My Sins Against Gender Stereotypes: Ritu’s Tag

Ritu of  WEAVING A WEB tagged me to do this very interesting post. Must thank IHM also for always thinking out of the box.

Here is what the Indian Homemaker and Phonenixritu say:

If you are a woman

Have you ever wanted something that is considered ‘manly’ ? Like a basketball, a cell phone, a dog, a camera or a new laptop? A new car or motor bike? Ever wanted to be a pilot? A doctor or not a nurse? And the manliest want of them all – The remote!

As a kid did you enjoy playing with a bat and a ball?

There was a time when books were considered ‘manly’, women authors had to pretend to be men – would you say books are still rather manly – women should want to embroider and crochet?

If you are a man

Have you ever wanted something that only women are supposed to want – like bags, shoes, clothes, creams, perfumes, babies, flowers? A peaceful home and a happy family? Have you ever been afraid of the dark or of insects?

As a kid did you ever want to play ‘teacher-teacher’, cooking or did you like playing with a doll? Have you ever enjoyed cooking? Bought something in pink? Loved chocolates?

So here’s a tag – Please list at least ten things you have ever wanted or done which your gender is not supposed to.

The tag is called ‘My Sins against Gender-Stereotypes’. And you must tag twelve blogging friends

Here is my list of ten things.

1. I hate jewelery (except my small silver ear rings) and all those delicate womanly footwear . Prefer tough sandals, boots, sports shoes, sneakers etc.

2. I hate it when people tell me to dress up like a ” married woman” . I feel like an alien. For me denim and tees, Bermudas and pants are just fine. love to wear men’s shirts teamed with tees. I always check the men’s section for great selections in clothes. Black being my favorite color.

3. I love football, played basketball, marbles, gilli danda, did skids and other stunts on the bicycle as a teenage girl. Love to read about cars , bikes etc. I did my first trek at the age of 13 with YHAI’s Himalayan trekking group.

4. Good girls don’t whistle .. But I do 😉 Does it make me a bad girl ? 😀

5.  I love Snakes, Spiders, Raptors. I have handled snakes and find them absolutely facinating… and also love the Dark. Ghost, spirits and all the other creatures of the dark world. Have walked down in a cemetery at night during a visit to the hills. Night does not scare me.

6. I love chocolates for more than one reason but does it make me womanly ? Nah… Try a dark bitter liquor filled one or an orange flavor while you watch a horror or sci-fi movie in the dead of the night. Maybe I am just the perfect blend. 🙂

7. Girls do not climb trees, run about with their skirt flying, have fist fights with boys, or play pranks . That was an unsaid rule when I was a teenager . Rules are meant to be broken 😀 I think lazing on  thick branch or hanging from a Tyre attached to a rope tied to the branch is  a bliss. Even running along rolling a  cycle Tyre with a stick along with the boys was great fun.

8. My boys think that a mom like me is born ones in a thousand years. LOL I take part in all their adventures.. well almost all of them that are possible at my age :D. My Hubby thinks he should have read the finer prints before saying I DO 😀

9. I can do most of the repair work, electrical or otherwise around the house.

10. My MIL thinks that a woman’s job is to look after husband, kids and home. Letting men into the kitchen is a sin I commit and I WILL ROT IN THE FIRES OF HELL for dressing up and behaving in a most unusual fashion. Having drinks, wearing ” odd clothes”, listing to  ” angrejee janee jinka na sar hai na pair”, and not looking like a DIL and making men of the house my ” slaves”. My boys and I love to experiment with cuisine so does my hubby when the beastly shadow of his ma is not lurking anywhere around. ( She would have a heart attack if she knew I smoked pot ones or twice and still steal ciggies  and try to make the smoke rings I could never make. 🙂 LOL

She hurts my feelings and as far as fires of hell go I am the beloved daughter of satan so hell is my home sweet home.

Strange that what we term as sins against the gender stereotypes are mostly considered as sins by our own gender and not by the other.

All those who find this interesting  are tagged . Please leave the link in the comment section if you do the tag . I will be delighted to read your list of sins.

