Life@27

Just a few weeks left to my 27th birthday. And as always, I have been thinking about how much I have learnt since my birthday last year. It seems life has changed so much over the past 11 months! Life is, and has always been a great teacher, but we become better students with time. Here is what life has taught me over the past year:

If something is meant to happen, it will. What are the chances that you start your day by knocking on potential employers' doors (without a prior appointment, without knowing if they have any vacancy), armed with just a resume (no previous experience, no contacts) and yet land a job by evening? That is how it happened to me.

It is OK to dump certain friends if they really hurt you and don't even bother to say sorry. Sometimes trying to get a closure is not going to work out if your former friend does not share the same sentiments.

Indian society is not so bad after all. People have lower expectations from women, so its easier for us. When I am travelling in a metro, elderly gents often refuse to accept my seat if I vacate for them, better still (or even worse), they sometimes vacate their seats for me. I am older than my brother with whom I share a room, yet he is the one who is expected to "take care" of me. He pays the rent. He pays for the food. He pays the electricity bill. I am not complaining though!

Ravioli From Scratch

I love cooking, and the concept of making pasta from scratch (the way Italian grannies do), always fascinated me. Even though I had never tried my hand at it before, today I decided to make ravioli, a kind of stuffed pasta, for lunch. There were numerous recipes available on the net. The ingredients were simple, all you needed was some wheat flour, semolina & water. And kneading the dough & rolling out pasta is no difficult task for the Indian cook, so used to making rotis.
Making the filling was no problem, I just mixed some finely chopped coriander leaves & chillies with cheese. Rolling out the pasta was also easy,and I cut out dainty little circles for the shells using an upturned katori. So far so good.
Stuffing the shells and shaping them into semi-circular raviolis also came easily to my fingers, well experienced in filling paranthas with stuff. I made 12 raviolis, all ready to be cooked and eaten.
I put a large pan of water to boil, and added some salt and mustard oil (I didn't have olive oil) to it. I dropped 6 of the raviolis and noted the time. The recipe said they had to be cooked for 10 minutes. Hardly 5 minutes had passed when I noticed one of the raviolis leaking, some gross looking white stuff was floating on the water. I tried hard to fish out the offending piece with a slotted spoon. But I could not identify the culprit in the frothy white mess the water had become! Anyway, I still had 5 good ones inside the pan. The raviolis would float to the top once cooked(that's what the recipe said), and I would easily take them out. But then I realized that something had gone terribly wrong- all of the raviolis were leaking!! Half a dozen limp raviolis were floating around in a pan of water bubbling with white scum & yellow oil!! Pretty disgusting to look at.
Still I wanted to salvage whatever I could, out of the great smelling but gross looking mess my ambitious attempt at pasta making had become. By now more than 10 minutes had passed and my raviolis were coming undone, they were looking more like dead fish floating on the surface of a polluted lake. I hurriedly fished them out, one by one and arranged them on a plate(I simply cooked the remaining raviolis over a hot tava, didn't want to risk dumping them into boiling water this time).
Then I proceeded to make a dressing to pour over the raviolis (because there was no other way I could actually serve this thing to human beings). I whipped up a nice dressing, with creamy curd cheese, mustard & mint. It looked very pretty, and concealed the dead-fish look of the raviolis.
I was satisfied, I knew my parents would eat anything that had a cute green sauce over it. They did.

Letting go...

