Yet if a woman never lets herself go, how will she ever know how far she might have got? If she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run?
Germaine Greer


Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.
Germaine Greer

The sight of women talking together has always made men uneasy; nowadays it means rank subversion.
Germaine Greer

The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.
Germaine Greer

The real theater of the sex war is the domestic hearth.
Germaine Greer

The house wife is an unpaid employee in her husband's house in return for the security of being a permanent employee.
Germaine Greer

The compelled mother loves her child as the caged bird sings. The song does not justify the cage nor the love the enforcement.
Germaine Greer

Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism.
Germaine Greer

Man is jealous because of his amour propre; woman is jealous because of her lack of it.
Germaine Greer

Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate.
Germaine Greer


… … just observed what he said and left without judgement/musing much on what I read. U can’t do that to your project though

Nonu bhaiya is coughing blood, I can’t cry.

She has not met me yet…must be thinking I am not bothered-at some level am really not, how can I not believe it, that shallowness where only things which are a direct pain to my physical being matter and all pain and suffering which ‘others’ suffer just makes me feel that I am ‘better’ & ‘luckier’…

She suffers like millions of others, and I am not going to meet all those millions, am not doing anything for them.

I am not suffering for them.




*I call my sis nonu bhaiya

Good morning ...it is about 6 o'clock here

there is no water in the hostel, am trying to figure out what to do with my life...have not been going for work since a couple of months now...how will i manage studies if I work, is it worth it ...i could have worked for an MBA degree and have had life easy instead of pure academics, regret not having an easy life @#$%...sigh

sky looks amazing, clouds and early morning sun ...yesterday night I went up on the roof and could see thunder and lightning towards south, sky overhead was clear with moon and stars and southern sky was ripped with lightning and thunder...could see heavy clouds and lightning but could not hear it, it rained here to after half an hour or so.

Someone is dressing up in one of the rooms either below my balcony or in one of the rooms close by, I can smell perfume-hate deodrants and perfumes, they must be making holes in ozone...i like the smell of the glycerin bathing bar lying in the balcony...hear 'splash' from the bathroom-water is back!


China is building a road to mount Everest (will kill the place, i see it stinking with human #$%and littered with mineral water bottles)- China's act is akin to desperation of a woman out to create an impression, to prove herself and trading her precious self in the attempt-after making a fool of herself. China exploiting nature to create an impression- spoiling it all, spoiling it all

She will get the best medical facilities*. She will be fine

Felt ugly for a while…had a chat with her (just cried over the phone), felt better after finding the facts, functionality. She is my sis, she is strong, she asked me not to cry
Researchers have found a cure, it is there, it works, she will be fine if she takes the medicines regularly

(There is expanse, where any joy any pain is too faint …the expanse is so wide that it soaks up everything and still leaves vast unlimited space)

And yes, research makes sense, a lot of sense


*there are millions who do not have access...who die, the pain is not mitigated

Underneath the starlight starlight
There’s magic that’s feeling so right…

I have troubles, concerns, decisions where I don’t know right from the wrong but have to Decide and to stick to it for stability’s sake if nothing else.

In midst of it I take out time and go for the Jog. To meditate.
Take out a night to lie down on the roof on a sheet watching the stars, vast… the moon overlooking from behind the neem tree … sky…stars and nothing in between …space

(got up at four in the morn, rolled the sheets and came downstairs, meditated and called up mom before going to the mess for breakfast … tell her I am coming and am sitting here sorting myself before I go see her) My sister got TB, going to see her. Fuck she needs me and would never say it, dammit I care but am weak, bloody I hate to live yet I see it so grand, grand sweeps of pain …ah! I love, yeah I love

I wanna stand with you on a mountain

I wanna bathe with you in the sea

I wanna stay like this forever

(singing (or humming since I can’t sing) since am in a very good mood)

I love the early morning breeze combing my hair as I sit in the balcony…to hear the wind rustling through the pine trees, the soft cotton cloth that I wear, my friend who was over here for a night, she is tinkering with what all personal stuff I use, looking in to the book I am reading …she came in late last night after seeing her bf and now is dressing up again to go with him and to get his roll number from Jamia (my place is the well known all time available place to stay for friends and friends of friends if they get too late to go back home after meeting Bfs) …she is still laughing at the jokes I cracked when our neighbour barged in to our room last night. Now the neighbour comes with a chair in her hand and asked if she could keep it in my room. I said yes she could keep it but we will not return it, it will become ours ;) she laughed at me and kept it, am serious about keeping the chair (she must have stolen it from the office, the good piece of furniture)

My friend is going on and on about how much guys in the hostel (Gawyer hall) eat…my jaw is dropping at the description. Bloody I wish I could eat that much.
She is also giving me some gyan about how taking a bath makes your period stop, she has not taken a bath since the last two days given that condition, I made her take a bath before I gave her my gown to wear last night and ‘allowed’ her to share my bed with me. I got up early this morning and the neighbour (the chair one) dropped in, saw the floor strewn with books and my friend sleeping on only bed in the room “where did u sleep” she asked. With her. She made a face … she is jealous, I swear!!

