Sacrifice

Over the last couple of days, I've been having a conversation with a friend and with myself. And I am reminded of a scene from Atlas Shrugged (we've been talking about this book too!) where Dagny is standing with John and Fransisco in Fransisco's house in the valley. I'll not get into every line of that scene here (sorry to those who haven't read the book enough times to know what I am talking about). However, subsequently Dagny introspects about the nature of sacrifice in the context of human relationships (I think the idea of sacrifice with respect to material needs has a different connotation and different implications. Also they are take the form of trade offs since they are more measurable). This is essentially what I've been thinking about for sometime now.

I better appreciate now the nature of the dilemma she was contemplating and John was ostensibly facing. I can see where the temptations come from and why they are so tempting. Why it is sometimes easier to contemplate making the more "acceptable" choice knowing that one will hurt oneself in some measure, greater or lesser. I also realise that it is not easy to decide which choice is the sacrifice; that human relationships are not linear balance scales nor are they a fixed quantity where the sum of all relationships must always be the same. I don't know what choice I will make or when I will make it but at least I know what questions to ask myself this time around. And that I've found some measure of the courage it will take me to make either choice.

Social Service Version 3.0

I am a decided shop-a-holic. Anytime I get close to being unhappy or moody, I indulge myself in retail therapy - clothes, shoes, jewellery... basically the works. The other day I was walking back to the station with a friend and we were talking about this addiction that we share... and about how we spend all our money. And I, came up with a cute little justification: It is my version of social service. I am making everyone around me richer by spending all my money and not saving it :)

So there you go! No more guilt trips after a retail binge... it beats a food binge any day :)

Inversion

Yesterday...
The city was noisy, the crowds pressed together. I could smell the sweat on the person next to me, making me wish I had a more palatable way of getting around. I pushed my headphones in tighter, the music blocking out the sounds of the morning traffic. I walked fast, keen to reach my destination, not wanting to linger.

Today...
I breathe the morning air & look at the familiar faces around me. Someone brushes past in the crowd, hurting my shoulder, but I can only smile. The bright sun warms my toes and I wiggle them in pleasure and walk at leisure to my destination, the same as yesterday. The song in my ears gets over mid way. I switch my player off and put it in my bag. The horns blare aound me and the vehicles whiz past but they don't make me wince... not today. Today I can only smile at everything that I once frowned at.

Deception

29.09.2008

It is a story of a day ago...

I sat alone in the train... except for the two women in the far corner. I was on my way back from an evening out with friends – a play followed by dinner. A cab ride to the CST station and a long walk down the platform later, I found myself in the second class ladies compartment, almost empty only because it was 10:30 pm on a Sunday evening.

 

The train pulled out, wind coming in through the window grates ruffling my hair gently. My head was buzzing with a thousand thoughts – thoughts of the evening gone by, thoughts of home, thoughts of the week ahead, of my boyfriend who would be here the next weekend. As was my habit, I put on my player, the music in my ears drowning out the sounds that I did not want to hear. Two stations later, as the train ground to a halt, a woman got in and sat herself down on the seat opposite to mine. I would guess her to be around 50, long hair dyed with henna, tied up in a bun, stray wisps escaping here and there. Her eyes were rimmed with kaajal, smudged probably by a long day out. She carried a handbag and polythene and was dressed in a salwar kameez. There was nothing particularly striking about her and I would not have given her a second glance had she not tapped me on the shoulder and asked me where I was getting off. “Kurla,” I replied thinking that she probably wanted the seat next to the window that I was currently occupying.

 

Seeming satisfied with my answer, she settled down opposite me. She took out the bright yellow plastic bag that she was carrying and pulled out two garments from with. As she donned them, I realised that she was getting into the headscarf and hijaab that many Muslim women across countries wear. While again there was nothing to raise eyebrows about the fact that she was donning a headscarf, what struck me was that at her age she found it necessary to go through this pretence.

 

To my eyes, here was a woman who had been out, probably for the larger part of the day, on work or an errand or maybe a personal visit to someplace. For the part of the day that she was out, she had not deemed it necessary to wear the hijaab and the headscarf. However, now, returning home, she found it necessary to wear them.

 

I have known many Muslim women – some chose to wear the headscarf, others not to, and to me neither of these choices have defined their liberalness of thought. But why did this 50 year old woman have to pretend? And which part of her was pretending; the part that had spent the day out without the hijaab or the part that was going home with it? What compulsion suppressed her preference or desire for one state or the other? And as I saw her lie down on the seat and go to sleep, a slight furrow on her forehead, I wondered at the deception that her life must have become – a deception not so much of others as of herself; a deception that probably has now become a source of comfort for in that deception also lies choice and free will.

"Muahs!"

Oh we must... blow air kisses and give fake hugs. Else how can a page 3 gathering ever be a page 3 gathering. I happened to go, with two friends of mine, to the premier of Saas, Bahu aur Sensex and I was left highly amused by the gathering of starlets and wannabe starlets. 

The fun started right from the moment that the three of us walked into the little enclosure in front of Fame Adlabs (with the customary red carpet and camera flashbulbs). At the entrance was a suited chap handing out bright yellow flowers to all of us. "I've seen him somewhere... can't place him, but I've seen him in an ad or something," said my friend. We let the moment pass, waiting for enlightenment to strike us on the identity of the "flower" guy. 

Up in the lobby, we were treated to a never ending view of models, wannabe models, wannabe starlets and such like networking with a vengance. We, for our plart chose to divide our tasks. One of us would concentrate on the clothes, one on the shoes (I volunteered for this part since I have a shoe fetish anyway), and the third looked around for random people that we might recognise. Some combinations are worth a mention - Khaki shorts and pointy bright red heels, Something that looked like a nightie with candy pink heels and a pair of tiger print heels that made a totally stand out statement. 

Somewhere in all this observation, my friend remembered where she'd seen our "flower" guy before. "Oh! He's that chap... the one in the underwear ad!" And as she said the words, we realised, of course this was the guy from the Rupa underwear ad. From underwear ads to handing out flowers at a premier... dear me! Such are the lives of those in-between rich and famouses that throng this tinsel town - neither celebrity nor anonymous nobodies; saved from embarrassment by neither fame nor by anonymity.

And so we looked on, bemused and amused, at legs tottering on stilletoes, flashy shirts and underwear models turned flower guys till we were let into the hall. What happened there on is another story for another post.