Restraining Order

In this age of dime a dozen Fatwas, PILS, RTI acts and eons of such legal babble, it is quite common to hear the phrase Restraining Order or Gag Order. Everyone, right from a delivery boy of trans-fat laden fast food to the waited at hand and feet heir knows the legal parlance made with a quest to confuse.

After immersing myself in the dusty and busy bylanes of Google and Wikipedia, at the cost of much needed sleep and an urge to dash to the toilet for empting myself of bodily fluids every 15 minutes, I completed my research and restrained myself to jump about and celebrate.

But what does this Restraining Order do? According to the heavy and dusty law books - A restraining order or order of protection is a form of legal injunction. The term is most commonly used in reference to domestic violence, harassment, stalking or sexual assault.

While there are differences from state to state or case to case, the bottom line is for the abuser to stay away from someone, their home, their workplace or their school and to stop contacting them. Victims generally also can ask the court to order that all contact, whether by telephone, notes, mail, fax, email or delivery of flowers or gifts, is prohibited.

I have been always been accused of being restrained in my behavior…in the sense that my emotions don’t display themselves in full force. This has always been at variant with my self-belief of being a highly sensitive person.

So when a restraining order was slapped on me by my seniors, I like most Indians jumped in glee …finally here is my road to glory, atleast now everyone will remember me with that faint aftertaste of disdain…. “Oh…she, the one with a restraining order….she was horrible at her work, we all thought she was gonna get under the pressure and with like the others, but she managed to do the unthinkable….like a rabbit out of the hat, she pulled a restraining order and is now the toast of all and sundry…remind me to ask her how she managed to do it”

But I am slightly confused about the Do’s and Don’ts of this order. According to my instructions, I am …

1. Not supposed to interact with the victim
2. Not supposed to make eye contact with the victim
3. Not supposed to greet the victim in a friendly fashion
4. Not supposed to breathe in the general direction of the victim

But does that mean that ….

1. I cannot offer them a hand if they slip on a banana peel (of course they will, I will put the peel for them)
2. I cannot get up and offer a chair in a crowded room (after having made sure that the room has just one less chair than needed)
3. I cannot crack jokes within earshot of the victim
4. I cannot re-interrupt the interruption caused by the victim

Maybe I should just take a hike and dismiss all these as playful imagination as a result of a hectic and unpredictable soirée of Khel Khel Mein.

Dwarfed by Arzee

I have always believed that when a character is created, the inspiration comes from someone real. It could be a friend, an acquaintance, a neighbor or it could be the self.
After reading Arzee the Dwarf written by Chandrahas Choudhury, I am sure that there exists a real Arzee….has to… how can anyone describe a fictional character so real…that if you turn your head, you can actually see him walking past your window, head bowed low muttering to himself. You almost leave your book and start following to hear what he is muttering about… is he making excuses to give to Deepakbhai … that quintessential honcho from the slums …or is he planning to trick Phiroz into playing the Babur himself.
Arzee’s dilemma is as real as the character… no saving the world or becoming a superhero…but getting a raise and marrying a decent girl …that’s all what Arzee wants… but does he get it… is it a happy ending… we will never know…like we don’t know in real life… Chandrahas weaves the plot as gently as he could …never going far from the main character… always seeing things from his perspective.
How many times we are subjected to prose that talks to us through other characters to take the story forward and we all believe that it is essential so that the reader is not bored and there can be some variety …but who needs variety when the central character is so strong. We don’t miss seeing the secondary characters perspective …but we would have liked to know a little bit more about Mobin, Arzee’s brother and Shireen.
No one makes such profound statements anymore...at least in writing...sample this "Love is the true home of the imagination. Requited love is the paradise raised from nothing but a pair of synchronized imaginations!". This sentence defines what the book is.
From the way Arzee the Dwarf was written, I am but waiting for the next book by the author. However, I do believe that this debut novel is not the only piece of published work. If I am not mistaken, a collection of middles was published by the same author and the famous Grandfather and Cronies were created. I’m sure if I search through my haphazardly arranged piles of books I will be able to trace a copy out; which goes to show that the initial days of writing which was greatly influenced by the great P. G. Wodehouse has metamorphosed into a prose full of humour, pathos and delightful vocabulary.

