penny wise

So we have decided to save, and scrimp and invest. I am not sure how I can ever bridge the gap between where I should have been and where I am money wise.  So I need to innovate. Save, figure out alternate income and invest. And if that was not enough, have fun while doing all this. And I am going to use this blog as a track method of doing so. Inexpensive ways to have fun yet save.

An interesting thing which I did not know until yesterday was that Reliance India call has a toll free as well as a toll access number. I have a T mobile phone, so I can select fave 5, however I always thought since Reliance is a toll free number that does not qualify under fav 5 which cost me several hundred minutes, coz I would mostly call my parents while driving to work during peak time. What the toll access number does is give you a local number you can use as a fav 5, and voila, no airtime on India calls anymore. I suffered quite a bit last month on this, having to pay an additional $60 due to over usage.

Another interesting thing, which I would have never thought of was selling books I did not need online, especially academic books. I took around 4 books to Half Price Books and they were going to offer me $2 bucks !!!!, I sold them at Amazon for $120

Plus I am moving this weekend. I have $700 bucks to use. Of which I have used $495 for the bed, which leaves me with $205 for figuring out decorative stuff and other furtniture.

Its going to be fun!

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catch up time

I am dying to write something. The invisible ban is lifting. I want to write about movies, watching them, making them. I want to write about making a difference in someones lives. I want to write about travel, exploring new things, concerts, knowledge, entrepreneurship, languages and a million other topics.  This blog seems to be begging me for life, and I seem to be full of ideas I can actually verbalise.

Oh, and I want to play catch up and write about some of the events happening in my life.  I am not going to India. Not yet. I still want to go. Professionally I am dying to go. Personally, fun times are making Indiana more bearable. Career wise, I am in a rut but I rejected the Indian offer from my company. So next steps are any one’s guess. Job anyone?

I moved house twice in the last 4 months. And I move back again from where I had started next month. I have 5 times more people in the nearby vicinity that I can hang out with than I did last year. Or even early this year for that matter. I am shopping like no one’s business. Every weekend. Some bold outfits, some sensible and some very ‘jhatak’.  I am partying like I did not think I was capable of after 2007. . 

Which brings me to 2007, sucky sucky year until I went to India on an impromptu trip in November for Diwali. Gave my folks a super surprise, literally landed on the doorstep on Diwali morning. Fantastic trip, especially since my paspport issues kept me there for almost a month and a half. The first half of 2007 was me in shell, incapable of social interaction. I was in a made up land, where non existing relationships were cause for much agony. Thanks to Nirav for the last minute India plans, coz life truly went out of inertia after that. India meant hanging out with the kids, mom and dad, sanju, anu, and ambs in cochin. Back in US, New year was with two of my favorite people, Florida in February, Chilling with friends in March, and party non stop since April. There was some drama, it was dealt with and things went back to normal. Oh and two of my closest friends got hitched this year, so its been good times.

I started writing a fiction story, I lectured on a technical subject to a class full of graduate students, I have been going for fun concerts, experimenting with water sports, working out, learning tennis and more recently thai boxing.

And I have been thinking about making movies. Seriously!

Receding…

It’s surprising how small things make for big discordances. What’s more surprising is how easily I am willing to cut people from my life due to those discordances. How people just don’t matter anymore. My emotional investment has shrunk as I grow older, making me strangely detached from how people impact me. I get tickled, irritated, annoyed, frustrated, but then I stop. Beyond a point I simply don’t care. Be it someone I have been friends with for over years, or someone I have been intimately close with over two months. They cease to matter after a certain point. I move on. I step over those moments, I bring them to the front sometimes and smile or muse as the moment demands, but then they get pushed back firmly in some untouched recess of my mind.

Does that mean that the temporary thaw in my psyche has iced up again and I am back to being frozen?

Half a decade

I have lost the ability to read anymore. Or write. Words refuse to be manipulated by me anymore. Writing was one thing I always felt good about, not because I wrote brilliant, but because I never struggled with expression. It was natural. Like breathing. Maybe that’s not a good benchmark anymore. Especially since I don’t breathe right anymore. I stop in between breaths; I take deep ones to compensate for the ones I missed; I forget to breathe sometimes and have to play desperate catch up. It’s not natural.

 

 

I am having a great time. Directionless, sure. Inconsistent, most definitely. Super fun, YES! Its exactly 5 years since I came to the United States. I had never imagined being in this country for this long. I was going back home. I was packed and ready to leave. Yet, here I am. 5 years, and still in USA. Still in Indiana. Still okay.

