PURE UNADULTERATED HELL!

I had a couple of topics in mind that I wanted to write about, something I hadn't had the time for in the past several days. And then today I heard some dolorous news from one of my very dear friend, who decided to write her pain away, so here it is in her own words, much better than I could ever pen it or feel it.

29th July 2006

The following is written by a Ms.Graceful Girl-Next-Door who is well-educated and lives in India and whose Arranged-engagement got cancelled today, a few weeks before the engagement date, due to some Silly "Official" reason, the real reason being the Guy's obsession towards Skin Color and Appearance - the guy who first saw her in a saree in which she apparently looked "beautiful-and-fair" enough for him to give a green-signal to the "Marriage Process" (which meant that the Engagement and Marriage Dates to be decided and close friends and relatives could be informed about the engagement) and who later saw her at her office in a churidhar. Probably it was the sun or scorching heat, she apparently looked "dark" enough for him to have his second-thoughts and for God-only-knows-what reason continued to talk to her over phone/mail about nothings and somethings until yesterday when he was supposedly fully occupied in his "MEETINGS". The Bombshell was delivered at 7:00 AM via a call from the Guy's mother who kept parroting about the Silly "Official" reason while her parents were trying their last attempt to somehow salvage the situation, in vain.

Have you ever cried so much that there are no more tears to shed?

Have you ever seen your usually introvert father who loves you, cry aloud in front of you, because of the pain he sees in your eyes?

Have you ever tried to suppress your emotions and your tears just so that your aging parents may find a little peace, at least in front of you?

Sound dramatic???

Well...let me tell you by experience, if you've experienced the above, it means a part of you dies.
Yes, a part of me died...today. At 7:00 A.M to be precise. I read somewhere that, when you are in pain, if you pour your anguish out into words, the pain eases. So, I am trying this out now, as I think, writing is something I am good at.

For those who know me...
I am what you call an extrovert, a person who loves to smile and laugh, a girl who loves to find humor in everything and a loyal friend to a lot of good people. And now, this instant, I am really not sure if I will be really able to smile, ever in my life.

All this because of a person who doesn’t deserve any tears! A person who is so shallow, so selfish, so uncaring and so faithless, that I know I am lucky not to be associated with him any more. Yes, heart-in-heart, I am glad that I need not even talk to him anymore and pretend that everything is just fine...Pretend that we are going to live happily ever after, even with all the basic differences between him and me...Pretend that I am one of the few lucky people in the world for whom arranged marriage would really find my better-half. But at that time, I didn’t even realize how I hated that pretense. Looking back, I admit that I should have really listened to the most important person in my life...ME!

And may be things would have ended differently.

What if I had stopped the "process" instead of him?? I would have had to spend sometime to make my parents understand the situation and I am sure they would have helped me out. I would have been termed ‘Arrogant and un-compromising’ by the Guy's people about whom I don’t and won’t care. At least, I wouldn’t have seen the pain in my parents' eyes. And now, I’ll never know what would have happened if I had stopped pretending and took matters into my hand and dealt with them by being just what I am...just by being HONEST to myself.

Now that the matters are really out of my hands, after the initial denial, shock and anguish, my foremost thought is freedom...I have a sense of freedom and relief...I am thankful and grateful for this chance to be honest to myself. My rational mind tells me that I should just forget this incident ever happened, that he didn’t deserve me and that I am better of without him.

But there lies the most difficult question, which I guess, eats anybody who is under shock and depression...

Why me???
Why should this happen to me? What’s the meaning of this? What should I learn out of this?
There are lots of people for whom the marriage "process" in this society is just a piece-of-cake.
Along with the parents, boy meets girl, they like each other, the 2 families like each other, engagement and marriage dates are decided, engagements gets over and marriage gets over and the life goes on with the promised ups and downs. Why me, who has been very particular not to hurt anybody, the process has to stop half way through?! Now that this has stopped, what should we tell our friends and relatives?

