Feline Musings

Brida was originally published in the Portuguese language, right after The Alchemist. It has been recently translated into English. For those who might not be aware, Brida has already been adapted to the silver screen with a Portuguese movie released in 1998 with the same title.

Since Brida was written nearly a decade ago, it’s surprising that in its English version, the novel sounds like an apt sequel of The Witch of Portobello. I incidentally finished reading the Witch of Portobello before I started reading Brida. And then I realized, that Brida answers more questions about Wicca, wizardry and witches, and Soulmates than the Witch of Portobello.

In The Witch of Portobello, the author talks about the concept of Love, and sacrificing all for Love, but in Brida he scientifically explains the concepts of Soulmates, and why most people have to undergo so many stages in life, and many trials and tribulations in identifying one’s Soulmates. And yet, (in what seemed like a classic Bollywood script to me) Coelho shows that finding your Soulmate is not the license to perfect love and cherished togetherness.

Brida is a characteristic Paulo Coelho novel with lots of food for thought, and clever one liners. I am marking a few here, but there are many more to be enlisted:

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  • “The Devil is in the detail!”
  • “God is the word. Always be careful what you say in any situation and at any moment.”
  • “Whenever you have to find about something, Plunge right in! (very Alchemist-like)”
  • “Look at the world around you and try to see and understand as much as you can.”
  • “Miracles couldn’t be explained either, but they existed for those who believed in them.”
  • “None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, and yet still we go forwards. Because we trust. Because we have Faith. That every moment in life is an act of faith.”
  • “The path of wisdom means not being afraid to make mistakes.”
  • “By risking failure, disappointment, disillusion, but never ceasing in your search for Love. As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end.”
  • “The path of the life is and always will be path of Mystery. Learning something means coming into contact with a world of which you know nothing. In order to learn, you must be humble.”
  • “The more you understand yourself, the more you will understand the world. And the closer you will be to your Soulmate.”
  • “The whole of man’s life on the face of Earth can be summed up by that search for his Soulmate. He may pretend to be running after wisdom, money or power, but none of that matters. Whatever he achieves will be incomplete if he fails to find his Soulmate.”
  • “Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God.”
  • “Finding one important thing in your life doesn’t mean you have to give up all the other important things.”
  • “Life is about making mistakes. Never be afraid of making mistake.”

Interestingly, Coelho has spoken highly in terms of Catholicism and also tried to show a parallel between the concepts of Virgin Mary, the Supreme Sacrifice of Jesus, and the actual trysts of a common man and the daily quest and sacrifice in life. He has also touched on scientific explanations of the origin of the Universe, of the concept of Soulmates, past life regression, the importance of rituals, tarot-reading, dream interpretation, the concept of trance and ecstasy, and even highlighted herbal medication (Ayurveda) and some form of Tantric Sex, where the senses are alive, as the mind reaches ecstatic levels.

Like most Paulo Coehlo writings, Brida book is packed with words of New Age wisdom, inspiring energy and is a quick read, and can be a priced possession by Paulo Coehlo’s fan. Coehlo is definitely back after his misadventure in the Zahir, and is creating strong impressive female protagonists.

An excerpt from a review of the book on LiveMint.com sums it all up, “The novel follows the journey of 21-year old girl, Brida who was a “witch” or an enlightened woman in her past reincarnations and had forgotten the same through various births. However, the attraction to occult and magic lingered in her memory and made her seek teachers and knowledge that would guide her on this path. As she embarks on her journey, she rediscovers her gift through the teachings of a wise man and a tarot card reader who is herself a witch. This woman teaches her to dance to the hidden music of the world and connect with her soul through her own voyage of discovery.“

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All planets, except Mercury, in our solar system have an atmosphere and, therefore, weather.  Mercury is the exception.  With virtually no atmosphere, the planet’s temperature change is driven entirely by the (extremely slow 176-Earth-days from one sunrise to the next) rotation of the planet beneath the near Sun.

The atmosphere of Venus is very hot and thick, made up mainly of carbon dioxide, and thick clouds of sulfuric acid that completely cover the planet. The atmosphere traps the small amount of energy from the sun that does reach the surface along with the heat the planet itself releases. This greenhouse effect has made the surface and lower atmosphere of Venus one of the hottest places in the solar system! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071128155513.htm

Martian dust devils can tower to five miles (8 km) above its terrain, dwarfing our half-mile high tornados.  Global-wide dust storms can last for several months.  The major factor driving dust storms, is the small dust-particle size.  Even Mars’ thin atmosphere can lift these tiny motes. Large dust storms which can occur on Mars for several months at a time can turn the clouds a yellow or red color.

