St. Valentine’s Day

Exactly a year ago, on St. Valentine’s Day 2007, I was filled with a warm, exciting, carefree feeling of love. Love for myself, for the people around me, for nature, for everything I could think of… It had been a glorious day, and sitting in my lovely office as I waited for my next client to arrive, I thought about what life had brought me and what it might still have in store for me. For a few months before that day, I had been struggling with intense sadness and despair. But on Valentine’s morning I felt delightfully exhilarant. I had just returned from visiting my sister for her birthday, and was looking forward to a delightful four weeks of work before spring break when Nisha and I planned on taking another lovely trip somewhere. I felt immensely happy, and had a deep sense of joy and liberation.

When I was a child, I tried my hand at developing pen-friendships with people in faraway lands. I had hoped to share my life, my thoughts and my feelings with someone I did not know. I never did make any lasting pen-friends, but the urge to share my life still lurked somewhere in my heart. I wanted a witness to my life. I wanted someone to see what I saw and feel what I felt. I wanted someone to share my dreams, someone to watch me cry and watch me laugh. Not to console me, and not to live life with me, but just to watch – and view my life through my eyes. And I decided that whether there was someone to watch or not, I would share. That was how my baby blog was born.

For the most part, in bursts and spurts, it has chronicled my life. In several ways it has helped me through the process of healing from hurt, and given me a forum to rant and to celebrate with people known and unknown. I am twenty-eight years old, and never before in my entire life have I been able to look back on a year and remember as much about my life as I have done this past year, and as vividly. More even that the years when I journalled in my diary. I have accomplished so much this year.

This year marked my second Masters, my move out of Gateway Hills, the death of my first car, the purchase of my second, my first practicum outside the university, the making of a few cherished friends, extensive travel, the resurrection of my paper -journal, individual supervision, my first few semesters of group psychotherapy, the first semester when I did not take any classes, my taking up reading again, surviving a near-fatal accident, Martin Scorsese winning the Oscar, The Way of All Flesh, joy, sorrow, infatuations, nostalgia, pain and healing. And you dear Reader, have been witness to it all. Come, welcome another year with me.

P.S. I am aware that that last bit was very melodramatic, but I just could not resist.

Kamasutra

In one of Mira Nair’s films (I forget which), the female protagonist is bemused by the fact that most men think she is exotic and wonderful because they think being from India, she must be well versed in the art of Kamasutra-style love-making. And indeed the view of the general populace about Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra is that it is a detailed manual of sexual gymnastics. It was also my view until I began reading it. It was with hopes of great proportions that I began reading the Kamasutra. With virginal trepidation and guilty glee, I cracked open the slim volume (the original version, not the interpretive one), hoping to be transported mentally into a world of Ellora cave sculptures. Imagine my surprise then when I saw that these aforementioned sexual gymnastics form only a small fraction of the book! The Kamasutra is really much more a treatise on the code and ethics of courting and love-making than on the actual method by which people make love. Some of it is mildly erotic, and several chunks of it make sense in a vague way, but most of it is absolute rubbish.

For example, Vatsyayana lists numerous reasons why a man should seduce another man’s wife. All are stupid reasons, but this one takes the cake: “so that you can make her fall in love with you, kill her husband, and thus indirectly gain access to his wealth.” Here is another example: when a man wants to seduce a woman, but is unable to make his advances because of the presence of others, Vatsyayana recommends procuring a child and proceeding to kiss and fondle the child in the lady’s presence thus indirectly transferring the affection to the lady. Also, most of the Kamasutra appears to be based on deception of others. It is recommended that husbands deceive their wives and sleep with other women (whom also it is recommended that he seduce by deceit by doing things like faking illness so she would come and visit him), it is recommended that courtesans fake poverty to milk money out of their benefactors, that kings invite the wives of common man to the palace under some pretext and then proceed to seduce them... the list of deceptions is never ending. And, as you might expect, the Kamasutra is written entirely from the viewpoint of a man, and is about how man can derive pleasure from woman. The wife, as expected is supposed to be virtuous, unless she happens to be seduced by a more worthy man. Courtesans for some reason have been given full license to enjoy carnal pleasure as much as men do. The book is enormously confusing, but the most confusing thing of all to me is why it has become a byword for exotic sensual delights. That’s a mystery I never hope to be able to solve.

