Facades, Inadequacy and a kitchen table conversation

I'm in this place with people I completely sympathise with and am ready to love entirely. So are they. And I am part of another place where people try to be friendly. Some of them succeed, some don't. Homesickness is a funny thing. I am, after today, more homesick for Bangor than India at the moment, I do believe! But then I miss India. I am honoured to be a part of OU, but wondering if it just could be that all the offhandedness is only imagined. It is not snobbish - but it is not protective or helpfully forthcoming either. It is very hard to be away from home and on your own, and not have people coming forward to help or look after you. I am finally required to grow up. Just when I was afraid of growing old. But people are people. Everywhere.

And I do feel inadequate as I have absolutely no idea how to begin and no idea if I can ask how either. It doesn't feel like I can - or sound like it. It is a beautiful city as I remember it. My friends here are lovely - they are so warm and welcoming. Will I find friends who like me for me - or will I have to morph into this posh fashion-swinging brain-box.... I could try - I wouldn't succeed or at least not very well. Let's face it - I am inadequate. God isn't. And let's face it - I knew I was taking all this on before I came here. I miss the fatherly EW, the motherly PM, the hundred little family things of BCC, the completely open friendship and little-brother person's role GJ played and just the number of people I could call on if I didn't want to wallow in some emotional warp. Yes, I can call on people here but they wouldn't know what I need because they don't know me. These people at home here though know I need God's love and we give and take of it - and for that I am infinitely grateful.

I am here and I have no idea how to begin. But I will do it.

Added to what needs no addition is my mother wondering if I will find Prince Charming. I can't afford a Prince Charming and spending quality time with royalty at the moment ;D but even if he were to show up, I don't want one if God doesn't want that as His first option. And I am worried about how much our desires may be able to skew our vision for where we're going... Besides it's hard enough getting over imagined Princes Charming, he he... But seriously - hard enough getting over hurting Princes not-quite-charming or charming-but, and then ripping oneself apart now and then to see if you really really do have a 'but' in the picture and then ripping oneself apart because you had to rehash it for the nth time and not realise how happy you are and that there is no need to have felt guilty in the first place. I think conscientiousness can be a hard driver sometimes... And there's a difference between your conscience and conscientiousness if the Lord's in it.

Thank you because it is lovely to have this conversation with all of us - mum, Sunflower Girl, Grafx, Ta'fxkz (heh they rhyme!), Dinesh, Greeta, Switchblade... hmmmm dunno if anyone else would on the offchance read my blog but that seems to cover it - and you listening to it, Lord. Thanks for chipping in too.

26th September 2007

Couldn't publish this on the day I wrote it:

Might never get a chance to blog from anywhere other than India and the UK - well maybe not from Kuwait anyway :D. Uh huh that's where I am at the moment sitting with all these businessmen florid from the sun and mostly shaven-headed, for pretty much the same reasons I guess, and these sheiks florid from just natural colour and health, tapping away at their laptops probably checking the news from the stock market or something! I'm just glad I can talk to my folks for free ;) - he he, and I don't have any of the local currency and I jolly well am not changing as much as they say I've got to to make one phone call or two.

Kuwait looks pretty neat from an aerial view - a bit more man-made than most countries from air but in very good taste I must say. Neat little inlays and driveways, yes driveways, into the sea and back. First time I'm landing over a desert area. Arid, yes, and much less populated than I expected but very beautiful. The gulf is gorgeous-looking.

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It's a bit strange, my homesickness this time. I had the usual pre-homesick feelings and everything. But I didn't cry as much except when I thought about it. Maybe I had much more time to think before. This has happened very fast and not quite expected a few months ago. Okay, I had a couple months' notice but I'm sorta slow. Stupid Tassi didn't come to say bye - she can't be woken up for any money... Of course she came and chattered afterwards - but heck what's the point? LOL - 2:30 am found me weepily walking into Shadow's and saying 'Bye, sweetheart, I do love you, you know'... to a - ermmm - shadow. Not mine though - not by the light or by the species. She was under the stairs where I found her later - only this time I was giggling like an idiot.

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Prince-ah's thingummyjig no 2 has dropped!! After like a year and a half - about a year later than it should have. But hey, who's complaining... And Becki and amma did call Abraham and Sarah in as witness ;D.

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Missing amma and appa somewhat terribly now - moved from '-ish' to 'definitely', paragraph by paragraph! Looking forward to going to OU though although I'm pretty nervous so that I don't know where to start with being concerned about things. I'm also pretty sure there's no need to be despite what things look like. CD said something like there will be storms, when Jesus is in the boat. But yeah, that's the good thing about those storms, hey?

