Reshuffle

Hey,

I've been going quite crazy trying to figure a way in which I could be off Facebook while keeping a fraction of the benefits I used to get there.

Why was it such a task to leave Facebook? Because it gave me the visibility I needed. You went out there, read my blog, helped contribute to the cooking scenario and give me that faith in what I was doing. Writing and cooking is not my profession. They're something I love doing, at my own pace and frame of mind. 

I left Facebook for various reasons. But I still yearned for that space. I thought I could make do with my blog here if I tried new options with Blogger. I'm a tech dweeb. I know nothing about technology, computers or worse, HTML coding. I wanted a space for my food and photographs. I thought it best to create additional tabs here on this blog, and tried I did. I googled methods of getting those much needed tabs. But it didn't seem to work out since the Blogger interface has changed.

Somewhere along the way, in posts splashed everywhere (call it tactful advertising if you like), I found that Wordpress allows one to have tabs/pages within a blog. I've been on Wordpress before and back then, it seriously looked like too much for me to need or even want. I just needed that space where I could go and write at, occasionally. Now, it's more than writing. And I find the need to de-clutter (personally and on this space) quite overpowering. 

So I'm giving Wordpress another try. Here's where I will be shifting to. It's crazy for someone who knows not much about technology to keep skipping around. But I've got them ants in my pants. So I've moved here - http://babushkachauhan.wordpress.com/ - the same old me! New avatar, if you like. It can be quite annoying for you, the reader, to move around. But consider this to be a new destination I'm headed towards, with you. :)

And I get to have pages! Go check them out and tell me what you think. The blog is still being worked on, as we speak. It's quite exciting. I do hope this works out. If it doesn't, I'll figure something out. I need to know that I tried, at least. I'm looking forward to seeing you there. Do keep reading! :)



Much love,

Babska
http://babushkachauhan.wordpress.com/

Crashing Waves

It's no hidden fact that I think. I think a lot. I think beyond what is required, most often. You can be sure beyond surety. I don't just think, I think in all dimensions, speeds, circumstances and environments. This isn't me waxing eloquent about how much I think or how well. It's just telling you that my first, middle and last name have the word 'think' in it. 

So yes, now that we've got that sorted out and imprinted in everyone's memory, a few of these thoughts crashed into me the other day, as I was ummmm...thinking. And I thought I'd share them with you because, well... there is no because. 

The world will listen when it is ready to listen. It will carry on doing what it has to or wants to, till then. You can either stand by and watch or you can carry on doing whatever it is that you have to or want to do. Till the world decides to listen to you that is. Maybe it's something larger out there giving you a chance to really think about what you want to tell the world, in the interim. Or maybe it's the world giving you a chance to articulate what you want to express, and how. It's not always that we end up communicating the way we intended to. Sometimes time dilutes things. Or intensifies them. You figure you have a lot to say at times and nothing to say, the next. You're almost always caught stunned by how, just how you don't have anything to say when you're bursting within. Thoughts, feelings, words, silences - you name it - all seem to pour out from every pore and all you're left with is a gaping silence. And sometimes you're taken aback by how you say so much you never even knew existed in your brain, forget your heart. The world gives us time. Weirdly enough. 

So yeah, as this thought (and the consequent ones) crashed into me like the waves of a monsoon sea, I figured that maybe this has some weight to it. I mean it's not like this is THE Gospel Truth. It's just another way of perhaps dealing with things that come your way - a form of introspection, awareness and acceptance. We don't always get to speak up. And we don't always say what we really want to say. This could have a million reasons behind it. Call me strange if you like, but I'm someone who really believes in the larger existence of I don't know what (yet). I believe there's a larger picture. I believe that there's a reason why things happen. Maybe it's something that helps me believe in the silver lining post all the trash the world throws your way. It's something that helps me believe -in what is something I haven't figured out; or rather, I don't have a concrete something yet. It changes with each passing circumstance. 

So yeah. You talk when you are listened to. You've just got to shut up and sit tight at other times. Sometimes that's the best thing you could ever, ever give yourself.

