The world is collared

O dear! Linda has given us a Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt as “collar.” 

A month or two back that would have probably had me picturing the tailor’s shop with their many patterns for necks and collars, or perhaps an Elizabethan film with those fancy frilly high necks that look so elegant. But considering that a pet cone is also called an E-Collar, we can imagine how comfortable the poor ladies felt.

At that point I would have gone into a rant about how collars and corsets were yet another tool of the patriarchy.

But today a very different thought flows through my mind – of the state of post-Covid economy and its impact on livelihood. Just yesterday I was listening to a talk on how the rigid Indian lockdown has rendered lakhs of blue collar workers jobless and that it was going to take its toll on the white collar workers next. This one little invisible virus has affected the entire world, and yet we refuse to learn any lessons. We continue to over-estimate our importance and rights as a species, refuse to acknowledge the damage that we are doing, stay oblivious to the fact that we are so tethered together in this global economy that the days of ‘his problem is not my problem’ are long gone.

Covid-19 has collared the entire world and brought it to its knees.

Hope is tenacious and I continue to pray that this too shall pass.

But dare I hope for us to come out any wiser, is the question.

My pen is blunt

I am not feeling particularly sharp right now. It’s been almost a year since I logged in and I just spent the last few minutes looking around to see what’s changed. For starters this ‘block’ editor appears to have become the default. I’m more of a classic person, being a baby boomer you know, but post-lockdown the world has been screaming that we should up-skill. So ya, this is me up-skilling.

Happy to see that most of my old friends are still here. I had signed up at a time when I had shut out the world around me and embraced a new virtual world. So even though you don’t know me, in my story, many of you are my friends… Friends who got me through one of the toughest periods of my life.

Lockdown has been tiresome. But ironically its not been hard. My self-imposed lockdown was hard. This is just necessary.

So I have mopped up the spilt ink, reached for the sharpener, and resolved to write again. Now as Susie very eloquently puts it – tits up.

Linda hosts Stream of Consciousness Saturday. This week’s prompt is “sharp.” Use it in any or all of its definitions. Have fun!

Low EMI Celebration

Low EMI Celebration

EMI and Celebration
A bit of an oxymoron.
Seriously, who celebrates having to pay any EMI. Now if they announced that they were waving off the EMI, I could launch into a celebratory dance for that. A lower EMI just means that I get to feel a little less depressed before parting with my precious notes each month. Cause shopping can give me a high, unpacking can give me a high, inaugurating something new can give me a high, but never ever in my life have I gone, “Yippee! It’s time to pay up. Let’s break out that nice Champaign.” Hmmm… let me think. Did I buy that in a sale or for some excitingly low EMI? No matter how positive or upbeat a person one is, I dont see paying EMI as an event that can precipitate any celebration.

So basically, this flyer is just giving someone standing on the precipice, wondering about if they can really afford this buy, that last little push required to jump off the cliff.
You may fly, or you may crash. Rest assured, either you or your legal heirs will still be paying that EMI.

Ethics and Advertising
Another oxymoron, I guess.

This post is a part of SoCS Nov. 23/19.
The caption on my flyer read “LOW EMI CELEBRATION”

Sup?

The Friday Reminder for #SoCS & #JusJoJan 5 Jan 2019

Huh! We learn something new everyday.
There is actually an acronym SEP – Somebody else’s problem. And here I though I was cool for knowing what ‘sup’ referred to.

Sup?

I’ll tell you what’s up. The world is gonna go down hill if we start thinking of things as SEP, sit around sipping our java, whilst expecting somebody else to sop up our mess. In other words, when your SOP is SEP, then you are going to sap the world of a future.

There, I used ’em all – sap/sep/sip/sop/sup. Brownie points for me.

Actually, it’s late, I’m hungry. Forget the points, I want the Brownie.
My stash of Christmas cake is almost over. I don’t want to go into calorie deprivation. Although there is Godiva 85% Cocoa Extra Dark Chocolate in the fridge. Dark chocolate is supposed to be good for the heart. It is most certainly good for the soul.

And just like that, the world feels like a better place.

sup = What’s up?
sep/SEP = Somebody else’s problem
SOP = Standard Operating Procedure
sop = to wipe/ to take up by absorption
sap = gradually weaken or destroy

Ma…

Ma…

Perhaps the most influential concept in my life.

The source of my origin… the force that directs my existence… everything that I am is her… everything that I try not to be is her…

She engulfs me, sometimes to the point of suffocation; and yet without her I would probably scatter into a million pieces and get lost in the ether.

As an infant I depended on her, as a teen I detested her, or so I would have had the world believe, marriage and a baby gave me a new perspective on her, and by the time my own brat hit his adolescence, I had the utmost respect for her. Of course, a large part of my mothering philosophy involved reflecting on what not to do, but still, at the end of my own journey and after reflecting upon my own mistakes, I realized that she had done the best that she knew how to, and could, given her own circumstances, and that she was a victim of her own past.

The intense lines on her face taught me to lay down my own baggage gently. Her bitterness taught me faith, to believe that life would in fact unfold as it was scripted to, and that while riding the rapids it was best to let go of fear and just enjoy the jostles and splashes. And if once in a way you get thrown over, then, hey, ma did teach you to swim.

Until finally, life came full circle.

She depends on me, I guide her, advise her, reprimand her, support her. At the end of each day I reflect upon my mistakes, go down on my knees asking for forgiveness and patience, as I am sure she probably did when she herself was a young mother learning from her own mistakes.

Ma…

The source of my origin… the force that directs my existence… everything that I am is her…

In response to Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt “ma”

The thread that binds

Here’s something that I have finally digested courtesy my journey on WordPress – Human issues are the same irrespective of where you’re from.