The Critic

My first blog post this year… I feel compelled to post updates, but too much has happened and I can’t even if I tried to. School starts on Monday, and I am not looking forward to the end of my holiday. But other things are going well. I have already completed my first book this year, am almost done with two others, and have read a few pages of a fourth. I’m doubling last year’s resolution, and hope to read at least two books every month. I also have resurrected several of last year’s resolutions, none of which I will attain, so there really is no point in discussing them here. But I do hope I can post on this blog less sporadically than before. We’ll see…

I’m grinning as I write this – my blog now has an outspoken critic. This critic likened my blog to a teen magazine, said it was girly, and I think he might have implied that it was a tad silly and naïve, although I am sure he will deny that he implied anything of the sort. Now, silliness, naiveté, and frilly girliness are all things that I vehemently disapprove of and look down upon like a terrible snob. I’m always telling people that I hate such stuff, my beloved sister can’t persuade me to watch a chick-flick if she begged me for a month, and I like to believe that I am something like a liberated version of Jane Austen’s Anne Elliot with a wonderfully exaggerated intellect. And when the critic offered me this estimation of my blog, I staggered back in shock. I protested that it was nothing of the sort. “Teenage girl-like indeed! Anything but!” I objected. I considered adding an aggressive “Humph!” to bring home the extent of my disapproval of his opinion, but decided against it. Much as I dislike silliness, I think I find churlishness more objectionable. The wise critic smiled, “Who else would have a ‘current sweetheart’ section”, he asked “like a teen girl’s magazine?”

My witty comebacks froze on my lips. I flushed, and then saw. He was right. It was like the conversion on the road to Damascus! The astute critic had brought home in a few simple words something that I had failed to see. And it wasn’t just the “current sweetheart” section - it was also the blog posts, most of which as he rightly pointed out were testaments to the existence of a romantic in me which (he thinks) is beautifully feminine. And you have to admit that when someone puts it like that, it is very complimentary. And I rise to meet all such compliments with grateful alacrity. :-)

The Miracle

Last Saturday, Nisha and I went to Minneapolis to spend the day with her friends at MOA. We woke up and set off early in order to avoid the predicted snowstorm. About 18 miles into Minnesota, a few miles past Albert Lea on Interstate-35, I began to feel the strong wind and wanted to slow down. I did, and simultaneously moved to the right lane. There was a truck about a hundred feet ahead of me, and a few cars the same distance behind me. As I shifted lanes, I felt the car sway… a little at first, and then suddenly… I lost control. I pressed down on the brake and tried in vain to maneuver the steering wheel as I helplessly watched my front windshield blur as the car swung dangerously back and forth between lanes a few times before suddenly careening off the road and into the median. I think I must have ceased to breathe for what seemed like a very long time before the car suddenly stopped.

A quick look showed me that Nisha was fine, and I felt no pain myself. It did not seem like we had struck anything. How pitiable it is, as I think about it now, that my very next thought was: ”Dear God! How much is this going to cost me?” As the car flew off the road, I remember seeing the truck ahead of me, and a post in the median. I was sure I would hit one of the two, but I hadn’t. It is nothing short of a miracle that there was no damage to anyone or anything. How the car managed to not hit anything God alone knows! I got out of the car… and walked around it, there wasn’t any body damage - we just were stuck in a foot of snow. In the 17F cold, Nisha and I tried digging the car out. But eventually we sobered up and called roadside assistance. I was scared out of my wits the half hour we were in the median that another vehicle would spin off the road and hit our stationary car and that we would not be able to do anything about it. I even made Nisha get out and sit in the back of the car. She tried to protest, but I would have my way! Anyway, no such catastrophe occurred. We went to Minneapolis and returned without any further untoward happening. Thank God!