Wordless Wednesday-11

Wednesday 7 PM

The heat is unbearable.  I am going through a strange phase, I do not know what to call it. A feeling of restlessness is creeping in. The summer afternoons make me dizzy with thoughts. It’s been some time since I discovered that my body was not at ease. Doctors are the last people I would want to visit but I had no choice. The comfortably numb feeling was now becoming a bother. The tingling sensation in the limbs continues to remind me that I need to take care, pay attention. A warning.

Life is strange. I have suddenly lost interest in everything. Everything seems strange , fake. I want to shed the masks I am wearing. I have began to question relationships, emotions, intelligence, my very own existence. What am I doing here , why am I alive  dragging my sick body, mind and soul around for nothing? Have I lost my way and the purpose of living?

My uneasiness disturbs the stillness of the afternoon. There is only one sound that overpowers the inner chatter is the hum of the AC outside the window.

I am beginning to hate noise, sounds irritate me. I want to escape inside a cocoon. My hair uncombed and disheveled stick to the nape of  neck. I want to chop them off. Go bald maybe. I am as crumpled as the sheet on which I lie watching the fan struggling to circulate some air in the stuffy room..

I snatch a bottle of chilled water from the fridge and gulp it down ,  it cools my inner but the uneasy feeling continues.

Standing at the window of my ma’s 9th floor apartment I stare blankly at the concrete jungle out there. The building remind me of deserted graves in a forgotten cemetery. It is depressing for the first time for graves never depress me. They have a way to communicate but the sight of these high-rise builder flats,  old crumbling houses drain me.

I pull the curtains. A memory of a loved one is nagging me since morning. I woke up with a dream and a bitter taste in my mouth. I know you will find your way to this page. Silently .

I want to cut out the noise, zone out  drift away. I shoo the memories away. Intruders from a distant foreign land. I wince as a sharp splinter of a dream goes deep into my heart. I remind myself to stay alert and not get seduced by the distant calling and yet my heart rebels. I have developed a taste for getting bloodied and bruised.

Incomplete , mute stories of two hearts living in two different worlds.

love.. romance… lust… I understand the last. Love as I saw it sucked the soul from my body , romance was a smoke pattern on the walls of my mind. Lust .. yea that is real. very real. Unsaid but felt strongly. Camouflaged yet visible like an undercurrent. Lust never lasts. It never can be a bond between two souls. It is like a bush fire.

I never asked for explanations. I know the reason we parted.

Virtual world is a strange place. unknown people wanting desperately to connect with each other, seeking love which has  a hollowness attached to it. Yet we give it , let ourselves flow with the current, hearts break, disillusionment , hurt, we knew it all and yet we give it seek more. Addicted to the something so unnatural.

I saw you , an image, an enigma ( yes you were) , I was trying to disconnect with real and move to another realm. got sucked into the web. You were like a tiger on hunt. I feel this now. Slowly moving in the shadows, distracting the prospective prey to get away from the herd. You had set your eyes , eagle eyes, on the target. circling around till the moment was ripe. No you did not want to kill. You are not cruel. you were amused, you wanted to play. It is rare but not uncommon. Tigers play with their prey, make it comfortable, make it run, tire it and then pounce on it ripping it’s soul out of the body. You played very well but unfortunately lost the grip.In a twinkle of an eye I realized the hollowness of the thing and yet ….

I saw my  mistakes, errors of judgment, your failings, my fall…all so clear now. All the excuses  made for you when others pronounced you guilty are now vacuous billboards along the stack of drained words.

Resentment crows over the dusty horizon, a sour taste, a feeling much beyond hatred.

What’s that feeling?

I am trying to figure out the deafening, demeaning silence in my heart but am unable to comprehend it yet.

I look back and watch the strange threads of lust love and hate  tangled and knotted . A crowd of memories of you jostle and fight for space,  filling and overflowing from the gaping spaces.

The dust filled sky is silently watching the turmoil. I can taste  as the dust sits on me. you burn me like this summer sun. blisters .. incurable and painful.

