MERDE

2011-08-06T03:46:00.002-04:00

I have a slightly unhealthy obsession with my umbrella. Not a vulgar one. Just the sort of obsession where I don't let it out of my sight until we are safe at home. Mostly it has to do with my ability to lose umbrellas on whim. One auto ride and poof its gone. Most times I don't even remember where I leave them. But not this one. It's Majestic. Large, black and yellow striped, with football club logos on it. The Handle is thick black foam with Metal endings. The top is so sharp and deliciously pointy that I can wear the shortest skirts in autos and not care about being teased. One threatening pointy jibe from my Umbrella is all it takes to scare anyone away. It makes me feel 'rich' and 'hep'. Like the first time in school your parents finally caved in and bought you a Bensia pencil over bloody Nataraj.

The husband, feeling rejected and behind in the race has now also gone and bought an umbrella in a bid to rival mine. His is Grey and Black striped, and just as large. The handle is hard, opaque plastic. It's also from some premium store in some premium mall, while mine is from Shoppers stop. Its also about Rs 200 more than mine.

What he doesn't realize is that, when its folded up, the Grey edges of the umbrella, ruffle up to meet the transparent handle and it all adds to up to looking very...pretty.

What Happened since I last blogged

2011-03-05T03:05:00.003-05:00

1) I forgot my username and password to this blog and have taken an hour of permutations and combinations and answering "whats your secret question" to finally log in.

2) I got married!

3) I married a fellow blogger!

4) I hate my job. But can't bring myself to quit.

5) I went to London. Twice!

6) I've decided I will live in London for the rest of my life. My husband dosent know this. Yet.

7) I'm still feeling like I bit into something pulipu when i say 'my husband'

8) I lived in with the man for 8 months before we married. Best. Decision. Ever. That way we finished our 'first year is the worst year of marriage' phase before we got married.

9) I lost 5 kgs and put on 5 kgs about 7 times

10) Two of my friends are getting divorced, one already divorced friend remarried and one that married last year is already pregnant

11) This married world is VERY different from that unmarried world. I was not expecting this.

12) My shopping disorder has magically cured itself. They say acne also clears once marriage happens. Still waiting for that miracle.

Bad Blog!

2010-07-16T06:47:00.000-04:00

There, I changed the template. I'm hoping something magical will happen now.

Prayers Pliss

2010-02-03T07:15:00.002-05:00

I clearly wasn’t lying when I said I’d post everyday from Thailand. Lying to myself that is. Of course I knew I’d end up posting like 2 months later. I like being true to myself like that.

Sooo, whatall happened since then I can’t even begin to remember, but some two odd months later I can certainly tell you where I am. I’m very much in Bombay, but have been in bed the last 3 odd weeks with a slip disc. Yes, very sad. Don’t worry, it only gets worse. Soo much kann everyone put off for my Thailand trip that I had one hell of a horrid time.

First I had to celebrate my birthday alone in a very pretty hotel room, the prettiness of which I couldn’t even begin to bother about because I came down with bleeding (pardon the pun) UTI. Two more days of trying to hold my pee in, especially while on rocky boats out at sea for 2-3 hours at a stretch and I was ready to call it quits. Clearly like my mum says, us middle class people will never be able to reap the benefits of anything that comes free. And a free trip! Imagine the years of Brahmin punyam I’ve ended up obliterating in one damn week!

Then somewhere during my 101 bathroom excursions per day, my back started hurting like crazy. (whoever has that voodoo doll of me with the pin stuck in the spinal cord, pleassse remove it, I’ll give you whatever you want!). I was stuck somewhere in gorgeous Krabi. When I could take the myriad assorted types of pain no more I decided to take the shortest flight to the safest place – Singapore (literally a 40 min cheap and best flight, I was pleased to note)

I was kinda feeling ok at the end of 3 days deep rest in Singa, when I went and lost my phone in a cab. And this was not ‘any’ phone. This was a brand new Sony Aino my dear boy had birthday gifted me. Plus it had about 200 pictures of some of the most gorgeous beaches I have ever seen. (Again my mother quipped in “Ayyo Ramachandra! See that’s why don’t accept gifts I say! More free things! ”)

The boy was very sweet and forgave me instantly (I hope). I also just realized that one of the women who was with me on the trip borrowed my very cool trenchcoat and cooling glasses and she still hasn’t returned them. I’m going to count that as bad karma for her.

The following week, which was essentially new years time, the boy and me were to go to Singapore again. This was his official ‘meet my fockers’ trip. Again I was ill with the flu this time. In Singa, I was quarantined to a bedroom (so as not to pass it on to my sis’s baby) and literally got out of the house only the last 2 days. Poor boy was understandably horribly bored.

Desperate to get back to Bombay, because work shit was hitting the fan, that first week of Jan was a blur of film release related madness (all waste because our release was postponed) (again bad luck!). Sometime that weekend, the pain in my back was almost intolerable and one fine day I simply bent to pick up something and my back broke. One long harrowing evening in the emergency room + one dynapar injection later I was in bed, where I have remained ever thus (until now)!

I can regale you with horror stories of the cave in Thailand where I thought I was pretty much going to die drowning, or tales of my life threatening MRI experience, or what about long nights editing now with a not really recovered back, but you get the picture.

Prayers pliss.

P.S - Kindly note my joining of Twitter, something i realised existed just about 3 weeks back. Yes, I do live under a rock.

Birthday Month and other things

2009-12-08T08:15:00.001-05:00

Since it’s been mentally long since I last posted, I decided I would put something up here, no matter how inane. Ok? Ok.

I saw ‘Orphan’ last night and got scared for the first time ever I think. Mostly because I saw it alone in the living room with the lights off and at 3 in the morning. I thought nothing but my bank balance can scare me, apparently I was wrong.

Anyway getting back to scary shit, my new workplace, (yes, new workplace), can be very scary. Which is odd because it holds the most number of Bhagwan ki moorti’s ever possible on a single plot of land. Especially the seventh floor. It has 3 conference rooms and a pantry. Not that that layout is supposed to be scary, but imagine large badly molded female dancing idols with coloured floor lighting at every corner, like some Ramsey set on steroids, while the rest of the corridor is in pitch black darkenessesss….infact yesterday we were in a meeting pretty late at night and my boss stepped out of conference room 2 and called me out with her. I thought she wanted to discuss some major behind the clients back chit chat and instead she wanted me to walk with her to the loo because she was scared of walking alone it seems.

And then in other news, the Baifrand and I finished this major house hunting in Bandra business. Not that we are moving in together as our parents will have their own private aneurisms if that happens. But for someone who is moving out of parental abode for the first time ever, it’s been fun to see him sweat, fret and palpitate his way through brokers and bandra bylanes. We finally found something that reminded him of his beloved North India, replete with Balcony and large open spaces. I was quite baffled to see such a large house in Bombay myself. But it’s been tedious to get the place together. Plumbing, electricity and Bai issue’s are all we deal with on the weekends (since we both work 6 day weeks, poor us).

Also last week, we both officially changed relationship statuses on FB. Now, I didn’t think this was such a big deal and actually I find the whole disclosing who you’re dating on FB business pretty lame. But then you can’t reject invite sent so lovingly no? So accept I did, only to be bombarded by ‘OMG’s’ and ‘when did this happens’ and ‘I’m soooo happy for yous’ and ‘when are the kids coming alongs’. The boy on the other hand had cleverly done some ‘do not publish this info on people’s feeds’ type scheme and he got away scot free.

And now, I’m going to make everyone jealous by telling them that I’ve been chosen to go on some major 5 star/Business Class type trip to Thailand, sponsored by the Ministry of Thailand to scout locations to shoot in untouched locales all over Thailand. Ill be in Bangkok, Krabi, Trang, Chiang Mei and Pai from the 14th to the 20th of this month. Anybody from there read this? No? I thought so.

Also I will be blogging from Thailand EVERYDAY (since I don’t know anyone on this trip...sniff). Also I will be spending my birthday ALONE in Bangkok. So please wish me, I will check this space regularly for the same. Best Regards.

Oh the birthday is on the 15th of Decembre!

2009-11-05T09:16:00.000-05:00

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.

Now Playing: Kings of Leon : Sex on Fire

2009-08-27T14:09:00.000-04:00

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.

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

2009-07-30T04:17:00.000-04:00

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.

Maa Ka Pyaar (Part Deux)

2009-07-28T08:12:00.002-04:00

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!

Work Shirk

2009-07-23T06:13:00.001-04:00

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.

Maa Ka Pyaar

2009-07-22T04:27:00.000-04:00

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.

Same Person

2009-07-15T01:53:00.001-04:00

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

Of disappearances and other occurences

2009-07-07T12:57:00.000-04:00

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. 

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

2009-04-28T08:05:00.000-04:00

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.

This time, that year

2009-04-14T05:54:00.002-04:00

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…

My experiments with truth. Actually with many things. Some of them not really experiments. Or findings. Or truth.

2009-04-07T06:01:00.004-04:00

Ok my blog template is officially fuc-ked. I can’t seem to do anything with it apart from choosing a standard template and changing background colours. It doesn’t let me do anything else. Can’t add links, can’t change font, can’t use customized template, can’t upload pics, can’t change header. Just a load of cants (say that last line in your head in a 7Eleven FOB American accent really fast to hear the hidden slur)

Bah.

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My mum left yesterday. In her time here I got 5 marriage proposals. All of them called Krishna. Is that a sign. And if it is, Of what pray? Should I become Mirabai and marry idol and sing bhajans? Which the universe is driving me to rather surely.

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Over the past 6 years in Bombay there has been a definitive shift in the way the city behaves. Maybe 7/11 and consequently the 26/11 events made us cautious, insular even. Maybe the politically instigated feuds between the indigenous population and the ever immigrant influx have people trust each other a little less. Hate each other a little more.

Look at Bangalore. All it took was a ridiculous incident on Rest House road, to instigate more such random acts of misogynistic glee and leave the entire female populi in morbid fear, not just of being safe after dark, but of being safe alone, of actually not throwing on a pair of jeans and a sleeveless top lest she be unjustly arrested on Museum Inn Road. Imagine that. Imagine how a cosmopolitan, pub loving, hard rock loving, get drunk in the afternoon at Pecos and stroll down to Corner House for Death by chocolate like chillax Bangalore can transform into this talibanised monster overnight. So when Jemima calls me about my Bangalore itinerary for her wedding later this month and says – don’t pack any party wear man, or pack full sleeved tops and pants, I’m totally miffed. All that unjust anger we should have felt but laughed off in college when that loser sod Father Verghese took all us girls aside in class one day and said in his thick horny accent “if you wear sleeveless it is like you are selling yuwar body” came back with the right emotion of rage this time.

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I’ve gone through most of my life being pretty happy with what god gave me. Apart from my iyengar nose maybe…. And I wish I was taller…. And of course he was stupid to make me a dusky Indian girl born in India instead of say in the Uk where the men would’ve loved me. But I digress. I’m talking of course of my Breasts. Knockers, Rack, Boobs, Tits, yes that’s about the breast lingo I know. So, I’ve been rather indifferent about ‘my rack’ for most of my life, they were never too small or too big or too perky or too umm not perky. Men seemed to like them enough. They didn’t look god-awfully huge in tight tops and make me squirm. In short they were practically invisible. Until now.

Now, the closest I’ve got to breast enhancements has been the ubiquitous underwire bra. Which of course I had to buy secretly aside from the cotton comfort ones my mother insisted I wear. But very recently I decided to buy the heavily padded bra. You know the ones with real silicone stitched into the cup. And voila!

Suddenly I am getting second about turn type glances, suddenly my guy friends are not bossing me around or slapping my back but looking at me rather reverentially, suddenly my boss is being very nice to me, suddenly finance department isn’t holding onto my payments and bills, suddenly everything is moving like clockwork, I snap my finger and its done. I’m not joking.

And I feel like a total idiot for not having known this glaring secret to a successful life. Every big boobed woman rules a little universe around her. No kidding. Implants, here I come.

Glee dripped out of Natasha like pre-cum

2009-03-10T05:43:00.003-04:00

Now what do you do with a line like that? Found by the way in Siddharth Sanghvi's 'Lost Flamingoes of Bombay' here born for bestseller notoriety. I spent most of yesterday wondering if I liked the book or positively hated it. I did love his last book though despite its mad verbosity and ridiculously bad sex with panther’s descriptions. I had just moved to north Bombay and lived very close to Dariya Mahal (which I completely imagine it was set in) and the book made me all dreamy and wistful every time I pictured it set in that beautiful yellow bungalow by the sea.

Anyway moving on, my mother is visiting. Now when you’re 26 and unmarried and unattached and rather uncaring (read : tired) about the aforementioned and you’re mothers visiting, it can only mean one thing. So all this hysteria about “awww home cooked food”, “oh so sweet, how long is aunty staying for”, “call us home for dinner yaa”, are the just the sort of reactions that will make me give you one of my classic scowls and wish you a very quick death.

But let me explain my trauma to you. So my mother got married at 20. My sister at 21 and therefore by vague arithmetic progression my mother was pretty goddamn sure I would too at 22. But when at 22 I brought home a 32 year old lover she wasn’t very happy and decided to give me more time. More time lead to seeming forgetfulness as she jet setted between India and whichever country my sister considered home for that year, then to worrying about my sister not having a baby, then to taking care of pregnant sister, then to blissful grandmother hood. The familial linear progression being perfect at one end and suddenly horror of horrors, severely procrastinated at the other end..

Of course it gets particularly emotionally stressful when you realize that the ordeal is not what you pegged it to be. You always thought the trauma would stem from your rebellion to be single and wild and your need for space and freedom. Instead it stems from looking at the genuinely worried disappointment on your parents face when they realize you might soon be in your 30’s and really lonely and regret that you didn’t settle down earlier. When they are even open to you marrying anybody for love, even if he’s white or black or muslim (the 3 no’s you were so sure she would throw at you). And you slowly albeit surely realize that all they really really want is your true happiness and that they are wise, sure and right enough to know that that can come only with the right kind of companionship and love, and no one’s saying ‘no’ to anything and everyone’s asking ‘how’?

Some of my friends are saying that this is how they start you off. Slowly sow the seed of looming despair and then when you give up, drained and fed – up, they actually start the mad rush of getting you married off before you can say “umm mom I don’t really want to live in Tennessee with Varadharajuperumal”.

Now back to the Lost Flamingos of Bombay.

Its Official!

2009-02-23T06:41:00.003-05:00

I am officially happy I did not work on Delhi 6. I would have died if I was party to anything with that 'ending'.

I (and P) are officially crying that we did not work on Slumdog.

But how were we to know! How were we to know!

*Sob*

P.S - though I'm sure for our rotten luck, if we'd worked on it, it would have been with Warner and would have gone straight to DVD release...

Long Post with many unconnected snippets.

2009-02-18T12:54:00.002-05:00

Ok so I cheated last time and put poem instead of post. I’ll do that sometimes. I have this big bank of poems that I randomly pick from when I have nothing to say. Trouble is when, some 3 - 4 weeks later, I still have nothing to report. Sad this.

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Blogging is fully dying. Infact have you noticed that most bloggers have slowed down in general. None of the blogs that I regularly read have updated regularly in the past 6 odd months. Maybe the world is slowing getting bored of itself. Getting bored of hearing the voice in its head. Getting bored of its own damn neurosis.

Even my thoughts are seemingly incoherent as I write this. Nothing is topical suddenly. There are just snippets. Little cut away’s. Little moments of clarity before you get washed over with your life drugged haze.

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In a recent conversation with a friend I realized that I would make the ultimate power lesbian.. Remember that phrase, made rather famous by one Candace Bushnell? I could very well be your in-command, much wanted lesbian playgirl. It was a well arrived at deduction and probably a move that I should give much thought to considering how my heterosexual love life seems to be faring.

Later that day, an old friend of mine who I divulged this epiphany to seemed to be grudgingly in agreement. He didn’t want me to turn Lesbian he said, but I had what it takes is what he realized, and nodded rather sagely. With men I had always groveled. Elevated them to divinity and prayed by their feet. But, with women, I had always, always had a female fan following. At any given point in my life there was always a doting female friend attached to my hip. These female friends changed rather often. Mostly because I would grow tired of them, wanting variety and slowly but surely push them away.

And then again in the last year or so, three women have hit on me, which far exceeds the number of men who have which is erm… none.

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Ok, maybe this is happening to a few of us late in the day, or we’re plain dumb, but what is with the incidence of ONLY MARRIED men hitting on us mid twenty year olds? Of course we are also stupid, because we tend to assume that ‘oh he’s married, its ok if he drops me home’ or ‘Hmmm he’s being little over-friendly, but he’s married no, maybe I’m imagining it’, and so our bullshit detecting radars never go up, till its too late and the ‘married’ man in question has made his ugly move. Usually by saying lame things like ‘My wife and I … we don’t have any chemistry anymore’ or ‘I’m so lonely, Sheela’s so busy with the kids all the time, I wish I had someone special… like you’ or then most stupidly, after dropping you home saying ‘can I kiss you’. Wtf?!! No you can’t fucker.

( * All true incidents by the way)

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I finally saw Kubricks ‘Shining’. Now this movie has always been one of those Joey moments for me, where I stand aside and nod very vigorously about how amazing the movie is and sometimes I’ve even very smartly substantiated my vigorous head bobbing with ‘oh my god, that scene where the blood flows out of the elevator…fuck, cinematic brilliance dude’. And the recipient of my articulate reply would very contently head bob along with me.

Of course, that had been the only visual of the film I’d ever seen. Till now. Will people kill me now if I review the movie by saying ‘Yaaa, it’s ok yaa, I don’t see the fuss’. I’m ducking.

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A survey in the Uk has shown that in the year 2008, the male urge to have sex has decreased by 15%. This means an overall average decrease of 40% since the last decade. Imagine that. ‘Men are refusing sex more than usual’ the surveyor quotes. I had predicted this in a post sometime last year. I’d even called it ‘An inconvenient truth’. It’s now ratified women! Ratified. We are officially in trouble.

Suddenly adopting sexual preference mentioned in snippet number two is seeming like harsh reality. Sigh.

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I’d always wanted a male gay friend. In fact, I think almost all women want this. We have female like company for all our shopping, movie going, gossiping, honest opinion (read lying) about how we really look, taking out to functions when we don’t have a date needs and visually we see a man! Not unlike a vibrator. It does it’s job, but it’s not the real thing.

But now I think I’ve collected too many. And such queens. I mean I love them, but it gets ridiculously pitchy sometimes.

Then while only 2 of them are completely open and I can bug them about boys they like or we can lech at men together, with most of them I simply haven’t managed to have the ‘I like boys and so do you' conversation. It’s sort of assumed, but its very big pink elephant in the roomish. Only one confessed to me when he was very drunk and then I haven’t had the courage or the opportunity to bring up the subject again.

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It has come to my notice that almost all men have very good erotica storytelling and phone sex skills. No matter how bad their vocabulary or how vernac they are or how otherwise the only conversation they can hold is about the stock market. They are good at this. It is in-built mechanism. Not unlike instinctual stalking and killing skill most predators have.

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I went for celebrity pahtey few days ago and saw John Abraham and when I was introduced to him, instead of saying my name I said ‘Hi, I’m _(insert company name)__’.
Then I realized my mistake and started mumbling some shit to cover up, but luckily music was very loud and I slinked away. I am so clearly not meant for this business.

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More updates as subjects warrant interest. Till then. Dhanyavaad. Shabba khair.

Low Expectations

2009-02-10T13:05:00.000-05:00

It doesn’t ever disappear.
The memory of that feeling.
That all consuming feeling of being desired.
The in - exorcisable tactility.
The weighed lightness
My heart heavy with desire and light with love.

