winking star on a floating cloud: October 2005

Books "Gilead", "on Beauty" " autograph man" " shalimar the clown" and this and that..

Days are just racing and Iam racing with them.

..
nites are long.

..finally today Iam just out of my shell.

..
Last three nites I cried for hours and hours worried for my dad.

..I would work until 10pm in the nite until I exhaust myself and then come home and cry and cry.

.then talk to dad and family and have these half asleep nites with nightmares and scary dreams..

rest of the time I prayed...

Its just so so hard to see someone u love go through pain...

hope my dad feels better soon...

lots of prayers for him...

lots of prayers for him...

people at work keep telling me I walk like a zombie and Iam too dull though Iam very productive and calmly do my work...

kya kareen bus zindagi yuhi gujar rahin hi jaise zindagi he nahin...

finally today I forced myself to come out...

today begins a new chapter in my life yet its the saddest day of the year with dads sickness...

chatted with dad a lot who had no energy to talk to me but still said he had to tell me something about importance of marriage and that I should find a guy for myself soon and marry...

and that I should reconsider my broken engagement...

my dad and mom are so innocent...

they still love that boy...

and so does my brother in law who stopped talking to me since I broke my engagement because he loves that boy and hates me for not marrying that boy...

the boys family who are so money minded and wanted diamonds and money more than me, who didnot care about me much didnot even take me out once or ask me what I liked...

people who asked my sad cyring mom how much property I will inherit, who had a big list of gifts they wanted when they knew my dad was sick in hospital and me and brother in law and sis were paying for my dads treatment...

.people who spoke behind my back and told my sis to fight against my sick dad in hospital and get as much money as she can..

and who told me why I didnot buy a 10,000 rupee saree and wear diamonds for my engagement when my dad was sick in hospital and Iam sleeping in hospitals...

and the boy didnot even support me through all this and insisted his mom was right..
who cares about diamonds and money.

..
Iam the kind who would rather have a five dollar engagement ring and a Salman rushdies novel or aynrands novel presented to me for my engagement ring rather than an 10,000 dollar engagement ring.

Iam the kind who would spend my money on my dads treatment or donating it to orphan kids rather than gifting those rich people who are born and brought up in US and earning lots of money...

Iam the kind who would rather marry a well read hardworking humble man living in US rather than a rich doctor born and brought up in US with all that rich jazz...

what a pity...

added to that this email I received today from my exfiancee who writes "Dear Madhavi,I would like to wish you a happy ...

...

day. I hope you are able to relax and enjoy today. I send you flowers- at least by image.

The roses symbolize our past. My hope is that some day, when things are better settled, there will be peace (olive branch) and friendship (sunflowers) between us. Best wishes for the day.

"
thank u but sorry..
they still think Iam an angel.

..so strange.

..
all they need is agood girl with family values and money and probably some looks and education and class.

.someone who cooks, cleans and is a docile girl who listens to them and nods her head and dresses like a barbie doll with all the jewellary and silk sarees..

Iam not all that but much much more..my soul is not for sale.

..and Iam not all about family values and all that jazz either.

..
Iam not that barbie doll kind of girl.

..I dont spend more than five minutes dressing up before coming for work.

..I dont go to beauty parlors nor am I a manicure, pedicure girl.

..I never put makeup or even powder to my face.

..I just wash my face with soap and thats it not even kajal,.

..I dont even iron my clothes most of the times.

. but I dress well in great clothes and sometime jewellary bec. I like to dress up for myself but Iam no barbie doll with silk clothes and diamonds.

..life is more meaningful for me than all that jazz.

..
I would rather be productive and work and make good use of my life.

..I would rather spend that money on books or social service.

..
I love my simple low maintanance life.

..
cant be friends.

..u lost ur chance and there are no second chances.

.
I dont value diamonds over relationships..

.I dont value religion and caste over relationships..

.I dont value people who are not honest and straight forward..

and cannot spend time with anyone who didnot read aynrand or rushdie and is not well read...

I cannot be friends with u and hurt u more as its never going to happen...

my life is a clean and honest..
I am honest to the core and have place for only one special man in my life and Iam eagerly waiting for that person.

..no friendships.

...

no affairs...

.my life is one clean sheet always..

Iam straight forward to the core...

just only one person in my life...

and hope whom ever I marry has only me and no one else in his life...

.
And I will do injustice to the guy I will marry by keeping in touch even through emails..

.I am glad Iam not in touch with my ex last four months and now Iam totally detached and my life is a clean sheet and I want to write a new story on it..

wish I never went through all that broken engagement mess...

this year is such a stressful one with dads sickness...

