Let me go.

I'm moving out tomorrow, dad is not happy. He thinks I'll bring shame to the family as I'm a single girl living on my own (big no no in my culture).

He wants me to stay at the weekends at my new place with my lil sister and brother but it's just a round about way of saying supervision right?

I'm so tired of being me right now. I want someone to take me away.

By the grace of God go I

To make someone happy even if it may make you unhappy (temporarily), is it worth it? Shall I grin and bear it? Shall I bend over and and let them fuck me over?

To be free means to fight for one's liberty. Parents want me to meet a prospective husband soon, even when I said no. They don't want to listen. I don't want to be those women who look at their husband in couple of years time and wonder who the person is sleeping next to them.

The fight is on.

And the beat goes on...

Sitting on the floor, with the lap top...on my lap and I feel good. Why? Music, that's why. Travelling faster and further than the speed of light can ever manage. The power of music always amazes me. How can a finite amount of notes make what seems like infinite amount of music?

I read once in a book that God resides in the beat of every single thing, which makes me think that the whole universe is connected to the eternal beat that is God. I kinda like that. If God is the heart, surely we must be the pulse?

Long live music in all it glorious forms.

Chips, dips and occasional slips.

Why is it that when the chips are down (mmmmm, chips) you long to be a kid again? When things are simpler and everything has no real consequence. The old argument of knowledge vs innocence I suppose. The price we pay to be independent and grown up is to pay with the loss if naivety and maybe sometimes hope. Blinding hope that everything is tickety boo.

               

 Mmmmm, delicious but not quite right     

Like anything that falls downs, it can be built back up. 

Never look down.

                       

Participant or Observer?

When you reach your destination, where do you go from there? I live in the silence but I'm curious about the sounds.

Floating around and never feeling like you belong. Make your own reality.

We are family!

As I sit here drinking the last slightly gritty part of the tea, I am beginning to understand the love family can have for one another. This idea hasn't slapped me around the face as a 'duh!' moment but more of a slow burning realisation that there is nothing like family. Hell it doesn't have to be blood ties but the deep love shared between people.

Like all superheroes I have strengths and weaknesses. My family are both. They give me hope that I make a difference in this little planet with what I do and what I say. With a flip of a coin they can make me feel so insignificant and powerless. Who else can make me feel loved and yet stifled, than family?

But who would do without them? Not me.

One small step for (wo)man...

It's time for a new adventure, To experience something that seems scary but life enhancing. What do I need to prepare me on this adventure? I need a To do list.

1. To collect my thoughts into a small container; my brain.
2. Bring a map wherever the journey.
3. Pack light; no space for emotional baggage.
4. Glasses to clearly see the light and accept the dark.
5. When reaching destination, breathe.

Wish me luck

Little bricks make big buildings.

Went to a mate's house today and we were chatting about the usual things; things that pissed us off, things we could do again and family etc, etc. Inevitably our talk ends up with what are we doing with our lives and what fate is going to hand us down the line.

 It got me thinking about last year and the personal horrors (of my own making) I went through. Never again do I want to hold myself a hostage in my own depression. Some it boiled down to the fact that I felt like a loser and that feeling doesn't go away easily, forever remaining in the dark, waiting to take me at gunpoint again. To annihilate that feeling, I thought in the beginning of this year I would do things that felt like an achievement no matter how big or small. It was going well when it hit me that some of my friends were doing much better than me and I once again felt like the loser.

 What makes that feeling go away, how do you free yourself from the shackles of your own depression and ultimately fear? The only advice I have to give to anyone in my position and to myself is this-DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS! My experiences are my experiences and can never fit anyone else. To do things that you wouldn't have done before is a big step in itself. As I said before, from now on I'm going to be my own superhero.

Midnight picnics in the park

Wow, it's been awhile. A month to be precise, so what's happened in that month to me?...Nothing much. Time is  a funny thing. Time is so subjective to the person concerned with it. This whole year is whizzing past so fast but each month seems like it's crawling at a snail's pace.

And yet nothing of any note has happened. The only thing that gleams in my otherwise dull memory is meeting up with friends and looking at the stars at night in north London. Cold but very beautiful. All the stars seemed so far off and slightly unnatural like they were put there by some set designer. Maybe that's what God is. The Great Set Designer in the sky.

Toodle pip.

Phone calls

So I had a mate call me up, after I promised her I would be doing the actual calling up. She pipped me to the post as it were. She was telling me about her day and every wanky thing in between.

