Fates Worse Than Death

Here's to having many more days like these!

It's such a hard thing to stop listening to the smiths and go cold turkey. It's such a complicated process between fans and artist isn't it? I mean what if billy corgan says sth stupid tmr? I would never be able to give up listening to smashing pumpkins man they've been my angst and will be forever! Also smashing pumpkins is more than just billy corgan (I love jimmy chamberlain more but I recognise that corgan wrote almost every aspect of music in pumpkins) and the music they put out there years ago wasn't about what he says today. Sometimes i just want to be a person and not have this over arching moral responsibility. Life's tough and never fair so you need music to get you through and sometimes you are tired so you just walk thru life accepting whatever terms and cards are given to you. It's very hard to fight for a fellow Woman who's also a stranger to you but yet as women our entire lives are almost always a political fight.

‪I started my morning randomly by tuning to Roxanne Gay explain her new book Hunger. As a person who has battled weight, food and hunger issues all my life, this of all the weight related narratives out there struck such a chord with me. It made me feel less isolated. I can't imagine this being easy for you and so I have no more words but to say thank you for sharing. ‬

Roy’s new work of fiction is coming out in June, some 20 years after God of Small Things came out and I hope I enjoy it as much as I did the God of Small Things. I remember some moments of the time when I read it, the songs I was listening to at the time, its such a special time. It made me think i was capable of writing something as good, having a voice like hers soft spoken and fearless all at the same time. 

A much needed breath of fresh air for me. Can’t wait for the entire album to drop. Feist always rouses something in me, opening corners of my mind I didn’t know existed. Sharing the pleasure...

All in all, in my humble opinion the revival didn’t disappoint. It was ASP’s truest expression of what it meant to go back and be a fly on the wall of Stars Hollow and catch up with the two Lorelais. Alot of people were disappointed about the final four words. While I didn’t think it was the perfect season conclusion, it definitely was a cliffhanger, in true ASP tradition. This season we got to see a-less-than-perfect, not-always-by-the-book Rory which we started to see in Season 6 & 7. 

So when the local indie cinema plays a Taxi Driver retrospective and all your friends are busy with their partners and you wish you had atleast a date if not a steady boyfriend so you wouldn’t have to be a creep watching it alone.

That moment when someone says or writes what you have been feeling and thinking your entire life. I'm too overwhelmed to say anymore than to share the quote below from the movie which basically sums up me and my life. "There's a thing in the book about how when somebody leaps from a burning skyscraper, it's not that they're not afraid of falling anymore, it's that the alternative is so awful. And so then you're invited to consider what could be so awful that leaping to your death would seem like an escape from it. I don't know if you have any experience with this kind of thing. But it's worse than any kind of physical injury. It may be in the old days what was known as a spiritual crisis: feeling as though every axiom in your life turned out to be false... and there was actually nothing. And that you were nothing. And that it's all a delusion and you're so much better than everybody 'cause you can see how this is just a delusion, and you're so much worse because you can't fucking function. It's really horrible."

Highlight of the day. It's 1am and I'm in my robe with my hair up tip toeing to the fridge for snacks. Getting back to pulling an all nighter for work tomorrow and it's totally bearable because I've got Olivia Benson for company. #lawandordersvu #adultinghacks

who is married… It’s been 2 years since we’ve worked in the same office but we had never really interacted with one another directly until recently. It’s never been about the looks for me. I’ve always liked someone the moment I have known them enough for me to figure out their personality, what their priorities are in life, how they respond in certain situations. I know that I want Someone who has a stable temperament and outlook in life, someone who never wishes to be in the spotlight, a hard worker with integrity and compassion and yes a fully pulsating man who’d find me just about attractive enough to want to spend the rest of his life with me. Someone I can respect and love, who knows how to respect others and importantly, respects me. Now imagine finding all of this in 1 man and then finding out that he’s recently married. It’s more than just the fate of ill timing. It did serve as a wake up call for me. I’m real fussy when it comes to finding a partner who fits the above description which explains why I am still single at the age of 30. First world problems I know, but it’s still an issue society forces us to worry about about and boy is there still stigma with being single. Plus I am a a shy introverted Indian woman so all of this is x10 in my world. Sometimes, It’s also coming to terms with the fact that maybe just maybe, this hypothetical/real man may be great as a man and partner but he may (lucky you) or may not find you just about attractive enough to wed you. And no matter how hard it is to have faith in things happening for a reason, you’ve got to believe, every single day, that the reason this “great” thing didn’t happen is because something way better is in store for you. And either you can enjoy the crush for the time being or move on and find a real person you can actually spend time with instead of just fantasizing. I know first hand, fantasy and dreams are the lone girl’s reprieve from everything that’s expected of us females. And while we all know it may keep us warm at night, it’s the easy way out. It’s never going to equate to having a real human being in your life, taking your side. Having a partner in crime. But lately, I’ve been feeling tired of just dreaming. I think I am willing to risk feeling scared of getting hurt and disappointed to try finding someone to spend the rest of my life with. It comes so naturally for some women. But this has never been easy for me. Perhaps one of the hardest things in my life really. But I am going to start trying. At the age of 30. And even as I make this bold declaration, what I really want to do is curl up in bed, listening to Paper Bag by Fiona Apple and long for movie perfect fantasies. “Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love.”