The Graveyard Hour

I knew, even as I drifted back into sleep, that I would be writing this post. It was a piercing sound that startled me awake. I swiftly grabbed my phone to shut what I thought was the alarm that did something so heinous. The piercing sounds were that of the neighbourhood dogs howling the night awake. It was somewhere around 1:45am. It was a bittersweet moment because a) the night still had so many hours of sleep left for me to devour (YAY!) and b) because the intense relationship I was having with this love of my every night was carelessly shredded apart by these dogs (*&%$#!@#!!), at an hour so substantial (and eerie) that it made me make a mental check to come here and tell you about it. It was the hour of ghosts or spirits or whatever have you. 

Ghosts, or the concept of them (or whatever fancies your ideologies) have always been a part of my life. And no, I don't imply or mean that I can see them. I hope I don't ever get blessed with that power. But they've always been a part of my growing up years where childhood curiosities and questions sort of overtook everything else that was so real and boring. Our imaginations worked overtime as we spent dusks and evenings pondering over ghosts and ghost stories. The us would be the brother and the cousins, and the occasional elder who dropped by in our world of theories and conquests.

I think the concept of ghosts started off with the entire fear of darkness. Why are you scared of the dark? Because there are ghosts around. That's where it all started from. Darkness almost always meant it brought ghosts along - whenever, wherever. Except the puja room. Or under your quilt. Those were the only places where ghosts could never trespass to, and still can't. We wondered what they were; whether they had their feet backwards and floated at a slightly elevated level, dressed in a translucent white. 

Then we had movies we were forbidden from watching with Exorcist topping those charts. But when you have elder brothers who are allowed access to the VCR and in whose company you could watch tv at night (only because they were summer holidays), one tended to oversee those rules. So ghost movies would be rented, hidden among stacks of other, happier movies as they were smuggled in amid scrutinizing eyes. When you have brothers, the world doesn't matter. Elder or younger, you're safe. I'm digressing, but I just had to say this just so you know that a) I love my brothers, and that b) they absolutely rock, and that c) we were not cracked in the head as kids. So yeah, I still remember many a night spent watching movies from between the weaves of my bed cover.

It never ended at that. Of course. What a stupid thing to expect. We were blessed with voracious imaginations and this weird need to try and figure everything out. I believe I used the word conquest sometime back. So yes, we thought of them as our own personal conquests against a world that occupied so much space in our imagination. Incidents and stories narrated by uncles had us gather around, gaping wide-eyed, reinforcing the fact that we could contact the supernatural world since humans and animals could so evidently be involved. So secret missions were chalked out, to be executed in the dead of night (3am was Satan's hour) in not so easily accessible places (such as the tree house in the backyard). We looked forward to nights of Plan Chit, while a swarm of potential questions we would ask these spirits swam in front of our eyes. The world was exciting and so adventurous. Nothing could stop us. 

And then we watched Poltergeist. Or Omen. And suddenly it hit us that we'd never thought of how to say bye to ghosts. We'd overlooked what would happen if the ghost decided to stay back. I swear I saw what my life would be like if I were even accidentally possessed by one of these spirits, flash right in front of my eyes. The world didn't seem that adventurous anymore. I guess that's when reality started taking her baby footsteps into my rainbow world of adventure and all things brave and fun. Plans made way for conversations; we could never control what kind of spirit would visit us and decide to spend their ghostly life with us; we worried. We decided to 'grow up' and make do with ghost stories, experiential anecdotes that meandered across generations (involving at least one person from each generation, mind you) and of course, movies. 

Somewhere along the line, we decided to quit the thought of meeting ghosts altogether. The plan of calling them was buried, as were thoughts of visiting graveyards (complete with a picture of Hanumanji and a small piece of iron). We just couldn't afford risking it, our slowly growing up minds thought. It makes me wonder if the onset, acceptance and sheltering of fears ushers in the process of 'growing up'. But I'll keep that thought for another post. So that was that. As time progressed, and as summer holidays became few and far in between, we moved on to exploring more 'feasible' areas that triggered our curiosities. 

Therefore, with a background and history such as this + the million horror movies every industry has ever made; still make me wonder about concepts such as ghosts. They do not hold my curiosity as much as they bother my sense of peace. Today holds a deeper meaning of passing on, ghosts, possessions and the supernatural in general. I'm not necessarily a 'true' believer in the surety of their existence and presence as much as I am suspicious of their existence. Especially when it comes to dogs who howl collectively at around the same time every night, and at the time they choose to howl.  *shiver*

But then, when my reality cuts back to today, my greed and absolute lust for sleep takes over as I dunk my head in my pillow and drift back into a world that fast fades away from what could potentially have Casper and Nearly Headless Nick sitting next to me to one of deep, unperturbed slumber. Thank you, God, for that! I will be eternally grateful to you for making me pass out when I really need to. And as for ghosts, the tug-of-war between my imagination and sense of realism (and sanity, I'd like to believe) have brought me to let them be as they are - whether or not they exist.

