There's this app on FB..."On this day, God wants you to know"...
Here's what I had today:
A few weeks ago, a friend and I were talking about my Facebook profile picture... I had put up a wedding picture since it was Wedding Picture week on FB. I ended up going to my picasa site where I have all the pictures, and he was awed by all the work that must have gone into dressing me up like that. I mentioned the lady who had helped me with it, how efficient she was and all.
He then shared something about his own wedding. He is Brazilian and his wife is American. The wedding was in Brazil, so they went there about 3 months before the date to make arrangements. So the lady who was going to do his wife's hair...and then he laughed, saying, well, he was a big gay guy, really. Dressed up as a lady, didn't fool anyone though... and he continued with his story. The lady had come alone, without assistants, and didn't have enough time to do the bride's hair. Everyone who did manage to get it done, were delighted with what she had done for them.
He had many other interesting things he said about his wedding, but I could not get this one out of my mind.
Can we ever imagine this happening in India? Transvestites being accepted, getting respectable jobs, and being appreciated for their work, instead of ridiculed or feared for who they are?
I admit, even I turn away when I see them on traffic signals in India. I think its out of fear. Probably because I didn't understand anything about them, didn't know much about them. I live in the San Francisco Bay area. SF has a huge gay population, and I don't treat them the way I do in India.
I for one, am a changed person after this conversation with my friend. I promise, I will at least give a friendly smile when I encounter a transvestite in India.
As for when will the mentality of others change, when we will see acceptance? I don't think it will happen in my lifetime. So what if the courts have accepted them, the people have not! Sad, ain't it?
Just realized that I have more memories than dreams.
That's gotta change! I need to make new memories, and for that I need to plan.
So that's the resolution for this year: Dwell less in the past, live the bright new day!
So y'all know why my name is aneri_masi, right?
Alright, if you don't know, here it is again.
My sister's first kid, Aneri, was born about 12 years ago. She and I were (and still are) the only ones here in the US, rest of the family was (and still is) at home, in India. (Funny how home is always India no matter how long ago you left without any intentions of returning!).
Anyway...so this little angel was born (I started to say brat, but can't. She was (and still is) a very good kid. And there are too many parantheses here!)
Anyway...so this angel was born (actually she was (but isn't anymore) a GIANT baby from a tiny mother. People would ask her, seriously? YOU carried HER? Parantheses overload again!)
Annnnyway...so she was born and everyone wanted to see pics. I was (and still am) the most computer savvy one in the family. So I had to figure out how to share the pics.
Yahoo was (aah, here, I can say, but it is not anymore!) one of the most convenient tools to share pics. So I got a new account, and called myself aneri_masi. The rest, you all already know, no? Half the world knows ME as Aneri!
Now, coming to the identity crisis part:
Aneri (the real one) is on my FB. I post comments to her comments saying "I agree with Aneri", and THAT feels weird! Or I say, "Hi Aneri, how are you?" and it feels like I have completely lost my mind...asking myself how I am doing!?
Looks like I am going to have to change my name and return the identity to the original owner :o|
Who should/can I be now?!
I was (but cannot be) aneri_masi anymore :o|
Sigh!
When I was a child, I thought Nirupa Roy was Niru Paroy, (since I only knew the name Niru...I knew three different Niru's... and Nirupa never occurred to me). I spent quite some time thinking what kind of a surname Paroy is! Whatever does it mean, which state do the Paroys come from.
Later, when I bothered to read the credits in the movies, I figured out what her name was. Oh well, so she was not from some exotic descent, just good old Bengali (Actually, she was Gujarati according to wikipedia!) So then I spent some time wondering what the heck kind of a name was Nirupa? I knew Rupa, Surupa, Rupali, Rupal, but Nirupa? I had just started Hindi as a second language in school, and according to what I read in the grammar books, "ni" kind of meant "lacking". As in नीरस was dull, निराकार meant without shape. Then Nirupa meant what? No roop? Too complex!
After watching too much of her sad depiction of Ma, I started to despise her! To the point that some times, I would actually try to tune myself out whenever she appeared on screen.
Anyway...so what inspired this thought process was this post by Indiequill. I forwarded it to my friend. She (and me too) loved the bit about the Maaaaaa....
And I started thinking about her yet again! Wondering if she actually had any sons, and did she expect them to be like Beeeejay (Amitabh Bacchan aka Vijay...duh!!!). Google came to the rescue, of course. I loved this line from wikipedia:
"She was notorious for always playing the mother that was either blind, handicapped, poor. She almost always mangaged to lose her kids somehow in every movie"
But coming back to her own son... here's what I found!
Maa ke naam pe kalank, huh?!
Am getting requests to update my blog, but am at a loss about things to write about.
Anything anyone wants me to talk about??
2 years done....since the wedding.
Edited to add: I am in Pune with my family. All my sisters are here too, along with another guest family. So I celebrated with about 19 ppl at home. And the husband is back home all alone in the US, probably cooking his own dinner. Sigh :(
