Don't be someone else's idea of perfect

Do not try to be someone else's idea of perfect...be who you are and know for yourself that you are complete being just you. Do not submit yourself in the name of humility to another's egoistic anger beyond reason and logic beyond sense. Stretching yourself to others idiosyncrasies is not adapting well..but just dumbing down lower..
Do not give others the power to decide for you what is right and how to do things right...do not ask others to understand you better but stay clear on your line of understanding...do not bend or shorten this line for others lack of sensitivity and choose to move ahead if it still hurts.
There is nothing like very happy or very sad - it's only your mind taking longer to let go when you cling to them to make you feel situationally feel good or miserable about yourself.

Embracing yourself just as you are is hard. That would mean being able to be brave enough to overlook the flaws in your life and not hold anyone else responsible, or being hard on yourself for the missed opportunities to make life better. Challenges do not define who you are as much as appreciation. Realizing your strengths through others opinions does not weaken or empower you either. It's your focused intention to want to learn, grow wiser, more calm and giving and let go memories that don't serve your life in the now that makes you unique as a human and as an evolving person. 
The blessed life we have and are living is already complete, and so are our personalities. Remember, you can never be someone else's idea of perfect.  

A wake up from the dead

A daze of conscious, a dew of subconscious
Her mind wakes up from deep slumber
As she is aware of the hollow dark of the night

Dreams have become distant
Her world of fantasies in near sight
The settling dust from dusk on every leaf
Her garden of emptiness a dull brown suspension of disbelief

In life there can be lifelessness
As her every feeling begins to freeze
Icicles they remain, hurting from inside
Static and placid, her core being unmoved

The statue of outer courage begins to melt
As her inner world has broken an old mirror
Her heart sees a new her in the golden light of an awakening sun
A battle for freeing her self has painfully begun.



   

The woman of yesterday

Her eyes are a sunken boat of sorrow
she floats across islands leaving life behind
The island echoes her fears
every corner filling her empty space
All seasons look the same
tear dried and beckoning autumn
Shedding life one day at a time
her only remains this wasteland of sorrow
Unearthing her way home
she looks towards the skies
as sun's happiness blinds her and
moon's mystery reveals her
She is the woman of yesterday
in her today and tomorrow
For, history is kept alive
in her wasteland of sorrow.

A calf caught in the headlights...

Post marriage, daughters become daughter-in-laws or 'daughter like' members of an acquired family. And it does not stop at that. They try to win appreciation from the husband's parents and assume, as if in an illusion, that they are the chosen ones for this new family-the saviours, (a job thrust upon daughter-in-laws) of family pride and salvagers of wounded egos and hurt feelings of those she is made to believe she is ritually/dutifully married to, as all these and more are part of family bureaucracy and tradition of marriages as a whole.

Their path in their chosen life gets altered to meet the curves of expectations that are a mountain a minute and a mole hill the next. And this becomes a routine of a living disguised in the feel good adjectives 'sacrificing', 'understanding' and whatever familial terms that end with 'ing'- a token of appreciation for the adjust'ing' daughter in her different family.

I caught a glimpse of a calf trying to find her way home in the busy sounding traffic. She was given new direction, every time she decided to find her own road to safety. The vehicles on either side made matters worse as she finally stopped short  outside of a vegetable mandi, chewing on the dried plantain leaves before being shooed back to the road. A calf caught in the headlights and so very caught up that her fears have drowned in that confusing noise.

Strangely enough, I could relate with the plight of the calf while taking my evening walk home. She seemed out of place but not out of context. The only difference was I tried acting courageous whenever I felt lost and was even more confused when I tried being their daughter. This truth unto myself has made the intensity in this overwhelmingly warm relationship less stifling and my place as a daughter-in-law in my
(not anymore) new family that much natural. Being oneself is not rocket science. And marriage is not mechanical science either.

Our duties are not iron clad uniforms that rust with age-while in them, we defend or attack only at our own fears. Get out of them... Stay happy with yourself and unassumingly committed to those you've widened your hearts for. Set yourself free. They deserve your love too.

'English Vinglish'

Sridevi's comeback in 'English Vinglish' is as graceful as the movie in itself. The star looks and feels completely at ease with her role and performs without much ado, while carrying the entire weight of this simple classic on her shoulders.

Bollywood is a common metaphor for 'stardom' and translates into '100 crores' in filmi grammar. Whereas Sridevi is the unique voice from the crowd of stars who speaks a successful acting/actor's language quite her own, making 'English Vinglish' the movie that it was meant to be-a value addition in the list of masters of the film craft.

As a mother with a quivering pulse for English, her vulnerability in dealing with an unknown language in an unknown country creates an anxious block for her to break in the first half of the movie. Finding her own voice and rising to the occasion in her finale speech wins the much needed respect and appreciation from her family and her new found friends from the English speaking class.

This movie is a sure standout for the peoples theme in its choosing, for the common locales of character picturisation, for making a star the girl next door and for a heart warming tale of a woman who chooses to reassert herself breaking all language barriers.  

Shades of 'Grey'

'Grey's Anatomy'-the title justifies the show: a show of bodies and their complications, basic instincts and anatomy of several lively emotions and a shade of grey in an everyday intern's life.
The Chief of Surgery, the Resident, the Cardiothroraic surgeon, Neuro surgeon etc are heroes of a 'non clinical' medical drama series. They operate on victims or cases with their acting finesse, while the interns vie to scrub in with their finishing touches. The human life as a medical novice and as a student gets told through different cases and even if their personal lives kept away from medical emergencies, there are no skeletons in their closet-none that can be kept closed for far too long.

There are enough body complications that become themes of their own and high voltage emotional entanglements within the closely operating team that cannot be defined within the (Seattle Grace) hospital limits. Divorce, extramarital affair, live in and live without are certain patterns that recur in their relationships though.

Close to life and unimaginably creative, this anatomy does manage to keep the audience's interest alive.


  

The 'Karva Chauth' connect

'Karva Chauth' is a Hindi version of karadaya nombu from the South. It is performed by the wife for her husband's health longevity and prosperity-a day long fasting diligently followed by the wife, chanting prayers and reading mythological/epic stories that witness the triumph of good over evil, of life over death, and faith over practicality.

The transition of the 'husband' figure from an everyday presence to elevated heights of love and hero worship is quite bollywood inspired, which is an Indian culture by itself. The 'nombu' or 'vrath' is a day of full on high loyalty as the sacred yellow thread around the wife's neck is a miniature thaali for the married and a prayer of protection for the brother from his married/unmarried sister.
 The moon is the source of ethereal connect that once when witnessed is a sign for the woman to seek blessings from her husband and break her fast.
And hence the feasting begins as another year of Karva Chauth time comes to an end.

The results of a marriage are in the everyday-there are good days, there are boring days and there are cold war days and patch up days in between like the phases of the moon. We women need days like these to embrace the light within us and shine on come rain or shine.