Life begins at ....30

29 and counting, Wise Women Speak, 30 Things Everyone Should do before turning30, Book of Ages 30, Shut Up, Stop Whining & Get a Life, Woman x Turns Thirty,Turning 3, they all talk endlessly of the anticipation and anxiety associated with the Big 3-0s. Says Urmi Roychowdhury, an architect, “I used to think that turning 30 was one of the best things to happen to me, since I had the right mix of experience and foresight I thought the world was at my beck and call.” Howevever, she recalls with some discomfort the questions raised by friends and relatives who constantly reiterated how well and complete she’d be with a marriage. Some even went on to make objectionable remarks like, “Are you mentally stable, do you have a medical problem.” When her answer was a resounding ‘no,’ they’d add, “Why are you not married as yet, then?”
It isn’t just the stigma of turning thirty, but it has more to do with the question of turning thirty and not being married. For Priyanka Biswas, who is housewife and has a toddler, “Ifeverybody else all around you is cutting one another's throats, I prefer to opt out and enjoy doing a job that everyone else isn’t doing. For me it is motherhood and family that is important.” Priyanka tied the knot when she was twenty and she now has a kid and a blissful family of her own.
For some women, however, it’s about evaluating one’s personal and social choices, a time when one gazes inwards just to see if one is on the right track and if one is making the right choices in life. There’s a thrill of the chase for a career-orientated woman says Manpreet Pasricha, 30, a journalist. “I believe women are best married when they are independent and when they are ready for a relationship. I have a boyfriend but do not wish to tie the knot any time soon.” For 31-year Sreoshi Chatterjee, marriage isn’t an option, “I have been through enough bad relationships and I don’t believe I can make a good wife. However, I’d try to keep a positive mindset and get along to see what life has to offer.”
Likewise, the revelation of a breaking relationship was shattering for Sunetra Pathak, a child specialist in her early thirties, “I was in a steady relationship with my boyfriend and I popped him the all important question to tie the knot.” However, Sunetra’s boyfriend chickened out in the nick of time and said he wasn’t quite ready to start a family. “It was shattering for me to know that the person I had dreamed of sharing my life with slipped out at the time he thought right.” For her, getting married after a shattering relationship isn’t the best option. “I want to concentrate on the people who are around me right now, instead of building a new one.”
It’s not all doom and gloom for other city women like Avishikta Basu. Avishikta, 34, who runs her own business says, “I enjoy my work to the hilt and I, unfortunately, don’t consider myself as a loyal and trustworthy person, packaged with enough charm to be a faithful wife. I am better off as a singleton.” It isn’t always easy to shrug one’s shoulder and say one doesn’t wish to get married, specially with the gossip mongers. Says Shibani Sengupta, “I have two daughters, one aged 28 and the other approaching 31. People often ask me why my daughters aren’t married yet. I just say I give them the free will to choose a life they want to lead. It’s there call. However, if any of them can find me a nice bridgegroom, I’d gladly oblige. But, that doesn’t happen either.”
Some women are shrugged off as an additional burden on society and they end up being gossip scrums. Runa Paul is a mother of two and once divorced, “It bodes well for our future and also for building of a family life to decide what one wants”says the 34 year-old mother of two. No matter how much one coaxes me to get married;I just can’t throw caution to the wind.”
In keeping with the trend of the burgeoning over-thirty-and-unmarried population, Gul Panag has starred in a film Turning Thirty which is slated to release in January 2011. She explains on her blog how each actor in the film was turning thirty, while the film was being shot.
“If you are on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass analysing why you turned thirty and didn’t get married, it better you give your life a hard look.” Says, Rini Roy, a dermatologist in her mid- thirties. I believe there’s always a good time but even if it doesn’t happen, I won’t be ashamed to look at the mirror and say maybe it’s my haircolour, it’s my shoe size or even my broad face, but it’s okay. I am happy I turned thirty at last.”

You are amazing. Simply amazing!

Hey He-man,

I couldn't have brought myself to write this. It hurts my ego. I have met people along the way. To some I have been good, to others I have been great and to others a bit spiteful. You know here that I am very good to myself and wouldn't go to the extent of hurting myself. It's been tough for me to suspend my ego and let my emotions come to the fore. Sometimes. Only sometimes. At those times I have lost myself. The self I prize myself to be. But look at you. You went away, faraway. You tossed you turned, you stirred, you groaned. God knows what else! (sorry for laughing at you) but you still remain the same. Ready to be lost again. Ready to love, loathe, lie, lie (:)), lust, live. Yes live. You live you live in your today in your yesterday and in your future. You'll live. I am not trying to give you a push. But yeah, you can say I am trying to give you a push again :) You live not in your past but in your present. At the moment. I love you still. You know that.

Kisses

Cecilia

Something's gotta give

I thought somethings gotta give. Somethings got to give in. I was feeling like a conduit where all holes had been plugged and where the wall was made of clay. I am hopeful in a very extreme kind of a way. My mind begged me to just give up while my body still had the little bit of energy left after a few free style strokes. However, things stood still like water in a pit, not even a ripple. The feeling was uncontrollable. Then walked in bio energy healing.

