In the morning, I picked up a green kurta from P’s closet to match my faded blue fab India skirt. The kurta was a peculiar shade of neon green. Not something I would have voluntarily bought myself.

I realized I was trailing him a few moments after walking down the road. He was a good 30 paces ahead of me. He never turned around to look, which is odd if you’re looking for an auto, which he evidently was. He must have been getting out of his gate the same time I was exiting mine. A mild tilt of the head and he couldn’t have missed me. A mild tilt was inevitable unless he was wearing blinders. Missed that bizarre new born shoot green, missed the immediate realization that he was in the exact same shade of green. He would have made that comparison immediately. He was always rather fashion forward, braver while dressing than most men I knew.

I watched his thin frame walking cautiously ahead of me. He had gotten even thinner. It must be the stress of his mother’s death. His friend had sent me a message to attend the funeral a week ago. I hadn’t gone.

He reached the end of the road and I knew he would cross over to the other side and try and catch a rick, which meant he would be facing me soon enough.

I immediately pretended to be on the phone. He looked straight at me with sad accomplishment. It wasn’t the first time we had successfully avoided each other. It wouldn’t be the last. Though if he had been 5 or 10 paces ahead of me, we’re both absolutely sure we’d greet each other in high pitched hello’s. Maybe we’d even laugh about being in the exact shade of fab India green. Maybe.

Later in the day, the same friend who’d messaged me about his mother’s death meets me in an official capacity. He is a writer. He’s been writing for a famous director that I desperately want to nab for my company. He’s also published a book of graphic verse that he brings for me as an advance birthday gift he says.

I open the A3 size hard bound and immediately start reading. We can get to business in a bit.

The words that jump up at me are the sort of words you never forget. I’d spent hours lingering over them, over analyzing them and falling in love with them 6 years ago. Words that had sealed an infatuation as pure love.

“You didn’t write this did you”

“Of course I did….who else would” he says bemused

“I feel like I’ve read them before” I lie. Of course I had. They were branded in my brain.

“I’d mailed them to X years ago…maybe you read them then? The newer poems are at the end of the book”

It almost seemed funny instead of upsetting after all these years. Maybe I’d replace the high pitched ‘Hello’ with a condescending ‘Nice Shirt’ I decided.

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Now Playing: Kings of Leon : Sex on Fire

It’s that time of the year again, when Ganpati’s at the back of trucks, tempos, cars and cycles are being taken out to sea. So living near the said sea as any Mumbaikar would know is at the top of the most pitiable list. Not only are you mostly under house arrest, you are mostly under your bed like dogs during Diwali because it’s so insanely fucking loud. So much for swine flu dampening things. Then the two fools I have for neighbours have decided to ‘host’ Ganpati this year, this means endless competitive bhajans, one Maharastrian style, one Gujarati style going at it simultaneously. Do you pity me now?

Today started off on a bad foot, literally. My mum who is here to help me get better (I had the flu 3 times in a row and topped it off with a stomach infection) was just telling me “paathh nade di..” (watch where you’re walking), when my chappal clad foot went squishingly into the freshest pile of doggie poo. “it’s a good sign” my mother declared albeit hesitantly, saying as an afterthought “better if it was cow dung…tsk, why wasn’t it cow dung…yenna di, atleast cow dung le naddekimattiyaaaa?”
I kinda wished it was cow dung too, the shit was fucking hard to wash off and smelt like hydrogen peroxide on acid, if that’s possible.

I proceeded to friendly neighbourhood ‘Suburban Diagnostics’ in Lokhandwala to get a full body health test done. While at it, my brilliant sister instructs my mother to get me to do a Pap smear as well. I know what this is going to lead to, but arguing in front of my mother will only verbally state the very obvious so I shut up and book the test.

“Can you add a Pap Smear test to that please”

“You are married madam?”

“No”

“Er… but madam this test is only for married womens”

“It’s a cervix test for cancerous cells, how does it matter? Plus, I know what it entails”

(Male nurse steps in)

“Madam, please understand this is only for ‘married’ women”

“I KNOW!, I would like to have it ANYWAY”

“She is above 25 years, so she should be able to take the test” my mother says, knowing exactly what all this ‘married’ hoohah is about but wanting to hold up the Bambi innocence I’m clearly not displaying.

