mentalie

yup, i think i’ll morph into ken.

2010-06-13T07:03:00.005+09:00

it could be the recent spate of advertising for glowing white armpits, or the last hour i spent googling rhinoplasty procedures, or the fact that i haven’t had sex for…oh, lets just say i can officially declare myself a virgin again, but i’ve had this feeling creeping up on me for awhile now. this feeling that i can be perfected. subject to fine print and certain inescapable realities of life, of course (like the fact that i haven’t managed to grow a pair of boobs in 32 years, which effectively nixes my chances of morphing into barbie). after contemplating for a long, long time on the possibility of perfection that the cosmesuitical industry argues for so persistently when i turn on the tv (oh come on, you should take a break from the worldcup too), after fantasizing for ages about what it would be like to be sweat-less, odor-less, hairless, blemish-less, zit-less, t-zone-less, stretchmark-less, snout-less, cellulite-less, wrinkle-less, i have reached the conclusion that there is only one perfect material in the world and we are not made of it. plastic. plastic is perfect, whereas people are porous. so i’m seriously thinking of getting myself redone in it. with pearly whites and baby blues and perpetually arched eyebrows and a super slick hairdo and permanently flexed pecs and perennially taut glutes and an urbane plastic bump where my genitalia used to be. you can help me decide one last thing - should i go blonde, or brunette?

image sources: www.cnbc.com, www.brooklynstars-forever.blogspot.com

doing the hurly burly

2010-05-29T01:19:00.006+09:00

perhaps its the can of creamed corn i had for lunch today, but as the time for dinner draws nearer, my belly’s beginning to bubble and rumble and i’m overcome with memories.

there was a morning many years ago, when my loving mother made me a papaya milk shake. ever had one? if you have and managed to keep it down, i salute you. mine parted company with me about two sips down, much to my mother’s disappointment. she told me that i was an ungrateful brat and that my bowels would remain clogged up forever if i didn’t eat more papaya. then she held my hair back while i puked all over her sparkling sofa.

there was also the time i went shopping with the folks at takashimaya in tokyo. my folks were always wary of tasting anything handed to them in the japanese food marts. you really never know when they'll hand you an octopus on a toothpick. that afternoon, however, i’d been having a feast at the chocolate and wine aisles. then i turned a corner and found myself holding a small platter of what looked like chopped fruit. ick, i thought and looked around for the nearest bin. but the little white uniformed lady who’d handed me the platter stood in my way smiling expectantly. cursing myself for getting cornered into eating fruit, i speared a couple of yellow and orange chunks on my toothpick and popped them into my mouth. the next minute i vomited exorcist style all over the pristine little lady. chocolate and wine and erm, all the sushi i've ever eaten.

a few years later, my friend K and i staggered into a bar in berlin. we were traveling on a student traineeship and perpetually poor and hungry as beggars. the strategy we’d evolved then was to eat a bun for breakfast, a slice of ‘happy meal’ pizza for lunch and the biggest and cheapest thing we could find on the bar menu for dinner. this evening, the cheapest and biggest thing happened to be blutwurst, the fattest sausage we’d ever seen. until we were about half way through, it was also the tastiest. then K – while flirting with the bartender – made the cardinal mistake of asking what it was we were eating. blood sausage, the good man beamed back, pig meat and rice cooked in pig blood and wrapped up in a sausage specially for you! that’s when K nipped her german romance in the bud and came to the loo to be sick with me instead.

perhaps the worst of my memories is the time my dear polish friend basia served me a bowl of her grandmother’s chicken soup. it was a secret family recipe that had taken her 90 year old grandmum all day to make. for you, the most special bowl, she beamed toothlessly at me. ooh look, it has the neck and leg in it, basia said and showed me. yup, i blew it all over that sweet old woman’s kitchen floor.

ufff. now if you’ll excuse me, i believe my belly would like to have another word.

image source: www.popartuk.com

born with the thighs of a racist pig.

2010-05-19T04:28:00.013+09:00

a few months ago, my friend L and i set off for our usual afternoon date with the chat walla of punjab sweet house at pali naka. we’d just finished up with a project that kept us swotting for weeks on end and this was our first free afternoon. the plan was to get chat for lunch, then head out for some street shopping along hill road, drop into the mango sale at linking road, come back for a nice cup of tea at office, and then head out again with our cameras to catch the sun set at carter road. or whatever else.

L and i were in high spirits as we bowled merrily along in the rickshaw. it was the kind of day that began with no agenda and promised to get better with every passing hour.

then we turned a corner and spotted the gaggle of skinny white bitches traipsing along the sunny lanes of pali hill.

now bandra is a pretty neighbourhood on any given day, and it has its share of beauties and celebrities. but these chicks had the kind of heart stopping goddess-ness that could make you quit breathing altogether.

they were, without exception, tall and delicious and creamy as frosty glasses of cold coffee. and without exception, they wore breezy little blousons and hot little pants.

and their legs, ohhhh! their legs were so leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean and so loooooooooooooooooooooong. each and every pair of them. all calf muscles and dainty hips and tapering thighs.

L and i didn’t stand a chance as our rickshaw rattled over the pot holes that murphy had so thoughtfully lined that particular stretch of road with.

glumly, we surveyed our own thunderous south indian thighs as they shimmied and shook and jiggled gloriously, keeping tempo. they were, without doubt, 100% cellulite.

ufff, what’s with the ex pat infestation! - L muttered bitterly when she finally caught her breath - why don’t they just walk back to where they came from with those perfect legs of theirs!

GAH! yeah, bloody GO HOME, bloody BITCHES! - i spat back.

yup, i meant it and so did L.

image source: www.loona.net

pliz evakvate!

2010-05-14T03:21:00.005+09:00

cyber city, gurgaon is a gleaming futuristic citadel rising out of a dust bowl.

the skyline is cluttered with eclectic angles of glass and chrome megaliths. the buildings rear up fearsomely from the honking traffic jams. the wind hoots eerily through the open panels of construction sites. corporate towers gleam from behind the dusty whirlwind that blows about them through the day.

it is possibly one of the most weird and fantastical landscapes you could ever to go to work to.

in that sense, it’s much like it’s people.

they gather like pigeons along the walls and walkways after lunch. let’s go get some fresh air, they say, and troop out of their buildings to roost on the concrete surrounding a tiny oasis of landscaped green lawn.

nobody dares to sit on the grass, and the ones that do are instantly shooed away by the vice president in charge of jay walkers and dog poo.

managing cyber city is a very important job. every official on that team is a vice president at the very least.

some are even managing directors, like the cyber city official in charge of fire safety.

this impressive gentleman recently organized one of the most spectacular events i’ve ever been to. it began with a shrill fire alarm and two hypnotically repeated words:

beep beep beep

pliz evakvate!

beep beep beep

pliz evakvate!

beep beep beep

pliz evakvate!

within a matter of minutes, the managing director of fire drills held his audience of a few thousand employees from surrounding buildings mesmerized. they squinted up at him en masse against the blazing sun.

the managing director did not disappoint us. in addition to his quivering walrus moustache, he presented a long and complex thesis on how to identify the different kinds of fire extinguishers, and executed several spectacularly choreographed demos on the right and wrong way to use them. he gave us a show that even the russian circus could never rival, and he did this with the able assistance of two mentally challenged prop boys who single mindedly focused on getting their fire extinguishers wrong, or holding them upside down. as a grand finale, a firetruck full of fire men charged in and incontinently sprayed a few gallons of water onto the crowd.

together, they worked the crowd like pros – a giggle that grew into a laugh that grew into a roar, then an encore.

all along, a man in a silver space suit stood silently by the md’s side. when the drill ended, everyone queued up to take pictures with the mystery man. nobody knew why he was there, nor who he was for that matter.

he could have been the vice president of silver spacesuits, of course.

or he could have simply dropped out of the sky like cyber city itself.

image source: just in case you didn't notice, please read the picture again.

if patience is a virtue, she's a slut

2010-05-10T06:39:00.000+09:00

you mean now...?

yes, now, today, why not?

but i...i’m not ready yet.

you are being really silly, you know.

i am just not ready, dammit!

when pray, will you be ready, mr.husband?

listen, i am not your husband yet.

you’re right, you aren’t…

what are you smiling at?

that guy in red.

wha…why?

you tell me, sweetheart, you tell me.

mind games

2010-05-03T06:17:00.003+09:00

she hit upon the new plan while driving to work one day.

the traffic light would tell, she decided.

if it turned green before she counted twenty five, it would all work out.

if it didn’t, there was the next signal.

and all the ones after that.

there were so many of them, to tell her if she was the one.

she didn’t tell a soul, of course.

they’d have thought she was crazy.

not just crazy about him, you understand, stark, raving crazy.

or worse, they’d have felt sorry, changed the subject, laughed it off.

it was so much more fun this way.

her private little gamble.

random as the fortune teller’s parrot she’d gotten to know so well.

another arbitrary attraction to look forward to in desperate times.

red…

one, two, three...

ten…twenty…nooooooooooo!

red…

one, two, three…

twenty one…twenty FOUR, TWENTY FIVE!!!

orange...red...green...

red...green...

orange...

the city was full of roads full of traffic lights.

all she had to do was drive.

image source: www.deviantart.com

screw vodafone, amchi NRM!

2010-04-30T02:25:00.006+09:00

today's been a big day for me.

for one, i managed to con vodafone into giving me a dilli connection without giving them a single personal detail or document. ha! of course, my dear brother jopee had to give them a copy of his house lease and a pretty mug shot of himself to get me the new sim. but still, jopee punished vodafone by getting their guy to come over in the wee hours of the night to collect these. ha HA!

(jopee has a thrilling genius for extracting service from the most bloody minded customer service departments. he managed to get vodafone to do in one evening what i haven’t managed to pull off since the beginning of march. i’m seriously thinking of telling him to drop his wishy washy corporate job and monetize his superpowers instead. the ability to get vodafone to issue, verify and activate a new connection within 24 hours is the kind of niche and amazing talent that must get paid in gold bricks.)

but despite jopee’s dazzling performance and my utter delight at having outmaneuvered vodafone, i had a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when i got my new dilli sim card last night. the very thought of letting go of my old number made my blood run cold.

come on! - jopee said - see if it works, i told the vodafone guy there’ll be hell to pay if it isn’t activated this evening!

frankly, even i was completely shocked by my reluctance. i've been going on and on about how it’ll be brilliant to get another number and keep it a state secret for years now. but as it turns out, i’m just not cool enough to go awol.

in fact, i’m terrified of the mess this is no doubt going to create in the days to come. i’ll have to change the number in my bank records to continue getting their mobile alerts. this will take some nifty navigation through never ending phone menus. only to get put through to the wrong department, or get redirected to online banking. yeesh. i’ll also have to unsubscribe to stinking vodafone live all over again – with vodafone working hard to fox me into staying subscribed. i’ll have to send out mass sms-es to at least 50% of the people in my phone book. which a bunch of them will not receive, or forget to save. i’ll have to memorize my new number. i’ll have to change it on my business cards, my mail sign off, my cleartrip account…%@#@$@!

don't be silly - jopee said - you can't be on roaming forever!

b-b-bbbbbut, that's my mumbai number! from now on, when my friends and folks call, it’ll be STDeeeee!

the very thought of it made me want to cry. stupid, i know. so i figured i should just go the whole hog and keep both numbers.

think of it as a dual citizenship – i sms-ed a friend this morning – henceforth and until further notice, i’m a Non Resident Mumbaikar.

so like i said, today's been a big day for me. i won the battle and then lost the war to vodafone. i’ve been saying ‘screw vodafone, amchi NRM!’ all day to make myself feel better. you know what, it works. the advertising business has trained me well. as you can see i’ve gotten so goddamn good, i can sell myself my own bullshit.

ps: i’ll thank you for not congratulating me on this remarkable achievement.

image source: www.vodafone.in

dear vodafone customer care executive,

2010-04-28T02:55:00.003+09:00

i hope this letter finds you in the pink of health and the finest of fettle.

vodafone always enquires how our last chat went, but they also restrict me to a cold ‘yes’ / ‘no’ sms. since neither of these words do justice to the passion you inspire in me, i never know what to say. i’m always left grappling for words when we’re speaking on the phone as well. you primly instruct me to keep my emotions in check before you archly cut me off.

the shrewd victorian governesses you seem to have trained under have certainly taught you well. it’s so irresistibly quaint in this day and age. the way you shy away from brazenly throwing a solution at me like a commonplace corporate slut; the way you dutifully stick to what the script dictates and refuse to rise to my bait; the way you coyly tell me that you understand…but, tut tut!

how else could we possibly prolong this tireless exchange of sweet nothings after all?

if you didn’t make me trawl through that tricky phone menu to get to speak with you time and again, if you gave in to temptation and summarily sorted my mess out, if you put me through to your supervisor like i so foolishly demand, if you raked up our past in the records i keep nagging about, if you didn’t ingenuously conspire to make me work hard to get what i want…!

in retrospect, i realize these eventualities would simply nip our sizzling chemistry in the bud.

goddamn it, i’m obsessed with you now. one day i’ll hunt you down. then i’m going to do to you what you do to me and bugger you until your brain gives out.

in the meantime, i remain,

your humble servant and hapless vodafone customer.

image source: www.vodafone.in

fresh meat

2010-04-25T05:13:00.007+09:00

she was 21 when she first came to mumbai.

her train pulled into dadar station at 4.45am and the first thing that hit her was the smell. it seeped through the passageway where she waited in line to get off. the stale smog of tightly packed bodies, leftover food and urine that had collected in the train through the night were no match for it. she noticed the child in front of her wrinkle his nose and burrow into his mother’s neck. but she let it wash over her instead, settle over her skin, her hair, her clothes, make her its own.

when she finally managed to step off with her suitcase, she slammed straight into a fishwife’s warm, moist, reeking bosom. essence of mumbai, she quipped to herself. the fishwife was gone in a jiffy, swallowed up by the churning mass of people.

nobody noticed her standing by her fallen suitcase. except the ones who pushed her aside. they seemed possessed, these people of mumbai. thrusting through the platform, pressing against each other, swelling out of the exits. the station clock said 5am and all of them were late already.

warden road, she told the taxi driver. he downed his meter wordlessly and they took off on her first ride through mumbai’s muggy melee. her window was rolled all the way down to not miss a thing. the sedate red buses warming up to a busy monday, the traffic beginning to bustle on the streets, the crows and pigeons thronging the trees, the dull buildings jammed together, the slum infested sidewalks, the scuttling crowds. she loved it all at first sight.

the city had no memories to haunt her that day.

everything was waiting to happen.

image source: www.outlookindia.com

a man is known by the company he keeps but i will be known for the company i do away with.

