No So(a)p Saga This!

I jumped onto my couch and flipped on the TV, bringing to life a bazillion liquid crystals, all whirring to display, collectively, a frame out of a further billion frames, to help me pass a lazy Sunday afternoon.

I checked my usual list of channels: Star World, AXN, Zee Cafe and the groupies of that category; HBO and Star movies (with a fleeting glance at the 'i' of some cooler sounding movies in MGM, etc), jumping thereon to the News channels with a customary stop at CNN IBN, CNN and BBC in that order, and then on to Discovery/ Nat Geo/ Fox History to check for interesting things.

Meh.

My channel scan complete, with nothing holding my attention for more than 2.3 nanoseconds, I glided over to a channel I wouldn't be caught dead watching, but can admit to having seen by 'accident'. Ha! Ohkay. Now. So... ahem... yes, I found myself watching a daily soap on 'Colors', (I won't STILL say which one, but that maybe because I ended up watching more than one :P).

Settling on a bunch of cushions, I watched for a long time, having some idea of the various storylines and plots, courtesy my grandparents and mum, without whose respective 'companies', my dinner is incomplete. But what does it matter, the story never changes drastically, and remains generally on the same page for most soaps, give or take a few twists and turns.

As I sat and was sucked into this world of heavy jewellery, complex relationships and kanjivarams, I realized how the very kernel of the daily soap feeds off the desire of the average Indian (yes honey, if you're not signing movie contracts or cricket sponsorship deals on a Sunday afternoon, then you ARE an average Indian) for a stable 'umbrella', along with all the compounded complexities that come with 'joint families' and community living.

It's quite cool, given the current trend towards 'nuclearizing' the modern family (which by the way, is a damn awesome sitcom on Star World, and totally NOT about 'hum do humaare do'), that soap-makers still gift-wrap family values and togetherness and present it to the increasingly restless Indian. It's a dreamy getaway for more than half of India, post office hours, where family values still work; and relationships stand the test of time. And it IS a very feel-good feeling. Not so much for me, because I tend to see beyond what's on the screen, but still.

I actually connect with that train of thought, because I've grown up in an umbrella family.

And thank heavens for that. I have more cousins, chachas, tayas, buas, maasis, maamis than I can count, and definitely more than I can love, but I still adore each one of them all the same. Each a character, each making my life interesting on a daily basis.

Because growing up in a large group of people is always such a tussle, one learns to be accommodating, adaptive and flexible along the way. You may have vested interests, but you have a keen sense of judgement and an eye for the 'greater good'.

Given, there may be 10 opinions where there should be none (oooh woh ladka theek nahee hai...), but you grow up a warmer, socially adept and broad minded person.

Things I and Saas-Bahu sagas agree on:

1. There is nothing like family when you're neck deep in trouble.

2. There is nothing like a marriage in a huge family. Oh my GOD, I live the years in between them just hoping and praying for the next one to come sooner.

3. There are always, always ALWAYS things you won't tell your best friends, things you won't tell your siblings, things you won't tell your parents, but WILL tell your cousins. Muhahaha!

4. You get money when they visit you. You get money on general festivals. You get money on all the brother-sister festivals. On your birthdays, exam results, and on every randomly spontaneous dance you do at a family party (if you do it well, that is. No Dadaji waves big notes around your head if you're not impressive and you didn't invite atleast one of the 3rd Gen on the Floor)

5. When one of the babies of the family takes a liking to you, there isn't a joy purer.

6. Sharing clothes, hand-me-downs, sharing jewellery, books, shot-glasses; it's ALL part of the package. And we ALL do it, no matter how well off we are.

7. Family vacations abroad!

Secret: Everyone detests a train of Indians descending upon Point A, in XYZ city in *#* country.

Bigger Secret: We don't care! We love it, and if you let go of your pretensions, you can join in the fun too! And people have. We've made an entire ship of people want to click pictures with us. :P

8. There's always someone to go to the movies with ;)

9. You ALWAYS get permission when you're with cousins.

10. Nothing is inappropriate. And you can ONLY bitch about family to cousins :P

And a bazillion other points. Three of my closest cousins actually went back to their 'home country' (bleh, Internet Security 101), 2 days ago. And I couldn't shake that sinking feeling. I hate it. I probably wont see them for another 1 or 2 years, unless someone gets married really soon.

And I do want to practice co-ordinated Bhangra moves with those guys for a wedding. So badly.

And I want to spend endless nights 'stealing from the kitchen' and talking about random things, holed up in a blanket, looking like a preposterous little golliwog (I can, mind you, with my hair, for those of you who've seen me)

Air-guitaring. Tickle-bombs. Sour-punk.

Stale jokes. Bad jokes.

And random pokes.

And pillowfights. And drunken nights.

*Self-contented Sigh*

I love my family :) . They may suck at various degenerative levels.

But they rock my world!! \m/

The Red Light Man

Sitting in that auto with my mother and sister on either side of me, I spotted him today, the red light man. He was holding this wooden board with those obnoxious little wobbly flowers that everyone seems to love to perch on their dashboards nowadays. And then he passed out of my line of vision.

