To be human

I think the reason I get bad dreams all the time is because I'm a sinner and my guilt bothers me. I more often than not feel ashamed to read my Bible and pray, and so I don't.

But Jesus didn't condemn the bad woman who people wanted to stone to death. And then there were those two praying men, "And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified.." I feel like I know what that man was feeling when he was praying like that.

Maybe God will listen to my prayers too and understand me, the way He listened and forgave that man in the story. And like Coventry Patmore wrote -

Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath,
Not vexing Thee in death,
And Thou rememberest of what toys
We made our joys,
How weakly understood
Thy great commanded good,
Then, fatherly not less
Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,
Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
'I will be sorry for their childishness.'

Introducing the Hmar-am

It's ethnic-dress day today, and after debating over a sari and my Mizo Hmaram for a while, I finally decided to go with my Hmaram. Funnily enough, this is not something I would ever, on my own choice, chose to wear in Mizoram itself. But out here, one always feels like one is judged a little less harshly, you can get away with a not-a-perfect-10 figure.

And I also want to be the first ever to walk these halls in a Hmar-am :-) I almost wished for a real Vakiria head-dress, and walk around flamboyantly and make everyone wonder if this crazy chick's finally lost it.

I wanted a little color, but I left my more colorful and more preferred Puanchei in Delhi. But I luckily found my colorful Mizo necklace somewhere in the bottom of my jewelry box. That helped give it the colorful tribal touch I wanted. Now I feel all nostalgic, it makes me feel like running around a bit and dance some Sarlamkai.

I had a terrible, terrible dream last night. I dreamt my sister was dead, and I was crying so much that when I woke up I still felt like crying. And now I'm feeling a little sad, remnants of the bad dream I guess.

Typical, sucky, crappy Monday!

(Leh mai mai, Tribal Power OPa hia a lo va zai thiam tak em! Ka lo ngaihsak vak ngai lo a, mahse hotupa Zorun zarah, hei ka ngaithla mek a, ka lung a van leng tak em tunah tak hian! A phuahtu te hian an lo van phuah thiam tak em...

Lianchhiari lunglenna tlang ngei saw, kei ka suihlung tileng tu
Ka dawn changin tuan leh ka nuam ngei e...

huiss)

Putting people in their places

In my mind -

this is what hot, lazy summer afternoons look like -

this is what real gourmet food looks like -

this is what a real Mizo nula mawng looks like :-) (Mizo nula mawng fual in ti maw? Tihsan a har lo em! :P)

this is what love looks like -
this is what the act of real 'kuhva rah phel' looks like -

this is what serenity looks like -

this is what a real man's hand looks like -

and this is what lunglen looks like -

And in closing, let me share this quote by Gustave Flaubert, there seem to be some truth in it -

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost."

Touched by the Spirits

Third month in new apartment, but Tina's only just recently got back from Sydney. So her room which was kept locked and untouched was unlocked, dusted, windows, wardrobes and cupboards thrown open, with the exception of one small section in one of her wardrobes. None of the keys seemed to work on this one, so it remained locked for a few days after even after her return. However, driven by extreme need for more space, she one day somehow managed to open the mysterious closet, and guess what it contained!

ta-dah! The secret treasure that our eyes did behold, was this -
Whiskey & Rum. None of us are drinkers of either, and we didn't really know what to do it, so we just reverently closed the closet again. 'Chivas Regal is supposed to be expensive, maybe we should sell them' suggested one.

I know little about whiskey or rum. Whiskey, the first things I can think of - scotch on the rocks, the whiskey lullabye song. Rum - Old Monk, and the 'drinking rum and coca cola song'. Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola..make every day like New Year's Eve..workin' for the Yankee dollaarrr.. :-)

Had they been white wine, I can assure you that at least a bottle would have given up its spirit by midnight :P

UFOs, devil kids, & mutants

Quick update. I've been busy and I'm afraid, going crazy as well. I've been doing headless chicken again where I go on and on convincing myself that one good night's sleep and popping several vitamin pills a day supplies a weeks' worth of energy refill to run around on. But time wears on and I will find out for the 100th time that I'm wrong. You get bloodshot eyes, bad headaches, rubber-like limbs, jelly-like joints, and general uselessness if you keep it up for too long. But the worst is always the way sleep deprivation and lack of proper rest wreaks havoc on one's mind...