My old sister and her mother are going to come today, they have someone’s b’day party to attend in Gurgaon and called up yesterday to tell me…I said it would be nice if they come over for lunch since they can take the metro straight from New Delhi railway station, rest here and then go to Gurgaon. They gonna come…Jimmy

Excitement, my phone rings, my friend and her bf are screaming at each other to fix a meeting…too much shor to write now, bf’s best friend has told my friend a few things about bf, ha ha, it is killing me, my friend is exploding with the information…suckers

She wants me to plait her hair now. I never say no

60 Tips on C++

Just finished writing a letter to the author briefing him/her about the editorial changes and editing symbols I have used, gave a final reading to the text, and made the Author Query sheet and wrote a note to the typesetter for the script. It is morning already … am still wearing my Nike I got in to last evening for a walk…have worked throughout the night and edited 200 pages since yester morn apart from writing letters to the author, typesetter and to McGraw-Hill. I wish I could post a picture of the script …I have tied the loose sheets (that is how manuscripts are kept) nicely using a thread, used my ink pen to write those letters … in green ink and cursive writing, have placed a note ref. to the manager to whom the script will be delivered this morn :) … it could well have been the way scripts were handled 20 years back … McGraw-Hill has always been conventional

The cab will come in about two hours to pick the script, it is five thirty now. I am waiting for them to come, will sleep after breakfast and dispatching the script.

I have been straining myself…am glad that I did not skip a single para of the text while editing…didn’t match the index though (the proof reader will do that). Have bled throughout the night as I sat editing.

Went upstairs for five minutes (or may be less than that) dew drops were still hanging in the air …birds are about to start their day and the air is clean after the heavy rain, temperature cool…am weak and dying

Fighting the Ghosts

These days I am staying alone. Roomie has gone down…to Kerala for her sister’s wedding (everyone is getting married except for some lonely people here:(

Not that I was anyways with her, she studies all night and I study/loiter all day so we get to see little of each other. Lately there has been a lot of resistance in me for people, as if I was trying to protect myself from influence, any influence (personally I thought I found the conversations and tit bits trivial …) not even ghosts came to disturb my solitude.

Now with thunder and storm these days (weather has gone cold because of all the rain n all, took a hot water shower this morn…in June!) I felt a little skeptical turning off the light before sleeping yesterday…err me was afraid (I am irrational). Then gave a damn and turned it off anyways, then had some dreams about getting drowned in a swimming pool (now that can happen only in a dream to me) and got up after the insulting death scene. Sat up and I could Breathe!!

Then all the thoughts about work, doubts about my decisions, evaluations, and skepticism…aha now I found myself fighting ghosts, of my own make!


So, one I give up on fighting ghosts. This will save a lot of time and energy, I have been fuelling these negativites, doubts which complicate things for me and others. I have been so weird. How unjust on others to behave so erratic…just because I have these ideas in my mind which I keep fighting, proving myself against-never even realizing how endless it is…like fighting ghosts. Creating so much resistance, so much negativity for things that do not even exists, just mindsets…


Now, let me keep these apprehensions aside. Let me remind myself (if I forget) to spend my energy not in defense mechanisms (conditioned reactions) but in real steps, positive progressive steps which deal with real things in my life, neighbors, friends, projects, ventures, research and studies.

(For my reference, not for everyone to read

II Point-blank

To sort your 'thinking process' (which includes ‘decisions’) by ‘thinking’ is wrong by default. Diseased tools do not cure themselves*.

A defective/lacking thought-process is a product of a conditioned mind and will continue to produce cyclic illusions which lead nowhere though seem to be going on and on. This is like going round and round your target, attracted and repulsed by it at the same time but never reaching it, never.

What is it to observe the thought process at point blank range (?) does not happen by observing thoughts…that’s deceptive. It has to be an indirect method to reach, to comprehend without getting involved/consumed…possible by observing sensations. Observing the sensations …what are these, how does it help even I don’t know. May be later posts will carry the answer. All I knew this noon was voila! this is the point blank range to thought-the sensation. Unwavering, consistent, uninvolved clear comprehension of the sensation, moment to moment, every moment!
Observing the sensation, as u become adept, u go deeper …deeper the concentration greater the Clarity.

