again. Every person I have met has asked me why I have come back home and every other person how they can go elsewhere. Young couples want to migrate  Australia, UK, USA, Canada, probably even Uganda but not live in the country which made them who they are… An educated friend of mine, a pilot no less started his conversation with me with these exact words “ Find me a way to get a US/ Canadian citizenship, Please!” This is a guy with a great job, an enviable one and a rather large salary. When I told someone I wanted to be a politican, she assumed in the US “Oh like Bobby Jindal” she said smiling and when I replied, No, in India – she looked at me and said “ Are you high?”

I do not understand how a person who pisses on the streets of India, throws things on the roads and refuses to declare full income can change dramatically overnight in another country. Would we dare to try this in any other place? Travel 3 hours South- East to Singapore and we are changed individuals. So It is obviously not an habit or a culture but the attitude.

I am not saying, everybody is bad, hundreds come back every year to make this country better and some succeed but most go back jaded because of us, the way we treat them and our taunts about leaving “Umeeerica” to come back here.  I am not even saying, do not go and study/ work/settle abroad –  it is a fabulous idea to get International experience and if you want to settle there, even better, send in the foreign currency to our country! The only thing I am saying is – learn to respect India, just because you hold a green card or a citizenship from Timbaktu, it does not mean who can bad mouth the country on a regular basis, remember which country gave you your basic education, the happiness in your childhood and made you the person you are. .. and just because you make a 100 thousand dollars a year, it does not mean you are GOD.

As for us Indians, let us stop abusing our country. Please. Yes, going abroad works. If we want to give up a cook/maid and a generally amazing life which includes the world’s best food to go to a cold, rainy, snowy place – yes, its justifiable but stop complaining about what you have. Next time you want to complain about the politicians, ask yourself if you voted in the last election. Next time, you complain about the roads, ask yourself if you have ever taken a shorter route by trespassing into a one way, next time you complain about the dirt , ask yourself if you have ever thrown anything on the roads, or relieved yourself by a tree and if you have a clear conscience. Amen!

.

What the TV teaches us ..

A few days ago, I had the privilege(? ) of watching a preview show of a new Tamil movie, Boss a.ka. Bhaskar. The movie which will soon release amidst much hype boats of an A-line cast Arya after his recent blockbuster Madaraspattinam, Nayanthara the new poster girl of tamil cinema and a top comedian , the movie ended with a standing ovation from some of Chennai’s most elite and educated. As I walked out I replayed the movie in my head, wondering when the Indian movie industry sunk so low as to produce a piece of socially unacceptable crap just for the commercial value.

While the movie itself is a through entertainer, one which makes you laugh through it’s witty jokes – but the underlying idea of the plot is a shocker. Boss, an uneducated rowdy lives life the way he pleases, listens to no one and when he falls in love with the beautiful Nayanthara, he expects her to marry him despite the fact that he has no job and never intends to get one. What drove me nuts is the way, the director made a hero out of Bhaskar, the way he refuses to get a job, he way he yells at his girlfriend when she tries to change his irresponsible ways, the way he accidently finds a way to make a decent living for himself and never takes the learning curve seriously. Through the movie, the way education is disregarded is shameful, getting a job is shown as an option and even the seemingly educated heroine seems to support her lover, when he fails to show any progress towards responsibility.

Why do we do this? India is progressing at such a rapid rate, we have improved in sectors like Information technology, medicine, design and are striving to update our education system to make it more relevant and yet he close our eyes to the biggest more glaring reason for our obvious failure in several spheres. How can we so socially irresponsible as to allow, the country’s most potent form of entertainment to be of such low social value? We have censor boards for language, visuals, and just about everything but how do we censor the ideas popular media is putting into the minds of today’s young and old.

It is not this one movie, it is so many of them. Switch on your TV and watch any teleserial for more than 10 minutes and I promise you it is regressive. What values are we inculcating through the audio visual media? And How can we be so lax about our peers and future generations watching this and learning ? Is this what we want to provide for their thought process? Do we really still want to show that men who tease women, call them names and sometimes even slap them, get the girl at the end? In a country with such a high illiteracy rate, what are we trying to teach? Violence? Sexism?

