"Appa, Amma --- I Want to Marry Shalini"

One sentence. 5 words. How hard is it to say it? Apparently,.... a lot harder than I think according to my boyfriend. I am so tempted to write about my oh-so-complicated love affair with my boyfriend and his parents. My better self tells me not to. This is neither the place, nor circumstance. But my mischievous self. The one that is wholly impatient and easily irked by past injustices tells me otherwise --- 'Niroshan doesn't read your blog anyway!'. HA.

It's one of those stories. Actually, just writing that prior sentence has given me an idea. I will in fact tell you the "oh so" complicated story, without telling you anything about my story. Here's how. I will tell you the tamil movies that resemble my life. You know, the one with me, my boyfriend and his parents! Once you mesh the plots, and perhaps weed off the irrelevant elements, you just might get my story after all. Hmm...this should be fun.

Here are the movies of my life. Thirumagan (S.J. Surya, Meera Jasmine); Something Something Enakkum Unakkum (Jeyam Ravi, Trisha); Alai Payuthay (Madhavan, Shalini). This is harder than I thought. If you know tamil movies like I do, I think you already know my story.

Vintage Dreams...

It's him. It has to be. He has on the same red plaid shirt I have seen him wearing so many days. He looks the same. But older. There is a calmness about him now. He sits there all still, staring peacefully at nothing in particular with a smile that rips my heart apart. Yes, it's definitely him. I have dreamt of that smile every night for the past 10 years. It's his inviting smile that finally gives me the nudge to walk up to him. It connects us, two supposed strangers at the most strange setting. This day has finally come. I have dreamt of it over and over again. But never assumed it will happen in this life time. What is he doing here anyway?

I can see him more clearly now, and he isn't smiling anymore. His gaze meets mine. I hold it there for a second too long. Oh crap. There is no turning back now. It is him, and he knows it's me. He must. He'll surely recognize me. A thought crosses my mind....What if he ignores me. He must have moved on. He wouldn't have waited for me. I should turn back. Pretend that I didn't see him. I have lived without him for so long, I can surely endure another lifetime. I drop my gaze towards the ground and stare down the slight ripple that's' created in the puddle near my feet. I must act now. This is too weird. I have to go....

"Shal-ni...". Oh Lord. I hear his voice once again.

Desperate Housewives IS BACK!

Here is a sneak preview of what's to come on Desperate Housewives this season. I'm so excited! This show is one of those few things in my life that makes me unintentionally smile....and that's always the best way to smile isn't it? *sigh.

Do You Want to be Good, or Happy?

Who said you can't learn anything from watching television?! I learned 2 important lessons tonight from watching the first premiere episode of Desperate Housewives Season 6! Before I go on to say what it is I learned, here is a short history of me and DH.

Desperate Housewives is one of my ALL TIME favourite show. It's up there with FRIENDS even. I will recommend it to anyone that needs a good, uncomplicated laugh. The show follows the lives of 5 middle age women living in a suburban neighbourhood in Fairview, America. There is Susan, the main character of sort and the 'damsel in distress' heroine of the show, then there is Bree, the uptight Stepford wife kind, Gabrielle, the model turned housewife, Lynette, the one that had one to many children and of course, Eddie, the tramp of the neighbourhood. But if you ask me, they all characterize the perfect b.i.t.c.h at some point or another. Anywho..., their lives are all intertwined and injected where everybody is in everybody else's business as there is always a shroud of mystery that needs to be unravelled (often done by peering into your neighbour's window). Ha. So here is what I came across. Two very important statements that made me go...'huh'. Both related, one that extends on the first.

1. Would you rather be good, or happy? Carl asks this of Bree when she is reluctant to continue their intermittent affair. And this (if you can believe it) struck a hard cord with me. In one of my earlier post (this one) I had written about the struggles of being good. I came to write this post as I am constantly questioning what is good, and whether I can be good. So many wayward thoughts and wantings I have, yet I had chose to believe and accept that being good is the ultimate happiness. But now, with this question in mind I ask myself, 'what is the point of being good, if you are unhappy?'. I mean, why deny myself that piece of cake? Yes, not eating it would make me a good girl who sticks to her diet....., but if I eat it, it will make me happy damn it! Which is more important?!!!! Of course I am using an analogy of a cake to make my point, but this presses onto much larger issues in life. For example, should I be good and marry the person my parents deem suitable, or should I follow my heart and be happy with the person I love? And there is also the question of should I stick to the job that gives me the steady pay cheque week to week so I can support my family, or should I pursue my true passion? Or how about, should I marry the one I am with, or be happy with the one I love?

