INDIRA LAISRAM

I hate pestering salesmen. They just seem so intrusive. Even when you show little or no interest in their products, they are in your face. So when friends and acquaintances come up with these business propositions to make you rich overnight, I get so put off. I mean while I do respect their ambitions for my material well being and theirs too in the process, I want to run away from them the moment I realise I am in a company that talks of chain businesses.

I remember years back when a sister's friend from hometown called me up. At first, I was so excited that she was calling me up to find out how I was. Slowly the conversation veered to Amway, and before I realised she was hard selling. Obviously, I didnt tell her to fuck off as I would have any other salesman but I was so piqued by the fact that she didn't respect the profession I was in and that I was not cut out for business. And of course, like her, there were many others who tried hard to get me into the Amway chain. Life i…

Saris, sindoor, mangalsutra and pujas -- that's the quintessential Indian woman, thanks to Ekta Kapoor. And the TRP ratings of her K-serials just shows how they have captured the imagination of every Indian household. But something is not alright with Kapoor's women. They have a facade and beneath the facade lies a sense of morality that is all screwed up. And she portrays just two kinds of women -- the vampire or the saint (in other words, the forever crying Miss Goodie).

What am I doing intellectualising stupid serials? The fact is, everyone is lost in them. And I care about what everyone thinks. And that's the point really. These women are so far fetched from reality, from the average Indian woman we come across that somewhere you feel the urge to tell the truth. This January, in the course of a short film making stint, I was disheartened by a truth that we comfortably shove into the background.

There is so much emphasis on getting married young that the average age for a…

Rejection is such a painful word. Each one of us have at some point of time or the other experienced this. The first question that comes to mind is "Why me?" And "What have I done to deserve this?" I give a lot of advice and I get a lot of advice. So, when it comes to rejection and people say, "Oh, you will get over it soon and time is the best healer," blah blah.. you feel like socking the person who just mouthed those very words.

Why is it so hard to accept the fact that feelings can take an altogether different hue and that you can no longer be the No.1 person in somebody's life? Simplistically, the human heart is machined that way -- you love and you hate so much that if you could experience anything in between, you can't be real. So we have lovers slitting wrists because they can't be with the ones they love, etc. etc. That's India, haven't heard so much about it abroad. I guess like all things, romance is also a little mechanised …

When you are down and out and you look your worst, beau still finds you beautiful. When the evening sun sets and the sky turns purple, he calls and tells you how beautiful the world looks. When you fight with him and deserve the least, “I love you,” is what he says. You wish you could stop that moment in time and savour it for life but the time and days just fly following each other in endless succession.

He wants to tell the world how much you mean to him, he wants to spend every waking moment of his life with you, for you define his happiness. When he looks at you across a sea of people in a room his eyes manage to speak to you. And no matter how sissy the world views him, his tears don’t stop flowing when he hugs you just before he flies across the continents to attend to his calling. And then he calls to say “take care because if you live, I have a reason to live.”

Chances are that it is not everyday you experience this kind of love. It’s out of the ordinary and it happens only once…

Last Sunday I attended a workshop organised by friends from different professions. I keep my Sundays to myself but this time I couldn't escape the drudgery of a Sunday noon workshop (when I should have been reading a good book or watching a movie on the DVD). After the barrage of calls, I reluctantly drove to Saket for the "Avatar" workshop. Avatar because people are supposed to become role models for themselves and pass the buck on! And talk I did with vengeance, with a reason, so people say "not her again" the next time. Lived up to my name of being called a 'tenawa' or a parrot at home.

With a vague briefing on the contents of the session, friend Vishaka and I walked in and couldn't stop exchanging smiles, notes and "what have we gotten ourselves into" looks. But I was bound to have some fun. I knew it was some session to help people realise their true selves and become winners, etc., etc., a la Art of Living session, but the monotony wa…

(Great post from my friend Deepika Sahu)
For the first six years of my marriage, I constantly lived with the question "why don't you have a TV?" There are some people who even went to the extent of telling me that "as your husband travels a lot, you must buy a TV." Well, I never knew that televisions are substitutes for husbands. In that case, probably for many women in this country, it would have been a real blessing. It's not that I was anti-television or anything.

Prior to my marriage, when I was working in Delhi , I had spent many hours watching television and actually quite enjoyed watching MTV and Channel V. But as it seriously affected my reading, I thought of taking a break. And the break worked. It was that deciding soccer match between France and Brazil in 2006 World Cup that motivated me to buy a television. And much to my disappointment, Brazil lost the match. The humble TV is still there with me and I do pay regularly to my cablewallah. But I hav…

I've never made a list of resolutions. So every year, I just usher in the new year with loads of celebration and hope to get more life out of my life. Don't know now if that is such a great idea anymore. I feel stressed and want to retire with a house near the beach and a valet :) And of course I get sentimental that I am getting old and old and old (though my mental age as is my favourite statement is sweet 16). Not many people celebrate their birthdays on the first of January. Perfect timings for my parents but I've always had a problem saying "same to you" when it's a "happy new year and a happy birthday".

This new year, I feel lousy for a whole lot of reasons. I cant handle the love handles and I do a bad job with it. Impulsive, jealous and temperamental. Fights are universal I know and that is why we are all humans. But when it's getting to the heart of things, it can be hurtful, especially in my kind of a fucked situation. It's just so …