For the longest of times I blamed my culture, my family, my religion, my parents, and above all else, me.

I had issues… I had more issues than I deserved… My issues were unique to me… Life was unfair to me… I was responsible for my problems… I deserved my problems… I was unworthy because I could not overcome my problems…

The usual yada yada.

I am a reasonably well-read person. I have read enough to know that acceptance, and not blame, is the key to health. I toggle between bouts of self-pity and self-awareness, interspaced with long pauses of denial.

Would life have been different had I been born in another time, another place, to another family? Perhaps. Would life have been pain-free? No.

There is no pain-free. There are only different shades and grades.

I write about issues unique to my culture and generation. People from different cultures and generations tell me that they understand. I read what they have written. I understand. Sometimes we compare notes. My fellow bloggers could just as easily have been my neighbours. That’s the ease we share.

We are all bound by a common thread – we are born human.

In response to Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday “digest”. 

Sticks and Stones

I have a bone to pick with my airlines. They have preponed my departure to 0730 hrs, so checkin at 0530 hrs, which in turn implies morning alarm at 0430 hrs.

Holidays are supposed to be about late night; not early mornings.

Hmm… Ms Lazybones will have to miss her beauty bath.

Can’t go late for checkin either cause to the latecomer go the bones. With my luck, I’ll probably get stuck with some brawling brat.

Gnaw the bone which is fallen to thy lot. Stop complaining, child, says my conscience. I had week relaxing with friends; and you cannot have a fish without bones.

In response to the Stream of Consciousness Saturday challenge word Bone

I know she can’t

Can you please stop repacking!

I want to shout that out to my mum, but I know it’s pointless. Travelling stresses her out, and she deals with it by packing.

It does not matter which part of the civilised world she is going to, she gears up like she is heading out into the wilderness. There are supplies, and then there are emergency supplies, and then there are backup supplies in case the emergency supplies fail.

She’s going for a week; with enough medicines for a month. Just in case we go into a state of emergency and all the airlines AND pharmacies shut down!
And mind you she is going to visit her brother; so it’s not like she is going to be stranded all by herself with no one to help her!

We need to leave the house at 7:30am tomorrow. She has two alarms set for 6am, has reconfirmed that I have set my alarms too, and that the Uber has indeed been booked for 7:15am, ’cause you know those fellows are always late!

It’s 11pm right now. The suitcase is packed (or at least I think so, but I’m not placing my hand over the Bible or anything), and we have moved on to the next critical step in decision making – which handbag shall she carry? The purse, which should suffice to carry her wallet, some makeup and tickets; the big purse, in case she wants to throw a bottle of water in; or the big tote, in case she wants to go shopping…
Fifteen minutes back I excused myself claiming that I needed to do a web check in.
Fifteen very quiet minutes; so quiet in fact that I’m beginning to worry if she has abandoned Project Purse-selection, and gone back to repacking the suitcase.

I better go check. If she doesn’t even go to sleep, then all those alarms are going to ring tomorrow morning for absolutely no reason!

In response to Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday word prompt – “can.”

Precioussss

“What is it Precioussss?”

Gollum single handedly ruined the word precious for me. It went from being a term of endearment to a creepy psychotic reference.If someone called you precious, beware, they might just eats you.

I just couldnt imagine that a creature like him, despite the endearing eyes, could have once been a Hobbit. Hobbits look like us. A little shorter with disproportionate feet, but normal nonetheless. But Gollum? Yikes!

Took several years and experiences later to realise that the caricature was inspired by reality. That there are people so obsessed with amassing wealth and power or defeating death, that they indeed loose humanity and gain twisted minds. Physical evolution may be too slow to see the physical deformity, but there are so many emotional Gollums out there. They have pockets in which they keeps teeth sharpening rocks and scraps of bat wings. You just can’t see it, Precious.

In response to the Stream of Consciousness prompt word “Precious”

Excuse me

Give me a yellow card, give me a red card, give me even a tarot death card. Just don’t, please don’t, ever give me one of those exotic menu cards.

When I go out to dinner, I want to relax, unwind. I shouldn’t have to use my powers of deduction and literary acumen to place my order.

“Good evening madam. May I take your order?”

Scenario 1: Be adventurous.
“Err, yes. I’ll have this… this… and this.”
“So that will be Goi Cuon, Gai Phad Phrik and Khanom Krok.”
“Err, yah.” ‘Cause I’m much too confused to verify or contradict.

Scenario 2: Place your faith in God and mankind
I bat my eyes at the maître d’ and ask, “What would you suggest?”
Meanwhile my husband is glaring at me thinking, how come you never accept anything that I suggest!

So basically, either pin the donkey’s tail, or roll the dice.

And tell me, is it even safe to eat what I can’t name?
I mean, imagine if I get food poisoning. My face turns blotchy, my body all itchy, my mouth starts swelling, my throat is constricting, I’m rushed to the doctor. While wheeling me into the emergency room he asks me, “Madam, what did you last eat?”
“Yum hua plea,” I struggle to say.
“Yes! Yes! I will help you. But first tell me, what did you eat.”
How on God’s earth am I going to explain that Yum Hua Plea is a banana flower salad with chilli paste and coconut cream, tossed with crunchy peanuts, herbs, poached prawn and boiled eggs!

Honey, where would you like to go to eat?
Let’s just go to the local food court. You know the kids love that stuff.

In response to this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt – card.

I recently got stumped at a new Pan-Asian restaurant. Please excuse me, but I have used a few names from their menu. I’m sure it makes perfect sense to a lot of people, but to me it could just as easily have been Latin.