Working out issues

I started this yesterday as a part of my new workout routine. I can't walk. Or stand straight.

The pain of losing weight

I was told by the kind doctor whom I visited that I was overweight. He was of the opinion that it would be greatly beneficial to my health if I was to reduce my weight to the lower mark of my ideal weight spectrum. But it has been so hard.

It’s so hard for many reasons.

     I hate working out

     I love food

    I try to cut down on the portion sizes but somehow don’t manage to

    When I’m down or feeling blue I tend to eat

   I dream of new kinds of food to make

  When I’m happy I eat

  When I’m bored I eat

  When I watch tv I need to eat

Which is why you would find me in a state of forever munching and forever chubby. I know that I need to make changes. But somehow I seem to lack the will.

Any suggestions dear friends? 

Daughters to daughters in law - part one

When I got married, after the traditional home coming was over, I remember the desolate feeling I got as I watched my family leave me with my husband’s family. It has all felt surreal up to that point. That moment when they all left, leaving me feeling all alone among people who were strangers to me, has been the loneliest moment of my life. I knew that darling was there. He told me not to cry. He held me as I sobbed uncontrollably. But I had never felt as lonely as that moment. I felt as if my family had abandoned me. I also knew my feelings were irrational. I was the one who had wanted so badly to get married to darling in the first place. I had zealously planned the wedding, been very happy throughout the ceremony and had had a wonderful honeymoon. But that moment, when I was alone in our room, after my family had left and darling had gone to talk to his parents about dinner arrangements for friends who were coming for dinner I felt wretched and miserable.

All my life I had laughed at brides who cried at the wedding ceremony, Each time I saw such a bride I would ask someone, why one earth she was crying on what was undoubtedly the happiest day of her life. I didn’t realise the pain of separation until the wedding of my best friend, where I saw her father shedding tears holding his only daughter.

Then came my wedding. I went through all the motions happily, until the moment I mentioned of earlier. One reason for my misery was my innate somewhat inexplicable understanding that no one else would understand. That this pain was shared by only me and my family. That darling’s family was not prone to, having only two boys and no girl given away in marriage.

I know that saying “given away in marriage” is rather archaic. But in the Sri Lankan context it is true even for today. Even today, children stay with their parents until it is time for them to marry. After marriage most of the girls move from their childhood homes to the homes of their husbands, i.e. husband’s parents. They become a part of the husband’s parent’s household. This is so at least for a short period of time, which was the case for me. After the wedding is over there is an understanding that the bride would come to live the husband’s family at least for a day or two. There is even a traditional handing over done where the bride is given away by the bride’s father to the groom’s father.

And for those who have always been a loving caring and doting family, it is the most difficult moment of their lives to part from their families. There are fears. There are doubts. There are uncertainties. “What would the new family be like? Will they treat me well? Will I fit in” so on and so forth.  They even include the rather crazy doubt of “Will my family forget me?”  Because you later find out that families never forget their children, that fathers always love and adore their daughters, that mothers would call you everyday just to find out if you ate, that to your siblings you would always be the, well, you.

So while I was eating my heart out and wanting to curl into a ball in a corner and die, what was playing over and over in my head was that I had not done enough by my family. That I had been mean to my mother sometimes, that I hadn’t been attentive enough to my father, that I should have been a better sister.  I thought of how I should have gotten up in the morning and cooked for my family. It was remorse of a kind I had never known before. It was unbearable.  I had been the average kind of child. Maybe more than average. I was spoilt rotten by my parents. I wasn’t unkind and I did stuff when it pleased me, not a moment sooner. I picked fights with my siblings as all do.

And then I did the unthinkable. I called them and told them that I had not been a good daughter and a sister. In my remorse, I had not realised that they were also feeling blue, trying not to miss me. Nangi had gone to bed without dinner. Malli had gone and gotten drunk. Thaththa had been staring into blank space. Amma told me that they all loved me and that I shouldn’t feel like that. I could hear how she was trying to stifle a sob.

I don’t want anyone to think my family is made of a bunch of cry babies. In reality, they are all very hardy and strong.  But separation is difficult. Especially, when you have just gone and deposited your child among people whom you hope will love her and take care of her as you have done.

Why all this ranting after years of getting married? I was in the party that went to hand over darling’s cousin to her in-laws today. She held on to me so hard and cried that everything I had felt in my moment of misery came rushing back. She is very close to darling. When she didn’t see him, she called “Ape ayya ko?” (“Where my brother?” ape meaning more mine than ours in this context) and was weeping into his shirt a moment later. I knew how she was feeling. I didn’t say anything, because I knew that no words would encompass the pain of loss she was feeling at that moment.

That is when I realised that for the rest of my life, I would not be able to see another crying bride and not remember when I was also weeping into my brother’s shirt. Just one word to would be brides, be nice to your family. Do everything you can for them, while you are with them. Later would be too late. 

About yesterday

This is yesterday's post. What happened to me yesterday? Let me tell you. First I went to a wedding. Then I went to a funeral.

Darling's cousin got married yesterday. While we were trying to get them settled into their honeymoon suite we must have passed a million new couples. There were so many weddings yesterday.

