women with spunk

This from the devdaas post, talking about Paaro got me thinking how many other women I know who have spunk like that? How many women, when they like a guy can go up to him and say, "Hey! Genius! Hum bhi hain raahon me." I know I cannot. Not in a million years. Most women I know cannot have done that. Most women I know would rather wake up every morning and pray "Please Ramji please, ...." But then, some can.

A few. Very few. Very very few.

Like there was this one, she asked him to explain to her, just what he was waiting for? You see, he is the kind of guy who has an answer for every question under the sun, but right now, as she is asking him this question, almost for the first time in his life - he is stumped. He has no idea, what he has been waiting for. He does not even know what he should do next. So she tells him, may be you should talk to my father - "oh ! yeah! right! that! I knew that." Men! I tell you. If she had not told him, it would not have occurred to him, physics or no physics. :)


Then there is this other one.Oh boy she has loads of it. And she is the kind who wouldn't mind letting me tell you her story so I will, this is what she did.

She called him. In the middle of the night, at 2 am or some other god forsaken time like that, she called him and said come and get me. He wasn't too sure, wasn't it too late, "Can we do this in the morning? " अब ले जाते हो तो ले जाओ आकर, और नहीं ले कर के जाते हो तो वो भी कह दो , सह लेंगे हम, सहने वाले क्या क्या सह लेंगे। Poor thing, like that left many options, so he came। He came up those stairs and he wasn't sure if he should ring the bell, it was really late in the night, or very early in the morning, depending on how you looked at it. But he did not have to. She came flying out, and in a country where these things are not talked about much, at an hour when girls don't go out of homes, when she is hindu and he is muslim, right there, in the middle of that night, in the middle of those stairs, she kissed him. She kissed him and he did not know what had hit him. He did not know why she could not have kissed him all those years in school, why had she wasted all that time yapping and running around and doing everything else, instead of this? That's all it would have taken, पर नही, दिमाग तो रात के दो बजे चलना शुरू होता है। Why now? Why does she have to make things so god damned complicated?

Oh I didn't tell you, kahani me twist hai. She got married last month. It was an arranged marriage, but technically this is still her sasuraal. Her in-laws are inside. And here she is, with her classmate, her best friend, the boy she has known all her life, but has only now figured out that he is the one she is in love with, now after one month of being married to someone else. Stuff like that, it can get you killed.

Yeah! I wish I was there, I wasn't, but knowing her, she probably shot one look their side and said "Fuck off!" and walked away. Sorry they are not my words, I don't use them, but this is not my story either, this is her story and she will kill me if I don't tell it in her words.

Now, if you see her, you will see a woman who reads her namaaz five times a day, she keeps his dinner ready before he gets home and she helps their ten year old daughter with her homework. You have to see her in the evening, one minute she is talking to you and then she sees his car take that turn and she is gone. You would never guess that part of their story.

You see, normal day to day life, it hides stuff. People look different buying vegetables on the roadside. You would never know where they come from, what their stories are. Lions pass off for lambs. You would be a fool to be fooled by the exterior. He isn't. He knows that underneath this very obedient wife is still that girl, who could, if the situation warranted, look you in the eye and say "Fuck off!"

Spunk - it is the kind of thing that once you have it in you, it doesn't get out of you.

You know how they say in our culture - that it takes a lot to keep the relationship it takes nothing to break it. I think that is wrong. It takes a lot of guts to break a bad relationship, it takes a heart of steel to walk out too. Most women I know, just keep putting up with nonsense in the name of keeping a relationship. it takes a lot to get up and say stop. I am done. Goodbye. And I admire the women who can do that. And I am so glad I know a few of them. Very proud to be able to call them my friends.

I did not tell the rest of the story here, because someday, I want to tell it right, all of it.

Women I love

I started writing a dedication. I know! pehle kitab to likh lo.... but, if it ever gets written then this is who it is going to be dedicated to : Those amazing women in my life. I started writing it and I could not stop myself, it just kept coming.

To all those amazing women in my life:
My nani, dadi, my mom, massis, buas, mamis, chachis, tayees, mother-in-law, my sisters-in-and-outlaws and my wonderful friends

You hold in you the wisdom of centuries

You keep in you my stories, just like I carry yours with in me.

You taught me :

how to hope, to dream, to hold on
to walk gracefully and to run with abandon
to cook with my heart and to love with my soul

you share with me my pain
my pain of giving birth, of falling in love, of letting it all go

from you I learned how to lose gracefully, to step aside
to win with dignity, to make space for others

to walk into a room full of people and say how can I help?
to say you sit down, i will clean up this mess

you taught me that tomorrow is another day
life is not fair
and love
it does not last forever
yet it is worth having, worth wanting and worth fighting for
and men, no they are not perfect
men, they are not women
and yet they are worth having, worth wanting and worth fighting for
(yes, you have to fight other women for them, but hey! only so much fish in the pond)

that you have to do what you have to do
that death will still come for you
out of the blue

I will lose the ones I love
my work will never be done
I will grow old, my hair will fall, my skin will sag
and no amount of lotions or creams will stop that

that it is all in my head
this concept of heaven and hell

that shutting up is a skill worth mastering
that patience is a virtue of the strong
and that right no matter what can never be wrong

that salvation is a myth
time is eternal
and life
just goes on


Hope springs from your heart, love takes form in your eyes, and healing; it begins at your hands.

I try to break free and be different from you and yet am forever doomed to mimic your words, repeat your mistakes, and relive your histories.

It is beside you that I find peace in my wretchedness, deliverance from my demons, and absolution for my sins.

It is in you that I find me.