circumstances beyond control

There are always things you want to control, but can't. The weather, for instance. When I was in Dehradun, the weather improved in Delhi. The day I came back, it was as hot as ever! The one day I forgot to take my umbrella along, it rained. The weather... what is one to do about it?

Then there are people. Of course, people are contrary by definition. The only reason some people are around you is so that they can do their bit in irritating you out of your mind. And however well you may plan your day and your life, you can count on people to behave contrarily and ruin all your plans. Your perfect day has every chance of being marred by people who don't think anyone has a right to the 'perfect day', who perhaps believe that 'perfect days' shouldn't be allowed, that they make people too happy for their liking. I dislike having people around me who frown upon happiness. I dislike having to deal with people who are so grim that they make you lose your pleasure in life. They are real life dementors, and they don't think about it long enough to realise it.

Everyone has this life as an opportunity to share love. Instead, some people frown upon love, even though they may be benefitting from it immensely. People are contrary. They are beyond one's control. The only control you have is over yourself. You can choose to make yourself happy and you can choose to create love. You can choose to live Now in this beautiful moment and maybe that way your plans won't get scuttled, because the only plan is for this very moment.

Disbelief

So when did this happen?

When did delight turn right around

How came irritation in its place

Or is this a new way you've found

To denigrate a pure emotion

And believe the noise around?

How come you care

About some stares

some random opinion or gossip

Why are they so important to you

that you rant you rave you shout

For something simple that they don't get

But hey,

neither do you, now.

There are sunny days and cloudy days, rainy days and sultry days. There are days you wish would never end and there are days you wish had never dawned. Sometimes, the same day becomes all of these.

The last few days were hot and sunny days, merging with cloudy and outright smokey days, not to speak of loud and disturbing days. That's what happens when it's rally hot and you are forced to close all doors and windows to try and keep out the din being made by a truckload of road repairers with wives and children in tow. The people noises were hardly audible above the constant thundering of the strange machine that spewed smoke like twenty factories together.

It was so bad, cause we couldn't breathe, our eyes hurt and itched, and the added heat from the burning tar barrels and the gigantic machine just about defrosted our fridge for us. Looking at the women and kids made me feel worse.

While the women either shovelled some sand or gravel or whatever it was that they had piled up, or sat in the shade of some trees, the kids were all over the place, pushing barrels, sitting on sand heaps, beating stones with sticks, looking grubby and happy.

Why were little kids allowed on such sites? Because their mothers had to come too and where would the kids go? Why were some of the kids helping in the work? Because there wasn't anyone to ensure that they didn't, or that they went to a school, neither were their parents interested in that option. Considering that most of them are seasonal migrants, schooling is patchy even in cases where they do get sent to study.

There's a very nice case of such kids being taught by a couple of university students outside a temple nearby. The difference between the schooled and unschooled kids from this fluid migrant labouring group is pretty sharp. On days when people feed the poor outside temples, there are some who descend on them in a mob formation, with the kids being taught by their parents to beg, hide the food they got the first time and come again to ask for more, to lie about having already been fed, and to fight off any other people who might get a grain of rice more than them.

The other group is of kids who are begin taught by the university students. The understand the meaning of a line and seem to get the concept that everyone will get equal amounts if they don't try to grab. They are polite, the older ones teaching the younger ones to say 'thank you' and going off in an orderly fashion after they have eaten. They tend to ask politely if they may take some for their families, and surprisingly, even their parents seem to curb the tendency to socialise them in the 'beg and grab' technique.

Pre-Midnight

There is less than half an hour to midnight, and as I wipe away the sniffles from my cold and rather pink nose, I have finally made up my mind.

Tomorrow is less than half an hour away, while my pen is close at hand.

A new year will begin in less than half an hour, and a few minutes later it'll face its first eclipse. My diary will have faced it's first scribbles for 2010 before that. More startling things will, of course, happen in the days to come.

Snacktime

Yes, indeed! Winter is snacktime, and almost-winter is even better! Half of November has already slipped by, and the nip in the air is back, though you thought it would never make it, considering the heat of summer (which looked like it planned to stay forever) and all those nasty climate-change rumours.