Labour Pains!

Ever wondered about the mysteries of life and death and how various cultures deal with it. Some cultures celebrate death and give the departed soul the best party ever. Others are thoughtful enough to pack all the essential items with the corpse for their last journey. For the wondrous moment of new life, people donate their fortune to the less fortunate ones, some light up the newborn’s life with Cigars; others do elaborate rituals to please their Gods.
Such various customs and culture specific rituals must have been duly noticed and noted down by some anthropologist for their research/thesis work which the common junta ignores generally ignores… imagine reading about such useless info when the antics of our cricketers, movie stars and wannabe reality stars are much more juicer…but I digress.
If someone is an avid Bollywood fan and has grown up in the eighties where Bollywood followed the tried and tested formula of revenge, then they might have inkling to the ambiguous meandering of my mind. Sample this…
The father has been killed (or confined) by the bad guys and the wife who somehow escapes from the den of the bad guys and runs away not because she can’t bear the torture (or lecherous stares of the extras) but she has to give birth to the hero of the film so that he can avenge the family and have a happy ending. Regular fare…some even went on to become hits …but that one scene…where the hero is actually born….it’s supposed to be a very dramatic one… and is often depicted as dark… with rain and thunderstorm and the wails of the pregnant mother who thrashes about so much that the art director must have a standby set ready just in case. The ‘mother’ is drenched in sweat and tears roll down her eyes and the scene seems so long that you automatically start praying for the baby to come out so that the movie can go on…
But why do our filmmakers depict childbirth in such morbid and melancholy way… why is the beginning of child birth always associated with the mother wishing that she was a monk?
In comparison, American film and TV (which is so cool…not to be ignored) rarely projects child birth in such dejected and macabre way unless the plot requires it. It will then be an exception, not the norm.
Is it something to do with the healthcare policies of both the nations… one is developed where all its citizens have basic rights to medical facilities and do not view the process of childbirth as that big a deal, while the other is still struggling to provide basic facilities for the expectant mother. Girls grow up dreading the process of childbirth and with convoluted theories of sex … Agreed schools nowadays have sex education, but imagine how many years of viewing the agony of childbirth in popular cinema is etched in a girls mind….can a textbook with 100 marks of test marks erase that imagery from the easily impressionable mind?
For a nation with more than a billion headcount…that’s a lot of labour pain.

The number 9

Ever realized that we are in Kalyug which is the 9th era of civilization, or that there are 9 celestial bodies in Indian Astrology or that Navratri is festival which lasts for 9 days, or that there are 36 chromosomes in an individual which when divided by 9 yields 4 which in turn is the different stages of one’s life as defined by the Manu Smriti.

Apparently the number 9 is quite the mystery number in Indian mythology but not only so… it has equal claim to fame in Chinese (The Chinese Netherworld supposedly has nine rivers in a nine-headed dragon. Also, ancient Chinese believed that the sky consisted of nine parts, the earth had nine separate countries, and each of those countries had nine mountain ranges), Greek (there were 9 muses, responsible for creation of the arts by way of inspiration. They were the daughters of Zeus, king of the gods), Egyptian (the Ennead was a group of nine gods and goddesses. Before passing onto the afterlife, a person had to be judged as worthy by the Ennead) mythology to name a few.

This mystery number plays an equal amount of significance in mathematics as well… it is the last digit before the start of double-digit numbers. This feature is the reason the number nine has certain unique mathematical properties, such as the digits of every multiple of 9 adding up to 9 or another multiple thereof. For e.g – 2x9 = 18…1+8=9; 3x9=27…2+7=9.