I have lost the relevance in your life just as the smoke patters on my heart walls have dissolves into the air making it even more stuffy in the room.Shadows marked across the heart…

I am listening to the song on my mobile.. in the end it doesn’t really matter. There is a maddening urge to throw it all out and disappear.

The mind cautions the heart against rummaging in the bottomless depths of human emotions.

“Beware the flood-gates of human passion”.

Who is listening… ? Have you even connected to someone who transcendent into the very fabric of your life. Someone whom you have never met , nor will ever maybe, who is just  known to you . Someone virtual not real and yet he is there in every little thing that revolves around your everyday life. An enigma , an reputation you have created. He may not be aware of it for it is you who wants him to be there in every waking , sleeping moment . You weave your life around him , that image  which has began to seep through your senses. You become that person as he takes the hold on you completely.

Why and how can a person who drifted from some distant land, distant space occupy your each living moment? Why is it that I am unable to detach myself ? Why is it that even after such a suffocating silence my heart strings play the notes of his song. Why is it that his presence haunts me day and night?

Why does the heart aches for something so utterly impossible? Why do I seek him  knowing that he is just a mirage in the vast  desert land? Is it ego that holds me captive to grudges and memories or love  or longing or just a need or am I lingering on to a relationship feeding myself on the pain and agony? What am I looking for? Is it a blame game I want to win ? How does it matter  who is right or wrong? What will it change ? What will I achieve ?Why the memories that brought a smile and warmed my heart slash through my heart now ? How can a sweet moment turn so bitter to bring a taste of bile in my mouth and yet I treasure it ?

Why I need an explanation ? Will it mend the broken heart or bring back the freshness of love with which it all began? It rips me apart to let go so I hang on to the nurse the open sores silently I close my eyes experiencing the throb , the ache , the hurt. Self inflicted trauma.

Unfulfilled dreams, a feeling of loss of something which I doubt was ever mine. A longing for someone who does not exist in life. A virtual fatal attraction. A giver turned into seeker. That’s me.

Why do I yearn even after receiving such hammering from him?

Too often sincerity is an under-rated virtue in modern life.

Some people  leave a void impossible to fill.

I have a feeling my soul is spent and I have nothing more to give to give to the world.

My love tainted.

The torrent of emotions screaming down the insane moist greens like a dive bomber inflicting greatest damage and then a calm.. gentle , seductive  blend of heaven and hell.

The post started on Tuesday and has lingered on till today. ..passions flow unrestrained.. they need  to flow ..they will  till I find myself again.

Wordless Wednesday – 10

55 Word Fiction : Drug Abuse 2

She desperately tried to find a vein to inject into.

Her life ebbing away.

She had lost the battle to keep her head above water.

One final lethal dose.

Peace

Her father had missed the signs of her secret life.

He found her floating in the bath tub along with the syringe

 

Wordless Wednesday-9

55 word fiction : Drug Abuse:Stairway to Heaven

This post has been published by me as a team member of Indiana Legends for the SUPER 6 round of Bloggers Premier League (BPL) – The first ever unique, elite team blogging event of blog world. To catch the BPL action and also be part of future editions and other contests, visit and register at Cafe GingerChai

Stairway to Heaven

She watched her body go up in flames and with it hopes, dreams, aspirations.

She had taken many tiny steps.

Thousands of little decisions had led incrementally to her death.

She ached to go back in time.

Flames

Smoke

Ashes

Lonelier than ever she drifted in twilight mist.

A Drug Free Spirit .

The image has been created by me for the Contest

Do not let your life go up in Smoke.  SAY NO TO DRUGS .

Wordless Wednesday – 8

55 Word Fiction : The First Date

She is ravishing he thought as he spotted her walk in.

She looked around in the crowd.

Her face lit up and eyes twinkled with joy as she caught a glimpse of him.

Slowly she edged her way towards him.

“Welcome to KFC  little princess”, he said smiling warmly.

Stretch Your Body : Fitness Tips

Stretching is one of the keys to a balanced fitness regime. Regular stretching exercises helps in maintaining a flexible and supple body.