2010-04-18T07:43:00.027+09:00

over the years that i was growing up an only child who moved cities every 11 months, i made a fairly motley assortment of imaginary friends.

the first one i remember is lucy the station wagon who came home when i was eight. she was painted ashes of roses and was a grand old lady by the time we met. though my father often complained about her being temperamental, lucy and i got along famously. her boot was the cocoon that i spent many joyous evenings, weekends and holidays in until i was ten.

then my father got a new car, a monstrous white ambassador that didn’t have a whit of lucy’s charm or grace. i hated it at first sight and never bothered introducing myself or asking for its name.

i never made friends with a car again until many years later, when i bought my first car and christened her malaika. she had me swooning on our first ride from worli to bandra, the way she slipped and slid, smooth as butter, through the narrow passage ways of mumbai. she was as vivacious as an auto rickshaw and zippy as an RX 100. she was the love of my life that day.

the next morning i parked her at phoenix mills and returned to find her bonnet crushed in.

after a depressing week driving her around with a busted bonnet i decided to cheer us both up by getting her a new hi fi. about 15 minutes into the fitting, an empty glass bottle came flying out of a window in the building we were parked under and shattered malaika’s windshield.

so there she was, a week old chevy spark that looked like an elephant had raped it.

neither malaika nor i ever recovered from the let down.

i grit my teeth and patched her up, but she just kept getting herself into trouble. she cracked her fender on a pothole next. then someone backed into her at a wedding. a cabbie crashed her side on carter road. her engine developed a hacking cough. her roof wept persistently in the rain. last year we bumped a speed breaker and her rear view mirror fell off the roof, just like that.

clearly, malaika had had enough.

she came back from GM with her mirror fixed upside down.

that’s the day i gave up on trying to be friends and rechristened her the bitch.

in august 2010, the financial contract that binds our unhappy marriage finally ends. i’ve been counting the days off to her all of this year, which unfortunately seems to have inspired the bitch to go on strike again.

she’s developed an evil sputter in her fuel injection as of yesterday and needs to retire to the mechanic for a week. while i meru cab it to gurgaon and back. @#@$#!!

after wasting all of today looking for car voodoo dolls, i’ve finally come up with a new agenda for august instead. i’m throwing a party at hauz khas and having all the local gym boys over. there's going to be an unlimited buffet of alcohol and sledge hammers. ha ha. malaika the bitch is going to get her birthday butt bumped right off in august 2010.

ps: i doubt i’ll miss this imaginary friend.

pps: you are blacklisted in my books, GM.

image credit: www.stardustkids.co.uk

36F

2010-04-06T04:09:00.002+09:00

my very dear and very pregnant friend and i visited mothercare at ambi mall last thursday. it was the kind of work day that demanded a nice calming stroll through the shopping arcade and there was also the matter of procuring some specially constructed mommy to be lingerie.

the first thing you notice about mothercare’s collection of pregnancy fashions is that it is built big and designed to grow bigger. the bras are bolstered with wings and awnings and start at size cannon ball. the size 8 underwear unfolds into a blousy house dress, while the magnificent size 20 unfurls like gigantic sails across your arms. then you stretch and just when you think you can fit noah’s arc in, it miraculously gives a little more.

yup, as engineering marvels go, you’d be hard pressed to find anything more spectacular and more down right pragmatic as maternity underwear. sure, it makes the odd exception for print and lace, but the foundation and most impressive aspect of its architecture is without doubt the infinitely accommodating waistband.

personally, stretchlon maternity waistbands are one of the scariest things i’ve ever seen. on the one hand, they propose the distinct possibility of getting that fat. on the other hand, they seemed to taunt me with their roominess. acres and meters of them billowed judgmentally down at my washboard chest and bony butt. no cleavage, the bras noted like well padded aunties as i walked by wonderingly. the expandable waist jeans shied away from my shapeless belly. the maternity gowns drooped in depression at my miserable hips.

even the sales staff gave me a wide berth.

i hadn’t felt like such a freak in a long time.

that is, until i finally found a bra that fit.

weekend nookie

2010-04-03T08:53:00.007+09:00

many years ago, when i was a young tomboy with nothing much on my mind other than which tree to climb and conquer next, i saw a song on tv that changed me forever.

in the days when famous five, he-man and chitrahar summed up the entire gamut of my tv habit, DD aired the grammies once a year. this was a much anticipated event back then. spectacular simply because there was no competition, this was IT. the solitary window to what was happening in the world of pop. a thrilling taste of what would feature in that years ‘best of grammies’ tape. then an entire year to kill again on chitrahar and the scintillating adventures of the famous five and he-man.

maybe that’s why it took my breath away, that song.

or maybe it was just time for me to fall in love for the very first time.

here it is folks, paul mccartney singing ‘love me do’ (and man, did i ever!):

while my mother insists that kumar gaurav was the first guy i fell for at age five, thankfully, i have no memory of it. however, i distinctly and viscerally remember the feeling of losing my heart to paul singing this song. it felt exactly like having my guts ripped out, and it defined the sensation of falling in love for me ever since.

i watched ‘across the universe’ today for breakfast, then again for lunch. the beatles seem to have come flooding back at me with a vengeance thanks to my kind friend R’s diligent attentions.

so here i am, gutted again.

damn me, what a fantastic beginning to a gloriously love struck weekend :)

kicking butt in dilli

2010-03-01T00:52:00.009+09:00

i moved into a sweet little flat at hauz khas village in dilli this weekend.

my landlady happens to be the local don and her 5000w voice begins to crack like a cannon across the rooftops at 6am:

‘TU SEEDI SAAF KAR RAHI HAI KE DHOOL MAL RAHI HAI?’ she booms at the quivering maid who trips over herself to make the stairway sparkle.

‘TAMATAR BECHE HAI KE SONA?!’ she roars at the soft spoken vegetable man.

‘MUJHKO JAWAB DETA HAI! BADE PAR NIKAL AAYE HAIN TERE!’ she bellows at some foolhardy soul who has had the temerity to talk back.

i've been here 24 hours now, and my landlady’s mighty roar has drowned away my laptop’s tinny tenor to become the soundtrack of my weekend.

oddly enough, i'm finding it deeply comforting.

‘HAAIN??? TUJHE KOI AANKH UTHAKE TOH DEKE!’, she exploded when i enquired how safe it was around these parts, ‘YE DEKH MERI RIFLE! GOLLI SE UDA DOONGI!’

i'm sure the neighbourhood was listening, along with everyone else within the NCR region.

it made me feel very, very special.

the way the bug eyed villagers warily watched me this morning added greatly to my swagger as i strode out to the tapri for tea. they peeked like mice from behind walls and windows and doorways. when i looked back, their eyes blinked and skittered away. the ones i met along the narrow lane swerved and disappeared up gullies and stairways. and the one man i happened to brush against leapt back like he’d been scalded. ‘s-s-s-sorry mai-dam!’ he squeaked and ran away.

honestly, i don’t believe i’ve ever managed to elicit this degree of rank terror in all my 32 years.

yup, i’m wearing my bovver boots like i mean it from now on, my friends,

they are no longer just a survival tactic.

i'm feeling dangerous.

image source: www.aryanwear.com

coffee, tea, or me

2010-02-24T03:25:00.002+09:00

he woke up to her

curled into his shoulder

her face so close

he could breathe her in

she was awake

watching him

(this was new

but he never thought about it)

he kissed her

his sweet lips unsuspecting

held her closer

then he got out of bed

showered

shaved

dressed

came down to breakfast

expecting the usual

i am leaving you

she said

instead.

image source: www.deviantart.com

don’t flatter yourself, mr.bhagat

2010-02-19T00:04:00.003+09:00

chetan bhagat declared on twitter today that he’s finally come to the conclusion that he’s a complete idiot. ha ha.

i think not.

a cursory glance through his body of barf (if you can bear to stomach even that) should be enough for the average reader to recognize him for what he is – a machiavellian perversion of literature released upon the indian readership to wean us away from books forever.

he’s probably the lynch pin of a giant conspiracy by kindle. or by the evil minions who sell us ‘value added services’ on our mobile phones.

think about it. he reads exactly like sms spam. the kind you get on (ick!) valentine’s day, or (yuck!) friendship day, or (huh?) women’s day, heavily garnished with fucked up spelling, zero grammar and smileys for punctuation. the folks who can read that junk and be moved to do anything less than projectile vomit are clearly made of sterner stuff than i am.

the menu card at my guest house in gurgaon reads better than mr.bhagat. tucked away in its list of unpretentious indian/continental/chinese fare are what i can only assume to be the cook’s specials, viz, staffed parathas with crud and pickels, toast with jam and batter, anyway maggy, massla poppad, sikh kabab, paneer batter massla, matter paneer, bucumber salad, batter chicken, matten curry, chicken munchur, american and chines choupsey and plane milk. at the end, it sweetly signs off with ‘at your sirvice :)’

my point is that unlike bhagat barf, reading this eager cook’s curious listings never fails to pique my appetite and always leaves me smiling.

ps: in case you're wondering, i follow mr.bhagat on twitter because on the days i'm pms-ing, tweeting back at him is like laxative for the soul.

image source: www.ugly-halloween-costumes.com

oooh, pramod muthalik must’ve peed his pink panties!

2010-02-16T14:55:00.008+09:00

just look at that ugly mug.

don’t miss the beady eyes, that cunning smile, the heavy air of slime and power that hangs about him.

take look at that picture again.

doesn’t he make the cops look cute? i’ll bet he had them for breakfast right after the photo shoot.

did you hear about how they invited him to a debate on valentine’s day? did it remind you of the good old school days too? so sweet, na?

and what about those naughty boys from the youth congress who crashed his speech and gave him a charcoal facial? heh, must've done wonders for his complexion.

jokes apart, this is the face of a man who spreads hate and horror for a living. i wonder what he'll come up with when he gets sick of all the heckling.

image source: www.outlookindia.com

i’m eating everything my mother puts on my plate these days

2010-02-06T06:34:00.011+09:00

she’s ten and a half pounds, my grandmum approvingly told my mother when she regained consciousness about a week after i almost ripped her in two on my way out into this world. it’s the first thing she heard about me and the first thing about me that made her proud. thereafter, my family heaved a collective sigh of relief and moved on from praying for my mother's life to congratulating her on my impressive rolls of fat.

everybody in my family was utterly enamored by them. legends abound about the number of fingers, hands and limbs that could disappear into the mythical tyres of flab on my classically thunderous south indian thighs.

legend also has it that i was a problem eater and often fell ill when i was young. this is the one thing my mother held against me as a child, since it seriously threatened her grand ambitions for me. all i did was feed you for the first 11 years of your life, my mother is fond of saying to me still, by the time you ate breakfast, it was time to feed you lunch…and then time for tiffin…and then dinner…i had no time to do anything except make you eat while you were growing up!

well, that’s her story anyway.

our family albums will bear witness to the fact that contrary to my mother’s complaint, eating was all i did for the first 11 years of my life.

other than me, the villain who always gets a dishonorable mention in my mother’s stories is the doctor who had the temerity to thwart her when i was three.

she is grossly overweight... - the doctor observed in the middle of my mother's tirade about my lack of appetite.

but, but...she doesn’t eat anything! - my mother wailed.

missing a few meals is not going to do your daughter any harm, madam, she is obese! - the unfortunate doctor said.

at which point, my mother recoiled like a queen cobra, told him exactly what she thought of him as a doctor and a human being, walked out and never went back.

so while i was growing up, all my friends called me saand. i remember, they’d slip in through the grille that surrounded the park downstairs and i’d be left standing outside. always too fat to fit.

then my folks and i moved to japan when i was 14…and i added a liter of haagen daaz, 3 cokes and a few candy bars (per day) to my mother’s daily fare. then i grew and i grew and i GREW until my skin stretched tight as a drum over me and my layers of fat.

by the time i saw my collar bone for the very first time i was 21. i was away at hostel and had been on a steady diet of cigarettes, yogurt, nimbu paani and salad for about 3 months by then. my collar bone looked so strange and beautiful on my body that i couldn’t stop squinting at it for days in the cruddy bathroom mirror.

but when i went back home for the holidays, my mum took one look at me and the tears welled up in her eyes. i saw her vision of me shatter, painfully, on the sharp edges of my new found bones. by the time i said ‘no’ to her second helping at dinner, she knew and i knew...it was the end of her era.

and as she has informed me again at the dinner table this evening - she does not plan to get over it any time soon!

image source: www.vintagekitchen.com

happy birthday, this is my gift to you.

2010-02-04T05:43:00.001+09:00

on your 32nd birthday, baby
if you happen to see this, maybe
in case you never do, it’s
what you said you always wanted, really
so you know i was listening, not
simply playing at being oh, so into you
just starting today, just for you
i’m keeping my wishes
my hugs, my kisses
and all my love
safe
from you.

i am less than a week away from flying out to dilli and wondering where to stock up on my cartons of mace, my cast iron chastity belts and a set of matching cast iron corsets that look like this:

2010-02-02T04:49:00.004+09:00

image source: www.racheshop.de

sometimes i think i'm seeing things

2010-01-27T17:07:00.003+09:00

sgt. pinklewit, aka the acp: hello colonel…they said you might be out here.

col. khan: shhh...gimme your paw...now close your eyes, go on…keep your eyes closed, don’t peek.

sgt.: i’m not…

col.: hold on, hold on…keep your eyes closed…do you trust me?

sgt.: i trust you!

col.: …

sgt.: ?

col.: *snore*

sgt.: *gasp* [eyes snap open] you’re asleep colonel!

col.: [humming in his sleep] come, josephine, in my whiskas machine, going up, she goes up, up she goes…

sgt.: open your eyes, colonel...don't you love me?

col.: [blissed out in REM] i’m the king of the worldzzzZZZ...:)

you’ll meet them at every traffic signal today

2010-01-25T15:38:00.004+09:00

you might be driving to work, or on your way to college, or heading back home, or going out with your friends.

they’ll be the bright little faces that pop up at your window, smiling and waving their bouquets of tricolour flags and badges at you.

maybe you’ll smile back and buy one. then again, maybe you won’t.

after all, what’s the point of buying the tricolour token once you’re past the mandatory flag hoisting ceremonies at school?

most of us are too busy chasing our dreams and ambitions these days to do anything more than heave a sigh of relief and sleep in on the 26th of January.

but those bright little flag sellers will still be on the street struggling to make ends meet the day after tomorrow…and the day after…and the day after that...

unless you decide to do something truly patriotic for their future and for the future of our nation this time, on republic day.

you can start by donating rs 700 to the School=Lunch program.

every single one of us who donates rs 700 ensures that one underprivileged child gets one hot meal every day for an entire school year.

one hot meal. For which the parent sacrifices sending their little one to sell you flags and flowers, or to wipe your car at the traffic signals...which has the power to bring that child to school every day!

so please pledge your rs 700 right away.

HOW TO DONATE:

1. you can use the internet payment gateway at www.middaymeal.com

2. you can call 022 40366866. they'll guide you through the payment options.
3. you can draw a cheque in favour of 'iskcon food relief foundation' and mail it to:
nanha munna rahi hoon, iskcon food relief foundation, 19 jaywant industrial premises, 63 tardeo road, mumbai 400 034.
if you are in mumbai, you can call seema at 982084245 to have your cheque picked up.
if you are near bandra, you can drop your cheque at the 'rickshaw' office between 10am and 7pm. in case thflat 102, dheeraj grand, 15th road, bandra west (the lane between mini punjab and bombay blues. landmark: shaibaan restaurant at the start of the lane)ey are out, please slip the cheque under the door. their address is:

the one that got away - I

2010-01-21T14:35:00.005+09:00

three months ago, on the morning of my 32nd birthday, i woke up and reached for the pack of wills navy cut that lay beside me on my bed as usual.

then i didn’t smoke a cigarette.

not smoking has been that simple and that hard for me.

i congratulate myself for every cigarette that i don’t smoke and celebrate every one of them as a personal victory.

especially because i still love smoking, as i am sure i always will.

strangely enough, always being highly conscious of the fact that i'll never get over it is the only thing that keeps me from smoking a cigarette.

i have found that quitting smoking is exactly like the boy or girl you can never quite get out of your system. you know...the one you will always be vulnerable to...who you must be careful not to spend too much 'alone time' with...who you must be careful not to go drinking with anymore...who you might find yourself pining for some days...who you have given into again and again woken up to regret the act.

like i did just yesterday when i smoked that last cigarette which was hiding in the corner of a pack that got left behind on my sofa by mistake.

there it was one minute, temptingly winking at me like the devil.

the next minute it was over and done with, a sad little pile of ash at the bottom of the empty cigarette pack.

it was so sudden and urgent that i don’t even remember what happened.

afterwards, i felt slightly foolish and icky…but also slightly electrified…how easy it was to just slip back!

then in the evening, i lit another one when i was a few drinks down. i would have smoked it too, and gone on to finish off the whole pack i’m sure. except that a friend stepped in to rescue me from myself this time.

so i’m keeping my fingers crossed for better sense to prevail and thanking the good lord above for the good friends who help me rise above this evil love of mine.

and i am writing off yesterday as the day i got away with it :)

amen to that!

oh, the way we kissed!

2010-01-17T18:02:00.006+09:00

down by the bridge

that day they bombed our trains the third time in a row

you and i, we kissed

and we kissed

until the police came to demand their just compensation

for so shamelessly endangering the morals of this town

when they left

you turned to me and said,

god…

i love you

i can’t breathe

kiss me quick!

ACHTUNG LADIES: JUST SHOOT HIM!