The Sweet Smell of Success

I have finally, finally done it! Two and a half years after I first began it, I have today completed my Master's thesis. I defended this morning. My committee recommended a few minor changes for the thesis and a multitude of suggestions for the proposed journal article. So barring some routine paperwork, I am in possession of my second Master's degree!!!! Today ends my three-week long run of marathon night-and-day manuscript-writing sessions, and is the consummation of a semester's worth of nights working away at statistical analyses. Success comes at last!

Amat victoria curam!

Le Preux Chevalier

Who says chivalry is dead? Yesterday, as I was exiting one of the university buildings, a man opened a door for me. I smiled my acknowledgement to him, and he quietly said, "Thank you, Miss." To my amazement, he wasn't going through those doors at all - he walked down a second flight of stairs a couple of paces ahead of me. "Ah!" I thought, "He is leaving the building, just as I am". Reaching the outer doors before me, he swung them open for me. As I passed him, I paused, smiled, and thanked him. A second time, he smiled and said, "Thank you, Miss." Stepping out into the cold air, I half-turned to nod my goodbye to him, but watched in astonishment as he smiled and turned back into the building. I blushed. He had opened two doors for me though he had to go through neither. In being so chivalrous and calling me "Miss", he had made me feel incredibly young and girly. And all evening, the thought of him made me smile and blush again.

I haven't been doing anything that even borders on fun lately. I have finished reading the Kenneth Williams Diaries, and have been feverishly working on my manuscript. My thesis dominates my life now. But I happened to come across an interesting item that I thought I would like to share here. It is about George de Hevesy who won the 1943 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing the tracer method. "When Germany invaded Denmark during the second World War, he dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of Max von Laue and James Franck into aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from stealing them. He placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the invading Nazis who thought the jar — one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving — contained common chemicals. After the war, de Hevesy returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid, and returned it to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Nobel Society then recast the two Nobel Prizes using the original gold."

Snugness

Yesterday was the first time this winter season when it snowed all day. No matter how much I try to deny the fact, winter has really begun. I resisted going out all day yesterday, though I had so much to do at school, just because it was snowing and I did not want to be outside. Instead, I spent almost the whole day lazing around, watching the classic mystery videos: Lord Peter Wimsey, Poirot, A Most Mysterious Murder, Campion… I was all bundled up wearing the soft and warm lavender colored socks that my friends Anand and Aarti gave me last Christmas; and wrapped up in a pretty olive-green throw that my sister gave me when I moved this summer. I sat half-sunk in my huge, comfy wing back chair, my feet resting on the hideous but comfortable mustard-colored ottoman that doesn’t really fit the rest of my apartment. Scattered around me in close proximity, so I wouldn’t have to even get up, were the TV and DVD remote controls, a box of tissues, several plush cushions, the phone, and numerous other exemplars of luxurious, indulgent, hedonism. On the piano stool (which became a makeshift table for the day), lay a half-open, half-read volume of the complete works of Conan Doyle. Balanced atop this was a cup of hot drink. I alternated all day between drinking mulled apple cider, and Brooke Bond Red Label. I had lit scented candles all over the apartment and soon my senses swam in the autumnal fragrances of apple, cinnamon, vanilla and hazelnut. All I needed now was a crackling fire, and a warm hearth, but one can’t have everything. I was supremely happy… who wouldn’t be? And I willfully pushed all thoughts about the impending doom (thesis defense) from my mind.

If I had lots and lots of money, I would give up work and relive yesterday all over again, every day. But unfortunately that day is not yet come. Today I had to come to school to get on with research. I was greeted when I got out by the sight of a snowed-in car. There had been a good quantity of sleet yesterday, and the road was icy. I was engaged in de-crusting the ice off my car and digging the wheels out, when my neighbor and his friend (whose giant four-wheel drive truck and come undone in about two seconds, and who persisted in smirking at my neighbor and me like a benevolent father would at the scrapes of silly children) came by and helped me. I always have luck in having wonderful young men help me dig out my cars (re: my post The Sweet Shovelers from last winter). Anyway, we eventually got my car out and onto the icy treads in the middle of the road, and I was able to drive to school. Oh! Would that it were yesterday again!