2. Feeling guilty is a small price for happiness! This is the second statement. So what if I spent the $100 I didn't have, it made me happy didn't it?! Our lives are too short, and too damn complicated to go through life all wound up. Maybe it is a good idea to wind down, and let loose your hair. Apart from the obvious of being good and evil, maybe we should just try to be the better version of ourselves that we can be, whilst being happy. If you have to deny yourself of happiness to be someone, then it just might not be worth it to be good.

...more thoughts to come..., ..I think....!

my sister's keeper

It's been only minutes since I finished the last pages of 'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult. I'm no professional book critic or reviewer, but simply as a person that has read this book I want to say a few things about this book. I believe I have earned that much. Here goes a list of thoughts, opinions and strange reflections (in no particular order of course).

1. death, dying, waiting to die...., all take (once again) precedence in this book too. This is exactly what I alluded to in my previous post here. A great book, one that will leave lasting impressions, or even immediate contentment of having read a fine book almost always has death as a backdrop. What is it about death and loss that pulls at our heartstrings, and knots our stomach and wells up our eyes? Maybe because it's the one thing in our lives that we have no control over, and choose to understand the least.

2. Anna, the main character, wants to be emancipated from her parents. Not so she can get her hands on her trust fund, or party past her curfew. Rather, she wants to be 'medically emancipated' from her parents. The right to her own body. The right to decide whether she wants to donate a kidney to her terminally ill older sister. My first thought of Anna was of course selfish. How could she not want to save her own sister's life? She is not old enough to make those decisions herself. She will grow up to regret it. But when you read on and get to know Anna, you understand her better. It's not that I agreed with her, but you understand why she has taken such a drastic measure. Sometimes, feeling invisible is worse than any sickness. At least with sickness comes attention.

3. Campbell and Julia. Their story is a subplot to My Sister's Keeper. Nevertheless, just as engaging and kind of like the inevitable love story that's always included in a novel. I liked both their character sketch. Fate and love abandons them, only to bring them together many years after. I'm a sucker for any story that has ANY resemblance to the following: boy meets girl. boy and girl fall in love. boy leaves girl for unknown reasons. girl is devastated. boy comes back, tells girl, 'he had to leave'. Ah. There is a reason after all.

4. 'Armchair Astronomer'. Prior to this book I was not familiar with this term. But now it's a term that is perfect to describe my boyfriend. Like Brian, the father of Anna, Niroshan too is an armchair astronomer. Niroshan loves to watch space documentaries of faraway galaxies, and burning stars. If you ask him, he won't be able to recall what he did last weekend, but if you were to ask him if the sun will ever burn out, he will explain it to you in all its gaiety and particulars. Some times when I am on the phone with him and nearing the brink of sleep, I ask him to 'talk' about space. As he embarks on supernovas, gamma rays, and black holes, I will cozily fall asleep. It's like our own little story time, except I'm not listening.

5. There is a passage in the book that reads "In the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parent who loses a child". Hmmm. Never thought of it like that. How true it is.

6. Mother. Synonymous with sacrifice.

7. This book was made into a motion picture film and was released just this summer. I have to watch it now that I have read and liked the book. One of my friend just told me last week the movie was better than the book. That was the first I heard. It's always the book that is better than the movie right? So now I am curious. Can't wait. Save me two seats at AMC Kennedy.

Achieving Greatness!

One of my prayer at temples has always been, and will be, to be a good person. A good human being. What do I mean by 'good'? Not a saint definitely. But someone that characterizes humility, sincerity and happiness. A person that has come to understand, life can be beautiful as long as you are happy with the small blessings in life. Like my health. My family. The crystal faux chandelier in my room. My boyfriend, good friends, conversations and coffee. Or my mother's spicy chicken curry, and my dad's mouth watering keera curry! Every time I sneak a spoon of my dad's spinach curry right off the pot, I can't help myself but utter "sabaash!". These are the blessings of my life...

But it's not easy being good is it? So I have noticed.

With the endless pursuit of material likings, and shameless vanity, it's hard to count your blessings. Rather, it's much easier to compare and realize what it is that you weren't blessed with. Like a pretty nose for starters! hahahah. Why do we always compare ourselves to those that have more money, or more beautiful than us? What is money and beauty anyways? One, which in its very nature will never be enough, and the other, destined to quietly slip away. It's not jealousy. It's called pity. Pity on your own self. And the sad truth is, every one is guilty of it. Unless of course, your prayer was answered.

I try. Being good entails being happy. I am not always happy. And it's by my own doing than anyone else's, even God's. Because most of the misgivings in my life are my own fault. I am inevitably accountable. Like my...

to be continue'd, .......

Time is Everything....; Time is Nothing!