At my new job at the bioenerygy healing clinic, I noticed that my body wasn't divided into meridians only. My healer Jude, quite well understood that I had stiff shoulders as he worked with the static electricity of my body and weaved his way through my upper back. I felt the radiation. It was a sudden release. I could see him work through my abdomen as I felt the spike at the bottom of my spine. I wondered it if it's the effect of the jagran of the manipura chakra at the bottom of my spine, or if it's a weird western take on it. I was right it was western, but it wasn't that weird. It was quite rational and didn't go by the chakra philosophy of oriental thinking (precisely Indian.) It was more ruled by the instinct. Before I comment any further I better explore bio energy healing a bit more to find out. Hope you make an effort too, if it's slightly intriguing, that is.

Life's a Carnival!

I was at the Nottinghill Gate Carnival last weekend and it wasn't a semblence of the violence-ridden celebration that the British press has been making it out to be, for the last few years. What I saw was -- fanfare, lots of summer barbeques, gypsy-loads of gyrating Jamaicans and a another truckload from the Caribbean Islands.

Though I shouldn't brag about my race-identifying skills infront of my cousins, lest we get into another scuffle we got into, infront of the "House of Fraser" at Oxford Street-- "The man in the back-seat is Mexican/Bolivian/Indonesian/Philipino???!!Now, I'd say he's Polynesian (after a year of solid British education, and I mean it in a good way. :))

Talking about Nottinghill Gate, I have never heard so much Reggae on the streets and the whiff of corn and burning meat is quite something else. The security at the barricades had barely volunteered to take in the aroma of the food being prepared that the pungent smell of burning BBQ meat made them stop short. I loved it honestly, when the slightest drum roll in the distance would make some of these feathered women twirl and twist as if they were in some kind of a reverie.

The young kids were busy trying to show the oomph often exhuded by little kids wearing saree or pajama panjabi during Durga Puja in my city Calcutta and the carnival at Nottinghill Gate (without any exaggeration) is reminscent of the procession at Kumartuli or Jadavpur. Okay (spoiler alert) we Bengalis are very likely to say, "Oh the French, they are quite like us in their food habits," "Oh, the Spanish they are very close to us in terms of weather." Like all self-respecting Bengali I'd say, 'Oh, the West Indians are so like us when it comes to celebration."

Therefore, I am part West Indian. If I didn't have the camera with me I'd shake a leg with the feather-ridden crowd. Or, better still, I would have recalled my swagger with the mike and Papa Joe. Life is indeed a carnival (read "everyday" after the fullstop.) :D

Game Over

The whole truth of marriage is:

"I don't believe in marriage. Marriage is when small-minded men decide to keep the women at home and out of their way. Now that is delusional. But, when two people who are in love with each other and who are almost as capable of making each other miserable, can vow open-eyed. Yes open-eyed. Now that's not delusional, that is radical." -- Frida

SHE

Emboldened to do what she does

Happened to be born in August

She sings aloud to the skies

And leaves no friend who's left behind

With a heart of gold and the smell of fleurs

She isn't just an ordinary one, because she takes soul energy from the Sun

Her yogic poses woe betide can awaken anyone who died

She is lonely when she's together and perfectly happy when she says 'never'

Her feelings take the better of her, her heart just plays a game of lure

She isn't the hard-hitting feminist, with brandishing fist and eyes full of mist

She is the one who can stand the test of time, resilient, and go dutch when it's the dime

When nudged she can be a-n-g-r-y, but isn't that because she's honest and free

She scoffs at half-baked ideas and loves the subtle adventures

At home with her friends and family, moments spent in company bring her glee

Loves the serenity of a beach or the solidarity of high mountain peaks

If I could be like her, well that's another story

Maybe I could play her part with glory

Never too bored to play or sway

Tomorrow for her isn't just another day...

Adaptibility

Of late my perception on situations have gone for a sixer. I have managed to unlearn all that I learnt. Yep, I have the dubious distinction of being a thinker and a profound one at that. However, it is perhaps the best channel for my communication-- the head, the intellect, the action and when all three have worked in tandem, I have managed to create a sanskara(a habit.) When they haven't, I have just given in to the situation.

I am still willing to go with the head when I am dealing with myself. My education and upbringing has taught me that schooling the mind is good. It is the way forward. When you school your mind to try and be good at something, it has reaped dividends. When you let it go haywire, it got scattered. Yoga has been of considerable help to me in terms of the mind and the body working together, in other words called the 'Yog' or connection with your divine self.

Otherwise, I learnt to teach my mind through classical music. The note 're' sounds better when you meander from 'sa' to 'ga' and so on so forth. In that case, jumping to a 'ma' directly creates a jump in the harmony. However, musicians don't always work the notes. There's nothing in a piece of paper that would tell me what the creator was thinking of the notes when he created them. That's when the magic word 'improvisation' takes over.

My tryst with jazz music of late has given me a whole new perspective on music. I found out that jazz is more about adaptibility. Say if one pulls a tune over MJs 'Billy Jean' or Madonna's 'Holiday' they'll chip in with their interpretation.

Small wonder then jazz musicians experience a certain taste of freedom when they go 'by the notes.' Disparate sometimes and yet completely in tune. Classical music surprised me by using some of the elements of modern day jazz.

I didn't expect to listen to some scatting with a violin. Like Mr. Morrison said that it's all in the perceptions.