(Thinking/deciding - whatever I said above would not imply that you do not use your mind to think/decide! You do use it, skillfully. With the ease and skill of a gymnast. Like a gymnast yes, unlike the uncontrolled fumbling attempts of a drunkard, intoxicants of mind are not only drugs and alcohol but also anger and passion, desires so strong that they overwhelm the thinking...clarity goes for a toss, mind creates illusions and one spends lifetimes chasing the mirage... drunken rupture of high and lows of emotions...the whole gamut that u and I feel. )

With this clarity, you observe things, look at the options/possibilities/concerns...evaluate, take joy in it, see the dhamma quotient and take a decision. Thought process pertaining to a decisions is highly deliberate on clarity and highly receptive/open to intuition (or un-thought-of possibilities), banks on experience (but does not clings to limited attachments/biases) and by definition is grounded more on reality than 'thoughts'

decision which stands closer to truth, to balance, to joy, for u and others ...this should be closer to 'thought', should be real

*Considering my thoughts and processes are not perfect...can never by sheer virtue of their nature as 'thoughts')

Time for the lesson

Ok with this comments disabling thingy am feeling more in control … as if I can come and say anything and like no one can dare say anything; - that is so much like me ah!
Ok

Now today I went about in Knags….look I don’t feel like writing man, I had to write about all those shedding idealism bullshit, that we live in dreams (by that is meant that I live in dreams) that there are these false conceptions of beauty, success, relationships I live with…countless times I observe and then I fall in the trap again

I pick myself up from the trash again

Why does becoming calm/stable help? Well, if u are not engaged, raged to get in to a fist fight u can get out clean. You can undergo material loss (say a few hundred/thousand units of money … I would not have more than that to lose;) but you did not lose your poise, you did not hurt someone, to stay calm in a difficult situation takes enormous courage …to know u can harm and to stay calm u become capable of observing…u can take a leap from mad reaction going on inside and stop protecting, safeguarding urself from mad fear/hatred/ suspicion we have for others which makes us violent so easily…there is less of fear, less of self, more observation more about others…more units of existence, quality existence

Was a stickler for keeping my words, the rickshaw guy asked for more money than what is fair (I agreed absentmindedly), I usually give them tips but today I wasn’t willing. I didn’t hanker after the literal truth, just paid what was fair, the regular rate. That moment I saw that there was graduation from training myself to be honest by keeping literally all words I say to being honest in intention. To read the intention with wisdom, that training in disciplining the mind was needed …just to discipline/prepare the mind for the next step- purity in intention. Now with that wisdom dearie take decisions with an honest base, with a base that is neither too selfish nor too sacrificing, abstaining from what may be unfair to others or to myself!

what happened in the past was constant comparison, constant trade going on in my mind with other possible options of living my life, I lived for nothing, nobody, just myself. Fucking truth.

Yet there are things …there is less of ignorance, there is little need for entertainment, movies or songs, am learning basics and even more simpler more basic facts.

Today when I woke up my state was different...the fear of being alone with no family was there ...as stark as i had encountred suddenly middle of the night during innumerable nights, but then there is that incomprehensible which engages me...and i forget, i forget!


and i walk this empty street :))

Shopping

Looking for stability was/is a bumpy drive ...until you realize there are changes which happened without your knowledge as you continued practicing.

At the shop: I was made to wait, to come again and then I discovered that these guys were charging me double the rate.

I just picked up my laptop, walked out to buy my stuff from another shop. Said ‘thank you’ before leaving. The manuscript is waiting in my room for me to come back, and it was precious time these shop guys unnecessarily wasted- I didn’t feel cheated or angry.

I must have grown calm. My usual self would have liked to blast the place before leaving.

Ok

This guy made it so difficult to reach him … u know like what.

Ok it is not my age to go around wooing men, I would rather just spend whatever little time I have in the post-wooing part; let’s just skip the fight

: )) but he didn’t understand. He didn’t know that he was one rare one (and if he can’t believe what he had around him he would soon lose it!), one person who held my attention for so long (a never before feat) …he would think about the chipped tooth, his material circumstance when he would think about me, dunnow why!!) – what a (bloody) trader thing to do.
I waited …or did I (?), ok, I was just hanging around …and this man will dump me once in a while.
OK, dump me, but at least give me some attention man, reply…share. A person like me would not make love by the wanton statement from the dungeons (which says I need you) …who needs nobody, what I saw was some fella who would let me be, was amused by what I did (and even laughed at it) and dumped me once in a while to keep me in good humor (ok I am joking about the last bit)
Ok, there was no reason no rhyme why I liked him (do u need a reason?) just this funny feeling I felt with him …just be somewhere around here, and I can go around doing my business of anything

It was only when I said am going that he expressed, and held back even then (But me won’t go back on what I said, ‘am not there now’ was not a dirty trick to get things out of ya! I won’t do that). So, Ok, enjoy. As you can easily imagine, not attaching yourself with this man was as easy as being with him, his presence is not heavy …now that am not with him (nor will ever be) I don’t miss him, the most wonderful part about him.

