Horsing Around!

One advantage of being in Bangalore is that there are a plethora of activities one can take to. AC, a close buddy from my new office convinced to make time for (yet!) another activity, horse riding. Well! Well! Well! I can see a few smirks!! You can wipe those off before I do!!

So bright and early on Saturday morning, AC and moi landed up at the Race Course and enrolled at the Bangalore Amateur Riders Institute (BARI). About 1/2 hour went in locating BARI, which was at the far end of the huge field.

Several jockeys were out early morning racing their horses. Up close, I can tell you, they look a little scary, especially when they are galloping hard. And horses don't neigh as much as they wheeze. It's not a very pretty sound.

After doing the necessary (that is, paying up, filling form) we were led to Snowy, a 16-year-old mare. She seemed pretty calm, except for a strange noise that she would emit once in a while. I think she was irritated with the flies. Or it could have been me.

I had seen swashbuckling heroes getting onto their mares effortlessly (in movies, they don't exist in real life, sadly) so I had that romantic picture in mind. Up close, I realised that the horse was much taller than I had earlier envisioned. And I had to struggle getting my foot into the stirrup and hoisting myself into the saddle.

Now, I know, it should be relatively easy. Like the above mentioned swashbuckling hero. Not so!! After about 5-6 attempts I was huffing and puffing, looking furtively at Snowy to check if she had noticed my rather clumsy and unsuccessful moves. She didn't bat an eyelid.

Finally, with some help (and a hand on my backside to hoist me) I managed to get into the saddle. Wow! At the end of it, I felt I had achieved a major milestone in equestrianism.

That was, in a nutshell, my first and rather brief foray into horse riding. Next lesson: sitting on the horse and looking cool :)

Anger management!!

Ought I say anything about the current mess I have miraculously gotten myself into. Thanks to my big mouth! No wonder then that people say I have F-I-M (Foot-in-the-mouth) disease. I wish I could be more diplomatic and phrase things differently but I usual say whatever comes to my mind (some times rather bluntly!!)

I do not like it. Just as I do not like saying offensive things (at best I say "so mean and horrid") even if I am full of venom and I am feeling pretty hostile right now. If you have heard me mouthing hostile words, it must be the moment when I lost my temper.

A lifetime ago, my dad once told me that I should not be using the word Hate flippantly, cause hate is an all consuming feeling. His words made me think, and then withdraw my words in turn. Today, however, I have truly understood the essence of the word Hate/Hatred. It is indeed all-consuming!

So far I had classified myself as a positive person with a live-and-let-live attitude towards people and life in general but the feelings of hatred that I have nurtured of-late, has taken me by surprise. I have tried reasoning with self, but to no avail. I have never wished anyone bad! but this time I wish the person (in question) would simply disappear from the face of the earth.

Yes, I am hopping mad but I don't understand why the hell some people (intended for AK!) force me to behave happy-happy, goody-goody when I am not feeling cheerful or upbeat. I do care about others but I hate it when some Silly Billy expects me to giggle at some corny joke when I am in a murderous mood. Also what the hell is wrong in brooding? I cannot be sugary honey bunny all the time. Sometimes I am mean and irritable, especially when I have a zillion things on my mind to keep me on my toes. Maybe I am wrong but when I am angry I cannot stand the sight of happy people. It bugs me and I am not apologetic about it. I give two hoots about what anyone feels on such occasions. There I said it. Awesome!

Hope the day passes smoothly. I doubt the possibility!

Books are your friends

When I was younger I used to throw books out of my second story bedroom window. With a flick of the wrist I would toss the book into the air and watch the pages flutter in the wind before hitting the ground with a soft thud.

It was fun, dangling my body halfway out the window just far enough so that the book could catch enough air to miss the flowerbeds. It was fun, seeing how many I could chuck outside before getting caught.

I didn't usually get to throw more than three books out before I was caught, reprimanded and told, "Books are your friends."

I've since stopped throwing books out windows and today I own a lot of books. Like three tall bookshelves worth, plus the books at my parent's house that I never got around to moving.

I am very protective of my books. Even the ones I don't like. I very rarely lend books to people and am always surprised when people lend books to me because I will be the first to keep your book forever and ever, “forgetting” that I had borrowed it, finding it a new home for it on my shelf. I once lent a book to my mother. I figured she was safe, being related by blood and all. As it turns out, she was not. For I never got it back. When I asked for the book she told me I never lent it to her in the first place. Honest engine. The book was "The Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." I think I liked the book.