The benefits of flexibility include prevention of injuries and increased range of movements during the fitness regime, easier and less tiring daily activities because as we know supple muscles use less energy, increased blood flow to the muscles, improved performance, agile body, release of tension, and improved coördination. Stretching can help realign the body and keep up good posture which otherwise can cause repetitive stain in the back and legs.

Here’s a basic guide to a stretching routine that will help you stay fit every day. Remember to stretch only as far as is comfortable. If you experience pain with any technique, drop it until you discuss it with your instructor or doctor.

Always warm up and then gently, patiently stretch your muscles. A good walk is perfect before doing your stretching routine. Do not stiffen your limbs, the moment you feel uncomfortable in holding a position, remember it is time to stop.

1. Shoulder Shrugs

Sit straight, keep your shoulders relaxed. Inhale and squeeze your shoulders up toward your ears. Hold them tight till the count of ten and relax as you exhale. Repeat ten times to start.

Roll Your Shoulder

Rotate your shoulders forwards and then reverse direction. Do five rotations each side.

Neck Stretch (Do not attempt if you suffer from Cervical Spondylosis)

Sit straight, exhale and let your neck drop forward. Relax for about 2 seconds, now inhale as you lift your head, exhale and let your head drop to one side, relax, and inhale as you return to center. Repeat to the other side. Do the whole sequence 5 to 10 times.

Stretch Your Spine

Sit straight with your hands clasped behind your head, exhale and turn slowly to the right. Look behind you, twisting as far as comfortable without straining the neck. Hold for the count of five, and inhale as you return to the starting position. Repeat on the other side. Do this stretching exercise 10-20 times, 3 times a day.

Back Stretch

Lie on your back with your knees bent; keep your feet flat on the floor. Keep both shoulders completely relaxed and flat against the floor. Slowly let your knees drop to one side only as far as they will go comfortably. Relax there to the count of five and then bring them up again. Repeat on the other side. Do this up to five times on each side.
Use a hand or pillow to support the back of your head if your neck is uncomfortable against the floor.

Hip Extension

Holding onto a table or back of a chair, grasp your foot or ankle. Let your knee dangle straight down. Move your thigh backward, then return, repeating on both sides up to 20 times.

Hip Flexes

Sit in a chair and hold the seat with your hands, lift one leg as if you were taking a step. Keep the back straight and do not lean forward as you lift the leg. Keep your abdomen pulled in for support. Repeat 10 times then do  sequence with your other leg. This simple stretch will build hip strength as well as flexibility.

(You can do this by sitting on the floor also with legs straight in the front. Take support of the floor with hands flat on the floor)

Hamstrings Stretch

Stand upright; keep your leg straight and your foot resting on a low stool in front of you. Exhale, and slowly lean into your straight leg until you feel a comfortable stretch. Hold for 10-30 seconds and return to start. Repeat on both sides, at least 10 times.

Calf Stretch

Stand facing a wall with your toes almost touching it. Lean forward into your hands placed at shoulder height against the wall. Move one leg back only as far as it stays flat on the floor. You should feel a comfortable stretch in your calf muscle when you lean into the stretch. Your toes should point forward. Repeat on both sides, holding for 10-30 seconds.

Abdominal stretch

Kneel on floor or mat with hips straight. Place hands on the back of hips keeping your palms against your lower back and your fingers pointing down towards the floor. Lean your torso back by arching back. Hold the stretch for a few minutes. Repeat 5 times.

Pelvic stretching exercises that you can practice to reduce  intensity of menstrual pain.

1. Lie straight on your back and slowly bend your knees and clasp them. Now, slowly without raising your head and chest, try to bring the knees up to your chest. Hold it in this position for a few seconds and then slowly go back to the original position. You can try it with one leg alternatively also.

2. Lie flat on your back and slowly raise both legs up into the air, perpendicular to the floor and hold this position for few seconds. Be careful, while going back to the original position. Go very slowly and if it is not comfortable, first bend your legs and then lower them slowly.

So stretch out, ease that tension, tone up and stay fit for life.