You know I would have never been ‘available’ … also, to solve my mystery is to take the longest route to reach me and you are sure to get lost, to tell me that you will have to teach me to love is just about the most offmarkish thing you can do, nor can you declare you love me…I won’t take it and even you won’t (too dramatic) …we could have just been together without feeling the need to change/improve or fucking decipher each other, and since am the female element I would want you to harbor me (bow). After having said that I should have left you thoroughly confused, I think this man was-about me. Though all that was required was if he was sure about himself…I think he knew it but he thought about a thousand other things outside him, he thought about what I would ‘think’ or if I should go for better things in life than him…ah! now how will I fix his thousand and one worries which he didn’t even express, and am sure he had a thousand more worries at home (I presumed all this about him, may be. lemme insert a declaration “all characters and feelings/features in this blog are fictitious and any resemblance to anyone real is a mere coincidence”), materially I could have not bothered myself about this more than what I said here (technically, I can’t bother more than 1 degree centigrade), have met him a couple of times and now it is all evaporated (like an open bottle of nail- paint remover) - I told him that without words and he understood (we share this amazing outlandish communication)…now dammit or for the loveofit “ta ra (pause) ta ra I walk alone, I walk alone” I give up easily … love shouldn’t require effort


May be I am a fool, a happy fool incapable of bother

Kid back in family

At office these people poured in as I sat editing in the cafeteria, only in McGraw hill office is there this family like feeling, people don’t leave once they join, (true for the last generation, not the present one) and McGraw-Hill exploits the fact, they do not give due promotions/ raise...people stay anyway. these oldies came and met, it was left unto me to treat them as elders or friends, I chose the latter. This Kashmiri guy came (very good looking, somewhere around 50), and I got up from my seat to shake hands and said our Kashmir ka hero is here J…considering the conventional environment in McGraw-hill that was an impossible statement and since it was so very impossible everybody laughed.

Since the meeting with the unapproachable manager was still a few minutes away I invested that time in going up to those very familiar people engrossed in papers/ comp screen and looked in to their faces - scared them…loved the scared-shocked expressions as they cognized my stupid face after so long, suddenly. Never had so many people scared of me in single day ; )

The meeting with the unapproachable guy was interesting, he asked me what I was doing these days to start with, as a formality…I told him about the next five years of my life in 5 minutes. I had mentioned algebra and computing in my talk…coincidentally the books to be edited pertained to the things I had mentioned (lucky chap). I told him that everybody thinks it is a pain to see him promoted, and he said he knows it “I am the bastard…pain in the neck” I said no…it is just the pain they feel, in abstract, since you got so many promotions. Also told him that he had softened down a bit since the last time I saw him…he asked me if it is good or bad …(!!) I said it was just spiritual to be soft, Gandhi’s ahimsa may not be a positive quality at all times but yeah it will be a spiritual quality at all times…is this your handwriting I asked…yeah, very bad eh? ...I just smiled.
Unapproachable guy had taken a print out of a whole chapter and asked me to edit the first chapter and dispatch it to him after a day or two, and then they will give the manuscript if they approve of it. “I would just sit here in a corner and come back before the day- end I asked, he gave me the look that said ‘people do what I say’…with my speed I can do it right away, no need to take it home, me went on. OK don’t loiter around he said eyeing me as if I was a nasty kid…umph ok I will sit in the cafeteria…'u can sit here'…I will sit in the cafeteria I said without listening or comprehending his offer to sit in his grand cabin, sit with Shubha he said pointing to the desk outside the office…I will sit in the cafeteria again I said without listening or comprehending…ok he said (I give up) as if he could not trust to let me out in the open, I will talk with everyone, he knew it…everyone came to have coffee in the cafeteria one by one and dropped over to my desk (tough to edit the pages with so much distraction, but I did it man), canteen boys said 'Pooja mam' talking amongst themselves … guys you remember me, Cheers! I shouted from my desk-indecent, they would have thrown me out of the place for doing that had I been a regular employee, but they are my client now, am the freelancer. edited the first few pages, brought out the generic mistakes in the text…as we discussed the syntax and semantics there was mutual appreciation for each others intelligence, though each of us thought oneself smarter…he liked it and I got the manuscript to edit” Unapproachable guy …happy guy, he’s got a new haircut…switched to very short hair, I noticed and c=vocalized at the same time as he sat looking at the script I had edited…too much nuisance to take notice of he must have thought and just smiled helplessly

(...)