I keep every book I read from the stupid M&Bs crap that makes me wince when I think that I actually spent my hard earned money on such books, to the loads of weight loss books that I have bought over the years in search of a miracle cure.

I never re-read books. I tried once and liken it to picking food out of your back molars and eating it again. It's already been chewed and enjoyed.

I read of people who only keep the books that mean something to them. Or the books they really enjoyed. Or classics, or something. And after hearing this I pause to take a minute and think, "Wow."

I've been dreaming up some "get rich quick" schemes. Or at the very least, a scheme that will support my Coke habit. Selling some of my stuff, specifically my books seems to be the "easiest." I’ve been mulling it over for about a week. I’ll let you know if I get up the nerve to sell some of my friends. (God, that sounds so cheap.)

Rise and Shine!

The sight of a sparkling pool early in the morning is the most exhilarating sight in the world. Been swimming every morning for the past few days now. It's a proper swimming class - coach, warm-up, technique... all the works. And it's FUN!

I have a thing for these sporty guys. (I mean the real sporty kinds - not the ones who ride BMWs and wear Adidas) They're full of beans, all peppy and energetic. My heart still skips a beat when I think of my hockey coach from college. ( Man, he was something :-) Current coach too is real c-o-o-l !

One thing about swimming is you end up with two coloured skin, like a zebra.

Batman

His name was Shakar. But we called him bhaiya, my bro and I. And he'd call us baba and baby.

He was from Jammu and he could make the meanest rajma chawal I've ever had. He was tall, had big mooch and he always wore the same army-commissioned white t-shirt and olive green trousers.

We went to him when we needed an extra notebook. When we needed tamarind from the tree in the front lawn. When we wanted a chocolate bar or a library book.

He took bro for his tutions on his Avon cycle. A would sit behind him, holding on to the ends of his shirt while he raced down the hill our bungalow was situated on.

He taught me how to play basketball on our makeshift court next to the garage and he would bring his share of rotis from his langar because I loved them so much. He ignored the guy friends who'd come by when my parents would go out for golf or dinner parties. He never told on me, even once.

He flirted with my ayah when they would sit in the lawns waiting for my parents to come back after a night of cocktails, and she'd flirt back... and I'd observe them both from my room's window. He'd rattle off the hisaab (accounts) to my mother each evening. I remember trying to do homework over his tamatar-10 rupya, bhindi- 15 rupya, baby ka kitaab- 20 rupya, bread- 14 rupya...

He threw up when he found a dead lizard in my chest of drawers. He removed the lizard afterwards though, because I refused to go into the room otherwise.

He cried when his father died of a heart attack. He was just 25. My dad hugged him and told him to be strong. Mother passed him 200 rupees for his journey back to his village and I made him a card from a sheet in my drawing book. Bro just stood next to him while he cried his eyes out, saying, "baba, pata nahin kaise ho gaya yeh sab (I don't know how this happened).' I stood there in my verandah while he sat on a cane garden chair with his head in his hands. I didn't touch him, I wasn't supposed to.

He loved us. He never said no to anything, he would never get irritated or angry with us over our incessant requests but always smiled and said okay. He climbed high up on trees to pluck jamuns for me - my one constant requirement - he never collected them off the ground saying that they were too squishy to taste good.

And we loved him. We helped out with the daily dusting of the big house though we loathed it. We'd pass diwali sweets and christmas candy. We gave him our books to read so he could work on his English. We did all we could to show him that we cared, without actually crossing the line we'd come to understand over years of being army brats.

The afternoon I had an accident, he ran all the way from our house to the unit medical clinic; his cycle had a puncture and he couldn't reach my parents. He ran, I know, because the doctor told me so. I was 14... oblivious to anyone's emotions except my own, but I realized how much it meant to him... seeing us safe and happy.

I haven't seen him since we moved out of that city some six years ago. He's posted somewhere in North-East India and occasional letters to my mother, in broken but proud English, tell us he's doing alright. She always replies.

I grow older, childhood memories seem to fade with every passing day, but I try not to forget our batman. I hold on to the time we spent with him, because for the two years he was with us, he was family.

When I go back home now, there are other batmen who call me didi... but no one says it quite like Shakar. There were other batmen who will bring jamuns for me... but they'd never risk their necks for a handful of berries. And I haven't yet met someone who'd spend an entire night staying up with me, helping me stick pictures in my summer assignment projects.