Mansi

Not a day goes by without a friend or colleague asking me about how marriage feels. Each day, I figure that I will have a better answer the next day.
It doesn't really matter if the person asking is married or not, young or old, male or female: Everybody is naturally curious about marriage. It just reinforces the fact that marriages are big events, life changing events, even highly ranked than getting into college, breaking a leg, joining the army or becoming Indian Idol. There is nothing more rivetting than a marriage, even when most of us are having the most normal of marriages (if there is such a thing)
Perhaps marriage to an Indian is also in line with how he or she converses - More is UNsaid than spoken and it's all about reading the little and small nuances (all of them in your head only btw)

On the other side of the question mark, I am an absolute delight to the person who asks me about my marriage. I think that's because of two things:
1. I tend to send out a lot of signals : there is no mystery in this body!
2. When I do speak, it's more or less a 'like it is' statement.
The combined effect of all of this is quite magnetic. People who've 'popped' the question often find it hard to let it go. I feel like they are watching me like I am a character in their favorite soap.

It's not attention I like, let me tell you that. Often when I fantasize about other people's attention, it's because of something I did or didn't do. It's not because of what and how I am! Almost makes me feel like a piece on exhibition.

With the closer of my friends, I really fret for an answer. I try to speak of my in-laws, the things I do at home, the things I don't. Of course when it comes to Deepan, all I still do is just gush and giggle! That doesn't help. With everything else, it's very hard. I try and find things to talk about -but the truth of the matter is, it's hardly been enough time. I don't know what to feel or expect, and I normally don't do either. I just go along, give people a lot of space and hope I'll get mine too.

I do feel sad sometimes that my marriage has meant different things to different people. There hasn't been a celebration of what marriage can be and is often not. There hasn't been a humility that comes with love and acceptance. Instead, it's like a jigsaw puzzle where as a bride, everybody wants their hand at plugging me into my 'place'. Each person has a different vision of what that place is and hence the puzzle just doesn't ever get done.

There are times when it gets to me. I am sure there are far more times when it gets to them. I am not so easy to peg. So in more ways than one, it's quite an exercise for everybody involved.

In that sense, marriage is surely more about a team than an individual. While two become one (as that song goes), that one then is part of a whole team of ones (all the married ones of our combined families). Sometimes I wonder if the ceremony of marriage should address this issue, more thoroughly. That with the bride and groom for example, we also could have the married couples remarrying. Perhaps in that act, they would realize where they are pegged vis a vis the 'center' of what marriages are really about.

I dread the day I will be pegged - a point beyond which I just can't resist anymore. Then, were I asked the same questions, I'd probably have more concrete answers and witty replies.

Till then, I am doing good skipping about, and in no hurry to find my answers. (nor yours)

I am addicted to American Idol because of people like Bo Wyse. I love Bo because he makes me feel sexy. He makes me want to sit down, cross my legs, keep my back straight and smile about something terribly naughty in my head. And no, it has nothing to do with him.

That's the kind of connection he spins on TV. He makes me lose myself in the magic that is me.

And no, I don't agree with Simon. Bo doesn't need to bring in his rock influence to popular songs. We need the popular songs to help 'tolerate' the bad singers. We need singers like Bo who choose songs that mean something to them and then turn it around to mean something for each of us.
I believe that three shows ago, Bo set his standard with that slow number about the candle. After that, he's just been hanging around while everybody else plays catch up.

This contest is not just about your voice box. You need a pretty decent voice box to get up there in the last ten. After that though, it's more about who you are - your ups and downs. Clearly the kids - Anwar, Anthony, Vonzel and Scotty are just that - kids. They need time to shape their hearts, their heads. We need to let them leave the competition to grow.
Too much of time in America is spent trying to find the youngest wonder because as we see twenty years hence, they aren't wonders anymore. They are like bonzais, stunted in their splendor!

We need singers like Bo and Nadia who show us what more we can find once we get past thier voice boxes. Here are individuals who despite everything that life throws at them are still there sculpting their craft to something that is inspired by God himself.

Go Boggie!!!

I know the truth. I always have, always will. You know the truth. You always have and you always will.
And yet, we find ways in which we turn our lives into some haphazard search for the truth - something we already know and will continue to know.
Take for example, food.
I've always known that vegetables, greens and dals are good for me. My skin loves them. My organs loves them. Yet, for the bulk of the last twenty years, I have ran as far away from as possible. When I got far enough (88kgs for me), I stopped, did an about turn and looked up to the heaven, in heartfelt panic, and called outloud - 'what is the truth?'
Painfully since, I have been finding my way back - back to food that my body relishes and yes, I feel quite silly. Where earlier, I kept myself going with grand plans for celebration, once I lost the fat and got fit - Now I realize that I've been silly and it's just got to stop. There is not going to be a grand celebration but rather a celebratory lifestyle. One I can embrace for it is what I am or one that I can run away from again.
Another example, writing a book.
I started out wanting to write a book at a very young age. Since, I've managed to distance myself from the actual act with countless reasons. I didn't have the skill. I was Indian and English is not my natural tongue. There are so many talented people around who are doing it. I am not meant to write a book. I can't hope to write a bookseller...it takes something I don't have.
All of the above of course were surface level cribs. Beneath them was this mega whine: I don't know how to write a book. I would go from site to site, taking notes and yet not convinced.
And then James came along. Here was a man who shared generously his inputs on the art of writing with exercises and support. And what do I do? I take copious notes in this lovely green book and then turn around and run for dear life.
And so on and so forth, my life is a continuous run from the truth. So I believe is the case with everyone at large. There are tasks that give us incredible joy (writing for me) and yet we are scared of it, scared shitless!
A friend and I were discussing Vipasana and I thought about it and feel that what ten days of silence would do is beat the crap out of our minds. By Day nine, we would have all succeeded in shutting down our minds. There would be just space to sit down and feed on the truth of our existence.
Each morning I go for my run, I feel my body and mind purging themselves of the excess. Each time, I feel like I am getting closer to a state where I am actually comfortable in my skin - -Imagine that.
Most of us fill up our days with so much of activity precisely because we just can't stomach ourselves - our truths.
When we return back to what we ran away from, we will stop learning. We will stop thinking. We will even stop feeling. We will be true.
Oprah says that you owe it to God to be the best person that you can be. In her bootcamp, she advices you to do what you think you cannot do (running in my case).
You can externalize your truth and mould it into a Ganesha, if that keeps you standing, breathing and comfortable. Or you might just run again.
What does it mean to be the best person that you can be? This question and statement scares me. Perhaps because I know what it means. I have felt it. I have lived it. And I have ran away from it. The further I run, the more in control I feel, the more chaotic and unhappy I become. In my case however, and probably yours too, you're never really far away. You're never really far enough.
It's almost like you're attached to your truth by an elastic rope...and the moment you stop running, you will get pulled back three times or even five times as fast back to the core. It also means that you could spend your whole life on just running and keeping that advantage of resistance and conflict.
Every now and then, you'll get pulled back and as much as you hate it, you will feel relief.
For example, the festivities around China and India is one such elastic moment.
Then again, your life could be a yoyo where you're constantly spinning off your center - up and down, short and long. I'm not there yet. I still tend to hang on - - except this time around, I am trying to hang on to the truth.