Maybe you will come back.
You don’t have to be You…
I hope you know that?!

Your phantom heart in any body will do.

Men(tals)

2009-01-30T15:54:00.001-05:00

Firstly, the Ex - Men in my life have been driving me a little mental. Two have sent emails which apparently look like generic ones, you know, they start with ‘Hello All’ and go on to give changed email Id’s and numbers and some pc type bull. BUT, But! Common friends, who should also have got these emails have not received anything. Means what? Means what??!! Especially since there was very vocal mandate to be followed post break ups of no calling, no texting, no mailing, please fuck the hell off between us.

Means so they genuinely want to inform of changed email id? (first of all who changes their email id after like high school??) OR it is ruse to see if I mail them?? What on earth could it mean I wondered all day, till a male friend deduced that ‘Chumma they are sending to mind fuck’. Err. Ya, thanks pa. Very elementary Holmes.

Then yesterday, I find out that this boy that had a crush on me is suddenly seeing someone else. Till like just one week back, the said boy was most flirty and even mushy.
Everyone said “he likes you ya…a lot”
Everyone said I better decide if I liked him back.

Then suddenly yesterday Everyone said “Oh sorry ya, he’s with girlfriend”

Like before I could even change my line of approach, smile back maybe, not wack him on the back of his head maybe, look intensely, look away and look back intensely (that great woman gaze trick) maybe… he’s with Girlfriend!

First of all, aforementioned boy was classified nerd and apparently even they are faster than me, second of all, I never thought I was slow on the uptake on such matters. It has come as rude shock.

The only good thing about all this is the fact that I think I’m finally attracting the right kind of men. Decent, Normal, Full time Employed, Good Family type men.

After spending my early twenties attracting absolute assholes, the more assholic the better, suddenly I am in Sita Central.

But, how do I explain that when you’ve spent most of your twenties being pursued by ridiculously libidinous men who simply did not take no for an answer, and actually were of the ‘no’ means ‘yes’ morse code, where it basically felt like being cave woman and being pulled into yonder bramble bush for a tumble, no questions asked, all this sudden having to say the right thing, having to give very clear ‘I’m interested’ signals, is all very tiresome.

I somehow escaped the whole ‘game-playing’ business that most relationships are heir to, simply by virtue of being in the film – industry, where all it took was a long tired day and some large vodka’s at the end of it to get things going. You lasted till the film lasted. Period. Some are still great friends and some apparently send you confusing emails!

But Corporate life has dulled me. Made me an effectual flirt and simply slow. Men who actually like me, I’m reading as frandships. Men who are only trying to be friends or maybe who dig my female friends and are routing it through me, I am reading as being interested in me. Such 9th standard dilemma’s I haven’t experienced since ummm, lets see… 9th standard.

Comfortably Dumb

2009-01-21T13:37:00.000-05:00

You know that moment when someone takes you into confidence and says something that makes you feel really special and you feel so good because you feel ‘chosen’, and then a couple of days later you find out that that person has said the exact same thing, and maybe a bit more to someone else and you get that ugly bracken, bile, pit of the stomach churn, that feeling of being utterly let down? I seem to be feeling like that all the time these days. And the culprit isn’t that so called friend or that two timing lover, but the city itself.

I’ve always had great admiration for people who never change, who hold their ground, who will always respond to their inner current, never cheating on it whether in the presence of impressionable company or in solitude. It’s a characteristic that is greatly missing. Especially in Bombay.

Bombay where you become what surrounds you. Merge into the smog and though this sounds cliché – forget who you were. So who were you, you ask yourself? Were you that girl with the thick glasses and unbelievably unmanageable hair that got onto her scooty every evening and rode to Eloor library and spent hours, no, days sitting in one of the aisles buried in a book. Were you the girl who loved watching Saturday morning Lok Sabha sessions and were a 100% sure you would become a politician, or were you the girl that read so much, you wouldn’t leave your room for days on end?

Bombay that has killed the reader in me, the thinker in me, and then most paradoxically the introvert in me as well. So what was better you ask youself, once in a while, like on a balmy Wednesday night like tonight. Was it better to be an intellectual obfuscator with no social skills, but where you still held yourself in extremely high regard, OR a social butterfly with a packed schedule who cant seem to even hold a mildly intelligent conversation anymore, who reaches out for Vogue instead of even Time Out these days because it involves far less reading but, who I dare say is – still happier somehow?

Or is this just the bane of the mid twenties? Of a life past and present that incoherently collide, where from this ugly copulation will birth your true self?

What? Say me.

Where I crawl out of the corporate woodwork

2009-01-16T07:36:00.002-05:00

Sorry, that’s a sucky title and as you keep reading you will notice that I present herewith some very sucky writing as well, for which I apologise in advance.

This year has opened like a mixed bag. Some say I’m fat. Some say I’m thin. Some are saying the new hairstyles awesome. Some sigh and say I’ve lost the only thing that worked for me. One minute I absolutely abhor my job and want to run away and the next I have no inclination of ever moving out of my cubicle. One second some interested male parties are all over me and the next second they disappear for long long spells. Oh well.

On New Years I was awake and alone in a large house (whilst my family slept) watching fireworks in the Singapore night sky and listening for some annoying reason to strains of ‘Desi Girl’ from ‘Dostana’ streaming in from the apartment opposite. Which brings me to the trip itself, which was – Mellow. Imagine that. Imagine a city, that is so comfortable and user friendly it almost seems right out of the Truman show. I wondered if the director would pop out from behind the shop houses and call cut any minute. Perfectly. Orchestrated. Life.

Then there was family, and surprisingly again – Mellow! No unnecessary nagging, no fights. Just early mornings taking my adorable nephew out in his pram, afternoons walking around the city with my sister visiting Museums and general site seeing type places and evenings spent chatting at home or watching E! (exclamation point!).

Which brings me to E!, the Entertainment Network, what can I say about this brilliant channel. I think I can watch it for as long as I live. I watched mindlessly for hours inanities like ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ and ‘Living Lohan’ and my all time favourite ‘Kimora – Life in the Fab lane’, not to forget ‘Celebrities in Crisis’ and ‘E Investigates’. That Ryan Seacrest needs to be made supreme ruler of all mankind.

While in Singaland I also decided to take time off to think very deeply about what I wanted for this New Year And came up with this rather random but inspiring list:

- want to live in foreign for at least a year
- want to get married before I turn 30
- want to be size zero at least once in life
- want to spend this year being mindlessly debauched to make up for saintly behavior past year
- want to learn to drive
- want to go to deep end of swimming pool at least once
- want to remove ALL traces of ex’es from life
- want to have lots and lots of good sex and some bad sex, (only so that I appreciate the good sex more).
- Also want Romance. Like much, where are you sweety, my cutie type, but also much horny night time passionate messaging each other type romance.

In the last two weeks, my movement’s towards some of these goals have been - (in order from above list):

- Applying for University Grant for study abroad (tentatively the year 2010)
- Meeting first matrimonial candidate in Singapore. It was very pleasant and seemed successful and has made me not puke about meeting such alliances.
- Have procured GNC Live Well’s ‘Green Tea Tablets’ for increased Metabolism. One bottle costs the earth but lasts 2 months. Also I will periodically starve and ensure size zero-ness. I‘m surprisingly determined in these areas.
- Have started with bottle of Absinth brought generously by P’s brother from the Czech Republic and booking place at bar counter at ‘Firangi Pani’ Monday and Wednesday nights when its free for women (nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah)
- Will sign up with Ajanta Driving School, Four Bungalows.
- Will sign up at local pool again and try not to be petrified of ‘Mahesh’ the instructor from hell.
- Sent ‘Hey how are you, I’m getting married’ email to 2 ex’es that still attempt to contact me. Neither has replied till now which I take as a good sign. But their silence is making me miss them suddenly. Of course, that is my own neurosis, that I’ll henceforth deal with.
- Have identified 2 men for the sexy time. One that seems like good sex. You know what they say – big hands, BIG HANDS. And one that is the over-eager, I’m a cat in the sack constant boasting type, the type I know through pure experience are the most horrid ever. Whether they are willing candidates or not is left to be seen..
- Have drafted passionate - horny text message which is lying in draft box in my phone - “I only want your tongue. Deep in my mouth. In conversation with my tongue”. See half the game won there!

I also made many epiphany like discoveries about men and relationships and the like that I shall not spill here as I’m writing like a retard right now. So that’s for later.

Also just realized that text message line above is pretty hot huh? Don’t rob it.

Ok bye.

2008-12-22T06:11:00.001-05:00

I cut my hair. It’s bra length now. I thought I’d be upset and miss all that hair but funnily seem to want to cut it shorter.

Update: I cut my hair. Its shoulder length now. I'm blaming finance department in office for giving me so much grief over my vacation that I went insane and walked into a parlour again.

The Budday

2008-12-16T14:10:00.000-05:00

Growing up I’ve always been the kid who counted most on her family to be the birthday wishers.

Friends only knew once you came to school wearing color clothes (read – standard pink frilly frock) and a box of sweets in your hand. Two for special friends. One for acquaintances. Five Star Bar for teachers.

In college, you’d have to announce it, or simply no one knew, and considering how poor most of us were in college, it was always good to shut up or you’d get pocket raped paying for everyone’s cokes and samosa’s at the kiosk.

Nowadays there seems no way to escape the D day. Firstly and most importantly there is Facebook, which will give all and sundry a heads up 4 -5 days in advance. Then there is HR department in office that will send fancy ppt type mail to all@insertcompanyname.com and make sure even the LA and London office knows how old you are.

And after last years chaotic party, friends seem to have been looking forward to whatever party I will throw. Not unlike a New Years bash. Honest.

Anyway, I really wasn’t going to have a party this year. P and I were sure we’d have an eviction notice pinned to our broken door the next morning after the complaints we got last year. So I shrugged and said “sorry no parteh peoples”. This did not go down well with many many people and they obviously pondered about it very deeply because the next day a solution presented itself.

Z’s friend A’s empty house in Juhu. It seemed like such a long shot. Firstly I have no clue who A is. Secondly, this was no ordinary house. It was a sea facing, four bedroomed penthouse with very expensive things lying everywhere. P and me looked around and contemplated. Our middle class minds feverishly avoiding the megalomania this house was already making us feel. As we deliberated, Z showed us an sms from A, filled with the carefree hippie generosity that only the very very rich are capable of. “Cant believe you’re being so formal, it’s an empty house, have a blast”

So we did. But I chose not to get too drunk though as A) was more worried about other people getting drunk and fucking up the house b) other people getting drunk and falling off the open terrace c) A very drunk P was entertainment enough

It was a really fun party though. There was some mild celebrity presence too, not unlike last year, a director and his celebrity wife along with very famous actresses visiting sibling, and just released films acclaimed actress, who all the boys made a beeline for.

Downside was definitely post cake cutting when two stupid boys tried to smash cake on my face and force feed me and the cake when down my wind pipe and I choked for like 20 seconds and thought I was going to die. I can actually recall that exact second when I was choking and I was like “this is bullshit, I’m going to die on my birthday!”

Then guilty boys realized their folly and much back thumping and water down the gullet happened and I survived. Thinking they would be repentant and not attempt it again (they only got half my face), the buggers came back after five minutes, held my hands behind my back and very creatively smeared my face all over.

Second downside was when one of my girlfriends said I should definitely get laid tonight and I looked around and only saw all brother type guy friends around. I am so clearly going to die single.

And oh, I crossed over people. I’m officially twenty faux.

Matchmaking effort No. 37

2008-12-11T06:44:00.001-05:00

Sunday 9 PM :

Kunwari Akeli Ladki (KAL) is sitting in her living room watching Season Finale of Grey’s Anatomy. She has already seen till Season 5, through pirated DVD’s, but an opportunity to see for free like this on TV cannot be negated.

(Phone rings with Bangalore number flashing)

KAL picks up thinking it must be Jemima Sanjana or Giggles Sridhar calling from parental landlines

KAL : What man not watching Grey’s ah?
Strange Male Voice : Er Hallo, Hi My name is Mr Vishwanathan, are you the er.. the girl speaking?
KAL : Sorry?!! Excuse me?!! Who is this please?
SMV : Er.. my good name is Mr somethingsomething Vishwanathan, I’m calling regarding your profile posted by yuvar kind sister in Tamil matrimony please.
KAL : oh ok.. er.. yes.. tell me please
SMV : Actually you see, this is the boys father here and this is about my son, somethingsomething Vishwanathan Junior. Hehe hope you didn’t think I was the alliance hehe.
KAL : No Uncal, I certainly did not.
SMV : So can I tell you few things about my son.
KAL : (thinks) er..
SMV : (imperatively) so my son works at (insert pharmacy company name), he is senior somethingsomething manager, wheatish colour, very loving boy ma, medium height, what is yuwar height ma?
KAL : 5 ’10 uncal
SMV : ohh, (disappointed) but yuwar profile says you are 5 ‘4 ma..
KAL : oh sorry my sister lives far away, and I’ve grown up..
SMV : oh ..ok..my son is also close in height ma, should not be a problem. He just bought santro car actually, red colour, you see he was complaining very much about heat and dust in Bombay..
KAL : so he is in Bombay
SMV : yes ma, that’s why I’m calling you..
KAL : er..may I ask how old he is please?
SMV : (long pause) .. he is er… 1970 born ma..
KAL : (longer pause while calculating, ridiculous at math and gives up soon) ok ok er, Uncal by the way can I please ask how you got my number? Did my sister give it to you?
SMV : no ma, it is on site wonly ma..
KAL : on the site! Are you sure uncal? Is my photo also there?
SMV : no ma, I’ve sent photo request, but this number is listed ma..
KAL : oh ok (make mental note to lynch sister)
SMV : so will you tell me few things about yuwarself ma?
KAL : like what
SMV : what does your father do ma?
KAL : I thought you asking me about me uncal..
SMV : same thing no ma..
KAL : er.. no uncal
SMV : oh ok, but he is alive no ma..
KAL : yes he is, but my parents aren’t together.
SMV : (supremely disappointed) oh ho.. tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk. Very sad ma, very sad. But its ok ma, so it’s only you and your sister va?
KAL : umm yes
SMV : and yuwar sister is married no?
KAl : yes
SMV : oh you are having a house in Bangalore?
KAL : yes.
SMV : house or apartment ma?
KAL : err, how is this relevant uncal..
SMV : sorry ma..means
KAL : why are you asking me all this?
SMV : just asking ma, its good to know about the family no ma..
KAL (controlling self), maybe its better if the boy and girl know each other first don’t you think Uncal..
SMV : so will you speak to my son ma, I can ask him to call you in ten minutes…
KAL : er.. uncal actually im practically dying with viral fever right now (this was true), please ask him to call next week. (make second mental note not to pick up unrecognized numbers)
SMV : (extremely disappointed) ohhh, ok ma, you are sick ah. Sorry for inconvenience ma. He will call next week ma. Please don’t forget, his name is somethingsomething Vishwanathan. Ok ma?
KAL : I eagerly await his call uncal.
SMV : ok ma, tata.

2008-12-01T07:57:00.001-05:00

I simply have no words to describe the carnage my city has just been through.

All I know is that I’m sleepless and scared.

And that yesterday when there was some carpentry work going on in our building, the hammering echoing in the top floor of the building which normally even the most sound sensitive person would have begrudgingly slept through, brought out scared residents of not only my building but 3 surrounding buildings because it vaguely sounded like gun shots.

No, we shouldn’t have to live like this.

2008-11-21T07:31:00.001-05:00

Vicks inhaler, while I’m inhaling it that is, instantly transports me to Circa 2000 to the Fab India store at Koramangala. The prettiest one, the old Bangalore style house that was converted into the store. I had a bad cold and had just discovered the unique addictive properties of Vicks Inhaler, and walked around the shop sometimes leaving it hanging in my nostril just to piss my mum off. She was on a buying spree that year, as we were going to visit my just married sister in Delhi, for the first time since the wedding. I had bunked college and scooted over on my Scooty (remember those) and mum had finally found the place, driving the automan insane in the process.
I can actually remember every room of the store, every color kurti I tried on, how many clothes we bought my sister and my brother in law, the bathroom I used that still had a quaint old bathtub in it that I laid down in, closed my eyes and inhaled deeply till my mother started banging on the door to come out and try on some more stuff for my sister, the other mother - daughter duo that were NRI’s loading up stuff to take back home, and how the mother called her daughter ‘kanna’. A 75 year old mother calling her 50 year old daughter ‘kanna’. I found it insane. The cute wild haired intellectual boy in a long kurta, the kind I was obsessed with at the time, who picked up 4 identical kurtas, the lone tree in the middle of the house, in the centre of the mitham, the warm winter sun streaming in…

I had laid out my life in that hour. I had decided I would marry a boy just like the wild haired kurta clad boy, that I would live with him in a beautiful old style house, not unlike this one, mitham and all, that my mother would visit us and definitely not call me ‘kanna’.

Still, to this day, every time I use the old Vicks inhaler, it becomes like some sort of Remembral (yes, like in Harry Potter silly) for that one moment in my life. A moment for some strange reason I remember more sharply than any other, ever.

Oh, and I have a cold now and am inhaling deeply, if anyone was wondering. Peace

Yes We Can't

2008-11-15T13:58:00.000-05:00

After having finally installed a sitemeter on this blog, not so long ago, I have spent many hours simply staring in wonder at what far reaches of the world some of the readers are from. I mean there is someone in Ulaan Bator, in frikkin Mongolia who reads this. And then I feel all pressured to write something relevant and entertaining and as usual I have the most boring life at the moment and am grappling in the air for something vaguely write worthy. Maybe some bollywood gossip then? That keeps everyone entertained doesn’t it?

Did you know that the recession has hit bollywood so badly that corporates are actually re-negotiating deals with highly paid actors. 30 crores? No, here take 2. Can’t rent that villa in Malacca now can you? Poor dear. Can’t buy that great pair of loubitons now eh? Pity. Wont get laid by the wifey and mistress?!! Atleast you’re not getting laid off!

Yes I know this does not qualify as gossip. I’m damn sorry. But I’m in animation now for Christ’s sake. Neck deep in blendshapes and rigs and models. It’s simply not the same anymore.

Maybe if I told you that I follow the director of Chak De around the block as he takes his evening walk in seven bungalows everyday. Is that newsworthy? I mean I literally follow him because he is so entertaining on the road. He looks so lost and scared that I almost ran up to him to hold his hand as he was trying to cross the road today.

Even my personal gossip may not particularly enthrall you. I’ve gone a little underground. The last couple of times I went out I felt that familiar whine in my head. ‘I’m alone. What’s the point of being out here in this expensive pretty place, with this hot dress and all this make up on, if I’m here aloneee’. I hadn’t heard that whine in a long long time. And now that its back, time to creep back into my shell and come out only when it’s gone. When I’ll appreciate being with friends solely for their company and not for what the evening may bring or what it’s lacking.

Oh and I will be in Singapore this Christmas and New Year’s. My trusty site meter beeps on Singaland sometimes. And I promise not to be anti-social and whiny. In fact Whiny me shall have been banished by then. So I would love zee company, so plezz to be meeting me dear Singapore peoples. Oktatabyebye.

coz im a creeeep. im a wieerrddooo

2008-11-08T08:36:00.005-05:00

I suddenly feel alienated and friendless. I mean I know there are people out there that might want to meet me, might want to catch up and chat, that might want to party, but I can’t seem to reach out to them. I can’t remember who they are, what their names are, what their numbers might be. Like I’ve been gagged and tied to a chair. Frozen in my living room watching mindless repeats of sitcoms that have long gone off air. Where you come on cue before the canned laughter does.