I guess I need not worry about my friends as they really know ME and are loyal to me.
The problem is, I am afraid that in situations like this, the so-called "society" plays this "Blame Game" - somebody is made the scapegoat for everything. And unfortunately most often, it’s the girl even if the real culprit, as in my case, is the boy. And for my parents' who belong to the earlier generation, it’s only understandable, that this is their primary concern. And now I have to rely on my reputation till date to save me from the "Bad Name"!! I really don’t want to care to what others think, having professed the same to others. But, being a social animal, I DO care.

Now comes the difficult part which is eating me...Am I not good enough for this "Marriage" Process which promises to fetch your better half? I know that I cannot be termed as "beautiful" or "striking". When I really dressed-up for an occasion, I can fall under the "Pretty" category.
So what?! That’s me. That’s the real me. I am a person who is trying to just live up to the meaning of my name. Even now, I still believe that my man should see the real ME...not what I wear or what color I am. I am being told there are some good guys out there who are not shallow...who value character more than color. I feel like a fool for trusting him enough to think that he will snap out of his obsession towards color and appearance. Apparently, he never did!

And the lessons learnt???
That’s for me to answer, right? First and foremost, I will be honest to myself and never compromise too much for this "Marriage Process". Now, one would wonder why there is "too much" in the above sentence. I am still realistic...I know that I need to make some compromise but next time, there will be a pre-defined limit to the level of compromise. And, next, probably this episode will make me more confident and push me firmly towards (at least) my career goals.

Truly speaking, as of now, my self-confidence is in shreds...but deep inside I know that I will make through this. And my self-confidence should be stronger enough to keep me out of Self-pity. I know wallowing in self-pity will not take me anywhere...it will just give me a few more tears (which I don’t want to shed for such an unworthy cause) and get sympathy from others (which I don’t need).

The above Rants and raves have been helpful to some extent in distracting me from my pain. Sometime during the period I was writing the above, I became a spectator of my own life.

The Big Picture... is promising.

I have escaped from a greater doom.

But today was HELL. PURE UNADULTERED HELL.

I won’t wish this on even my worst enemies. Well, I don’t have any...but still, that’s the phrase one says to express the depth of one's pain and hurt.

Probably tomorrow will be better….

There is HOPE. And thank God for that.

Knowing her, I know she has more than hope!

The castist Church!

I know its been some time since I have ruffled some feathers. So here I go again.

It all started out because of this issue called "marriage", and when it was determined that I like my peers had attained the marriageable age, the proposals have started pouring in putting me on the defensive.

These proposals have added a new word to my lingo, "caste" (I am a nadar if you must know) which has never been a part of the my conversational jargon, suddenly finds itself in preeminent position.

The fact of the matter is that there is a can of worms waiting to explode in the church in India, atleast the ones that the generational Christians belong to. It has always been a open secret that caste has always factored in the church inspite of no theological grounds for differentiation between people.

Some may argue that the denominational split in the Christian church gives some leeway for castism to be practiced within the church. Some other appeasers of castism use the example of the tribes of Israel, which cannot but be called asinine.

Before I get ahead of myself, for the uninformed the connection between my proposals and caste is that in India, its not just enough to have the same belief system (as in religion) but you need to be part of the same 'caste' or social system. Theoretically Christians and Muslims don't have the caste system. Which has prompted various 'lower caste' people to convert to Christianity, Islam and Buddhism.

The fun part of it is that the generational Christians have always been following the caste system specially when it comes to marriage and such. I can't speak for Islam or Buddhism but the non-castist nature of Indian Christianity is a farce.

So why this sudden outburst from your's truly? Because I just snapped, because I just want to make a stand, because I am crazy and most importantly because the God I know does not differentiate. And if he does not differentiate who am I to do so (Romans 14:4)?

I cannot stress enough the negative and demoralising effect of castism in general, but to have it as part of my creed just makes my blood boil. Those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it ... and the Indian Christians haven't learnt anything from their western counterparts. I know it would be hard to wipe away, people being people, but looks like there is nobody ready to tackle the issue head on. What about me? me ... I am nobody, I can't even convince some of my own close relatives of the oxymoronic nature of a Christian caste system! So I do what I do best write about it and hope I can break down a few walls in the process.

