To change!

Farewell pretty ladies.

Heels are not easy to wear. May be easy to wear but mostly dreadful to walk in.
So when you have to part with one of the most comfortable heels you have had, it is not easy.

Well, lets just say it's  a choice I made.
As I was packing to move to another city, I was confronted with the harsh reality of not being able to carry everything with me. (I am only talking about my shoes in this post).


The fact that over one and a half years, I had accumulated many just dawned on me as I pulled them out from under my cupboard, from the side of my room-mate's cupboard along with the ones scattered near my bed.
Then began the ruling out and the scavenging of every pair that I had.
Some I had recently bought, wanted to take them along.
Anyway, what I found out is that my favourite heels wouldn't last long, its sole had started wearing out. I spoke to the cobbler, he said it would last another 15-20 days with some patch work, another patch and it will last a few more days. As if the expiry was certain, all I could have was an extended company of these and there was no guarantee that after all those patches, it would be pleasurable the way it used to be. As if it was living on life support, and I was hoping for a miracle.

So I decided to completely pull out that worn out sole. They don't deserve to be dragged along the streets in patches for all the comfort they have brought to me. Their dignified journey should come to a peaceful, dignified end, not to mention there was one less thing to carry for me which is why it all started anyway.

I have reconciled with it and hopefully somewhere lying in a bag in waste bin of a grave, they will understand that there are many good things that I left behind in that city and they are one of them.

The SkyScanning Indiblogger Experience

My first Indiblogger meet. First meet, where I was totally on my own in the sense that I did not know anyone. First meeting with a community of people where you think you belong. Not may be with regard to content as everyone talks about different things but the medium. That they do talk. And not nonsense.

As I strolled around the hall, eyeing the evidently sumptuous lunch, it did feel like an esoteric territory. Like being stranded on an island with people you don't know but a hope that all will fall into place, everything will make sense because people don't hesitate to smile at you even when you are a complete stranger. It's a totally different universe. As if everyone is you and you are everyone. Like being stranded with yourself and loving it because you can just BE and there's no place to escape because there's no need to escape!

Your usual life is generally a reminder enough of the regular escapades that one should indulge into and when you spend five and a half hours over a SkyScanner Indiblogger meet, you can give wings to your travel fantasies.

From a meet at Le Meridien to Chicken Angithi and baked fish which tasted like omelette and Hi(gh)-tea, I was already awe struck by the sheer extravagance and grandeur of the event but most of all SkyScanner meet, you had me at the thought that I could anyway enjoy all this at any place I go without the guilt of having overpaid for my flight. So, I can SCAN a whole year in advance and plan my trips around the cheapest time to travel.

Next time I travel, I'd be a dash more enlightened - because of the stories people shared of their experiences, because the people I met are from many different walks of life - fashion, law, medicine; it's bound to add a tad bit more of style, order, care(read first aid :P ) and a lot of  "scanning" in my trips from now on.

Although, what I am still confused about it that how a trip worth over four lakhs is more technically correct than one at a lower price. The solution was discussed in short. It would be great if you guys could elaborate on it a bit more in a post may be.

I am using the SkyScanner backpack and T-shirt at the gym. I was badly searching for it. SkyScanner, how did you know? :) So, SkyScanner is helping me keep fit. The bag is so light, I barely feel it on my shoulders. Guess, SkyScanner really understands travel.
:)
#Kudos
#KeepScanningAndTravelling
#KeepSmiling

Raping back Rapists!

Delhi's rape news reminded me of a conversation that I had with a friend of mine, Arushi, the co-writer for this article, which basically asked for instilling fear for punishment so that no such act takes place in the first place and if it does, the punishment would be fierce enough to make others think twice before they do anything.

It is sad that we have to think of such measures, but her point was that the best protection is not that you have someone protecting you. Rather, that even if no one is guarding you, the consequences of hurting you would be far too great than the pleasure of hurting you. That whatever is done to you now, much worse would be done to the culprit.

That was her but I fail to define "fierce". No punishment can possibly be good enough for rape. Capital punishment. Too easy. Torture. Again, too broad a category. Plus do we really want legally sanctioned torturers? How do you un-torture someone who was wrongly accused. How much is too much? And the most important question, where do you find people willing to go this far to make this country safe for the rest of us?

