Zeenat and Muskaan

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

We Turned Two!

Muskaan and Zeenat are 12 year old twin girls who reside in Dallupura village, which lies on the border of Noida and falls under the Kondli constituency. Muskaan wants to grow up to be a doctor and Zeenat wants to become a policewoman. “Next year we will be older and will keep the Rozas, like our Mother”, says Zeenat.

”Zeenat troubles me more because she’s younger. She speaks more and I study more,” Muskaan says rather timidly.In response, Zeenat giggles uncontrollably.

“Who loves Mom more” I ask? “Mein”, they both yell out.

Kalichidis for the friends

Image | Posted on August 31, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

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Parents of the bride

Image | Posted on August 31, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

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The Fathers

Image | Posted on August 31, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

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The Wedding

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

The Maternal Side

Salma

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

Salma

My name is Salma. I’m 21 years old. This is the first time that I’m coming to the Jama Masjid. I got married around three months ago and my husband brought me here. No! I’m not too young to be married. We courted for five years and then we had the nikah.

Zoya

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

Zoya pyaar se Rosy.

”I’m 15 years old and I reside in Trilok Puri. Though, I’m still studying, when I grow up I want to be a Police Officer.”

Normal

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

I stumbled out of my slumber this morning with a scream stuck in my gut. “Oh God! I really can’t look at another human being or much worse speak to one, today.” I thought, as I tried to make sense of the time. I needed a break from the routine of the past month. I’ve always wanted to try leading a monotonous existence, just to see if I can. So I did. This is what it looked like. Get up in the morning.. go for work..come back..grab a bite..rush to the gym…go for a drive… chat for ten minutes…eat…watch tele and sleep. Once a week catch up with an acquaintance.

As much as I enjoyed proving to myself I could, it was time to catch up, with moi. So, I lay in bed alternatively staring at the ceiling and the photograph of my brother, that hangs over my bed. Soon, I fell into a reverie. Around late afternoon, I needed my head to be filled with an interesting thought.

A few days ago, a book- The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho, had found me. So I turned to it and Voila! on Page 53, I found the answer to a question, I wish I’d asked.

Javits- the second character a film distributor, who is murdered by the protagonist -Igor; keeps a list of what it means to be ‘normal’. He shares this with his two ‘friends'(bodyguards), while he waits for someone to arrive.

”Normal is anything that makes us forget who we are and what we want; that way we can work in order to produce, reproduce and earn money.”

”Working from to nine to five every day at something that gives you no pleasure at all just so that after thirty years you can retire.”

”Keeping a smile on your lips even when you are on the verge of tears. Feeling sorry for those who show their feelings.”

”Believing your parents are always right.”

”Swearing when in heavy traffic.” And so on and so forth.

I wonder what my definition of normal would be. Standing with the majority or feeling superior to someone who obviously has far less than you- these are quite normal. I’m going to think about it while I get shuteye.

Love and all

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

Deepika Kochar

Since it’s our second anniversary and this is a special edition, I’m ditching the chronologic format of this section for this month. I share with you the images of the actual wedding. As an attempt to fathom the phenomena called love. Just a quick background- A while before the marriage ceremony took place in front of the whole wide world; Mom and Dad had already secretly tied the knot (the four pheras around the Granth sahib and all) on the insistence of my Mother. You see, my maternal side is hugely obsessed with looks and they didn’t approve of my Dad because they thought he wasn’t good enough. So Mommy darling, convinced my Father that this was the only way to get their approval. And that’s exactly how it played out. First, the siblings got to know and then the parents. Eventually, My Mom married the man she’s still obsessed with after 37 years of marriage. This is the reason why Dad says that the ‘aashiz mizaaj’ trait, of his children came from their Mother.

Araz and Yaseem

Image | Posted on August 7, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

Araz and Yaseem

I met Araz and Yaseem at Jama Masjid.

Araz and Yaseem are 17 year olds who reside near the Jama Masjid. ”Dada ke zamaane se reh rahen yahan par.” I know this area like the back of my head. When I was 7 or 8 years old, I used to climb on the minar of the Masjid. Yaseem, was not interested in talking, though.