This social isolation has also meant that when I am out on the rare occasion I’m ending up very verbally challenged and so lost that people are either thinking I’m snooty or that I’m Helen Keller and im left in strange cold war type situations with some people.

Maybe it’s that time of the year again, when you’re partly in the middle of a new job and you’re not really sure where its headed and then you feel kinda stuck because the recession is on and its wise not to move your ass in any direction. So you stand still. And while standing still, strangely, you can suddenly picture exactly where you want to be.

It’s a blind spot of twinkling lights in an unknown fascinating city. It’s humming Bob Marley while walking down the sunny sandy driveway of Alidia’s in Baga, it’s a Madagascan band enthralling you in a small little underground pub in Shanghai. It’s somewhere between a Henry Miller novel and a Tom Robbins book. Between lazy dirty passion and satirical erotisism. Between the Tropic of Cancer and Villa Incognito.

With Reference to a few posts back and whether I will actually be moving countries in the near future. (And the most bizarre post title yet apparently

2008-10-19T16:28:00.000-04:00

Today while on Facebook, a random acquaintance on my list had commented on the house photos of a friend of hers in London. Don’t you love that. When a friend of yours has commented on some complete stranger’s pics and thereby you have free hand access to the entire album. I can’t tell you how much time I spend on these random albums, it has helped the voyeur in me blossom.

So this particular album had absolutely no people in it. It was simply pictures (and must I add from EVERY possible angle) of some young Yugoslavian lad (with unpronounceable name’s) bachelor pad in London. But the album was like a film set. A story almost. A movie without a cast. And so I spent the better half of the afternoon picturing myself in it. I daydreamed of living in London. Of catching the tube and coming home everyday from work. Maybe I’d sit on the blue sofa that extended from the kitchenette near the bay window and over looked a gorgeous little patch of garden and sip my evening tea. Then I wondered what work I’d be involved in. So I decided I’d be a writer. A very successful writer because this place looked rather pretty, even though it was small. Plus since it overlooked garden patch and all that and since I’ve heard that London is like bleeding Bombay where overlooking patches of green are a price well paid for, I’d decided that successful and thriving I was. The house didn’t seem to have a bookshelf, so apparently I wasn’t a reader. Or maybe I wasn’t a buyer anymore because London is so expensive. Friends say that water costs 2 pounds. I also didn’t see a TV anywhere and this loss was palpable to me. Books I can survive without. But no TV? Then I remembered a friend told me that you need some sort of license to even buy a bloody TV set there. Forget about cable and all that. Imagine that. Imagine if that happened here. Here in Bombay where illegal chawls with 12 people living in a space for 2, may not have food in their stomachs, but they’ll always have the classic 21 inch color display on 24/7. How can you be hungry when you have bollywood to feed your belly? So inevitably the whole picturesque London pad started to seem uninviting. Then I realized it would be biting cold and rainy and grey. I suddenly even pictured it starting to rain outside the window beyond the old blue sofa and felt a pang of depression. I felt lonely in the house. What if I just sat and wrote all day. Wrote so much that I had no friends. And that even if I managed to afford a night out in London, almost always your friends may not be that lucky. And worst, what if old lovers did not want me anymore (which in all probability they won’t!) Egad! No. London was definitely turning out to be Dickension. A Bleak House.

When P got back home we had another round of our favorite topic of discussion these days – moving to foreign. We’ve mentally masturbated on pretty much everything. Which country to move, what work to do, where to stay, what to see, how much rations to buy, what plays to watch where, where to window shop, where to actually shop etc. I confessed to her that London wasn’t seeming as exciting as before. But she didn’t take me very seriously because I keep changing my mind about these things. Truth is we both hear such variant things about a particular city from different people that it’s left us pretty confused. Some say London, some say the states, some say south east asia. You should see P and me around remotely global people. P runs after every person who comes from her foreign offices asking them a hundred questions. I think I almost lead a young white man to believe I was very interested in stalking him last night at a party when I ran a verbal Spanish inquisition on him. As you can see, we are quite obsessed. The funny thing about all this is, we know we won’t really do anything about it. The very middleclassness of the next statement irks me – but we really don’t think we can. We have rents and loans and bills to pay. P has a younger sibling who depends on her so she can’t afford the financial insecurity a move may bring. Neither of us have families that can afford to support us anymore. It would infact be a miracle if they had money stashed away somewhere to get us married. And living in a city like Bombay has ensured that we have absolutely no savings.

Of course, before everyone starts labeling me as fatalistic and unadventurous and lazy, let me add that this does not mean I have shelved the idea. No. I still hope for it and I’m still pushing towards it. It may not happen anytime soon, but it will eventually. For the moment my October itch has been sated. Every year this time I’m almost always undergoing a change of scene and true to word I have again. I’m still with my company, but I’ve moved departments. Animation infact dear friends shall be my forthcoming forte. And the move was planned keeping the ‘larger’ scheme of things in mind. And keeping the possession of a universal skill in mind as well. Animation is going to be so huge in the next few years, that Animation production in itself will be like skilled labor, because it’s so technical. Right now as a nascent industry in India, there’s no right way or wrong way of going about it, so I’m glad to at least be doing something new and fresh. And that’s keeping me happy for the moment.

And as P reassuringly adds “Anyway we have the house lease till next October man”. Amen

2008-10-16T03:50:00.000-04:00

There comes a time in every girl’s life when she will look back on her relationships past and realize that she had a pattern. This may not have been immediately apparent to her and this may not be as generic a pattern as say – “always been with emotionally unavailable men”. Though we always like that one don’t we?

There will be small things. Sometimes it could be physical, like shortness, tallness, plumpness, skinniness, baldness, hirsuteness. One girlfriend I know even realized hers was manicured nails. Twelve men with perfect digits. It couldn’t be a co-incidence she felt on close thought.

I thought about mine a bit and zeroed down to two patterns. I can’t seem to choose between the two because both are apparent and synonymous with all. Accents and Absence. Accents because all men had distinct foreign accents, ranging from American to British to Scottish. And Absence because I realized I knew in all the cases beforehand that these were men who would never be in the same country/state/city as me. They had all come with expiry dates and expensive geographical routes.

Then again you could pass off the pattern as sheer anglophilia. Some were white and all were definitely global and as much as I never proscribed to allegations that I was an anglophile, if I step back and wonder maybe that was partially true in a fetish sense. I have a British girlfriend with a serious Indian male fetish and an Indian girlfriend with a serious oriental fetish. But here’s the thing - you never go searching for these men, they just tend to happen in a universe conspiring sort of way.

It did dawn me along the years though that your first relationship will always set the tone for the pattern. I don’t think I ever had a pre-conceived fetish for global denizens with acts of disappearance. But the first man did a lot of that and pretty much set the trend. Along the way I realized the pattern was something to thrive on. For starters the accents made you immediately warm up to the man - familiarity breeding lust and the Absence in some deluded way gave you the perfect excuse for the mans commitment phobia or philandering or threesome fetish (!?) or whatever came in the way of a successful relationship.

It’s a hard habit to break away from though – these patterns. Especially when your probably on a date with sweet silicon valley FOB return Brahmin boy in a posh restaurant and you’re seated next to very ordinary looking men at the table next to you, men who you wouldn’t give a second glance to, men who don’t even compare to your date here but men who catch your attention and immediate fancy the minute they open their mouths and you hear them say in that ridiculously unmistakable south hall droll “mighty pricey innit? I told’chyu man din i? I told’chyu you poncey”

And in completely random celebrity gossip type aside, apparently the highly drool worthy, want to rip black towel off and ravage him Farhan Akhtar of new found sex symbol status has a Fair Skin Fetish. An FSF! Now this is bummer type news. It is known fact/allegation that he is quite freely libidinous and fancies any PYT that crosses his path. But such racism in so hot a man?!! Very reliable source also added that this particularly means he is very averse to dusky women. Aiyo now he is officially off mental to do list as I will stand no chance only. Sad it is.

Sixth in the City

2008-10-01T16:50:00.000-04:00

So the coo is sitting at home on a state holiday and realizing it’s been over a month since she blogged. And since it almost feels like I have a whole day with nothing to do, I must talk about anything and everything that has happened this past month. So whether you like it or not, a lot of inane information is about to come meandering your way.

So post the last post, I started off by begging my boss to give me the weekend off after a hectic release week in Chennai and headed home to Bangalore. 2 measly days, but it felt like heaven. And a four month old baby that is my adorable nephew is pure unadulterated therapy. Chicken soup for my weary corporate soullessness. I spent hours just staring at him sleep or looking at every finger and toe, every vein, his birthmark, the way his legs curved, the folds of his plump little arms, babinski feathered the soles of his feet and watched with wonder how his toes curled inside in perfect reflex-tion.

Bangalore simply isn’t the place I grew up in. Five years has turned the city on its head. It was boiling hot in August. I remember going to college as early as five years ago wearing a sweatshirt and muffler, with cotton in my ears because it used to be windy and cold as hell, and this is May-June, we’re talking about. Summer only meant the bizarre feeling of feeling burnt if exposed to the sun directly and strangely cold if you stood in the shade. Winter of course was divine. The sun would bathe you one second making your ears feel gratifyingly warm and the next second a chill breeze would pass by giving you goosebumps that never melted till the sun came out of the clouds again.

What I miss most about Bangalore is definitely the music. My 500 cassette strong music collection that a lot of people growing up in school were envious of dosent really exist anymore, but the music and lyrics are etched pretty permanently in my head. Whether it was waking up to the Beatles singing ‘here comes the sun’ on our stereo or listening to my dad singing about the night they drove old Dixie down as he strummed his rhythm guitar in the evenings, music was always an integral part of my life, mostly a discovery, sometimes to show off to cute band boys, and sometimes to drown out parental bickering in a soon to be broken home. As I got older and wouldn’t get up in time for college I was subjected to Audioslave blaring into my ears at 8 am by my mother. She didn’t really like Audioslave, but she liked that it was loud and clear! She gave me a life and showed me how to live!! Heh heh. Nowadays, it’s almost scary how little I listen to. Songs at clubs and lounges. Songs that auto-rickshaws play. Album songs of my company’s films. Yeah that pretty much covers it. Music is suddenly an effort. Like polite conversation.

Three childhood friends also went out for dinner to Kosmo-Village on Cunningham road. The very Cunningham road, named after Major Cunningham, the knieving glutton (well, not really but ‘cunningham’?!, really these brits are crazy), that housed my favourite Java City, currently relocated to Museum Inn road, and who can forget Casa Picola, the nouveau riche Italian do of the very upwardly mobile bangalorean of the early 2000’s. Now it has a smattering of really hip joints, Fresco’s (of dessert fame), Infinitea (of er Tea fame) and of course Kosmo Village, that reminded me a lot of Olive in Bombay, though ten times the size. S, N and I ate a quiet dinner. We didn’t really have much to say to each other. I told them that I wouldn’t be coming to Bangalore anymore for a very long time, after all family is moving abroad and all that. They digested the news quietly. N talked about maybe moving to America with her boyfriend while he did his MBA, but not too thrilled with the idea because she hated the US. S talked about not being able to find a suitable boy. I asked her to open her mind to the internet to search for a possible someone and she gave me a strange look, with a tinge of disgust that I thankfully couldn’t see properly because of our fast dying table tealight.

When I got back that week, N came online and said that S and her were planning a trip to Bombay for us to be together during Diwali. I was touched and sad. We’ve never been an affectionately expressive trio. We’ve known each other since we were in Nursery and somehow always taken each other for granted. We’re not even the sort of friends that keep in touch very regularly. But there’s always been a sense of subliminal commitment to each other. A tie that childhood binded for us. And I knew they’d sensed our times together were seemingly drawing to a close, proximity wise atleast. We were moving countries, some were getting married, things would never be the same, however clichéd that may sound.

Back in Bombay, the highlight has been my flatmate P’s trip to NY and LA. I think I was more excited than she was. She was gone for all of a week and when she came back we stayed up till 5 in the morning talking and coming to the conclusion that there is a life out there that we aren’t living. And that as both our sixth years in the city draw close, we couldn’t believe we were saying this, but we’ve tired of the city.

Of course, moving away is easier said than done. Its at times like these that you wish you listened your parents and became a doctor/engineer/lawyer/banker because suddenly you realize that though you may be good at what you do, what you do isn’t really a universally applicable skill. I can’t imagine where I should start looking for work, and in which country pray? And will what I do here be of equal if not more weightage in another country? Maybe the film production executive of India is like the tea bringer/ in-house secretary of LA? Or perhaps the on set catering curry queen of London? 

Needless to say, it’s a decision that must be taken. Six years is a long commitment (though poorly if you consider that I’ve said many times that ill devote an eternity here). But the restlessness that’s been burgeoning in me isn’t something I can ignore for long. So go away I must. Suggestions are welcome. Media industry and all that. Please don’t come up with porn and suchlike. I’m an appreciative viewer and a bad participant. Also no perennially snow covered cities as after Manali trip this year, I realize I don’t co-operate well with the white stuff. There. That’s it then. Oh and this blogs url will change init?

YING YANG?

2008-08-29T02:20:00.001-04:00

So what was your first acknowledgement of the difference between the sexes? You know the whole boys have a penis, girls have a vagina shindig. For some it was when their parents told them, for some it was when they walked in on sibling/cousin/uncle/aunt/parent changing and looked down and wondered wtf? For some it was as late as 8th standard biology when they saw the diagram of the penis/vagina and said WTF! (true story!) and then for some it might have been pure instinct (also apparently true story)

For me I’ve had two such occasions. One that raised the question and one that answered it.

The first is a rather hazy memory and the second I recollected only at the brink of adulthood because I hadn’t even realized I had actually experienced it. The first epiphany if one might call it, wasn’t really one because it was mostly wrought with great confusion. Now, in fashion speak I actually have a rather apt word for the visual experience of seeing a real live penis – it looked rather ‘busy’ down there. Busy and hazy. Especially when you’re in first standard and your teacher makes you sit next to a boy who still hasn’t grown out of the oral/anal stage and cannot stop touching himself. So he had his pants open almost all the time, with his hand permanently down there, just making sure little willy didn’t leave the building. Mostly I had thought that his penis was just one of his fingers, and comforted myself thinking that he had exactly what I had.

But the second encounter was clear. Oh so clear. And um, yes tactile may I add.

There are some memories that you repress for many years till they cease to exist, till you have a faint, very faint almost déjà vu ish recollection of it and aren’t really sure if you dreamt it up or if it really did happen.

So one day when I was all of 18 years, I was sitting in my English honours class and reading along to the drony voice of the lecturer as he read this particular poem out loud. It was titled ‘the connoisseuse of slugs’ by Sharon Olds. The poem was literally about a little girl having a happy jaunt around her garden until she comes across a most perplexing looking creature as she prys apart the ivy covered façade of the compound wall – a slug. Metaphorically of course, the slug is indeed a phallic symbol, flaccid if you please (before the boys get all upset), and the disgust yet wonderment, two shockingly oxymoronic reactions the little girl feels at once for this peculiar creature is explained in great detail by the poet as is the juxtaposition with when she actually has her first sexual encounter.

So sitting in the evening light of my classroom I suddenly recollected a similar incident from my childhood. It was like an unpleasant epiphany. The look on my face must have been priceless, at once scared and at once like I’d smelt hydrogen sulphide.

So here’s the story, it may sound in bits like child molestation (er where I was the molestor, you know child who is a molestor = child molestor, ok yes you get the drift) but mostly like Florence Nightingale.

I must have been 6 or 7 years old. During the summer we always went to Chennai and we inevitably stayed in the Defence colony where all my fathers’ cousins lived. The houses in the Defence colony all looked alike, but its occupants seemed to change every summer. Some summers there would be kids my sisters age and she would be happy, the social number that she was, and sometimes they would be just my age and I would be glum because that would mean I would be expected to socialise.

But this particular summer, there was a new boy next door, he wasn’t exactly my age though, he was probably 8-9 years old, but it didn’t matter to me because he was nothing like the older boys that age at school who pulled my plaits and flicked my glasses off my nose. He was a mild, subdued, always smiling little chappy who sat on the steps of his house pretty much all day because he had Polio. Yes, Polio. Remember that, it existed in 1989.

So antisocial me and invalid him (yes yes politically incorrect but fuck it, it’s a blog), used to chill on the steps of his house pretty much every afternoon. He didn’t speak much English and I didn’t speak much Tamil so it’s hard to imagine what we talked about, but talk we did. Then one particularly warm day, his parents were out and he didn’t know how to get his braces (Leg braces) on alone and yes, he felt the call of nature. I of course jumped to the occasion of helping him to the loo, I mean in school, all us girls went together, it couldn’t be much different. He didn’t seem too averse to the idea either. I got him his crutches and we hobbled towards the loo. But a boy who needs to hold onto both his crutches and a 7 year old girl who can’t really take his weight, needs a third hand to hold you know what yes? When I first saw it, I must admit I must have been perplexed, I didn’t really remember the finger = penis episode that had incidentally happened earlier that year. But I clearly remember asking him in broken Tamil wtf it was. I don’t recall a clear answer from him, but at some point instinct took over, a sense of sex and finally, acceptance. It made sense, his penis, to me. Infact I thought it quite ingenious as he never had to sit to pee (and I was petrified of the potty till er..pretty late in life). It was also an intriguing organ, at once alien and yet endearing.

Yesterday I probably heard the funniest and most peculiar description from a 6 year old who answered that yes, girls and boys are different and very proudly added that girls are better because at least they don’t have kaka coming out of the front like the boys. (!!!!) And while the rest of us, her parents included digested this completely bizarre imagery that simply refused to go away for several minutes, she giggled helplessly and continued to play rather happily with her Barbie and a much castrated Ken.

Hair and there

2008-08-16T15:16:00.000-04:00

When people start texting you to say that you’re not blogging enough, you know it’s been a really long time. But alas, I don’t have anything interesting to say. So if your expecting sex talk, bimbo talk (a title that has recently been bestowed upon me), political talk, relationship talk, lack of relationship talk, bollywood talk or religious talk… well, Tata to you because I can’t. I simply can’t.
Mostly because my mind is numb. Worked, spent and numbed. So here we are. It’s the long weekend (but I’m working tomorrow, so much for that) and I can’t believe I have spent the whole day doing sweet fuckall. Infact the only thought I have had all day was whether I should cut my hair. Infact I’ll throw it open to the public, because I don’t have the energy to make this decision alone.

But let me present the case:

So I’m 5 ‘4 1/2. My hair is a little longer than waist long. Its really really thick black black as the night, straight hair. Hmm. These sound positive in words, so let’s call them the pros.

On the flip side. It’s so long that even when I’ve tonged it and serum’ed it, it annoys me immensely about half an hour into letting it be loose and its up in a big bun again, in which I look like an aunty, so what’s the point. Also I’ve had it this long for as long as I can remember and I’m shit bored of it. Physically, because it’s so thick, it’s really heavy and gives me the occasional headache. Then sexually, whilst it definitely attracts the men, it’s actually quite the hindrance during sex itself. You can’t put it up in a bun because no one wants to have sex with anyone in a bun and when it’s loose every kiss always has an element of hair in it. Yes, quite the annoyance as you can see.

But then, as a closing statement ladies and gentlemen, let’s get back to my pheelings. Because pheelings are important in such decisions. See, my hairs been my thing. You know, like a best feature sort of thingy. It’s also what people who don’t remember my name would discuss me by, like my 11th standard anglo Indian accounts tuition teacher “that long haired girl has failed again men”. See the uses!

Also please keep in mind that I hate hate mid length hair. I hate the very mediocrity of it. So it’s either posh spice blunt or let it be this long till I die.