This is not a one off incident; Bollywood’s biggest hit Three Idiots (among many, many, many others) – show suicide in such a casual manner – almost like it is alright to kill yourself if your teacher yells at you? And then we wonder why the suicide rate is so high when the board exams results come out? Sure, maybe we can stop showing it as a one stop option for bad marks, love failure and gall bladder problems. We have a zillion suicide hotlines but one movie , one scene has a greater impact than a faceless voiceless person trying to convince you to not kill yourself. Why are we refusing to let India move ahead?

It is not enough if our GDP grows, our minds need to expand too. Is it not enough if our authors and artists win accolades across the world, if the common man still believes that eve teasing and wife beating is permissible. It is not enough, if we had 2 people of Indian origin win the Mc. Arthur genius grant this year, we need to stop and think about the remaining 2 billion.

If we the educated , the ones who say we care, turn a blind eye to popular media, simply because we THINK that we can tell the difference between good and bad – we are being ignorant fools, because we don’t live by ourselves, we share the country with a billion others who may not make out this subtle difference. It’s time we take action.

The Ugly Truth

This is not in response to an Joel Stein’s article in Time. Infact, after being marginally upset for about 2 hours – I remembered my own first thoughts about New jersey and decided in true Indian style to laugh off any offense.

It is not about how during my first week at Harvard, when I was walking down the Cambridge galleria mall with my Harvard T sweatshirt on, an older gentleman yelled out to me “ **** you, go study in your own country, stop taking over our schools.”

I am not even going to mention the time, a few months ago in Las Vegas someone asked me where I was from and when I said India – he retorted

“ Are there still people in that country? I thought all of you migrated here!”

US Immigration Statistics – Source: www.migrationinformation.org

On a bus in Miami, a woman refused to let me sit in the seat next to her – she placed her bag down and insisted that she was ‘waiting for a friend’ who never came, while I stood seething by her for 45 minutes, on a hot, humid day.

In Arizona, while my cousin waited in line at Starbucks for her coffee, a group of teenagers in front of her, crumpled their receipts and threw it into her shopping bags, exclaiming ‘trash!’ and I only hope, they were talking about the bag.

A few days ago in Chicago, a store clerk accused a friend of mine  of using a counterfeit $100 bill and insisted that ‘ this immigrant intended to cheat’. After 3 hours of both of us being questioned in front of an entire outlet mall, she sheepishly lets out, that the $100 bill she got my friend was not the only one she got that day, “but the other gentleman was American she said and he would not cheat”. Needless to say, well after much humiliation we were completely cleared and the other gentleman was arrested for possessing fake currency but just because we were immigrants, we are questioned like criminals and treated like dirt. Stores refused to sell to us later and yes, I sent a very interesting email to the President of Crabtree and Evelyn.

This, coupled with kitsch toiler seat covers with Lord Ganesh’s image on it, one of the most popular google searches being “why do Indians smell so much” and the blatant truth that no matter what your citizenship – Indian or American or Portuguese – as long as you look Indian, you are Indian and hence treated in a ‘particular way’.

Now, this can be as subtle as seemingly innocent questions like “ How do you speak English? Were you born in the United States or something more ignorant like “do you have a pet elephant at home?”  to the more serious ones like “ If I am visiting delhi for a week, do you think I need to take food from here or is it safe to buy packaged food in India. I don’t want to die of food poisoning!”  Combine this with stereotypes, the way we say “ Alooooooo” for hello, the way we say “Saar” for Sir and the way, we use a 4 by 4 tune to compose our verbal responses. Of course, every Indian is a software engineer, I wonder if most people think of India as some sort of computer genius factory which produces X number of IT professionals year after year. A big grey concrete building above the Indian Ocean much like a warehouse, which stores these human clones, all wired with the same intelligence and skill levels in software.

But I am not writing this to complain, I am writing to tell you why we haven’t had violent outbusts to Steins’ article or why we haven’t ever reacted to the way we are sometimes treated. It is simple – We ignore it. Not because, we don’t care but because we believe it not worth the effort. It is not that we are so stupid that we don’t realize, it is just that we think racism is stupid and anyone who does exhibit such behavior is really not worth our time or conversation.

Today Indians have settled all over the world. Infact there is a joke, the first Indian man on the moon might have been Neil Amstrong, but the first coffee shop on the moon would have an Indian owner. If we have migrated to every imaginable part of the world, as far as Fiji and Alaska. If the official dish of the United Kingdom is Chicken Tikka Masala and Tamil one of the official languages of Singapore, if from the land of fakirs and snake charmers, we are not the IT country – it means we are doing right and doing it fast.