2010-01-16T06:10:00.006+09:00

dr.melanie and i were on our way to yoga class this wednesday evening when we learnt a very valuable lesson.

so there we were, looking like pragmatic padminis in our baggy sweatpants and tees, our faces well scrubbed, our hair pulled back into pony tails, trying to flag down an auto at 6.30pm on sv road.

within 5 minutes we ended up flagging down a stalker instead.

our eyes met about 100 meters before he reached us. then he slowed down and coasted past. his eyes held mine as he pulled up a few meters down the road, swung his leg over and parked his bike. he was about six feet tall with a heavy stubble, and he looked like he’d just walked off a b-grade gangster movie shoot where he was playing the chief ambient asshole.

i chivvied the doctor (who hadn’t noticed our new admirer) into a nearby auto and told the driver to get a move on it.

unfortunately, our autowalla (unlike most mumbai autowallas) drove his vehicle like a luna. he putputted along like a novice and seemed utterly cowed by the rush hour frenzy.

the asshole had a field day swooping gracefully in and out of traffic behind our auto. he’d materialize next to us whichever way we turned. sometimes he’d pull up close and leer in, sometimes he’d ogle at us across the car tops. he didn’t do a thing except stare us with his sick, menacing, x-ray vision.

is he going to do anything? – the doctor asked me.

i have no clue! – i muttered jumpily as we pulled up at a traffic signal.

the asshole pulled up one car away, stalled his bike, turned around and got back to business, viz, leching.

well, i’m just going to shoot him and his license plate while he eyeballs us! – said the doctor.

then she pointed her phone camera at the asshole and commenced clicking like a pro.

within a few seconds the balance of power had dramatically shifted and the hunter had transformed into the prey.

while the good doctor and i clicked away like a pair of professional japanese tourists, the asshole uneasily shifted his bike ahead and behind the car to conceal his license plate.

here he is, attempting to blend in with the rest of the respectable folks:

as soon as the signal changed, he fell back into the surging sea of vehicles and disappeared. we spotted him one or twice again, bolting ahead of us in the traffic. he seemed to be in quite a rush to get away.

the good doctor and i got in to yoga class feeling like the goddamn KINGS of the fucking road :)

so keep your phone cameras handy ladies, and just shoot the next SOB you meet on the road! you don't even need to get a good shot...he just needs to think so!

patriotism is such a vintage emotion

2010-01-14T15:54:00.004+09:00

doesn’t it remind you of grandpa’s conversations and ncc parades and civics lessons and manoj kumar movies and the era of doordarshan when our national anthem played before the news every day?

in our times we religiously look up the 26th of january and the 15th of august at the beginning of the year to check if they fall on weekends or weekdays.

then we dive breathlessly back into our fast paced lives and fast track careers.

it’s not that we are indifferent, it’s just that we are working harder than ever before to secure a bigger, better, brighter tomorrow.

there’s little time and space for patriotic idealism in the pragmatic business of making progress!

unless…we start thinking of patriotism as something more meaningful than the quaint gestures and rituals we remember from our school days.

patriotism is every act of enabling and nurturing a bigger, better, brighter future for

India

it is as actionable as donating Rs 700 to the ‘nanha munna raahi hoon’ initiative for the school equals lunch program.

every single one of us who donates rs 700 ensures that one underprivileged child gets one hot meal every day for an entire school year.

one hot meal. for which the parent sacrifices sending their little one to sell flags and flowers, or to wipe car windows at traffic signals. one hot meal. which is probably the only nutritious meal the child has in the day. one hot meal. that has the power to bring a child to school every day.

if one thousand of us donate rs. 700 in the next thirteen days, then one thousand more kids can go to school this year.

so please pledge rs 700 for them this republic day and please help us pass this message on to everyone you know.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR DONATION:

1. you can use the internet payment gateway at www.middaymeal.com

2. you can call 022-40366866 and they will guide you through the payment options

3. you can draw a cheque in favour of 'iskcon food relief foundation' and mail it to:

nanha munna rahi hoon, iskcon food relief foundation, 19 jaywant industrial premises, 63 tardeo road, mumbai 400 034

OR (if you are in mumbai) you can call seema at 982084245 to have your cheque picked up.

OR (if you are in mumbai) you can drop your cheque at the rickshaw office in bandra between 10am and 7pm. in case they're out, slip the cheque under the door and they'll have it sent to school equals lunch. the address is:

flat 102, dheeraj grand, 15th road, bandra west (landmark: shaibaan restaurant at the start of the lane between mini punjab and bombay blues)

ps: on a less serious note, do not dismiss patriotism - it can accomplish miracles! (thank you, AGG :)

i want my goddamn virginity back

2010-01-11T21:26:00.004+09:00

you see, i lost mine to a bicycle one afternoon when i was twelve. my folks had just given it to me for my birthday - my first ‘grown up’ bicycle.

so there i was, free wheeling along the by lanes of indore, whiling away yet another deliciously endless summer afternoon. that vacation, i was obsessed with perfecting two things: the art of bicycling without hands and the art of whistling like a soldier. i was sure my mum would strongly disapprove of both and that inspired me no end. i wanted to ride up our driveway – arms folded, whistling nonchalantly – and yell out to mum as she drank her tea in the patio, SEE MA…NO HANDS!!! just to watch her jaw drop and see her face go red with worry and irritation.

(yes, i was and am an asshole sometimes…as i’m sure you are too, prissyface!)

i’d managed to get a nice balance going that day. i remember, because it was the first time i managed to fully straighten up and put my hands stylishly into my pockets. what an indescribably joyous feeling it was, swooping along aimlessly and whistling tunelessly into the wind.

right up until my front wheel met the pot hole.

within seconds my graceful joy ride degenerated into a high adrenaline wobble towards the neighbouring hedge.

by the time i got my hands out of my pockets, i had just enough time to jump off.

bang onto the too high central bar of my full size cycle.

!!WHUMP!!

stars and birds in my head.

just like the cartoons.

except for the unbelievable waves of pain.

i tottered home blindly, tears streaming down my face.

my mother didn’t laugh her head off like she should have. instead, she heard my sorry tale, put me to bed and told me to try again another day. then she went and wheeled me back my bicycle.

it still pisses me off though. the thought of my immaculate cocksureness and my immaculate hymen that fucking bicycle took away!

image credit: www.norcalblogs.com

sergent pinklewit (aka, the acp) and colonel khan: all quiet on the western front!

2010-01-09T12:03:00.001+09:00

HELP ROMEO FIND LOVE!

2010-01-07T05:24:00.008+09:00

people are heartless bastards.

the first time this hit me was when i was about ten. it was the day my school’s shooting team was asked to practice on the dogs that lived in daly college's palatial grounds.

every day at school was a blood bath that week. the first dog i saw shot was hit in the back leg. he managed to drag himself into the dense bush that abounded in the premises. his blood pooled on the road, but it soaked right into the red soil of madhya pradesh, giving him enough of a foil to get away that day.

a number of the dogs went that way. shot, but alive. they simply bled to death, or they were shot another day. bit by bit, part by part. here a leg, there a jaw, or a stomach, or a skull...

the shooting team’s technique was critiqued every day. i suppose they got better because eventually all the dogs seemed to have been shot dead, or gone underground.

one day that week, i dumped my school books in my desk, stuffed three puppies into my satchel and smuggled them home.

my mother didn’t really understand. nor did she believe me about the blood bath, since i was perpetually bringing stray animals home on some forlorn pretext or the other. she loved animals but in her opinion mongrels belonged on the street. so early the next morning, while i was asleep, she drove those puppies over to the other end of town.

incredibly though, the puppies came back that very same night. they found their way all the way across town and came back to me. they didn’t go back to daly college which was their territory until just a day ago. after that day, the puppies grew up outside our house. though they were never house pets, my (by then guilt riddled) mother fed them and fussed over them for many years.

i have always disliked people who dislike animals, who are cruel to them, or who can turn a blind eye when one needs help. there’s something sick and unnatural about folks like that if you ask me.

which brings me to romeo:

romeo is one year old and currently located in mumbai. the heartless bastard who owns romeo gets off on beating him every day and is apparently threatening to abandon him in the street. i can’t help thinking he’d be better off that way...unless, maybe you can help find romeo a home?

in case you can help find romeo temporary shelter or a loving home, please contact ruchi (M: 9820191321) from ‘Save The Helpless Animals Of Mumbai’ on Facebook, or get in touch with Abhi (M: 93219 51035).

else, please, please, please do pass the word around!

this song that i will be howling at the blue moon tonight...

2009-12-31T20:16:00.014+09:00

the 31^st of december always makes me feel like something is going to happen. so even though it’s always been a bit of a let down, my blood’s been running quicker today...my hands have been tingling…my feet are feeling ticklish…and i’ve been just itching, you know…for something! to give 2009 a swift kick on it’s way out, maybe. certainly to give someone a swift kick. not in a bad way at all...i mean, affectionately, joyously, and a bit madly. a comradely butt in the bum from one dear friend to another. while we swoop and sway and swirl around like dervishes to this song that won’t stop playing in my head...!

a daydream of you, my love

2009-12-27T15:25:00.016+09:00

one day when you are a million years old you’ll reach out absent mindedly after yet another elusive orgasm for the certain satisfaction of a post coital cigarette and instead you’ll chance upon an old picture which was taken when i had eyes that were as wide as this world and you’ll catch your breath as you see them shining in anticipation of the no longer heart stopping countenance of you and of the love that never was and the dream that got away somewhere along the way and all the laughter and the pain that fell stonily silent inside when you weren’t watching and crept unnoticed into a forgotten drawer by your bedside and lay quietly gathering dust ever since until today when a machiavellian quirk of fate hand picked it for you to look at at the very moment when the radio begins playing our old song...just so you know that it's finally over and that the time has come ever after which you'll look back and not wonder where love goes when it does.

image source: www.ffffound.com

tiger's kittens XXX

2009-12-14T18:23:00.003+09:00

who needs the penthouse letters any more? why bother with youporn either? if the tiger woods smut fest is anything to go by, you can get your daily dose of black stud fucks hot blond just about anywhere and everywhere in the media these days.

frankly, the only thing that shocks me about the tiger porn is our seemingly insatiable appetite for it. let’s see… who would have thought the highest paid sportsman in the world had it in him to be a cheating man? who would have thought he’s been humping trashy white chicks all over the country side? who would have thought he’d done so many of them at every possible occasion?

uh, everybody i guess…? since it’s one of the biggest perks of the super star fantasy, and because its almost mandatory PR for super stardom these days. so, what’s new?

nothing about the tiger woods sexploit for sure. in fact, it seems to have been lifted straight out of a porn classic. he’s the black stud who has wild sex with trashy hot blondes. Ooooh! he’s been romping with them at stag parties, talking dirty on the phone, doing them against the wall at 15,000 pound hotel rooms, getting it on with them in his marital bed and in the car backseat at church parking lots...OOOoooOOOOOOoooH!

the kittens are merely using him for the awesome sex, free liposuctions, high flying vacations and some highly monetize-able media attention. in a collective gonzo style spurt of incontinent candor, tiger’s kittens have shot him and themselves into a whole new hall of fame. i suspect the only thing they might have neglected to mention is the post coital smoke, since tobacco makes for such uncool PR these days. but other than this, we might as well have had front row seats at their sexcapades. all this mind you, when mrs. woods – the original kitten – hasn’t even begun singing yet!

‘waitress says sorry to elin’ is perhaps one of my favourite bits of reportage about tiger and his kittens. (i recommend you definitely click on the big red box that says ‘CLICK HERE FOR SLIDESHOW’ to get a titillating eye full of tiger’s kittens.) by the end of this sizzling story as told by ‘the sun’, jaimee grubbs’ utter dismay at having shattered elin’s home life is almost palpable (LMAO), as is the powerful lust and thrust of tiger’s irrepressible erection (!WOW).

for those of us who want more than just the smut from tiger’s real life, there ‘s the as yet unnamed film that’s reportedly billing itself as ‘the official porn parody of the non-golf exploits of tiger woods’. my only worry is, that after the high voltage confessions made by tiger’s real life kittens, that movie’s going to have some big expectations to live up to.

tiger himself seems to be in a retiring mood these days. “after much soul searching, i have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. i need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father and person.” yup, tiger's literally exiting with a bang. in what seems to be the most spectacularly staged smut fest of 2009, tiger has been definitively repositioned in our minds as the mythical black phallus that can go on and on and on. much like beckam and clinton before him, tiger has transformed from male role model into macho sex cliché. just think, how many more imaginations he’s going to captivate this way (vis-à-vis highest paid sport’s personality / golf champion of the world)!

shit sells today, no doubt. which is why between tiger, his kittens, his wife, the media and us, i wonder who’s getting the sexier deal...

image source: www.filthysmutpeddlars.com

buri nazar wale...

2009-10-04T06:04:00.003+09:00

pink’s left boob delivered an extraordinary performance in vh1’s india telecast of the 2009 award show. it beat the pants off lady gaga’s shocking onstage blood bath, and even as p!nk took my breath away, her sizzling boob cunningly stole the show. sure, she can do some circus tricks – it screamed - BUT LOOK AT ME ALL NAKED IN MY LITTLE BLACK DRESS!

of course i googled it. i keyed in ‘pink vh1 2009 awards’, hit enter, and held my breath. when the image finally loaded, i realized why the indian censor board has to keep such a close eye on you and me. they know that all it takes to turn on our smutty imaginations, is a little black box exposing a breast.

ps: you can watch p!nk perform 'sober' live at the O2 arena here, minus the boob show.

image credit: www.lehighvaleylive.com

the moves of a 34C

2009-09-30T06:35:00.007+09:00

it has recently been brought to my notice that the size of one’s chest has little to do with the magnificence of one’s boobage. in fact, i have it on good authority that anyone who possesses a set of ribs, some muscle tone and a working pair of lungs, can perfect the deportment of a 34C. all it takes is the right moves.

exhibit A: years ago, madhuri’s 34Bs (somewhat obviously disguised as bolsters) eloquently emphasized this point with their signature ‘dhak dhak’ move.

exhibit B: in more recent times, skahira’s small and humble 32Bs have set an excellent example. yes, she wears a padded bra as well, but let me ask you this - do you honestly believe your chest would look half as hot as shakira's in the self same bra? no chance. not even if you are a 34C. because it’s not the bra or boobs, you innocent, it’s the moves!

exhibit C: and this is shakeela.

just so we understand and accept that while practice might increase our chances of pulling off a madhuri or shakira - shakeela will always be about 12 inches of cleavage beyond our every move :)

image credit: www.shakeelamovies.obuzz1.com

is that the mouth you mock your dentist with?

2009-09-25T23:14:00.009+09:00

a colleague of mine had a priceless insight about visiting the dentist: Rape Is Inevitable, she said.

no, no! - i moronically insisted - my dentist is a gentleman!

as i type this out and the anesthesia begins to wear off, i can feel an orchestra of pain beginning to tune itself up for a grand symphony inside my mouth. all because the gentleman dentist measured my teeth for a tooth cap this afternoon.

sounds almost laughable, doesn’t it? the silly wuss has never had a root canal, you’re probably thinking. well, you should know that i am not a silly wuss and that i have had three root canals now.

the first one was done at a dental clinic run by a catholic mission in indore when i was eleven. the dentist was 7 feet tall, wore a white robe, and used construction equipment to conduct irreversible brain surgery on me before handing me back to the folks along with a complimentary popsicle.

my second root canal was performed by the gentleman dentist about a year ago. he also extracted the molar that the missionary dentist wrecked havoc upon all those years ago. i didn’t feel a thing when he did it, in fact, i went to the strand book sale right after and blew the month’s pay packet there.

my last root canal was performed on a perfectly healthy molar just a month ago, so that the gentleman dentist could have his way. he insists on replacing the missing molar, you see. he says the missing molar gives him nightmares i cannot comprehend – that without it’s staunch support all my remaining teeth will collectively go on a rampage; that the space it has left empty in their ranks will tempt them to grow out into fangs; that one day, my laissez faire approach will result in my molars switching seats with my incisors and my front teeth moving over to the back bench. he persistently worked away at my resistance until i caved.

however, i wisely disappeared from his radar right after. i’ve been asking his receptionist/nurse to reschedule for a month now and i have missed three appointments in a row. i suppose he caught on to my little game, because for the first time since i’ve known him, the gentleman dentist is PISSED. i see no other reason why i am consuming painkillers with ketchup after two sessions to measure my teeth.

let me tell you what he did to me, the gentleman dentist.

in my first session two days ago, he ‘shaped’ the molars before and after the missing one for about an hour. just when i was passing out from boredom, he began stuffing what felt like shoelaces soaked in neem juice into the space between my gum and teeth. since there is actually no space between the gum and teeth, this procedure is EXCRUCIATING, and completely contrary to what was described as ‘minor pressure’ before we began. as i writhed and moaned on the couch under him (5 points to mentalie for coming up with sexy imagery whilst in AGONIZING PAIN.), he relentlessly ploughed on. he only paused once - right at the end, mind you - to solicitously enquire if i’d like to take a shot of anesthesia though we were almost done. it’s ok, there’s no point now – i weakly mumbled back. at which point he said - open wide – and YANKED the now cosily tucked in shoelaces OUT. it felt a bit like flossing. except it’s between your teeth and gums. and that it is TOE CURLINGLY, EYE POPPINGLY painful. on the plus side, the pain receded quickly and in about 30mins i was fine.

when i walked in for my second session this afternoon, i demanded the anesthetic straight off, ha ha! sure, the gentleman said, in which case we don’t need to do it manually, we can use the machine instead. then he numbed, cauterized and ‘trimmed’ off about six inches of gum around my hapless molars. after this, he got out two steel tooth trays and RAMMED them into my mouth. even through the anesthesia, i could feel the trays shaving off several scrolls of skin that mixed in with the bits of burnt gum, tooth chippings, blood and gore pooling up at the back of my throat. then he made an appointment with me for more of the same next week and sent me on my way. btw...in case you feel a slight soreness when the anesthesia wears off, you can take a combiflam, he said.

as you must have gathered by now, it’s a bit worse than a slightly sore.

it’s what i get for mocking my dentist’s plans.

so i’ll leave you with one invaluable life lesson, my friends:

NEVER FUCK WITH YOUR DENTIST, because dentists can never be gentlemen. (also, just so you know, burnt gum tastes exactly like burnt hair smells.)