In short, it was time for one of those famous samosa-jalebi parties. There are few things more satisfying than fresh, hot jalebis and samosas on a chilly evening when however bravely you might wear capris, you tend to have the prudence to team it with socks below and poncho above.

As we set out to get the goods, my nose felt cold and had, I was sure, turned a nice shade of pink: a sure sign that the weather was just right. And voila! The particular samosa-jalebi wala we patronize was surrounded by a happy looking crowd, ordering everything from pakodas to chowmein! And oh, it was the ultimate theli-wala-chowmein... you could tell just by the smell! As dad made his way through the crowd, I placed myself strategically, where I wouldn't get jostled, but would still have the aroma of that wonderful chowmein wafting by.

There is just no way I can have samosas and jalebis without thinking of nani and the numerous samosa-jalebi parties we had. I remember one we had in Calcutta, shortly before they shifted back here... through the hallucinations and confusion and everything, nani wanted to have a samosa party! She's passed her love of all things snacky and yum to me, I suspect.

As dad handed me the packet, complaining that his hands were sticky, my hands made an involuntary dive into the packet to grab a jalebi before it had the time to lose even half a degree of heat. And so, throughout the drive home, I was munching on jalebis, and then, to offset the sweetness, on the crisp sides of the samosas. No wonder I don't lose any weight.

However, as I see it, it's ok, cause I may as well enjoy it while I can. You never know about the future, specially with all the 'end-of-the-world' movies they keep making every so often. Even if they manage to save the world, suppose they don't manage to save any of the good samosa-jalebi walas??

The future according to astrologerical people isn't any more promising... if there are foreign climes on the cards, then I should actually devote every possible moment to savouring things like this, that I just know I will crave for if I can't have!!!

Interestingly, as I wrote all this, I remembered samosas being made at home in Baraut. I think that may well be one of my first memories of it!! There was always something being tried out there when we were much too young to appreciate most of it. I think I ought to try it too. I might need it in those foreign climes on a dull and cheerless day!!!

Rambling

Why should it be so difficult to realise what we are doing? While we are doing it, I mean. Why is it that it all seems to make sense and have a logic of its own and even an inevitability of some kind, but in the end, why does it all turn out to be a fabric created by own imagination, coloured by our own fanciful palette, tasting faintly burnt, specially around the corners?

While its always nice to hope that it won't actually turn out that way, why does it feel like it might? After all, it wouldn't be a really bad thing, except for the burnt around the corners part of it... that's going to be called regret, I believe. For the rest, it would be experience (though the experience may be nothing more educational than one page filled with colour for a two year old. How many pages of scrawled colour make for one pretty picture, after all?) and there is always the possibility that if I have to get it wrong, I'm getting it wrong Now, thinking that it'll turn out to be all wrong Later.

It's past three in the morning and I'm just home after a rather long movie which I quite enjoyed, though it could have done without about three or four songs that made it drag a bit; that explains why I'm rambling, though it doesn't give away Why I'm rambling thusly (wink wink)

I'm a bit disappointed with Archies Gallery. After making such a hue and cry about Daughter's Day and etc., it turned out that the only piece of merchandise that anyone would have been tempted to buy was not exactly merchandise at all. There was a nice long poster on the window of most AGs saying 'My Daughter, My Hero', with a rather cute cartoony girl under the slogan. I wanted that poster. I had already decided to stick it on the door of my room. And it isn't even merchandise... just promotional. Blah!

Heights of Sights

There is in this part of the world a rich tradition of decorating vehicles, not just with the regular pictures of peacocks, cow and calf, or flowers of various kinds, but also with written matter. There is a lot of artistry that goes into writing even simple things like 'Horn Please' (in any of the numerous spelling variants including 'Horan Pelas', among others). Some people, of course, go beyond the mundane public-service messages like 'Use Dipper at Night'*, and there is every possibility that you will get to read a nice sher or two behind the most unlikely looking vehicles. Some messages are gems.

This one says 'Jinhe jaldi hai, ve chale gaye; hum to aise hi jayenge'
(those who were in a hurry have gone, we will go like this only)

*Incidentally, I always thought 'Dipper' was some kind of a mosquito repellant... like GoodKnight or something...