Cockroach crisis

bird watching, dog walking, baby sitting but why no cockroach watching, eh? you know it can be just as engaging as the rest. try it. for example me, i was watching this tiny cockroach, well not so tiny- say, adolescent cockroach- delicately crawl on the edge between the floor and the bathtub. the poor thing sat nibbling presumably another poorer thing. then i intervene its little feast. i run my index finger one feet above the roach, creating a majestic little scary shadow for it, which is following its tiny little foot steps. it was fun, watching such a puny little insect distressed by a giant little me. i am a sadist. also, as u can very well infer, have no life! anyway, so i wave my index finger above it, following horizontally, wherever it moves. the roach is sensing an imminent death knell. hopefully. so after wiggly-waggly-woo, it stops moving. stoned. now i am confused. i could not have killed it from a feet high. and i possess no laser powers. what happened? but the roach sits so still, silently. i mean still. just still. it cant shout. can it? well whatever. but here it is. unmoving. did i give it a heart attack? then i wasn't sure if they have a heart. so now i bring my finger a few inches nearer to the roach. and then i distinctly see the bastard quiver. i am very angry now. it wanted to fool me! how dare it! i am angry. should i kill it, or should i just follow along the lines of non violence? i was so close to a real "to be or not to be" dilemma. here's my Claudius cockroach... but I hear the roach scream "run, run, run while she plays Hamletta! yo Dirty Mary, when u shoot u shoot...don't talk!"

ambitious marriage

not that i hate married life. i have a lot of respect towards all the married people in the world. its just that i dont have any respect for myself as a married woman, because most often i am convinced that i am doing it all wrong, and not following the "rule book" at all. you see, all my life i have been a non-conformist. not really because i wanted to. it didn't help. my *** hated me for that, later my *** hated me too... and by the time i left India, practically everyone joined the club. so i left the country. because it was getting stale, soiled, and i was losing my mind. which is not always the best "things" to lose. a purse is a safer choice instead. so one fine day, i decided out of the blue that i wud go to USA. and i convinced dad to buy me a ticket. ** hated me her all-time-high during that period. so i figured, it has started to pay off already. so i landed in USA. and then i find myself engaged in the first 4 months of my stay, because let me be honest, i was bored that summer. and needed an interesting turn of events to cheer me up. naturally now, it dawns upon me that it was all a curse of my experimental days, frankly put-- my foolish foolish days, when i couldn't be any more stupider and unwise and unthoughtful. i am pretty sure i have used up the entire quota of my foolishness allowed in this life. so beware of me from now on. i am gonna be smart as hell for the rest of my life!
post marriage, ever so often i am jolted with an avalanche of 'marital responsibilities' which like a loud gong, explodes my ears and head in a bizarre cacophony. it feels like Jim Carry in "Bruce Almighty" when he wakes up at the sound of million voices in his head, the whole bunch of whining humanity, asking for favors out of God. well, mine is not nearly as dramatic as that, but you see my point. or so i hope.

why does people, and by people i mean some very particular individuals i know, keep saying that if you are very ambitious you shouldn't have married. yes i shouldn't have married. but that could be a separate, independent thought by itself. becoz of how inanely inept i am for all the "marriage-life-rules" and some family politics and politricks u shud be aware of to steer clear of family gossip. but why is "ambition" such a doting enemy of marriage, i dont get it. they make it sound like anybody who is ambitious and successful, were all smart enough to not marry. aye aye... its a vicious circle. its not like the legitimate, "u are bad in math, so you should stay away from science". instead they make it sound like, if u are bad in math, you should stay away from all technology. so go fetch water from the well to take a bath. no using the shower. and using a computer is out of the question! if u need to know anything, just keep your eyes and ears open for aural history to pass on u. thats how our ancestors became learned men.
but here i am, expecting to see my so-called "ambitions" getting realized, along with making my marriage a success. u see, i am ambitious about my marriage as well. i tell ya again, its a vicious circle.
anyway, had i just lived with Raja, and none of our families hovered around us, and it was a perfect world, things would have been so much easier. and i cud be a hippie like i was. every now and then i miss the Golden Age. i MUST have had a life back then. or else why this nostalgia?

