Some day... just someday (maybe not in this lifetime), I might actually be able to afford a HBS MBA degree.
Considering how I've done this exam, its a long shot.
Hmm wonder whether my next birth will be as a human again...

I love it. I love the sum total of the experience:

- I love the chocolate biscuits that he serves as soon as I am home. They're sodden cos he's kept it in the fridge (he believes that's the best way to store biscuits!) and buys them cos they are my favorite.
- I love lounging in his Tshirt which is too big for me
- I love watching him sleep (I know what he's thinking ;) )
- I love watching him work
- I love hitting him when he uses his index figure to remove his nails (OCD)
- I love how excited he gets when he's explaining something
- I love how I need to plan when we need to go out - he hates fancy restaurants and is very uncomfortable in one
- I love how he sulks when he gets angry
- I love catching him when he's being selfish. Lol, he's caught between wanting something and showing that what he wanted is of no importance to him
- I love the empty promises he makes :) He's desperate to prove he can keep his promises when I know he can't... and then he slowly cuts the promises to size.
- I love holding him to his words. Kachua chua! lol...
- I love his lack of sense of humor, cos then I am the funny one in the relationship!
- I love the way he smells. I love smelling his shoulder when we are on his bike...
- I love playing with his poonal (janeyu) (It's not what you are thinking! It's the brahmin thread...)
- I love how my anger disappears when I see him... I wanna scream at him but when I am with him from a hooli I become illi (damn!)

Sigh! What am I doing?? I am falling deep into the mire..

In with the early dawn/Moving right along/I couldn’t buy an eye full of sleep/And in the aching night/Under sattelittes/I was not recieved/built with the stolen parts/A telephone in my heart/Someone get me a priest/To put my mind to bed/This ringing in my head/Is this a cure or is this a disease

Nail in my hand/From my creator/You gave me life now/Show me how to live
- Audioslave, Show me how to live

It was amazing. It was splendid. Like watching fireworks of many colors...

And that's how it went up in flames. Oh yeah, the fallout is painful, but I saw it coming... I didn't let myself down at all! It was like this amazing journey to doom. I started out knowing how it would end (Nope, not a martyr), tried to fight that bitter taste in my mouth, and then went up in flames. Amazing.

Yaay, more pain to bear. I think I am gonna so get used to this pain, if I don't have it life will seem surreal. Yeah yeah I know what I am gonna hear - be thankful that you are healthy and your body is intact, have a roof over your head, etc. That's nice. That's pani puri at the roadside stand. Some people can afford pani puri, some mcdonalds burgers. I wanted the McDonalds burgers. But I had a lot of things at stake if I had to be able to afford the Mc Donalds burger. And then it's all about the rat race. It's about who's got the duracell battery and who's got the ordinary alkaline battery.

I feel this amazing sense of peace and calmness. An awesome fruit of acceptance. A rotten one in parts because life will remind you of the loss - she is a sadistic wench.

What am I talking about? Another failed relationship? Another job crisis? Figure it out...

I have opened the browser window to type something. I don't know what. And that is the state my mind is in, almost everyday. It has a swirling overload of information and thoughts. I think, therefore I am.
I am trying to control almost every moment of my life. Scared I might lose something: some opportunity, some sign, if I didn't. I hate surprises, they never meet my expectations. I hate shocking news; it's a result of a few things that were beyond my control.
Which is why love getting drunk - I lose my inhibitions and I am the most fun. I am less of the corporate, paranoid, afraid, independent woman tied to family, society and other million that ties that gag; and more uninhibited, fun, open to risks, funny, sarcastic, less afraid.
So what is swirling in my mind now - my exams, my exam preparation, my boyfriend, his vacation, my parents, my mom's torture because I must be the last almost 26 year old who is still single, my relationship with my boyfriend, my work, my office, my life, my successes, my failures, my fears... oh my god! I can't breathe...

I confuse you?? Of course I do.
I am not a Crystal Dashboard. Or maybe I am.
Does that statement make me geeky? Am I geeky?
Guess I am.

You can't even understand me. What are you doing with me?
Don't say it. Don't say the L word. It's untrue. I don't believe you.

How many of them? Many. Never figured which one I truly loved though. One man still stays in my heart. And he's not mine.
Do I expect you to love me?
No. I can't define love. So how will you or I know whether you are in that silo?

*laughs* No no don't try to explai n. I don't think I want to listen.
Why? Well... Either I don't care or... I can't listen now.

Why? Because I don't want to.