So what to do men? Say me.

Set me up. Set me down.

2008-07-20T10:18:00.000-04:00

When friends try to set you up, it’s a strange feeling. At once flattering, because it means they think you deserve not be single and at once mortifying because they usually lack the tact on how to go about it. This means you can be sitting having coffee and this ‘guy’ friend of your friend lands up, equally clueless, and your friend does the whole air kissing bit and while you are sitting sipping your glutinous concoction, your friend suddenly says “so Coo, my single friend, do you know that ABC here is also single!!” in that raised eyebrow hilarious way she usually gestures to you in when you’ll are actually across the room from each other and she wants you to check out some cute guy, without any allusion to the fact that the said cute guy in question is in this moment of time within spitting distance of you simultaneously choking on his watery brew just the second you start to.

Of course the guy and you seem to be pro’s at this situation and manage to dilute the situation well. You decide to play act and pretend like she doesn’t exist. You loudly announce that you think its time for her to leave and give them some privacy. He adds to it by visibly agreeing and even turning his chair towards you cutting her off. Thereby in one shot making it explicit to your common cupid that this is a tactless albeit comical situation. Mid laugh you even change the subject and the conversation veers into more comfortable avenues.

Post boy leaving, your friend apologizes and asks you sadly if your not interested at all?
You shrug aimlessly looking past her and muse that it’s started raining, thinking you wished you knew.

2008-07-07T05:10:00.001-04:00

Oh ho it’s been awhile no? What to do ma. Full works.
There’s nothing more pissing off though when at the end of all that works you find out that you don’t get a premiere pass to watch the film where Pappu can’t dance saala. Such monopoly wherever this Aamir Khan is. Pah. Took off all the passes for himself and gave to randoms like Rakhi Sawant and all. Such a waste. The only saving grace was that Superstar Rajnikanth, thalaiva himself was supposed to grace the event and didn’t make it. This is good because I would have died off if I didn’t get to see him. It’s funny how I get to meet all the idiots that everyone wants to meet and the special ones that I’m dying to meet never happen. Well one did – AR Rahman himself. Five years ago when I was a flunky on a film, I had to pick him up from the airport to the recording studio and we got stuck in a mother of a jam for almost 2 hours. He was a bit reticent at first and then when we established that I spoke Tamil, he wouldn’t stop talking. Oh and did he talk! He talked about his childhood, his move towards Islam, his love for Sufism, the state of political affairs, poverty, illiteracy, global warming, his new phone, his new album yada yada. and very happily killed time. Then when we got to the studio he very sweetly introduced me to Subhash Ghai who was lurking around shadily at the entrance and gave me the once over like I was some beggar girl and walked away.

Then simultaneously there was Love Story 2050 premiere in London which one jobless British friend of mine passed by. He said the crowd collected there was "larger than the number of people who come to collect their monthly giro". Whatever that is pa. So he also stood around it seems and saw “this smashing dusky girl. She looked soo much like Shilpa”. Tsk tsk. If piggy chops hears this she’ll die off no? Actually maybe they do look alike. No wonder the common ‘man’ betwixt them. Heh heh.

Oh and while we are talking about British boys and their bollywood trysts, there is very interesting story to yet another British boy. I will tell. Once when he was in India, he found himself on a film set in Film City waiting to meet an actress that was a family friend and he was asked to wait in one of the make up rooms. While he was twiddling his thumbs and occasionally playing around with the AC remote, the door opened and in walked a ‘gentleman’ and asked if boy could kindly get up from the chair as he had to get his make up done. Boy reluctantly obliged as he was getting quite comfortable but decided to hang around and chat up the gentleman. They chatted about the weather and the 4pm rain in London and how the skin on his back was peeling because of the extreme heat in Bombay. The gentleman sympathized. The gentleman even offered him a cup of “rather milky chai”. Once make up was done, the boy decided to walk out with the gentleman as they chatted. As they stepped out the gentleman was accosted by many members of the press. Many flashbulbs went off and the boy was quite blinded.

“Gosh you must be pretty famous” he went.

“Yeah sometimes” the gentleman said proudly.

“Ok I’ll be off then. Thanks for Chai. Oh, but what’s your name” the lad asked

“You can call me Amitabh son” the gentleman said as he drifted into a sea of light.

Such a cool story no? I never tired of telling it to whoever we met when the lad was in India. And he never got how amazed everyone was that he’d met the Big B in such a non descript way.

When it comes to celebrities, chance meetings with them when they are in bloody good moods are the best. For there is nothing uglier than a celebrity in a closed room, with no media and no make up, discussing his signing amount with you. Really. Nothing.

"I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride it now.."

2008-06-21T14:36:00.000-04:00

There are days when you realize you have a routine, you have a habit, you have a fucking system. And you have it down pat. You get up, you bathe, you choose your clothes, you know whether it’s the day to wear something risqué and cause a stir or the day to just lie low and wear that old t-shirt and jeans. And you are always right. You eat your cereal, you catch the auto, you time your journey and you’re always always right. You know that if you leave at 10:15 you’ll breeze through the signal and that if you leave at 10:20 you’ll get stuck at it. It’s unfailing. You reach work, you set up your laptop, you mentally run through work and prioritize your day, check for meetings, check if the lawyers come in, you always need her, always, open outlook and download your mails, open Facebook simultaneously, open Gmail in yet another tab, open yahoo in the fourth tab. Check check check check. Time for coffee.

Come back and see 10 friendship requests. You barely know 3 of them. You never click ignore. You simply do. You like seeing the words ’10 friendship requests’ on your home page. You feel wanted. You’re somehow always automatically signed into facebook chat. You have 15 friends online. Some you haven’t spoken to in years and haven’t even exchanged pleasantries with when they first sent you a friendship request. You just accepted the request and showed you were alive and well by an acceptance click. You have granted someone you met randomly at a club or summer camp or sat next to you in 3rd grade access to who you are now, what you look like now, who your friends are now, where you work, what your horoscope says, even who threw poo at you.

And then someone you knew briefly says Hi on chat and since you’re just about bored enough to be curious about his life you say hi back. Basic info is exchanged. You say you have to run and say bye. You even end the bye sentence with an X. The X that says take care, see you soon, kiss kiss and please stop typing anymore all at once. And if that person gets the hint, it stops right there. End. Period. Finito. Fin. And you go back to your routine, your schedule, your habit, your fucking system that you have down pat. That you think nothing can unsettle. That you think will never experience any upheaval, because lets face it, there’s simply no emotional cord that binds you to it. Your hormones are finally in check (because the meds are finally working), you are never waiting for the phone to ring, you are never waiting for a special message. Infact, you have simply stopped waiting. You know you are a clean slate. There is nothing, nothing from your past that can unsettle you.

Until it does.

Until after the X, someone decides to say “By the way I bumped into XYZ the other day and he was asking about you” .

Ay there’s the rub. There’s the invisible umbilical. There’s no easy way to get over the X. Even when it’s at the end of a sentence. Even when its continents and 2 years away. Even when it’s just enquiring about you in a matter of fact way. Because suddenly you are no longer here at office in front of your laptop. You are standing at the airport watching him walk away as the tears don’t stream down your face.

“In which one has transmogrified into a deranged mental person”

2008-06-19T09:20:00.000-04:00

My favorite thing about traveling is opening my eyes in the morning and realizing I’m not in my own bed. No this does not mean I force myself into promiscuity to ensure it. Though sometimes I wish I did. But now suddenly I don’t like this feeling. Last night as I drifted off to sleep I was convinced that I was sleeping in my bed in Bangkok and was completely startled when I heard a loud thunder clap and realized I was back in Bombay. I hate these time and space lapses. Especially when I’ve come back from a leisure holiday and thrown myself right into the throes of a work hell. I don’t think I’ve had a single non work thought in the last three days. Except for today when I can’t concentrate on work because I can only think of sex. Yes my friends. Sex. Carnal intercourse. In and out. Jumping. Shagging. Fucking. You get the gist. I’m also depressed as hell. I felt like crying when I heard the coffee machine was not working just now.

These feelings are fortunately not my usual state of affairs dear faint hearted, infact, this delightful combination of hornyness and sadness is because of the medication my derm has put me on for the recent spate of adolescent like breakouts I’ve been having. Apparently birth control pills plus something called Accutane. The Accutane causes depression, psychosis and halucinations (!!) whilst shrinking your sebum glands. And the birth control makes me horny as hell whilst killing excess androgens in my blood stream. The end result being one second I want to jump men and the next second I want to take the landline wire in my hands and break their jugular veins with it. Lovely. Simply sublime.

So this morning, I suddenly felt full empathy for the hijras at the juhu-andheri signal. The chickies have it the worst. I imagine they feel this way everyday of their lives. I fully had long conversation with them this morning as they crowded around my auto at the signal (I give them 300 rupees every month so that I don’t have to give them 10 bucks everyday. they loved the idea, like they get a salary or something and dutifully crowd around me on the 17th of every month). I just about started feeling happy to be talking to people I didn’t want to jump or kill (imagine that!) when they started commenting on my outfit and decided that my earrings didn’t match the dress. And that the shoes were simply atrocious. And as you can imagine they were pretty loud and raucous about it, the bitches, so much "Arrey ye kya pehen rahi hai. hai hai. Kaun thujse shaadi karega yada yada" Clap Clap. Hai Hai and all happened. I mean I love them but who made them an authority on fashion? So I snapped at them and told them to shove it. The Bitches. Men are such assholes… even when they're women

Thai Chlolicles

2008-06-02T14:41:00.000-04:00

Hmm so its summer. And I’m on holiday in Thailand. Which means I should be on a beach, in a bikini, drinking a beer, ogling at cute chinky boys and feeling sad they have small penises and generally having lots of fun and getting laid with some handsome gora. Actually no, only boys come here to get laid no? But anyway a holiday is a holiday and it warrants some action. And as usual, I’m not getting any. Infact please tick box marked none of the above.

Thailand is turning out to be a bore. I went to the night market yesterday and was hugely offended by how rude they are to Indians. I had heard that they would be impatient and a bit impolite but the actual first hand treatment I received made me quite sore and disgusted and I left buying nothing. So the next day I severely curled my hair and swam in the sun enough to get a red tan and wore a short short dress and tried to look as South American or South African or whatever foreign person looks that way as is Southindianly possibly and attacked the stores. But my kanjeevaram sari, bifocal glasses wearing mother in tow was a huge give away and sadly I was treated like Indian trash again. Sigh. Friends who have sent large shopping lists, pliss don’t be upset if I come back empty handed.

In other news, It’s my sisters wedding anniversary tomorrow and my Brother In law wants to open some painfully guarded wine to celebrate, but my mother has decreed that that’s an unholy way to celebrate (what with the new baby and all). So she has decided to make some vada and payasam. After a puja at 6 am of course. Yes, that’s the general state of high life partying that occurs in this tam bram household. We’re very with it that way. I don’t really blame my poor mothers lack of enthusiasm though. The one foot long midget that is my new new 20 day old nephew has got the entire household twirled around his teeny fingers. When he’s awake we’re all awake and when he sleeps, we’re all still awake. Maybe mother has preempted us going overboard on the wine and everyone sleeping off and baby left stranded. She is wise that way.

But I am grateful to have this time off. The past 3-4 weeks were insane work wise. I’d been traveling non stop. At one point I was thinking of stashing a suitcase of clothes in the airport bathroom so that I didn’t have to lug it back and forth. I’ve also been so bleary eyed and sleep deprived that I’ve taken to staring very uncomfortably at co-passengers around me or general airport public in a bid to keep myself occupied. Gone are the days of carrying that intellectual looking book and buying a nice cuppa latte (that is monstrously expensive in airports) and sitting very smugly in a corner, preferably near some equally smug looking guy with an equally ostentatious book selection and then starting to play the eye game across the isles and waiting to see who will make the first move or praying to god you’re seated next to him on the flight.

Instead I’m usually so ‘last minute barely got up in time for the flight’ dressed and my silly new fringe seems to have a mind of its own and stands up like something about Mary, not counting that maniacal stare, that most decent people stray away from sitting next to me.

Sigh. And you thought I was bored in the last post?

P.S – if anyone living in Bangkok reads this and would like some strange but quiet company please let me know. Much Thanks.

P.P.S – I have, as I am typing only just discovered a swanky theatre online that is barely a stones throw away from where I live and that has recliner seats priced at 80 baht!!! I suddenly have new found love for the chinky peoples. Sex and the city here I come, albeit alone. Wah.

2008-05-29T04:11:00.000-04:00

There is this moment in time. It can happen anywhere. In an auto in heavy traffic after a mindless phone call or suddenly dawn on you mid stroke while swimming in the club pool in the morning. When you realise something about yourself and have the guts to say it aloud in your head without flinching or altering it before it structures itself into a proper sentence. When you're supposed to make a follow up call to someone and you leave it for later. When you say to yourself you want to finish 10 laps but decide to depool after 7. When you realise that this is you. This is your truth. You are the person who never finishes anything. Who will never go from point A to Z. Who stops halfway. Who always falls short. Who is never whole.

I honestly dont remember finishing an exam paper. I dont remember reading a book from cover to cover without skipping words, pages even. Even while dressing up for a night out, never complete, theres always the arms that arent waxed or the kajal that I've left to put on for later, or the dry dry toes I keep promising myself I'll moisturise before leaving and always forget. Then you realise that you dont just leave things halfway you also lose interest easily. Interest in everything. In family, in friends, in lovers. You cant even hold on to an addiction. Alcohol bores you. Cigarrettes bore you. Dope bores you. Coke bores you. And of late you feel (egad) that even sex tends to bore you. Not having it bores you. Having to pursue it bores you. Having too much of it bores you.

You are a boring, incomplete procrastinator.

When much has happened and it all flows out in one long paragraph. (Don’t worry I punctuate well)

2008-05-13T03:32:00.000-04:00

The only thing I’ve ever liked about falling very ill is that day, usually the 3rd or the 4th when the antibiotics have fully kicked in and your fever’s been away for a whole night and you wake up feeling like the world is suddenly awash with a warm glow. And you feel like putting on face pack and face scrub and lots of make up and trying on those clothes that didn’t fit you four days ago, because you seem certain you’re all skinny and kareena kapoorish now. And you’re walking more briskly and you make yourself a cup of tea and there’s no milk so you decide to take a mini walk and get some and then halfway down the road, the low glucose levels start showing up mid road and suddenly you feel like you HAVE to lie down and you compose yourself and walk back home and decide to order for milk instead. No you’re still not as sprightly as you thought. Those antibiotics are fucking delusionary sometimes you think and lie down feeling the blood rush back to your head and slowly wash over the liquid yellow murkiness in your eyes. Then lying down you call your boss and you’re sounding all weak and stuffed and he’s like ‘Ohhh you don’t sound good’ and you get another day off. Praise the lord. Long sleep later you realize its only 2 days to your company offsite extravaganza which happens to be in the island resort of Langkawi and make mental note to get better by daybreak the next day. Next day wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles you are very much better. But since you have the day off anyway, might as well do some shopping for beach island getaway. Very exciting blue dress and sun tan etc are bought. Lots of bikinis are carried and then seeing mail of final list of colleagues and basic itinerary that includes 2 conferences and 5 Indian restaurants and realizing that all colleagues are old farty sleazy types or strictly gay (yes that is the choice presented in my environs sob), leave behind all bikinis and take grandma type long shorts and sports bra. Next day at office there is a flurry of excitement. Realize phone will be off for 5 days as do not have international roaming facility and couldn’t care less about activating it either. So much tension about pending work happens and many furious mails are sent back and forth that lead constructively to absolutely nothing. Anyway cut to Langkawi which is fucking gorgeous. Our hotel was mindfucking beautiful. The Andaman it was called. Full sleeping to the sound of crashing waves happened. As did much sea swimming, though major cuts on soles on feet because of bastard coral reef wasn’t fun. Then much swimming pool throwball also happened, where my team won, which is good because if we’d lost I’d have condemned the whole trip. I’m a sore sore loser. Also realized that not all male colleagues are old farty or boring gay. Infact noticed some rather cute straight ones and very fun gay ones. Which makes questions posed to me by many non work friends like “So… did anything haapeen??” even more frustrating. Now don’t have constructive “Errr..they’re all gay” answer to give anymore. But friends in general need to kindly sod off and stop asking pressurizing questions. I’m romancing my solitude now. That’s what I am. The Romance of Solitude. I’ll make a movie with that title very soon. Every woman who has dug deep and come out with nothing and now just couldn’t care less will want to watch this movie and love it. And since that covers most of the female population I’m going to come into a lot of money. So be nice to me.
In other news I am in love. My sister had a baby boy two days ago and I never thought I could fall so implicitly in love with a photograph but I have. But it’s not so much the idea of the baby I realized or that he’s gorgeous as hell but the sudden realisation that I can now divide my love for my sister with another being. That I can still continue to unconditionally love her through her son. Share it between them like the two halves that she and I are.

And till I come up with a more challenging quiz, ill leave you with jest one koschin to answer till next time>>>>

• Its an industry joke that this A list actress is dating this to be A list star because she’s still hung over from riotous affair she had with his look alike on the sets of major motion picture blockbuster of one year ago.

(easy peasy :p)

2008-04-23T15:26:00.001-04:00

It’s dead weight day. When you feel like your chest has turned to lead and you simply can’t move. In fact right now I’m asking my flatmate to go to my room and get my laptop charger because I can’t get up. I’m even making her plug it in for me as we speak. She’s sweet that way. Ok today I have QUIZ for you. Please to be answering or atleast taking a shot at it. Don’t be shy. Especially people like Jemima Sanjana - this is greatest test of whether you really listen to me when I give you industry goss. You can post answers freely on comments section. Ok your time starts now.

Its guess the celebrity by intimate details quiz:

1) Business man and quite famous actress. He calls her Kooks. She calls him babes. They met at a perfume launch.
2) Secret couple. He has always been seeing her, even after marriage. He recently had a child. They had mucho good timo when they shot their last action flick in South Africa.
3) Bigger stars lesser known sibling. When big sister got bored of bonking director. She conveniently took over second hand goods and proceeded to bonk same director who much enamored granted her lead role status in recent flop (sadly).
4) His marriage is quite the farce but is painted all around town these days. News is he makes sure to bonk all hair, make up and costume dept girls while on shoot. He has baby girl whose name reminds one of shampoo brand.
5) Actor turned director with a fetish for the white womens. Appah he’s looking so hot these days. Had secret scene with white actress in one of his phillums which was just after his marriage. Also had illegitimate child with another white woman.
6) They almost got married, till he and his mother through a paid detective found out that she was a high class escort. Yes you heard the wrong reason in the papers.
7) He is fully drool worthy but not A list actor. King Khan wanted him badly and had him as part of entourage in the Temptations tour in 2006. Only insiders know about their affair. Ok I’ll give hint, he is married to older woman.
8) Business Man and quite famous actress. Coke buddies. Beware of Alzheimers!
9) These two A listers were fully seeing each other till our man went ahead and married off childhood sweetheart. They continued to see each other after his marriage till wifey told the sauten that she would rat on sautens sisters beau and ruin their to be marriage.
10) You still have to book a room for her when he is on an international shoot. And it’s been going on since the 70’s. Will they come out publicly already??!

