waiting for my sister's visit around the corner of the month. I have strangely spent most of my time with her with my parents in the background. we get along pretty well I'd say and yet life came in the way, and we didn't get time alone much. I remember the last time she visited me alone, I was in dschool hostel, it was sun-less winter, with Christmas coming up. I don't remember how long she stayed in my lil one-bed room, but what stays in memory is the fright she gave me. we were in the Janpath McDonald's one afternoon cos my sis isn't too experimentative with food. and it was grey and cold and we decided to take an auto back instead of the whole-metro-rickshaw plan cos she wasn't feeling too great. and that scene is still in my head - she n I right at that corner, me trying to hail an auto, while also comforting her and worrying what was wrong with her and beating myself for having brought her far. she had just sort of blacked out inside the McD's. it was very brief but very scary. I tried to keep her warm in the auto and got her back to my room somehow. she slept all evening, I smuggled some food up for her, and we didn't really tell our parents cos we didn't want to worry them. we thought it was just the cold, and she being used to Bombay probably didn't take it too well.

I don't know when we told our parents but somehow all of that is blurry in memory. she went to a number of doctors, while I was back in delhi for my next semester. and now, in turn, my parents and sis didn't tell me every detail because they didn't want to worry me, what with my last semester and placements going on. they didn't tell me that doctors suspected cancer, its horrible to even write that word now, because it brings that horror back. anyway they told me, I think, just when I was supposed to pack up for good and go back home. the second really clear memory I have is of me reaching bombay by train one morning, and mom standing there waiting for me (usually I think I'd get home on my own or don't remember too clearly, but mom alone come to receive me was very rare). and the minute my mother saw me, she burst into tears, she was so afraid for my sister. I remember feeling shocked, helpless, guilty, lost, and yet at the same time like my mom needed me so bad. dunno how long it lasted, but that time was terrifying. we spent some days at the hospital with her. I remember I used to have a lot more faith those days, and I'd find myself praying every now and then, a very vehement kind of praying, and I don't know if these were dreams or waking prayers but I remember fighting with these snake-like structures in my head that kept growing and twisting and me hacking at them, continuously, cos apparently that was the only way to fight them. apparently docs had found some unusual muscular growth in her neck (that had sort of choked her the couple of times she blacked out) and suspected it was malignant. I remember my dad would wake up with wide eyes in the middle of the night at the slightest groan from my sister, and it scared me to see him like that (it also made me respect him so much more, seeing how much of all that was being soaked up by him). while at the same time it made me feel like I'd been spared much of this terror, and guilt is underrated compared with what I felt, specially given all that I wanted those yrs in delhi was to get away from home for good.

I remember the day the biopsy report came. I kept praying in my head, almost all day, and yes it was 'all clear'. apparently it was just muscular growth, unusual yes, but not malignant and hopefully not dangerous. she still has a scar from that surgery on her neck, and I remember many follow-up scans and MRIs. but the opinion turned more toward, unusual but possibly harmless growth in the years when a female body changes a lot. and the thing did slowly subside and we slowly forgot about it.

phew, I hadn't meant to write all that; for a long time I felt superstitious even talking about it, even in retrospect. even now it makes me grateful and faithful. anyway, she is visiting me without parents now, now after then. and I wonder how we will be, together. she and I are both married now, and are different people. plus she is married to someone I am not sure I know or like. but she and I are still thick, and have in some ways become more honest with each other, since we bridged the age-gap that always exists till you hit 20-ish something. I am no longer the elder one really, we are more equal, although she is still very immature (I think we agree on that) and yet more grown-up-ish (in some outwardly traditional sense) than me. She still is best buddies with my parents, which I've always felt was a worrying sign for anyone in their adult years, and yet I think she sees my point when I say that to her. plus, she is coming without the hubby and mine won't be around either. kinda a rare visit I'd say

you know too much, you must die!

when I was in junior high school probably, I once wrote an essay for English class - and I forget what the topic was - in which I used a quote from somewhere (someone): "the moment you think you have humility, it is lost". I was struck by it for very long, still am, no wonder I remember it. its almost like a conundrum, you are taught to try to be humble, but if you strive toward it, the moment you think you've done well on that front, you are in fact congratulating yourself for a supposed virtue, which effectively means you are not humble anymore. since then I've known in some ways that I was a snob and I gave up trying, as long as I wasn't overbearing.

that was ironically also the time when I knew nothing about the world around me, other than what the school books taught and what the fiction I read said. I hated what they called 'general knowledge' and the news and history and everything real outside of my life and what it bumped into. I was a sad child, but also self centered, I lived in my head, and my thoughts were about me and how everything related to me.