The solar system’s longest lasting storm is Jupiter’s Great Red Spot — raging on and off for 340 years, since Cassini first discovered it in 1665, shortly after Hans Lippershey invented the telescope in 1608.  The high-pressure storm gyrates (in the opposite direction from low-pressure Earth hurricanes) due to Coriolis effects (just as on Earth) making a complete rotation every 6 days (2.5 times faster than storms rotate on Earth).  Click for animation of the s, courtesy of Wikipedia and the American Museum of Natural History. 

It rains methane on Titan , Saturn’s biggest moon, instead of water but Titan otherwise has Earthlike weather processes, smog, for example.  The Sun’s ultraviolet light breaks up methane in Titan’s atmosphere, which produces the orange haze: a smog worse than LA’s on its worst day. If you and I could land on Titan, we would descend through a colorful nitrogen atmosphere denser than Earth’s:  a violet outer layer, next, a thin blue layer, a yellow band, and finally deepening shades of orange until we settled on her cold (-290° F, -180° C) surface — perhaps a sticky, cold sand made from ice grains. Scattered clouds would float above in the orange hazy distance.

Saturn itself is thought to be made up of a liquid, until the core. It would be a bit like being covered in water oceans, but in the case of Saturn, the seas would be liquid hydrogen.

A high layer of haze has been detected around the Uranus’ pole which faces the Sun and that whole hemisphere has what is known as ‘dayglow’ which is where the planet radiates ultraviolet light.

The windiest spot under the Sun may be Neptune, with blasts over 1500 mph (2400 km/h).

Pluto turns into a planet frost ball every so often.  A red-tinted frost probably covers Pluto — a methane-nitrogen-carbon-monoxide frost.

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I was drooling at the sight of the chicken pattie in the caterer’s showcase in my office cafeteria. A plump colleague was remorsefully narrating how his parents, who are food junkies have to go under forced diet because they have been diagnosed with diabetes. He told me that he was giving up on eating goodies, to encourage his parents to do the same, and he was directing his newfound “discourage-from-eating-junk” act towards me. I reluctantly bought a lemon juice and trudged behind him to the nearest seat (I was feeling weak and tired due to lack of chicken-meal-induced energy in my veins!)

My colleague said, you read so much, you remain so aware and yet I wonder how you give into unhealthy temptation. I listened with dropped head; malnutrition was dulling my brain further. He enthusiastically carried on his revelation on the temptation. He says that out of the five senses, or “indriyan,” the tongue causes the most harm to the human body and soul.

Firstly, the tongue supports the power of speech and as the cliché goes words can make or break a situation. Words are like arrows, which when shot cannot be taken back, and the tongue is the prime player in letting words out of our mind. We may be able to think, but without the tongues intervention, most thoughts would remain unspoken and harmless.

I wanted to argue that it’s not the tongue, but the senses of sight and touch that the troublemakers, because once you use your vision and wield a pen, and write precisely what you think, you create a hardcore written proof that cannot be wiped out. The tongue can still sort out a tricky situation with clever wordplay! But I sat there in silence, with no energy whatsoever to contradict the attack against the tongue!

My poor tongue was craving for a bite of that glorious golden brown stuffed chicken pattie. As if my colleague had read my mind, he went into phase two of attack on the tongue. According to him, while the tongue is the mischief-maker by the voicing of thoughts and opinions, it’s also the cause of great trauma to the stomach and the body. Just for the momentary pleasures to satiate the taste buds that we stuff our mouths with the greasy and the spicy and then our digestive system takes the assault, and punishes us with various digestive problems and an increase in adipose tissue.

The tongue is to be blamed for leading us into junk-food temptation. I meekly agreed to my friend’s analysis of the situation and the branding of the tongue as the main culprit that leads to layers and layers of fat on our body. I quietly drained the lemon juice and bid adieu to the chicken pattie wondering how to curb the provocation from my taste buds.

While I had been struggling to get the tongue under my control, I came upon another colleague who apparently had no sense of taste, and yet that didnt help him in controlling his appetite. We were served dahi bhallas with tangy tamarind dark brown sauce, for lunch, with vanilla ice-cream and hot chocolate fudge as dessert. Now these two dark brown add-ons were placed side-by-side with name-plates. This colleague of mine, walked to the cafeteria, served a major portion of dahi bhalla on his plate, and absent-mindedly dumped dollops of chocolate sauce on the dahi bhallas.

