Of Weddings and Babies!!!

'Tis a New Year!!! Like everybody else, I have a New Year tradition (extendable to birthdays, anniversaries and similar such unmemorable occurences in life) - switch off phone at 10 PM, stay home, watch movie, go to bed before 12 at all costs. To me, its a waste of time, since Jan 1st brings with it no earth shaking change in mind, body or soul that Jan 1st - Dec 31st of previous year already hasn't. I am only a year older (ok..ok..in 8 weeks!), none the wiser, fatter, grayer, more cynical ( i know! that ain't possible). In short, not better!

I digress. To come back to this post - which is a result of much angst and bitching. I am 28 (there...I have gone ahead and done it). Seems to me that at this age, the rest of the world has only two tasks, which they tirelessly seek to fulfill - getting hitched, making babies (ugh! the phrase, not the kids). Its almost like there is a time-delay explosive in each human mind, that sets itself off in the mid-late twenties and drones on, ceaselessly, till obeyed - "Go Forth and Procreate". What is appalling and particularly hard to comprehend is that this entire exercise is one that happens voluntarily - human beings want to be defined only by their we(l)dded or otherwise status.

Consider the following scenarios - I had a chance to meet up with a friend after nearly five years and what do we discuss? Not careers, not money, not parents, not friends! We did discuss friends, but in following manner: "You remember Wonie, she's in Seattle, married to Wonky. They have a daughter!. You know Xany, who was going to marry Sammy, she married Pony instead!". Er, what are Wonie and Xany doing? "Oh, they are working in technology!". Yeah, right!
Or, consider this - I bump into a junior from college and her husband (who else!), and find that I barely remember her (she didn't either). We finally correlate names and faces, and I list a few others I remember, only to be told "Oh her, she's married...that girl, she's getting married this week...this person, is expecting a baby". DUH!!!!

STOP!! What? People don't have vocations anymore, passionate causes?! Ok, forget those (I don't either :-D), don't people have careers anymore?! What gets my goat is, this malady particularly afflicts womankind. A friend obsesses about how she's trying to fit babies into a career progression schedule in a manner most frightening. Another thinks that a woman in the management team at her workplace is not a shining example of women career-makers, because "she's not even ma.." ...rried. Of course, how could they, the " Much married-lost individual traits-have become my spouse's twin Club" would hardly countenance someone who presumably chose mind over menopause, when it came to making decisions in life.

Don't get me wrong, companionship, love..the works, all of it is fine. But, why does it snuff out what little individuality (its very less to begin with, especially with Indian brain-conditioned-to-confirm women), we retain? Why do women, who once wouldn't think twice about bonking a guy on his head for sexism, now spout a politically correct variant of the same excrement! Or are these just rantings in my head, because I'm on my way to becoming a lonely, sad, bitter old biddy, who is going to glare at women from under bushy eyebrows, and excessive chin hair jutting out, declare, "who needs kids, man, I have my dogs"?!!! I have no idea...for all you know, my next post (given usual frequency), might be a bouncy baby, titled "My Cho-Chweet Choby"!!!! ;-)

Bittersweet Symphony!

Every once in a while, comes a time, when I get tired of being myself, in the circumstances I find myself in...mostly professional, sometimes personal. Many times, there is not much one can do about this - a makeover, wardrobe change, holiday - they all lift the gloom, streaks of silver in a pilling black. You tend to keep feeling the walls around you, looking for ways out of this puzzle. Then you are offered a choice - tempting, tantalizing, asking you to reach out and grab it. You hesitate, shrink back, remember things past, determined to do the right thing this time at least and save yourself. Thoughts of "what could be" are banished and you war with yourself, body and soul.
One day, things are at their lowest ebb, you review your choices (numbering one), throw caution to the winds, and plunge headlong into temptation. You frolic, drink deep, come back for more, and it is the loveliest time of your life. A sense of foreboding lurks around you, causing glitches, mood swings, tears and much heartache, but you fend it off, determined to live in the present. Till...
...there comes yet another moment, seemingly well orchestrated, that uproots you, from all that is familiar into a cloud of promise, betterment and riches. Its a bittersweet moment of professional triumph marred only by a sinking realization that you have had an all too brief attempt at an indescribable emotion. Yet more choices, you think, only to see that there are none. The Fates have decided for you, it couldn't have been better timed, an easy escape, a mutual release. There should be no hurt egos, broken hearts, there. Or will there be? You have kept reaffirming to yourself that the end is nigh, only to find yourself there, without having begun at all...