It's Important to Talk

Everybody needs to talk.

Every moment of everyday, my head is filled with random, inconsequential rubbish that, were I a sane and wants-to-use-her-time-productively-and-not-spend-it-pondering-utter-inconsequential-rubbish kind of person, I would forget about and do something far more positive and constructive and productive with my time. 

But I'm not that kind of person. What I realized was that I loved writing on this website because it felt like I was talking to someone or getting the thoughts out of my head and into the open. Once my thoughts are not just my thoughts anymore, they lose value exponentially and I forget about them so much more easily. I can move onto to new and fresh things. 

Psychiatrists probably base the demand of their services on this. I'm not saying I'm devaluing them or anything. Everyone needs someone with whom they can speak, and know that they're words are not falling on deaf or apathetic ears. I would probably feel better if I could voice my issues to someone I thought was wiser than I am  and  talk about it at length to see if my latent psychological stress and anxieties were manifesting themselves in any way in my behaviour, personality, social skills, or anything. 

The path of self-discovery is important in life. But I don't know anything about that.

All I wanted to say today was that I was lying on the sofa watching a movie that I've seen before, and I started trying to convince myself to go study. But I couldn't.....because I wanted to either call someone up and talk about my day or come online and write something. I needed to talk. 

When I was younger I'd keep a journal and I'd write it in everyday. I wanted this to be my journal, but I never feel like I'm just talking to myself (which is what it should feel like): I'm perpetually conscious of the fact that someone else might read this. When I write, I write it as if I'm writing for someone else to read, and not for myself. But what I remember from my journal writing experiences was that I always felt great, and I didn't tell random people what I was thinking, because I found a way to vent through the writing. 

Lesson 1: Expression in any form relieves a person of a lot of pent-up emotion. 

My dad told my brother that when it comes to relationships between girls and boys, it all comes down to communication. Girls tend to like and eventually need the person who listens to them. Now this is what I don't get. 

Girls like to talk, it's not a myth, or a cliche', it's just true. Well, I can't speak for everyone, but for the most part. Men like to talk just as much. They gossip just as much, they bitch just as much, they spread rumours, and they need just as much, if not more, to vent. But, sometimes, they just don't. I suspect that's what causes  deviant and potentially criminal behaviour. But I'm just ranting; this is officially my first rant. 

Now, I don't know if this is just me, and it's not like noone's ever heard this before, but men tend to like their women quiet and malleable. You don't see it as much where I live, but in other countries, and I may be completely off here, but men courting women tend to do ALMOST ALL of the talking. The girls get a word in here and there and seem perfectly happy like they were born and brought up on a diet of words, taught to be quiet and reserved with their thoughts, to not be too opinionated and to be happy about everything (a radiant smile plastered to their face, resplendent in their natural beauty, 'silent still'). 

I cannot be growing up in a world where men don't care to ask what a women thinks. Because, honestly, women know better. Every time. 

Lesson 2: Never discount another person's thoughts. Listen to a person with the same open mind with which you'd want them to listen to you. 

I am feminist, and I'm probably being feminist right now, but that doesn't mean I'm not right. I love W.B. Yeats as a poet but I hated his "Prayer for My Daughter" simply for this reason. He wanted his daughter to be a passive woman, homely and domestic, traditional. Not like Maud Gonne, the great love of his life, because she had become a militant revolutionary and was working under the Irish Independence movement. 

A strong woman who fought for what she believed in. 

Women were not born for men, regardless of what the Adam and Eve story says. 

Lesson 3: No society ever progressed by discounting the importance and intelligence of women.  

The following is unrelated but also semi-valuable lessons to learn.

Lesson 4: Pets are amazing company, and stroking the fur of dogs (they're my favourite!) is supposed to be good for the heart. 

Lesson 5: I've recently come to understand that forgiving quickly is good for health too. Also, don't take too many antibiotics. Overexposure of disease causing organisms to antibiotics in living bodies can create a variety of that organism that is resistant to multiple types of drugs, and as a result, all that much harder to destroy. 

I have a long way to go before I get good at writing. Einstein said something like "If you can't state it simply, you don't understand it well enough, or at all." I don't remember exactly. But I wanted this blog to be like a diary, haphazard, full of my not-so-incandescent thoughts. 

Thanks for listening. 