I wondered how he would reacte to the weird taste, and kept quiet, just to see his reaction. As I observed him, I saw that he ate all of the dahi bhalla, after mixing the chocolate sauce with the dahi, and he didnt even seem to realize that the taste was amiss. I was now convinced that even without the sense of taste one can continue to gorge on food. The tongue again proved itself innocent. I gave up my war against the tongue, and my struggle to control my sense of taste.

That evening I was back in the cafeteria, and enjoyed mouthfuls of chicken pattie. Pure bliss!

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The two most appealing factors in Paulo Coelho’s writings are:

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  • Varied writing styles and approach in each of his publications
  • Reference to Esoteric philosophy and the writer’s interpretation of the same, through the prime players in his books

The Witch of Portobello is a book that scores on both accounts. Written in a first person narrative style, the book encompasses a great variety of characters. These characters analyze the protagonist, Athena, and the circumstances in her life, from their perspective. It makes interesting reading to delve into the mindset of people from various walks of life, who talk about Athena, as they knew her, and as she influenced some aspect(s) in their life. It’s almost like reading pages from the personal diaries of these people, and it goes a long way in holding your attention.

Browse Inside this book While the writing style is engaging, the story of Athena is equally engrossing. The story of a young woman, who adorns the role of wife, mother, daughter, adopted-daughter, and even a working woman, is ultimately driven towards a quest involving the deeper mysteries of life and Nature. Paulo’s fascination with the Laws of Nature as the prime Forces affecting human life and thoughts is evident in this book. He has also picked up interesting references to the “dance in trance” as dominant in Sufism.

The use of the word “Witch” is not to be misinterpreted in the context of the darker forces of Black Magic, or Occult, but more in the perspective of a woman who dares to believe that there is more to life than love, family and social commitments. In the words of Paulo Coelho, “To me, a witch is a woman who is capable of letting her intuition guide her actions, one who communes with her environment, who isn’t afraid of facing challenges. I wanted to talk about the prejudice that modern witches face in modern society.”

For the Witch, the quest is not for a magic potion or a black spell, but for an answer to the greatest mysteries of human existence - the mysteries involving the purpose of our lives, the curbing of the inner restlessness, the filling up of the blank spaces, the communion with the Forces of Nature, the satiation of the vagabond spirit, and the search for the feminine face of God, beyond the confines of organized religion. Athena is seen moving away from the Church when the Church fails to accept her in totality with all her follies and flaws - it is then the quest for the all-consuming, all-accepting Great Mother begins.

The Witch of Portobello is a quick read, as the language is simple and the narrative free-flowing, with a slight hint of mystery that unveils in the beginning of the novel, and unravels later. I have seen that Paulo’s books are liked or disliked by people based on their current state of mind. For instance, even I didn’t buy this book when it hit the stands, but much later when I intuitively felt that I should read it.

This book, if appeals to the mind of the reader, can be read again and again, as a whole or as personally marked excerpts, because the book is full of thoughts, perspectives, ideas and even lessons on history and culture. For example, I have been encouraged to learn more about the Gypsies from Transylvania, and I was quite surprised, when Witch of Portobello, on one account voices poetic lines by Robert Frost, that have been my signature for years - “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference.”

When your mind questions and your soul seeks, pick up the Witch of Portobello, and be rest assured that as human beings we are destined to ask and search. As unique individuals we should strive to mould our lives differently, irrespective of the witch hunt dominated by engraved rules of life and existence.

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I am too bored even to write a review. A 2-hr movie had that effect on me. During the movie I lost the patience even to decipher the “who, why, what, when, where” that is unraveled nearing the end. And now I have to really motivate myself to write about the same. The movie under scrutiny is Sarkar Raj!

To begin with the good aspects, the movie promises out-of-the-box characters, on the lines of the prolific characterization in the prequel, Sarkar. As an audience one cannot deny the screen dynamism of the Bachchans - they are the first family of Bollywood and they do capture maximum footage and screen attention. A sincere audience is almost desperately waiting for some semblance of brilliance and novelty, and it is here that the Bachchans fail to deliver.

Amitabh’s wise-old man look and idealistic speeches add to the boredom of the script. Abhishek has filled Papa’s shoes by adorning the role of the angry young man. He is perpetually angry and stern in the movie, even when inquiring from his wife about her visit to the doctor. And Aishwariya’s green eyes steal the show by diverting the viewer from the emotions that she is trying so hard to portray - with the pursing of the full lips, and the flaring of the delicate nostrils, and the quiver of the mascara-laden eyelashes, and oodles of artificial tears! Each one is playing their part, rather too well, almost overdoing it!