(you can ask for hints also, but you are bright people so don’t)

Hey..Ja Ja Jaded

2008-04-19T16:42:00.000-04:00

I feel jaded. Like I’ve lost the capacity to love. No. Capacity is the wrong word. Inclination, Interest. Yes, those two words sum it up well. Love alone is also too strong a word at this time. I’ve just lost the interest to want to be in love I guess. I’ve stopped thinking about it almost completely. Which is really scary because I’ve spent most of my life wanting to be with a man. Wanting to be loved and to love someone. Wanting a core shaker. Wanting fireworks. And suddenly none of that matters. It would have been fine to feel this way if say, something else had taken precedence. Like a blazing career or a needy family. But nothing else has. I still crave sex. I still have random crushes on random men. I still want to party and dress up for the men and have them hit on me. But the want or more so the need to be with a man. or scarily and most parochially enough, to have someone to complete me, has vanished.

They say its age. They say it comes from being single for too long. They say it comes from being in too many bad relationships. They say it’s the beginning of the 30 something singleton syndrome. Then I scream at them and say that I’m still fucking 25. To which they retort and say that 25 is the new 30. That at 25, I’ve been working for 5 years and have been with more than 5 men and that makes my 25 of today the 30 of when Sex and the City started airing.

And then I realize that this is probably true. That five years of being in a city that makes you feel deceptively full. Five years of loving men that only left you. Five years of following my bollywood dream is no more different than being 35, single in Manhattan and walking in your Manolo’s to brunch.

Blog and City Anniversary?

2008-04-16T03:36:00.000-04:00

So I’ve been out and about quite a bit the past week. No that isn’t the reason why I blog so less. Ideally I had always thought that blogging would be what I did when I didn’t have anything to do. Which of course I thought would be every single day. Then I worried about blogging more than once a day and grew very concerned with how pathetic that may seem to the readers. I read through blogs that had more than one post a day, or a post everyday, reviewed their comments pages with great earnest and looked for signs of pathetic ness. (patheticity?) Then I discounted all the foresight and decided that I must start blogging to atleast give me a reason to write. To be all cathartic. And of course to talk about my city of dreams. Now, almost a year into blogging, I just realized that I have barely 50 posts up. And that THAT is what is truly pathetic.

So a year into blogging sometime now and 5 years in this city, also sometime now. I could just go back to the first post and give you the exact date and all that but I’m too lazy; as you must have gleaned by now. I’d started this blog to get over a bad relationship and continued it for lack of one, realizing that it simply beat calling up my 3am friend and crying about how depressive our lives can get all the time in these troubled climes. And then when I realized that my mind was most lucid, most collected at 3 am. I wrote. And that’s what kept me going. Not that I don’t like talking to you 3 am friend. I do. But I prefer calling you at 12, venting and then writing. It’s so much better that way.

Five years in Mumbai. It was already called that by the time I moved here I think. Such a pity. I would have loved to have claimed ownership to having been here when it was still Bombay. But Mumbai it is. I got around to seeing much of the city this past week because of both work and friends. It was such a relief to get out of Andheri. Not that I dislike Andheri mind you. Andheri has an endearing quality to it that makes its special enough for me to say that I never want to live anywhere but here. It is a love that is borne out of great subjugation. Well earned. Well warranted.

But there other parts of the city that, forgive me the cliché, carry pieces of my heart. Quite literally. Starting right at the south at the Gateway of India, all the way to Andheri. The Gateway of India, The ferries, Elephanta Caves, Radio Club, Colaba Causeway, Mondy’s, Churchill, Sea Rock Hotel, Shantaram. My formative years and my two great loves (lovers) in the city in one sentence for you. I lived in Breach Candy at the time. For my first 2 ½ years and life was as lovely as it could be. Family (well a very broad minded sister and brother in law), no rent, no expenses and yes no income either. But it was all good. At 20 who really cared yes? Oh, I would take leisurely walks down Warden road, past Cadbury house, admire the Benz showroom, visit Haji Ali arm in arm with a lover. Or I’d sit in the crossroads that was next to Mahalaxmi Mandir at the time for hours reading all the books I didn’t have the money to buy. I worked in Tardeo which was a minimum cab ride away, I drank at Gold Coins in the AC Market and Ghetto’s on BD Road, I partied at Pollyesthers and Red Light and then before I knew it, I was thrown into the hell that was Lokhandwala. Family had moved out overseas and I was all Alone. I remember never having too much to drink after the move because I was so scared I’d get into a cab and say Breach Candy. It took me ages to get over living in town and making the mental shift to the suburbs. I hated it initially. I mean who wouldn’t right? Moving from clean pristine art deco town to hades on earth. From an almost posh existence on Warden Road to a putrid PG with a 75 year old psychopath in Lokhandwala. And then I fell in love again and that changed everything. I’d come exhausted at 7 am from a night shoot and find my psycho stinky aunty sleeping in my bed that reeked of her urine, wearing one of my kurta’s and I’d smile, gently wake her up and ask her to sleep in her own bed. I’d happily eat everyday the horridly oily shit at the nearyby Junkha Bhakar, I laughed off almost dying while getting off the Andheri Local when my sling bag got stuck in the doorway and I was dragged along with the train and fell off the platform at the very end, I discovered friends from college who I hadn’t even had a proper conversation with when we studied together because I thought they weren’t cool enough at the time and forged deep and dear friendships with them and through them many more friends. From Lokhandwala to Four Bungalows to Versova. Poptates, Steaming Momos’, Kalinga, Aurus, the Mariott, Lokhandwala Market, Bon Bon, Good Shepard Church. Two years in a visual nutshell. And though the lover didn’t last very long, I had learned to love the city again.

The city binds you to it inexplicably. It erases the memory of your hometown and your past and if you stay long enough, soon even what happened yesterday and makes you live in the moment. And no that’s not a bad thing.

The Summer of our Sexual Discontent (a compilation of female post coital thoughts from here and there)

2008-04-03T01:23:00.003-04:00

The space between

He pulled his jeans over his boxers. She always wondered why men did that. Wear boxers under their jeans. Didn’t the cloth bunch up and irritate them? His jeans were still too loose despite the thick scrunched up elastic adding corpulence around his waist. He was too thin. She could still feel the dull pain in her chest from his ribs digging into her when they’d fucked ten minutes ago. She tried to blow smoke rings as she watched him. Not that she ever could. He wanted to go out for lunch. She didn’t. Her inner thighs hurt from the extreme stretching. He always wanted it wide and deep. God, I’m so deep. Wider, wider babe. Just like the space between them.

Girl, you’re gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time..

She was exhausted as well. She always wondered why though. Not that she wasn’t proactive mind you. She loved getting on top. But he didn’t. So this time, missionary it was. But just lying there getting stabbed repeatedly in her solar plexus had left her panting like her contractions were 10 seconds apart. She also realized that she couldn’t really breathe. She’d always liked the idea of it. Feel the lung crushing weight of a man lying spent on top of her. She tried matching her exhalations with his inhalations. With her eyes closed she had a mental visual of what their chests jammed together must look like right now. There wasn’t a sliver of air between their skins. They were vacuum sealed together like that levi’s logo on the label of her jeans that even two horses in opposing directions couldn’t pry apart. It was to illustrate the strength of the rivets on the jeans. She knew that. She wondered if he knew. He was wearing Levi’s too. Or were they Lee? If she asked him now his breathing would become more irregular with him talking. Not that he was breathing regularly at all. His smokers cough which he displayed with surprisingly regular intervals in the crook of her neck had completely fucked up the overall breathing scheme. She would just have to wait.

Though lovers be lost. Love shalt not. And death shall have no dominion.

Looking beyond his shoulder finally gave her a chance to see her surroundings. Plush white duvet, plush white walls, plush white carpet, plus white man in his plus white shirt with all buttons open only to reveal more plush white epidermis. She looked at herself. They hadn’t even undressed properly. Black halter top, black lace panties which she hurriedly pulled on, black Aldo patent pumps, black smudged kohl, long black hair, dusky skin. She clearly did not fit into this heavenly intimidating scenario. I love you, his hand gently grazing her cheek as she pretended to drift off to sleep. She always closed her eyes in situations where she didn’t have an answer. Not that he had posed a question. When awake and standing it looked like a perfunctory deep thinking pause. Today it was more convenient. He packed his suitcase with her watching every now and then when his back was turned to her. She didn’t want to see him go. She would continue to sleep. Fall fast asleep. Hard asleep. Sleep the dreamless sleep of the blessed, the blessed sleep of the dead and pretend the last four months had never happened.

Of scabs and you

2008-03-28T13:11:00.002-04:00

The bumpiness of it surprised the tips of my fingers
How like an annoying sibling it had stationed itself over my once open wound
Black and coagulated. Like my memory of you
I've always liked to pick on them. Let the sharpest edge of my talon do the honours
Sometimes I see raw pink. My freshly severed heart.
Most times a watery blood. The most impure love.

In vich vee vine

2008-03-25T09:35:00.000-04:00

So I didn’t play Holi. I was too ill. And so this weekend has been one of much vegetation. When I lived in Bangalore it used to end up being a busy weekend. Not because of Holi. In Bangalore pretty much no one really knew when Holi came and went. This weekend was all about Good Friday and Easter Sunday. My heavily Pentecostal school hated that these two days were declared state holidays. They wanted us poor things to attend assembly and they wanted to say things like “raise your hands you who believe in the resurrection of the almighty lord”. Inevitably all the Christian kids would sadly raise their hands, knowing that they’d get fucked at the next PT meeting if they didn’t. Us Hindu kids would smugly sit down like Raja’s and Rani’s fully aware that we simply didn’t have to. Some years we felt smug and some years we felt left out. It was pretty confusing that way.

Bleurgg.

I feel like I don’t know what to write anymore. There are no more witty lines and puns brimming in my head at 2 am which I get up and quickly jot down in my phone to remember later when I write. Maybe it’s the new laptop. I’m still not quite used to it. Maybe it’s the general state of mind fuck associated with this time of year. Not that it’s a particular time of year for everyone. Just me. March is such a mind fuck. I’m always mind fucked in March. (See. Repetitive this mind fucking is). Maybe its year end accounting madness. Maybe it’s the presence of two ex’s (actually 2 ex’es plus one random one off) who are hovering in my life again. Maybe it’s my mum getting bored of waiting for the grandchild to come out and therefore focusing her attentions on my state of non-matrimony full steam again. Maybe it’s me finally realizing that I can’t do this anymore. I can’t juggle high octane career, 2 ex’es, random day trip visiting romps and the search for better half in one breath. No I can’t. I want to be single. Painfully single. So single that just the sight of midly attractive tam bram boy sends me spiraling into ecstacy. So ecstatic that it makes me want to get up at 5 am play suprabhatam and steam idli’s for him.

Also I’m in love. Samsung 29 Inch Flat screen mounted on yon wall in living room is my calling every evening. I’ve seen No country for old men, The Darjeeling Limited, 2 days in Paris, Juno, 27 Dresses, Sex and Breakfast, American Gangster all in the span of 2 days we have had it.. Can there be a better love?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEMIMA!!!!

2008-03-12T01:17:00.001-04:00

Sanjana is cool
Sanjana is bright
Sanjana dosent care
if she's not very trite

It's Sanjana's birthday
It's her day
What the dickens!
Let us all pay
Homage to the one and true beauty
Sanjana the eternal cutie!

Delhi : An (AL)Elegy

2008-03-08T05:22:00.002-05:00

The last time I felt this way was a year ago after the Goa trip. It was N, S & me spending our last half an hour together at the airport in Goa. It was an incredible sadness. The kind that makes you wallow for days on end. Where every memory is magnified. Where you feel teary reminiscing even the dumbest parts of the trip. We all knew something special had happened. Four childhood friends (we’ve known each other since we were 4) had finally taken time out of their ridiculous schedules and tangled love lives and taken a holiday together. We had laughed, we had cried, we had got drunk, lost, angry, jealous, irritated, infatuated, hungry and gluttonously full. We had rediscovered each other. We were whole again.

Bear with me as I tell you how sitting here in the Delhi airport all alone and typing rapidly makes me feel the same way. While I don’t really miss the people I’ve spent the last month and a half with and while I definitely don’t miss the city, I do miss a way of life. It’s a weird feeling. Albeit temporary. Halfway between Stockholm syndrome and pure habit. I feel like those once reluctant iffy tourists who came to India, ended up staying in some shady shack in Colaba and by sheer lurid experience, shock and over-action of their parasympathetic systems developed an unconditional love for the city and the country as a whole. So unconditional, that when it became time to leave…they simply didn’t.

Is it any wonder then that I’ve changed my flight thrice in the last two days? I didn’t want to leave my dirty, filthy 4 star room this morning. I suddenly had the deluded feeling of wanting to be there forever. Just living out the rest of my life within those four dysfunctional walls. I wanted to get up every morning and call the transport guy in a state of semi consciousness and ask for a car. I wanted to stumble around all 150 sq feet of my room, find the hotel phone and call for hot water to have my green tea with, wash my hair, actually have the time to style it everyday, get into one of the crisp new t-shirts I’d have bought from M block market the previous evening (there’s a small peek into my shopping disorder), decide between D’s maternal pad for the night or a quite night alone in the room listening to the sound of my molester yapping loudly on the phone in the room next to mine (um because yes, he WAS in the room next to mine). Which brings me to molesters apology a day after the molestation where he called me from some random number to ensure I picked up and wonder of wonders proceeded to talk about the incident in third person… An excerpt -

“Err so I’ve been hearing that something happened last night… was someone rude to you? Or did I.. err…someone.. touch you?”

“yes YOU touched me”

“Err where did I touch you?” (incredulous)

“Are you apologizing or trying to embarrass yourself further?” (motherfucker gandu)

“Err sorry sorry, but please just be straight with me. I was too drunk. I don’t remember anything at all”

“Nothing at all??”

“No”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Absolutely. All I remember was passing out and I rested my head on your shoulder. Errr did you take offence to that” (sarcastic twat mode)

“Listen Gandu (I didn’t call him that but it’s really more impressive than his name), to put it simply, you squeezed my tits and leaned into my ear and whispered that you wanted to fuck me” (said with utmost deadpan tone)

“OH MY GAWD!OH MY GAWD!” (for like ten fucking minutes and I’m on roaming fucker)

Then the climactic third person clincher “Your dignity has been compromised. I can’t believe something like this happened to you. I’m the protector of the unit and something like this happened to you when I was around” (at this point I have decided the boy is certifiably a mental person)

Tone softens dramatically “Anyway you don’t have to worry about anything. Ok we are going for a movie In Satyam Nehru Place now. Want to join us?”

“Err NO”

“Ok. Bye” (in complete satisfaction like he’d had a nice long bowel cleansing dump)

Tadak.

I just wrote this bit in office. (yes I came straight from airport, diligent no?) N my effervescent colleague has been reading my preceding blog posts next to me and has just remarked that my blog frustrates her as she feels like she has an empty sex life compared to mine. How she has come to this conclusion is beyond me. So I must address this right now. Firstly, my dear N, have you noticed that there has been no talk of sex like since er..many months(I just counted and almost fainted) so you know exactly how long it has been right? And secondly how on earth does molestation count? She says it does because she thinks molester is hot looking after I showed her his pics. But then N is mad that way.

Ok I must go now. I have to go home and unpack my four suitcases (I had gone with two!). Then I must wallow in my withdrawal. Then feel extremely sad that boy I liked was taken. (yes, THAT’S the secret reason for all this pathos), then eventually smile as I remember one moment – driving back from Gurgaon at 4:30 am, Karan at the wheel driving like a slow dream down Nelson Mandela Marg and me singing Fast Car sitting beside him with KB passed out in the backseat. Now, there’s a snapshot for life no facebook photo uploader will ever preserve as well as the space here halfway between my eyes and my heart.

He says. She says.

2008-03-03T14:39:00.000-05:00

bears says:
back to bombay?

F. Edup says:
nope

F. Edup says:
still sodding in the capital

bears says:
damn! your facebook says you're homeward bound

bears says:
not that home then

F. Edup says:
nah

F. Edup says:
so whats cookin goodlookin

F. Edup says:
bleeurggh

bears says:
still at work, going outta ma mind

bears says:
off to a gig soon though

bears says:
a norwegian band called the blind archery club!

bears says:
need something to cheer me up after a dismal monday

bears says:

F. Edup says:
why was it dismal

bears says:
no special reason, just got the monday fear!

F. Edup says:
ah i see

F. Edup says:
how very white collar of you

bears says:

F. Edup says:
im so bored i could die

bears says:
how very grey collar of you

F. Edup says:
im posting this conversation on my blog for lack of anything else

Delhi - Please get me out of here!

2008-02-25T04:38:00.000-05:00

I’ve been out of Bombay for more than a month now on shoot. In Delhi and things aren’t going so well. Some days are good. Some days are dreadful. Most are just plain boring. Good days are days when the producer or director take any sort of interest in what I have to say. Good days are days when I manage to have a nice chat with someone on set or when any mildly attractive man makes a pass at me. (Even the Drivers and spot boys count these days, and in Delhi the buggers aren’t bad looking..) Bad days are days when there are work fuck ups or delays. Boring days are days when nothing makes a difference to me. A really cute guy can profess undying affectation or the shit can hit the fan at work and I won’t flinch, nothing registers and I whistle to fill the silence between my ears. And I like I said, I mostly have the boring days. I sit in my hotel room in GK 1 at 12:40 am feeling like my life is going to end any minute. I have spent the last hour bawling my eyes out for various reasons. The catalyst was the incredibly miserable news of hearing that one of the girls who works on this film and who I am quite close to lost her 10 year old brother last night to pneumonia. After this I also heard that over the last 7 years her mother, father and older sister have all passed away. Like fucking familial hara kiri. Her brother was the only family member she had. She came back to work today to distract herself and also because dude, now her house is completely empty… Oh dear the tears are starting to welt down again as I type this. I can’t imagine what she must be going through. The absolute horror. The terror of unfeelingness when grief of such a magnitude consumes you. After that I realized I had started bawling for many other reasons. I was (am) miserably lonely. The loneliness is no more just palpable, it has become me.

Today is a bad day for blogging. It’s all sounding wrong and magnified. Maybe it’s not all so bad I think. Some of the people are fun to work with. Some aren’t. Some apparently will get drunk and grab your tits and say they want to fuck you as I realized on a clubbing night out with the unit. Yes Yes, this is the sorry state of affairs. Is it any wonder then that I’m consumed with misery and disgust? That again and again I only seem to inspire these strange rushes of lust and lewd desire and simply nothing else. That I seem to worry about dumb things like my sex life while someone has lost her entire family and is completely alone right now….

DELHI - A Bore

2008-02-07T13:38:00.000-05:00

We are lonely, ill, cold and stuck in a hotel room the past two days. This hotel sucks. It doesn’t even have personality like the great Hamilton. Lead actress in a bid to get on my good side has offered for me to share her room with her at the Shangrila. She says we can have fun together. I ran out of her vanity van at the very suggestion. The woman says ‘maine theatres kiya hai’ for crying out loud. Plus I’m so man deprived here I’m scared I’ll turn lesbo or something. Infact I thought about turning Lesbian in great detail over the past few days. Especially this morning after ANOTHER friend of mine called me say she was getting married and had found true love in a man in under 24 hours. It confounds me. Am I doing something wrong? Do I not have enough drive to want to be married or is the universe just throwing me curve balls with every new man I bone? Anyway back to the point, see I do find some women supremely attractive, physically I really like breasts, I don’t know if want to touch them so much, but I do like looking at them a lot, then emotionally it’s a greater connect, you know how there are some women who pull you to them, who have this natural magnetism that attracts both men and women to them, where you want to be around them all the time, listen to them talk, watch their every facial movement minutely, maybe even fall in love with them. I’ve realized I go through phases where I spend intensely long amounts of time with certain women when they come into my life and do tend to get addicted to them. Then I realized that if she has a better body than me I’ll eventually start hating her and if she’s a fatty then I wont want to see much of her because I’m very shallow that way and like being around attractive people. Then the clincher was that I don’t think I fancy eating pussy all that much. Not that I think its gross or anything. Just not a turn on.