"Bangali Ranna"

My mom never had to cook before she got married. In fact, it was only after she got married to Dad that she ever started really learning how to cook, and spending hours in kitchen conjuring up cuisine from recipes she got from these insanely expensive cookbooks that she has even today. Now, however, when she cooks in the kitchen, she really cooks in the kitchen!

This is traditional 'machher jhol' - fish preparation - and
it is just one of the miracle that is Bangali Ranna *sigh

The best part of all of that is that a Bengali mum will provide food on the table, cook stuff for you while you're eating sometimes so you get it piping hot and fresh from the stove, and (I'm sorry if this hurts any feelings or sentiments) there is no food in world that is tastier than Bengali food. Be it the colour, the smell, the texture, the aftertaste, I would probably eat it all.

Other friends of mine who have travelled all over India have ratified my claim. In my trips abroad or even to other parts of India, there is something about Bengali food, some culinary magic, that you can't taste anywhere else. I am, however, not talking about dessert. While Bengali desserts like rossogolla, panthoa and laddoos are very popular among people, I don't like them more than I do the savoury dishes.

Biryani 

A friend of mine actually said that Bengali people are lazy, West Bengal is possibly 3 generations behind every other state in terms of rate of progress, but Bengali people know how to cook, and how to EAT! Oh, imagine steamed rice like biriyani or pulao mixed with butter or ghee, spices, cashew nuts, raisins, chaat masala, meats and boiled egg, and spicy potatoes, followed by fish, chicken or mutton curry- reshmi butter masala- with hot, soft, luchis, chappatis, rotis or even naan, mmmm, malai curry of shrimp, spicy but sweet from the coconut milk, traditional mocha prepared Bengali style (that is a delicacy) and so many other things. Okay, also just remember that half the things I just named you are not traditional Bengali dishes; I'm only referring to how Bengali people prepare the food. Chinese food tastes different in every Indian state because different kinds of people like it prepared differently. Indian people have such colourful, vibrant food; but I love Bengali food the most for the most part. South Indian food like idlis, dosas and sambar prepared by Bengali hands is also phenomenal. I mean no offence, okay, I speak only for my own preferences, as prejudiced as they may be.

I visit my grandmother who lives very far away just to eat her cooking. Devious =D.

Puchka =)

Chicken rolls : My Favourite 

But here is the real tragedy. I don't know a saucepan from a kunti in the kitchen. I was trying to help make dal the other day. I remember wondering how something so simple could take so much trouble to make. I dont know how to make a fricken dal, people.I've already forgotten the process. Shame, shame.

I was actually wondering about, if and when I move out of the house, who would feed me? Chicken rolls, puchkas, aah, what would I do without them? Eat healthy food? Those barely-salted boiled vegetables? I don't think so.


There is only solution to my problem: Take my maid with me.

I wish I had some chingri malai curry now. Mmmmm, scrump-diddly-dumptious. 

When I returned to India in August last year, I thought my friends and I would lose touch and just grow distant and rifted as we drifted apart in the current of the lives we would start leading once our terms in college and school started. But, thank God, that that is not the case.

We ALL finally met up the week before Christmas at this college fest and we spent 2 days together. It was almost just like old times. How I miss them! I thought we'd become like those friends who meet each other every now and then while they're in the same city, unintentionally though, and then reconnect after 30 years when they're in their variety of marriages, with a whole new brand of drama defining their lives and worth talking about over tea (Honestly, I prefer tea to coffee any day of the millennium.) ; and in Bengal the tea-time conversation is tradition, and is traditionally called 'adda'- I kid you not. Then we'd be overwhelmed by how much our lives had changed and marvel at how different we look, how old our kids are, how we imagined each other marrying very different men, and so on and so forth. 

But, alas, we're friends for life. Now that I've said that I hope God doesn't start screwing around with my karma and send my friends cosmically away. That would so suck. But the universe has this way of committing the worst types of situational irony when you least expect it or are secure in your delusion that such could never take place......and then it does. I think someone called it Murphy's Law. That was hilarious. It's all about how everyday things seem to happen with the greatest frequency and concentration (per unit time) for a fixed period of time, when it is most inconvenient for it to occur. Like how the phone always rings and rings the most when you're immersed in a tub of hot water fora long, luxurious bath. 

