Evenings with the Wizard

I will start by thanking everyone who gave a motivating feedback on 'the Gentlewomen' (http://kimayarkulkarni.blogspot.in/2014/02/this-is-ode-salute-to-women-iabsolutely.html) Thank you ever so much, guys :)

You know how a regular day goes by. Because, of course, everyone witnesses a day go by. 

You wake up according to whenever the first thing in your priority list needs to be done. You brush, have a shower, etc. You have breakfast. You set out on your bike to college. You curse the traffic in the city. You try manoeuvring your vehicle through a gap between a PMT and a BMW, curse both the drivers heartily, in your head, of course, and ride off with a vrrrroomm as the traffic light turns green.

You meet your friends in college and they have plans. Be it a plan of watching  'American Hustle' in theatre, a plan to attend a poetry slam or a plan to apply for an Ivy League University, friends always have plans while you look like a complete "nincompoop" with a helmet on your head and 'The Lord of the Rings' in your hand. 

Of course, you can always join in on those plans but that's not the point, is it? The point is that the only plan YOU are able to come up with is a Sherlock marathon, or an LOTR marathon, not to forget Harry Potter, and Pizza.

Only when you hear your friends' plans, do you realize that the Universities don't care about how much you love the concept of a Patronus or that you know Tolkien's poetry by heart. You imagine yourself going "All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost.." in an interview and the professor's what-just-happened expression when you finish with a dramatic "The crownless again shall be king" line.

You spend the day trying hard to think of the things you like about yourself and fail miserably. But there are these breaks in your self-deprecating thoughts that feel like  two hands full of cool water splashed on your face, or like a gasp of air after you've almost drowned. The sudden surge in your mood when your imagination gets a wanderlust and your mind travels to places that you love the most, with the people you admire the most. And that's when you spend the evenings with your wizard.

And you land up in the middle of the story before you know it has started. You are sitting under the beech tree on the banks of the Great Lake. He is laughing at the joke you just made about the Malfoys.

"You are ruthless" he says, laughing.

"You are laughing" you state, matter-of-factly.

"I am shameless" he says, trying to make a serious face in vain.

"It's getting late. Let's go back. They must be waiting" you say.

"But let's stay" he says, "Only for a few more minutes"

"OK"

He is sitting with his legs spread out in front of him, his hands resting on the ground. He occasionally tosses back his head and lets out a sigh.

"How old do you think this tree must be?" he asks.

"I don't know. It looks like it must have been around since even before the founders came here."

"So this tree has witnessed more magic than the history of magic itself?"

"I suppose so" you laugh. "Why?"

"Think about the conversations it must have witnessed." he says, ignoring your question, "there have been generations of students that must have been sitting here, discussing magic, muggles, love lives, the Ministry politics..."

"You forget Quidditch" you say.

"No. I never forget Quidditch" he says, "I just shift it to the back of my mind when I am trying to focus on trivial things"

"The tree has also witnessed the conversations of people who aren't students, I believe, considering you and I aren't students any more" you say.

"Well. We don't go to Hogwarts any more, no. But I wouldn't stop considering myself a student. Would you?"

"I guess not"

"It's only healthy"

"Yes, you're right. We really must go back though." you say, getting up.

"Let's come back tomorrow" he says.

"Of course. But I was thinking London next time"

"Sure." he says, "I hope they have left some pudding for us."

You hold hands.

"On the count of three."

You apparate back into the city, alone. Your helmet is lying next to you as you still clutch 'The Lord of the Rings' to your chest.

"Come on." you think to your scooter "Let's get back."

You ride home, not bothering to squeeze between the gaps this time. 

When the signal turns red and the sun is bearing down on you, you feel the drop of sweat trickling down from your neck, along your spine.

You try humming to yourself-

"Rain may fall and wind may blow,
And many miles be still to go
But under a tall tree I will lie,
And let the clouds go sailing by"

the Gentlewomen

This is an ode, a salute to the women I absolutely adore. I look up to them and they restore my faith in humanity every time that I watch them work, talk, and be. I choose to go alphabetically to avoid the implication of bias.