Tsk. Delhi without a big gang or a romantic indulgence is proving to be burdensome. D freaks out at the very thought of either of us catching an auto post 7 pm alone so since I’ve been here, there have been very expensive cab rides (like 100 bucks to get from GK 1 to Kalkaji that took a grand total of 4 minutes to cover) or just the whole irritation of if she hangs at my hotel then who will drop her and likewise if I hang in her house who will drop me. Such a shame. It doesn’t help when both D & R regale me with stories of women getting picked up and raped at 11 in the morning or D’s friend’s mother who got murdered by her driver because she shouted at him for driving rashly. Speaking of rash driving the drive back from Manali is an entire post in itself, but see as I’m as lazy as I usually am let me tell you it only took SIXTEEN GRUELLING HOURS. Even though driving past the Beas offered some of the most fucking gorgeous views I have ever seen, the highway bit was mental. While the 3 others traveling in the Innova with me were fast asleep and I tried to get the driver to slow down he starts to narrate this story to me of how his Bhagwan told him this morning ‘ki kuch nahin hoga tumhe dooth’ and so he is certain that we will not have an accident. After this confident revelation he even tells me stories of Godly visitations and how ‘main bachpan mein hanuman bhagwan ke godh mein khelta tha’. Then just to make the ride more interesting, its 2 am and I feel like I am going to die if I don’t get to lie down in the next five minutes, we get stuck at the fucking Delhi bypass (somewhere Rohini side) and we are stuck there for TWO GODDAMN HOURS and I reach Kalkaji at 4 am and wake up a painfully sleepy R, because D is the sort of person who will promise to wake up and then be dead to the world.

But Delhi has thankfully been busier than Manali. It’s been fun hanging on set all over again. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. Its really like a drug, filmmaking is. It’s that insanely busy, don’t have time to think, running around, feeling worthwhile sort of energy on a film set that’s so addictive. And most of my friends say I’ve chosen the right route. That I get to be on set without having to deal with the uncertainty of this world in general. And though I’m not so sure about that, It does sound nice.

Nothing can quite compare to a film shooting outdoors though. Its it’s own little minute universe. You know like those nudie colony’s America had in the mid seventies? Pretty similar to that. Everyone on a film set is stripped of all pretension and oh yes, horny as hell. Outdoor shoots seem to unleash the id in mankind, it’s no holds barred, no strings attached, don’t look my way tomorrow on set after tonight. So all those rumours you read about in the tabloids, you know the Priyanka boned Akshay boned Katrina, boned Vikram boned Shriya boned Shakti Kapoor (yuck) ALL TRUE.

Then finally in other final and most despondent news. Whilst I have been drooling over the most handsome men I have seen in a long while in my life, and gosh do they look smart in their winter wear, as I drooled over some cuties in Tabula Rasa a couple of nights back (not you Chitgo), R leaned in closely and let out Delhi’s oldest secret.

‘MKTG’ he said.

’Eh?’ I screamed.

‘Munh khola toh Gutter’ R said sadly looking away, as I sullenly picked up my coat ready to leave. Sigh.

DELHI - An Ode

2008-01-26T13:03:00.000-05:00

I’m not very observant as a person and I take ages to formulate an opinion on anything, it’s therefore a little presumptuous on my part to attempt an ode to anything. Anyway as you’ll see the following post is more…trip down memory lane than ode. So here goes,

So I was in Delhi last week and yesterday before I flew into Manali where I write this, and I will be in Delhi extensively over most of next month and this makes me very happy. For starters because Debs and Ro are back in Delhi!! And secondly because it’s like 12 degrees there and I louses weather like that. But most importantly because Delhi is like my Paris. Some of the most cherished moments of my life have ensued in the wintry climes of our great capital city and for me and a certain someone from my past ‘We’ll always have Delhi’.

For a city in which I haven’t spent over 20 days at a stretch and then visited it very sporadically for day trips on work, I have a lot of location based memories. As I traveled from the airport to my meeting in Saket, I passed most of the sites. That Barista Lavazza place opposite IIT gate where a random aunt of mine had seen me with the boy and that very evening I had this big call from home where my mother was pissed because the said relative in question had called my mother and snidely remarked that I was hanging out with ‘a boy’ and what sort of values has she instilled in me. See this is why all relatives should be made to stand in an open ground and we should spray agent orange on them. Then the Golden Dragon place near that big flyover before taking a right to Panchsheel Park (sorry this is my sorry state of geographical mnemonics when it comes to Delhi). So this Golden Dragon place was like our favorite place in the world, and by our I mean about 13 of us who were in Delhi shooting a film about four years ago. It was right next to our hotel – the great HAMILTON hotel of Panchsheel Park – A rundown, quaint, straight out of Great Expectations sort of 3 star joint that came with old quirky menacing staff, an ivy covered entrance and walkway with fake snakes and yes, ‘GUITARS’ hanging from the trellis and suddenly many many stone fountains randomly placed in the so called lobby that also had an out of place gimungous leather sofa.

Once inside it got worse. The rooms were named. Yes Named. I stayed in ‘princess’, my adjacent rooms were – ‘queen’, ‘knight’, ‘king’ and ‘page ’. We were on the royalty floor. Some others were not so lucky, they were in rooms called ‘forbidden pleasure’, ‘jewel thief’, ‘seduction’, ‘prime suspect’. I kid you not!

The rooms themselves are another story. Fuck palace bordello type furnishings and over the top tapestries and suede curtains. Some of the rooms were tiny and some were mind bogglingly huge. It was a place with no rules, but very simply said – ‘want place to fuck, get a room’. Oh the joy that was Hamilton Hotel.

I think Panchsheel Park then winds its way into Malviya Nagar which has this terrible market but which became our life and blood. In a place like Delhi where there are awesome places to buy clothes and jewellery we were stuck buying all our stuff from Malviya market because it was next door and we never had time to go anywhere else. Though in my later trips to Delhi visiting People Tree, The shop and Janpath have become like religious excursions.

We were shooting in March and I remember suddenly getting up one morning to a hailstorm, and since I was in the casting department and we didn’t really have to go on shoot, me and my then casting partner (an eccentric artist with an obsession for everything French, jazz and vintage) sat in his cozy room ‘queen’, sipping beers from our well stocked mini fridge, listening to a new French saxophonist called Corine and watching the little white pellets hit persuasively against the window pane. Later that evening as the weary crew came back wet, soggy and badly in need of a drink from a road shoot, eccentric partner and I were suitably sozzled, but still agreed to a night out. We went to some really seedy place near buzz, I forget the name. But that didn’t matter. There was alcohol and great company and for me that brilliant sexual tension in the air, the kind that makes you remember a moment, right when you’re in the middle of it. Tense yet immensely pleasurable.

This time in Delhi I know I won’t be so lucky. In a pre paid cab from the airport to Debs place in kalkaji last night, my heart was in my throat as the driver suddenly stopped at a petrol bunk and two men climbed into the cab, along for the ride. I stayed with debs on the phone all the way to her place, almost in tears, petrified and imagining gruesome rape scenes flashing before my eyes like a bad powerpoint ppt. Also this time I go on shoot as someone senior. Representing my company. Demanding importance and having to very stubbornly exert my authority. And dude, no one finds that kind of attitude hot. So here I am, currently in Manali for three days. Its – 11 degrees outside and oh yes, it just started snowing again. I thought my nose would fall off today as I drove to location. I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold in my life. Also I saw SNOW for the FIRST time!!! YAY! I kept imagining that it would feel like the frosty icicles in my never defrosted fridge and was instead pleasantly surprised to touch cotton candy like poofy stuff! I know it’s pathetic that I’m 25 and seeing snow for the first time but dude you should have seen me stop the car on the drive from Kulu to Manali when I spotted the first patch of snow and jump on it. The driver was embarrassed enough to think of driving off without me.

But I look forward to my month long stay at the capital. I really don’t know anyone apart from D and R who are these famous NDTV anchors and will be very busy, so I’ve come stocked with DVD’s and a list of places to shop and things to site see like the qutub minar etc and of course, yeah I think I have some work to do as well…. 

So where have I been??

2008-01-17T05:00:00.000-05:00

Sick!! That’s right, miserably, horribly, painfully sick! Something called ‘Herpangina’ has kept me under house arrest the past two weeks! Of course the minute I say this to people the whole slew of “Herpes! Herpes? Who have you been kissing?” “Herpangina? You’re sure its not long form for herpes no? Who have you been blowing eww?” chee chee. Shantam Paapam. Such dirty minds people have these days.

So for the record. It is NOT HERPES. Also for the record Herpes does not always mean a sexually transmitted disease. Small children have Herpes for crying out loud. Infact its mostly small children who have Herpangina as well. Which made me wonder why and how I’d contracted it in the first place. It’s a strain of the famous ‘foot and mouth’ epidemic disease (Ya ya loff loff!) Then as my sister very succinctly put it, it all had to make sense, “Aiyaa, some place you must have eaten, bearer boy wouldn’t have washed his hands after making kaka and you must have eaten from that plate”. Yes so since there is no other explanation. We’re currently sticking to this one.

So what did I do? Mostly I was burning up with high fever. Then my outgoing calls got barred and I was soo sure I was going to die alone that I cried and cried and started deliriously dreaming up my funeral. Then as the fever broke I promised myself that I would find a husband this year. A nice one. One that will take leave and sit at home and put cold swab on my forehead types. This idea again my sister dearest put into my head. Sitting as she was in another country and feeling ultra sorry for me, she did one crying number and between spasms for air said “see this is why you should be married” aaah sooper. Finally THE reason that will get through to me to immediately say yes to the long line of waiting software graduates from Kentucky who want me to join em in the good ole land of plenty coz its too darn expensive to git a maid so Iets’ git hitched.

Being that lonely made me wonder though. I wasn’t technically lonely for long. I had a flatmate who called me every couple of hours from work to see how I was doing. I had family that kept threatening to catch the next flight and come over. Finally someone decided to call and word spread fast and soon lots of people started calling and coming over to check on me. But by then I knew what I was missing. A mother or a lover. Someone who I loved enough, to make me feel better.

Then such depressing thoughts quickly vanished when I had to address the need of the hour, as ulcers started making an appearance in my mouth and throat and lips and my gums were swollen enough to make me look like hanuman. So I ran to the dentist first, who said a virus was causing the ulcers and I should see my doctor immediately, then I ran to my doctor and then yes that was when the mystery that was Herpangina was solved. Of course that was just the beginning. I paid my phone bill and as the irony that is my life would have it, just when I could start calling people, my mouth refused to open.

Hosa varshadha shubhashegalu!! Puthandu Vaarthegal! The Happy New Years!

2008-01-04T11:06:00.000-05:00

There’s a funny feeling in the new year air. It’s either full of promise or laden with doom. I can’t tell which. I don’t like when new years are this ambiguous. Give it to me straight up. Tell me its going to suck or soar. That I’m going to be a lonely financial derelict or tell me I’m going to be a millionaire in love. I can take it. I really can. But don’t leave me in this limbo.

When you’re starting a job and you’re meeting new people and you have this big opportunity to forgo your past and be someone completely new, it confounds me. I can choose to be so many things. I can choose to be happy, always smily, I can choose to be grumpy intimidating, I can choose to be moody pms rani, I can choose to be silent wise word sayer, but I can never choose to be all of the above. That’s the catch. You have to have consistency in your attitude. Apparently, In a floor of 300 people, that’s the only way people will remember you by.

Ever get the feeling that you’re not an intelligent as you thought, or that the people around you don’t seem to realize how intelligent you really can be, given half the chance. Especially since the chances presented to you are in the form of long excel sheets with many confusing numbers and social situations with very famous people where you are mostly ignored because you tend to slink away intimidated into a corner and do not brazenly grab a vodka martini like your colleague here and make small talk with dusky A list actress about how beautifully her Jimmy Choos match her Moschino dress.
And even when you go upto Chief Assistant Director (a post even you looked down upon when you were on the other side of the film world) and he pretends like he cant hear you asking him about the shots blocked for the next days shoot because excuse me, you are a piddly looking woman in uncomfortable heels from Hill road and don’t seem to be the sort who even understands cinema. So how do you tell him that hello! Not only do you understand cinema, you..you, you are cinema dammit. You worked on five films yourself, And oh look, you were intelligent enough to quickly switch to corporate cinema, because that’s the wisest thing to do right? And atleast you’re not 45 and corpulent and chewing Rajniganda and running behind a crotch scratching director in his second hand Pajero. How do you insinuate the depth of your Kafka reading, Issabella Huppert in The Piano Teacher loving, blog writing mind to this imbecile? How you wish you were both 8 years old and standing in the middle of your school playground and you were holding him by his collar and warning him “Listen to me men bugger, I’ll kolt you and belt you ra four eyes bugger, so much maccha your pop also wont recognize you”. But no, we are 25 and he is 45 and he is male and I am female and he thinks I’m a dumbass and I hate his guts and life isn’t very fair most of these adult times.

Sigh. No. It isn’t an easy start to the year is it?

I tried to review the past year and came up with one conclusion – it was better than 2006. See when 2006 consisted largely of a broken miserable heart, a painful appendectomy, a bad career move and an empty house, any other year looks glorious in comparison. But 2007 was nice. I had started enjoying the job and left it at an opportune moment and in good faith (I hope?), I made one bad relationship move but quickly recovered my senses to get out of it unscathed, though the universe didn’t conspire to set me up for love, it did to set me up for the next best thing – good company in the avatar of my inimitable flatmates, and the greatest news yet that I am to become an aunt! (aunty math kaho naaa!!)

The last week of 2007 has been most special, with friends from Bangalore who came over to spend new years with me (though the 1700 I owe some other friends for passes to the red light lounge party that I never attended is something I will regret throughout 2008), and how without alcohol or clubbing or (sigh) sex, you can still have a great time sitting in a newly refurbished Prithvi Café, sipping on cutting chai and watching the world go by, cracking inane kannada jokes. Thumba Thanks!

The Big 2 5 !

2007-12-17T05:02:00.000-05:00

As someone who on an average doesn’t drink all that much (god promise!) it seemed inevitable then that I would proceed to get incoherently smashed. I remember the party until my third drink and since I drink very very fast, it probably hit me very very fast and I remember nothing from thence onwards.

These are the allegations made towards my behavior:

Some claimants have led me to believe that I insisted on a flaming shot, which turned out to be half a lota of neat Smirnoff. Claimants also claim that I had 3 of these (after my self poured 3 drinks)

After this I jumped around butting into conversations that 'luckily amused people' says one rather snide claimant.

After this it was midnight and cake cutting time. There was incidentally another boy whose birthday it was and claimants say I was excessively rude to this boy as I felt like he was stealing my thunder. Infact I blew out second set of candles that were lit for him. He scowled at me for rest of party. I deeply empathize with boy who shares my birthdate, but please get your own party saar!

One sober rather trustworthy claimant claims that I went over to mid level famous director and did nazar uthaaring hand motions and tweaked his moustaches. This distresses me immensely. Can never show face again.

Then another trustworthy almost not drunk flatmate claims that after I had puked and she was helping me wash up in the bathroom I opened top half of slinky dress and showed off breast pads proudly to show they hadn’t fallen off. She was just thankful I didn’t do it outside of bathroom.

After that as I sobered up, I only remember having minor heart-attacks every time the door bell rang thinking it was society chairman who lived next door standing outside with cops. I am still shocked that there have been no complaints, as party was very loud, so loud that people searching for house on main road were guided inside to house by sound only. I have new found appreciation for my society peoples.

Downsides were :

There were many cute mens who I didn’t know. But now with my ridiculous behavior I fear I have scared them off.

Slinky dress was worn thinking I won’t get drunk and will behave demurely by crossing legs, adjusting straps every two minutes etc. but am now left scared have shown peoples all I have to offer.

It was a swell birthday though. I was surrounded by my favorite people, I didn’t have any “oh he didn’t come, he didn’t call” moments of depression (because there is no him for once). Also because on the day you do finally turn 25, it makes 26 look sooo far away!!(yes yes fellow flatmate you can hate me for that but you know it's so true)

In which you must not bother reading because this is pre-birthday depressed rambling.

2007-12-14T05:44:00.000-05:00

"Is it the thrill of the chase?" says Meredith to McDreamy.

It doesn’t help that Mcdreamy looks so much like my Mcdreamy did. It really doesn’t. So this week, in re-plays of Season 1 DVD of Grey's that my flatmates are salivating over, I ended up reliving the very episodes that had choked me in the thick of the 'V' fiasco when I'd first seen season one about a year ago. I suddenly saw the real thing. I realised things that I’d never given much thought to before. How he'd text me incessantly. How he would follow me around like a bitch in heat, not remotely caring that everyone was starting to notice how we always gravitated to each other. How he was more happy than upset when he heard that people thought we were having a scene even before we had even hooked up. How he'd creep up on me and hold a newspaper in front of me and kiss me behind it in front of everyone. How he'd call me his princess, the light of his life, the fire of his loins, my humbert..

Men are strange creatures. Albeit smart ones. They want you, they need you, they crave you, they love you; desperately, just before and just after they fuck you. Do you know that men want to cuddle after sex more than women do? Just for those few minutes before they get up to pee, just those few minutes when they want to hold you, run their naked legs over your naked legs, kiss you in little pecks all over your face and profess undying affectation in that soft wistful way there mothers cooed to them in.

It's so simple this male way is.

Women have it all fucked up. We run away, we play hard to get, we doubt whether we really want the guy just before and after we fuck. And we really hate cuddling. But it's then that we fall in love. AFTER he leaves. And sometimes it never fades.… this love. It can go on forever. Even if many years pass on by. It never dulls with occasion. It never pales with new found reason. This love, it never dies.

In which we say “stop looking at my tits you chooth”

2007-12-07T02:11:00.000-05:00

The film industry is a funny place. Funny and weird. Correction. Funny, weird and sleazy.

As I walked out of a film set this week, I left feeling a bit confused. Sleazy famous director talked to my breasts when I asked him the way out of the labyrinth of vanity vans and then shared a lewd joke with his associate director as soon as I was not safely out of earshot. I didn’t really want to know the way out of course. As part of today’s corporate film set up it was important that I interacted with him in whatever way I could. Just to ensure he realized we existed… And since I really had nothing to say to him and making general conversation might make him think he might have a go at me, this was the best way to maintain contact. So say anything. Say ‘hi’, say ‘hi have you seen so and so?’, say ‘bye I’m leaving, do you know the way out’ say ‘stop looking at my tits you chooth’. Umm well I wish.

The whole experience of being on set today was a little unsettling. I remember being on a film set in my torn jeans and ratty t-shirt, drinking milky tea from thermocol cups and looking at people like me walk in completely not dressed for a film set in uncomfortable heels, lugging a huge laptop and pretending to be important. I remember how we used to huddle together and make fun of the project managers from corporate houses wondering what on earth they did all day, when we were doing the actual work. Today I got looked at like that and felt totally sorry for myself.

It’s been one of those moody weeks. I feel a restlessness I can’t describe. The kind where you call your friends for reassurance and simply No One is saying what you need to hear. The irritating part being you’re not too sure what that might be either. Sometimes they will call you and you’ll pick up thinking that maybe it’s a good opportunity to clear your head.. to ramble on and find yourself feeling progressively better. Instead you’re stuck listening to the neurosis in her head!

And then it’s December. I hate this month. It’s my birthday, Christmas and New Year in that order. Depression, Bipolar insanity and Suicide in that order.