*note* i have been manically googling tooth capping procedures on the internet to distract myself from the pain and also to collect evidence that might enable me to sue for torture one day. here’s a ‘hello kitty’ tooth implant that’s almost incredible enough to dull the HELL BREAKING LOOSE inside my head…

image credit: http://www.boingboing.net/

hello flower, bhawra here

2009-09-24T02:30:00.006+09:00

a friend of mine who works with street kids in calcutta told me a very startling story when he came by to visit me. his landlady’s maid, sarita, an otherwise towering personality, seemed to be fading away in post partum depression after her most recent delivery. tch tch...poor thing…13 daughters, no wonder she is heartbroken! – the landlady had sighed to him as sarita slunk through the house looking like a listless specter.

a couple of days later, sarita failed to bring my friend his morning tea. when he went down to the kitchen for breakfast, he found rice and sliced vegetables scattered all over the floor. their containers were lying upturned, as if they had been kicked across the room. just as he was wondering what to do next, his landlady walked in looking traumatized.

oh god, oh god, you will never believe what has happened! – she mumbled after my friend had turned the fan on to full blast and brought her two glasses of water.

that morning she had apparently decided to have a woman to woman chat with sarita. she spent over an hour consoling her on the tragedy of the 13th daughter only to be met with a stony silence at sarita’s end. at last, her patience snapped – you can’t fight god’s will, sarita! how long are you going to go on moping like this!?

that’s what i am wondering, mashima! – sarita finally burst out - for how long can i go on like this…year after year after year!

sarita, sarita…do you want a son that badly?

a son? no, i don’t want a son! he will definitely grow up to be a wastrel like his father! my girls are a blessing…thank god for every single one of them!

but then…is your husband forcing you to try for a son, sarita…? – the landlady delicately ventured.

hmpf! that scoundrel is too drunk to know what he wants! – sarita snorted.

the landlady was at a loss by now - sarita, my dear…why don’t you or your husband have the operation then?

sarita blinked. what operation, mashima?

the operation to stop getting pregnant!

sarita blinked again. mashima…what operation is this?!

so the landlady told sarita about how doctors today could tie up a woman’s tubes or a man’s. she kept it simple and clinical – mostly because she was thoroughly embarrassed to be having this conversation with her maid, and also to make sure that sarita grasped the basics.

but sarita continued to blink uncomprehendingly, her eyes growing wider and wider with every word. mashima! what are you saying…why do they do that?

so that...so that...what do you mean why do they do that! why can’t you understand such a simple thing! they do it so that you don’t keep getting pregnant every time you go to bed with your husband!

sarita looked thunderstruck. mashima, are you telling me i get pregnant because…?

...don’t be RIDICULOUS, sarita!

IS it???

for god’s sake, sarita! after 13 children...don’t you know? didn’t your mother tell you when you got married…?

she…she told me he would sting me like a bee...she never told me it would get me PREGNANT! – sarita spat back furiously - all this time i have prayed and prayed for the goddess to have mercy on me! all this time i have put up with THAT $#@$#!!! I WILL KILL HIM! I WILL CHOP HIS #@%$# INTO PIECES AND FEED IT TO THE DOGS! PAWING AT ME NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, MAKING MY LIFE HELL YEAR AFTER YEAR…!

then sarita had run from the house like a woman possessed, sending the rice and vegetables flying across the kitchen floor. the landlady, petrified by what she had set off, took a rickshaw to sarita’s jhopdi as fast as she could. by the time she got there, sarita had already split her husband’s skull.

the entire jhopdi was gathered around sarita’s hut. everybody was talking about how sarita had come home screaming for her husband’s blood and attacked him with a tava as he lay sleeping off his drunken stupor. the landlady stood gaping along with the rest. at the blood spouting from the gash and pooling up at their feet. at sarita, who was being physically restrained in a corner by an authoritative looking middle aged woman. at their saris soaked in blood. finally, two of the men took sarita’s husband to the hospital to get stitched up.

when the landlady left to come home, sarita was still spitting venom into the bosom of the woman who held her tightly clasped to her breast.

note: it never ceases to amaze me – the number of euphemisms india has for sex, our inherent discomfort with dealing with it like adults. when i heard about sarita, i remembered a friend of mine from school whose mother never told her about menstruation. we found her sobbing in the loo at school one day, terrified she was going to die. when she was foureen, her parents came back home one morning with a new baby brother. they told her god gave him to them at the temple. she honestly had no idea why we burst out laughing when she told us about it. she was shattered when we told her about sex. come to think of it…i learnt about sex from books and friends and bathroom walls and the movies as well. my folks and i never really talk(ed) about it either.

image credit: cover art of 'an ideal boy, charts from india'; www.amazon.com

acp pappoo singh takes on most beautiful woman in the world

2009-09-21T19:48:00.003+09:00

no, this isn't a routine maneuver, the acp announced at a press conference this weekend to explain his strategic move away from The Chocolateuse’s Pillow. i will be taking a break from office to exhibit my new art project entitled ‘Aishwarya Jaisi Aankhen’ since the law is completely hopeless at resolving matters of the heart.

the acp’s live installation uses the device of an aishwarya rai cushion and the acp himself to challenge contemporary presumptions of ‘true beauty’. through it he intends to expose pin up girls and women in general for the heartless fakes they are.

i am The Cat, i am The Cushion…cat eyed beauty, my foot! – the acp turned artist quipped before signing off for pictures.

*note* ‘Aishwarya Jaisi Aankhen’ will be on display at The Sunny Spot By The Aishwarya Cushion In The Livingroom until further notice.

sa re ga ma duh (duh re mi)

2009-09-19T22:29:00.002+09:00

it’s c / a-minor / g / d-minor, right?

yeah, it’s like…

waitwaitwaittt!!! lemmefigureitout! hang on, ummm…THAT’s the g…and so, the c is…!!!...and the d, d…d…no, d-minor…and the…dude, that’s the a-minor, right?

yeah, that should be it.

ok, let’s try…c / C / C / a-minor / A-MINOR…AND a g / G / G…D-MINOR / d-minor...tsk! NOoooaaaAAARRRGGGHH…doesn’t SOUND right!!!

wait, try it like this...

HANGON, dude! IKNOWTHIS…

NO! NO! NO! you’ve gotto play it OPEN, dude! like THIS...see?

*STRUMMMmm*

aaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHhhhhhhhh…THEREitIS!

and there i was. feeling like a regressive gene in the room full of impassioned musicians. well, there were just three of them. but within about 56 seconds of saying hello The Absence Of The Guitar had been identified as the unbearably jarring note in what might have otherwise been a perfect set up, and taken over the zeitgeist of the evening. the next hour was fraught with high emotion.

ok i’ve got one, but it’s left handed...

no, no, let’s find a right handed guitar, dude. i’ve got my harp, he plays base, we can totally JAM!

i know who’ll have one! * frantic phone call * ...aWw crap, down with the flu!

* frantic phone call * got through! damn, out of town!

* frantic phone call * found one!! @%#@ won’t lend it!

what about shamik? * frantic phone call * who the fuck eats dinner at malad, #$%#@%!

WHY CAN’T WE FIND ONE BLOODY GUITAR IN ALL OF BLOODY BANDRA!?!

finally, The Guitar arrived - fashionably late like the star she was - and launched straight into a tantrum: I Am Left Handed, she said, ssTRUMmmmMPLINK!

the musicians were unfazed. they hacked her like a bit of kindergarden morse code. the left handed one translated, the right handed one adapted. then the right handed one directed and the left handed one played. then the third one pitched in. this was their thing, hacking the guitar. at some point in their lives, they picked up a code that made talking to each other easier. but they never had to learn her language. they were born with it. they made it look like a such joy ride. singing, strumming, freewheeling…

i, on the other hand, feel like a chump around the guitar. as i type this, mine stands across the room, leaning against the chest of drawers. to all intents and purposes that’s what it’s been doing ever since we met and i can see it’s lost patience. it's been tapping its foot for a decade now, waiting for me to do something...do anything…but not THAT!

THAT is what i do when i lay my hands upon the guitar :-(

image credits: ‘the talk box guitar effect’ by daniel nester, www.danielnester.com; freewheeling dolphins, www.virb.com; ‘the big fart’ by thorarinn leifsson, www.totil.com

the l'oreal ad has me convinced that sonam kapoor waxes her shoulders

2009-09-18T07:24:00.006+09:00

one of my deepest fears is to unknowingly fall in love with a hairy man. it has terrified me forever – the thought that i might go to sleep with the man i love and wake up with anil. (which is a potent possibility in india as briyanshu reverently points out in his ode to a hairy indian.)

the only time i have come close to wavering on this is the hair styling appointment i spent sitting next to john abraham. i remember initially being blinded by his sheer radiance and then being mortified by the sight of our legs when the stylist told me to look down. john’s legs were wAY smoother than mine. and so were his arms, chest, biceps, shoulders and toes. unlike me, he also had a perfectly manicured, sexy little stubble. i spent the entire appointment brooding about what john, SRK, salman, shahid, aamir, ranbir and all the other bollywood men with silky smooth legs would have to say about me. they’d probably cringe and laugh nervously, heh heh, before they avert their eyes. which would be drawn back and skitter away uncomfortably again - back and forth, inexorably, morbidly.

that haircut left me feeling like a werewolf.

it also made me realize how base and shallow i can be.

ho hum, halleujiah.

image credit: polkastripeszebradots.blogspot.com

AIYYO, BABY!

2009-09-16T22:58:00.012+09:00

it’s strange that they must say goodbye
the perfect girl and perfect boy
that they must accept
things are different
they do not talk much these days
they say, it’s been so long we must meet
but it’s still kinda sweet
and they just might be tempted
watch every step
they remind themselves
to not fall in love
again and again and again and again and a

image credit: ‘love gun’ by malcolm watson, ajtun.wordpress.com

ek thi raani

2009-09-14T08:14:00.018+09:00

so...aapki koi girlfriend hai?

lekin...mai bhi toh girl hoon! mera toh boyfriend hona chahiye, na?

kyon?

he had me foxed with his calm reason as we made our way through the chaos of the hospital reception. you had to have your bag checked, your body searched and your business sanctioned before you were allowed to pass through to the bank of elevators. my four and a half year old hand baggage got both of us shunted off to the seating area where the squatters gathered waiting for news of their dearly beloved. police uncle did not allow in children under twelve he warned me when i wondered if we could sneak up the stairs. phlegmatically he unlaced his shoes, opened up his frooti and climbed into a chair in the front row to wait.

so tum batao...tumhari girlfriend ka naam kya hai?

princess BOO!

he was super excited today because his princess was finally coming home. i heard all about her for the next one hour. how everything he was wearing today, his jeans, his jacket, his tshirt, his belt, his shoes and his taveez had been given to him by her. how she bought him his electric car when papa refused to let him drive the innova. how they raced when they bathed together to see who’d finish first. how they would check for squeaky clean ears to decide on the winner of the game. where will she sleep, he wondered. he was sure mamma wouldn’t let her sleep with him now that she was so ill. would she be able to eat with them at the table, or would mausi feed her? perhaps they would let him take chutti from school, or maybe just feed her before and after he went to school…

after awhile i couldn’t take it anymore. chocolate khane chalen?

when we got back from the store the driver was waiting at the hospital to take us home. he raced ahead of me up the stairs and when i walked into the front door he was clutching choti boo’s hand and staring at princess boo wrapped up in white sheets on the hallway floor. choti boo had just told him that god took his princess away.

frankly, he had no idea what choti boo was talking about. over the last week he had become used to people crying when they came to see princess boo and to her lying quietly and not reaching for him. bored, he asked me if we could go for a drive until all the people went away. but choti boo said no, that he must stay. so he did as he was told and patiently waited for his turn. he was thrilled when he got to bathe her with choti boo, even though mamma said no. after all, he is the one who picked out princess boo’s favourite shampoo and salwaar kameez, insisted choti boo.

they left him behind and they took his princess away on a palanquin. they said he was too young to come along, just like in the hospital. unlike choti boo he didn’t stand crying by the window sill. instead, like a wise old man he wistfully sighed to himself...i can’t wait to be one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, TWELVE years old.

image credit: 'the kiss' by gustav klimt, www.ecst.csuchico.edu

meera ka mohan

2009-09-06T09:35:00.011+09:00

he woke up to her face on his pillow, his alabaster goddess. his moorti with a million arms sprawling over the bed, eyes and mouth ajar in sleep, her tongue glinting mysteriously like a moonbeam in the misty morning light. very, very quietly he leaned over and licked. she sighed and rolled away from him. her million arms gathered and disappeared into the curve of her shoulder, into her marble nape, her churning sea of curls. he buried his face in them, slept. those days his dreams smelt of frangipani.

when he wakes up these days, she is gone. at first he buries himself in the pillow, breathing it in, trying to find her again in the slippery memory of his dream. where is she? he looks up, blinks, yawns, stretches and gets out of bed. the house is empty he knows, but he searches anyway. he follows the smell of her around the house. until at last he comes back full circle to the pillow.

if she doesn’t come back, he decides, i will languish here until she does. except while i am eating.

pappoo singh loses his heart to every flatmate of mine. when they move out, he is heart broken. he shrinks into a cocoon world of familiar smelling things – pyjamas, towels, bed clothes, pillows. from this cocoon, every 45 minutes or so, he drags himself to the food bowl and sinks down beside it. he is the picture of tragedy as he attempts to drown himself in whiskas. his belly puddles all over the floor in depression. when i am in the kitchen and he manages to drag himself there, he will sit by the fridge waiting for the chocolateuse to take out her bowl of yogurt like she used to. and every night he has to make do with half of my yogurt instead. along with a compensatory slice of cheese. as you might have observed, he is barely managing to keep body and soul together.

i switched bedrooms after the chocolateuse left. my new flatmates moved into my ex-bedroom and share the chocolateuse’s ex-double bed. they sleep with the door shut. so these evenings i lie in my new bedroom and look at pappoo curled up at my feet with his back pointedly turned to me. nevertheless, i feel special because pappoo hasn't slept within smelling distance of me since the chocolateuse entered the picture. i can feel his disorientation. life has radically changed for him lately. her things are disappearing one by one and daily her smell grows fainter. but since he began sleeping in my bed i always know exactly what he’s dreaming of...