“Ok Madam, we will book the test” the nurse says resignedly. Its hard to say if she does it thinking we are uneducated hypochondriacs who are simply insisting on this test, or knowing that we ‘know’ she ‘knows’ exactly what is the bone of contention here.

Once inside the testing rooms, thankfully my mother has been made to sit outside and I have to deal with the nurses alone. The Male nurse looks at me worriedly from a far corner of the blood collection room. In the seconds that I close my eyes wincing from the pain of the suction during blood collection, Male Nurse has sent an elderly female representative to talk to me in hushed tones. The elderly female actually, and I mean actually, covers her mouth on both sides like the blinders that Shahid Kapur wears in Kaminey and asks in a damn loud whisper “ARE YOU HAVING THE SEXUAL INTERCOURSES??”

“……Yes” I say surprisingly unsure, still trying to fathom the extent of worry on this elderly females face. Maybe this is not just about not being a virgin, maybe there is some major shit that will hit the fan if I’m unmarried and take this test. Maybe they need me to sign off on some legal document, maybe they need some sample from the ‘husband’ to compare or something I decide.

My unsure reply tends to worry her further. She decides things need to be broken down further to make me understand. She holds her mouth blinders up again “ARE YOU HAVING THE BOYFRIENDS?”

“Yes”

“SO YOU’RE HAVING THE SEX?”

All this is happening as the blood collection lady is busy at work beside me, labeling my test tube, burning and cutting the needle, rubbing spirit on my bleeding vein and taping it. I have failed to notice the smirk she has on her face till she interrupts elderly psycho to ask me point blank “Are you sexually active my girl”

“Yes, occasionally”

“Then you qualify, all she wants to tell you is that it is a penetrative test”

“Yeah exactly”

“Let her take the test” she says authoritatively to elderly nutcase and the case is finally dismissed.

After what was again surprisingly a painful test, when everyone said it wont be, I went out feeling suitable annoyed. Except I didn’t know who to be angry with. The parochial marathi mulgis at the counter who should simply allow people to take a test, no questions asked, or at least no questions asked SO many times, or my mother in front of whom I cant simply say “I’m sexually active” even though its something she knows fully well but refuses to acknowledge. But then why would she want to I guess… so I just felt annoyed with myself instead. It’s far easier that way.

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Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing. No one to blame

Jong did more than just inspire me to write. Infact, ‘How to save your own life’ (which is where the famous line from above is from), a paperback, much cello taped version that was lying in the vast library of books I had growing up, was the book in which I read my first ever sex scene. And it was the book in which I first even realized what sex was, what fit in where, my own 6th grade sex ed class, my own community hippie parents explaining it to me over supper, breaking the news to me in a fun, not grossly uncomfortable way, and mostly that it was a wonderful experience. The fact that sex lead to procreation was actually something I realized much, much later. I was eleven.

The book also therefore, inadvertently shaped much of my sex life. Subconsciously of course. It made me not put too much thought into losing my virginity, relieved me of that burdensome guilt. It taught me how to actually enjoy the act. To have sex for the sake of pleasure and not because I wanted to please someone. It made my early twenties seem almost sublime. I felt all the chutzpah a young girl should feel. I winged it like Jong.

What the book didn’t teach me was how to deal with my twenties in India, as an, at the heart of it all; love sick soul. I couldn’t wing it and walk away. I couldn’t pretend I had those hippie commune bred parents who’d throw flowers on my cosmic copulating bed, I couldn’t be constantly torn between serial monogamy and one true love. Especially since I realized slowly that I only wanted the latter.

I couldn’t be like Isadora Wing. I couldn’t be like Erica Jong. When I went back to say goodbye to my house before it got torn down a few months ago, I found the book and re-read it in one sitting. But this time, the book seemed lost and vapid. Not unlike the state it was physically in (it was about to die a silver fish eaten death). The Isadora who had overwhelmed me with her ziplessness, suddenly seemed depraved and deranged. Lonely and deluded.