Snipping it

Cutting off is such a strong act. It involves great amounts of resilience, courage and strength; I'd like to believe. It does take a lot to cut the cord. It takes more than intense emotions to get one going in that direction - it takes a seedling germinating within which grows stronger with time -  strong enough to push you off the edge and then, stable enough to help you get back on whenever you want to. Isn't that what happens, if and when it does? People who cut off, come back. Sometimes. I don't know if that's fortunate or not. That depends on how you take it. I'm here to write about cutting-off. 

Cutting off is supposed to be everything I just mentioned in the first two lines, and more. And I also mentioned how I'd like to believe it was all that simply because it's something I find very difficult to believe in. It isn't my style. Cutting off to me means that you shut that component of your being, out. Completely. Snip. Or smash. Whichever you prefer. How do people do it? How do you shut what was important in one go? How do you eradicate everything else the concerned relationship brought along with them - family, associations, and worst of all, memories? How does something go from being so precious to being nothing? You do kill it because eventually, everything ceases to be in the spotlight. What was once important, isn't anymore. How do people do that? How is it so resilient, brave and courageous to just walk away? How is it not painful to a numbing extent when you stab that part within yourself? 

I've experienced being cut-off by. It's the most traumatic experience one can ever go through. And no, I'm not here to project a sense of victimization as much as I am here to question what holds relationships, really, because if it is so easy to walk away in a second, then I wonder what relationships are really worth. People cut off for various reasons, sometimes it is necessary, sometimes it is the best way out, sometimes it is done in the best interest of the other (or the self), sometimes it is done because things just stop making sense, etc etc. How much is ever enough and who gets to decide? 

I'm sure people have their legitimate reasons. I just can't figure who gets to decide how legitimate those reasons really are...and why. And people come back with the same 'ease' with which they left. Maybe you get closure in whichever manner comes your way. Maybe you still have loose ends. Maybe you've found something better. Who knows? There's never any certainty when it comes to relationships or when it comes to your need to survive the tumult that you put yourself through. There's a point after which breathing becomes labored, where going through every day with that one person doesn't hold much water anymore. There will always be this need for self-preservation. The self before everyone else. 

Maybe that's what makes it so effortless. Because I've begun to realize from the realities around me that nothing, and I mean nothing and no one stands taller than their own self. And we'll do anything to keep it that way. Relationships don't ever stand a chance if you don't stand a chance yourself.

Life has its own way of speaking to you. It's how you choose to listen and take it forward. Cutting-off just becomes the wild card you use when you never ever thought you'd use it.

Music Khushi

This is something a friend just showed me. It makes me overjoyed because a) I LOVE this track and b) the world is filled with music and various genius sound making things/beings/organs. Do have a dekho!



*sigh*

To be or not to be...

 on FB?

I share a love-I don't ever want to see you again kinda relationship with FB. It's not FB that I despise. It's the entire load of rubbish that comes along with it - the pretenses, the "friends", the convenience, the snooping around, the ease with which people know what's going on in your life without even having to try, apart from so many other shenanigans that make me have this mental debate all the time. To be or not to be? 

I love that FB gives me so many options to do what I want to and showcase what I want to. I don't like that everyone is privy to it. I love that old friends can find and reconnect with each other (heck, my mum found her long lost school friends!). I don't like that every tom, dick and harry you meet becomes your "friend". I love how filled with images my pages are because that's just who I am. I despise how the loopholes in its privacy policies literally make my bones shiver. I love how it gives me such an amazing platform for more than reconnecting with friends. I despise that I can't take that along with me whenever I hit the quit button. 

You'd go on and ask me a) why I put up pictures, b) why I can't block people, and c) why I can't manage my life on FB in a better fashion. I've asked myself the same things too. I think I'm entitled to put whatever I think is decent and social enough to go up there - well, what the heck did you think FB's popularity is built on? Besides, i'm not the FB hypochondriac who updates the world about every single thing I do. Like I said, the boundary lines are drawn. It's just that when it comes to friends, there are so many and at so many levels that it just doesn't make any sense to me. It feels more like a task than a pleasure. I'm not that orderly about my life. I have lists. But I have lists. Not a million lists. I could have a million snaps though. Or updates about my blog. Or food. Or all the 3, every day.