'paisley cat' image credit: www.tigerpixie.com

first love, last rites

2009-09-01T01:08:00.016+09:00

the old monk was mixed in the coke bottle and the joint was rolled and lit in silence. wordlessly they passed between us, single mindedly and systematically killing the day. this wasn’t unusual. every once in awhile there is a day that must be ended in oblivion. the kind of day you will hopefully emerge from in a haze, your memories of it made fuzzy forever after. days you never fully wake up from, days that become dreams and nightmares, rescued from too much reality by being wayyyy too drunk and stoned, dude. then just when i thought the night was over, when i thought we’d both passed out, you began telling me about her.

i met the love of my life today, you said. the first time i saw her she was getting out of a white ambassador taxi that had pulled up at the gate to ienus’ bungalow. i remember, she slammed her door absentmindedly and got out ahead of the driver. the sound shocked him out of his stupor and he suddenly leapt out of the car behind her, like he was leaping out of his skin. maybe it was the sight of a good tip going to hell because he ran right past her to open the gates. i was instantly stoned on her. i still have acid flashes of her standing in the sunshine that afternoon.

…who was she?

ienus’s girl.

ienus…are you serious?

ienus. the principal of st.james boy’s high school. ienus was one crazy fuck. five feet nothing of tightly puckered self control. around ienus you always got the feeling that if he took a breath or let go of it, his insides would explode all over you. looked exactly like his name too, so i guess his parents knew what they were doing at the christening. rishi was the one who sealed it when we were flipping through a medical magazine he’d stolen from his dad’s study. there was an article about diseases of the rectum in it and a picture that was the spitting image of ienus. rishi spotted it the second we turned to the page – the ditto-ness of the rectum in the magazine and ienus’ mouth…always puckered, his entire face wrinkling into it, with a straggly fringe of curly black beard. every one called him anus behind his back even before that, even the teachers. nobody ever did it to his face though, except me...and i didn’t exactly call him anus to his face.

why?

i was shit scared…ienus had this quality, he could make his boys shit their pants. none of us ever spoke to him directly in the years we spent there. he met nobody, unless he had to. the boys that went to ienus’ room never came back to class or hostel again. he was blue beard for the boys from st.james. he was the best man for the job. there’s no way you can run a school full of raging testosterone on love.

no...i mean what happened with you and ienus’ girl that made you call him anus to his face?

what happened…shit dude, what can i say…first love, long story, too wasted…

it was because i broke into ienus’ house for her, you said after the next joint. every morning after the day she came to live with him, i was up at the crack of dawn and waiting at the terrace to watch her eat breakfast there with ienus while i missed mine. i don’t know how but at some point i knew that she knew because she started to always take the seat facing me. she’d sit there, right in front of ienus, eating her toast with jam and tea. looking at me looking at her when ienus wasn’t looking. until one day when i woke up done with looking. that morning i vaulted out of my bed and down the stairs and over the wall behind the sleeping chowkidaar and over the flowerbed, up the pipe that ran next to her window. it was like one minute i was in bed and five minutes later i was level to her window but two feet away from it, with nowhere left to go. then a light went on next to my elbow and she was brushing her teeth in the square of light. i think i lost my breath then. my lungs were burning by the time she hung her towel behind the door and took her clothes off. when she turned on the shower, her body was blazed gold under the bulb before it glistened and splintered with water. and suddenly, there were lights flashing inside my head and my lungs were collapsing, like i’d been punched in the solar plexus. it’s the one and only time i've passed out dead sober in my whole life.

and…did you get caught?

no...i was over the wall and running like the wind before anyone saw me. that morning at assembly ienus told us he’d suspend the school unless the boy who’d broken into his premises owned up. the next morning he gave us a week. but nobody opened their trap even though everybody knew. everybody knew she was mine from the beginning. i’d seen her first and that’s how the rules worked at st.james high school for boys. especially if you are head boy. so after the week was over, i did it all over again. i broke into his house to leave the magazine with the picture of the rectum in it on ienus’ study table. on the rectum i wrote – she’s mine, anus – and i left the page open. it’s one of the few times anyone’s won against ienus, it’s a st.james legend. ask anyone from st.james and they’ll tell you.

by the time i was giving the tenth boards it was a full on bollywood love story, dude. it was mad, high adrenaline, desperate…all thanks to ienus. he knew i was after his girl but he couldn’t do a thing about it. it drove him crazy. he suspended me the month before the boards for a class bunk he found out i had masterminded for my birthday. then he caught his girl and me together during my suspension week at the cinema. i never saw her again. he sent her to delhi that weekend and extended my suspension indefinitely. i was only allowed back into st.james to give my board exams. it was the perfect ending. and now, it's fucked.

why's it fucked now? i mumbled after some time. i was feeling the blackness settling upon you and me. for a long time you didn’t answer, but just when i thought we’d both passed out again you said - i saw her at ienus’ funeral today after eighteen years. she looked exactly like ienus.

then you thanked me for throwing such a fine funeral for ienus’ girl.

special kind of stupid

2009-08-25T03:51:00.005+09:00

listen, i really think you’re becoming anorexic.

i’m NOT anorexic.

do you chuck up after your meals?

that’s bulimia.

i know, just checking. want a bite of samosa?

no.

i just don’t get it.

what?

i don’t get how you cannot want a bite of samosa.

but i told you, i’m not hungry!

what does it have to do with hunger?

well, my doctor says i have a lazy digestion. so unless i eat five meals a day and exercise for at least an hour a day, my body tends to take it easy and doesn’t bother giving me any cues.

wow! it’s like forgetting to breathe until you go blue in the face and never noticing it unless you look into a mirror! how do you do it?

do what?

develop a lazy digestion.

from what i know of it, you don’t exercise and you don’t eat five meals a day.

oh shut up. i don’t exercise and i eat all the time.

do you poop regularly?

shut up.

ok, forget it. so what does your stomach have to say about the samosa?

it says that it’s wrong that the samosa’s still outside of it.

that’s the thing, see? mine doesn’t even know that’s a samosa. as far as my stomach is concerned, that could have been a brick.

is that so?

yeah.

uh huh.

...

*growl*

...say what?

nothing. that was my stomach calling yours a complete retard.

image credit: sofarri.wordpress.com

childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies

2009-08-12T09:31:00.008+09:00

last month i brought a kitten home and in three days he was dead. the vet told me he had feline panleukopenia, otherwise known as feline distemper. it’s nature’s way of keeping the feline population under control, he told me, that’s why his mother abandoned him...somehow they always know.

the thing is, i never knew. the vet did tell me that the kitten had had a very, very slim chance, IF we managed to keep him alive until his immune system could start fighting back. but mostly, i just agonized about how to get meds and food into him since he refused to eat. i worried all the time about how to keep his chilly little body warm enough, about how not to completely fall in love with him, about how i’d manage to ever give him away and whether not giving him away might upset kubla khan too much. i never thought about whether he’d make it.

so i was completely unprepared at the end when the vet informed me that what i thought was the kitten struggling to walk around was actually him going into convulsions. it slapped me in the face, the minute he said it. of course they were convulsions. and i’d spent the entire day happily watching him try to ‘walk around’ more and more. we even had a little dance because he seemed so much ‘better’. i flipped him on his back and sang him silly songs while holding paws with him. he looked blissed out in my lap and utterly beautiful. i should have known then. a healthy kitten would have protested. it would never have put up with such nonsense.

giving up on him is the hardest thing i have ever had to do. but by the time he died i wanted him to go. i didn’t want to shut him in a box and take him to the spca hospital to put him to sleep. i just couldn’t imagine doing it. so when his little body twisted too violently i held it until it was calm. then i put him down and stroked him and told him to stop struggling, to let go…until he did.

my folks came by to check on me the next day. they also came to tell me about how they’d stood in the rain for three hours just to make sure that the house i’d fallen in love with didn’t get flooded, which it did. my father sat in my rocking chair and cried for me that day. he thought he was breaking my heart telling me to let go of the house. when the thing that broke me was that my mum and dad stood in two feet of water and the pouring rain for hours just to make sure for me, and that my father was crying. i was the one who told him it was ok, that it was lucky we found out before we’d actually bought it, that the only thing we had to worry about was how to get the advance back...that there were much harder things than losing a house i never had in the first place.

we seem to have entirely switched positions these days, my father and i. he was frankly shocked when i phoned to give him an earful about ‘not being silly and foolhardy’ this saturday morning after reading about the steady spread of swine flu in the papers. i’ve become the one who calls morning, noon and night with a thousand admonitions about the risks of not taking meds on time, or ignoring the slightest temperature and sniffle, or going vegetable shopping at the sabzi mandi, or to see ‘love aaj kal’ at the multiplex. now i’m the one who nags so relentlessly that he and my mum have begun shiftily side stepping my hysterical calls with muttered gottogos.

yup, july certainly got me on the fast track to senility.

* ‘childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies’ is a poem by edna st. vincent millay. you can read the full poem here. or you can watch tyne daly perform it here.
* image credit: www.tigerpixie.com

i’m glad that freak is dead

2009-06-29T02:52:00.006+09:00

the HooOoooOOoOOHHHH shredded through delhi’s summer heat, it shattered the afternoon and splintered into me. it screeched into my ears and ripped right under my skin. that’s the DEVIL, my grandmother said walking in.

my cousin played me the song that blew me when i was ten. he was thirteen and unquestionably the cool one. i was merely good, i read books all the time. he’d flown in from mumbai after jusssst grazing past the ninth standard and he had a walkman plugged into his ears 24x7. he ate with it on and went to sleep with it on and woke up with it on and from what i could make out, he even bathed with it on. he never, ever, let me touch it. he had a bunch of tapes in his suitcase but he played only two. over and over and over again. off the wall and thriller in a loop. he’d be sprawled on his stomach in the veranda, picking at the grass, with his chin in his other hand, eyes glazed over. every half and hour or so, he’d mechanically turn on his back, pick up his walkman, flip the tape, glance at me, hit play and roll over.

i was burning up by day three. will you let me listen, i finally asked him. he thought about it for a minute. ok, but not on my walkman. ok…i said, a little disappointed. so he took out the tape and put it in the recorder, he maxed the volume and pressed play.

my grandmother was right. i was never the same after listening to michael jackson. he put the devil in me. my mother put her foot down when she saw the poster up above my bed. it had mj clutching his crotch as his body spasmed into an orgasm that had him up on the tips of his toes.

THAT comes OFF, she said her eyes as hard as steel.

don’t touch it, i said, looking her in the eyes, my voice colder than steel.

when i was fourteen, i had a friend who had cable and watched mtv. cable tv was my big carrot for ‘doing my best’ in the tenth boards. it pressed down on me like a numbing heat wave the month before the exams began. dangerous was out and i was DYING for cable! my friend swore to call me the minute she saw it on tv. she lived nine floors above and one afternoon, just when my dad had got the car out to take me to math tuitions, she called.

come NOW.

i dropped the phone, dropped my bag, SLAMMED the door and RAN. i simply FLEW up nine floors. and i crashed through her front door…bang into the middle of black or white. i was no use in math that afternoon, and i floated through the next 45 days until i got cable tv.

the summer i was twenty, the one thing i knew was that i didn’t want to study for an mba. so i got a job at air fm, playing songs on the radio instead. i watched mtv and channel v the whole day long and twice a week i’d head to the station. the first time i played mj to chennai was a religious experience for me. this was my god, and by god, i was going to make the world listen. i began with ‘the way you make me feel’ (it’s my favourite too, AGG) and i played every mj song i’d managed to lay my hands on through the next hour and a half. i didn’t say a word except, good evening chennai, this is michael jackson. i just spliced one song into the other and played until the hour and thirty minutes was up. i almost got sacked for skipping all the ads and all the call ins. but the programming chief liked me i think. you’re a freak, he said, and let me go with a warning. i felt like a goddess that day. the next afternoon i went and shaved my head. my mother still hasn’t got over it.

over the last decade or so, i’ve gotten used to not having mj around. only the hawaiian shack plays him these days. he pops up in the newspapers every once in awhile. he’s bankrupt, he’s run away from america, his nose has fallen off, he’s dangling his baby from a balcony, he’s a freak, a changeling, a demon who plays sex games with children, he’s recording with will.i.am. when you see him on tv, he’s wearing a mask and behind it peter pan’s been irreparably broken.

he’s made quite a come back in the newspapers and on tv over the last couple of days. michael jackson’s dead they screamed and started beaming a kaleidoscope of him. i keep flipping until i reach a channel that’s playing the videos and shutting up about what happened and whether he’s bigger than elvis or not. like the last few minutes of cinema paradiso, all the mj that’s been censored over the last decade goes on in a loop. it’s tragic…but it’s magic, that he’s dead but not yet.

i was watching ‘dirty diana’ just now and when the crowd roared back at him and my heart wHoomPHed in response, i realized something – that an era fed off this body in the flimsy white shirt, that rises up on its toes, arms spread wide, offering itself like a sacrifice to the spotlight. that we’d fed off everything. from his music to his tragedies and the giant comedy of his life. he is michael jackson and he is ours to kill, or to hold up and to throw down and kick into the mud and pick up again for having pulled off a classic celebrity exit. it’s the drugs, it’s the pressure, it’s mental illness, it’s the doctor…it’s true, he’s dead and for a whole week again, i’m sure he’ll be BIG.

in the end, it’s dying that’s brought him back to life for all the freaks. the ones that love him, the ones that laugh at him, that condemn him, that use him, that cry and pray for him, and me. he belonged to nobody. he belonged to everybody. and we all know that never ends well.

one bluster, two pomples and me

2009-06-23T05:11:00.008+09:00

so here’s what happened. i stepped out of café goa for a smoke the friday before last. the evening was muggy but the moon was out, the beer was chilled, and the cigarette, as always, was bliss. i should have been presenting the findings of the great indian toilet investigation to my boss just then, but here i was having a fine evening with friends instead. things couldn’t have gotten any better.

except they did. i heard them beating out their deep base rhythm into the night, before they blazed out of the alley up to me – the two most monstrously glorious, custom designed enfield cruisers i’ve ever seen. i believe one of the blokes riding them was almost as hot as his machine. that’s what they told me later. but right then i was spontaneously combusting with love for the two eye poppingly, heart stoppingly, brain sizzlingly STUNNING objects ‘d art in front of me. i didn’t have the time to fritter away on mere men.

i walked around them…once…and then again…and again…and again. and i ended up sort of floating to the black beauty…a mean looking number with an evil little wasp seat for one, slung low, very low. it glistened back at me like hard black candy in the moonshine. i could hear the beatles singing to me in the breeze like they always do when love hits me like a ton of bricks. love…love…love, they crooned as i casually swung my right leg over that little black seat, just to see if it fit…which it did. i was in heaven.

i don’t think i even realized that my right knee was on a slow grill on the silencer at first. it must have been quite a few minutes before my nerve endings got their message through to my brain. mission abort, they said, mission A.B.O.R.T. abort! i remember telling them to shut up and piss off. i remember asking for just one minute more of the good old heady feeling. and then all too soon the butterflies turned to hot coals in my belly and my right knee screamed blue murder back at me - GET OFF, YOU SILLY BITCH!

i got off then and hobbled around a bit. i hopped around on one leg, had another cigarette and ogled at the bikes some more. they were monstrously beautiful, like i said. they had me mesmerized.

by the time i headed home that night, the skin on the inside of my right knee had gone from mahogany to ash white and the pain was wailing like a banshee inside my head. i got through the night by emptying out my freezer and packing my agony in ice cubes, instant defrost patties and 250gms of frozen peas.

the next morning it was deep olive green. it pulsed back at me in time to my heartbeat. very much like the enfield that caused it, come to think of it. i told myself it lent a nice curvature to the shape of my leg. i lied flat out about the sheer misery of it all. i had no time for this shit because the first cut of the great indian toilet investigations had to be shared.

that’s when my hormones – which can always be trusted to let me down – went loco. my hair drooped in dank depression and two pomples glared balefully back at me in the mirror. hey ya, ugggggggly! they said.

the burn evolved to a blister and then a bluster by day two, and the pomples shook hands with it. now we’ve REALLY got this party going, they said. we’ve been living together the last one week, all four of us. i must admit it’s been an unhappy alliance, though the bluster and pomples seem to be in high spirits.

this morning i finally dragged myself to the doc because the bluster’s been leaking goop down my leg the last two days. he told me to lie on my belly and calmly proceeded to wreck havoc on the back of my knee while gently tsking about all the cat hair. then he bandaged it tight, told me to come see him again the day after and informed me that i must be insane to be driving around with the blimp from hell eating into my knee.

there’s macho and there’s stupid, you know, he said. which, as it turns out, is exactly what the bluster and the pomples have been sniggering at me...$#%$%@@!!!