When I think of it, I realize that the full close-ups of the prime characters were actually major diversions. The larger than life close-ups have you peering more into the facial contours and skin colors that glare, through the make-up, rather than allowing you to concentrate on the display of emotions and the dialogue delivery.

The movie, which is about a lot of power and politics, failed to pack a punch, because the “low-budget” cinematography and production was evident, reducing the melodramatic effect. The play of light, shadow, effects and even the background music adds to the confusion of the script. Things are just happening, dialogues are just being delivered and amidst all the very-slowly unfolding melodrama, the female protagonist is “unnaturally” omnipresent.

Unnaturally, because where family members and friends are conspicuous by their absence, the pretty female lead manages to find a place - be it on the village tours, or the business meetings, or in the hospital, when Sarkar is ailing, and then later when Shankar is hospitalized, when the goondas are being bashed up, and even as a confidant of Sarkar! An intelligent mind will question, not once but many times, as to why this lady has so much access in and around the premises of Sarkar! The director has tried very hard to cash on Ash and the enigma of the new Bachchan bahu!

And as the last scene draws a full close-up of Aishwarya, I am left wondering what the “evident promise” of a sequel will mete out to the audience, who still desperately believe in the brilliance of RGV, and are still awed by Big B’s larger than life screen presence. I would have loved to love Sarkar Raj, had it not been such a half-hearted effort at movie-making.

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In an age of DINKs - Double Income No Kids, I am faced with the pertinent question - To have or not to have - kids (or a kid, to be precise). Seven months down blissful matrimony, a belated honeymoon, and quite a well-settled household, the attention has been diverted to my aging ovaries. The women of our families have started showing immense interest in our child-bearing plans.

My mother is subtle in her approach, still endorsing the fact that hubby and I should have some “us-time” before we add a Bunty or Bubbly to our life, and become U, Me and Hum! But my mom has started stashing away soft bed linen to make homemade nappies and baby-mattresses, and is still treasuring her knitting books and needles! Ma-in-law is more aggressive in her approach, wanting a new addition to the family almost immediately, and is talking about the pleasures of having a grandchild, and of carrying on the family name. The pressure is increasing. The issue that would initially bring a blush to my countenance is now leaving me red-faced with irritation.

Hubby and I had consciously not touched this issue, as we handled other long-term plans like home-loan, car-loans, the inflation, family commitments, and professional growth prospects. However, the constant prodding from family members brought us face-to-face on child-bearing and child-rearing concerns. I was surprised to find that hubby was more emotionally prepared to take a plunge into fatherhood. He mentioned that since I had relented talking on the subject, he did not broach any discussion, what so ever.

A revelation and once again a new gnawing guilt about my lack of commitment towards starting a family! I was quite shocked to realize that I was the unflinching, unrelenting partner, and strangely, a woman who was seemingly immune to the maternal instincts. Not that I don’t like children, or haven’t had the desire to bear a child, but off late I am not excited with the idea of having kid/s running amok in my life and my house.

I landed in a party where all the young mom’s had children in tow, and were discussing kids, and the pregnancies of other women. Someone commented that I must be bored as I wasn’t a member of the new-moms, or the would-be-moms groups. Something hurt somewhere (Oh yes! It did) and yet, the maternal instincts still lie pretty dormant. Why! I questioned myself. I did some soul-searching, and then I pinpointed some basic concerns:

1. I am afraid about pregnancy and related health issues and also about the additional responsibility of a child. I am wondering who will help in the child-rearing, within the nuclear family life that we are leading in the metro, and also in the context of my 9-10 hrs a day job. What will I do after my maternity leave is over? I don’t see myself leaving the child with a servant; and at the same time I also want to get back to work after the maternity leave. Family support will be intermittent and not a permanent solution. So, the question remains hanging in the balance - a child or a job!

2. I am concerned about the additional financial and social responsibilities that a new addition in the family will bring upon us. From medical to educational to growing up expenses, I understand the value of a double income to maintain a decent lifestyle. Yet, the child for whom the extra income will be an added benefit will be the cause of the loss of income, if I leave my job to bring up the child. It is pretty-much a chicken-and-the-egg situation!

3. One of the prime reasons I decided in favor of matrimony, was to have a companion with whom I could pursue hobbies and interests. I have wanted to travel around the world, and enjoy leisure and shared activities with my husband. But with a child in tow, we are restricted, and we definitely cut down on the time we share with each other, as the child demands most of our time and attention. The joy of spending time and efforts on a child may be very relaxing and rewarding, but what about companionship with my spouse!