I've gone off it so many times. And come right back because I need some part of FB. Not that I miss the friends. I miss what I can do with it. I will forever have this question, this bug that will eat away at my need for this mass of social media and my need to get right off it. I know that I will oscillate in this weird state of undecidedness, where I will be activating and de-activating that account, and venting about it here, till I can come up with a better solution for this.

The challenges one has to face in life. Jeez.

Girl Matters

I have always been a lover of eye make-up. Eye make-up constituted my entire world. No other make-up existed except eye make-up. It was a world that began unfolding since I was 12 when I was allowed to buy my first ever Lakme eyeliner (the not so fancy black one in a small glass bottle). I loved it very much. It was the window of a world so so cool I never knew could exist. And coming from a family where make-up and objects of beautification are shunned till a particular age, that one bottle of eyeliner was used only on "special" occasions such as dinners. It's no wonder that bottle lasted me a kazillion years, or till it dried out, whichever came first. 

But that was it. That.was.it. My idea of make-up = my bottle of black eyeliner. It started and ended there. And then one fine day, I walked into the world of kajal. It was a slow acceptance of something I found almost unnecessary. I had a black eyeliner, I thought. Who needs a black kajal now when I can make do with this? But then I had to try this out, and try out that out, I did. My first ever kajal was the charcoal black Streetwear kajal. It was bought ONLY cuz it looked nice and smelt of kapur (camphor). *sigh*

So there it was, my world of make-up (mind you, ALL make-up) expanded to = my bottle of black eyeliner and my super cool (and wonderfully fragrant) black kajal.

I won't blame you for wondering which female species I belong to for the worldview of make-up I held and still do hold on to. It's just how I am. Touche.

Shift to 2012. 

I now have taken a weird and (very) fast-developing interest in the wonderful world of eye make-up. Again. Apparently, and so I figured, the world of make-up doesn't stop at a mere kajal and eyeliner (which is still pretty much what I use even today). I have now fallen into this rabbit hole of the wonders of eye shadows, mascaras and well...yeah just eye shadows and mascaras. I don't think I will step in to the world of false lashes just yet.

I feel blessed and oh so poor as I write about my tryst with my new found loves. I've always been an eye person and someone who really loves just the simplicity of highlighting one's eyes. Today, I've become an eye make-up glutton! Or I feel like one at least. Today, I have in my possession, 5 boxes of eye shadows and 1 mascara and I know I want more. Needless to say that beauty does come at such a damn cost! I'm broke buying such small boxes of very expensive (but such pretty) eye make-up. And when one busts cash on something like this and doesn't experience any sort of heart-burn, one realizes they're heading to be the hot eyed girl they always knew they were.

Being a girl is SUCH high maintenance. And SUCH a pleasure!

Now do excuse me while I go and tumble down that rabbit hole some more.

Oh, and happy girly-ness to you too! 

And, ummm, I'll catch ya later, boys!

That School

It's funny how walls make you feel. And that's how I will begin this post. Because that's all I could see of you - walls.

You're where my first memories start from. You're where my concept of excellence came from. I just had to, even before I knew it. You ensured that in the way I dressed, spoke, presented my self, kept my hair and nails, my books and how well I wrote cursive in between the lines - both the big and small ones. I made it through all that. And the white canvas shoes I would guard with such duty. It was quite a challenge - how do you manage to keep something white so spotless, especially when it's at your feet, at the mercy of everyone else's? Well, I kept them white. And spotless. It's funny how it was so doable back then. Today's a different story, however.

You're the first place I have memories of from. They pan the first LKG teacher my life gave me - Ms. Sebastian? - she will always be a Ms. Sebastian to me. And Mrs Thomas; prim with her starched cotton saris, steely eyes and a personality that imprinted the first pages of my life for good. She's got to be someone if she's remembered from what feels like just yesterday. You're the place where short breaks were spent in the junior school ground; on stone benches that made me figure the red 'devil' ants from the black 'God' ones. And when it was time for that first tooth to fall, it happened right as I quickly swallowed a piece of sandwich only to realize I was eating more than just bread - all in that 15 minute short break. You gave me our first bully. You gave me the first hints of a tumultuous relationship I was going to have for years to come with PT and sports. You gave me Ms. Chanda, the aayas in grey saris who accompanied us everywhere and my first memories of class pictures. 