Like this one instance some nights back, I was in bed almost asleep, all the lights switched off. I was lying on my side, facing towards the window, when suddenly, I 'felt' this bright light on my face, you know the way you can always tell with bright lights even with your eyes closed.

I immediately panicked, and why? Because for the first few seconds, I was convinced that it was an alien spaceship, with multi-color lights flashing, hovering around my 3rd floor window, on a mission to abduct me so they can perform all kinds of weird surgical procedures on me. What a relief it was to finally open my eyes and see it was only fireworks!

Another night, I was alone in the house when I heard a noise on the balcony. I went out to check what it was, and I saw something move. I won't say I thought it was him, but the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the thing move in the dark was Nightcrawler :P I didn't think it was him of course, I may have thought it could have been him, only may have :-) Anyway, it was just a cat. But what in the world made me think of Kurt?!

The most shameful one happened last night. It was still early, around 6:30 PM and I had just reached home, tired and sleepy. I had been sleeping all the way home, I think I was only still half-awake when I got out of the car. In that extremely muddled state, I, for some strange reason, decided to take the stairs instead of the lift.

As I reached the first floor, I saw these two little kids playing - a girl and a boy. The girl had a dupatta wrapped all over her, and when she saw me, she playfully threw one end of her dupatta on me. I smiled and just shook it off, but as the dupatta fell from my face and I looked at the little kid looking up at me with her now suddenly expressionless face, and big blank, unblinking eyes, some kind of cold horror crept up my spine...

I quickly lost my smile and decided to walk a little faster. She followed me, which freaked me out, and when I looked back and saw her looking at me with the same expressionless stare, I lost it completely and bolted, running with wild panic up the stairs, cursing myself for not taking the lift.

I was thinking of the devil kids that chased Judas into the desert in 'The Passion of the Christ'. I was thinking children of the corn.

I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, lugging my heavy laptop bag and my gym bag (believe me, even gym bags and gym clothes can be extremely heavy at the wrong time). Of course, no small child can really overrun a full grown adult and I easily left her behind, but I could still hear her little feet running up the stairs after me, which was almost worse than actually seeing her.

I was completely paranoid by then, and tried to take several stairs with a single bound, which resulted in me losing my balance and unceremoniously dumping myself in a heap on the ground. Only saving grace = there was no one around to witness this divine comedy :-)

I picked myself up pretty quick, gathered my bags and continued running, grabbing my keys ready to unlock the door and let myself in into the safety of my room. Horror of horrors! Our flat was locked from the inside. No one was supposed to be home. Nevertheless, I rang the bell and waited, but couldn't take it when I heard the kid's laughter ringing up the stairs and banged frantically on the door and was about to scream when Orpi opened the door in her bathrobe.

I had apparently frightened her out of the shower. Seeing me standing there panting and wheezing, she asked me what was wrong, and as I started telling her, the absurdness of the whole thing struck me and I started laughing. I told her the entire story in between the crazy laughing, and we both collapsed on the floor doubling up with laughter.

Well, it was good because it ended well and it made us laugh. But it sure wasn't funny at the time. It's not funny when in the middle of the night, all the image search results from your search on keywords like 'beheading' (mine) and 'dog eat' (Macavity's) keep popping up in your head so vividly the only solution is to sleep with your music on full volume, headphones plugged in extra deep in your ears.

And I wonder how normal it is for a normal, sane human being to panic and take flight at the sight of little kids, or be plagued by thoughts of UFO's and scary looking, albeit friendly, mutants. And it makes me wish that I could really count my marbles, because I sometimes fear I may have lost some.

a little love...

GIVE me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.

(At A Window - Carl Sandburg)

Technology from the future