4. The social dynamics of having and wanting a child have also undergone change over time. Children were needed to carry on the family name, the family business, and take care of and financially support the parents and siblings. Children were important for the homemaker who needed additional responsibilities and means of entertainment after her husband went to work. Times have changed. Most people are catering to their old-age needs and even professional help for the elderly is available. Children also do not remain with their parents. Most young adults are moving away from their homes to pursue education, career and then to set up their own nuclear homes. The independent western lifestyle has arrived in India and has changed the role that children play in the life of parents and the elderly in the family. Empty-nest syndrome is a reality in our country, and it indirectly questions the need to have children. With women pursuing careers, the theory of a child filling up the time and emotional void, and adding purpose to a woman’s existence, also doesn’t hold water any more.

5. On a broader plane, I personally feel that we are living in bad times - of war, weapons, fear, disease and destruction. I have questioned myself again and again that is this the kind of world that I would want any of my off springs to face! I wish I could see happier times for my children, but in the overpopulated world running low on natural resources, on a virtually dying planet, I am not mentally and emotionally prepared to give birth to a new generation.

It may be God’s will or Nature’s purpose for human beings to procreate. I may be born a woman to fulfill this great responsibility and enjoy the pleasures of motherhood, and yet, I am not ready to bear this responsibility. I don’t want to have a child to appease society, to produce a playmate for my family; I don’t want to teach and groom a child into a great human being because there are already many parents who are doing this and our world is swarmed with pretty little people and child prodigies; I don’t want a broken heart when I am not able to sustain the growing needs of my child and neither do I want to die broken hearted, wondering how my children will fare in world that is on the brink of environmental disaster.

I have no reason that would really stir the desire of motherhood, except for maybe the days when I wonder whether my child will inherit hubby’s beautiful hazel brown eyes, and fair complexion, or will I pass on to a new life, my genes of creativity and love for aesthetics! Yes, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak and till then I ponder - to have or not to have!

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Technical Writing is arguably a challenging profession. It’s a mix of creativity and technology, and a lot of intelligence. One of biggest cornerstones of professional technical writing is the use of authoring tools. RoboHelp, FrameMaker and Flare, are some of the popular (and also expensive) authoring tools.

With web-based applications becoming more and more universal, the need for online or web-based help files has increased over time. (For the non-technical writer, an online help is the book and topic-based help file that opens when you click the Help tab/button or click the question-mark icon, or press the F1 key on your keyboard.)

RoboHelp and Flare are two of the most commonly used authoring tools to create an online help file. However, these are not free and a single license can cost anywhere from $400 to $700, and upgrades are also available for a price. Since, technical writing is quite new in India, and most work is being recently off-shored, most Indian companies do not like to invest in authoring tool licenses. The most common approach is to coax the onsite client or customer to purchase the license for the technical writing team/resource in India. While I don’t want to get into the dynamics of the “you-license-or-we-license” syndrome that directly impacts a technical writers professional growth and on-the-job working condition, I want to dwell on a small experiment that I recently made to deliver an online help file without a licensed fully functional authoring tool.

I was in a project, where the onus was on me to “sell” my technical writing abilities and ensure the customer realizes the value-add of a professional technical writer in the development project. So, when I was asked to make a user guide in MS-Word for a web-application, I did the needful, but also went a step-ahead to offer an online help, which could be integrated into the application. Customers are happy when you offer them a little more than what they accept; and needless to say my customer was glad. The only glitch being nobody wanted to offer me a licensed tool. I had the option to use a trial version of any of the licensed tools, but I decided to take up the challenge and create an online help using only free-ware.

The base-code of the online help was HTML, so I needed two free-tools – 1. An HTML Editor; and 2. A compiler for the HTML help. Now using two very basic tools implies a thorough understanding of HTML as well as of Cascading Style Sheets and JavaScript. After a thorough research of available freeware, I downloaded the HTML-Kit, CoffeeCup HTML Editor 2008 and Microsoft HTML Help Workshop.

HTML-Kit Build 292 downloaded from http://www.htmlkit.com is a full-featured editor designed to help HTML, XHTML, XML and script authors to edit, format, lookup help, validate, preview and publish web pages. HTML-Kit supports authoring of multiple web technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and various server-side scripting frameworks.

I found it to be a very user-friendly tool, and used it to code, and tidy up the code for my HTML pages. It has an inbuilt drag and drop FTP workspace for multiple servers. The more than 400 free plugins available on the site can help you to add to the myriad features of this easy-to-fall-in-love-with tool. The various plugins available create one development environment that makes it very easy to use these disparate technologies, for example, I found a plugin for DocBook extremely interesting.