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I am, I have concluded, simply NOT cut out of business class flight material. The man came over with a tray full of croissants and Danish pastries and I was quite sure I wanted the half-sweet, pineapple one on the top. So I smiled a business-class hopefully-blase smile and went and picked the croissant with my hand instead of waiting for the guy to use the tongs he'd so skillfully covered in a towel over his arm! What'm I supposed to do? I was deprived of proper butlers during my formative years!

And then I woke up with a hurting nose probably dry from the inflight temperature, and also went and sniffled my nose in the wet towel in desperation as I couldn't find my tissue and couldn't leave my seat!

It would have to be the law that the guy in the aisle row was as suave and chilled out as he possibly could be. And here I was thinking I would be the ice princess to any commoner who smiled at me...

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Please pray that I will be able to stand in His perfect will and have my head about me with the research and everything else.

:)

He said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty."
Zechariah 4:6

Room 101

Okay this is going to be one of those '101' things I just can't GET and which drive me insane!


1. When you meet an Indian acquaintance, and you do the mandatory hug and they say "Oh it's been aaages" and you go "Yeah, I know it has, hasn't it? How are you??? Soooo glad to see you" and generally gush because Q.E.D. they have just brought it to your notice that it has been ages - why oh whyyyyyy do they then turn around and say "Why have you come back?" as if they were enquiring about a terminal illness of a mutual acquaintance!! I mean - how rude is that?! And why should I not be in India if I want to? And why do they then follow it up with "When are you going back?" Can they be any ruder? And they're mostly the aunty-uncle grade, with all the best intentions for a 'successful future'. It's just us who think it's a downgrade to be back in our country! Gah! I have extreme reactions to some of the sub-species. I feel like reaching out and yelling and clawing my hair apart and giving them a tight one, and just laughing with the absurdity. Thank goodness I'm not the impulsive kind. My mum and dad would have had to move a long time ago...

2. Nighties and sneakers. This one always makes me laugh. I mean okay you need a daily walk, or run or whatever it is that fights that fat, sister. But give over the fashion statement. Saris and sneakers are alliterative but secondary offenses.

3. Bad grammar, bad spelling... It just means you haven't read over what you've written or thought about it. I mean you can do without grammar if it makes sense. Phrases instead of sentences. Stream-of-consciousness writing. Okay, I can handle it. But don't ask me to "Let she open the window". Just don't. Okay. And if you do know the rights and the wrongs of it, please see the humour of the mistake with me. Thanks.

4. Getting told to do the same thing twice or three times over. Enough said on this one!

5. Why do people in Inner Circle (that's a socio-linguistic term) countries like the USA and UK etc assume that if you speak English and did not grow up on their native hemisphere, you must be some sort of prodigy???! Did they think the colonisation was just a dream (bad or otherwise) that lasted a couple of days? Or do they not see that people are more cross-cultural now? I mean get out of it.

6. Talking to me when I'm reading or just generally monosyllabic. I am probably in a moodswing or in deep introspection. If I were you, I'd leave the grouch to herself... she deserves it.

7. People who agree with me and start the sentence with 'No'. 'I think the hype's a bit much.' - 'Noo noo, they are over-reacting'. Er, YES, some people do that. Arrrgghhh. If you agree with me, just come out and say it! I do ;D.

8. When different is assumed bad - keep guidelines if you choose to see the world in a dichotomy. Or even if you choose to see part of it as one. It is I think. I do. Mine's the Bible. But not everything different is bad - not everyone who eats with their hands is unhygienic, and not everyone who goes out to a club for recreation is amoral. I'm sorry - different cultures, different rules. Live with it.

9. Indian public toilets. There's more usage outside those Corporation walls than inside. Again - when you're entirely modest and conservative with everything else, whyyyyyy this???!!

10. People who ask me how I manage my food. In a commiserating tone. Round eyes, shaking heads, and "Must have been very difficult. But you get 'our' ingredients easily, lai??" To which I always replied, "Er not really. It was rather on the expensive side." Then they'd say "Appo then how did you manage??" Errrm, I ate what was readily available? And liked it and survived? And if I thought about idly once in a long while, I didn't starve for it. Again I can't get the "Can you cook?" question. No, I can't or rather don't a lot. But I survive. And yes, I can put something together if I wanted to. Comprende?