"My I do seem to own a kick ass phone"

FRIEND: So, then I said this to him, he then said this thinkfkjdgfdjgvkjd, blah blah blah

ME: Yeah, uh huh........ok.........exactly. Wow, uh huh, yeah totally..

FRIEND: Then omg she said that thing with the other thing BLAH BLAH BLAH

ME: Is that so? cool.....yeah....ETC

This is a normal conversation, with me providing my ears for someone's drivel. So why does it sting when she gets a call from someone else and promptly hangs up on me?

With big hair comes big responsibilities

So I was thinking about superheroes, I often think about superheroes when I'm not thinking about unicorns and rainbows made from fizzy sugar. I love that shit. Superheroines tend to have aaaaamazing hair,  is it one of their superpowers or something?

'cause I'm worth it

If I were to be a hero what would be my aim be? I'm thinking of making the art of being a useless bum a heroic trait. Come on think about it, in a world full of people rushing around, doing a 9-5 being a bum is like taking a stand against the corporate machine man! 

Now where did I leave those spandex pants?.....

To snob or not to snob, that is the question.

Right, so I'm just watching Teen Mom ( I hate american spelling, goddarn it) and all I can think is have these kids never heard of condoms or contraception? Seriously. 

Unprotected sex + no contraception = Babies, or Aids etc or Aidey babies...or baby Aids?!?!?!

Anyway, just thinking am I a complete snob because I rather watch a documentary on space and all that shenanigans than some twat who probably thought that an empty Snickers wrapper could double up as a condom?

Taste is subjective right? One man's Beck is another man's Ricky Martin. So how comes we still judge people on personal tastes? Yet I find myself silently judging people on their their book collection or lack of, their musical tastes and film habits. I just mentally shake my head when I see my sister watch mind numbingly, degrading spunk bubble that is all reality TV (Apprentice excluded, Overlord Sugaaaaaaaah, no one rocks like he rocks with his arseholey demeaner). Maury Povich; the American Jeremy Kyle basically notifies baby mamas ( another americanism, heck) who the baby daddies are...There have been episodes where he had to do paternity tests for 17 guys all for ONE child.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, THINK ABOUT THE AIDEY BABIES!

Broken hearts and miserable starts.

So I dreamt last night...yes, yes I know, other peoples' dreams are mind numbingly boring but I'll just give you the gist of it. So here goes, the first one was of finding my younger sister in my room which in it self  is not unusual, but relaxing on my bed was my friend. I found it strange she was there without me and just socialising my sister. I entered my room only to find that it had changed into another room. So far, so normal(ish). I saw all my mates there socialising amongst themselves and I felt like I was being left out of the loop. Then I saw in the corner of the room a friend sitting on a stool NAKED  as is she was the subject of an art class. Fucking weird as in real life she is a observant Muslim! The dream ends.

Right dream two, again some sort of school reunion and everyone's having a good time including me. Then a close friend of mine turns up but I can tell she's only there to show her face as if to say 'hey guy, look, I'm here! Making the effort!'. Now I haven't seen here in real life for a long time and we have sporadically short phone conversations which are more just quick catch ups. In the dream she makes me feel sad and upset. I've had a couple of dreams about her, they seem to be negative and they make my heart ache. It's like I'm being left behind. She should go as far as she can, I just feel like dead weight now.

 So in the dream, the conversation is flowing but I can see that this close friend of mine is on the phone to her new friends she's made at her new work place. She isn't paying attention to anyone and I start to get pissed off. She ends up talking to the bartender and asks the price of some wine, she's planning to go to see her friend afterwards and the wine is for them. By this time I'm really upset and I run off. I find a room and I just fall on the floor and I sob, Bollywood style. The feeling of unhappiness is so real at this point. I can see that she's come to look for me but I hide so she can't find me. The dream ends. I wake up with teary eyes and I start the day with a broken heart.

Is this it?

I wonder when girls are created does God stamp a little ‘use by date’ on their bodies only parents can find? It seems so doesn’t it? As a Bengali girl this feels even more evident. We are the battery hens to our more organic farm raised counterparts. All this time spent being told to be virtuous and to never to bring the dreaded ‘S’ word...shame to their doorstep.

Whoever reads this, do not be fooled by the parents or any extended family. They want you to tow the company line. Be home by this hour, never hang out in the streets and never, NEVER mix with anyone that does not possess a vagina (brothers and fathers excluded).