A customer review for HTML-Kit reads as follows: “Definitely the best and I have struggled with most. Not for the beginner, but as soon as one knows a bit about HTML coding HTML-kit promotes the rapid acquisition of skills by its clear layout and logical grouping of tags. I have not found anything in the HTML world worth doing that I cannot do easily and quickly with this application. Using HTML-kit with TopStyleLite and Notetab (both available on mouse click or keyboard short-cut) makes the developer’s life one of ease and luxury. Add the application to your Firefox menu with the View Source With add-on and you are go!”

Another review reads, “Given the complexity and the variety of technologies used to create web pages using something more than a plain text editor is desirable. Because of its many options and plug-ins HTML-Kit can help relieve the developer’s burden.”

An Alpha version, HTML-Kit Tools (build 300) is in development and is currently only available for download by registered users. Build 292, the current stable build is available for download as freeware.

Vis-a-Vis HTML-Kit, I also downloaded CoffeeCup HTML Editor 2008, from www.coffeecup.com, which is a fancier HTML and XHTML Editor. Again its extremely useful for creating the Cascading Style Sheets and for working  with Tables, Images, and Links. The GUI of the tool is also more appeasing. The only flip-side of this tool is that the WYSIWYG or the Visual Editor is not functional in the free version.

To compile the HTML pages into a .chm or online help file, I used the free Microsoft HTML Help Workshop from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms669985.aspx. It comes with its own HTML Help Image Editor. This is again a very basic tool to compile HTML pages in book and topic formats, with a proper TOC, Index and Search by keyword options. It also provides an inbuilt HTML tag reference.

The general design and output of the generated online help file was appreciated by the client, and helped me bag another online help related assignment for our project. Alas! Even this assignment doesn’t offer the luxury to work with a licensed high-end authoring tool. Till then, my love affair with HTML Kit and HTML Help Workshop continues!!

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I am suffering from MPD … not in the delusional or primarily psychological connotation, but in a more practical and physical context! To add to my woes is my residence on a planet that ensures only 24 hours in a day to tackle the multiple personalities. Life has flipped post-marriage and so has my schedule, responsibilities and home-work balance.

Till the time I was single, I was just a career woman and a dutiful daughter – other aspects were in the backseat. Weekends were dedicated to leisure, household cleaning, organizing, shopping and cooking up savory meals to satiate the taste buds. As a married working woman, I have donned the multi-layered robe of house-wife, career woman, along with increased social and familial responsibilities. Needless to say, the earth still rotates around the sun in 24-hours and my personality undergoes paradigm shifts within hours and over the week, and the over the weekend!

In India, the traditional mindset pertaining to the woman as the homemaker and household caretaker, reigns supreme, irrespective of whether the woman is working. The wife is supposed to cook, clean, coordinate, maintain all forms of social obligations, and fulfill the high-end expectations of the new family that she has married into. On the professional front, nothing much changes – you are still supposed to look your best, perform your best, keep the customers happy, the manager appeased and spend more than 9-hrs in the office, which is minus the travel time to work.

For an Indian woman, the pressure is emotional as well as social. While she wants to give the best to her husband, by maintaining an orderly house, a daily schedule and hot breakfast and meals served with love, any desire to go lax and easy is ruthlessly subdued by family expectations that you take the best care of your husband. So, if a hot, savory breakfast was the mother’s responsibility (and love) towards her son, the duty immediately falls on the shoulder of the “bahu” to ensure that the son is sent to work with a fully appeased stomach!

Similarly, dinner cannot be the unconventional pastas, bread, noodles and rice. It has to be a typical three-to-four course roti, sabzi, daal, dessert, served fresh and steaming. I am not prejudiced against this sort of lifestyle, and I in fact enjoy cooking and caring for the hubby, and other family members during my frequent weekend visits to my in-laws place. But then, amidst all the traditional bahu lifestyle, most people forget that I have another personality – the career woman.

I have been craving to take a break from work – to relax, rejuvenate and pursue hobbies and interests. I always thought post-marriage I would take a much-awaited time-out! But alas, a new car, a recently-booked apartment, shared family responsibilities and the rocketing cost of living, have stolen the dream long-term break option from me. I feel responsible to share and contribute through a regular income, and also by not becoming an added financial responsibility on the family. And hence, I trudge on, from the kitchen, to the office, back to the kitchen, from one room to another, as I try to set the house in order, keep the professional spirit high, and also ensure that hubby doesn’t feel ignored or uncared for.