I finally managed to catch Boyhood recently and it moved me just how real it all seemed - seeing this child grow up amidst all that life threw at him and his family. The film itself reminded me of a documentary that my sexy silver haired sociology professor once mentioned, a British documentary called 7 Up. The documentary traced the lives of a group of British children from a variety of backgrounds and areas in the United Kingdom, to capture snapshots of their lives at seven year intervals. Started in 1964, the documentary caught up with the same children at seven year intervals to see how much they had changed and grown and how their current lives were at each stage. I remember being fascinated by it all, the anticipation of finding out how these kids turned out and if all of them became success stories. Was there a set formula for success in life? It also reminded me of that palpable sense of hope you have when you are a seven year old and you think anything in the world is possible. Remember the time when you dreamt you were a Super hero or a football player because it was cool ? I remember proudly telling my dad that I was going to be an astronaut when I was 7. I remember being so interested in science that my dad once gifted me a book on famous female engineers. 23 years on I have become a middle class workaholic chugging away at a corporate communications job somewhat unrelated to the liberal arts degree I barely managed to complete 8 years ago. I am celebrating my thirtieth in an extremely mundane and unextraordinary manner- by merely continuing my existence and choosing to not indulge in an elaborate fanfare. And while the people outside of my inner circle are making a huge brouhaha about all the responsibilities and obligations that come with turning 30, I also have to deal with uncompleted bucket lists, unsatisfied desires, too many disappointments and the biggest negative of all, my dreams that still remain as only dreams. There's nothing that sounds more neurotic than saying I feel trapped on my 30th birthday. I am acutely aware of how that sounds but the feeling is all too strong and undeniable. Somewhere down the line in the past decade, I decided to live someone else's version of a successful life. Which is why I have never been happy through most of my late twenties, just relieved really, that my efforts and achievements were somewhat validated and I didn't fail miserably in adapting to the society I live in. So I can relish the fact that my 30th birthday turned out to be the moment that reflected the most truth in my life. It reflected how I am as a person - how I have treated people, how I have viewed relationships - the important stuff that we feel sometimes gets in the way of career, happier times and sleeping. The only lesson I can truly say I learnt is to treat people better, be kinder, be as sensitive as you possibly can about other's baggage and never feel righteous about the pain you feel at any given moment - it's always relative to the pain suffered by people around you.

That she defended her cover on Vogue is an expression of her fearlessness to live her life in the most honest way possible. That Jezebel decided to demand for before and after photos is a thinly veiled attempt at attacking Lena's choices as anti-feminist and hypocritical by proving that Vogue is anti-feminist, as if that is something the world has not known before. Jezebel and the many women whose views it represents, still have alot of growing up to do on women's issue but not Lena. No, this brawd, has a firm head on her shoulders.

The way parents handle a dark-skinned daughter is crucial to the way their daughter perceives herself when she grows up. Read on.  Karuna was a pretty girl from the Sindhi community. She was intelligent, vivacious and talented. But she had one 'flaw' as her mother saw it. She wasn't fair. She had a 'wheatish' complexion.  When Karuna would go shopping with her mother and pick out a lemon blouse, her mother would stop her from buying it. "You look dark in this colour," she would say, and pick out another colour.  Since the age of 5, Karuna's mother was constantly trying to 'improve' her daughter's complexion by applying various lotions in an endeavour to make her fair. "Apply this cream to your face, it will make you fair," she would say.  When Karuna would be out in the sun playing with her friends, her mother would exclaim "Why did you go in the sun, you've become so dark!"  And then, when Karuna's friends would come over, her mother would pick out a really fair girl and say "Look at Lata, isn't she pretty! See how fair she is!"  Karuna soon started to dislike her skin colour, and started desiring fairer skin. In an endeavour to look fair, she started applying powder to her face. She would step out with her face chalky and powdery, and she looked fairly ridiculous. No one said anything to her - perhaps her friends had tried and she didn't believe them. Soon she was left with no friends. She married late, to a man much less financially able than her parents were, who is unaware of her true age and who, in all likelihood, married her for her money. Not much of a marriage, is it?  And no, this did not happen because her skin colour was wheatish. It happened because her preoccupation with her skin colour and finding a suitable groom was her focus, and she had done nothing to enrich her personality. This is a true story, and sadly, there is nothing out of the ordinary in this.  The way parents handle a dark-skinned daughter is crucial to the way their daughter perceives herself when she grows up. Here's what you should do: 1. Praise tanned complexions in front of your daughter. Say things like "What a lovely tan." Let her appreciate that tanned, sun-kissed skin looks healthy, and a pale complexion can look bland - which is why the western world yearns for a darker complexion. 2. Most models nowadays are dark-skinned. Make sure your daughter sees how dark is beautiful. 3. Bronzing products and fake-tan products are flooding international stores. Let your daughter know this. 4. People in cultures around the world risk skin cancer in order to get a tan. Make sure your daughter knows how the world loves dark skin. 5. Solicit the help of your friends, and ask them to comment on what a lovely, glowing complexion your daughter has. 6. Avoid praising a fair complexion in front of your daughter. Yes, you can praise a fair girl, but don't praise her because she is fair. Don't say "Oh wow, she's so fair!" Instead, say "She is so pretty, look how lovely her eyes are!"  7. Do not obsess over her looks, as the obsession will pass on to your daughter. Instead, pay minimal attention to her looks and encourage her in other pursuits like dance, theatre, music, sports. Remember that when the time comes, your daughter will start getting conscious of her appearance on her own, at which time you can come to her aid. 8. Concentrate on enriching her personality and ensuring she gets good grades instead of trying to make her fair. 9. Because of the way our society is structured, your daughter may express a desire to be fair. Remind her that even dark is beautiful, and discourage use of fairness creams. You want her to accept the skin she is in, and not be continually discouraged that she is not as fair as her Parsi neighbour.