I almost felt like what Jongs daughter Molly had articulated in her memoirs – ‘Girl, Maladjusted’ , of living under her mothers sexual shadow, ‘of the emptiness she encountered in trying to live out the sexual liberties lauded in her mothers work’.
It was a coming of age of some sort for me. I suddenly felt free of the book. Free of what it had subconsciously alluded to me in some way at that pliable age.

And then again I realized, it had done me just that…. I had something to blame.

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Maa Ka Pyaar (Part Deux)

For some strange reason, I’ve always thought my mother was cool. And the reason why this is strange is because she is actually NOT remotely cool. NOT. Not. When will I understand that?

The problem is that I can’t keep secrets. I’m horrible with them. I have to get it out of my system. At least to my sister or mother. I choose between both the devils. My sister gets all the censored details, my mother gets the “Ya Amma, there’s one boy, he’s ok, we had lunch etc” type details. And she’s usually so avant garde and cool with it, I assumed she was generally cool. But this time I chose wrong. Telling your mother that you and your boyfriend are taking a vacation to Goa is NOT ok. Because it only means you’ll end up NOT going. Not going because a) the sweet denial your mother is in of thinking that you and him are only holding hands and playing carom is broken b) your mother thinks that his mother will think you are a loose character c) it could lead to more suspicion and broken belief when both mothers slowly realize that when we say “he’s staying at his best friends place in Pali hill”, we ARE indeed lying. Sigh.

Then I thought back to that time when AFTER my sister was engaged, my mother made me tag along for the lone dinner opportunity my poor Brother In Law had one night, and then a storm broke loose and we had to stay over at BIL’s pad and mum called feverishly on my phone every hour to make sure that my sis was sleeping with me in the guest room and NOT with BIL. AND I lied so sweetly on her behalf, even assuring mum when we came home that Sis and BIL had been on utmost decent behavior, when infact I was subjected to sooooo much goddamn PDA and closed room activities at so young and impressionable an age…hmph.

You’d think she’d do the same for me? It’s payback time Akka!

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Work Shirk

I’ve realized over the years, that nothing can quite get me down and depressed than work related angst. After my first ever ‘louwe failure’ as they call it lovingly in the south, I’ve really never suffered the pathos and general sense of doom that breakups are heir to. I’ve felt listless for maybe a week and then brushed it off rather fatalistically. But if I’ve even had a lull week at work or a bad week at work, or godforbid, no job (which has never happened till now), I can turn my world upside down and be rather neurotic. It’s the paralysis of the very middleclass. I cannot stand even thinking of a period of uncertainty employment wise. So when I’m presented with the rather daunting task of shifting base to another city itself where a) I will have to change career track entirely b) succumb to making less than half of what I currently make and c) wonder if I’ll get a job even, I’m putting everyone I know concerned with this move under some palpable stress along with me.

The worst is when suddenly there like hajaar new things popping up in Bombay. Each one offering more money, each one with its sense of novelty. Then I take a step back and look at my comfortable little life right now, with my west to east 15 minutes travel time, my bunch of inimitable colleagues, the glamour struckness aquaintances show you when you drop your companies name, and I wonder why I’m thinking of moving. Maybe I should just wait it out here till the wedding and the inevitable move to North of India? Ill have the satisfaction of having finished two whole years in one company, which is something I haven’t managed to do in 6 years of employment. Or should I quit and move to one of the 2 -3 new opportunities that have cropped up, even if its just for the next 6 – 8 months, but which are far more lucrative? What? Say? Money or Monotony?

Also suddenly I’m blogging a lot. Which is strange.