Beginnings

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Saadiya Kochar

"How do porcupines mate?"- very carefully. No surprise that it was the first thing I got inked.

“How do porcupines mate?”- very carefully. The first tattoo.

“Which is the best relationship you’ve had ?” asked my female friend, as we mused over Single life in Delhi with a cup of tea, on her Lajpat Nagar terrace. ”It depends on what you define as the best. If by that you mean something that was really romantic and gave me a sense of belonging…that would be the relationship I was in, when I was twenty.” And then came the but! ”But something is to be said about time, being comfortable and not running away. So I would say, the one that lasted the longest.” It was serene, the ambience… discussing matters of the heart on a cloudy evening, a stone throw away from the place I worked at…with the boy who managed to catch me with my guard down.

A couple of weeks later, an argument ensues. ”Why are you not thinking about it?”, asks the man who waits patiently on the sideline. The standard reply, ” I’ll be ready in a few months”, has worn itself thin. After a year of saying the same thing, by now I’ve realized that this phase is going to last a while! So I blurt out, ”I don’t think I can do this, for a long time.” A part of me feels a twinge as I say this to my friend but my quills are back in place and I’ve always been a bit pokey. Though, it does make me wonder what love is and when I’ll be ready for it.

So I glance through my favourite book on the topic. The first chapter of Rashna Imhalsy-Gandhy’s book, The Psychology of Love, is called The Perils of Falling In Love. She quotes Carl Jung,”We fall in love against our will. Our hearts suddenly go off on crazy paths of their own, leaving our cool collected minds aghast and struggling vainly to maintain order and dignity.” The book makes a very interesting read. From love to separation, from aloneness to triangular relationships, this Delhi based psychologist uses Indian mythological figures to convey her message.

I find a beautiful quote from Captain Correlli’s Mandolin.”When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!“

Ram Das in his seminar, ‘Exploring the Heart Of Healing’ said about love, ”We go through life meeting people- and then we meet somebody, where their being and your being is such, that it is like a key that fits into a lock, and it opens. You experience the deepest part of yourself-which is a quality which you experience as love, and you say ”I am in love”.The predicament is such -what you are saying is-‘I am in love with you’.What that is, the attachment to the method that worked to allow you to open the door in yourself, where you yourself are love. But, since you have been cut off from that place for so long, and you are hungry for it, you get addicted to your connection-to the place in yourself-where you are love. You want to be in that state so much, that you say to the person: ”I want to possess you for the rest of my life.”

My spiritual friends insist my heart chakra is blocked and needs healing, that’s the reason my key is not fitting into any lock these days. My male friends insist that the last relationship was the final nail in the coffin. With a memory like mine (Can’t retain anything) and a defense mechanism so fabulous, I seriously doubt it. I don’t think that my muscular organ which pumps blood, is to be blamed here, either. I think it’s my head…it’s just bored..like the saying goes-I’ve been to the circus and seen the clown or been there, done that, sounds nicer.

The spat with my friend has really made me wonder if I’ve become ‘incapable of feeling anything’. I search the World Wide Web and find Kim Casali’s, illustrations- ‘Love is…’. Kim started the cartoon strip as notes to her husband- to- be. They were first published in 1970 and though Kim is no more, her son and artist Bill Aspery maintain a website called http://loveiscomix.com. Today’s post says, ‘ Love is buying into a life together.’ I randomly click on a few more. The one from April ’06 says- ‘Love is…Two of a kind.’ May 07/13-‘ Love is- a shared milestone’. Jan 16/15- ‘ Love is.. the special pain of living on, alone.’ Very cute but of no use to me. So I continue meandering.