Adele : She has brought back the swagger in the world of feminism through her in-your-face music and lyrics. Never has a post-breakup phase been so cool and empowering. She belts out her revenge through her divine voice and you wonder whether that poor ex-boyfriend of hers is writhing in regret right now. She flips the bird in the middle of a tongue-in-cheek song like a boss, and you feel the rush of adrenalin that she might be feeling in that moment. Her loud cackle and the cocky sparkle in her eyes are refreshingly contagious. What makes her different is her constant determination of choosing to be happy. Yes, it’s a choice. It always was.

Beyoncé : She is graceful, grounded, and sings like an angel. She knows where she is and she knows how she got there. And that makes her so damn attractive. She rocks a concert in killer heels while giving a lesson in feminism. She knows she is a role-model to lots of women and girls and she keeps working at being an even better one. She has made feminism glamorous. She has made the world refer to the King of Rap, Jay-Z, as “Beyonce’s husband” Now that’s something, isn’t it. She rules, and people don’t mind it. She looks at you from that flood-lit stage but she knows how it is to be on your side too. She is definitely the Queen. But the beauty is that she is an elected one. Now, “GIMME SOME!”

Jennifer Lawrence : She is a rebel and that’s why you love her. She rebels by not being thin in Hollywood and she rebels by retorting to Kate Moss quotes. She gushes over how she loves food and says “F*** off” to those who try to talk her into changing her body. She doesn’t want you to go “Oh I want to be thin like Katniss” and she triumphantly ignores the critics who say “Isn’t Katniss supposed to be a lot thinner?” You respect her for tripping at the Oscars, and for defending her ‘armpit fat’. She has made it cool to be a feminist. She is real, she seems approachable, and most of all, she doesn’t try to be pretty all the time. What’s real is what’s for you to see.

J.K. Rowling: She has that calm assuredness that keeps you in constant awe of her. Whatever she is is out there for you to read. She has nothing more to prove. She has got all the Answers and she has been selfless to share Them with you. You will always owe her for what she has told you through her works. It’s the secret and laws of the universe, if you think about it in detail. Instead of going into the depths of depression after a nasty divorce she chose to rise from it like the phoenix she so beautifully describes. She decided to turn things around and used her anger and grief. And the result is for the world to witness. She gives feminism a feel-good feeling. “Is fat really worse than vindictive, jealous, shallow, vain, evil, boring, or cruel? Not to me.” All hail the Queen.

Lalitagauri Kulkarni: I like to call her a working class heroine. The Karl Marx woman. She cooks for the family in the morning and leaves for work at 9. She is an economist (sometimes I also call her an “eco-geek”); she is an economist who likes watching Modern Family. Oh and she is also my mother. She doesn’t have an Oscar, a Booker or a Grammy. But she has a PhD. What makes her a heroine is that she couldn’t care less for the things she doesn’t have. Her contentedness, her gratitude towards all that she has and all that she is is empowering. She is a working woman with a job that she loves and a daughter who loves her, and she couldn’t ask for more. That’s right , the husband doesn’t come into the picture. Sorry Dad, we’re all about feminism.

Mirka Federer : People don’t get why I love her so much. Sometimes, even I don’t get why I love her so much. It’s just that she is so motherly, and warm, and reminds you of the person you always wanted to be like. She gets sullen when he’s losing and starts furiously texting on her Blackberry. She shouts and cheers for him with clenched fists, and she calmly smiles when he wins with an “I told you!” expression on her face. And despite being so involved in her husband’s career she gives off a feeling of complete indifference as if she is the one who has settled. You’d never know if she has or hasn’t. But when you see her cuddling the twins you wish you were one of them. She has no qualms about where she is and who she is. She knows she rules the roost. And without her, there won’t be any roost at all.

Mrunmayee Saudade : That’s not her actual surname but she’d rather adopt this one than get stereotyped and judged on the basis of her real Marathi surname. That’s her. She cares. She is a poet who never admits she is one. She is an activist who doesn’t know she is one. She is a teacher who never lets herself think she is one. She is adorable but I’m pretty sure she is oblivious to that too. She is a feminist and a thoughtful one too. That’s the one thing she is aware of. She knows she is intelligent and capable of ruling. If you are French or German and deem yourself too cool to speak English, she would be delighted to have a chat with you about anything under the sun and around it. And don’t be surprised if you meet her in Tuscany or Provence. She has a highly feverish wanderlust.