Stumped!

You do feel like a wreck after you realize a mistake…but while destroying oneself, seeped in pride (miss takes need pride to sustain) … one just feels the ‘strength’ the force with which one moves… that force is nothing to be proud of for it creates the wreck.

Nothing much happened; outside circumstances are becoming less important. Through a victory or defeat, gain or loss all I seem to be affected by is “how equanimous was I …did I just react or was I in control, how objective was I and how much of it I could penetrate” (last word might seem funny;) and my state of mind seems to be all that matters…if I could maintain the equilibrium through an experience of ‘pain’ no harm was done…if I lose my head no ecstasy is ‘joy’

Gain or loss, life or death doesn’t seem to matter, not that much … (if I seem like a victim of some conditioning as I say these things then the fault lies in the use of language;) ha ha.

we live in a conditioned environment and each of one is bonded in ideas, thoughts, mindsets … far from the awareness of gut reactions, thrusts which make us laugh, cry, which excite and overwhelm us, drain and depress us, like a ball toss us in fluctuating decisions and mindsets …all the force we are proud of goes in creating the wreck…but who is stopping to see it, what we see though are the wrecks surrounding us.

May be the conditioning is losing its hold on me, + and – are no longer absolutes and extremes, may be my concepts of + and – are changing and the shift is internal… ‘how I reacted’ instead of solely depending on the external event…knots ease out and as new knots surface I know am being cleansed…

For this is state of mind where purity matters, it doesn't matter if the event is cleaning floors, the toilet in a place, say, Himachal or sitting in an ultra office making decisions...doesn't matter as long as I am honest, there is something like purity in intention something which is like the sheen of a diamond, alliance of guitar strings... something so pure that it cleanses u as you perform your daily actions, it lends perfection to it, a balance, a sense of control which leaves no wreck behind ... a pure state of mind which seeps down as elegance in every move

Then, you could be creating content, making love, meditating, reading, walking (ah! walking) ...

Lv

Was coming back from my department this morning. Vidya (my roomie) had told me that she will be sitting outside the faculty gates campaigning (as usual for more women’s hostels in the university). It is admission time so these guys did the additional work of helping new student who wish to apply for admissions … all sorts of things, how to fill forms, what courses are available, which college is where, how do sports people apply … I was supposed to meet the teacher again after he took the class so didn’t go back to the hostel and stood with Vidya and was soon talking to people who came asking questions. Amazing how people just came to our little desk, knew what we were there for and asked. How accommodating they were as we struggled with some questions…six years back I was filling these forms…man! 6 years!!

Met these two kids, they didn’t know anything…from Agra. Sat with them and am happy they met me…they applied J

My teacher came and we discussed what I have in mind…may be we can have something original in our rusty dept. … my teacher complained about the how difficult it is to actually arrive at conclusion, how difficult to put say anything concrete (I thought that when talking to the everyman you can say larger truths and make life easy for them, nothing is all perfect, all correct …lets put forward whatever we know and also stating what we do not know…u know).
There is this conference in Mysore Rs 500 crore sanctioned for work in our field. Not even 60 Indians who would have done/researched on anything worth it in the field…again he started off with how the big fishes are going to divide/fight over the money which is about to be sanctioned…he thought the sum was too big and instead they could give it to some NGO…until I mentioned the amount of money countries like China are spending on language expertise…
May be I will be able to pursue my dream, my idea…department though not a cradle for achievers yet, seems accommodating )

Have to go edit that book I left behind before going to Himachal…it is so cool to be back in the hostel, you can go about wearing your silly nothings, I go take a bath under the tap in any one of the bathrooms in whichever block I happen to be in and just go back to my room and change …it is sooo hot here, u never get enough of w a t e r. made banana shake for myself (had skipped lunch), got ice from the ice maker and then served it in small cups to 5 people …it just happened that I thought of people who would the cool drink more than I would…gave it chai wala guy who is there in the hostel (they also make great parathas), deepak at supplies store, gatekeeper, roomie and my senior J) ..these cooks at the canteen as they cooked parathas for me were amused by the fact that I made the shake for them ))…cute man at the canteen didn’t drink it straight away, kept it for a long while, finished all the work and then sat in a corner away from others to enjoy the drink…ice must have melted in it by the time he had it…

Lv

lab closes down, dinner time...they have cutlet and macroni for dinner today, soup and custard too hopefully