thoughts gone into hiding

Do thoughts hibernate in winter? These days, i do less of thinking, which is nice for a change. Sometimes, it can be quite annoying having your thoughts chasing each other around in your head like noisy children playing tag.

Or could it be that i have finally realised the futility of it all? ummm...

The days are shorter now, the weather gloomier. i forget to think, to fret. Would this nice season last? i wonder.

i need to buy some more books. i need to fill this vacuum inside my head. Till the thoughts come out from their dank corners to torment me again, i need something else to occupy myself.

While i pretty much enjoy the fact that i am a bad person most of the time, sometimes i wish i was able to see a bit beyond myself, if only for the sake of the few people in life i love. Which makes me wonder whether i am mellowing with age. A thought that makes me uncomfortable.

i am very selfish. It is a fact. i could not have inherited it from my mother because she is someone who is so giving, so kind in spite of the hardship life has thrown at her. It cannot be from my father either because he too is generous, sometimes too much for his (and our) own good . Well, from whichever gene pool i inherited it from, i am saddled with it. Though it is not something i am ashamed of. i am selfish because, well, i don't know why exactly.

But sometimes, when my selfishness gets in the way of the happiness of those i hold close to me, it saddens my heart (oh yes, i do possess one even though it is black).

Sometimes, i do envy those who seem to find happiness in other's happiness. Something i feel i am incapable of. You see i have to be happy myself for me to even think of making anyone else happy.

Which explains why i have always end up hurting the people i love the most. Because they expect things from me that i cannot give since i do not possess them. And while i try to exonerate myself saying it is their own fault for having expectations in the first place, sometimes, just sometimes, i wish for a drop of kindness in me.

And i am drinking juice that is beyond the best-before-date. Why, i don't know. Do i expect to find that elusive drop in 'expired' juice? i am so fit for the loony bin.

Life ...or the lack of it

The view from the window has changed. From trees well-clothed to naked ones shivering in the wind. And i wonder whether the branches are happy to be alone for some months without the weight of the leaves clinging to them like responsibilities. Or whether they miss them, their whisperings and dancing..And i wonder why i try to read too much into things that just might have no meaning.

Talked to SC after such a long time. Times were when we spent more time with each other then our respective life partners. i miss the corner of the project room that we had reserved for ourselves when we moved into the new building. We used to sit next to each other and gossip like two old ladies. And fight like cats and dogs. i miss the way we used to bully the kids, rag them till they begged for mercy. Oh such wicked souls we were and i hope we still are. Before leaving, i told him to keep my cubicle intact for me in case i come back and rejoined. i forgot to ask him whether it still is empty or whether someone has been allocated to it.

And i am not on talking terms with him. Which is difficult since it is one way. It started off with a small tiff and since i do so love being bitchy, i decided to see through him. He, being so good natured and all that, was cool after a few days. But not me. No, no. Since i have a propensity of bearing grudges (albeit for a short time - if there is anything like bearing a short-term grudge), i ignored all of his advances to bury the hatchet or whatever it is that we are supposed to bury. But i am not yet unsalvageable - i was good enough to point out by pantomiming that he had missed a call when he was in the other room. Of course, i could not ruin my hard earned reputation as a bitch by going over and handing him the phone when it rang.

i wonder whether i would be able to take over the reins in hell.

and the valley was really green.....

It has been a long time since i read a book and not wanted to reach the last page for fear of losing the pleasure of sinking into the words. And such a book was "how green was my valley"...

Sometimes the written words takes me to places i probably would never go. i could almost hear the nightingales singing. So heart-warming a story, so elegantly written. It somehow reminded me of "to kill a mockingbird". Maybe it was the way both the stories touched my cold heart.

And my heart is glad to know this is but the first of a series of four books. So i will be hunting for the next three -Up, into the singing mountain; Down where the moon is small and Green, green my valley now.

And on a completely different (and bitchy) note, it tickles me pink sometimes to read the news on e-pao.net because whoever is reporting seems to think big and difficult words make for an impressive article/report (and the usage and grammar making me wonder whether there is no editor for that news service). Yeah, i am snobbish. But i just wish they realise that there is elegance in simplicity. No offence meant to the site though because i rely on it for news on what is going on in the valley of mine that was also once green.

How green was my valley

i picked up this book on a whim. Heard about it before but was not sure whether i would like it. And god, i love it. i am about halfway through and i am left wondering why i didn't read it earlier. Obviously because you did not have it. Oh shut up...(that is one half of me talking to the other.)

"Not that i am not satisfied with what i have become, or that i am where i am. Only that if i had not think things for myself and find things for myself, i might have had a happier life judged by ordinary standards....."

--- How green was my valley by Richard Llewellyn

That is exactly how i feel sometimes.....

Swearing my mouth off

i actually grew up in a nice family - difficult to believe when you consider how i turned out! A family where swearing was not allowed, where you were supposed to answer with 'Aiga' (a corruption of the hindi word 'aagya' - 'your command')whenever anyone called you. So i grew up not dirtying my mouth with Manipuri swear words. Some of my classmates used to pepper their sentences with words never heard inside our house - even today, i do not know the meaning of some of the swear words. The strongest swear word i used was 'hingchabi' (witch).

Then high school happened. So i graduated to using 'damn' and 'shit'. But never at home.

Then i moved to another city, another life. Hostel, new friends...And since i was/am no angel and home was so far away, swear words came into my life. Fast and furious. To make up for all those lost years. And one day, i gathered enough courage to say the F word out loud. i don't remember whether i felt liberated spitting out that word. Like they say, the next time is always easier - be it murder or swearing. At one stage, i used it pretty liberally - to emphasize my point or just to shock people and myself. Since almost everybody else around me was using it, it felt less obnoxious.

Then work happened. And the F word went hibernating, unable to withstand the niceties of office life. Out came small-time galis. And from K, who used to be my next door cubicle mate, i imbibed the habit of saying 'sala'. 'Sala' became my favourite swear word. When SC and i used to have our everyday fights in the office, it would go like 'tui sala' 'tor khandaan sala'...

Then 'harami' came into the picture and sala and harami made such a nice pair. Of course, i never could bring myself to say harami out loud for the whole project to hear. i only used it with SC and SM in private. And we came up with this beautiful gali - salami (sala + harami). So we used to go like 'Salami' and no-one was any the wiser.

Since moving here, i don't have anyone to swear at. My new colleagues are squeaky clean and i am afraid they would go up in flames if i were to swear at them. So i only get to swear when i talk to SM or SC or when i chat to SN (the poor girl - she has now resorted to swearing - i am the bestest bad apple around). i use the F word now very sparsely. Sometimes when i am angry, really really really fire-spitting angry with him, in my posts when i am really disturbed, sometimes silently in my head when i rant at life...

But till today, i have never been able to swear in Manipuri. The only time i ever said a bad Manipuri swear word was when i was really small and i was used (very willing, i must add) by all my bigger cousins as a parrot to say the things they dare not. i remember being taken to a tailor's by my teen-aged cousin along with her friends and all along the way, they taught me what to say. i was a very eager beaver then and i remember reciting their script complete with swear words at the tailor! i don't remember whether i was punished when words got around about it. But that was the last time i ever sweared in Manipuri. Sala!