Tanvi Joshi : No matter how anti-social you are, you won’t mind having her as your friend. She is non-judgemental to the point of annoyance. But that’s what warms you to her. She is unequivocally, a feminist. She has no doubts about that. She will point it out if you are being unfeminist and will ask you about it. Most of the times, you don’t realize what you were doing was unfeminist until she tells you. You try to cover it up. You even think she is a bit impertinent but then you know better. She comes off as detached. But she loves you like she loves every other friend of hers. She is who she is and she has no intention of being anyone else.

                

                 The women who are on this list inspire me to be myself. They remind me of what I want to be like. They make me realize that I am what inspires me. They are beautifully and unapologetically themselves. Watching them be drives out my insecurities. They prove success to be the best revenge. They ooze confidence and make feminism delightfully stylish. They all have their own “You’d be a fool to mess with me” look. They use it as a weapon. They rule their worlds like a boss. And they are sexy. And boy, they know it.

*Lalitagauri Kulkarni is my mother. Mrunmayee Saudade is a friend, philosopher, and guide. Tanvi Joshi is the carziest best friend I've got.

Why 2014 is better than 2013

Hello guys! It's so good to see you again!

It's 2014. 2013 is now in the past and no one can really do anything about it. Victories, luck, happiness, mishaps, mistakes, regrets, moments you totally owned with Stark-y confidence, and the moments you absolutely have no intention to remember again. You cannot go back (unless you are Doctor Who or own a Time-turner). Not being able to go back can be a bliss, don't you think? I mean, who would want to go back when they can go forward?

Anyway, stomp on the past because here are 7 reasons why 2014 is going to be a far better year.

1. Sherlock season 3: After years and months and hours of conjuring theories about how the object of our obsession can survive a fatal fall, we have some hope of knowing what actually occurred. The wait was excruciating and many gave up hope of ever coming to know the truth while others surmised in vain. But now 2014 offers us the elusive season 3 and here we are, ready to pounce upon any chance of getting enlightened with the genius of Gatiss and Moffat.

2. Baravi* sampli: Yes, exams are a part of life when you are a student and even after that. But never again would we have to go through the demotivating numbness of appearing for the Boards**. That is reason enough to rejoice. It's like when the Dark Lord disappeared when baby Harry had survived. Everyone was in the jolliest of moods, not caring whether they were being noticed by muggles. Getting through the 12th standard boards deserves that kind of joyous abandon.

3. FIFA: Woohoo! \m/ I still don't get why world cup has to happen every four years. Why can't it happen every year? Anyway, 2014 is the FIFA year and I  couldn't be more happy. Argentina will be back and so will be we, supporting her through thick and thin. And even if you support any other nation, it's time to celebrate and paint our faces with flag colours. The game will be on and our spirits will rise with the haunting anthems.

4. One more Federer: Hearty congratulations to Mirka, Roger and the to-be big sisters. We are overjoyed with the news. It's a sign that purity, love, warmth are infinite and life is abundant. God bless the Federers. They keep spreading smiles and kindness. We wish we could give them a big hug, especially Mirka. :'")

5. Adele's new album: Get ready to bathe in sound. Adele's new album is a hit even before its release. It promises happy songs this time but we don't care what the mood of the album is as long it's Adele rendering it with ruthless style. All the best, Adele. We are all ears.

6. Driving license: Many of us are turning 18 and some of us recently have. It's such a liberating thought, driving around in a car through the dusty labyrinth of the traffic in Pune. Just you and your friends going to the pictures, no helmet, no scarves, no raincoats, ahh, hmm.

7. The Hobbit: Well, well, well. Bilbo has just asked 'what have we done?' We'll get to see the high definition, thrilling and magnificently terrifying repercussions of 'what they've done', in The Hobbit: There and Back Again. Smaug the Stupendous is in a terrific mood to show them what revenge is and we are more than excited to witness what he does with his glorious voice (wink, wink) and Bilbo's commonplace, Baggins-y cuteness cannot be done without.

So, friends, great things are about to happen. Brace yourselves. It's 2014. You are going to own it. Have a little faith and pixie dust. ;)

*means 'twelfth' in Marathi. Refers to the 12th grade in the education system in India.
**Refers to the secondary school examination held by the education department of the Govt. of Maharashtra i.e. the Board.

A few things to live for

Hi :) How are you?

