When Angelina Jolie (finally) married Brad Pitt

The Occident always amazes and amuses me. When I read the news of the celebrity couple getting married, the first question that arose in my mind was - "Why did they have to wait for so long and come on they already have six children to boot?" In fact, I was speaking out aloud in my mind the existing cultural differences between the Occident and the Orient. In terms of love, marriage and legalities, the Western world always confounds me. Take for example my friend Christine. She has been seeing her boyfriend Bill for over ten years and naturally I had assumed that the question of getting married is an obvious. But no. When I asked Christine about their wedding, she injected aloud before exclaiming, "Well, he hasn't even asked me yet!" Now it was my turn to let out an interjection. Whaat on earth? Well, in India (atleast the one I know), if someone was going around for quite some time, it was a given that they would be married. After all those years of courtship, the question of a formal asking is out of the question. The only question is, "When can we possibly marry?" But Christine's answer stressed that inspite of love and marriage being the common denominator the way it happens is quite different in both these cultures. I therefore assume that people can be together for quite some time and choose not to get married or they would prefer to wait until the time is right (which is after getting a brood of six!) But then, this is not the case with every Western couple. Christians mostly are in a committed relationship and marry once the guy in question has asked the girl. Now, whether the asking is just a formality or something that is done to confirm the relationship is unknown to me.

When I was discussing this with R, he opined that in the Western world, the legalities come first than issues of trust and comfort. If not, why did Pitt and Jolie take so long to formalise their bond. Didn't they trust each other or did they second guess that something might go wrong and hence it is not wise to enter a formal and legal bond? Now, after being together with a person for an extended period of time and sharing almost everything - emotions, days and nights, children, bed, bodies and so on, how can one just go on thinking that if something goes wrong, one can leave. Is it trust versus legalities or something else?

In India at least, the moment one falls in love, it is not amusing or naive to think that one will get married to that person. In fact, most of us were like that. We thought that naturally love would lead to wedding; Of course, life taught us that it is not always so. Even then the idea of going out and waiting for the guy to ask for the hand is a bit ridiculous. What if the guy never asks? What if the guy thinks that his position is not quite sound and takes his own sweet time? Will the girl in question wait endlessly inspite of living together with the guy. These and many more questions amuse me when I think of the Western world and their systems. But sadly, the urban population in India is tilting towards these systems and I fear the day when the whole world resembles America.

Dear reader, what are your thoughts on this?

Have you smelt fresh bread?

Seeing a picture of freshly baked bread on my friend's page, my first thought was about the smell of fresh bread. It is magic, I say and if you haven't known that smell, then my friend, you haven't been initiated into the fine art of smell and fragrances.

I have always been a sense person with smell dominating the senses. Freshly baked bread is not freshly baked bread alone - It is freshly baked bread and much more if you care to allow the smell to carry you into far away lands where there are dozens of bread episodes which are time-specific. And, no matter how much you have eaten store bought fresh bread, you cannot savour the smell until you have baked a bread and waited till the smell filled the tiny kitchen and then the adjacent room before filling the entire room and finally forces itself into your head through your nose. It lives there for years to come and will come out when you least expect it to raise its head - while having tea with a close friend who remarks on your fine bread or a child who speaks of the bread in passing or a silly song that was playing while baking the bread and is now playing on the radio.

Ah, you will say, the smell still lingers but not time. Those were the days I had time and interest to bake and bask in bread and then you stop. You stop because you have smelt that smell from your memory and you yearn . . . you yearn to smell real fresh bread and you search for dough (the eating kind) and salt and yeast and you work to smell that smell and savour that smell for years to come. Time can never be trusted but memories can sure coerce you to knead and sing along.

Post-script: This post is dedicated to the same friend on whose page I saw the picture of fresh bread. She loves cooking, baking, a hearty conversation and books (smell, feel and everything about books).