And while we are on the topic why would we need to settle the newly married to their room? Anyone who wore the Kandyan attire as a bride would understand. The basic Kandyan jewelry set includes the following.

4 padakkam

4 chains for the padakkam,

throatlet,

Nalal patiya

sun & moon for the head,

agasthi Malaya

2 pethi Mala

hand ornament (with the rings)

earrings ( koodu arungal)

two bangles ( beekku and agasthi)

one extra bangle ( agasthi), 

waist chain, 

konda katuwa

sari pin with a gate bead.

Trust me. They weigh a lot. Add to these the flowers on the head with a million or so hair pins. For an example, see this picture of a beautiful bride that I happened to take. Wouldn't all those jewelry leave her with a massive headache and a neck-ache? 

I've been there. I remember after the reception was over, my neck hurt so much from carrying all that weight. While I wore less flowers on my head and my overall attire was less decorative than the pretty bride in the picture, I suffered from a massive neck cramp afterwards. But I suppose all that trouble was worth it. :) 

So yesterday, by the time the wedding was over, the bride was near tears and I felt it was my duty to relieve her from her bridal jewelry. There is no way that she could have taken it all of f by herself. While the new husband was pacing the room impatiently, I removed all her necklaces just to find a sore wound on the nape of her neck where the metal wires the bridal dressing person had used to link up the necklaces had rubbed. You can rest assured that I threw a fit of righteous indignation when I saw the fellow to hand over the jewelry.  Why pay them so much, if they can't be bothered to come up with something less painful? 

Saying goodbye

Someone really dear to my heart passed away today. When I was small, he would hold my hand and walk me down to the main road and wait with me for the school van. Sometimes he would buy me a seeni sambol banis.
Sometimes when he came home after work, he would bring me peni appa.

He let me study at his work table. He was kind not only to his family, but also to all who met him. I've been told a story of how he harboured a person while rioters checked his house in the 1983 riots.

We love you seeya. May you rest in peace. We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

There's a land that is fairer than day, 
And by faith we can see it afar; 
For the Father waits over the way 
To prepare us a dwelling place there. 

In the sweet by and by, 
We shall meet on that beautiful shore 
In the sweet by and by, 
We shall meet on that beautiful shore. 

We shall sing on that beautiful shore 
The melodious songs of the blessed; 
And our spirits shall sorrow no more, 
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest. 

In the sweet by and by, 
We shall meet on that beautiful shore; 
In the sweet by and by, 
We shall meet on that beautiful shore. 

To our bountiful Father above, 
We will offer our tribute of praise 
For the glorious gift of His love 
And the blessings that hallow our days. 

In the sweet by and by, 
We shall meet on that beautiful shore; 
In the sweet by and by, 
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

Making an awesome me!

Nangi sent me this, which I think is awesome.

So as lame as the next phrase is going to sound, I have also decided to take up the mantle and write a blog post everyday for 366 days. Is that weird? Does that make me a copycat? Will people read what I write? I'm full of doubts.

But maybe this is a good thing. At least I can polish up my writing.

So in the middle of 2012, here's to a new year! Here's to a new me! Trying to become awesome.  

Oh by the way, did I tell you that I've decided to start learning Finnish? It's always good to learn a new language right? So far I know how to say "Hello, where is the toilet?" "Hei! Missä WC on?"

The case for proper language

So here's how the argument started. "If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?" was going on the radio and I commented on the use of the conditional and how in those days songs contained proper grammar. This led to the question of if there were any songs which were grammatically incorrect. I said "Of course, I' a huge fan of Bruno Mars but what about 'Had your eyes wide open, why was they open'?"

It turns out that I'm a stickler for convention. While I understand that all my writings are not grammatically perfect, I can at least comfort myself in the thought that I try to write proper. Here's my question. Is it wrong to expect proper language?

A common language is the communication platform for people. Imagine when humanoids first got the speech. One would have pointed at a tree and said "Booboo"(Yes very yogi bear!). Another would have said "twheee". (I'm just improvising here.) And to the first person who thought of a tree as Booboo, twhee would have sounded like gibberish. But somewhere along the evolutionary way, common words evolved and common languages evolved.  And basic rules and protocols were laid down so that anyone who knew the rules would understand what another person was saying.

My husband dearly argues that language is a living thing. And that just like any other aspect of civilisation, languages must also change to reflect the current society they are being used by. That is true and there is not a speck of a doubt. But then he also thinks that all man made conventions are artificial and that man must be let free to run amok. (Run amok was what I said. What he said was that civilisation itself was artificial and that man must be free of all ties of convention, at which point laws of nature will fall into place and everything will run smoothly and that I need not unnecessarily worry about the fate of man in a lawless society).

What confuses me is (As a person who tries to  never use "LOL") how difficult is it really to say "I don't and he doesn't and not "I doesn't and he don't"?

We need not speak like Shakespeare. But how about speaking without the use of a whole lot of acronyms, mixing up singular and plural and many other little grammatical faux pas? I do realise some will be angered by this post. But this is the way I feel and truthfully, why not go back to the basics for a change?