11. This must be a tangent to 10. I CANNOT understand mothers who want cooking machines for their sons. Can she cook? Veetu velaiyella seivalaa??? Flippin' rubbish. Annoys me the sort of stuff people look for in finding brides and grooms. Nothing against arranged marriages. And I've known Casanova-wannabes also start off the stalking with the brilliant pick-up line 'So you can cook, huh? I'm sure you'll do better than me.' I don't know - many women would take pride in their culinary skills but so would men - and don't flippin' assume I can cook and better than you. It's the pressure, eedjit!

12. Dog-haters.

13. What makes me really grumpy, although if I'm with someone I just have to laugh! - the fact that India is slowly converting to the Western style of toilets... Errrr I have no problem with either EXCEPT that ummm India tends to wash and Europe and America tend to dry-clean!!! And the toilet goes with the territory. I hate hate hate yucky, wet WCs as we call them here - and I just don't understand why they won't have both like the good old days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Finally I am a nice person. Really. Just now and then on the occasional night, when the time's right I become a monster of insane intolerance... in the cyber world. Fiiinneee, don't believe me!

Who let the dogs in? - Misty

Long ago - well, not so long if I didn't feel so old - we had a dog called Misty. She was hilarious. She also took it into her gorgeous Alsatian head that I was the younger member of the pack and that I could therefore be bullied.

Misty had a name for me - when she wanted me, it wasn't 'bow-wow'. It was, for some odd reason, 'Ya-woo'. Misty also pulled the warning stick out of my hand any time she wanted to. Misty jumped on me, pulled me and wouldn't let me go downstairs from the terrace when I wanted to. I mean, who was I kidding? Let it be known - she called the shots. I just called mummy. Misty never apologised - she just grinned. Elsa, my special sweetheart, scratched me in an enthusiastic frenzy just once in her life and then nuzzled me for a long time afterward in my lap with mournful eyes. Misty was always daddy's dog. But hey, we were siblings after a manner, and she was born with the right to bully me. No, she came after me but dogs come with this whole octal thing, huh.

Misty was also my protector from crows. We took an intense dislike to their violent and hostile antics from the days of our romps on the terrace. Shadow took the baton after her. Shadow, my Shadow, defender of the corvidophobic (yeah, I just looked it up), and all-round good dog. I will write about her. She deserves it.

But so does Misty - I cuddled Misty and once in a while she agreed to cuddle me. When she was much older, and just a teeny bit wiser, the girl would smile a more gentle smile instead of that war-cry-like grin she greeted me with. It was like we were playing Red Indians all the time (not that I've ever played it, and not that I don't know they're about the most peaceful people you could look up - so much for hashed metaphors).

Recently this memory came up again - when I was rehashing an old sin, fearing an old fascination, brooding over words whether two days ago or two decades/ and enjoying the feel of victimisation. Misty had another very curious habit.

We often tied her up with a leash instead of putting her in a kennel because it gave her much more room to move about. Rest assured we only ever did this when people visited. Er, Misty didn't mind tasting their ankles with of course the friendliest motives. What's a little nip between friends - she'd say. Her fashion sense was impeccable. Any uncool sunglasses, people walking about in night-clothes as if it were the fashion on the day, big straw hats in your yard - Misty was on it like a bullet. I mean, we've got to maintain some standards, puhleeeze.

So the friend who brandished his sunglasses in his hand got nabbed. As did any of us venturing out in those very fashionable hussif-y nighties, or me with a hat on ala my mum. Also as a pup, if anyone was leaving casually, they had it. Who did they think they were leaving without so much as a mention to the members of the family? - in Misty's opinion.

Well, yes I am coming to the curious habit... So with this propensity of Misty's to be law-maker, police, friend and terrorist in one, we would have to tie her up. There were times when, as a creature of habit, she would insist on it. Mealtimes. When Elsa was in. After a bath, maybe.

Misty was weirdly wary of her freedom though! When we let her out or untied her, she would just stay put. Much as if she had never been freed. I mean, we could stand outside with treats and cajoling but she would look at us quizzically from that entrance to her kennel with an eminently kissable face. We could have called all day but Misty would not have left for most of the morning, I suspect. No, she was used to being inside. Also she was suspicious in this one thing only. She never really believed the chain was off. Misty's special kink, this was!! Dumb dog! Bleh.

We had to put the end of that leash over the top of her door just where she could sniff it. Then she would sniff it and satisfy herself that it was gone. She never accepted it when the chain was just off her. I understand though - I mean she must have acclimatised herself in the space of those minutes to thinking she was a tied dog. Like me with my fears and guilt-trips! And you couldn't know for sure, you couldn't just believe that it was off without definite proof. So she would wait patiently - she must have concluded we were so stupid - and she would stay inside that kennel until that chain was under her nose, reminding her that it was the same one she'd been tied with.