But I'm deviating. Back to topic. 

Well, during the band performances I saw my 'scary bassist'. He came right up to the lip of the stage and I could barely look at anything else. I didn't particularly like the music or the showmanship, but the 'scary bassist' was something to watch. His attitude, his poses, his movement, his hair......what can I say, he had beautiful hair. I was terribly asphyxiated in the hall; not only was it getting stuffy since they closed the doors, but my head was fuzzy and I'd started feeling sleepy, but I couldn't take my eyes off him. 

I've never seen him before, and I've not seen him since. I missed my chance. But.....okay, some may call it stalkerish tendencies, but I just like to call it a positive attitude towards taking the initiative..... and I had to use some extensive connections to get his name and number. I haven't called him. I'm too much of a chicken. I probably never will.

No, you know what, I just might. 

PS: Don't worry, I'm not even capable of potentially criminal thoughts. Everyone's safe.

At the end of my ISC examinations early on last year, I went to London to visit my mum. My parents are divorced and my mum lives there. In London, I decided that I wanted to be a doctor. So, instead of going to college after that, I ended up going back to school to finish 2 years of A-level education and pursue a medical degree. I've convinced myself that it's the right thing to do. Don't ask me why, I can barely convince myself anymore now, and it's only been 6 months.

Crap ! 

Now, with the new year beginning, I was hoping for some change. But I'm depressed and I can't function properly anymore. I'm not eating well; I just realized, I have aches and pains everywhere on my body, I can't study or enjoy TV. I miss being in a friendly place, familiar and comforting. I'm so ashamed about doing this I keep telling people I'm taking a gap year and that I'll be applying for college next year....which I won't be. I just wanted to get them off my back for a while. I don't want to be asked questions. I don't know myself why I do half the things that I do. And in India, one doesn't do things like this.... no one deviates like this. But whomever I have told so far, has been supportive. And I am grateful for that.

But my year's coming to an end and I have to decide if this is what I want to do with my life. And I still don't know.
I'm all about the long term. I've never been in a relationship because I know it won't last. Isn't that something? I know it's wrong, and I should try it anyway...and I will. It's just that... sometimes I feel like I'm not just thinking about it with my head. Though most of the decisions seem pragmatic; sometimes I feel like I'm doing what I'm 'supposed' to be doing. Like I have a bigger purpose; a role I have to fulfill.

I'm not kidding about that thing. I always say you make your own fate. But sometimes, I don't believe it for myself. I used to feel like God was adjusting my course to suit his designs. But I don't feel like that anymore. I feel directionless sometimes. And sometimes I feel completely convinced in my choices. If a person had to taste your blood to understand your composition, mine would be different every second.

Who could depend on a person like that? Who could love a person like that?

And I really want to be loved. Really, badly. And I know the person who truly loves me will love me just as I am..blah blah blah.... But they won't love me the way I want to be loved. I'm delusional in that respect. I think I'd want the guy to like worship the ground I walk on....in silence. Uhm, anyway, off-topic.

A good friend of mine told me to carry through with this doctor thing. Some of my family members are punch pleased. "Oh, another doctor in the family....how exciting!". And if I work hard, I could get good and earn pots by the time I'm 35. Ah, see, I feel convinced now. I suppose I'd feel safer about them if I got a boyfriend. Studies show that a stable relationship could be a key ingredient to success. Anyhow, today was just one of those low-self-esteem-days when I went for classes and came home unsatisfied and depressed cause I don't really like my classmates. Thank god my mates from the old school are still very close. I know, I know, I'm lucky....Things could always get worse. Let's just hope they don't.

Mmmm, dinner at my house always smells better than it tastes. I feel like studying and working now....but I won't and all this adrenaline will go away. Damnit. I'm going to give my SAT's soon I hope. Let's hope I don't kill myself before this mission is over. Oh yeah, and that the world doesn't end before I finish this course. I really want to go to college before I die. And to fall in love. And to kiss someone at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day. And to go to London and see my mum. And sharing an apartment with my friends. And to travel across Europe with my sister (she's my favourite cousin). And to get married. I'm not looking forward to pregnancy all that much. And to get my first paycheck.

I feel happy again!

Yes, it's a long list so far, I know. But this isn't even half of it. =D
Thanks for listening.