In the night I realized that apparently being a part of the industry had made me sleazy as well. At dinner with mid level famous director, his older wife and 7 other people, I stole glances at him with a pre menstrual yearning that was disconcerting because erm, well I’m not pre menstrual at the moment and oh yes he was married. That I felt like he was reciprocating the feeling and that his wife was looking daggers at me is a figment of my obtuse imagination of course.

On the way back, as I explained to my risqué automan that though I may be spineless, I wasn’t necessarily an invertebrate, I decided to at least go home thinking positive. I’m still 24 (for another week man!!!), I have a good job. I have a nice semi-dysfunctional family. I have two sweet flat mates and when I’m with them I miss no one.( Infact FYI : when I’m with them we comprehensively hold the intellectual property rights of ALL of bollywood and some cross cultural cinema as well!!) Most importantly I live in the promise that this look will go. This look of trite vacuum on my face. Where you forget, where you regret, what was real, what was true, what was pure, what was you.

A day in the life

2007-11-29T12:31:00.000-05:00

I stood up and looked around. In all my four years of being an erm, working lady I’ve never ever worked in a cubicle set up. Imagine that. Never ever! It was only a matter of time of course. So here I am. 6 rows. 10 people in each row. Two large pillars hold up this sweatshop. It’s my fourth day. I’m still very shy to make the long walk past all 6 rows to the Ladies loo at the other end. But I have to almost every hour because the freezing as fuck air con forces the last dregs of water + urea out of me with a vengeance. The legal chick who I’ve just had a cold war row with over a contract is waiting inside the loo as well. I smile at her and for a second she looks like a deer in headlights, shocked into a meek half smile before recomposing and scowling at me naturally.

There is ONE cute boy. He is someone I’ve danced with at a club (we had common friends) at a mad drunken night out. I had been dancing alone with wild abandon as I always do and he had started dancing with me and at one point he had grabbed me by the waist and said “you’re an attractive woman you know”. And since I was piss drunk I had laughed and said something witty in retort (I think) (I hope) and later found that I was mildly offended because of the underhandedness of the way it was framed. ‘you know’ like as if ‘allegedly’ I was. Hmph. Anyway my point is that he has absolutely no recollection of that night, or he is, like I am, just pretending not to recognize me. It does make for interesting pastime though. I look at him ardently and then when he looks my way, …zoopp, I look at the notice board with great scrutiny. I haven’t yet caught him looking at me and zoopping just yet. But the thought that I might, anytime soon, is keeping me very excited for the moment.

For tis better to have loved and lost?

2007-11-20T14:38:00.000-05:00

I can’t believe it, but its official. I am officially a clean slate. No this isn’t some post break up, I’m over him bull shit. This is me standing near my window sill, sipping tea at 3 in the afternoon, looking at the garage mechanics across the road tinkering a car and realizing I have absolutely NO ONE to think about. And for once….just this once…. realising it isn’t such a bad thing afterall.

Later in the evening I went for Saawariya, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s homoerotic tribute to autism. And as terrible as the film was it did make me miss being in love. In Ranbir’s desperate twirling embrace of Sonam in that immediately sexual way I missed a lover pulling me towards him and grabbing the back of my neck, in Salman Khans passionate embrace (I was cursing him ‘murderer murderer chikari poacher’ under my breath just to be fair) I missed opening my eyes in the morning light to see a lover looking at me sleeping….

Most of all I really miss love in retrospect. The ‘otherness of lovers’ someone had once called it. That moment when he’s left the bedroom to go for a bath and you reach out to his discarded clothes and smell him on them. That moment when you’re bored on a long flight and you flip through your inbox and re-read the loin tingling erotic messages he sent you last night. That moment in time when you have to go out of town and your phones unreachable for a bit and you’re shit busy but in every movement you make, in every word you utter you are so painfully aware of how much you miss him. Even that moment just after you’ve had a series of terrible fights and broken up and you’re with your best girlfriend and she calls him a chooth fucking asshole loser and you feel a sharp twinge of hurt because you still care so much that you can’t stand hearing what she’s saying and you quietly swallow the gulp in your throat cursing her in your head instead!

For the moment I revel in my state of nothingness. I review my past loves now and then. How one made me laugh. How one always made me cry. How one brought out the best sex in me. How frigid I was with one. How one made me comfortable and how another made me palm sweatingly nervous. It’s a stoic recollection. Bereft of hurt, love or lust. It’s funny the order in which I remembered that – Hurt, Love and Lust. It’s funny because I’ve always remembered hurt first, love next and lust the last. And funny because when I‘m with a man I’ve always run after lust first, parading it as love next and blind to the hurt such a conquest can cause me. :)

Excerpts :

2007-11-14T00:50:00.000-05:00

She woke up early, which probably was a mistake because it presented the problem of what to do next. The monsoons were long over and her lips were starting to burn and chap in the evenings. A sign belying the mugginess of Mumbai that heralded the coming of whatever was left of winter. She missed the rains. The cul de sac that was her social life thrived in the rains because she could always tell herself that it was too damn wet outside to meet friends. But today she had no excuse.

“We have to do something tonight” her friend at the new job who now seemed like she was joined at her hip said when she entered the house in the morning. They had been hanging out everyday for the past two weeks. While she hated being alone, she was starting to genuinely like the girl. Which was worse.

“There’s a party tonight…” friend at new job, currently joined at the hip said suddenly at midday

“Gauravs friend Hishams cousins party…. We have to go!” she spat incredulously leaving no space for a negative response.

......................................................................................................................................................................

The party was already a haze by the time she got there. Three large glasses of Madera and a lost auto ride later she entered the garishly white orchid decorated gate of Gaurav’s friend Hishams cousins do. It was almost one am. A large girl in a small black dress and two huge ponytails, (Imagine waist length hair in ponytails) that spouted directly from both sides of her cranium, and a large red bindi joining the traditional white dots over the two eyebrows opened the gate wide and screamed at her with utter familiarity to please come in and join the merriment. She preferred to stay outside of course with friend at new job and friend at new jobs’ friend. There was quite a crowd outside. A nice party spill. Very A night at the Roxbury ish. People were standing around in paralytic drunken hazes. Everyone thought there was someone sober enough to order a cab and everyone was quite wrong. So they continued to stand around, holding on to each other or holding vague, intimate conversations, the kind that alcohol makes possible. She joins in. Friend at new job introduces her to new boy who she said is soooo perfect for her that evening as they fought for space at the mirror. Friend from new job is quite wrong. New boy is wearing a beret. He is bald underneath. He looks like Piyush Mishra from Dil Se. Friend at new job introduces her to him and it literally seems like his cock jumps at the sight of her because he is onto her like a lusty leech for the rest of the night. Lusty bald leech drags her into the party. She hmm’s and really’s at him perfunctorily. They are sitting on the patio outside that is also smothered with white orchids. It is apparently Gaurav’s friend Hishams’cousins birthday party. Weird pigtail accomplice is cousins sister. Cousin has passed out upstairs and she would not have the pleasure of wishing him she is told sadly by weird Bengali marriage bindi pigtail. Bald leech keeps disappearing intermittently. She follows him on one of the trips inside the house. There is no furniture inside the house. Large ‘glow in the dark’ neon tapestries with images of mushrooms and space ships and intergalactic travel adorn the walls though. She searches for the bathroom. No one seems sane enough to ask for directions and bald leech is MIA. Suddenly weird pigtail surfaces in her line of vision. She asks her reluctantly and is immediately dragged by a force like as if weird pigtail had shoved her hand into her guts and yanked her innards out; to the bathroom. Bathroom looks like it has all the missing house furniture. It is big and round and has a two seater and many stools. Also a commode. Also a sink. People are sitting on commode and sink, thankfully not defecating, but with the vapid constrained look of the very constipated. When she looks to her left large mirror counter with people bent over it in what she thinks is a funny impersonation of gay porn/doggie style position. But their pants are on. Infact all clothes are on. On closer look, lines of white powder neatly drawn is what is causing this arousing partial genuflection. She sighs and says to weird pig “not this kind of relief” and is dejectedly directed to the actual loo.

.........................................................................................................................................................................

She took an early morning flight back home. She hated early morning flights. It took all of three minutes for the fights to start at home. She slammed the door and went out for a walk. The city had changed so much in the last four years since she had stopped living there. She saw a tall long haired boy walking towards her and reflexively crossed the road. The boy used to be someone she knew. He would be sweet and ask her how she was in his honeyed droll voice. He was also cute and she did have a crush on him in school. But she still crossed the road, and looked sharply ahead aware of his every movement as he passed by her diametrically across the road. Her family sent her several apologetic messages on her walk. She wasn’t even angry she realized. She replied back saying she was sorry too but didn’t turn back. She even agreed to meet the boys her mother wanted her to meet. She was a month away from turning 25 after all. The experience would leave her sadder though. She wished that in the movie that she would make someday about her life, she could have that quintessential scene where the mother introduces the daughter to suitors. Archetypal suitors. Those delicious epigrams – short pygmy like, snorty pompous oaf, misogynist date rapist, mummy’s ‘bitty’ boy, I’ll allow you to work after marriage boy, Lusty Bald leech etc. Instead she met nice, intelligent young men. They were practical and bright and wanted a happy future….

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Epilogue :

New friend was extracted from the hip by the onslaught of diwali homegoing.

Lusty bald leech had snorted so much by the end of the party that he lost his libido among other things

'She' apparently has a problem. She does believe in love after all.

An inconvenient truth

2007-11-04T12:55:00.000-05:00

Lovers are sods. Honestly. For starters, they are only ‘lovers’ so that means facebook status will still show a dismal ‘single’ (or nothing at all as my page does to air in the mystery), and then they are not quite fuck buddies either because there is this illustrious past to live up to and they still make you all er…ah…and umm… on the phone because you get nervous. Like that isn’t bad enough, cross continent lovers are the bloody worst. When you are in the mood they are running about doing very unhorny things and either don’t reply at all to your texts or say ‘yeah same here babe’ and then when you are lost in the land of pillow drool they send supremely erotic texts that of course you always reply to because you are always up for that kind of thing yes?

Local lovers are surprisingly worse. Even though you get the IST code right, the signals are so haywire sometimes that you don’t know if the person still wants you or doesn’t or if you want him or don’t. Actually no, I always want them. The problem of course is that they’re so used to a past of naggy women who want a long term commitment and meeting mummy and lets have pinku after 8 months of marriage etc that they’re never up for anything. Though I’m starting to think that that may just be the ruse…that the problem runs deeper..

Take for example this younger friend of mine who is thinking of taking a lover. There is an older man, almost twice her age, hot as hell who desperately wants to get into her pants but apparently every time they get close to making out he cups her face and says ‘oh we must wait, we must wait’. To say the least it’s driving her mad. She absolutely has no issue with the age difference so ‘Why wont he just rip it all off and ravage me as men are fucking supposed to’ she cried out in sheer pre-menstrual frustration the other day.

Another friend of mine fearing the 15th of October as the day marking her sixth month into the dry spell, decided to take thing(s) into her own hands (hee hee) and got herself a fuck buddy. And again, while fuck buddy obviously has a lot to do (ha ha), after the first session he seems resignedly lazy. My friend has to practically badger/coax him into her eager pants. And to set the record straight this girl is a looker with loads of experience. So why is Mr Chance pe dance not running wild with his hands in the air in celebration of the truest joy known to man - a gorgeous woman who only wants sex and nothing else?

Closer home I seem to have had a one time encounter who doesn’t seem to want any more, like that isn’t offensive enough, come to think of it, I had to literally seduce him into it in the first place. Men don’t have very focused libidinal energies suddenly. Infact I’m starting to think that they are slowly but surely becoming Asexual. It’s the strangest thing really. What is happening? Are men getting moralistic or are they simply turning into women? Or is there some serious biological sexual evolution taking place? Are we headed towards a world (like in Clive Owen starrer ‘Children of Men’) where women have become infertile and we have some sort of dissolving and marginalization of the sexes? Maybe even a female domination of some sort? Don’t laugh. Don’t start picturing dominatrix role playing type S&M. I’m really serious. And really worried. It may be inconvenient. But it is a true.

A BLOG POST

2007-10-13T07:45:00.000-04:00

The past few weeks of frenetic activity, of long days of work followed by woozy, scarcely remembered evenings have taken their toll on me. 800 calories per glass of wine. Lost house keys. Slurred speeches of seeming profundity. Plus it’s made me really retrospective. Which is a bloody pain. I take ages to knock myself out of these moods. Anyway, I’ve realized that my life since I moved to Bombay has followed this unwavering pattern. I’m always changing jobs in September, always having a dumb meaningless fling in October, always falling in love in December, always having my heart broken in March, always growing disgruntled with my career in June. 4 years and it’s the same old story. Like my life is some looping purgatory.

Have you ever wondered what your life would have been like if you had changed the choices you once made? Yes yes its all very sliding doors. And I was wondering what my life would have been like if I had say… not stayed back in Bangalore and actually studied in St Stephens doing my lit hons like I was supposed to? I would have been smarter, more successful, would have perfected kajal stained eyes, would have a nice intellectual social group, would definitely have lost my virginity earlier, would have an amazing sweatshirt and muffler collection, would speak hindi without an annoying tam accent… sigh.

Compaq Presario C700. This laptop is officially mine. Officially but not personally. See the difference? Huh? Huh? I should really be attempting to buy off this laptop. It’s a great looking laptop and I really should invest in one. Trouble is, do I even have the money for the emi? I don’t know how I manage to fall into these financial cul de sacs. Two years ago, I lived in a pg, had pretty much nothing to call my own, but had like over a lakh in my bank account. Now, I have this super great house and a fridge and tv and two mattresses and a dvd player and frikking furniture and more than two plates and two cups in my kitchen and yet… my bank balance is nil, zero by the end of the month. Maybe that’s the price of materialism?? It’s appalling. More appalling infact as I type this. As I realize the seriousness of the situation. Is this what life is about? Paying rent and paying through your nose for spondalitis, asthma inducing travel?

Mailed long time lover and asked him to come online and chat with me once in a while. Somehow I am sure he will never accede to my request. It’s obvious we will probably never get to see each other again. So why wont he just be friends? I can’t remember the last time we had a mildly personal conversation between us. It’s so sad that we both are intelligent, witty, internet savvy people who are so stuck in the lovers mold that all conversation has to deal with trying to meet or having cyber sex. So sad. Really.

Felt quite stupid today when I logged on through a friends fb account to check fatty’s profile. Just to see if there’s any mention of her and long time lover having had a court marriage because they fell irrevocably in love. Instead turns out that madam has flown the coop. Has gone back to her motherland. Somehow that left me even more depressed. So now basically he really is single and lonely and he still doesn’t want me…..wah

I also realized today that I am far happier as a single person now than I was as a single person two years ago. It’s a bit of a contradiction really because ideally as I grow closer and closer to my eggs drying up I should ideally be more mortifyingly neurotic and manic depressive. But I think I’m in for more trouble. The bag lady who wanders the streets type trouble. Because after a while you stop battling the loneliness. You accept it. Like an amputated arm, like being in the company of smokers, like capsicum in your subway sandwich.

I Love You

2007-10-11T02:00:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while I do something thick. Like those placebo itches that simply aren’t sated if scratched immediately. Like when your stomach itched and you scratched it there like a fuck wit when you should have scratched your left shoulder blade. Like I should have been curled up in bed finishing the Brothers Karamazov and non participle in midnight romps. Like a frustrated staccato. Our bodies tepid like some deranged Morse code.

The one advantage of casual sex is of course the delicious unfeelingness of it. The utter unspeciality.

When you’ve been through your share of men without ever having uttered the all altering three words, the weight of it does um.. weigh one down a bit. Just like the burden of never being kissed. Just like the weight of virginity. So I planted it on the lad. A smooth touchdown. Immediately light, unfearing and free.

Ok so she is kinda hot !

2007-10-10T08:39:00.001-04:00

2007-10-06T06:32:00.000-04:00

How does lust end?
When the dull wetness of a fresh kiss sighingly evaporates?
When red rushes back to dug out white
And only your half-mooned talon remains?
Or did it end when my drop washed cheek stained the questionable linen?

You never looked back my love...
A sigh, A tear, A closed door
There's the end of lust....

So long and thanks for all the fish!

2007-10-03T03:11:00.000-04:00

What a week it has been. I’m usually not one for a regular blog update, but something has to be said for the past week. It has been my last week at the job. A week of goodbyes and wah I’m leaving and things aren’t going to be the same anymore and if you don’t keep in touch I’ll kill you’s. There were moments when I thought I was utterly mad to be leaving. And there were moments when I was certain I’d made the right decision.

As I sit at home today, typing what will be my last entry on the ‘official’ laptop, I was expecting to be depressed, going through withdrawal and yes, feeling all la douleur exquise about a certain something. Instead I feel strangely light. Like a huge weight has been lifted. Even my trusty facebook tarotscope gave me the card of Death. The end and the beginning.

Apart from the theoretical moroseness of ‘the end’ though, the week has been anything but. Alcohol induced euphoria and the druggedness of sleep deprivation has ensured that it will be a week to remember. Of five girls sharing a room and going mad and having a blast and ya ya sisterhood of the borrowing pants! Of a really exciting event well done, not to mention the eye strain all the lovely lean (and so horny) white men have caused us! (Whoever said white men can’t jump should have his head examined yeah?). Of inspiring and touching good bye speeches to yours truly (Thank you!). And of a group of people I will miss dearly ..

And finally something must be said about the fish in the lounge. Fried fish with lemon and tartar sauce to be precise. (what you thought I was talking about Douglas Adams or wot?)

Peace.

Touch and Go!

2007-09-25T03:13:00.000-04:00

So I laughed during what can best be described as Foreplay. It started off as a snigger, and then when I thought about it a bit more I broke into uncontrollable giggling. While the boy was left a little puzzled, a little hurt, (he checked his breath just to be sure) he must have also thought I was a proper asylum escapee. After I’d calmed down though and he looked like he was about to leave; I decided to lie and say he had tickled me and suffer a strange look from him rather than even attempt to describe the source of my amusement. It would have been beyond the poor boy anyway.

Foreplay has become so predictable. I didn’t realize it until that very moment when boy said “fuck, my back hurts, do you massage?”. And that was what set off the snigger. See, I just realized that pretty much every ‘encounter’ I’ve had has started off with back rubs. And not just me, pretty much all my female friends have had to deliver orthopedic assistance as a sexual entree.
I’m guessing though that if I was a guy it would be the logical move. It would a) if the girl agreed to the backrub give him a clear signal she was interested b) immediately make tactile all the pheromones on a frenzied flying spree around them c) give him an opportunity to make a comfortable move without the shock of sudden touch and d) enjoy a massage of course!
The problem of course arises when they try it on a 25 year old who has had it happen to her so many times now she sniggers. Whatever happened to romance and witty repartee after which you threw yourselves at each other in various fits of consuming passion? Tut tut.

And back rubs are really unfair to the woman as well. What on earth do we get out of it? Maybe a compliment on massaging skills or two, though knowing what is to come after the massage, men are tactfully always praiseworthy and your never quite sure if you are that good or not.

After the first time, foreplay becomes even more predictable. EVERY girl will tell you that she immediately knows her boyfriend wants to have sex when he holds her hand and rubs his thumb over the skin between her thumb and her pointer finger. It's like genetically transferred morse code.

If foreplay is already this boring when your single and hot, I’m mortified at the prospect of marital foreplay. A married (for 2 years) friend of mine said that now her husband simply squeezes her arm and she knows its time. Like Pavlov’s little dog and bell, like Kasauuti Ghar Ghar ki at 8 pm, like an egg timer…quite literally.