So stop taking our silence for ignorance or apathy – it just means, we are the clam before the storm. Watch out!

The long walk home

So, my bags are packed and I am ready to go.  Three months from now, I will be back to the one place I call home. I will be back with my dog on the same bed I have slept on since I was 3. I will be back to my tangerine orange studio space working on the same desk, I slaved over during my high schools exams and three years of undergraduate study.  But that is not why I am going home – I am not one to live in the past but I do know that for a better future, India – my country is where I need to be…

Several people have wondered “WHY!” aloud – especially since I have a great job and live in Los Angeles, all alone in a funky little studio apartment. A steady income, a car, enough spending money for a good life and most of all – no loans to pay off! Most people cannot fathom how I could possibly leave a path to career growth and financial security and move back to a developing country – especially, when my area of expertise is education.  “Now,  Now ..even if that degree was from Harvard, it is not an MBA! Do you think it will have any value in India? You will only get a teacher’s job!” they say … but I still want to go home …I do … and I do because

It has been 2 years since I stood up straight and sang my National Anthem. The first and only I heard Jana Gana Mana in the US was on August 9, 2008 – I cried. It is something else to see 200 people stand up in the middle of the church of peace in Pittsburg and chant “ Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hai” with emotion which can stir the insides of your soul.  You know what is strange? AS long as I lived in India, I never once sang the National Anthem with as much passion and power and feeling as I did that day.

I want to go back home because I miss hanging out with my best friend doing absolutely nothing for as long as I like on any day I like. Plans have to be made in advance here, you need to tell people that you are coming over and ask if it is alright. I fell strange calling someone and asking “ Are you sure it is alright if I come over, I don’t want to disturb you. Are you sure?” Do you really think they are going to say – “No, don’t come you will be disturbing me because I am doing xxxxx” unless they are absolutely and completely busy?  What if they don’t want company that day and just want to spend a quiet day at home? What do they say then? And seriously, how strange is it to call someone and ask if you could come over? It makes bonding so much less personal , so less warm.

I want to go home, because I am not a mind reader. I miss the days someone would just come up and tell me “I am mad that you did not give me a ride when you promised.” Or “ I am hurt and I really don’t want to talk right now.” Contrary to what people say, Indians are more direct (unless they are asking for brides). This whole,” I am upset but I will be polite and show the other person how I feel through my body language” thing does not work.  Newsflash it is hard to pick up signals, unless you are specifically looking for signals. I am tried of parsing every person’s every sentence, to see if they really mean what they are saying or are they saying something to mean something else or if it is somewhere in between. I am tired and honestly, I am not great at it!

I want to go home because I miss my family – I miss being dependent. The US teaches you to be independent – really, you need noone to live a life here. If you have a car, a roof and sufficient money and you play your cards right (you can completely live your life without talking to another person). You can buy stuff online, you can walk into a market and self-check out, you pump you own gas, get money out of an ATM, put your laundry in a machine and yes, your neighbours do not knock on your door to say hello. I miss having my grandmother to just go ‘talk to’ for hours. I miss my watchman who used to ask me about my health with unfailing regularity. I miss the vegetable vendor who has been bring veggies to my doorstep ever since I was 4 years old. I miss giving my father a hug in the mornring. I miss fighting over the remote control with my mother. I miss my cousins – the fights we have had, the way we yell at each other, the secrets we have kept for each other, the way we spent weekends sleeping over at each other’ s place like it was our own.

I want to go home, because I have forgotten to smile. My last two years have brought me incredible intellectual growth but personally, despite all these interesting people I have met – I probably forged 2 maybe 3 personal relationships – that too with people much older than me. I have forgotten what it is to be 24 without responsibility and bills and cooking to worry about. I have forgotten what it is like to be silly and laugh for no reason. I have forgotten what it is like to be truly happy.

Perfection

I am a famous sculptor, and my assignment is to sculpt a pure white marble statue of myself. I start my work on my 16^th birthday and draw plans in painstaking detail, because I want my sculpture to be the best and the most remembered. On my 17^th birthday, this sculpture is ready – beautiful, smooth, with excellent craftsmanship but when I look at myself, I realize I look different from what I had a year ago – my hair is longer, my feet bigger, my cheekbones higher and then, I am sad.