We live on such a beautiful planet. Earth is truly divine. Not just because it has life, and it has us but because it's just so beautiful. No, I am not a traveller, as yet. But you don't really need to travel to Switzerland, Kenya or India to know/realize your planet is incredible. You, on some Sunday afternoon, lie on your bed and do nothing, and there it is. Among thousands of negative thoughts, you finally manage to produce a positive one. And you realize there are a lot of things you can't live without (excluding the obvious scientific ones, like oxygen), and that you are immensely thankful that those things exist, because they are sort of what you live for. So here is my list of the best things about this planet.

1. Perry mason books: One owes a great deal to Gardener, Doyle, and Christie. I mean, sometimes you have got a hundred assignments to complete which were due yesterday and you've got an exam tomorrow and your head is about to burst with all the pressure and you start rethinking the benefits of academic education instead of studying. Who can you turn to? You simply open The case of the drowning duck and you are on it! You do not look up until you solve it. Who cares about stupid exams? There is a man dead in the kitchen.

2. Fifa: Sometimes you feel your life is segmented into parts containing four years each. Fifa starts, gets over, and you manage to breathe through the four years that it takes to begin again. And when it's on, everything else has to wait. I mean seriously you have got the massive responsibility of shouting 'VAMOS!' at the television. Plus, you tend to get more involved because your country does not have an international football team yet. So you go full out to make sure you break the T.V with the glass of whisky in your hand when Argentina loses to Germany. And maybe you were drunk but the Latin blood you never had charges through your veins and you are not a fan. You are aficionado. 

                                

3. Roger: What else could bother you when Roger is about to lose a set? Mirka is folding her hands in submission. But you are dancing about the T.V set, cursing his opponent, throwing popcorn at the T.V. If he wins, you hug your mother who is quietly witnessing your hysterics and tell her that you love her. If he loses, you refuse to turn off the T.V till they start showing other matches and cry with him until he stops. Roger, Rogi, Fedex, Fedya*. When you love Roger Federer, you love everything about him, his game, his daughters, his laugh, his Swiss-ness, his wins and his losses, you love it all because it's his. And he is just so damn lovable.

4. Sherlock: You have spent the last two years in searching, guessing, theorizing, analysing or trying to ignore the probable answer for a single question- 'HOW?' 
Following a series is like living two lives. Or multiple if you follow many. You are a C.I.A agent, you are a drug-dealer, you are a Lady in an Abbey, you are all this while trying to do your best to explain how a man can survive a fatal fall. Huh, irony. Oh and plus, you are you. The dreary problems in our mundane lives seem to vanish, giving way to exciting ones. See you at 221 Baker Street.

5. J.K. Rowling: Did you ever wonder how poor the intellectual quality of our lives be if we didn't know about Hogwarts?
We will always be thankful to J. K. for showing us what lies beyond the cars on the road, behind the grey clouds on a summer sky or an unobtrusive wall on King's Cross station, that someone out there conjuring spells and mixing potions, doesn't know how to work a computer or a smartphone and doesn't need to. Destination, determination, deliberation.
Anything you go through in life seems petty and you start looking up to the characters of Neville Longbottom, Professor Lupin, Sirius Black, Molly Weasley, Professor Mcgonagall and several others who died or sacrificed their loved ones for the battle against pure, unflinching evil. J.K. introduced us to the most endearing, heart-warming, and courageously loving characters ever to be born in print.

6. Adele: She is brash and sexy, warm and haughty. And she knows how to make his head burn. She is unapologetically herself and she cackles like the devil. She has the voice of unleashed victory and she rules. Oh and she knows she rules. There is nothing about her that you don't love. She makes you feel empowered. Smooth adrenalin gushes through your veins as you sing with her and you are ready, ready to heal, ready to love, ready to crack, to forgive and ready to burn.

7. Shah Rukh Khan: His smile, his confidence, his energy are contagious. You cannot help but laugh at his witticisms, and his oozing self-confidence somehow warms you towards him rather than intimidating you. He is a superstar at every level and yet he feels strangely approachable. Although he wears a heavily practised expression on his face, the way his eyebrows cluster, raise, move up and down, feels genuine. You cry when he does and laugh when he laughs. When he speaks you are completely engaged in listening to what he has to say and how he says it. You adore him and envy him. You love him but in a selfish sort of way because at every level you want to be like him. And somehow his mega-super-stardom does not come in the way of your wishing to be like him. He makes it look effortless. He is affable, charming, sexy, and by all means, yours to dream. 

