random things

R and I joined the organization together. We met during induction and we hit it off from there. By the second day of induction, we became fast friends and we have remained so. I remember his shock and surprise when  my hand went up to the HR's call of people with above 5 yrs of experience. I told him, it is my 6th company whereas it was his 2nd. He dropped me to the auto-stand, all the while trying to get my age with questions about the year i passed out 10th, what is my total years of experience, and if i started working right after finishing studies etc? i told him i know what he trying to do, but played a woman to the hilt and did not tell my age.

Now, he knows my age. We catch up once in a while post-lunch and walk together. He told me he is quitting. R, i am going to miss you and that is why, this post is for you. We say we will keep in touch, but i know it is never the same. One of my ex-colleague and i work in the same IT park together. We were so excited to be working in the same campus (different companies) that we met up or lunch the first month i joined. After that, we have never met up. And it's been one and a half years now. Most of my team mates have also left. For a change, i am sitting back and watching. All this while, i've always been the one who left before the others did. :-)
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From the office bus, i saw a beggar at a traffic signal carrying an infant and an empty bottle of milk. Something tells me the infant is not her child. Any mother, no matter how poor wouldn't display the empty feeding bottle to beg. She would feed the baby with her own milk. She would do something. i don't know. i am disturbed by that sight.
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There was one scene in the movie, Paa. It was just about a minute or so. Vidya Balan as a doctor advises a couple in their 30s not to delay in having kids. Somehow it hit me hard. Looked like she was advising me and S. i am not confident that we are leaving a better world for the kids. hmph!

Sis is coming next month with my 7 month old nephew and 3 yr old niece. Let's see if they inspire.
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She:S

She (S) was in my neighbourhood. 25, a house-wife, and happily married with 2 kids. People found her beautiful. I found her exceptionally good looking because she had my teacher's hair style. Those days, whatever the teacher did was fashion to me, even when she put a flower on coconut-oiled-and-pleated hair. Her husband was into the timber business. Suddenly, he was diagnosed with cancer and passed away within a few months shattering her perfect world before her eyes. My story starts here...

I have not seen her in all these years and only remember that she was beautiful, though I clearly remember the blue Maruti 800 that was shattered into pieces by the men of the locality.

She fell in love again after her husband passed away. The guy was the tuition master of her boys. He came home to teach them. The men in the locality came to know, and suddenly decided that parayas cannot eye their sister. I guess this guy wanted to impress her and got the brand new Maruti 800 (it was in the 80s. Dad still had a scooter then. So, this guy must be rich and may have wanted to show her that she would be happy with him). The second time, he got it and parked on the road, it was broken.

S eloped with him to another state with her younger boy. Somehow, she couldn't take the elder boy with her. Her mom continues to tell the world that she doesn't know where her daughter is. We hear murmers that she came down to try and take the elder boy, but he judged his mom wrong, and continued living with his uncle. We heard she is happily married now. The man left his parents and the state for love, to create a safer and happier world for her. I salute him!

My point:  At 25, I was still not married. I shudder to think what it must have been like for S, who was a house-wife with no financial security, and to be widowed with 2 kids at that age. What it must have been for a mother to choose between a second chance at life with a loving man, and her child? What it must been for S' mother, and why does society still bother so much about someone else's life?

Looking at this, I am so happy that my were-married-once friends have the freedom and also the anonimity in the city to live their own lives. One of them told me how she hates visiting her hometown because people still eye her differently, and remind her about her failed marriage to an abusive swine.

Mirror in the sky

"Oh, mirror in the sky...
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life" ~ Landslide, Dixie Chicks

Silent Eloquence completed 6 years of blogging. She was so happy that she got drunk and died. :-)

I went through a phase where I did not want to read blogs, did not want to write. One lesson is not to try blogging once in a month, but try to do it once a week atleast, so that even if you slip, you don't slip months together. A social networking site was partly the culprit and it behaved liked a Mister. What is a Mister? Well, if a married man can have a Mistress, can a married woman have a Mister? So, Silent Eloquence found a Mister in Facebook. An update here, an update there, a comment here, a comment there, boredom, boredom, and lo! I am back.

There are a lot of stories to be told, a lot of experiences to be shared. I am dwelling a lot into personal relationships these days. I am observing, searching and reading a lot about soul mates. Starting to believe it exits and happens for some people, if not for myself. Corporate life, the stressful deadlines, a lot of ambitious single women in their mid and late 30s, single mothers, married couples in late thirties still not sure about having kids, divorcees, married and looking, and a lot of lonely lives... I have met and worked with all of these and some more in this short career span. No, I am not saying these lives are ugly or distasteful. I am saying as is. Some of them are living, 'i am better off like this' happy lives. Once upon a time, it was a simple statistics, an article in a newspaper. Now, I am rubbing shoulders with these people. It is about the people I care about and share lunch with. It is about me and you. There are a lot of stories left in me to share, a lot of stories to be told and therefore, Silent Eloquence continues.

In the domestic front, woodworks are going on in our new flat. Loving every moment of it. Weekends are fully tied up due to this.