Why? Because this conversation is going into an infinite loop.
Should we stop? Yes, we should.

I will get around to explaining myself when I am up to it.

My bf's love comrpises of conditional statements, if and then statements. If you lose weight then I will be with you, if you can cook then I will marry you, if you graduate from a good b-school then I will marry you.

My love is full of then statements - then i will love you, then I will try and make your life easier, then I will cherish that you love kissing my shoulder...

What scares me the most about marrying my bf is that, not once has he remotely even mentioned that if we were to get married he might look after me if he had to. I have watched women gasp and drown under the leaden weight of marriage. Marriage wasn't the leaden weight, it was their MCP husband. If i had to make a charm bracelet with each one of these stories you'd have the ugliest charm bracelet ever - each one dark, sordid, and sad.

Constantly women are being accused of being gold diggers, nobody notices how quickly men change into their fathers: abolute MCPs.

I don't blame my bf. he's constantly trying to get the baseline in place: how will I manage with his family, will I be able to cook anything,will I be able to stay in a new place, will I be able to live within our means,etc. But in trying to get his baseline right, not once has the thought - "can I ever support her emotionally?" or "I will try really hard to be supportive and help her" - crossed his mind!

So what can you do when you love someone so much, that you can't leave the person?
You can either lose him or yourself; depends on what is more important to you.

*Chuckle* reminds me of the song - I never loved a man, the way I love you, by Aretha Franklin.

sun rahi hoon sudh budh khoke koi main kahani
poori kahani hai kya kise hai pata
main to kisiki hoke yeh bhi na jaani
ruth hai ye do pal ki ya rehgi sada
kise hai pata… kise hai pata

losing my consciousness I am listening to some story
who knows what the whole story is
I didn't know I belonged to someone
Will this season last for a moment or will it stay forever
who knows?
- Iktara

Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is her last moments of consciousness; her gnarled, aged fingers that were so fragile. I think she expected me to be there and I delivered.

My Grandma and I got close after my granddad passed away, 5 months ago. She had lost her ability to walk 10 years ago, due to Parkinsons. Lately, due to diabetes, a wound in her leg had stopped healing. The infection took her away. We sat together, and watched my grand dad's body pass the gates of the house to the crematorium. I held her close and stood by her, as she had to face people who were so blatantly faking their concern. She was unsure of her fate - my granddad was her crutch in every way.

She was a small woman but so brave. Always satisfied with what she had, she made the best of what life gave her. She raised three kids with a Postal Employee's income - my granddad earned enough, never too much. Moving from a small village in Kerala to several villages and towns in Karnataka, my progressive grandma learnt Kannada quickly. She took to the Kannadiga culture quickly, sometimes making Poori & Sagu and Akki Roti at home. She was efficient and organized. Her routine (till she couldn't walk) started at 5 a.m. She would take a bath, make coffee for my granddad, uncle and aunt, prepare breakfast for the family, and start packing lunch for my cousins and uncle. Amidst all this, she also did her morning puja.

And now, this woman was 1/4th her normal size and had her eyes fixed to the ceiling. I hadn't seen her in a month. I held her hand and told her I was with her. For an unresponsive person, she shed a tear - I admit, it gave me hope that she'd survive. She tried hard to focus her eyes and look at me. I persuaded her to open her mouth and poured a few drops of Ganga Jal/ water with a few tulsi leaves. She could hear me! I held her hand, hoping I wouldn't lose her. I repeated what I had told her when my granddad had passed away and all the relatives were trying to force their opinion on her - do whatever you wanna do, I will stand by you (a very daring promise, I admit!).

And she just did that. She tightened her grip around my hand, closed her eyes and stopped breathing. It was surreal to me. One moment she was alive, and the next she wasn't. Some relatives came and took her hand from mine and straightened it, lest it stiffen in that fashion.

They say you need to be lucky to see a person before they die. They also say you need to be lucky if the person wants you involved in their last rites. Amongst all the people with dubai gold and large rings, when it came to doing my grandma's last rites my favorite gold ring came to the rescue. We had to use the gold ring, tulsi leaves, water, rice & sesame seeds, pray and place it on her body.

I don't know what I could have done and what I couldn't have done. I did what I could to help her, however limited my support is. I think she knows that.

I love you ammuma. I miss you a lot. Just knowing that when I walk up to your house you won't be looking out of the window, from your magazine, and smiling at me kills me inside. Knowing that I can't lay beside you and talk about everything and anything and gossip, cuts me more.

You are in a better place. With your soulmate...