What began as a nice evening yesterday, ended up chaotic today. Meeting friends after a long time is great and watching a feel-good movie and having coffee over alot of chit chat was great too! Feeling like we could spend more time together, we decided to go ''out'' - meaning, the social phenomenon of drinking alcohol/ dancing in dimly lit bars/ clubs filled with strangers of sorts, lots of passive smoke and loud music. It follows logic that you can't bear up such inconveniences if you are not having a decent amout of alcohol in your system to cloud your judgement. But later on that...
"Eat Pray Love" the movie did not measure up to the book. Not surprising, it's impossible to put in so much detail into a movie of 2 hours. I enjoyed it more as I knew the little background stories within the story but someone new would not have appreciated it as much. It was amazing to see scenes from Italy, India and Indonesia bring life to the story which I had just read weeks ago.
I look forward to my weekends with much enthusiasm because of my music classes. I am currently the second oldest in a class of five. The oldest student is away on a vacation. So now, with more than double the years of experience and wisdom of my fellow classmates, I rule! My peers are 3 kids seemingly of ages 12, 10 and 6. Two of them are new recruits. The boy (I'm assuming he is about 10 years) who joined today clearly frequents Macdonalds for french fries and burgers, AND the fellow kept staring at the low-cut neckline of my T-shirt (yeah, bad choice of clothes - but really it's not something I would have thought of as I woke up at wee hours on a weekend to catch a taxi to class), till the uncomfortableness made me change seats. Can you believe kids these days? With the internet and other forms of media, kids wonder early about where babies come from. The girl who joined last week (she is seems around 6 years of age) rattled my core of existence with her matter-of-fact attitude and confidence as she proudly professed she knew 4 languages. Even her mannerisms in tackling the unknown were filled with so much confidence, it was humbling. Here was a nascent specimen, which had not gone through any adverse reactions in life and yet, with a property that most of us aspire to reach many years later. Life is full of lessons, even in the least expected of corners.
Honestly speaking, it is not the ideal situation of a class I imagined. However, I find the classes getting more challenging for me and I am so thankful that I found a class with a teacher who agreed to teach me. I even got the honorary title of ''Teacher's Best Student" from all her current students across two institutions, not rightly deserving of course (given my history), still it felt good to get that push of encouragement. And I accepted it with much modesty. I also made an interesting discovery this week! When playing sequences of notes at very high speeds, where there is little or no time to think, my brain and fingers automatically switch to my right-handed mode. And it is daunting because I want to understand and play well, but my body just does not coorperate and I automatically play the wires on the right side, when I should be playing the ones on my left side. It is very challenging to unlearn and relearn skills like that which took years to establish.
After class, my mission was to take public transport to go and collect my Jeep from a friend's place, where I had to leave it as I had a few cubic millilitres of alcohol in my system which made me unfit to drive back home last night (here, driving under influence of any alcohol is heavily penalised). In asking around for directions for bus routes, I made friends with a lady at the bus stop. She was quite friendly and helpful and I sat with her all the way till she got down, which was a few stops before my stop. From our conversation and facts gathered, I deduced she was involved in providing certain services to men. There is a possibility that I am wrong about her. In any case, she gave me some genuine advice, saying I need to be strong to survive in this country and that people can't be trusted and that I need to make noise when I see or experience injustice. I figure she took one look at me and realised I needed that bit of advice!
So after bus ride, a train ride, a considerable bit of walking in the mid day sun and loads of swearing at last night's few cubic millilitres of beverage, I was finally reunited my chariot. What an emotional moment it was!
My stance on alcohol?
For one thing, it truly tastes like crap.
The earliest recollections were from my curiosity phase (aged 11-13), when I have sampled several types of alcoholic drinks from my father's collection. But after that, a certain "no-alcohol" commandment in my religion gave me reason to strictly stay away from it and refuse it for the next decade.
For another thing, the after-effects are not rosy.
Ranging from hangovers the following day to valuable hours lost to the chaos it creates in one's routine, it is a deal breaker to me.
However, it is not easy to avoid participating in this mass cultural delusion when in certain social situations that require loosening up (to make conversations), becoming less self conscious (to dance) and being numb to certain realities (like overcrowded places, people smoking in your face or shallow acquaintances). There is also a degree of tolerance and levelling up that is required when associating with friends from different cultural backgrounds. Occasionally, if a person refuses a drink, it will lead to gasps by the rest of the group followed by various questions on why that person does not drink and frequent reminders like "ARE YOU SURE you dont want a drink?" or "but WHY?" or "c'mon please have ONE" or "JUST for today", that can easily trigger one to go on a shooting spree. Resistance when being a part of such situations is difficult.
I've come to believe that one can't find one's perfect bearings on balance without the valuable lessons learnt while losing one's balance. This is a principle being re-evaluated. As for me, I no longer have an issue with taking moderate quantities of alcohol while in the certain social situations. But given a choice, I prefer to stay sober and conscious of my actual thoughts, words, and deeds.
Ranging from hangovers the following day to valuable hours lost to the chaos it creates in one's routine, it is a deal breaker to me.
However, it is not easy to avoid participating in this mass cultural delusion when in certain social situations that require loosening up (to make conversations), becoming less self conscious (to dance) and being numb to certain realities (like overcrowded places, people smoking in your face or shallow acquaintances). There is also a degree of tolerance and levelling up that is required when associating with friends from different cultural backgrounds. Occasionally, if a person refuses a drink, it will lead to gasps by the rest of the group followed by various questions on why that person does not drink and frequent reminders like "ARE YOU SURE you dont want a drink?" or "but WHY?" or "c'mon please have ONE" or "JUST for today", that can easily trigger one to go on a shooting spree. Resistance when being a part of such situations is difficult.
I've come to believe that one can't find one's perfect bearings on balance without the valuable lessons learnt while losing one's balance. This is a principle being re-evaluated. As for me, I no longer have an issue with taking moderate quantities of alcohol while in the certain social situations. But given a choice, I prefer to stay sober and conscious of my actual thoughts, words, and deeds.
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