In the Natyashastra, there are 9 bhavas or emotions Love, Mirth, Pity, Anger or Wrath, Heroism, Terror or Fear, Astonishment or Surprise, Tranquility or Peace and Disgust collectively called as the Navras.

Seeing the importance of this heavenly number, I tried my best to fit it into my life….so here goes some possible (read lame) connections
1. When I was 9 years old, something important happened that changed my entire life….maybe …just couldn’t think of any dramatic event…it was too long ago…

2. When I turned 18 (1+8=9), I got my driver’s license and voters ID…as did other 18 year olds…hmmm

3. I have 9 close friends (if I don’t count the rest 11)

4. I worked for an organization called tv 9!!

5. I can prepare chicken in 9 different ways (really I can…lemon chicken, pepper chicken, chicken pot roast with red wine, chicken chilly, garlic chicken, ginger chicken, goan chicken curry, chicken do pyaza and chicken butter masala)

6. I stand tall at 5 feet 9 inches (if my heels are 5 inches)

7. It’s been 9 years since I have stayed on my own.

8. My first big purchase out of my own hard earned money was a watch for dad which cost me Rs. 3,600…the numbers adds up to 9!

9. Ok last try….A chance remark by a friend who was just explaining how I have managed to build walls around me and that it becomes extremely difficult for anyone interested in me to get to know me. He further elucidated that one has to unlock 8 doors to get to the 9th and last door and only then would I really be relaxed and comfortable. Please note, not 5 not 15 not 10 but 9 doors!

Even though I probably need regular psychiatric treatment or possibly the Chinese torture for subjecting a fellow human being to such rambling of the mind….but I think the last or the 9th point does make some sense.

Can I expect 9 comments???

Tears!

Slowly silently they flow, traversing through various layers of makeup and emotions. They have a mission too… they need to know if they are the real McCoy’s or cheap replicas found at the click of a reality camera crew.
Like everything under the sun, they also have a fixed rate of growth and undergo yearly appraisals. Nowadays with high level of stress, they are also frequently under the scanner of a shrink who will analyze them and rate them and label them. Some of them are starting a union against such random commercialization of the humble fluid. So they have put together a list of the various forms that they can manifest itself and hereby declare that all others are fake!
1. The Silent Trickle – Associated with the strong and silent types, this happens under extreme emotions, usually in public…often without the help of any other bodily movements as the entire nervous system concentrates to stop the trickle.

2. The Unstoppable Gush-These ones always come with loud sound effects which some may call crying but is actually a lot of incoherence. It is always advisable to have someone nearby to hold and comfort otherwise it dies it’s naturally death in 6-7 sec.

3. The Slow Drip or the Chinese Drip – This is usually reserved for people who have a huge load to carry and have no time to express their real self so caught up they are in day to day existence. Like the Chinese water torture, they torture they come to haunt in regular intervals.

4. The Treacherous Torrent – This is somewhat similar to the Unstoppable Gush but is much greater in magnitude, it can cause the heartbeats to completely stop.

5. Crocodile Ooze – This is the common variant that everyone is exposed to. It is easily acceptable and identified. However, it is only effective in getting attention, for real catharsis one has to try the above four.

Of course various permutations and combination of the five can always happen and each of the five sects have their own level of intensities.
These Socio-chemical fluids which emotions bring forth are a rather strange breed. One never knows when they will strike and when they will fade. The anticipation is enough to reduce one to tears. But like most emotions, they are just looking for an outlet …to escape …to breakout from the confines of these so called emotions… coz once they reach the atmospheric world they can either sublime into vapor or seep right back into the folds of the epidermis. It is their choice.
Unlike humans, who cannot choose which way to shed them… when one really wants to go full throttle, the silent’s trickle out…when one wants to hush the trickles, the torrents are unleashed. It’s like they have a mind of their own. Only the crocodile is submissive. It listens and does exactly as it is told. But then who wants a crocodile anyways.
Just for that one torrent to wash away all the worries, just for that one gush to unclog all the memories… so that new ones can be stored… so that happy ones can be displayed … so that one be free.