I definitely have some earfuls coming my way for this post, but then again I got a thick skin and it is always funny to watch people defend something that is indefensible.

Those to whom arranged marriages seem incomprehensible, this additional castist corollary would only add to the mystery.

So here it is the gist of the whole post, castism has no place in Christianity ... for that matter no place anywhere else.

This is a call to arms against dowry and castism. Somebody has to so its gonna start with me!

“I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.” - Mark Twain

“Ideas are fatal to caste” - E.M Forster

Leaving Saint Louis!

So the change has been effected and I cannot reiterate enough what a big pain moving is!!! Atleast when you stop being the agile, mobile person with only two suitcases to your name!! The last two weeks have been so hectic and I have done so many new things and learnt a couple of trades that could help me with a job, if one day Computers stop working ... I can drive a truck or become a porter!!

I didn't know how much I could be stretched till today. The whole moving looked out to prove Murphy's law. Started out with U haul giving me a 26Ft truck instead of a 10ft one. I couldn't even cover the whole surface of the truck with my stuff. With the trailer on the back it was next to impossible to reverse on this!! I didn't know how friendless I was in Chicago till this move. Having mad Mike help me out in STL, it was so much more of a pain when I could get neither friends nor movers to help me unload in CHI!! Only goes to speak of my organising skills I guess! To top it all off U Haul decided to have fun with me by having me run around town for well over three hours in that blasted trucktrailer searching for a UHaul center that didn't exist.

Well the flip side to it all was that Murphy's Law wasn't really proved 'cause Mike made my loading and starting out a grand success, while I had a good Samaritan help me with unloading the couch and another helping me find the right UHaul place.

Actually the whole thing was an adventure, now I can boast to my grandkids of how I single handedly unloaded the whole truck (Ofcourse I am going to exaggerate) and maneuvered that huge truck with a trailer in city roads. Before the move I was fretting how I would going to effect it without any help on the way (a couple of my friends even called me a whiner!), but then at the end of the day when it was all done, it was not bad I guess these are the kinds of things that build character and also helps people say that they have been there done that!!

A few things I learnt on this move:

• If you are driving something tall watch for the over passes and trees ;)
• If you are driving something with a trailer the don't go anywhere where you have to back out off!!! I tried ... 50 feet in 30 mins!!!
• Lifting the bed, don't dig into the covering ... they tear
• Using UHaul ... don't!!! Uhaul service is horrible!!! I might even start a award series for this :D
• dollies don't help if you have stairs
  
• Spread out your books on different boxes ... in a single box they weigh a ton!
• If you don't need it throw it away ... including that PC magazine from 1995 that you still plan on reading ...
• If you can throw out the heavy stuff do it
• Don't let people who haven't done it, sucker you into believing how easy it is, and why you are a whiner for even thinking you need help!
• Finally if you can live off of two suitcases ... do it!!!

At the end of the what matters is if the juice was worth the squeeze, in this case the move worth the new place, so far the biryani I have been able to get is making me say yes!!!

Sleepless in Chicago

So have moved to Chicago (jus me for now) and what a change it is. In STL I had to drive 30 miles to go to an Indian restaurant, here there are more than three within a mile of each other. There is just loads of stuff around ... but then not the people I know. So its back to square one of making new friends ... then again I am supposed to be used to it by now.

The hard part of carrying my earthly possessions is still left undone, not for long though, its back to STL this weekend to finish the job.

The last two days have been spent in the hotel mostly, trying to catch up on the sleep that I have lost over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes its not too much fun to go through a new place without company but then again I am used to that too!! Only thing that the loneliness of the first few days does is to make you feel sorry for yourself and ask yourself what in God's own earth you are doing here. The moment the daily grind starts though its all forgotten.

So here's to a new beginning!!!

"“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."”