image credit: this work of art is by the world's greatest doodle artist, david shrigley. i am even more mental about him than the enfields. you might like to view some more of his work at www.davidshrigley.com

ps: and you absolutely must have a look at the enfields that got me into all this trouble on agent green glass’ post about that evening!

welcome to my table

2009-06-14T17:45:00.008+09:00

this is to cordially invite you to my newborn food blog www.theheadlesskitchen.blogspot.com

the headless kitchen is the true story of my trials and tribulations in the kitchen. occasionally, you might even find a startling story about a triumph i've managed to pull off (amen). my kitchen gods and godesses will feature here...my mother, my grandmum, my friends, their mums and grandmums, and all the golden hearted people who's appetites i have cruelly toyed with along the way.

i must warn you though, that the distinguishing feature of my food blog is that i am no expert chef or food critic. so while you might optimistically log on to figure out what to make for dinner, all you're likely to find is yet another horror story about mine...but as a bonus, you might just chance upon a bit of ancient wisdom i've managed to ferret out of the fantastic cooks i learn from. i also have a feeling that contrary to food blog norm, there will be few mouthwatering pictures and recipes on mine. looking pretty is difficult in the headless kitchen, especially when most of the cutlery is melamine and the cooking pots bear evil scars that tell of my abuse.

if you still have the stomach visit my table, kind reader, i can promise you just one sterling benefit, that more often than not you'll come away thanking the lord for your own. and though you can never tell why with these things, you might even want to come back to the headless kitchen for more :)

i'm no pee wee league

2009-06-10T15:15:00.009+09:00

there are essentially two kinds of people in this world. the ones who pee and the ones who can’t.

there is dignity in pooping if you are indian. we have been bought up answering with the whole truth and nothing but the truth to solicitous enquiries about our bowel movements. my family doctor for example, simply and effectively dispelled all ice with this startlingly evocative conversation starter - "totti kiya?" potty was what my oldest friend's grandmother and i bonded over. she'd tell me all about hers and since she was hard of hearing and refused to endager the battery life of her hearing aid by switching it on, i listened. enthralled. i recently ran into a long time acquaintance and the first thing he enquired about was whether i was still constipated. and my boss and i often discuss the relative aesthetic lent to poop by a dinner of boiled beet vs. spinach soup.

potty comes up without fail between colleagues, friends, family, lovers. it’s not one of those mechanical ‘how’s it going’ questions either. when we talk about potty, we delve. we discuss frequency, colour, consistency, aroma, past history, there in no such thing as too much detail. we compare notes, take note of achievements. congratulate each other, worry about each other, share tips and tricks. it's a secret indian socialization ritual. after all there's little you can get hoity toity about post comparing notes on the morning's ablutions.

as a chronic constipative, i have been at the receiving end of much admiration and approval every time i poop. it goes without saying that this is a phenomenon that has greatly endeared pooping to me.

peeing is different. the first sound i associate with peeing is 'cheee!' (most likely because i'd just had my evil way with my mother's sparkling sofa) and this has stayed the soundtrack to peeing in a part of my head that has receded beyond logic and reason.

my maid's two year old comes home every morning, pees copiously just outside the loo and looks at me beaming with relief and well, a certain sense of achievement i suppose. and all i have to say to this happy little girl is cheeee! i drive to work and count off what seems to be the entire male population of the city marking territory along the road and i'm thinking, cheeee! i get to work, reluctantly answer to the call of my bladder, find no toilet paper and believe me for the rest of the day, i feel cheee! i get home, put away my work stuff, wash up and settle down in the couch for a nice evening of mindless reality tv only to find myself sitting in about a litre of cat pee. i look the culprit in the eye and pointing to my wet bottom and ruined cushion cover solemnly say to him, look what you have done, cheeee! this now, is the culmination of the entire day’s face offs with peeing because the cat knows exactly what he's done and he's ok with it. he looks down his pink nose at me and advises me to check on the condition of the litter box, cheee!

the fact is, i’m a proud pooper and a mortified pee-er. i’m struck with admiration for my dear friend killer phuss when she tells of her final consecration of rome international airport. and i cringe every time i realize that somewhere in the security system of one of the nation’s leading banks, there is a video of me desperately desecrating an atm kiosk. it’s true that i’ll do just about anything to avoid peeing and that i’ll pay handsomely for the pleasure of having someone else do it instead. i can’t help it. after a lifetime of constipation, it’s enough to no longer be anal retentive. to expect me to confront my vagina in the throes of a watershed is just asking too much, killer phuss!

ps: this post is originally from a blog killer phuss and i began writing together as an ode to the boy we are raising together. i reproduce it here since i have recently been inspecting toilet bowls across the length and breadth of india as part of a work project. what can i say, contrary to all empirical evidence, they must be paying me handsomely.

image credit: i came by the thought provoking image at the beginning of this post on this blog. i couldn't agree more.

a rose by any other name would feel like a pansy

2009-06-07T07:11:00.011+09:00

juliet was an idiot; or maybe it was just that she could think of no better way to get into romeo’s pants. moving as her sentiment was to romeo, it’s always kind of left me cold. clearly, neither juliet, nor romeo, nor the rose lived in a world where names are immortalized on a bristling battalion of credit and debit cards, diving licenses, voter’s id cards, ration cards, pan cards, passports and personalized cheque books. it’s evident that juliet never had to sign any payment receipts at the grocer’s or provide her name in block letters and in triplicate to the bank for a loan. lucky girl, juliet. at least her folks gave her a pretty name and let her keep it.

i'm certain that my folks love me better than juliet's loved her, but they just weren’t as sentimental about my name. i’ve borne it like a cross for the last 31 years and in this time believe it or not, it’s been worked over twice.

we moved a lot when i was at school and every one of the eleven establishments i went to (except the last one in tokyo) had a cleaning lady who went by my name. don’t get me wrong, i have no grouse with the cleaning staff. it's just that my name is a highly regarded attribute and extremely popular with the masses in india. in fact, some of the schools i went to were called my name, as were stationary stores, textbook supply shops and tuition classes. the point i am trying to make is that in all my growing years, my name was the absolute antithesis of ‘cool’ – that indefinable quality that sets the cheer leaders apart from the girls who captain debate clubs.

perhaps it was unfair on my part to blame the folks entirely for this debacle. my mum did tell me that she wanted to name me ‘nandita’ after her best friend from college when i cribbed to her all those years ago. “your name” she told me, “is entirely your grandfather’s fault. he wrote me a letter the week before you were born that informed me in no uncertain terms that his grandchild would be a girl, born on the eve of the goddess and that she would therefore bear her holy name.” my mother kept that letter and i have read it many times over. it never fails to leave me completely awestruck by my grandfather’s astrological precision and for some completely illogical reason, by myself, for arriving exactly as and when he'd specified i should. the name however, never ceased to be a sore point. and all i have managed to forgive my grandfather for is not insisting that i bear my grandmother’s even more impossibly unfashionable name as well.

i scrawled my despised first name and my crazily long last name across the front pages of all my notebooks and text books until i was thirteen. but when i wrote it in block letters on the cbsc board exam forms, my father inspected it and informed me i’d spelt my last name wrong. “there’s no ‘h’ in your last name” he said, “we pronounce the ‘h’ but we don’t spell it that way.” needless to say, i was absolutely astounded - “you mean you and mamma never noticed that’s how i spelt it all these years?” “no you didn’t!”, he said and pulled out all the notebooks and textbooks he’d painstakingly labeled for me. and then we compared the labels with all my scrawls across the front pages. that day i had to accept for the first time that i’d been spelling my name wrong all along.

i let go of the ‘h’ in my last name after that, and i missed it painfully at first. somehow, my last name looked a just a little bit sissy and lopsided without it. i felt that it lacked sibilance and personality, and that it just wasn't me. finally i came to terms with it by telling myself that my last name belonged to my dad and he had every right to spell it exactly the way he wanted. so when i began forming my signature on the back pages of my notebooks during the mindnumbing history and geography lessons, i decided i’d leave out my last name entirely and sign with just my first. sure i hated it, but i supposed that this part of my name at least, unquestionably belonged to me.

two years ago my folks called me at work and told me that the family astrologer had decreed my name was all wrong. “her numerological numbers add up to one and eight…very unlucky in a girl,” he’d told them, “making her too headstrong and independent…making her inflexible to marriage.” he concluded, striking below the belt. now my parents are sensible people. they are neither superstitious nor are they prone to melodramatic gestures. EXCEPT. except when it is pointed out that their perfect creation, the golden fruit of their loins and the glowing report card of their parental acumen is as yet, inexplicably unhitched. they used every dirty trick they knew after that. they pointed to every pitfall in my life and managed to link it to my ‘misspelled’ name, they threatened me and pleaded with me and bribed me and painted heady pictures of how my destiny would miraculously unfold...and finally promised to get off my back IF i’d agree to change my spelling again.

the astrologer’s prescription was ironic i think. he suggested that that i add an ‘h’ to my first name and that i just keep the initial of my last name and let go of the rest. this is just bloody hilarious i thought, as i inscribed my new name and signature 25 times each day for a month like he recommended. “no, this is just bloody stupid, you schmuck” said the voice in my head.

changing your name is a long and fiddly process. it involves gazette announcements and newspaper ads and never ending paperwork with the records departments at banks, employers, the passport office and all the other institutions that issue the myriad bits and pieces of your identity. i doubt i’d have swung it without my father’s dogged determination and singular skills with itemizing and crossing off lists. but finally, there i was with the missing ‘h’ back in my name and the controversial last name entirely knocked off.

did it rock my world? sure, i perpetually feel a little naked without my serpentine last name reassuringly trailing behind me. and every time i sign a document, the new ‘h’ feels like an uncouth hog elbowing me in my ribs to make space for himself. even after two years my ‘new’ name just doesn’t seem to fit at all. it still unsettles me and makes me look like a stranger on paper. and though i have often enough been accused of being a romantic, i find it difficult to concur with shakespeare on this matter of names. after all, i still tear up about a quarter of the cheques in my cheque book simply because i’ve misspelt mine. again.

ps: that was a very long blurt about me. you might enjoy this picture of colonel tatta singh more.

he is the only one i know with more reason than me to bitch about his name. however, as i have explained to him, there is little we can do about it, since his face really does look exactly like his balls.

saturday recipe

2009-06-01T04:39:00.013+09:00

there are things you should never have to do on a saturday, or any day. this saturday was a hard day to get through and will be even harder to get over. i’ll tell you about it when i have made my peace…for now let me tell you about last saturday, the kind of day that refused to go wrong.

last saturday i had a party to celebrate this house i love. if things go according to plan i move out in three months, and i want to make sure i really live in it, that i am not just passing through. it's a strange fixation i have developed as a result of living in too many places to take walls lightly anymore. so i planned and plotted over my menu for ten days and then i shopped and cooked and harrowed my mother on the phone for three evenings straight. then on saturday i woke up with the cats and cooked some more.

when the doorbell finally rang, the food was laid out, the beer was chilling, the plates and spoons were on the counter, the cushions were fluffed and the cats were passed out in the sunshine on the couch. i’d timed myself to the second and obsessed over every detail in a way that made even my mother proud. my friends came with company and laughter and stories and wine openers and extra wine and cigarettes and all the many other condiments that make life just fine. when they left, i had my home exactly the way i wanted, and that saturday i was the queen of good times…

regarding your missed call alerts

2009-05-27T03:50:00.006+09:00

the sea of love between us
keeps me from seeing me
the way that i was on the other side with you
it’s not that i have changed, as much
as a change in point of view
it’s not that i love you less
it’s not that love is gone
it is that love is, and that
there’s no more to be done

the sea of love between us
has turned another way
i’ve thought about it long and hard
and what i know today, is
we no longer take bus rides
with no particular part to play
nor anything much to say
knowing less than to necessitate
the out of the way

the sea of love between us
now lies squarely in between
it holds me under house arrest
it’s not that i mean to be mean
it’s an insufficient supply of words
and that i expect
you won’t suspect
my very intention
not after all this conversation

the sea of love between us
holds me deepest in its thrall
when faced with a humble obligation
i’m left feeling humungusly small
and resoundingly speechless
though i hear you tell me
it’s all a mess
it never was
before all this togetherness.

the sea of love between us
its ebb and flow is lost
stolen by a time when
the prohibitive cost
of keeping alive our simple love
let us simply rise above
the price that we must pay
for an ordinary phone call
to make an extra-ordinary day.

think it, post it, forget it

2009-05-22T07:41:00.011+09:00

that is a screen shot of my desktop.

the background is set to a photograph of a community notice board that i came by at a singapore bus stop. these notice boards make for fascinating gawking material while you wait for the buses to turn up – which they do with clockwork precision. you can post and check out notices for everything from home rentals to yoga classes to housemaids and erm, other kinds of ‘maids’ on these boards. i didn’t actually see the last kind of notice, but i’m sure i’d have found one (or more) tucked away in all that useful clutter or the kanji. it’s a very distinct possibility given that the folks at singapore are such an insanely organized lot.

but let me get to the point because this post of mine is not about the singaporean penchant for order. it’s about the magnificent digital ‘post it note’ by 3M that you see adding such striking colour and character to the top right of my desktop. i downloaded it from this site the day after i got back from my vacation, walked into work and had a mountain crash land on my head. it was either get the post it or start talking back to the voices in my head, and as i had no time for idle chit chat i decided to go with 3M’s magic invention that really does make everything fall right into place.

oooh, mentalie is so organized, you might think. but let me assure you, i’m the kind of person who forgets what i have eaten for breakfast while i’m eating it. and i mechanically answer to ‘space cadet’ and ‘scatterbrain’ because i’ve been called those names so often.

here's what i definitely am my friends, i am ingenuous. because i single handedly reinvented the post it: i use it to forget, as a mental purgative if you will. whenever a niggling thought strikes i simply post it. so i can cease to think about it then in peace. it’s been numbered, formatted and pinned down on my desktop and has nowhere to go, ha! more often than not i never look at it again, except to delete it, which also happens every once in awhile. in fact, over the past week i’ve managed to get so much off my mind that i can't remember the last time i heard a peep out of my squeaky clean conscience.

what makes it all even more beautiful, is that i inexplicably remember exactly how life was without the fabulous post it. soon after waking up a niggling thought would make its presence felt. it would remind me for the gazillionth time that i had forgotten all about it. it would begin with an itchy spot at the edge of my memory that i’d never get around to scratching because there were too many things to do – calls from my mum and dad to answer reminding me to eat and breathe, more threatening bill overdue sms-es from vodafone to ignore, other itches from yesterday to itch… as the day went by the itchy spots spread like a rash, one itch leading to another and another and yet another, until i crawled back home and to bed with a cacophony of niggling thoughts prickling away in my head. and i’d lie there and count all the things i had 'forgotten' through the day instead of counting sheep as widely recommended. needless to say, i never got a good night’s rest because i was too preoccupied with feeling like a complete moron by then.

these days however, i finally know the precise sensation regan macneil felt after the priest jumped to his death from her window at the end of the exorcist. it’s the unbeatable feeling of being thoroughly and completely cleansed. i highly recommend it.

signing off now with a kiss for 3M.

dear john,

2009-05-16T05:09:00.004+09:00

this is your love letter
for better
or for worse
as the case might be

it doesn’t matter
don’t you see
the complete redundancy
of examining to extremity
the weight of that random possibility
that you may not after all
love me

my dear, if you must
choose only to trust
the grumble in your gut
that you’d choose me over
but
for my raging insurgency
and this curious tendency
to be so jarringly me

you have a point there, i see

but my dear, if you must
if only to resettle the dust
helpless with love
subject to lust
abdicate present will
to find out if i love you still
you’ll forgive me
you’ll see

the blinding transparency
with which
i switch
and remain as always,

your Oddest Oddity.

dear chaddi rani,

2009-02-12T19:02:00.006+09:00

you are right, we must thank the chaddi for so sizzlingly defending our right to drink beer. it's the one thing that makes for better reading than what the sriram sene did. besides, it clearly establishes their utter un-coolness in the face of our uber smartness. what a witty way to say fuck you and to get the press to quote us doing it too. bravo. the press loves it, so it must be a fantastic plan.

fact is, the press is just peeing itself in delight at being presented with this bonanza. just when they thought they'd milked the story for all it was worth, the chaddi flew to their rescue. fact is, the sriram sene got them all agog before the chaddi. and in case you missed yesterday's juicy tid bit, the press is currently talking about muthalik's even wittier response. for every 'sister' that sends him pink chaddis, he's got pink saris and a fruit basket as well. we must have shamed him indeed for him to make such an uncharacteristically civilized response to our symbolic honor so rudely flung at him. (or am i being too presumptuous in crediting the pink chaddi with such deep significance?)

it's certainly got the people talking even more. hell, we must surely worry about that in a country were 'log baaten karenge' is usually the first ace up the moral guardian's sleeve. we must not sneak around like teenagers any longer…hey, we are old enough to act like them now! we must break our 'silence' and really give them something to talk about. we must scare the pants off the criminal by terrifyingly waving our chaddis in his face.

do you honestly believe a politician hasn't seen and done much worse? didn't his able demonstration of that start this off in the first place? will he crumble under the sheer cheekiness of it all?

get real. something is NOT better than nothing. more talk is NOT better than talk. a pink chaddi and a glass of beer say no more, nor any better than muthalik's pink saris and fruit basket. we have a bigger problem than a woman's right to drink and not get thrashed. let us not wear our 'loose, pub going, forward' label like a bloody badge. i'd be willing to bet that the sriram sene and their ilk do not get the irony in that. and let us not pat ourselves on the back and go out for a drink on valentine's. not yet.

is muthalik behind bars? has he turned over a new leaf? the sriram sene is one symptom of a cancer that rots our guts in india. a mythical ideal who stood back and let the will of his people be done to his wife. he is still a part of us today as is his mud slinging 'loyal subject'. today they are more brutal still because they say the women have crossed the limits of our 'cultural values'. they get away with it still, and the women, they still disappear underground.

he is a very busy man, muthalik. he has cases to appear in court for, from before the mangalore incident, and he has more evil to dispense. make no mistake. send him no 'love'. this is not the time to play right into the terrorist's machiavellian hands. this is not the time to get our chaddis in a twist and our meaning twisted.

is irreverence going to be our hard line response to terrorism? because that is what this is. why do we think getting cute is an apt/appropriate reaction to the obscene act of violence he got away with and flaunts with pride? it's time we call a terrorist a terrorist and make sure we put him where the sun doesn't shine.

and it's a little early to celebrate our 15 mins of fame, or worse, mistake this for a solution. it's time we go shopping wholesale for pepperspray and waste neither our breath nor our cash on muthalik. then we can have a drink and go lingerie shopping, sure.

ps: idiot

lights! camera! curtains!

