An Indian

What makes a person an Indian?

According to Shirish, the combination of religion (read Hinduism), food, rituals, culture and History (read monuments), clothes, language determines this...

Does it really? A non Hindu from a state like Kerala or Goa, probably has monuments, food, language, artefact's and clothes which would be completely alien to a Hindu from Varanasi... who probably has more in common with a Nepali...

I'm searching for an answer to this because I have no such identifying labels attached to me. The label that do exist are put there by other people, so I'm an Indian to a somebody from outside of this subcontinent (they might also call me a Paki), I'm a madrasi for all north Indians (who know no difference between people from the various southern states). For people in Kerala, I'm an alien who doesn't belong...

According to Shirish, me and people who think like me should carve out a separate country if we don't identify with being Indians!!!

Is it so important to be identified by a label? The values one carries within oneself, remains irrespective of all these labels, So big deal. I'll be who I feel like being whenever I feel like...

Babies

With so many friends having babies, I can feel my biological clock ticking very loudly. Time for some soul searching on when, how and all such things related to babies.

But am I willing to let something change my life? Cannot deny that it will change it irrevocably.

An especially important question am currently grappling with is, how does a single mother with very minimal family support manage?

Loving babies, I know that I want to share my life with my child, but when do I think I'll be ready to do so?



When will work stop being an overpowering driver of my life? Will I be unfair to the child by not slowing down in my job? Will I be unfair to my career, when I've invested so much in getting where I am and knowing there's a lot more that I want to achieve?

These questions have no answers right now. But I'm hoping that life will provide answers as it goes on...

Till then I'll just enjoy the pleasure of all my favourite babies who have been born and will be born to my friends.

The End of an Era

Today on the drive to office I realised that today was the last time that Nitin and me were travelling to office together. He leaves tonight for the US and by the time he gets back in Dec, I'll have moved base to Mumbai.

In fact the trip to Mandi and back was probably the last long drive that we guys would do together.

Funnily enough we spent time in Mandi watching the video of our marriage... we laughed while watching it... we talked about how slim we were then n how good we looked ... was a reflection of the fact that we have moved to a stage where the end of the marriage has stopped hurting.. at least not very overtly.

The mind flashed back to me all those various trips to office or the longer ones to Mandi when we would discuss stuff about work to life... about where our relationship was heading... to how to make it work... to how to go about ending it amicably...

The drives were always the only time when we actually managed to have a really meaningful conversation... Sometimes I think if we had spent all our time in the car we might just have still had a marriage...

Today signifies to me the end of an era of dependence... I don't know to what extent it was a symbiotic one... I relied on him to solve all my life's problems, even after we separated... If things came crashing down on me I knew it was him I could turn to without blinking an eyelid... I know in the last few months I've tried to be more independent but old habits die hard...

I don't believe that our relationship will stop mattering just because we will no longer be in the radius of 6 kms from each other. But yes, no longer will it be the central factor... that which confused the hell out of everyone who was a witness to it's workings...

I hope we still retain all that was great between us... Thanks to him I have an additional set of parents (not counting him of course) who I love completely...

As time flies by all the negative things stop mattering and all great things are cherished.. That's how I want this to be... something I can look back to during my old age...