 

These five years have not really changed me. There has been no profound lesson of life learned. They have not made me smarter or wiser. They have made me know myself better though. Just last week I realized that I am selfish. It was one of those moments, when I looked at myself from some odd objective distant angle and realization struck. And I liked it. I smiled, not because it’s good or bad to be selfish, but because when the objective person communicated my true self to me, I was fine. Not guilty, not embarrassed, not worried. I simply accepted it. I felt liberated.  

 

This year has been the most fun I have had in some time now. I am living weekend to weekend. I am experimenting. I am exploring. I am flirting and I am back to wanting to be the center of attention. It sounds crass, but I like it. I thrive on it. I am also very good at it. I feel like I am 19 years old. Like the decade that went by, does not matter. I am back to the best year of my life.

 

And when I can write again, I will tell you all about those weekends. More than telling you, I will write it here, so I can remember when it’s over. So, I know being 19 again, happened. It will make for a hopeful next decade.

cut me open…

Why do we mind fuck ourselves? Why do we allow others to mind fuck us? Why do we mind fuck others?

 

It’s been a whirlwind month. A month where I have tried the hardest in a very long time to make something work. Where I have realized that I am not frozen. Where I have wondered if being frozen was probably better because at least there were no mind fucking games.

 

A month where I have challenged some personal values, and dived into something I would have never imagined doing. Where I am getting more comfortable with my body, and more comfortable with myself around others. Where I have wondered if I really did change enough to sustain the after effects of the leap I have taken.

 

Where I have had supreme confidence in my work, worked really hard, and apparently earned the respect of someone I had never imagined was capable of giving it to me. Only to have it shot in an instant by a realization that the respect was illusionary, the prejudice stronger.

 

A month where I have partied so hard after a long time, drunk parties, sensible parties, boat parties, and just merriment galore. Where I fell in love with a 4 year old, and found out it was requited love.

 

A month where I have felt homeless, yet safe in the bed of a stranger. Friendless yet people worrying about me to death. Like a bitch, yet with self perceived honesty in my actions.

 

A month where I have discovered I have girlfriends. So many, that care. Who listen, and talk back, and advise and get angry and really do give a damn!

 

A month where the possible ramifications of a decision made some months ago gets questioned everyday. Questioned by myself, my friends, my feelings and surprisingly my family.

 

A month where quite a few things changed. Finally! Now, if only the mind fucking would end.

 

 

Perspective

‘Socha na Tha’

I saw this movie a few years ago and did not like it. I actually hated it. It held a story arc which was against what I felt was right at that time.  It was personally a disturbing movie.

I saw this movie again last night. I loved it. It was beautiful, romantic and a well told story. I could actually identify with the characters. It’s one of my favorites now. I can watch it again and again.

Socha Na tha, perspectives would change so much in 3 years!

 

Tamanna

Hosh mein aaye tabse

Tumhari ibaadat ki hai

Na toot sake aasani se

Aise dhaage ki dor li hai

______________________

 

Takalluf doori se nahi

Hich kichahat se hai

In taraste bandh hoto ko

Shabdo ke intezaar se hai

_______________________ 

 

Karazdaro ke beech mein

Phir jholi fehlaye aaye hai

Sama sake daaman mein

Usse zyaada ki tamanna ki hai

 

Fingers crossed

A leap of faith

Or Hobson’s choice

Trickle of self confidence

Or I could be ignorant

—————————- 

Uncalculated move

In a familiar territory

Unfamiliar motions

Now shape my future

 ———————–

The decision is made

Flight is inevitable

It is quite possible

I might crash and burn

 ———————-

Clueless, yet firm

Learning the ropes

Scared, excited, half wit

Time will tell me which

fallen virtue

Sometimes we forget how strong we are.  Sometimes our own strength overpowers us.  This strength is not innate; it’s cultivated, fought against and eventually accepted. It is the kind of strength that comes from living life.

It is born through mistakes, betrayals and losses. Nurtured by countless sleepless nights and unending questions. Supported by familiar and new faces. Confused by the sudden visceral cry that wakes you in the middle of the night. Comforted by virtual lives of characters exploring similar emotions.

 Strength is not a virtue; it’s not something to be proud of. It’s a war scar. It meant dealing with a situation you wish never existed. It’s a war you wish never happened. It meant you wanted something from this world, you fought for it and you lost.  

Strength is the mask of the underdog. We put it on, and pretend how beautifully we have dealt with the issue at hand. Secretly wishing, we never had to in the first place. 

Strength is essentially our consolation prize. In the game of life.