I thought I will make him happy by getting married and thought as the guy and his family were indians born and brought up in US they will be broadminded ...

what a shame...

anyways...

every day is a new chapter and Iam looking forward to a new chapter in my life and life has to go on...

I have so many responsibilities and things to take care of...

and so many worries and problems in life...

no time for all this...

needed a change...

.
went to borders and read for sometime..

.
If I have to list all those who are with me all my life..

.first comes books and then my family..

.since I was 18yrs old most of the time I lived in dorms in india and then last ten years I lived in apts in US in different cities all by myself..

only true companions I had with me all the time were books...

and then family too...

I was a small town girl coming from a rural town khammam in india where most girls got married when they were 18 yrs old...

my parents also gave me the same option and mom specially wanted to train me in cooking, washing clothes and cleaning..and she told mewhen I was 18 yrs old "madhavi u have two roads to choose from, one is marriage and if u opt for that I will train u in cooking, cleaning and everything so that you become a perfect wife" or second option is study and make a life for urself, mind u u are all on ur own and wont be helped by anyone.

..
When I was 17yrs old I read " atlas shrugged and fountain head" .

..thanks to my mom and dad who instilled in me good reading habits.

.my uncles tell me about my childhood that I started talking when I was one yrs old, could tell stories when I was one and half and started reading very early and would always be the quiet one sitting in one corner and reading amar chitra kahanis, chandamama, charles dickens huckle berry fin, tom sawyer, oliver twist..

.list was endless..

.
today I browsed through these books..

.
"Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson ..

she won pulitzer for it...

and also won awards for her earlier novel...

read it...

beautifully written...

I fell for the first ten pages...

great novel..

zadie smiths "on beauty".

..shortlisted for booker.

..looks interesting a family drama.

..lots of dialogues and conversations.

..interesting eccentric characters.

..
I liked her "autograph man" better.

.first ten pages of autograph man are very well written..

loved it...

she writes about how she stole poetry from her hubby and made it proze...

dont women writers always wish their hubbys to be writers or good critics as well.
I would love to marry a guy who writes poetry, who loves books and is a good critic..

..well read guy.

...

u cannot buy that with money...

.reading and writing has to be in ur genes..

.wont I give anything for some guy like that..

even better than white teeth..
one young good writer zadie smith.

.

Also read a couple of pages of Rushdies shalimar the clown..

.great writer..

.rushdie never disappoints me..

.I love every sentence in every page..

.man he is one great writer who says it all in just one sentence like this one from shalimar the clown
"she did not feel like india, even in her color was rich and high, her hair long lustrous and black.she did not want to be vast or subcontinental or excessive or vulgar or explosive or crowded or ancient or noisy or mystical or in any way weird world".

.by salman rushdie..

.
thats for this day..

I am back to working for 5-6 hrs today looking at more drug screens..
and nites with more tears and prayers for dad and worries.

..
thats life.

.

moviesclueless, love me if u dare and maine gandhi ko nahi mara, circus, long days, long nites.

...

Days are just passing by so fast...

its october 2nd...

gandhijis day to remember...

fall is almost here...

3 more months to go and the year is over...

this year just went by so fast..dreadful nightmare year.

..I cannot wait for the year to end.

..
days are as usual long and painful.

.nites are also long and sad..

.life is going on..

some hours in a day are good when dad is doing good and talks to me and smiles a lot..rest are lost in worrying for him ,praying for him, fasting for dad.

.lots of prayers for mom and dad..

lots of prayers..
I trying to make the best of my days as usual.

.week was very productive , some seven meetings I chaired to learn a lot about the new challenging drug screen I need to develop which a collegue of mine struggled for six months to develop..

..best way to figure out the problems is ask questions and dig the history of the project.

.the collegue of mine told me Iam asking really deep questions and said so many seniors have asked her somany questions now that she is tired of sharing the details..

cant help it ,I need to know answers to all my questions before I start working on this project..Now I know where they went wrong.

..They kept focussing on wrong issues and wasted six months when the problem was some where else.

.its so so important to spend time thinking and analysing rather than working and working without intelligent planning and thinking..

..
week was a seven day work week with two more drug screens and hundreds of potential cancer cure medicines keeping me busy.

..lots of drug screen data to look at.

.finally this evening I finished and sent lots of data and reports to the teams..

.some 65 people are waiting for that data and tomorrow I know I will keep all the 65 people busy..

.
thank God work is keeping me busy..

so are wonderful people at work who are ready to let me go home for another month or two to take care of my dad when I need to go and help him with chemotherapies..cant thank people at work enough for being supportive.

..and for understanding my personal life and letting me go home for 8-9 months in a year.

..I just worked for 3 months this year , looks like they are so impressed with my 3 months work that they are happy to let me go for another month or two.

..god bless them.