The sculpture, though almost perfect in detail and craft, is not a true representation of me, and in desperation , I take a hammer to the sculpture and in one blow, break it into a 1000 pieces. Then, I start on another sculpture, which represents my current state of mind and body. This goes on…. I see flashes of my 21st, 25^th, 30^th, 42^nd and 55^th birthdays, each time out of desperation, I break this almost perfect marble statue of myself and continue working on a better, more perfect version.

Soon, I am no longer a famous sculptor, people begin to point fingers at me and call me crazy. They say, I am the enemy of art, because I destroy sculptures. I no longer look the same, my back is bent because of the constant hammering and chiseling on marble. In due course, the ridicule stops, people stop noticing me, I begin to live the life of a recluse. But every year, I keep perfecting this marble only to break it on my birthday.

Finally, on my 78^th birthday, just as I finish my statue and something tells me that it is perfect. I look at myself immortalized in stone – I am no longer a beautiful statue, like I was in my heyday but I am perfect in detail. The cracked marble, is no longer smooth but it  truly represents my callous hands, my face covered with wrinkles and my blind eye. My back no longer stands proud, but instead is bent over time but for the first time, in 50 years I smile. My statue is finally perfect.

Soon, I die. As, I never hurt anyone through my life I go to heaven. The angel who delivers my soul to God, looks at me and asks” Why that obsession with perfection, It ruined your life, If you had studied the scriptures you would know nothing created by man is ever perfect.”

But then, I smile and say “ My last sculpture was perfect”

©Kaavya Krishna

To be continued…

Happiness

If I were happy

How would I be?

Would I sing a song

Or dance with glee.

If I were happy

Would I have everything

Or would it be

Just You and me?

If I were happy

Would I be able cry?

Would I be me?

Or would I be a lie.

The Bright Sparks

At 11:00 am this morning, I got an SOS call. A call from one of the very few women, I truly admire “ My life is falling apart” she said. “ I am a failure, I don’t think anybody will give me a job, my love life is going nowhere and I have no sense of direction”.

Of course, this from a woman who has survived and conquered more in her 24 years than most people have in their entire lives – a rushed bad marriage, abusive in laws, being left alone in a strange country – all at 21. She came back home, picked up the shreds of her life and started again, no self pity, no time wasted. Of course, after I spent about 15 minutes telling her that she was setting unrealistic expectations for herself and success takes time, she was mollified but no, she did not set lower standards for herself –if anything, she decided to aim bigger.

To me, an attitude like this is motivational, and the success she has had in 24 short years of her career is something I aim for! So, I could not resist and asked her “ XXXX have you always been this way ? So motivated ? How were you in school ?” and she said “Terrible. I barely scarped through my 12^th standard, in fact I was not the smartest in college either , yes – I did well but it took a lot of effort. “ We then began reminiscing about our lives, our past and then came the inevitable question “ what happened to the over achievers in school and college .

Where are they now ? What are they doing ?

“XXXX, the smartest girl in my class, is now making Sambar in the Bay Area” she said. And as I counted off on my fingers, the women who I truly looked up to in school and college – very few of them, are now pursing lucrative careers. In fact, almost all of them are either married or going to be married – ofcourse, a few smart determined ones, still work after marriage or have found themselves something to do despite living in a different country, but a majority are now ‘home makers’.

I don’t know how I feel about this, I don’t want to sound prejudice or raise a debate. And no, I am not discounting the importance of being a ’homemaker’ – in fact if anything, I understand . Living alone in LA, I cant seem to take care of myself – imagine caring for another person. It is not easy! But the question, I have is – how can a woman after so many years of working hard at school and college give up everything to move to a new place and start life from scratch? What makes her do this and where does she  find the courage and strength? Is this part of the in-born ‘woman gene’ – something I am missing completely, or is it just that when you meet that one person, nothing seems more important than being with him?

I have always prided myself on my professional choices, my career ( though the same can’t be said about my personal life) and have big plans for 5, 10, 25 years from now. But today, as I entered my empty apartment in Los Angeles – my dream home, I wonder if my ‘committed friends’ grin and ask me one simple question “ What is success after all, If you don’t have someone to share it with?” I guess, they did prove that they were the ‘bright sparks’ afterall!