You made me feel for the National Anthem way before I could even figure what it meant or even stood for, above and beyond the identity of being something Indian. I remember the sound of the school bell being rung by the stern man from a few floors below that resonated through every classroom, through every ear to be followed by the faint but strong melody of a distant chorus singing the anthem. And we would join in. And the entire school sang. A sense of restlessness to get out of class to get the preferred seat in the van eased into a sense of stillness as we stood, eyes closed, singing for something we were all just about figuring out. Like I said, you made me feel for the National Anthem. You showed me what it felt to begin and end the day not in prayer but in a song. If today I feel the chorus right within me, it's because it started with you. When I feel goosebumps, it's because they start with memories from there. Clenched fists exhibited a new purpose, stillness meant more than just London Statue. 

Your walls seemed limitless, you were tall and mighty. I felt a sense of awe, pride and such fear. Your walls rose high, in protection and submission. Your walls created a small world within filled with satiny maroon striped ties. I could never ever see beyond them. Not the buildings outside, even; no matter how far back I would walk to get a broader view. Everything existed within and my outside was a scary world where ma told us never to talk to strangers or believe them. You were huge; beyond anything I could possibly describe. You towered over me. 

Yesterday, I stood outside your gates and you looked smaller. The path I thought was an endless stretch of crowded pavements and vans, is now just a few steps long. Distances have shortened, associations have lengthened. You still tower over me, you still stand out, you still overwhelm me, you still make me get to class when you need me to, you still replay my memories for me, you still speak of a time when all I had were strangers and fears around me. Today your ground is limitless no more and mine is. And the first thing I see are your walls.

KG, National Public School

Turns

Poetry spoke, at first. He called out to me from the midst of so many. I guess he wore his rainbow colours just for me today. Listening to him, I am. Watching him, I am. Take him in, I did. He took me to a corner and made me feel like I was the only one there, yet another among a million others. Uncanny. Poetry; he and I had a conversation, some of which I shared with you just a while back- he with his verses and my associations, mine with my eyes and silence.

And then music came along with a mirror and there they were - my thoughts right there, written on the mirror for me to read and listen to. This is from one of my favourite trance numbers I chanced upon quite accidentally today, in the form of a different mash-up.

On A Metropolis Day - OceanLab vs. Gareth Emery

Little bit lost and...
A little bit lonely
Little bit cold here
A little bit feared

But I hold on
And I
Feel strong
And I
Know that I can.

Getting used to it
Lit the fuse to it
Like to know who I am

Been talking to myself forever, yeah
And how I wish I knew me better, yeah
Still sitting on a shelf and never
Never seen the sun shine brighter
And it feels like me
On a good day

And it feels like me
On a good day

I'm a little bit hemmed in
A little bit isolated
A little bit hopeful
A little bit cold

But I hold on
And I
Feel strong
And I
Know that I can

Getting used to it
Lit the fuse to it
Like to know who I am

Been talking to myself forever, yeah
And how I wish I knew me better, yeah
Still sitting on a shelf and never
Never seen the sun shine brighter...

And it feels like me
On a good day

Been talking to myself forever, yeah
And how I wish I knew me better, yeah
Still sitting on a shelf and never
Never seen the sun shine brighter
And it feels like me
On a good day

Here's the track for those of you who would like to give it a listen.

Turn it up, live it and give this track its due.

Poetry Speaks

... and this is what it told me:

"Jab jab dard ka baadal chaya

Jab ghum ka saya lehraya
Jab aansoo palkon tak aya
Jab yeh tanha dil ghabraya

Humne dil ko yeh samjhaya
Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai?
Duniya mein yunhi hota hai

Yeh jo gehre sannate hain
Waqt ne sabko hi baante hain
Thoda ghum hai sabka qissa
Thodi dhoop hai sabka hissa
Aag teri bekaar hi nam hai
Har pal ek naya mausam hai
Kyun tu aise pal khota hai
Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai."

(Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara)

I'm going to take this word for word, because when poetry or music start a conversation with you, you just shut up and listen, and very carefully at that.