Cucumber City

a visitor from nowhere...

…well, not exactly. The visitor was from wordpress...to Cucumber City. The visitor came in with a huge sense of humour and left a comment in my post on parents…in response to which i visited his space…

Those people called ‘parents’

Age 3: Amma (mom) pets and pampers me enough, keeping away troublesome cousins, aunts and uncles. Achan (dad) brings home sweets, doesn’t force me to have food that I don’t like and even scolds Amma if she scolds me! Amma is working, and is never at home when we (my brother and I) come back from school. Must be the stress…but she scolds a lot.
Age 8: We have shifted to a new place. Amma is not working anymore…she’s always at home…and narrates stories and anecdotes in the evenings and at night. She’s never angry these days. Achan goes to work, but takes us to his friends’ houses occasionally…and at the supermarket, allows us to buy any number of :).
Age 10: We are back in our hometown. Amma’s started working again…and is again angry most days…must be the stress. Achan is still in the other town, and comes home only during weekend—that too, not all weekends. I keep asking or a lot of things, but he never buys. Forgets, maybe. Amma scolds a lot. I think she likes my brother more :(.
Age 14: My friends keep telling me about new dresses and bags and fancy pencil and geometry boxes. How come I never get them so often? I think I have very bad, insensitive parents. And they like my brother more. My best friend’s mom is a housewife. I think Amma should quit work.
Age 16: I have a lot of friends and hang out with them a lot. Amma doesn’t like it too much…she likes my friends, but not the amount of time I spend with them. She thinks I should be more at home. I don’t like it when she behaves like this. My brother goes around with his friends; yet Amma says nothing…in fact she tells me that he’s more loving and ‘homely’. Dad never interferes in anything that we do…is he too detached or is he just leaving us to be independent? And I think Amma should quit work.
Age 17: I hate being at home these days…even my brother is away at the college hostel. Dad is kind of angry these days…and too distant from us. I think Amma should quit work. She is also stressed out and irritable. I wish I could get away from home…and from my hometown ! I’m not brilliant at studies…and I think Amma despises me for that…she always says my brother studies very well. I think she likes him more :(. I failed miserably in the engineering admission test. Am sure Amma will hate me even more. Who cares…I have enough friends!
Age 18: Achan and Amma surprised me tremendously by making me feel good about not getting into engineering. They told me to join for Arts…English Literature…Amma even said she knows I’ll excel in that. Wow…she thinks I can be good in something?? WoW!
Age 19: Am doing well in college…my professors had called in Amma for a meeting…and she told me she’s proud of me…from what she heard from them. Dad is super cool. When I told him I had got into a relationship and ow wanted to back off, he stood by me and helped! Amma and Achan takes every chance to encourage me in whatever I do…whatever decisions I make…but they guide me if my decision is wrong—with delicate words…they are really lovely people. Only lucky people gets parents like them!
Age 20: Something tragic happened at home…my brother had a mishap…everyone is scared. But he’s ok. My college life is over. I went to Mumbai to seek admissions for my PG. Achan and Amma has agreed…they are really good. Was there for around 45 days, with my bestest friend…though I had a lot of fun, I keep missing Amma and Achan terribly (not to mention my brother). I can’t believe this…I thought I’ll be happy to be away from them! How wrong I was…they are the best human beings I ever saw. As parents, they are ideal! A dream come true!
Age 21: I did my PG in Kerala itself…but away from my home town. Oh how I kept missing Amma and Achan. I still remember how she cried when she left me at my hostel. She loves me too! And when I fell terribly ill, Dad drove all the way from our hometown and took me home! They are such loving parents. I was the one who’d been bad all the while…for never understanding them.
Age 22: I am in love…this is serious. And the guy is a Christian. I thought they’d never agree. But they told me they value my happiness more than anything. If I’m sure he’s the one, so are they! And they are ready to sacrifice anything for my sake…


Isn’t it amazing—and a bit weird—how we fail to understand some of the most important people in our lives? Comparison being one of the prime characteristics of humans, we always look at what others get and wonder why that never happens to us…it’s only when you start understanding what others don’t get, that you realise the blessings you are laden with. A series of life experiences and situations made me realise how extremely lucky I was to get parents like mine. If there’s something I’d never give away for all the goodness in the world, it’s them...my Dad and Mom…they are a dream come true!! Lov ya both!!

I am a girl...

...and i just love being one!

Speaking for a moment for all girls, it is understandable when one of us say "i hate being a girl!"...understandable that one (or many) situation or the other at that moment made her say that. What i just dont understand is why guys perk up immediately and say "yea, being a guy is much better!" If you ask me, being a guy is always better...but only for guys; and being a girl is best...but only for girls! If one of us were to ever get a chance to be the other one, i'm sure it'd be hell.

I grew up to very supportive and broad-minded parents and an adoring, adorable elder brother. Like a girl (am not using ‘typical’ as a prefix, since I feel there’s nothing ‘typical’ about girls!), I used to be weepy and shy. Then I slowly grew up to be a tom boy—all my friends were actually my brother’s friends; the games I played with them were all cricket, wrestling-in-the-mud, war-games and all typical Indian games that boys usually play. Then I grew up again to be a girls-only type! For almost 4-5 years, I never had a single friend of the male type! And again, back to a mixed crowd I jumped…and became hugely popular with guys again…this time, mine own friends, along with my brother’s.