I had just found my portkey to time travel. I flew back to a time some twelve years ago, when school was about silly games like ‘lock- and-key’ and ‘ghost-in-the-graveyard’, and children running out of grey metal gates towards the waiting cool of an air conditioned car. I plonked myself in the front seat and turned on the radio, 102.6 FM, the only one we had back then. At the Ashram red light, my face lit up as I saw the nice, knobbly old man selling magazines. Like always, he came right up to our window and made faces at me. I laughed, rolled down my window and shook his hand, and told him that I was going home from school. Then the lights changed and I waved my byes to him.

Dissolve. That memory and the picture dissolved.

Cut to seven years later. For whatever reasons, time, etc, I hadn’t seen the red light man in many years. A little part of me, at the odd time, fearing the worst, prayed for him, and with all my heart I wished him luck and happiness. Then one day, at the Ashram red light again, I saw him. My heart jumped, an initial yelp of joy. But by then, my mind had undergone a certain mental conditioning, as the initial yelp was muffled under observation, apprehension and hesitation.
How old he had grown, his jaw stuck out, the teeth were missing. My heart went out to him. He was selling water bottles, from car to car, in the blistering heat. I half wanted him to come to my window and half not, not knowing how I would react. It had been so long, I felt a sense of having betrayed him (and my childish innocence) and moved on.

He stopped at my window.
I looked at him, with a deadpan expression, trying to silence the little girl who wanted to scream, “it’s me! From back then! Do you remember?”
Our eyes met over my clenched jaw, he held my gaze for a fleeting moment and I thought I saw a flicker of recognition. My lips almost turned upward and I was on the verge of flashing him a beaming smile, when he turned away.

He turned and went to the next car. My heart sank.

Why in that fleeting moment, did I feel that he waited for me to meet him halfway? Why was I so reserved? Because he was a man at a red light and I was a young girl in a car? I felt a deep sense of shame, an innate repulsion for myself.

Today, I sat in the auto, and saw him again... feeble and bent with age, yet resilient, selling his wares from car to car, a life force that refused to give up. And I felt nothing except respect for this man. No desire to try to appeal to his memory, nothing. I asked my sister if she remembered him, (I don’t even know his name); she said she was surprised because she was thinking about him too.

Perhaps he was like this with all the children he met at red lights. Perhaps they’d openly recognize him till date. Not like me.

Would he remember me? Perhaps not. And why should he? I was nothing and am nothing special.

But I will remember him. Him in the sponsored T-shirt of whichever company was paying him. He who embraced the harshness of life and entertained little children.

That knobbly faced smile that knew no boundaries.

The Red Light Man who made faces at an uncorrupted me.

Evolve

I was sitting on my couch, watching TV, flipping through the channels aimlessly, mindlessly. Finally stopped on a news channel. A very unclear video...probably from the VGA camera of a bystander's mobile phone, was showing the Taliban gun down a couple in Pakistan.

The Taliban gunned down a couple for wanting to be together.

I was mortified.
What has gone wrong with the world?
Are we so steeped in our mindset towards 'religion' that we fail to recognize the basis of it all?
The most basic emotion? The emotion that ideally drives religion?The emotion that drives humanity?
Love?

Religion has made sadists of men. God is no longer the focus of religion. Everything but Him, unfortunately is. A few wise men, ages ago, thought of a common good, a common ideal. They meant no harm, and charted their own courses towards Him. Soon their knowledge attracted followers, and soon there were sects. Of course those Wise men couldn't live forever. And there were no heirs to THAT kind of 'knowledge' without dispute. So, the sects developed. People, too scared to shun the common ideal, started choosing. And then they had children. And their children had children. All the while, down generations and generations of men, religion was tweaked to suit one's own needs and desires. Advice became rules. And still more rules came into play. And people kept choosing. Not knowing, that a few more generations down the line, things will start happening.The very first Wise Men would turn in their graves, knowing that their ideal of the common good, was so mercilessly cut up; and today, stands defeated by human foolishness.

We're killing each other. Because of how different our respective 'wise men' were from each other. But weren't they supposed to be? They were human too. Their respective 'religions' have taken on their characteristics. And the common good? It still reverbrates in the hearts of those very first souls that seeked truth and God.

Love God. Love humans. Love life.
It's a beautiful world.

Candid Can-do

Haha... I amuse myself with absurd titles.

So basically a lot has changed since I last ‘blogged’. I’ve travelled a bit, lost some, won some, given up on my old goals, found out that planning is NOT better than dreaming, and I think I’ve grown up. Maybe gone back to being a child by letting go of the lines and boundaries I drew around myself. It’s a nice place to be actually, where I am now. I’m happy.

I credit myself with this absolutely creepy (but nice) ability of waking up one random morning with a fresh, clean slate, having pushed that refresh button and cleaned up the desktop of my life. Changing my frame of mind is like changing the wallpaper of my desktop: it sits there in the background quietly watching everything that goes on, but at a very basic level dictates the mood of the desktop. One morning, poof, new background, new rules, and the game has changed yet AGAIN.

There are certain experiences that one needs to go through, good or bad, just to know what it is to have been through them. This world is one crazy roller coaster; I’m bound in my seat and gagged by my apprehension. But I’m strapped in nevertheless. My mind is a perfect globule of gravity defying liquid, ready to be messed with. A buzzing live-wire, I AM ‘Potential Energy’, holding my breath, watching... waiting for my moment of kinetic release.

I sit at the precipice of a teacup called life, ready to take the plunge and drown if I must.

I’m not scared.
Are YOU?