2008-12-30T03:39:00.004+09:00

here's to 2008, the year that never was. i'm staying in with the cats this new year. we'll cuddle up and watch tv. when that gets boring, we'll lie on our backs and contemplate the fan. one of us will come up with the sterling plan of switching off the phone, so i will. and then, perhaps i'd blink, or pappoo will, or kubla. and then...it'll be time to blink again.

in the morning of the 1st i'll wake up with kubla khan's ear in my mouth and pappoo singh cutting off the blood supply to my left leg. in awhile, kubla will begin purring me his morning love songs and pappoo will wake up, shake himself, give me a dirty look, stick his tail up in disgust and pointedly leave the bed.

2009 will be worth it already.

we've spoken with your mother. we know everything.

2008-10-21T12:56:00.002+09:00

stick 'em up and hand over those dentures

2008-10-20T03:54:00.016+09:00

it's been a tame thirty first. i consumed vast potions of south indian party cuisine and most of the devil of a chocolate cake. then i simply keeled over and spent the next few hours passed out on the floor right next to the dining table with my paws up in the air. the rest of my day was exclusively given over to getting my brains fried by the irritatingly coy and supremely evil vodafone network.

nobody accused me of being lesbian this year. which i take as a good, if slightly stolid omen. in fact, the most interesting thing i have to report is that 'happy happy' is what several people said to me today. is that the fashionable way to say 'happy birthday' to the aged these days? it sounds just like a ripe-nosed old geezer pickled in gin. and it worries me that i'm nowhere near that attractive yet...

those sexy south indians

2008-10-13T06:46:00.011+09:00

i was catching up on my late night gemini tv tonight and this is what i saw:

a great, hefty woman in a kanjivaram and a pip squeak in a veshti doing a thub-thumping, soul shattering, flesh quivering rumba across the bedroom floor. in a sudden, uncontainable fit of passion, the amazon picks up her piddly paramour and flings him upon the bed. where he leans back in supplication and hoists his lungi to the beat. and i swear to you this is true, three doves fly out of his crotch.

grunt

2008-10-08T03:53:00.002+09:00

well, the housing issue is settled. we only had to put our lives on hold the last two weeks on this project. now, this doesn’t seem like much of a time investment but if you take into account the fact that we viewed 30 odd sites in the process, along a 10 km radius, some of them more than once, you’ll appreciate why i am utterly sick of inspecting air quality and toilet bowls.

looking for a house is perhaps one of the most emotionally draining preoccupations in the city. in my world, it stacks up right after inevitable goodbyes and just above presenting myself for a no holds barred gynaecological exam. there is little left to clap about at the end of it all. after the hard selling broker is done with you, after the repetitive trauma of finding just the place only to be diagnosed with a myriad of personal dysfunctions, after the n-th society secretary turns you down for simply being female, you tend to walk away shaken and almost completely unstirred.

i honestly have no clue why i came up with the asinine plan of moving base in the first place. yes, i now have a nice flat on a nice road with a nice coffee shop right out front. but i will also pay three times my current rent and have exchanged phone numbers with a bunch of people who stopped just short of asking whether the two of us charge by the hour. plus, i have been duly lectured by the pater on minding my wayward habits and impressing the old folks who live on the floor below. they seem conservative, he said. by which he means their imagination can and will exceed our excesses.

the chocolateuse is happy, i must admit. being 24, french-italian and completely innocent of the local ethos must help. i cannot think of any other explanation for why she’s thrilled about the antique tiles and i’m contemplating drowning in a bottle of old monk this evening.

home truth

2008-09-28T05:11:00.011+09:00

i just got back from a hunt with my future flatmate. an inside agent of mine discovered that she makes the best chocolate truffles in the world and sent her along as an early 31st birthday present. this young chocolateuse and i scoured the bowels of bandra and santa cruz today. and we came away with the understanding that 35-40,000 will fetch us the scum of posh bandra/khar and the eye sores of lush vakola/kalina. i currently rent the crème of chunabhatti for 13,500, which i know is a damn good deal, almost a steal, but still. is it really high maintenance to expect whitewashed walls, a breath of air and a loo you can enter without stepping side ways at 40,000 a pop?

each one of the 897 brokers we met and spoke with assured us that we’d just about make the cut off around bandra. when we scoffed encouragingly, they scurried us down a warren of crumbling lanes and byways that scuttle cockroach like from the glam. they impressed us with the necessity of upping our ante to a round 60,000 if we didn't plan on cramping our style. they snubbed us with ‘prime properties’ rearing up off the slums of santa cruz instead. they even threw in a couple of dusty ‘respectable localities’ buried in glitzy juhu to shock us out of our budget. the last broker we met called it quits when we dissed the laminate vaults lining every inch of wall space and the suck-your-gut-in-and-enter bathlets in his find. his pinched nostrils informed us that we had no right to quibble while jangling pennies in his face.

as a finale to our wild goose chase, we dined at a top banker’s quarters in one of the jolly maker buildings at cuffe parade. the living room stretched into the horizon on either side of us, while the sea breeze rougishly teased our hair in its wake. the total square footage of the eight flats we were shown today would have comfortably fitted into the corridor space. but what struck me like a slap in the face was the stadium proportioned loo. it’s the first time i truly cursed myself for not taking the SBI exam my father tries to talk me into every year.

the thing about the fast lane is that you’re just an arm’s reach from the high life and an inch short of the shit pot while bathing in mumbai. it’s a narrow little jet stream you sucker yourself inextricably into with every move you make. and what it all boils down to is not the sea view as much as the toilet bowl rising up to meet you when you bend down to scrub your toes.

it's not you, it's me

2008-09-26T03:49:00.009+09:00

i met an old friend of mine from the alma mater the other day. he’s one of the most brilliantly beautiful and funny people i have ever known. the girls simply loved him. so did the guys, the professors, the campus dogs, the cook and the gurkha.

this young man was almost a miracle. he was an inspired student, speaker, actor, sportsman, woo-er of women and wow-er of men. and he was all this despite his squeaky clean nose. without experiments with dirty language or dirty politics, and without abusing liquor, cough syrup, iodex sandwiches or any number of other such dubious substances. he even bathed, shaved, changed and smelled good every single day. he literally glittered among the grubby liberalists and shone against the conservative misfits.

then he leaned up at the bar next to me last week, “wassup!?”

this word is currently the bane of my life as well as the reason i haven’t been posting lately. i hate it from the pit of my anus. it makes my life flash past in front of my eyes and disappear into a haze. it clearly expects a more stimulating response than, ‘you know my cat, he was supervising the sunbeams again this morning.’ wassup leaves me speechless these days.

“nothing to write home about”, i said, “how’s tricks with you?”.

him: “great, great, things are perfect.”

me: “work good?”

him: “yeah, the md came by the other day blah blah blah drink with the client blah blah blah won another whopping business blah blah promoted blah blah flying out to greece for that conference blah blah blah board meeting at goa blah blah lovely people blah blah blah blah blah…”

me: “fun, is it?”

him: “yeah, it’s perfect.”

me: “what else's up with you?”

him: “great. bought a house a couple of years back. just got back from a vacation. and, we're getting a puppy this weekend!”

me: “and how’s the wife doing?”

him: “oh she’s fantastic, dude. marriage is just perfect.”

me: “tell me, do you um...fart occasionally?”

him: “say what?”

me: “you know, does your ass sometimes speak out of turn?”

him: “ha ha, funny girl. not unless i want it to.”

errr...

2008-09-24T23:13:00.003+09:00

but what about the pain in my ass, young man

2008-09-17T04:28:00.007+09:00

i have a grouse with all the rampant back rubbing these days. in my experience, rubbers usually give bad massages and are mostly oblivious to the word ‘no’. while i for my part, cannot fathom why we must impose upon my back when we could so easily shake hands instead. or better still, not.

there’s no denying it'll make less of an impression than a pair of sweaty paws, but consider this: look at it my way.

no, the dog didn’t eat it

2008-09-07T04:54:00.003+09:00

today i had the intensely perverse pleasure of not being able to turn work in for a damn good reason – chunabhatti was struck by lightning last night.

not many people i know would want to live at chunabhatti. they all warned me that it really was the forgotten middle earth it was named after and one of the first places to go under when the monsoons hit mumbai. after i moved here i found everything they had said was absolutely true. chunabhatti feels like a dusty hell pit by the expressway in the summer, a clogged public facility during the rains and the boondocks of connectivity all year round since life whizzes by it on the way to home and work.

but i must tell you, the one thing that can and does put you in a sunny mood about calling this home is the kind of stories you get to tell. what makes it an even sweeter deal is that they too are abso-fucking-lutely true!

psst, said my spine to me

2008-09-04T08:24:00.004+09:00

there’s no shying away from it, i was a sneaky little tattle tale at yoga this monday. and though the object of my attentions is a highly deserving candidate, i cannot deny the evidence that this struggle to reach for my toes is bringing me closer to school girl politics than to an immaculate mind.

it all began with over a spat for the space right under the instructor’s nose. i should have read the signs right then, since i consciously relinquished the front bench somewhere between developing acne and realizing that i was genetically coded to be unattractive in class room situations. this was when i quietly shifted base to the last bench and began producing paper planes and rude notes in a bid to save my soul. there was simply no other way to fend off the self righteous intellectual pustule my tam brahm mother (a teacher herself) had created.

perhaps it’s the decade i've spent outside of classrooms now that's dulled my memory, but from the very beginning of our motley gatherings over yoga, i began a tussle for the sweet spot next to the instructor with a career mum from hell. who spends her day catching up on the juiciest yoga tid bits doing the rounds among her friends and on the trusty hindi news channels. then she spends yoga class ratifying every niggling doubt that’s been raised during the course of the day – like whether yoga will make her fairer, whether it’s possible for a person to drop dead from it (as one of her friends apparently did), whether shilpa shetty’s bhujangaasana is superior to ours, whether kareena’s figure can be attained past forty, and so on. the remaining time she spends giving my belly dirty looks while accusing the instructor of not doing enough to ensure hers looks the same.

she is the soundtrack to which our class makes its valiant attempts at nirvana. she interrupts and whines and titters and comments and jibes and suggests picnics and disagrees and worries and tells us about her sex life and jokes and trades beauty myths and complains...and did i mention she NEVER shuts up? plus, since she wraps up her chai and bhel at least half an hour before i finish with my work day, she is always up front smirking as i walk past on my way in.

well on monday i made a special effort and got there fifteen minutes ahead of time. i did this specifically so i could teach my errant instructor the magic phrase ‘keep quiet until the end of class’. i told her the career mum exactly and effectively negated any amount of deep breathing we do. i insisted that unless her endless yammering could be quelled, we might better employ our evenings doing drugs and drinking ourselves silly. i was impassioned and eloquent and i guess i made my point, because when the career mum piped up ten seconds into the warm up she got her knuckles rapped. a few minutes later, when she contested the instructor’s method citing a shilpa shetty variation, she almost got her head bitten off. about half an hour into the proceedings, when she suggested slowing down the pace the instructor completely ignored her. this, as it turned out, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. she sat down, then lay down, then passed out until she could pull herself together enough to walk out the door.

to be honest, i am fairly certain it was nothing more than a temper tantrum, but watching this usually feisty middle aged woman reduced to a teary sulk on the floor made me feel horribly stupid about myself. she hasn’t been back to class since then and i'm waking up to the disturbing realization that i wish she would. what’s infinitely worse of course, is the sinking feeling that i am not doing yoga nearly half as well as yoga’s doing me.

giving them the freudian flip

2008-09-02T05:44:00.013+09:00

this average jo i know is prone to getting his tongue twisted around his emotions. every once in awhile however, this unremarkable male predeliction of his lends him a distinctly fetching turn of phrase. for instance, he is the only young man in my circles to have dashed off "the proposition sounds alluring indeed" while attempting a gentlemanly dismissal to a kind offer of engagement. but the sweatshop he did sign up with has whittled away his elegance and left him with a rather terse manner of expression these days.

which is why, when his boss and the rest of the nincompoops at work finally tested him beyond endurance he just let them have The Finger.