The concept of time..., where did it come from? Which idiot thought of it. What is time anyways? Is it the long hours that never seem to pass quickly enough at work? Or is it the crawling minutes when I wait for someone outside their house? Maybe it's the 'time' that is never enough for people. Time gone too fast - youth and beauty that seemed endless at one point, is now slowly but decidedly fading with each ticks and tocks of the old clock.

I am going to turn 27 this year. TWENTY SEVEN. That's 9909 days. 237, 816 hours. All gone by. Never to come back again. Never. Jousa! Where have all the years gone? I will tell you the best years of my life; 1988-1992, 1994, 1998-99, 2000, 2005. I cant' remember the early years. I have trouble even remembering what I did last week, or who I met, so to recall times in my early years is like trying to milk alcohol out of a cow! I am sure I had the best times of my life before 1988. That's when I had grandparents, cows, dogs, and a front lawn to play all day. Certainly I would have laughed with no hint of suppression. Unlike my laugh today. It's tainted with knowledge. Knowledge that teaches you with every tragedy, that sometimes when you laugh, you will have to cry too....

That's why I never laugh too loudly or freely. If I did, I make certain for penance. It's not fair I tell myself sometimes. Why is there a dark shadow over my being, in my conscious, in the words that I speak, in the thoughts I pore, like it has seeped deep within my marrow. Why can't I be free ....like the rest of them....then I ask myself...are they? Are they free? How could I possibly know. For all I gather, they are seeing me laugh freely. People used to say I am lucky. I never understood why. Now that they know, they won't repeat the same mistake again. At least I hope not. I have changed, my life has changed, .....time has changed.

Can I bead the happy years on a string and leave the rest? How many years will I miss out. How many hours. What will be the final count. Then how old will I really be.

Why I Like to Read...

Right now I am reading 'The Time Traveler's Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger. I just put that aside so I can ponder the Internet and stumbled on my blog again. Although I am loving typing this very minute, the anticipation of actually writing something always puts me off. I wonder if that negates the idea I have of me as liking to write? hmmm.

Anyways. I'm half way through The Time Traveler's Wife and I'm liking it thus far. It's very different from all the books I have read. It's an entirely new concept, well unless of course you count the movie 'Back to the Future'. But this book is different, this is a love story. It's about a guy, Henry, who is a time traveller, and his wife, Clare, who is not. Clare loved Henry when she was six. Henry only loved Clare when he was 29. That's because Henry went back in time and met young Clare, when he was married to Clare in the present. But the Henry Clare meets at 20, doesn't' know Clare, because he still hasn't met young Clare yet. ...., complicated? A tad bit!

But that's how the story goes, and it's been pretty engaging with all it's imaginative story telling. Even as I'm half way through the book, I find myself waiting impatiently for the 'big story', cause you can almost tell from the beginning that something is going to go wrong. I have to constantly remind myself to take in each page as it comes, and not rush through the story. AND why is it that all good stories, or rather heartbreaking stories all allude to death and/or loss? Maybe except Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (which I absolutely adore!) But I will write about this book (perhaps) later, right now I want to stay true to my blog title, and that is Why I Read!

Like I mentioned, I am reading The Time Traveler's Wife now. Before this, I read 'I am So Happy for You'. And before that I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling! I also read Pride and Prejudice very recently too over the summer. Next, I will be reading 'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult and after that, 'A Fine Balance'. I know this because I have those two books ready to be read. I ordered 4 books last week on Amazon.ca. It was my first time, and it was a joyous occasion for me. The excitement of receiving a package at home through mail was surprisingly joyous.

I have always read since my younger days. I sometimes catch my dad telling relatives or guests about my reading, and sometimes rather proudly I suppose. And truth is, I am proud of my reading too. Recently, over the last year I have taken a very deliberate effort to buy books and expand my book collection. I like reading because it takes me to different worlds, and allows me to peek into different lives. People and places I would never meet or visit in this lifetime. Every book I read is like a secret world that I was allowed to step in and experience. As I let my imagination take over, I feel as though I am right there following the main characters through their lives. Sometimes, I get so attached to certain characters that I wind up overwhelmingly sad when I finish a book. I will no longer be part of their lives :(

Reading allows me to be unexceptional. I'm not the only one that has lost someone, or had my heart broken. And that I'm not the only one that reads magazines while in the bathroom. Nor am I the only one that is self-conscious. Nor am I the only one that has bad moods. It makes me realize there is far more suffering in this world than what I can account through watching movies, and news broadcasts. When you read a book, as fictitious as they may be, you know there is some one out there some where that felt this pain, and suffered through this loss. And reading personal adaptations are more significant than watching television through your eyes and ears. Reading goes to your heart, and you feel it.