Ever thought why we prefer to cling on to something that hurts us, instead of letting go of it and free ourselves of a burden? Why we hold on to relationships & friendships even long after they lose their meaningfulness? I had been clinging on to a friendship that was once very beautiful but of late had simply lost its meaning. I could have chosen to end it and move on, yet something prevented me from doing so. Maybe I could not accept that my friendship with him- my closest guy friend- could actually end. Of course there were signs, the unanswered calls, unreturned missed calls and ignored text messages. Yet when we did talk, he kept on insisting that I was, and would always remain his close friend. Believing the words he did not mean seemed to be easier than interpreting the signs which conveyed otherwise. Of course, I knew that our friendship was dying, slowly but surely. Looking back, I realize that he was not really at fault, sometimes people outgrow certain relationships, our friendship had simply reached its expiry date. He had grown out of it, and I had to learn to let go.
But like an immature being, I kept making desperate efforts to keep it alive. I wish I had not done that, I wish I had the maturity to accept that not all friendships, however great they might have once been, last forever. Anyway some weeks ago after another one of those strained conversations between us, I finally decided to let go- and free the both of us from the formality of keeping in touch for the sake of it.
It was not an easy decision, but it was definitely a necessary one. Maybe it would have been easier if we had continued pretending to be friends. Our friendship had not turned toxic, there was no bitterness, resentment or anger. But there was sadness. He was sad because his heart was no longer in it, and yet he did not want to hurt me. I was sad and hurt because of his indifferent and inconsistent behaviour. Continuing our "friendship" beyond this point would have simply been meaningless.
It was time to let go. I was liberated the moment I did. Freed from the bondage of a strained friendship, freed from the hurt & sadness. And I believe this is how he too felt.
I was not expecting a closure, but luckily it happened. We got a chance to formally say good bye and part without any negative feelings. It is hard when you have to part ways with your best friend, in a way it hurts more than breaking up with someone you had a crush on. But still a closure helps a lot. It helps to forgive, tie up the loose ends and move on with life.

I accept, its the quarter life crisis

I had been living in self denial for the past many months, I just did not want to admit that I too, like many others,was having a quarter life crisis. I thought having job related worries and insecurities about the future were 'normal' for a 26 year old. But when I started growing apart from my best friends who had once been my classmates, I realized something was wrong. And I had to admit what I never wanted to.
The worst thing about quarter life is the loss of closeness from friends (I never expected it to happen to me :-( ). The other things like career worries and insecurities are still manageable. Life is beautiful when you are in your early twenties, you have great friends, you dream a lot & are full of hope for the future. But the moment you graduate out of college & enter the 'real world', things change. You start questioning yourself- your dreams & aspirations, your capabilities, career choices, values & beliefs- just everything about life. Suddenly everything seems so meaningless, you feel like you are no longer living, but simply existing through the chaos of everyday life. You feel empty, sad and confused because you don't know where you are headed to. You start getting nostalgic more often, you wish to rewind and go back to the 'good old days'. You wonder what went wrong- how could the fairytale you were living a couple of years ago lose its magic?
Still you know you are not alone, you know that your friends are also going through the same phase as you are. This somehow does make life easier, and you believe one day or the other you all would move over this stage and learn to live again, dream again.
And then comes a day, when you realize that you have slowly been growing apart from your friends, even the closest of them. And trust me, this is the most horrible thing about quarter life crisis. I had always been very close to my best friends and believed that they would be my friends forever. Now I sometimes wonder if this was just another one of my naive, idealistic beliefs? Do even best friends move away from each other? It is not that friends stop caring about each other or start taking others for granted. I love my friends a lot and know that they too care about me, yet now a days it feels so difficult to connect with them (In fact, there are times when I am unable to connect even with myself, my own soul)
If life at 26 is not easy for me, then probably it is not easier for them either. I know, they are having their own quarter life crises, dealing with their insecurities and wondering if they are the only ones feeling like this. I wish I could go back to the time when a simple phone call would do wonders, and everything would be alright again. Why is it that now its tough to keep a conversation going for even 5 minutes with someone you could chat with for hours just a couple of years ago? I just hope this QLC thing fades away soon, I am just tired of it...

Celebrating 10 years of spinsterhood

I attended a wedding for the first time when I was 9, and was thoroughly turned off. It was a loud & noisy event attended by too many guests. The poor bride was wearing heavy make up & a painted smile. The groom was not wearing make up, but he wore the same artificial smile. And the photographers were clicking pictures non stop. It was more than enough to scare a simple, introverted, unsociable and camera shy kid like me. "I will never marry", I announced, very seriously to my mother. Of course, I was too young to understand the concept of marriage, or for that matter, spinsterhood at that age.

It was when I was 16 years old that I officially declared myself a spinster, the concept of being unmarried & independent was so appealing. Well, a 16 year old is still too young to be considered a spinster, but thats what I fancied myself to be. But my granny and aunt had other plans, they were seriously worried about my marriage, they could find no other topic to talk about. My aunt already had a list of eligible bachelors ready at hand. I was barely 18 when aunt put up a nice little drama in front of my mother- complete with tears & threats. The tears stopped flowing only when mom promised her what she wanted. That I would be married off only to a guy of my aunt's choice. And I seriously believed that one day my relatives would forcibly marry me off to a nice-guy-on-sale, available in abundance in the Indian marriage market. I told mom that if that ever happened, I would poison my husband to death. Its really funny, but that threat worked!! Maybe the thought of a good, sanskari guy dying a painful death was too horrible for mom to comprehend, my aunt never dared to interfere in my life again.