Now, I look for romantic stuff thinking it might kindle a spark. Screencrave.com has listed ten of the most romantic movie characters of all, times. At the top of the list is Jack Dawson from the Titanic, Noah Cullins from the Notebook and of course Rick Blaine from Casablanca. Puke, puke and ok I get it. I muse over it. If I had to make a list- Thomas Crown from The Thomas Crown Affair, would top it. Yes, I know it’s not a chick flick rather a film about an art heist. But for me the most romantic scene ever is when Thomas Crown asks Catherine (played by Rene Russo), ”It’s obvious that you like men but you never keep any of them around very long either.” She replies,”Oh, well, men make women make messy.” and then Pierce Brosnan says, ”Here’s to the fear of being trapped.” Now that’s romantic… to be able to see a woman for the porcupine she is, love her enough to know the only way to keep her is to outsmart her.

This reminds me of a story from, Women Who Run With Wolves- The Skeleton Woman. Clarrisa Pinkola Estes retells a Native tale of a woman who is thrown down a cliff by her father and her skeleton lies at the bottom of the sea. A fisherman’s hook gets caught in her rib cage and their tangled tango begins. They try to escape, both terribly afraid of each other. Eventually, they see each other, in another light and live happily ever after. The gist of the story is really nothing like the story. I don’t want to retell it, so read it. But I’ve come to this conclusion after this futile exercise. Each person’s notion of love is different. Simple women like simple stories whereas, tangled women like tangled stories. As long as the story is interesting and doesn’t hit the snooze button in my brain, eventually I think I’ll be willing to write a new one.

A 100 pieces of me-project

Reflections from a few encounters

Monthly Archives: August 2015

Zeenat and Muskaan

Kalichidis for the friends

Parents of the bride

The Fathers

The Wedding

Salma

Zoya

Normal

A few days ago, a book- The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho, had found me. So I turned to it and Voila! on Page 53, I found the answer to a question, I wish I’d asked.

Javits- the second character a film distributor, who is murdered by the protagonist -Igor; keeps a list of what it means to be ‘normal’. He shares this with his two ‘friends'(bodyguards), while he waits for someone to arrive.

”Normal is anything that makes us forget who we are and what we want; that way we can work in order to produce, reproduce and earn money.”

”Working from to nine to five every day at something that gives you no pleasure at all just so that after thirty years you can retire.”

”Keeping a smile on your lips even when you are on the verge of tears. Feeling sorry for those who show their feelings.”

”Believing your parents are always right.”

”Swearing when in heavy traffic.” And so on and so forth.

I wonder what my definition of normal would be. Standing with the majority or feeling superior to someone who obviously has far less than you- these are quite normal. I’m going to think about it while I get shuteye.

Love and all

Araz and Yaseem

I met Araz and Yaseem at Jama Masjid.

Araz and Yaseem are 17 year olds who reside near the Jama Masjid. ”Dada ke zamaane se reh rahen yahan par.” I know this area like the back of my head. When I was 7 or 8 years old, I used to climb on the minar of the Masjid. Yaseem, was not interested in talking, though.

Beginnings

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A few days ago, a book- The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho, had found me. So I turned to it and Voila! on Page 53, I found the answer to a question, I wish I’d asked.

Javits- the second character a film distributor, who is murdered by the protagonist -Igor; keeps a list of what it means to be ‘normal’. He shares this with his two ‘friends'(bodyguards), while he waits for someone to arrive.

”Normal is anything that makes us forget who we are and what we want; that way we can work in order to produce, reproduce and earn money.”

”Working from to nine to five every day at something that gives you no pleasure at all just so that after thirty years you can retire.”

”Keeping a smile on your lips even when you are on the verge of tears. Feeling sorry for those who show their feelings.”

”Believing your parents are always right.”

”Swearing when in heavy traffic.” And so on and so forth.

I wonder what my definition of normal would be. Standing with the majority or feeling superior to someone who obviously has far less than you- these are quite normal. I’m going to think about it while I get shuteye.

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I met Araz and Yaseem at Jama Masjid.

Araz and Yaseem are 17 year olds who reside near the Jama Masjid. ”Dada ke zamaane se reh rahen yahan par.” I know this area like the back of my head. When I was 7 or 8 years old, I used to climb on the minar of the Masjid. Yaseem, was not interested in talking, though.

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