*note: this image is a simulation. the average jo wouldn't be caught dead in public with a home manicure.

is the data asynchronous or are there handshakes in the system…

2008-08-27T05:19:00.002+09:00

…the runaway bridegroom asked his bride-to-be, before he eloped with her to their high adrenalin wedding that kept everyone on their toes right up to the nail biting finish.

this was way before he knew she’d be worth all the trouble she’d cause with her habit of leaving the remote control in the refrigerator. and not drinking water despite knowing it will make her hiccups better.

in her case, it was before she knew he’d suggest putting a chart on the refrigerator where they could mark off the exact date and time each item gets put in. she had no idea that he would drive her to get her colon flushed for her thirtieth birthday either.

no wonder she said yes.

the cat that grew balls out of thin air

2008-08-26T06:14:00.011+09:00

this was bella fink-nottle at one month of age. we named her that because she looked like such a royal fatty.

the day we adopted her she got into an alley brawl with a big cat who ripped her belly open from end to end. the dressing the vets put on to keep her innards in place left her suspended in the air and made her legs stick out at odd angles. she looked heartbreaking and i used to visit her everyday while she was at the hospital. she proved to be a real fighter as the days went along. when her dressing came off she was so thrilled that she bounded up to everybody, even the folks who scrubbed out the hole in her middle.

then one day she came tripping up to her cage door when she saw me come in, and bounced right off it with her legs up in the air. what i saw changed things between us forever. she’d gone and got herself some family jewels overnight, that stupid cat!

and if it weren’t for the fact that (s)he’s spent every second of his life since then worshipping the sun that beams out of my bum, i might have never gotten over the let down.

well, i don’t know about you but vodaphone must love me to pieces

2008-08-25T06:37:00.013+09:00

that lady from their call centre buzzed me again today. she assured me it was no trouble at all, giving me a call on sunday. she said it was the least they could do for such a privileged customer.

then she told me all about how much more attractive i’d be if only i would get myself one of their sensational new caller tunes. she argued long and hard for the rights of the sacred caller and emphasised how thoughtless it was of me to not make his calling experience the sixty most hummable seconds of his life. she waxed eloquent about how the tune would give him a sneak peek into my stunning personality and more or less seal the consequences of every conversation that followed. she almost had me convinced that not having a caller tune was beyond cruel, that it was a criminal waste of my dazzling potential, and probably the sole reason i live with two cats instead of a good man.

come to think of it, my mother takes a similar tack when i wear clothes she doesn’t approve of. she takes it very personally. much like the vodaphone lady did when i held my ground on the ring tone. it will be much better than your current tring-tring, she insisted.

i told her i didn’t see how unless i called myself. i thought this was a very clever response. in fact i just about held back the ‘ha!’ at the end.

but i had grossly underestimated this vodaphone evangelist, this revolutionary of caller rights and the rest of my telephonic lifetime. she tsk-ed a bit over how i had missed the whole point. then she took a deep breath and started again at the beginning. slowly this time, just to make sure i caught up and kept pace. a good start is always good, madam, she explained, don’t you want to say hello to a person who is in a good mood?

it took awhile before i managed to get off the phone without subscribing to caller tunes. i honestly see no reason to let people enjoy barging into my day any more than they already do. i feel this way despite the nice lady who gave up her sunday for my cause and despite the concerned vodaphone staff who selected me specially for her attentions.

what can i say, i’m a completely selfish little pimple that way.

calls himself a cat

2008-08-21T00:58:00.004+09:00

hitting the big three uh oh

2008-08-19T19:49:00.005+09:00

i got exactly one hundred phone calls on my thirtieth. people i didn’t even know i knew took the time to dial my number and hold on until they got through. i got phone calls while i was on phone calls and missed call alerts when i turned it off. i don’t know what it was that kept them coming but by afternoon my ear was throbbing, my face hurt from all the smiling and i was beginning to mechanically wish my well wishers happy birthday back. by six that evening i had a raging headache and no desire to do anything other than crawl into bed. i didn’t, of course. i went and had many cocktails and a bitch fight with one of my dearest friends over sms instead.

predictably, i woke up with a hangover that sucked all the joy out of turning thirty. not so predictably, i woke up to a very unsettling accusation. there it was staring me in the face, an sms from my erstwhile friend that insisted i was lesbian. don’t get me wrong, i’m no homophobic but i’m not homosexual either. and that morning, with the vino still galloping through my system and this message from a person who knows me inside out i got my first real sense of ageing. it meant not being able to stomach more than six varieties of alcohol at a time, yes. it also meant accepting that all i had to show for my venerable years was a queasy feeling in the belly and a friend without a clue.

in all honesty, at that moment i had to admit that other than my sexual orientation i wasn’t sure of much else.

the thing that gets me these days is that i was dead sure i’d arrive at thirty. i was as convinced of this when i turned thirteen, eighteen and twenty one as well, but thirty should have been different in my opinion. to my mind it was the end of a decade of adjusting to adulthood and the beginning of the rest of my life as a bonafide member of the club that does not squirm in its skin and can categorically tell its ass from its elbow.

this, i must inform you has not happened. i’m starting to think that maybe the whole point of growing older is not so much about having crystal clarity as it is about being ok with knowing that i don’t.

happy birthday, squeaky clean colon

2008-08-10T20:51:00.004+09:00

my friend went and got herself a colon flush to bring in her thirtieth today.

her naturopath talked her into this procedure where someone sticks a tube up your rectum and then pumps you full of water repeatedly until your belly feels like turbulent seas and every little speck of accumulated poop is hosed out of your colon so that it sparkles like a diamond. apparently, the accumulation begins from the very first time you begin communing with nature so the amount of debris that gets flushed out is an impressive argument for the colon flush.

it’s an excellent way to get started at anything, getting rid of all the crap. gives turning thirty a completely fresh new spin in my books.

i wish i’d thought of getting her that instead of the silly shoes.

poochaanga yoga

2008-08-10T06:06:00.015+09:00

ladies and gentlemen, i bring you the ancient wisdom of the masters of moksha.

i am but a humble servant and observer of this incredible art and i claim no expertise myself. however, placed as i am at an advantageously close proximity to the maestros, my cell phone camera and the internet, i consider myself duty bound to share with the world my avid documentation of this commonly seen, but as yet undiscovered discipline.

henceforth, i shall reveal to you every weekend, a secret from the gurus of grace. trust me and follow these revelations faithfully. because i know from first hand experience that every time homoerectus struggles to bend over and reach its toes, twist itself into pliancy, twirl itself free from the gravitas of the day and shut away a million quibbling worries to achieve an empty mind, a soul at peace and deep belly breathing…there sits the Cat, laughing its wise head off.

let’s face it, we might have invented yoga but nirvana belongs to the cats. this is my ode to them and the one chance your sanity might have left to be saved.

lesson 1: Splatt!!aasana

for instant bliss and an irrepressible smile: the source of all happiness lies within. this is an age old truth that is often slandered as myth today by cynics, dejected lovers and credit card companies.

this asana unblocks the barriers we have subconsciously created to the fountain of joy that bubbles quietly within all of us. through daily practice one can perfect a system of split second retreat from an uncomfortable and/or uninteresting world. the lines between ones eyes disappear, the limbs slacken in elegant élan and the cheeks are rosy and uplifted, as are ones mood and spirits. the shadows of the day gone by recede into oblivion and the face acquires a magnetic benevolence.

instructions: find a friendly and accommodating lap and place yourself in it belly up, thus inviting the belly rub that is essential to the precise execution of this asana. lie still and perform deep belly breathing. focus on finding the sweet spot and on keeping the distracted hand engaged and attentive. be patient and belly breathe away the hand’s ineptitude, if any. next, slacken the limbs and concentrate on guiding the hand with the power of your evident satisfaction. take ten more deep breaths…float away…

a toast, to my irrevocable loss of wisdom

2008-08-08T04:24:00.014+09:00

my dentist informed me yesterday that i had a wisdom tooth and that it needed to be extracted because it had a cavity beginning to set in. it was the most stunning bit of news i'd heard in ages. for one, i never knew i had a wisdom tooth and this had left me feeling short changed by evolution through most of my adult life. like the rest of mankind had been evolving for eons and eons and then the gene pool had sprung me on them without the prerequisite species credentials. and like i wasn't quite 'grown up' yet. infact, i regularly felt like the product of some green horn gene whose only memory was processed baby food.

needless to say, i would have done a lot to keep that tooth. i loved it the instant the dentist told me it was there. it didn’t matter that it was useless and twisted and twisting my other ‘good’ teeth. it was love at first sight when he pointed it out to me with his evil drill in the reverse mirror. and then he informed me it was rotten and had to go.

i could have cried, and i did, but he wasn’t buying. i have no idea why i pay to rendezvous with this man. i have spent the last ten years (ever since i got myself a monthly replenishing bank account) putting away an average of 250gms of chocolate a day with no dental problems. i visited several dentists in this time and every one of them told me i had excellent teeth. then i met him and so far he’s devastated me with eight cavities and blamed them all on my indiscriminate chocolate habit.

you can have ice cream the whole day afterwards, he promised. wonderful, more processed sugars...that should make sure the great grandkids make do with just their gums, observed the bitch in my head.

anyway, i dragged myself to the clinic today only to find the dentist out for a meeting. i was sure this was a sign from the ancestors to keep the tooth but the nurse had been prepped well and placed herself impassively between the door and me until he got back. then he diddled around in my mouth until he discovered another cavity. and he insisted on fixing this one before extracting the wisdom tooth so i could have thirty more minutes with ‘my precious’. (i reiterate, i dole out my hard earned cash for this treatment. no clue why.)

forty minutes, two pricks and a brief skinny dip in Goa later, i was yanked out of my drooling stupor by the dentist snapping, OPEN YOUR MOUTH, HEY! i had achieved the distinction of being the only person in the world to have been caught napping on a dentist’s chair while he was still drilling. i have no explanation for this other than the fact that i spent all of last night mourning the wisdom tooth i’d never really gotten to have and now wasn’t allowed to keep. five seconds later, he plugged my mouth with a wad of surgical cotton, recommended ice packs, ice cream, a fist of meds, a cut down on smoking, taking it easy the next couple of days and told me he was done.

there lay my wisdom tooth, curved and bloody as a dagger. proof of my gene’s vigorous march to the top of the food chain. he even offered to let me have it for keeps in a dental doggie bag, but I was done. it struck me then that perhaps the one thing that can save an individual wondering what to do post the loss of innocence and the more or less daily loss of dignity as a thirty year old PPT artist is the loss of wisdom. as i lit my second cigarette, it struck me that wisdom sometimes, is just another word for baggage.

so i headed to my favourite gelato place and piled on the scoops. i got myself back to office and helped set up a bunch of things we bought for the new workplace yesterday. i walked into the wall twice with the woosiness. once, while pulling a stubborn plug out of a reluctant socket and once more when we went looking for some missing curtains. i did most of this with an ice pack grafted to my face, fistfulls of drugs and a staunch determination to end the day with a celebratory bottle of beer. as it turned out i ended up with more than just one bottle.

so here i am, rid of all evidence of evolutionary junk and two bumps, three gelatos and many beers richer. it’s most likely the drugs my toothly nemesis has put me on (or the beer and the bumps) but i’m beginning to feel very, very good...!

lessons from bollywood for my good friend, GM (the maadu, not the car)

2008-08-06T03:41:00.019+09:00

i watched 'jaane tu' last week and you know, the same thing happened to me. well, almost.

i met a guy at college. we hung out all the time and everyone thought we were seeing each other. then college got done and we went our separate ways. we wish each other on birthdays. on many other days we miss each others calls. and we talk about not talking enough when we don't miss them. after all this time, that's pretty much all there is to say. not much of a story, is it?

well, that's not what happens with ratty and yeow... kyonki stupid, ek ladka aur ek ladki kabhi dost nahin ho sakte!

a comment can change the world

2008-07-31T19:21:00.005+09:00

i'm a celebrity now.

wait a minute, i got two comments.

is that the reporters from the world press knocking at my door?

if you'll please excuse me, i should go read what these lovely people have to say to me before i get addled with all the attention. since they have been kind enough to click on comment, i'm hoping their enthusiasm lasted past "eat shit".

inside the blog virgin's screwy little head

2008-07-31T04:00:00.009+09:00

i'm doing it! i'm doing it!! I'M DOOOOING IT!!!

oh oh OH! oOoooOOOH!

yessSSSSSSssss... !

...

...

...

...i hope my folks never find out about the toilet i have for a brain.

then again, they probably know by now.

he who will never forgive me for sticking a thermometer up his bum

2008-07-30T05:44:00.003+09:00

nothing beats a cheaper thrill

2008-07-30T04:07:00.013+09:00

last evening i went for a soothing shopping cart ride at reliance fresh. by the time i got to the payment line i’d shopped myself silly on milk, chocolate, tomatoes, frozen peas, cream crackers, cranberry juice, olive oil and two 40 watt bulbs. i’m pretty easy to please that way, groceries get me high on life.

so there i was, blissed out behind my shopping cart. i hadn’t used more than the percentage of grey cell necessary to pick and drop in the last 20 minutes. the cart steered me around the store and made itself even more useful by stopping in front of all the stuff i hadn’t thought of buying until then. all it asked was that i attach myself firmly and follow faithfully until i could fork up for all the fun. i really appreciate the mindlessness it helps me achieve, the shopping cart. it beats yoga by miles, though it doesn’t make me any bendier. who wants bendy anyway when all that’s between you and nirvana is a handful of cash.

or someone who runs up a bill for seven rupees and fifty paise. that’s what she paid, the woman standing before me at the counter. and though i almost got whiplash from trying i couldn’t get a look at what she bought. i really have no idea how you get in and out of a supermarket at that price. i’ve never managed to walk out with a bill for less than a couple of hundred.

nine bucks is the least i spend at a go. make that ten, because i’m usually in too much of a rush or just too well paid (ha ha, funny girl) to wait for change while the autowalla roots around in his pockets. everything else i buy costs more. unless you count the match boxes i buy and lose every day. matchboxes don’t cost money anyway. they’re the loose change you’re always cursing yourself for letting go of when you're stuck between a traffic jam and nowhere in particular.

but that’s beside the point. what’s driving me nuts is that woman and the stinking suspicion that she just might be on to something better than my shopping cart.

breakfast in bed

2008-07-27T16:22:00.003+09:00

twisty toed

2008-07-27T05:36:00.017+09:00

as part of my rehabilitation at thirty program i have enrolled in dance classes. so every saturday and monday, right after 'bums and tums' (no really, they are called that) leave the building, i walk in. i'm instantly high on the heady preserve of 'bums and tums' armpit and lack of oxygen. plus, i love dancing. i got travolta on my mind. when the music blasts on, it's gonna be grease lightning. and my feet, they've got a mind of their own.

first, they gingerly edge me away from all the action to somewhere between the watercooler and the wallflowers. then they shuffle around a bit, struggling to keep each other's spirits up until they slowly peter into a jerky kind of ennui.

i look down, hey!

don't wanna, they say.

but it's dance CLASS, you reprobates, not some random party, the conscientious teacher's pet inside me chides prissily.

don't care, don't wanna, they say. then the right one shifts slightly to ten 'o clock and the left slides into one 'o clock and they kind of sulk at me that way.

i'm furious. i want to dance. i LOVE dancing and i waited all week for this. you are MY bloody feet, i OWN you, this ain't no DEMOCRACY, i say.

they shuffle in a couple more degrees and look glumly up at me. bhah, they say, nah.

at a temporary loss for words, i look up and catch a glimpse of myself vieing with the pole for screen space in the wall to wall mirror. i have an evil scowl slicing my forehead, my teeth are clenched in a killer smile, my jaws are popping, the nerve in my temple is be-bopping to the music, my chin and hair are dripping sweat, my arms are akimbo and i am pigeon toed. it's a galvanizing sight.

i desperately look for the instructor and focus on his feet. i meditate on them. i tell my feet in a soothing voice to sleep, sleep, sleeeeep...that when they wake up, they'll be those size twelve beat maestros in patent leather soles that can glide across the wooden floor. it works in surprising ways. the size twelves slide up until they are under my nose and when i look up, i'm in the arms of the instructor who is spinning me centre stage on the wall to wall mirror. and i have grown seven left feet.

i am serious. there was one right foot and seven others. each had a plan of its own and not one was inclined to talk this through with the team mates. where five minutes ago i had a strike on my hands, i was clearly up against a riot situation now. ONE, two THREE, four, finish and TAP, rasps the instructor to the crazy, eight legged, headless chicken spinning across the floor. i annhilate six toes and one manicured toe nail in my wake. i briefy pause to skin two ankles and kiss a shin.

my instructor jives like he's from the matrix. he is miraculously the body i bounce off every where i go. ONE, two, THREE, four, FINISH, TAP! ONE, two, THREE, four, FINISH, ooof! ONE, two, THREE, four, FINISH, OOoooF! the room's a blur, the floor's spinning, my body has no axis and i achieve zero gravity.

the next moment i visciously head butt his elbow and his hand splinters my knuckles to keep my knees from buckling in. the last thing i see is a million lights flashing off in my head. they tell me he gently draped me over a giant pilates ball before the ambulance took him away to get his elbow reset.

i don't even look at my feet until we get ourselves into the car. i just sit behind the steering wheel and clutch at it for self control. the roof silently drips rain water on my left knee until i finally look down.

they're lurking at me from the shadows, my feet. i push back the driver's seat, switch on the overhead light and burn them up with my acid gaze. they go pigeon toed again. they try to curl right into themselves. the wimps.

well???? i hiss.

they mumble something.

wHaTTT??? i roar.

we're just shy you know, they say.

top notch zen material

2008-07-26T06:11:00.009+09:00

i dragged myself across town in the middle of the first downpour the city's seen this season in my sparkly new car with the leak in the roof at six pm when all the normal folk are heading back home to change into something snappy before heading out to an evening of dinner, drinks and disco.

i'm wearing sweatpants and i have a date with six career mothers and a yoga instructor. i am 40 minutes late and for the entire remaining forty i stand at meditative attention opposite career mum two.

the whole time i'm thinking, her bra would fit me jusssst perfectly...if only i had two heads.