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Maa Ka Pyaar

It’s one thing to claim to have a sea facing apartment and quite another when in truth your apartment faces the non-seafacing side and is on the goddamn ground floor. Then on days when you have to take permission from snobby top floor residents to access the terrace to do your internet cabling, you discover this orgasmically awesome view of the wide open grey sea with streaks of pure turquoise and you feel rather frustrated. Especially on particularly stormy nights like last night when you can hear the sea rolling and rumbling and threatening to tidal wave and destroy your little link road haven and there’s no visual of it to be absolutely sure. And then there are days when you want to take the boyfriend for a romantic little stroll on the deserted part of Versova beach and instead see a gimungous crowd of cops and fire brigade personnel trying to find 3 dead bodies on the beach. Far from romantic. Made more morbid by boyfriends fascination to want to take pictures of crying multitude of relatives collected on the beach and hopefulness on his face to catch a glimpse of dead body being dragged out of sea.

They’re saying that there’s going to replay of 26th July 2005 this weekend. Solar eclipse side effects apparently. But I’m not worried because my mother called last night before the eclipse to warn me.

“Don’t look at the sky all day, don’t leave the house even, stay in bed and read a book”

“But Amma, I have a major meeting at work tomorrow, I can’t bunk ya, what is this superstitious nonsense”

“Oh ok… ok… don’t worry, solar eclipse will only affect bad people. Bad things will happen only to bad people, so you go to office ok, don’t worry, nothing will happen to you”

“Umm…er…”

How can you worry with logic like that? Really.

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Same Person

At a house party sort of set up a couple of nights ago, a bunch of us got into a rather odd discussion about the recently deceased king of pop MJ. It started innocently enough with, “Dude, they haven’t buried him yet” and then went into another realm slowly. Don’t hate the criminal, hate the crime. Balance the good out with the bad. Don’t criminalise him just because he was in the public eye, we aren’t even sure if he actually was a pedophile or not, he had a bad childhood and a crazy life therefore I don’t blame him. As you could see, it was a room full of MJ supporters. Then suddenly someone started comparing him to Mozart and we realized MJ was Mozart reborn. Think about it, child prodigy, musical genius, bit mental, liked small boys. Same person.

Of course, it’s not like we were the first people to think of the similarities, as I googled and found hajaar others. But I will present to you the most awesome link from them. It is beyond comprehension. Quite literally. Enjoy

http://allocating.blogspot.com/2009/07/michael-jackson-mozart.html

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Of disappearances and other occurences

Thought I died ah? My god, it’s been ages. Not only haven’t I posted. I actually haven’t typed anything longer than a short sentence. There have been a combination of factors of course. From too much choice in topics (which is never a good thing in life itself I’ve realized), to actually completely forgetting I had a blog, to realizing that its damn fucking tough to write anything remotely read worthy when you’re happy. Damn you happiness. Where is my beloved pathos? Nothing wakes the writer faster than a good hot cup of angst.

Why am I so happy; you might ask next. Well on a blog that has whined about singledom and sexlessness, or better yet, ‘sex pining’ as the boyfriends some random friend wonderfully described it. What do you think? So yes, singledom has been banished. Hopefully forever, provided boyfriends kindly grandmother accedes to the wedding after I failed her ‘Kya aap Tyagarajan music festival ke bare main sune hain?’

“Umm sorry nahin”

“Accha?Par.. Par aap toh south se hain…kaise sune nahin?” she said rather disappointed while someone else gratefully changed the topic.

While most of my time has evidently passed in what can only be described as a whirlwind romance, on the work front I’ve started to feel that old familiar blood boil of complacency. The multiplex strike did more than just transform our world into a financial cul de sac, it’s made everyone rather lack luster. Most of us turned to American television for a fix though and came up with some real quality entertainment. The last two months have been a blur of insomnia ridden half hour after half hour nonstop, don’t touch the remote, just press Play All, watching sprees. State of Play, Firefly, Serenity, Californication, The Wire, The Fringe and How I Met your Mother of course. If it wasn’t for a bunch of truly awesome colleagues, I would have moved/quit ages ago. But we all kinda bonded in our empty corporacy and common love for U-Torrent and life hasn’t seemed quite so bad after all. 

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This is the End. My only friend, the End.

I was home last week and it was the end of a lot of things.

Firstly, the end of Singledom. Before you get excited or err.. maybe not excited, it wasn’t the end of my singledom but of my dearest Jemima’s, who got married on the 23rd of April. I marked that it was Dev Patel’s birthday as I was carrying her trail down the stairs of her house and everyone glared at me disapprovingly. Oh well.