All she needed to do really was step out of the kennel, just a little further than the leash would let her. But she had to see to believe. Dumb dog!

But it was finished.

Emotion register

I always feel seriously crappy after feeling happy n high on top of the world -y.

I mean something from two days ago will suddenly take to new brooding depths....

Gah!

A Second Helping of India

Or maybe thirds or fourths or tenths.

Anyway, so seeing my dismal smile of resignation, Random Pastor decided to pitch in. Bless him. Actually all I said was 'Appadiya' literally translating to 'Is that right?' and meaning a lame 'Oh okay'. All smiles now, The Me although my mum or best friends would have detected a slightly weak stretch of lip more like a grimace... Random Pastor asked: 'Right then, shall we take the vandi?'. Vandi simply means vehicle and I just beamed, I tell you. I just decided we were kindred spirits and all that ;D

Then he hauled up his white cassock like a lungi at half-mast, while I just looked him up and down - very respectfully, but slightly baffled at what he might be contemplating next. Well, I was surprised. RP was very enthusiastically offering to take me on my own to his town on his bike.... errrrr I just thought it would be uncomfortable. When my mum heard the story, she applauded my er very creditable prudence. Heh! She was concerned about how the let's-just-say-forwardness might be construed in the very village-y, and parochial setting.................. Well, I was NOT bleeddddddyyy going on that bike on those roads with that skirt on at that point of time. So I gave my extremely-brilliant-toothpaste-ad smile as substitute for the genuine article and said 'Hang on, just one minute, thanks!' and walked right up to what looked to be the Presiding Aunty at the gathering. By this time, I was thinking the whole thing was quite surreal! And I just lied - spoke in faith would be closer, actually - and told her magnanimously that a trip to the toilet would be welcome to all the girls, so could we please have the van instead of a bike? As it would, of course, only be for the general good.

And bingo! It turned out all the girls were actually feeling like miserable waddles themselves and I was just the heroine of the piece (well, here anyway;D). We missed the second village but... Ah, peace. And a very jolly bus ride after a brilliant trip.

A piece of India

Sunday before last, church was out on an evangelistic visit to a village. Two villages actually - and it was way cool. The village women actually cooked a huge meal for us at the end of it! Some more slurping! There was a childless couple there - and they made me get a bit weepy. I mean why? But we looked at each other tearily and were girls. I hugged her and she hugged back - ain't that a kick in the head? ;) And btw I believe the answer to my why question (this one at least) is shortly in the pipeline! After the meal we went to the next village - AND let me tell you, one's internal whatchumacallits defo seem to work on the psychological moment!!!

Anyway what can you expect when they give you a banana the size of a small forearm after your big meal??!!?? LOL LOL LOL. Mad. I should have known though. I got on that bus and halfway to the next village I needed the toilet. And oh how! So I waddle up to the woman highly conscious of myself imagining the eyes of everyone on me! I turn around to see this random pastor following me, in enthusiastic helpfulness. Well, what can you do with him? None of those other watchful eyes were on me - I wasn't half that big a star. So I just plucked up the courage and asked the lady of the house if I could please use her toilet. I wasn't expecting none too posh, but I was hoping she'd say there was one...... She did. She said yes. Random Pastor said no. And I bobbed from one nod to the other shake like a pendulum with jitters. Until I turned to the woman. Look, my speaking eyes said, woman-to-woman you know how much I need this, can you just ignore protocol, forget listening to the pastor-in-authority and just jolly well show me the old john??? However it actually came out quite garbled - The Me said "It's there? Yes. Toilet, there is? No?" The Me was not disappointed. The fellow-woman smiled. Indeed. The pastor reiterated his stand on the matter. But hey, her house, her rules. So I followed, while Random Pastor followed faithfully.

Ten steps down, the lady turned to me with a shyly generous smile, and a broad sweep of her hand, indicating that this was her domain and her largess was meant for the benefit of all, including humble me, in that typically Indian open-heartedness. "Everyone goes in the 'maidanam'". That is the Indian word for a large open space.

:O

I know what you're thinking! LOL I did not.

PS Ever since switchblade blogged about Scrabble and isc, I've gone and gotten addicted again when I thought it was over! I go 500 up and down in a day sometimes! Uh!

PPS It is just great to play the guitar again.

P-this-is-the-last-one-S I have a story feeling and I cannot let myself sit this one out.