However, there can be plenty of ways to make those douche bags taste humiliation, pain, agony, helplessness and eventual death. But again, does anyone really want to get their hands that dirty? Maybe. 

The police can inspire absolute obedience, if they are not hindered. But then again, who will police them? Its all a snarled tangle. But while I can simply call it that and leave it, our government cannot. Because it has a duty to treat all its citizens equally, and that includes making it okay for women to be 

able to live and breathe freely and safely because essentially, slowly and slowly, that is what is being taken away.

Here's what this post is about though. Capital punishment while most people find agreeable for these rapists, there are people trying to hold moral grounds and talk of reformative measures.

To all those people honestly, you couldn't have possibly put yourself in that girl's place or any rape victims' place!

Also, as principled as those views sound, how on Earth can you think that the victim's family would be ready to take any of those rapists money earned by servitude to Cancer and AIDS patients. Is that not putting a price on her suffering. So do a few lakhs or even a few crores solve everything? Is cash all there is to life.

Why would the patients possibly want to be served by those reprobates when they get to know who they are? Especially consider this. How will you protect the staff and the patients from these rapists? A patient is in a hospital for a reason. A weak person may not even be able to call out for help. Do these people realize that cancer and AIDS patient are terminal a lot of the times? What crime did those people commit to suffer this indignity?

And just to point it out, this so-called reform drive of yours, isn't it for those who have already committed the crime? So it only makes others think that its okay to rape because all they will have to do is community service. Which is essentially the softest punishment out there.

How do you intend to spot potential rapists with these reforms? How do you propose to instill the same morals in a rapist-to be? There is no answer, because the laws even as they are now are better than that pathetic option. And God knows they're not working. Please stop worrying about the criminals and worry about the victims for once? Do try and remember who actually got hurt, rather than who gives you the moral high ground.

Of course, it trickles down to morals but morals once lost and manifested in such debauch acts call for something extreme. That 'something' will hopefully be defined and delivered in the most fitting way to those culprits by the government.

The society at large is rightly outrageous and the so-called moralists, it's your time now!

PAIN!

Some seepages cannot be sealed.
Somethings you cannot be impervious to.
Some wounds don't heal. Everytime you go back in the hope of finding reconciliation, glimpses of a cracked, battered past show up.

The experiences are still loud enough to deafen you, still dark enough to petrify you, still recent enough to make you lose sense of time that has already passed since and still intimate enough that each breath it takes is a stab on your share of air.

Ignorance, repression, anger, sadness, guilt, helplessness, madness - some experiences are a complete package!
If there were an escape mechanism, you'd have chosen it and saved yourself from the turmoil.
Alas! the FIRE EXIT even if available and chosen wouldn't help. Everything you left loose-ended will bite you back right in the ass sooner or later.

"Time is the greatest healer", they say. But, is it really? May be what they mean is with time you gain more perspective, find out there's more to the world than your misery. Happiness in small things or more misery, bigger misery!
So, may be relatively your problems would be healed. Or will they be?
Some fuck ups are too big (for you) to let them be treated merely "by time"!
So, even if the problem diminishes, the implications of it you bear! It's too easy and cheesy to say "to be dealt by the therapeutic, endless time!"

Confrontation may be a solution but how do you confront something that sucks the rationality out of you, leaving you caught in the mire of blinding angst?!
Problem may be yours solely or inherited along with the associated indoctrination like a help manual with any device wanting you to mop up the screw up; it teaches you lessons, contributes in a large way to who you are or will be.

Then there are moments when everything seems serene on the surface but past experiences suggest otherwise.
Like too much tranquility is too much booze. You are now bound to puke! Like feeling good is an evil omen, that it will have consequences; unleashing all that you hoped had gone away.

And yet, people expect you to move on. They are obviously unaware of the conflicts it rose within you, the whirls it brought in your head, the uneasiness that shook you to the bone, the delusion it brought, the hatred it stirred inside and the clarity it brought which is as hard to escape as death itself. People may be deeply moved by your "story" and then might begin the "healing" from their side. Without any offense, somethings are better left untouched, uncorrected because pity is the worst fruit of any misery!

Problem sometimes is not of the pain being alive but the urge of people to kill it. Some thorns cannot be plucked because the catharsis it intends is no longer desired as they entwine with the fibre of your being, the form so intricate of this symbiotic relationship that parting with it would mean the collapse of your identity!

Brain ingredients of an avid eater!