joker joker in the hall who is the funniest of them all

my blog is becoming like a joker's life (no not the Heath Ledger kind or any of the other batman's joker) but more like raj kapoor's "mere naam joker" concept. my readers, if there are any, by now know that the whole idea of writing this blog is to make it funny. a lot of people, like myself, lack humor in their lives. and all that my blog attempts to do is add a little smile in your life. thats all. Because sometimes, life can be very boring. no bad days to whine about. no good days to boast about. And most of the time people dont like to admit they had a good day, even if they did. They presume, others mite think u have an easy job, or easy life, or eating out of your dad's money or ex-husband's alimony. So generally, i think people feel safer to say "work sucked. such a stressful day!" etc. However, i think people truly neither have many good days nor many bad days, they just have boring days. the same day you see everyday. and my blog comes here. to make your Today, a little funny or a little aggravated like either "hehehe" or "sheesh...look how hard she's trying to be funny...". Of course it helps infinitely more, for both you and me, if its the former case than the latter.
thus, in my blog u will never find high philosophy or grave politics, and surprisingly not much of emotional rants either (though i mite have come real close to doing that in some of my posts). there is nothing serious, erudite, intellectual or even pseudo-intellectual going on in my blog. its a very simple, under-fashioned blog without ANY underlying meaning or all that jazz. just the talk of everyday says and everyday ways. with a touch of humor to it. however if u have never found anything even vaguely funny reading it, then well...i am certainly not laughing knowing that!
so thats all about my blog, hackneyed and trivial. just hoping that u will find something in there to smile or laugh about. And perhaps on a sad, lonely, cranky day once in a while, you might remember my blog in the hope of finding a moment's smile. (and NOT the "i'm smiling- in-the-inside kind". Just old fashioned heeeee :) or hahaha)
but yeah, today is one such day, when the joker needs a laugh. badly. and i'm running out of happy or funny things to say. besides i am tired of laughing at my own jokes. how pathetic is that! u know, in theaters, in the comedy plays, there are actually some people sitting among the audience, who are part of the show. u know what part they play? to watch if u are farting or not! naah. But they are there to provoke laughter. say there is such a scene which the director or the playwright is sure as hell that it is funny, but just in case his audience had had a bad day becoz per se he/she is returning from paying the alimony or meeting the mother-in-law or just paid taxes or some such contingency, and thus just not in the mood to laugh but had to come since he paid for the ticket, the director anticipating such mishaps in people's lives, implants among the audience some of his crew members, and instructs them to start a laugh in each of those "seriously" funny moments if they go unnoticed. hearing these laughters, the unhappy ones join in. the "emperor's-new-clothes" concept. ('only people who are intelligent will get the humor')
so next time, watch out for who is making you laugh. the actor on the stage, or the actor off the stage, the actor among you. But hey! join in anyway. You wouldn't want to be the only "intelligent" one finding it NOT-FUNNY;)

Our (raja-tina, raggi-abhishek) Anniversary party

no offense to anybody, but i did not enjoy my own anniversary party. the thing is, it was crowded with people i have no idea who they were. then as introduction they tell me, "haan ami tomar dada ke du bochor boyeshe dekhechilam" (yes i saw your brother when he was two), you know what that means people?-- He didn't even know that i existed all these twenty two years! so imagine when he was invited, 'sure i wud come to her anniversary! wait a minute, when was she born?' and next he sees me in my anniversary! "hello. o yes let me update you. i was born 22 yrs, 11 months and 56 seconds ago. but how thoughtful of you, you didn't miss my anniversary party."
see what i mean.
hence i was tired of making these incessant small talks with people all over the place, repeating the same boring "weather" lines or food conversations-- "ashte oshubide hoy ni toh. theek kore khachchen toh. aar kichu laagbe. bhaalo kore khaben. chele meye elo na?" ("no problem with the directions i hope. please help your selves with the food. have some more. please eat something. why didn't your children come"-- without having any clue if they at all have children, whom may be i shud meet 22 yrs after, at THEIR anniversary per se!)
then, to make it worse most of my friends couldn't make it to the party. they were either stuck with their sister's graduation party, or brother's girlfriend's paranoia, or the simple classic excuse "period cramps". however the MOST annoying part was when my family showed up 30 minutes before the place closes down. and they came, ate, and left. i mean everybody comes to parties to eat, but do you really have to make it that obvious!
the only good part was there was no after-party party. so i could crash in my bed asap.