Amidst all the daily chaos, my genes have added to my woes! I am genetically inclined to stress-related increase in adipose tissues, and also comfort eating. I have never been slim, yet, was not overweight. In the past six-months, as the stress levels have increased, the weighing scales have also tipped. I am alarmed and ashamed. My lower spine is grumbling and has almost revolted with a mild slip-disc, further increasing my irritability and slowing me down in my daily physical activities. I feel un-smart and even unprofessional. I am experimenting with a twenty-minute yoga regime, both morning and evening, but “me”-time comes with great difficulty.

I am getting up an hour earlier to plug-in some yoga time, but the Gods of good fortune, seem very angry with me. My office is moving fifteen kms further from home, which is going to increase my travel time to and from work, I am having major housemaid truancy, and in spite of getting a new maid, I am not at all satisfied with the quality of her work. This adds to my daily schedule, when I have to clean up after she has left and also face her loud-mouthed tantrums. Weekends are again a three-meals-a-day cooking regime with additional obligations to travel to my in-laws place one in every three weeks and ensure that I give them the “best-of-the-traditional-bahu” treatment from my end.

Something within my inner self is sapping. I feel run-down and depressed. The ghosts of my multiple personalities are overpowering my otherwise-happy self. I love being married, and I want to be an equal partner in my new household and in my hubby’s life, and yet I wish I was on another planet, where the days were longer to pack up all the responsibilities, and the nights were longer to allow me ample rest and leisure; or maybe I was born in another century, where I was just the woman of the house, or in the future where my contribution as a working woman was appreciated, accepted and applauded. Beyond dreams and desires, I continue to juggle with multiple personalities in a disorderly 24-hrs a day, 7-days a week!

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Truth hurts and it hurts if it jumps out of a foreigner’s travelogue about your country. When I started reading the Holy Cow by Sarah Macdonald, an Australian journalist, while on a sabbatical in India, I was upset with her sarcastic but true descriptions of India’s dust, grime, dirt, dearth, poverty, lack of sensibility, callousness, illness and everything that we have become so used to. I slowly warmed to the author as I realized that amidst all the chaos she was on a self-discovery, trying to find peace and oneness with the people in India.

Sarah and her fiancé (now, husband), Jonathan were kind and compassionate to their Indian servants and made many Indian friends. While Jonathan had fewer chances of exploring the finer aspects of Indian life and culture due to his highly time-consuming job with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sarah made full use of Jonathan’s long absence to embark on a spiritual and cultural journey in India.

It’s almost amazing, and even seems destined, as to how one person travels reluctantly into India, and by a series of circumstances is introduced to various belief systems and the socio-religious matrix in India. From weird encounters with soothsayers and even an Aghori, Sarah travels all over the country, from Kashmir to Kerala, and to neighboring Pakistan, post-911, to get an insight into so many cults and practices in India, and Pakistan.

Sarah participates in events like the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, the Our Lady of Health Basilica at Velangani in Tamil Nadu, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Sai Baba Ashram near Bangalore, Mata Amritanandamayi’s Ashram in Kerala, and the Tibetan Buddhist center in Dharamsala. Her encounters with the White Sikhs and the Israeli tourists make an engaging read. She also explores smaller, more marginal traditions, including Goenka’s Vipassana meditation camp, the Parsis in Mumbai, and the now-fading Bene Israel Jewish community. She mentions Varanasi in her travelogue, Osho Rajnish’s sex-cult, and provides information on Jain culture. She understands about Islamic culture during her visit to Kashmir, and then later in Pakistan, where she is enraptured by Sufi music.

The book has a smooth pace and is packed with information and insight. Even an Indian will not be aware of so many facts about the various cultures and customs that Sarah witnessed during her sojourn in India. From fretting and wanting to leave India at the earliest possible chance, to falling in love with the variety and vivacity of the country, Sarah enriched her life (and the book) with a lesson each from the myriad religious hues, and places in India. Sarah’s experiences as described in the book can make any eager traveler and student of sociology and philosophy jealous. Her experiences are not unique, but remarkably encapsulated to lend meaning and insight to life in India, as we know it.

Interestingly, Bollywood is also a religion in India, and Sarah had the opportunity to explore this aspect of Indian life also. From meeting Preity Zinta and Aamir Khan on the sets of Dil Chahta Hai, to catching a glimpse of Amitabh Bachchan, and finally being inspired to learn Hindi filmy jhatkas-and-matkas, Sarah adds ample spice to the book.