Now it has been 10 years of glorious spinsterhood for me, and I love every moment of it, but it does not mean that I am one of those male-hating-feminists, as my dear aunt once suggested to mom. I do like & respect men. I have had many crushes till now, been in love thrice & once even got messed up over a complete idiot. It happens, I believe these things are necessary. I have always loved falling in love, being in love, its such a beautiful feeling. Even getting over a love that once existed is a very meaningful experience. Love is natural, but marriage after all, is just a man made concept. I have nothing against the institution of marriage, being married suits a lot of people, its just that I am not one of them.

Ah, how wonderful it feels to be 26 & single :-) !!

26 !!

My 26th birthday is nearing, and I am just so excited !! I have always loved my birthdays, and this year is no different, am happy that even today I anticipate my birthday as eagerly as I used to years ago. Not that I celebrate it in a grand manner, but I simply love the concept of growing older.
Twenty six. I can not believe I have actually spent 26 years on this Earth, it seems just like yesterday when I celebrated my 7th birthday! In fact my 7th birthday was the first one that I consciously remember and have loved birthdays ever since. I love the way numbers get added to your age as years pass by, its such a beautiful feeling. And as always, I had been introspecting a lot over the past few weeks, reviewing my life over these 26 years. It has been beautiful so far, and I guess I would have no qualms even if I were to die now. The only regret I have today is that even at this age I am living off my parents' income. Am still just a student & it would probably be years before I manage to establish myself in a career. I am just one of those "late bloomers", I tell myself when overcome by guilt. Things happen only when the time is right, never before that, however hard you try. One has to wait for that.

Anyway, I don't want to feel all guilty & messed up, now that my birthday is just a few hours away. I feel so mature & wise!! And I have facts to prove that:
I no longer have crushes on every third guy I see- Am over with such things
I no longer wear blue nail paint, dangling earrings or bangles that clink- now they seem so cheap & gaudy
I no longer wish I had not been straight- Am fine being straight
I don't feel like killing those whom I don't like- have learned to control my anger
Stupid human beings don't irk me so much now- If thats the way their low level brains function, I can not do anything about it

Still 3 more days left for me to officially complete 26, waiting eagerly for my birthday :-) !! Am happy, grateful, and hopeful for the coming year...

When the bubble bursts...

Recently my best friend had a break up. I don't know why, but I sort of feel so broken up myself after getting the news. My friend has been insisting that she is fine now, and ready to move on. Then why am I feeling so hopeless? Maybe because I had never expected them to break up. After all, my friend always insisted that "no other guy could love her as much as he did", and that they would one day marry & be together forever. Even though I personally never liked her boy friend, I was happy for her because I thought she was happy with him. And now I get to know that she opted out of the relationship because it had become more of a "compromise" than a relation based on love . If thats the case, then I am glad that she moved out of it.
But the problem is that she wants to move on quickly and marry a guy of her parents' choice "As soon as possible".
Now, would not that be a compromise too, to marry someone just for the sake of it, just to "get on with life"? Why the hell, I asked her, did she want to get into another "compromise" so soon after struggling to break out of one?
Life is after all just a compromise, she replied, her voice full of hopelessness which was so uncharacteristic of her . For once, I wished I could slap her. How could she even say that she simply wanted to compromise with life? How could she actually forget all those beautiful plans we had made for our future while at college? How could she forget the promise we had made to ourselves that we would live life fully come what may? That we would work not for money but for our own satisfaction? That we would prefer to be single & free rather than marry for convenience? That we would live in such a way that when we finally died, our souls would be free of guilts and regrets?
Maybe she has seen too much of "real life" to still hold on to the beliefs we had had as idealistic teenagers. Maybe two years of being in a corporate job has made her realize that if you can not find satisfaction in a job, then simply go for the money. If you can not marry someone you love, then simply marry for convenience. If you can not live, then simply exist...