So how do parents get to see this use by date? I mean really, where is it? Maybe it’s carved in our necks in the smallest, tiniest writing as I seem to never have seen it. Parents on the other hand seem to know and say the words that are like a death knell to girls everywhere “it’s time you get married, you’re not getting any younger”.

The question that seems to pop up in conversations with some of my friends is ‘is this it?’ Forget the big question of why we are we here; this is bigger and more important. We all take stock of our lives, and at the end of it all, we just sit there thinking what happened? As a kid, anything is possible, be an astronaut, a barrister, anything, now it’s more realistic if wonderment and joy hit me in the face when someone else actually does the hoovering up, without me nagging them! Break out the non alcoholic champagne and let loose!

I mean our parents have given up so much to emigrate here, living in a land with what as at first unfriendly white faces but why should we who have been born and raised here fight against the culture that we belong to? I mean where do we go? Not Bengali enough for Bangladesh and not white enough for Britain. The claim we have to any land is this no man’s land in the middle. Neither sides approach yet they seem to think they have a stake in it when it suits them.

Food for thought.

So here I am, touch typing like I’ve never used it before, oh but I have patience readers! I’m typing like a Neanderthal looking at the wheel for the first time. So rusty that I have to keep on looking down.

(This is an old thing that I wrote that I've recently found)

I  hate this, being the whiny fat girl. Shouted at my child like mother and then proceeded to go into my room to eat my feelings of disappointment and resentment in one foul swoop or should I say in one foul mouthful? At least heroin addiction has a certain acceptable chic look (thank you Kate Moss) whereas just being fat from eating too much just makes me look like a sad, lonely person who probably cums to the sound of samosas frying in oil. I don’t by the way; I haven’t reached that stage yet.

Is it unfufilment? I don’t know, maybe it is. Getting left behind is getting harder to bear now, as kids, friends are all on a level playing field. Then God decides to fuck with us and throw in a couple of life altering grenades and life is messy and muddy and some people never quite manage to dodge the grenades quickly enough.

Is this it? I look at my mum and I want to cry, is this it? Our parents are not only carers but physical manifestations of our future. That scares me so much, I want to run away screaming as fast as my chubby legs can take me. No to a life time of looking at the never ending pot of rice, no more! Eating takes the feeling away sometimes. Then comes the guilt; why did I eat so much, why fuck up my fool hardy plan of losing weight? Or the biggy YOU’RE A FAILURE! Boo you! If carrots were to taste like cake then it would be so much easier, well it would be a cake walk (boom, boom).

I ate samosas like they were filled with some sort of anti-fat filling while there’s a peeled Satsuma looking forlornly at me on a little plate which in turn is resting on the plate that I ate those not so healthy fried deliciousness. I’m listening to the mighty Eels ‘Beautiful Freak’. What an amazing song, it’s one of those kinds of songs that make you feel better and sad at the same time.

Today I found this little quote.

"Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison."

Couldn't agree more Ms Mary Wollstonecraft! Now where's that slice of cake?

Me vs the Inspector

Well, this is nice. All this blank space to fill. So let me tell you what happened to me today. 

The day started out well, riding on the bus to my local shopping centre with my sister, did our shopping and ate some food and that was that. Not exciting huh? I would agree totally with you if it were not for the DUM! DUM! DUUUUUUUM! Ticket Inspector! (that is a lot of exclamation marks).

God has a funny way of slapping people with just enough bad luck to show them who's really in charge. Was sitting alongside my sister on the way home when all of a sudden the bus stopped, lo and behold like a lone ranger he approached my sister with the words that strike fear into anyone who is unlucky enough to travel in London via the bus "Tickets please". Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! run for cover! Duck and roll! Ring the alarm!

My sister was safe in the knowledge that she had tapped in, I on the other hand did not. Damn. I thought I could work the system and give him the performance of a life time. Meryl Streep could learn a thing or two from me.

Ticket Inspector: Tickets please

Me: Oh here

PAUSE

TI: It tells me you haven't paid

Me: But I tapped in, I really did. (The Oscar goes to Cake Fiend!)

GOES TO CHECK THE READER

TI: Nope, they're all working, you need to follow me

Me: All right...

TI: right, give me your name, address and date of birth

(At this point I consider using up what ever dignity I have and flirt my way out of trouble.)

TI: How old are you miss?

Me: 26 (in a sexy way)

My efforts are in vain as he issues me with a £25 fine and goes about his business. 

Lesson of the day? Don't try to flirt with Inspectors, this may actually increase your fine.