...

hope my dad gets better and I can go home for christmas...

and hope I can help people at work with various drug screens how much ever I can...

hope to find cure for so many patients like my dad..
weekend passed by so fast.

..friday nite I worked until 9pm in the nite but still went to starbucks with a girlfriend at 9pm and had coffee and we walked around downtown indy and girlfriend M forced me to rent two movies to loosen me up a lil bit.

.Iam glad I did it..

..watching movies was nice timepass and kept me from worrying for sometime.

.
movie clueless was just ok..

.the other movie "love me if u dare" was like amelie..

.games and games..

.Amelie was a nice movie I enjoyed watching it..

this one was just ok not that great..I am too old now for movies where love is just a game.

.
I take love pretty seriously now..

.its no more games for me..

.Iam sick of guys who think love is a game and who are arrogant and egoistic and think of dominating women and are arrogant enough to think their time is precious and dont reply to emails when they are not even that intelligent,busy and smart as us and have affairs with ten different women at the same time and some who are money minded and too conservative..

.Half of indian men think they are smarter than women and give us advices..

mind ur business man and we are way smarter than u...

If we are nice and spare time for u and write to u, u better write a nice reply back and not a arrogant one,..otherwise u are definetely not going to get my attention.

..I can be equally arrogant and smart, just because Iam soft spoken and nice doesnot mean I cannot slap u left and right when u try to act smart with me.

.
I like guys who are gentlemen who respond email with a proper email, who make time for personal life and people, who dont play games and take life and love pretty seriously yet retaining a sense of homor and can laugh at seinfeld or friends..

.I like guys who are cool, non materialistic, generous, giving, caring and very soft spoken and broad minded and who dont think too big of themselves and not arrogant..

.
I am the kind who never calls a guy first, the guy has to call me first..

Iam also a girl who never gives her phone number to anyone unless I exchange a lot of emails and know the person real well...

but once I open out Iam a chatter box and I can give up my life for a good friend or my family..Iam extremely loyal and very affectionate.

..I can fast, give all my things and share everything I have when I love someone a lot.

.but it takes a long time to fall in love..

I never fell in love deeply so far even though I got engaged once through a traditional matrimonial system and broke my engagement, it was not love at all...

and I cant wait to fall in true love...

.love once for a lifetime and never to part..

.no compromises anywhere..

.only fall in love with someone who meets all my dreams..

.until then dont mind this single life at all..

.I love my single life and freedom too a lot to give up unless that someone is really really someone special..

.
it was anice walk on friday nite after 9pm..

.city was so alive I felt alive..

..saturday also went by cleaning home, church, grocery shopping and working for 5hrs.

..chatted with my dad,mom,sis and even nephew nehal who fooled me and spoke like little nephew anish.

..
sunday went by fast too.

..spoke with dad ,mom and sis and anish.

..
went to see Ringling brothers circus today as I got up from sleep feeling sad with dads illness and everything.

.so thought circus might cheer me up..

...

Iam like a small child...

love circus and never miss it every year...

I love the way they dare and do all the acrobatics..and tame wild animals .

..love the way humans and animals communicate.

..love the jokers, the motorcycle dare devil riders, love the dare devil acrobatics people who walk on ropes.

..its amazing human beings daring and risking.

..I love the spirit and all that jazz and lights of the circus.

..I missed watching this circus with my nephews nehal and anish who are so naughty and fun.

.so I bought them a dvd of the whole circus, so that they can watch this circus in india..

.Iam sure they will be so so excited to see this dvd..

.kids are so cute..

went for work this evening for 5hrs, came home cooked, ate and weekend ended..
Got a lot done.

..very productive weekend.

..
one movie everyone should watch, wish this one went for oscars is anupam khers movie "maine gandhi ko nahin mara" I didnot see this movie, but shwas and this one are the kind of realistic movies I believe in.

.. The reviewer wrote
"Maine Gandhi Ko nahin mara is a masterpiece Technically, Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara stands out for its flawless photography by Raaj A Chakarvarthy.

The imagery of his shots have their own silent tale to tell. If you think Bappi Lahiri is all about disco, his soulful background score has the last laugh. Dialogue and screenplay writer Sanjay Chauhan gets the heart of Barua's script just right.

His meaningful dialogues make a point without being theatrical or overtly persuasive. Anupam Kher is nothing short of brilliant. His portrayal deserves applause in superlatives.

There is nothing made-up about his performanceUrmila Matondkar isn't far behind. Her credibility as a versatile actress is further established in her reserved albeit realistic delivery of emotions. "
check this site out for more on this movie
cant wait for week to start.

.cant wait to talk to my dad andmom tonite..

.lots of prayers for them ..

.lots of prayers for my mom and dad..

.