Life

ever so often life becomes more demanding, difficult, uncompromising, and sucks like crazy! life's a bitch. see why

DANGER ZONE

the other night was scary. i was returning from school around 12 in the night, (from SCHOOL, believe me), when I had to take a cab from Jackson Heights. the train got delayed, and weird thingies happened in between, result of which landed me in Jackson Heights instead of Woodside. anyway, this Pakistani cabbie, he looked middle-aged, but apparently the story goes (which he narrated) that his father is calling home to get him married. so i'm not sure about his age. but he is very big. he is the archetypal "big guy". anyway, very soon he tells me "i'll take you to clubs. u drink?" "No. i dont. I'm very religious." he- "but wine has only 10% alcohol". me-" NO. it has more than that" (oops, i'm not suppose to know that. i don't drink, remember) anyway, so he insisted i go to clubs with him, and to movies. "Well my HUSBAND wont like that." "o it doesn't matter. dont tell him. give me your number. please." "did you hear me, my HUSBAND wont like that." (usually at the mention of a Husband, guys just run for their lives. i was so sure this would work with this guy too). But he continued, "dont tell him, give me your number. look i dont have any bad intentions. this is a very lonely country, i just want a friend. i am a good man. dont tell your husband, give me your number. call me when he is not there. i am a good man" How HIGHLY unconvincing line of argument! to earn any inkling of credibility he should have at least kept the two lines of thought vastly separated from each other, "call me when husband not there" and "i am a good man". anyway, i didn't say anything outright abusive, because i was still in his hands, i mean i still needed him to do this lil bit for me-- reach me home safe, in the same physiological, psychological, and sexual condition, with which i had entered his car. if i had abused him, i was afraid he might just spare me the politeness of an invitation and might take me right then on a looooong drive with him to one of his "clubs" and had me drink "10% alcohol wine". and that i did not want. so i was in my best behavior with him. politely refusing. (this i learned from my mom, my brother, my husband... which finally came to use that night) So when i reached outside of my home, the car door knob is stuck. he isn't unlocking it. still pressing me for my phone number. (btw, he found me quite dumb when i told him my husband wont like it. he's probably thinking that 'that should be the last of your concerns right now you pussy cat'). he wont even take the fare. gave me another philosophical "there are somethings more than money" ideology. i am still trapped in his car. the door wont budge. and just to remind you, its now after midnight outside the car. (and inside the car I am mentally prepared that its Judgment Day. All my hopes of a Nobel, and Writer, and Princeton, and A's, and laser hair removal, all dreams finished in a single cab ride, becoz of a single delayed train. Life is so short.)
i will leave the rest to your imagination folks! but just to reassure, I am writing this blog sitting on my bed in my home, my HUSBAND's home. so u can take a breath of relief;)

Jackson Heights grocery shopping

we went to Jackson heights to do the groceries. its funny that we call it 'grocery', because ideally one connects grocery with a weekly, or at the most monthly tenure. we, however, make it a 3 months stipulation. hence our grocery shopping is like an event. By the end of our shopping, our cart is a spectacle. people, glancing at our trolley might wonder if we are feeding an army, or perhaps making food drops at Iraq or something. sure... why not! imagine all the people "sharing" life in food!
Reminded me the last time I went there, with R. she was shopping for a party. After everything was done and paid for, a Punjabi man offered to help us fetch a cab home. we are here. cab is looooong way there. and Punjabi man, with our trolley, changing kinetic motion to commotion, runs away from us to run into the cab. we ran behind him with arms stretched out like High-Hitler waving to 'wait for us', when meantime a Q37 angry bus nearly ran as down. while we unloaded every item from the cart to the car deck, half paranxious (paranoid+anxious), trying to hurry up and slowing down at the same time by the Punjabi man's overpowering nudge, i heard miscellaneous swear words from the miscellaneous drivers, esp from the bus driver, we held up in a bottle neck. our cabbie was in perfect denial of the situation. he pretended he didn't hear any of the swear words pouring down on us like cats and dogs. hence we kept up with our part of the denial too. we had to. what kinda client-lawyer relationship will we have otherwise!? thus, cabbie couldn't care less. we couldn't care less. and yet everyone of us tried to get the hell out of there as fast as possible! and at the end of all this shameful shameless 'denials', i saw a perfectly plump tomato plopped down from one of our bags and hurriedly scurried across the road and made way into a giant manhole.