Revelling in micro-stories

Facebook has many treats to offer and off late, it gives me immense pleasure to read the micro stories that are posted by my friends. The stories have diverse hues and moods depending on the emotional state of the writer; But whatever the frame of mind, these vignettes of life are presented in lucid prose which is a reader's delight.

Stories have always fascinated me and I believe that all of us irrespective of our age, status, social standing have a repertoire of stories that are waiting to be read and listened to. Some stories are forgotten, some escape the hearer and some are safely kept in the vault of memory. But stories that are shared are the ones that make life vibrant and help us revel in the collective conscious.

My friend Bhavana Nissima and Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury were the ones who captivated me with vignettes from their daily life; And, I was impressed how these vignettes shared as status messages on Facebook were an excellent archive of storing ordinary happenings with profound commentries. The instances shared by them were not once-in-a-blue-moon experience which had to recorded as milestones in history. Far from that, the incidents were insignificant happenings which happen to most of us on a regular basis but failed to be seen with awareness and insight.

After reading these micro stories, I have often felt that simple everyday occurances are indeed profound and perhaps will never happen again. For example, a butterfly caught inside the home and trying to somehow find its way out or a mosquitoe that repeatedly escapes the Chinese bat or a creeper that somehow finds a tree to climb on and so on. Even blogs are all about stories - stories of courage, passion, pain, love, hunger, smiles and other similar topics. But writing a post takes time and needs some comfort unlike typing a quick status message wihich shares our stories to everyone who knows and likes us. I call these status messages "micro stories," which make me either smile, ponder, or wonder.

I have stopped seeing Sociology, Psychology and Political Science as mere academic disciplines restricted to the portals of Universities and Colleges. In fact, I see Bhavana's and Maitreyee's micro stories as reflections of the time and state of the society and the individual. I learn much from their updates than I might from a textbook.

Dear reader, care for a story - an everyday one that.

Love in the light of the lamp

Last night when we came back to our campus after seeing off some relatives at Madgaon railway station, it was about 00: 00 am. At that time, the various stone benches dotting the campus were filled with love-struck  pairs who were quite occupied with their respective beaus. The sight was lovely! The thought that these love-birds could have their private moments at mid-night was a liberating one. In most campuses, the security pounces on these young ones and orders them to their hostels at about 8 or 9 pm but here, there were no such restrictions. Theirs were the stone benches and the lovely young night. The scene brought to my mind the whole thought of love-stories. Most of us love listening to love stories. It gives a voyeuristic peep into another individual's life and also gives us fodder for future situations, in some cases, imaginations.

I remember as teen-aged girls we loved pestering our senior friends for their love-stories. And as always, the seniors blushed, blinked, became thoughtful or rather lost in thought and began by saying, "Our story is not like those films you see. It is a very simple and straight-forward one."  We nodded and forgot ourselves while we listened with rapt attention the account of the first meeting not even swallowing our saliva and travelled with them as they travelled in their minds. When the senior remarked about the first touch, our skins tingled and we blushed and wondered about the many films we saw replaying the scenes over and over in our heads until we grew sick with love for a non-existent guy and then when we heard the senior say, "He finally told me those three words," we would demand, "How, how did he say it?" Another blink, another blush and then the story ended. We sighed, "So many years, you've been going around?" and finally the stories lost appeal. Reality beckons and we masticate those words that so completely thrilled and fascinated us.

As we grew up, the realisation that the love in films is different from the love in real life hit us hard but still we liked to listen to love-stories. Then we fell in and out of love and were proud individuals who now had our own love-stories to narrate to eager teens and students. Many parts were modified and censored but the story never lost its charm.

I am now married and have heard many many love-stories but still when I saw those young students sitting on the stone benches with bodies closely touching the other's and hands clasped, I wanted to go and ask them their love-stories.

Do you like listening to love-stories by the moonlight?

Leaving you with a lovely song by Andy Williams who recently passed on.

Image 1: Internet
Image 2: Internet