Yes, I have a huge appetite for good food. I love eating. I love trying new food, cuisines.
At the same time, I don't really know much about cooking. I try knowing names of ingredients in whatever I happen to eat.
You may be a big eater and a great cook too and vice versa. So, all the latter has to do is remember names of what they ate, how it looked or tasted and they can always have more. I belong to this obviously. Less work is always attractive and delicious.
:D

Important thing to remember about people of my community is that wherever we go, we think in food equivalent terms.
For e.g.

1. Parties-
Always nice to go as you get FREE food. However, it may not always be good. But such people can always fixate on what they like in there and fill their stomachs. Bole to "paisa vasool" or "time vasool"!
;)

2. Money-
Well this has started happening with me now. I see it as the next, higher level of my ravenousness.
Like I mentioned earlier about the food equivalent terms, here're some examples of what I mean. Consider I stumble upon say, 100Rs. approx (Let's start small :P)

So that equals -

At KFC-

a) 1 Chicken Strips [=3 boneless chicken pieces..hihaha :D] or
b) 1 Large Chicken Pop [popcorn like sweet,salty chicken balls... :D] or
c) 2 Regular Chicken Pops or
d) (1 Regular Chicken Pop or Coleslaw) and 1 umm..KFC choco lava (It's called by another name..can't remember
it..something "Amor" bla bla) or
e) 1 Crusher or
f) 1 Fiery Grilled too I think etc. ;)
And yet, I have to try more. :D

At McD-

a) 1 BIG Spicy Chicken Wrap or
b) 1 Small Shake and 1 Chicken McSpicy or
c) 1 Small shake and 1 Small French fries..etc. etc.


At Domino's-

a) 1 Choco Lava (That's all I eat there usually..) or
b) Garlic Bread with Cheese dip etc. (or may be without) :D


At Pizza Hut-

a) These Pan Pizzas there are quite fantastic and they cost umm.. Rs.99 I think..so ya, something like that.



If I have to put that green leaf to good use, it's the non-veg way.
I eat veg too..but I get really good kicks out of talking about non-veg.
If anyone of you is a KFC/non-veg maniac, you'll understand it. Your stomach may be full (mine? rarely ever :P), but your heart always, ALWAYS craves for MORE!!!
The day I heard KFC had an outlet in Jaipur too, my delirium broke all fences.
NO KIDDING!
Now, I hope they have more than one outlets here..may be one every five kms. :D

3. DISCOUNT OFFERS-

They can be irritating, sure. But for all their subscribing to any such service is worth, there's every chance that given a tempting offer, foodies may reach there to eat at discounted prices.
:D

----

I have had a special bond with Cheese since my school days. It's because of this that I have come to respect the need of distance between us because there's no mutuality when it comes to bearing the consequences of eating it day in and day out.
So, when I stumbled over cheese cubes, cheese slices(white and yellow both), cheese spread and also processed cheese
it was no surprise that all those amazing, happy memories of my school days started clouding my mind. Special thing about this processed cheese's tin was it had the recipe for baked vegetables printed on it.
That was torture enough! I put that tin in my shopping basket trying to calculate the number of times I'd have to eat baked vegetables etc. to empty that tin and how irrestibly I would do that even when my head would tell me to go slower.
There I was, caught in a self-conflict, trying to get hold of the cheese slices..not the ten slice packet but five slices..that wouldn't be much..I haven't had it in years..I can have the 5 slices, right? No! You take one step back and you fall down this abyss of temptation not to mention bad health and the only way you'd stop falling is because you got stuck in it!
Huh! I didn't buy it. When food is orgasmic to you, it's really hard to bear those pangs of spearation.

Also, if you are in my position, you may be no stranger to these Food Fantasies. Something like, your favourite food calls out to you if you haven't had it in a while. Your olfactory lobes retrieving that familiar, delectable fragrance and you picture yourself at the center where you'll find the object of your desire, eating but eating slowly (to make it last longer or may be something to do with those slow motion food commercials where the pretty lady gently presses her pouty mouth on her food and stylishly takes a bite, supposed to make you arrive at their stations drooling), relishing and savouring every bite and how that calms you down for the time being while making the urge to eat wilder and wilder until you get your share.
Something like, you waited eagerly for your partner to return feeling horny all the while and they say "NOT TONIGHT!!"
:P
:P

Adios!
:)