I am a very different person now, at least I think so. so much so that I had a dream the other day: I was in different conversations with different people, in different places, and the one common thing in all was that I managed to be the douche-bag that would wreck each conversation with a know-it-all comment that completely embarrassed the other people and their uninformed opinions. by the way, a 'douche-bag' isn't just a random word-phrase, but it is actually the name given to a vaginal pump; probably for that reason, when its used to refer to a person in a pejorative manner, its usually used for men. but yes, being a woman, I can be a douche-bag sometimes. you see, I know too much (I must die).

people hate to be shown that they are wrong. and its worse somehow if you do that with some proof such that they can no longer claim they are correct. it usually leads to awkward silences and/or glares of hatred after which they wish you would disappear or they would. I don't know if I'm saying this from memory within or outside of my dream, but somewhere I seem to remember these awkward silences and glares.

now this dream isn't far-fetched because I can be quite like that sometimes. I've noticed I love to prove things and people wrong, point out the typos and errors, in fact even my dissertation grew out of a similar need (no wonder its all lying unpublished).

however, to be fair to myself (and of course, I'm not being humble) its quite amazing the things people say and get away with, and its quite amazing how ignorant or uninformed they are sometimes. I know an aunt of mine has stopped forwarding irrelevant emails since I pointed out to her and other family members that a number of these emails were fake, and technically known as 'spam'. in fact, she took it quite well and even pointed out to others who forwarded spam. that was courageous.

I don't quite know how to go on without becoming supercilious, but it was amusing that I had this dream, and how the younger me could have never in her wildest self-centered imagination, foreseen this.

someday I'll go to NewOrleans too

B-grade(!) what?

desis do tend to compartmentalize things a lot. I'd been wanting to watch 'Aastha' for a very long time, but wasn't sure because of the reputation the movie had of steamy sex. actually I don't mind steamy sex in a movie but something about Om Puri, Rekha and steamy sex sounded either too censored or suggested that it would waste these two brilliant actors in trying to be a sensational movie. was I wrong? I'm so glad I was so off the line in my expectations. oh yes, the movie has sex. steamy? I guess you could call it that. maybe that's why the video upload on youtube was subtitled 'Bollywood B-grade movie'. huh what?! I would however say there was a very sensitive and real portrayal of not just sex but the pleasure of sex, or rather the difference between mechanical sex and the transcendental sort. hah! I said it, was wondering if I would be able to describe what I meant to say.

I'm amazed at the development of the characters and the story, given that it was made in 1997. but of course, Basu Bhattacharya was sensitive and honest beyond his times in his movies. I loved how the movie does not judge, although the character of Manasi loathes herself - and yet the loathing comes more from having betrayed rather than having prostituted herself. prostitution is so over hyped in Indian society. and this movie was literally thrown away by our society after being labelled immoral in some senses. and since 1997, not a lot has changed. even in 2014 an actress found to be selling sex was hounded by the moralists, although some women did come out against it and yet some did even that in a condescending manner.

I remember watching 'This is Life' with Lisa Ling and her coverage of the sugar babies in this country. I don't think an Indian journalist could do something similar with such sensitivity, while being so direct with her questions at the same time.

I wonder when desis, in general, will get out of their phobia of sex. and that's not even talking about sex outside of committed relationships; that's plain dishonest. but I'm talking about honest sex, the transcendental kind. in fact, probably the kind that inspired all those age-old carvings in temples and caves before 'hindus' suddenly began equating sex with sin.

I remember reading (the one and only) Shobha De novel (that I ever picked up) when I was about 13. the sex disgusted me, because it was the kind where the two people are mostly clothed, the woman more so, such that her sari is lifted for a quick mechanical marital intercourse. ugh, just thinking of it even now disgusts me. I'm not saying De was imagining it, seperated from the reality of desi marriages, but rather that the very fact that it is inspired from the reality of many marriages in the couple of generations before mine disgusts me. the covertness of the sex, its treatment similar to a sinful and shameful act that must be quick, hidden, and soon forgotten, disgusts me.

Indians need to learn about sex. maybe from their own history. people my age are thankfully growing up to it but there's still a lot of the taboo-ness, the inhibitions, the giggling, the inability to talk about it, and of course to really engage in the physical act too. I mean, sex is not just intercourse, people. go watch 'Aastha'. and not just for the sex.