In spite of all this, I still remained a girl…and even when I’m in the midst of guys, I’m a girl by myself…I am not sad I cant talk about cars or cricket—I have a goldfish’s brain for these things, apart from many other ;) …I’ve never learnt to drive (feel ashamed when my mom makes fun, but am thankful I don’t get sent to shop after shop to buy stuff for the house :D) and to answer one of the popular mails floating around, I’m not sad I cant jump into a pool wearing a white shirt…that I cant jump into a pool wearing no shirt…that I cant pee anywhere on the road…that I cant pee while I’m standing…buf!! but still, I love being a girl…and I love everything about being a girl…being who I am…

Am not a feminist…I hate that genre and drear to think of being one. I don’t think guys are chauvinists…its just that they are proud of being guys—and just don’t realise that we re proud to be girls ourselves!! Am I making any sense at all? Ok, here’s why I’m writing this…

A friend spoke to me a few days back…and when I told him I had decided to take a break from work for a while and go home, he told me “look, don’t be a fool and act like a girl. You are not just a girl, you are more than that”!! Hello, now do you want me to do specifics and prove that I happen to be a girl? The “more than that” part is appreciated, thank you; but what about the “not just a girl”? I really don’t understand why guys think it’s a compliment to tell a girl “you are not just a girl/don’t act like a girl” Act??? Did you actually use that word??
I had barely come over it when, while out shopping (I had bought one dress from an outlet and was heading towards the next) another friend asks “why are you behaving like other girls? (implying that I’m ‘different’!) Do you have to go to more than one shop to buy a couple of shirts??”. Dude, if you got a problem, head home…I can shop without you!!

Now what is all this? What do “other girls” do?
• Weep when they are sad? Despair over a snub? • Cry when in pain? • Enjoy the rain? And the wind and the smell after that? • Take more than 30 minutes to buy 4 shirts? And go to more than one shop for that? • Prefer books over sports? Generally? • Giggle over silly jokes? • Giggle over no joke? • Like stuffed toys? • Keep a diary and write in it?

Well I also do all these things…and crazier stuff than this…call me unpredictable; call me eccentric; call me a girl…but please don’t call me “different” and don’t ask my why I behave like a girl! The answer is right in your face, dodo!!
And yea: if you find the way girls behave to be funny, get yourself tested…maybe you really dont know the difference between the genders. By the way, we don’t think guys behave funny! Period.

So, where did I go?


I was born in a family of four, to parents who allowed independence of thoughts and decisions and always gave a chance to become a self-reliant, self-respecting but disciplined individual. I was never forced to do anything against the ethics and ideals I had grown up with. The greatest motivator I had in life was a brother whom I adored. He never created situations in which I would have to put away the individuality with which I’d grown up. I was happy with life and its offerings, free to trace the road towards the future, free to make and take decisions.

Then I fell in love…….. I was elated!! The partner I found for life was accepted by the family with open arms. I was amazed and exhilarated since I began getting added joy in life. As the days passed, I was totally caught up in the love that was so warm and lively. But I had a minor problem. The partner lived far away and I desperately wanted to be with the partner. But at the same time, I was reluctant to leave the parents alone and go away from them; I felt that would be selfish. I was in a dilemma. Then I began trying to reason with the partner as to why I could not join the partner soon. It seemed to work, but I knew that the partner was sad. Caught between the love of the parents and that of the partner, I started realising the every decision I took would somehow affect either party. I also realised that the individuality and freedom with which I had lived for so long was becoming limited as I had to be in accordance with the personality of the partner. I awakened to the fact that the ‘individual’ which I had been all these years was now getting torn apart. I could no longer decide things alone…but still, I moved on…sometimes content, sometimes in despair…So where did I go?? What did I do?? Can I be brought back to be who I was?? Or is ‘I’ lost amidst that multitude of other ‘I’s?

No, that was not my story. It was not a First Person Narrative. ‘I’ was just used as a name, like your name and mine…to tell the story of how you and I get entangled in that web called ‘love’. As for me, I’m not a cynic, neither a sadist nor a pessimist to say that being in love is a disaster. It definitely is not. But that’s not all that love is not…love is not bliss and love is definitely not blind! Unless the love is unconditional—then it certainly is blind and shall be bliss. Otherwise, NO! And more often than not, only one among thousands would be unconditional. Even a mother’s love is seldom unconditional. And that is why these ‘I’s get lost in that web.

Love makes one feel that their partner is ‘all mine’ and easily forgets that the partner has a mind, heart and individuality of her/his own—and this, in turn, invites that dreadful character called ‘possessiveness’ into the mind. The rest is a battle—to let or not to let possessiveness take over. That is a phase of ‘love’ when you regret having succumbed to its cuddly clutches! But hey, love isn’t all that disturbing. It is just a new route you start to travel on, being responsible for another’s emotions, which would be to you as valuable as your own. All you have to do is “think”—

think that your partner is not you.
think that your partner can never be you.
think that even if your partner tries to be you, it wont work (don’t do it; don’t expect it done either!)
think that it's ok for your partner to indulge in him/herself occasionally (yu do it too, but never realise!)
think that if your partner can apologise, well…so can you!
think that letting-go of your ego is the best decision you can ever make.
think that their emotions are as opaque as yours. (mind-reading is impossible; so open up!)

—and finally accept that there is no book or article on earth that offers ‘101 Solutions for a Problem-free Love Life’. The ‘think’ points I mentioned above would be only the tip of the iceberg of solutions. Disappointingly, no scientist or underwater camera is ever going to help you find the hidden iceberg for you! It just leaves tips like this here and there, which people like me grab and put into books and articles. So, instead of hunting for the iceberg, it would be for your best intent that you just make sure there’s never any space for ice between you and your partner. Stay frost-free!

Courtesy: My Partner!

Is this person a friend ? If so, which kind ??