So Jemima, who when we were four years old, used to carry me on her hip after school while I cried for my mum to pick me up, Jemima, who has always been the constant in my life all these 23-24 years, carrying all my secrets (and my neurosis) and well, more pleasurably for her, my bollywood gossip as well, was carried away into the proverbial sunset by a man who loves her. Sigh.

It was also the end of childhood memorabilia, as the house that I grew up in was torn down. I walked through every empty room and noticed every crack and every nook and wondered a hundred times if we were doing the right thing. Of course, we are rebuilding, but it will never be quite the same. Not to mention how we’ve thrown away practically everything in the house because we didn’t know what to do with it. No books, no music, no portraits, no same furniture even the next time round. The past is lost I say. Sob.

Finally, it was apparently the end of what one might call casual sex. I went to Bangalore realizing I could very well put to an end a rather er…long period of celibacy. There were not one, but two options. A) Assholic Ex and B) Undefined Ex. Both men were a phone call and no explanations away, but I simply didn’t pick up the phone. And funnily, I don’t regret it. Maybe it was all the coupling happening around me, maybe it was Jemima’s awesome wedding, or maybe it was simply something I’d told myself not to ever do again a long time ago.

In other news, people’s pliss be seeing new templates, courtesy the very enterprising and dashing Crowley. (who I had to again ask how to link his name etc), so this honorable blog menshun is a little wasted. But what the hey, Thanks Pirate! I louses it.

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This time, that year

While watching Stephen Daldry’s ‘The Reader’ a few days ago, apart from absolutely loving the movie I had a strong sense of déjà vu. A lover that cannot read and likes being read to you ask? Umm yes actually. Same to same.

We sat next to each other on the train to Amritsar. Me being the loner pedant that I was at the time was writing poetry in the little hand-made book I’d bought a few hours ago at People Tree in Delhi. He was intrigued and wanted to see what I was writing. ‘Read it’ I offered. “No, will you read it aloud to me?” he almost begged. “it loses its soul when it’s read aloud” I said educationally, I’d always preferred that anything be read inside the head than out loud where decibel distractions bastardised words, feelings..

He took the little book from me and started to read. He was on the poem I had just written, all four lines of it for over 10 minutes, after which I was forced to ask him if he liked it.

“I really think you should read it aloud to me, I’d like to hear it in your voice” he said pleadingly.

That day I read aloud to him, thinking it was simply a personal quirk. Or maybe it was an excuse for him to spend more time with me I thought as we slowly became lovers. It was after we’d spent many nights and afternoons together holding each other in bed, with me reading to him from his favourite collection of poems by Robert Burns that he suddenly confided to me. “I can’t read" he said quietly, his head listening to the sounds in my chest.

“What do you mean?” I asked (rather idiotically). “I mean I’m severely dyslexic. What you read in 5 seconds will take me over 2-3 minutes, first to string together and then another minute to comprehend ” he said matter of factly. “You’re joking right, you’re pulling my leg? How on earth did you finish school?”

“Special school, with tapes and oral exams” he replied.
“But … but.. you seem to have read so much, you quote Shakespeare at the drop of a hat” I said unbelieving.
“Tapes. We have tapes of everything in the UK” he said smiling.

I was flummoxed and took a moment to have my very own Tisca Chopra comprehending Darsheel Safary’s dyslexia in TZP moment.

We drifted as lovers eventually. I felt used (bah, just like the film), he felt he was growing too attached to someone he couldn’t possibly have a relationship with as she lived many thousand miles away. But we became the closest of friends. A friendship our mutual love for literature fostered. I continued to read to him though, but this time on set, in between breaks, at lunch, or when travelling back from shoot.
After he went back, he sent me his first, self written email. It was catastrophic. But to me, just the effort he must have put into those 5-6 lines was laudable and I felt hot in the face with pride.
As the years went by his emails, though very few and far between, seem to have gotten almost perfect. He’d always had a way with words and now they finally made sense. I only wonder though if it’s him writing them anymore…

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