"These are a few of my favourite things..."

Thanks for reading!




*In Marathi language, "ya" is used in someone's name to show affection and familiarity towards him.

Her

Hallo! How are you? Nice to see you again!

I would like to thank Sasha Mahuli, Tanvi Joshi and Tanaya Shivname dearly for their thoughtful and efficacious present. Thank you ever so much.

No matter how much I tried to believe in Robert Galbraith (I scratched out the circular sticker on the book, that falsified his existence, and covered the letters at the back of the book that did the same), you cannot erase from your mind what you already know unless you forget it with time.

I did my best to read the book without any prior judgement and pretended to myself as if I did not know who Robert Galbraith really is. But only if we all could exercise even a tinniest bit of mind control!

Am I happy I know who Galbraith really is? 

No.

Why? 

Because I wasn't supposed to know! She didn't want anyone to know. (that bloody law firm!) Yes, even though I am fully aware that if not for the stupid publicity-seeking law firm I wouldn't have ever held the copy of that book in my hand, I still wanted it to go as she wanted it to. (that's fandom for you)

How was the book? Did I like it?

The book is great. But I like to believe I would have guessed it's her even if I hadn't known. I mean when you think of it, she stares back at you through those pages, unmistakably.

Is the writing manly?

Well, no. But then again, I already knew. And that is my sorrow. But why did she use Galbraith anyway? I mean I would hate it if I randomly overlook a book written by some Tony Clarkson or Andrew Fielding when in reality as in my oblivion, it has been written by her. How dreadful that would be! 

Like millions of other readers I want her to keep on writing and keep on giving birth to characters aching to take birth. And I would also like her to choose better lawyers.

All hail the Queen!

 

Have a bad day!

YOLO guys! What's cooking?

Please, don't say meth. x''D     (sorry)!

I had a really bad day yesterday. Nothing exactly happened. But does something bad have to happen for your day to be bad? I mean a day can go bad even when you've spent it lying in your room. Outward forces hardly matter if you have to have a bad day. It's all inside.

The sun shines with the same vigour everyday. But today you wake up, and you are simply not in the mood to see and acknowledge its beauty. Why are you not in the mood? Well, there's no answer to that. You are not in the mood because, hey, you don't want to be in the mood. You go and make yourself a cup of tea and guess what, it tastes horrible. And maybe it actually tastes okay, but hey, you don't want it to taste okay, it's horrible. And then you take a pack of *Pickwick and sit in front of the computer, put on an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S and then it's all okay until you realize you have finished the whole pack of Pickwick. On any other day you would be proud you finished the whole pack. Today you realize it can make you gain a couple of pounds. And actually, that pack hasn't really made a change in your weight, but hey, you want to feel fat today. You log on to Facebook and sieve through the news feed, you realize people are out and about, doing things, leading a happening life, being happy in what they perceive as happiness while you are here gobbling up wafer biscuits, drooling over fandoms, doing absolutely nothing productive. And in reality, you might be doing hundreds of productive things which are even more creative and stimulating than the activities of those on your news feed, but HEY, NO. 

Today is a crappy day and you want it to be like that. Nothing can touch you today. You shall trample all the good that comes your way and raise your fist in victory! You go meet a friend and she says, 'Did you see last night's match?It was AWESOME! Roger won!'
You make a face which says you're irked and say 'Huh, PLEASE!' The friend says she'll see you later. And the thing is, you have seen the match and you are delighted about it and you know you love Roger Federer, but HEYY, NO, man.

Today is a bad day. You have decided it. And you have no qualms about hating everything that is in front of you. Sometimes it feels nice to pity yourself, to go in the dark cocoon of your mind and ponder over how miserable your life is. And it's actually not miserable, but HEY.  Bad days are not exactly amazing. But they aren't half as bad either. You realize that when you wake up on the next morning and feel absolutely brilliant. Because all your mood needed was a lift. A lift from hate. Now you are lifted, and ready to love the world again.

Have a great day, guys.


*Pickwick is a popular brand of cream wafer biscuits manufactured in India.

Robert Frost's

Tree at my window

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Vague dream head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather. 

by Robert Frost

Remembered/found a beautiful poem in reference to the earlier post.