Simply written this book is an interesting quick read into the social customs, cuisines, outlook of the new generation, the clash of social norms, and modernity, and even political issues that permeate the life and times of modern India. Sarah is deeply touched by all that transpires in her life in our country, so much so that her Australian stoicism, is replaced by an emotional and touchy temperament; a characteristic of most melodrama-loving Indians. It goes to prove that India grows on to you, and the spirit of the country is living and all-permeating.

A recommended bed-time or travel-time read for all Indians, who can relate to the love-hate relationship that the author shares with a country called, India. A warning, though. Don’t expect a literary masterpiece, its just a travelogue from the eyes of a traveler, so dont let the cliches and the insensitivity of certain descriptions get on your nerves - just remember, the bigger cliche - truth hurts!

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Nearing the end of July 2006, I was mystified as clouds and mist enwrapped me while we drove into forbidden territory. I was on a trip to Kalsi with a group of new-found travel enthusiasts from a Yahoo group, called Lets Go. The group moderator and convener Sanjukta Basu had invited me to the trip and I joined them impromptu, at a short notice of less than twenty-four hours. While the trip offered immense respite to us from the heat and humidity of Delhi, it introduced me to a great jing-bang of people, who over time have become treasured friends.

Kalsi, in the Garhwal Himalayas is around 288 kms from Delhi. While our trip to Kalsi, Asan Barrage, Dak Pathar and Gurudwara Ponta sahib was a typical hilly-region travel and sight-seeing that appeases the eye and pleases the soul, one of the highlights of the trip was our unplanned visit to Chakrata. Kalsi faces Chakrata foothills to the north & Mussoorie hills to the east. Chakrata is what you can call the “virgin” hilly locations in India. It’s little known and has minimal access. From Kalsi, the traffic towards Chakrata is regulated through manned military check posts, that maintains the influx of incoming and outgoing traffic.

The drive through the gates into Chakrata is spell binding. One side of the hills is covered with grass that gives the hills a very special look like the meadows and the other side is deodar and pine-forest laden. It was a late afternoon during the monsoons, when we drove into Chakrata, and water ladden clouds and mist descended on us. It was not cold; else it seemed we were driving into light fog on a winter evening. For the Delhi-summer-charred travelers, it was an ascent into heaven, quietly being lifted into the clouds.

We wanted to fall in love with Chakrata, we wanted to wander into the small by lanes and walk on the clouds, and trek in the forests, but falling in love with Chakrata is forbidden. The intense military presence and tight security, is scary and your every move is closely watched. Photography beyond a certain point is strictly forbidden.

My inquisitive mind wondered about the hush-hush surrounding Chakrata. I mused how could such a beautiful place be beyond bounds of lovers of nature and a quiet trek. I came back to Delhi and did a lot of internet research. It seems even information on Chakrata is closely guarded, but I found enough reading material to crack the mystery hidden in the clouds.

Chakrata, was originally a cantonment of British Indian Army settled in 1869. Today it is an access-restricted military cantonment and foreigners face severe restrictions in visiting. Notably, it is the permanent garrison of the secretive and elite Establishment 22 (called “Two-Two”), the only ethnic Tibetan unit of the Indian Army, which was raised after the Indo-China War of 1962. Myriad weapons and survival training are also imparted by RAW and other intelligence services in Chakrata, in support of India’s foreign policy goals, especially pertaining to other countries in the Indian Subcontinent.

The Research and Analysis Wing, India’s primary foreign intelligence agency, operates intelligence collection aircraft through the intelligence agency’s aviation unit, the Aviation Research Centre (ARC). The aircraft are fitted with state-of-the-art electronic surveillance equipment and long range cameras capable of taking pictures of targets from very high altitudes.

There are four RAW Aviation Research Centre operating bases: at Charbatia in Cuttack; at Chakrata near Dehra Dun on the Uttar Pradesh-Himachal Pradesh border; Dum Duma near Tinsukia in Assam; and at the Palam domestic airport in Delhi. From 1981, RAW and the Intelligence Bureau established centers at the high-security military installation of Chakrata, near Dehra Dun, and in the Ramakrishna Puram area of New Delhi.

Life in this small sleepy town, that cradles immense political and military secrets, is hard and difficult for the 3500 civilians or members of the Jaunsari tribe. Petrol and diesel are hardly available for personal and commercial use. The military hogs the supplies and the transit points, and yet the only reassuring aspect is that till the Intelligence and Military agencies mark Chakrata as their base, it will remain untouched, hidden and pristine in its breathtaking beauty, beyond the wayward reach of the common traveler.

For Chakrata map visit: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india/chakrata.htm

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