In which we update

2007-09-22T02:54:00.000-04:00

I’ve been thinking of what to blog about for quite sometime now. So much has happened over the last 3-4 weeks that it seems rather inevitable that this post will be a free-wheeling one. So next comes the question of how to prioritize… should I talk about the madness of Mumbai house hunting, eleven month leasing, mad landlords and real estate insanity? Should I talk about almost getting laid? Should I talk about new new new house that I love love love? Should I talk about new job that is shrouded in mystery, NDA’s and controversy? Or should I talk about the 3 and a half hour fucking traffic that I battled meandering between truck loads of sloshed ebullient religious fuckers and their political fucking ganpati bappa morya!

I think you know what’s coming don’t you?

See, I don’t have anything against the pachyderm god. I don’t hate him, I don’t revere him, I don’t feel him. Of course I’m being rather mild here as I have too much going on in my life right now that simply cannot afford the wrath of the gods, anthropomorphic or not. But look at this past week and the week to come for crying out loud! It’s at times like these that I wish India was a tyrannical monarchy and not the mental democracy it is. I remember Ganesh Chaturthi as being this sweet festival, quite literally where mum made kozakatte’s (south Indian modaks) and we made the ganpati at home simply by mixing haldi with water to a paste and fashioning it into a 4-5 inch tall inverted cone. Once it dried, the pooja and oblations business would happen, the food would be pretend offered to the hand made god, my mother would desperately hold us back from grabbing the sweets for just about 5 minutes, torn between wanting us to enjoy the fruit of her labour but giving the god enough time to have his fill, that done the ganpati would be dissolved in water or we would immerse it in the neighbourhood well. And that was that. Short and sweet.

Ok so Lokmanya Tilak HAD to create the farce of the ganpati immersion in the pre-independence days, but why on earth are we still even attempting to celebrate what is only a political performance, albeit one that has smoothly ingrained itself as proper tradition as pretty much all things go nowadays in this country? I think I’ve answered that one rhetorically haven’t I?

All I know is that this fucking festival has left me in dread. Fearing the drunk mad mob dancing in front of the trucks, fearing the traffic jams, fearing the rising toxicity of the water with silver and neon coloured 50 foot ganesha’s happily sinking into an already fucked up sea, fearing the wrath of the god of prosperity that any pseudo confused agnostic idiot like me would…sigh

Labyrinth

2007-09-06T05:51:00.000-04:00

My feet sweat
So do my palms
tiny rivulets
that make fortune tellers wince.

No,
they don’t trickle,
they are
organized
puddles of destiny.

Miles from nowhere

2007-08-30T02:11:00.000-04:00

Miles, can walk along the
line,
even if he’s drunk as hell.

The line is a mental map
which he can scratch and tell.

He’s a listless, hopeless wanderer
Does that ring a bell?

Did you think I couldn’t rhyme?
Well, you’re thinking real swell.

Meet me in Cognito baby..

2007-08-29T00:53:00.000-04:00

Oh I don’t want to be me right now. I sit on two pieces of my heart that I will have to give up in a week. A house that gave me a sense of myself. That is the most impractical dysfunctional place on this mad earth…but that I love…because it had the one thing all other houses I saw lacked – Soul. And a work place that is suddenly a cottage of ‘perpetual succour’, an errant sibling that you can’t help but love unconditionally.

I want to not exist…… to not make these decisions…I want to go… in..cognito

Meet me in Cognito baby
In Cognito we’ll have nothing to hide
Let’s go in Cognito honey
And let the world believe that we’ve died.

Meet me in Cognito baby
There are no decisions taken there
The best thing about life in Cognito baby
Is that everybody’s nobody there.

If you won’t meet me in Cognito
Baby, I’m apt to go out of my head
But if you really cant handle incognito baby
Meet me in Absentia instead….(sigh)

"Though lovers be lost, love shalt not and death shall have no dominion". And other alchohol induced thoughts

2007-08-14T05:51:00.000-04:00

Do the ghosts of your past ever come back to haunt you? Do they ever leave? Can you safely define a moment in time where you could say that you were truly free of everything that had ensued in your life? Totally free of feeling for your past?

The past week has been … strange to say the least. Almost ominous. Of what though, is the question racing through my mind. The past few days I have received emails, sms’s, phone calls and offline chat messages from every single lover that I have ever had. And though the list isn’t very long, it isn’t short enough to pass off as coincidence either. While some of them remain as good friends and chatting with them is a pleasant experience and one that doesn’t linger. Some of them leave you emotionally vapid. I got all sweaty palmed and my heart raced in that interminable speed that only love can make it.

Does love ever leave you? It almost feels like every relationship creates its own little schema in our memory maps. An eternal one.. It never ceases to amaze me though that every time I’ve loved and lost; I am so sure that I will never be able to feel as deeply as I did ever again. And I’ve always surprised myself.. Love never seems to dull with occasion. It’s always new. Always different. Always exciting. The mnemonics and the semantics of every love are vastly variant (though my behavioral patterns are always the same. Sigh). And maybe that’s why it hits you so hard every time a love revisits. Each love has its own little schema. Its own little space in the chaotic gibberish of your head.

Anyway maybe this overload of love has been because of excessive alcohol intake this week. I am the friendliest person under the influence (which is why I partake so seldomly). But Alcohol is great. And especially so when you consume it at a time in your life when you largely feel at peace with yourself. Alcohol has the wonderful quality of making your life seem edited. If you’re too drunk, then it’s like a CD skipping and you have absolutely no memory of what happens in between the things you do remember. But if you’re pleasantly high like I have mostly been, life seems to blissfully float and take flight in a warm haze, where thought, memory and movement unite placidly, like petals blown on the surface of a frictionless frozen pool.

I was rudely pulled out of the aforesaid pool last night though by pesky nakabandi baksheesh asking pandu’s and a rather unsuccessful act of having a non slurring conversation with my prudent mother when asked if I had had anything to drink. Well. You win some you lose some right?

Cult Copy Paste

2007-08-11T07:50:00.000-04:00

In the spirit of a certain screenplay I’m attempting to write I couldn’t help but ponder over the Indian obsession with plagiarism. Except it’s really not plagiarism you see. The word means nothing in the Indian context. While the music industry slyly smirks and says ‘inspiration’ the film industry stands on the road scratches its balls and says ‘Original’. Take for instance the recently released ‘Naqaab’. A free ticket and amiable company made me quite ready to tolerate any crap thrown my way. Imagine my surprise then when I came out of the theatre feeling slightly paisa vasool. While my friend and I kept looking at each other at every turn when the film surprised us with its ingenuity, we marveled at what we thought was Indian cinemas first ever attempt at a convincing O’Henry. Imagine our disappointment then when the next days paper carry’s a story on how Naqaab is a frame by frame rip off of Gael Garcia Bernal’s cult film ‘Dot the I’. Infact, just look at this month’s movie list – Partner (Hitch), Hey Baby (Three men & a Baby) and CASH (Oceans Eleven).

At a play last week, one that I had wanted to watch for years – Makarand Deshpande’s ‘Saa hi Besuraa’, I walked in expecting magic. Though the play was in most senses of the word original, you couldn’t help but realize that you’d seen pretty much everything that was ensuing on stage. And for a play that had absolutely no coherence and simply carried through by sheer acting brilliance, I was entertained, but begrudgingly.

Even my own screenplay makes me stand in a corner and look at it suspiciously. I’m so sure that everything I’ve written has happened somewhere else. That someone somewhere has already said the words that are coming out of my poor protagonists mouth! The film company that my firm has started is looking at doing remakes, or Indian adaptations of cult films like Starsky and Hutch and a screen adaptation of a famous Indian play. While they are good ideas for entertaining films, I can’t help but wonder why a country as large and diverse as ours can’t seem to come up with anything remotely original. Or isn’t brave enough to attempt anything deviant. And even when we do, like say the just released ‘Bow Barracks forever’ – a startlingly real, familiar and original story, they fuck up in the filmmaking process and have a loose, tacky, badly edited excuse for a film.

I know hundreds of young people who are bright and enthusiastic and who walk around with 150 pages of bound script and narrate their stories with such passion and energy. But if you look closely, all the stories are simply rehashes of their favorite films. While one script has set Apocalyse Now in Sri Lanka’s 1987 Jaffna disaster, another has set Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind in elite South Mumbai. Why even our much prided Oscar entry ‘Rang De Basanti’ was scripted with the dear director watching every frame of Albanian cult classic ‘Ararat’.

I don’t really remember the last truly original film I saw. Maybe Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi or Mr & Mrs Iyer - films that critics lauded but that bombed at the box office. Can Indian cinema ever successfully churn out authentic Indian stories that are intelligent, thought provoking and yet entertaining? Can the gaudy randyness of item numbers and pervy comic relief side tracks finally give way to sensual erotica and subtle satire that is not only comprehended but appreciated? Will Indian audiences ever be open to the age of the dysfunctional family satire that the rest of the world thrives on? Will the Indian subcontinent be confident enough in itself to get as self deprecating and facetious as its former invaders and colonizers? And can we atleast learn from the Americans not to take our political system so seriously. While a nationally defaming and politically controversial documentary (SICKO) has been welcomed with open arms there, a film that even suggested the more humane side to the father of the nation is in the process of being banned here. Tsk tsk.

(P.S - all views are subject to my limited parochial opinion)

Sadma ' the great sorrow'

2007-08-08T05:05:00.000-04:00

Picture Kamal Hassan wearing an aluminium pot and doing a monkey dance to a post amnesiac Sridevi just before she had got her new nose. Remember how your throat choked and your eyes welled up?Just when I thought my week couldn’t get any worse, I go and lose my phone. Now losing a phone these days is not like it was say.. three years ago; when I last lost my phone.
Three years ago I never had important clients waiting for urgent revertals, three years ago my phone wasn’t involved in multicrore deals (um it still isn’t, but I’m close), three years ago I had 50 names in my contact list and till earlier this week, I had 1100!! Imagine that.
There are a lot of angles to this loss. I’ll get to them though after I finish abusing the unscrupulous auto fucker who didn’t return my phone. Now Autofucker (as he is best christened), will probably make close to 4 grand when he sells my phone. Before that Autofucker will also be very tickled when he sees my videos and pictures. Especially precious kissing snap of me and ex (that was the only pic I ever had of him, another fucker, but more of that later). Why don’t they ever return phones? If I was autofucker, I would have been smarter. I would have held the phone for ransom and demanded double. Then I would have met me in a dark alley in an anorak and have the cash dropped off in an abandoned post box and threatened to delete all numbers if the police was contacted. See that’s a more profitable thing to do and honestly apart from the 8 odd grand, no one really gets hurt. This way, the damage caused is so palpable. My whole life was on that phone. I used it like a lifeline. Right from Numbers, to writing poetry to bank account numbers to do to lists to birthdays to funeral dates. Do they realize that phones these days are like…like arms?!. Honestly, the period between losing my phone and till a colleague gave me a temp replacement was like stunned limbo. Like a part of me had died. It was like bereavement. Like that unhappy feeling of doom after a break up. I actually thought about my phone, like a person, like wondering what it was doing right now, wondering if my Chinese goodluck charm thingy was still dangling from it, wondering how unhappy it must be in the dirty pocket of autofucker.

I curse Autofucker. I smite him with a trillion Chickun guniya infected mosquitos.

Ok now that that’s done let me give you an estimation of the damage and also the strange realization that there is still one advantage in losing ALL the numbers on your phone..

a) I have to buy a new phone and I’m broke
b) I had to beg my mother to buy me a phone
c) To teach me a lesson my mother has bought me the cheapest most socially repressed phone in the market.
d) My memory is so bad that I don’t even know best friends number so now I have to wait for people to call. And if no one does it will be greatest test of how popular I am.
e) For the next six months I will have to say “can you send me the number please, I lost my phone and all my numbers”.
f) I have to send out generic email to people with above sentence and I know that no one will reply because in the past I never have.
g) I will have to call ask me services to update all my lifelines like Pvr, Adlabs, Cinemax, Bamboo shoot, Dominoes etc and suffer long drawn sentences like’ Yes Mr Kavita I can definitely help you with the same, can I before that first explain you the merits of our two discount schemes, if you buy one packet of mother diary milk, three cows will die in Doddigunta and two cubes of cheese free Mr kavita”
h) My phone bill over the next month will double because I will have to make atleast five calls to get a number that I already had.
i) I had some of the most coveted numbers in Bollywood on my phone. I mean my contact list started with Aamir for crying out loud dude.

I’m sure this list will keep growing everyday. Anyone who has experienced a loss of this magnitude will understand that. But I realized this evening as I was keying in work numbers from my outlook inbox that there was one bittersweet reason why losing my precious pet might do me a good turn. Now, I will never have to face the extreme embarrassment of DD.
DD = (Drunken Dialing); or “dialing an ex lover in a state of inebriation and muttering lewdly in the insane assumption that you are turning the person on and he will come running back to you, madly in love, with arms wide open”.

Yes. No more DD for me. ;)

And the latest in the How to series....

2007-07-21T06:27:00.000-04:00

1) How to spend hard earned money with ease every night

Get out of your house. Don’t bother changing from Pyjamas and torn t-shirt. Hail auto and say – ‘Lokhandwala Market’

Reach market and pay auto man 25 rupees. Get into narrow gully between thrift store and fake bags store. Look at both flanking stores and see Chinese mosquito racket. Man displays how to use it by waving it around school of mosquitoes hovering on top of your head. You hear a very satisfying ‘Scrrsssss’. Many Scrrssses in fact and when man lowers racket you see 100 singed pests. Torn with glee you immediately purchase – Rs 100.

Then look at adjoining Fake bags store. Juicy Couture fake looks almost real. On closer examination Couture is spelt Cowtur. But how does it matter. Color composition and finishing is commendable. Bargain from 600 down to 350.

Enter narrow gully and try to avoid export reject store on left but mysterious force will suck you in. See new designs up. Some GAP, some Banana Republic, some Old Navy, even a MANGO tucked in somewhere. It’s irresistible. Cupboard at home keeps falling over because of overflow of clothes that are never worn, but you know you have nothing to wear. Clothes are priced at 150. Oh joy you say and pick up a heap. When final cost hits 2 grand, stand back and wonder. Say to yourself that you will throw away all old clothes and swear that you will never buy another piece of cloth for as long as you live. Secretly know you are safe in oath as piece of cloth and mango dress are two very different things.

Continue walking down gully, keep eyes tightly shut as you pass foreign fake cosmetics store. Anyway last time, Le Prairie fake gave you eczema attack.

Reach destination – Pirated DVD hire store. Enter and be warmly welcomed. They see you here every night. You are family. Pick up one intelligent movie – City of Man (sequel to City of God) and one rubbish time pass movie – My super ex girlfriend, to facilitate sleep (because you have to finish both DVD’s in the night, man will knock on your door at 10 am to retrieve DVD’s). DVD hire for two is 200 rupees.

Get out of DVD store and close eyes tightly and run back down gully and jump into incoming auto and say ‘chaar bangla’. Get out at home – pay 25 rupees.

Total cost : Rs 2700. Look on face when checking bank balance next morning : Priceless

2) How to Cook (very well)(and very fast)

Put on both burners of stove simultaneously.

Take two equal sized 20 cm deep steel barthans filled with water and place them on both burners.

Let water reach boiling point.

Gingerly unpack and place MTR ready to eat Lemon Rice in one bubbling vat and MTR ready to eat Bhindi Masala in other bubbling vat.

Cover vats with steel plates.

Wait five minutes.

If you forget to switch off stove while attending excitable phone call, smell of gas from leaking stove after water has bubbled and put out fire will call for your attention.

Hurry to stove and turn off gas and open windows.

Take out packs from Boiling water and cut open. Take plates that were used to cover boiling water, as they are only two plates you possess and unload food onto it.

Serve Hot.

Preparation Time : 10 Minutes. Serves : One very lazy person

A most likely inane post in which we ramble on about sex and its misgivings (which are many)

2007-07-18T06:50:00.000-04:00

I think about sex a lot. It’s my favorite pastime. I think about it not always in the obvious sense of the act. But more so in the semantics of it. (Honest) So here’s a thought:

Freud divided the human life span into five stages – Oral, Anal, Genital, Latent and Sexual. They are simple enough. But for the uninitiated, I will expostulate.

The Oral Stage (ages 0 – 2 yrs) : in this phase of life, an infant gains dexterity of his oral faculties. They are his only means of understanding objects around him and he experiences pleasure through the use of this faculty. (means the little bugger will put everything in his mouth. Little sucker rather)

The Anal Stage (ages 3 – 4yrs) : in this phase of life, the toddler gains control of his anal faculties and derives pleasure from this control (getting toilet trained)

The Genital Stage (ages 4-6 yrs) : in this phase the young adult becomes aware of his/her genitals and will be able to comprehend its uses (sex ed here we come!)

The Latent Stage (ages 7 – puberty) : in this phase of life, the young adult has gained complete control of his manual faculties and begins to explore the world around him through sight, sound & touch. It is the most creative and intelligent period in the human life span. (at this stage you get to know if you’re going to be a billionaire artist or a blubbering idiot)

And finally,

The Sexual Stage (ages puberty – death) : in this phase the individual indulges in sexual intercourse with members of the opposite sex (or same sex, Freud you homophobe) and derives pleasure through mutual gratification.

Freud stopped there, but this is where Prof. Coo will make a further classification. Virginity and erm..Non Virginity. I don’t know if this holds good for men, but nothing is quite as cataclysmic in a woman’s sexual maturity as this distinction.

I got to thinking about this because of a conversation I had with a friend last week. Now, this friend has largely been living in the latent phase. The whole men and sex issues have never reared their ugly heads in her life. While I cribbed and whined about men, she listened sympathetically but really wondered what the fuss was all about. Until now, I think. She narrated an incident that had completely flummoxed her. She had got talking with a married colleague of hers who was going through a divorce. It apparently was a bitter one at that and the colleague and her to be ex were barely on talking terms and fighting over custody of their five year old. Anyway, one day my friend and her colleague were going on an outstation trip and in the cab to the station, the colleague gets an sms from the husband, which (I don’t know why), she shows my friend. It says “if you knew you were leaving on a later train, we could have had some candy ;)”.

My friend looks at her confused. ‘What? What does that mean”

The colleague blushes “Candy…um…our private word for you know what”

“Oh…’ says my friend uncomfortably.

“How…how can people sleep with each other when they’re barely talking to each other….when they don’t even like each other anymore?” she asked me exasperated.

“Um…because they can… I guess. Because it’s something they’ve done before. Because it’s just sex man” I say.

“What do you mean its just sex? I mean its Sex! It’s making love!” she says maddened.

“No man, its sex. It’s a purely self indulgent act. An itch that needs to be scratched. A hunger that needs to be fed in their case. No more, no less” I say quite irritated.

“ I don’t know…I know I haven’t experienced it yet…but it seems so…so animalistic…” she sighed.

Her virginal comment got me wondering. I thought about the time of yore. When I was innocent. When I was pure. Untainted. A delicate d’jore.

Life really was extremely different, diffident almost as a virgin. It was so easy to be surprised. It was so easy to be shocked. The wonderment and the extreme joy in recollecting even the brushing of elbows sent you spiraling with ecstacy. I remember going out to this concert with a boy and he stood behind me and put his arms around me and I knew no greater joy in the world. Now, if a boy (sorry, man) does that I worry about whether he really likes me because he isn’t facing me. Does he not want to see my face? Is my face unseeable? Did the morning kiss we shared tick him off? Was the ex better than me in bed?...you get the point…utterly complicated.

Back then, I remember happily staying over at this boy’s place when he said ‘hey why don’t you spend the night’ and I came over with pyjamas and socks and all and I really had no clue that he’d meant something else. Now, if a man so much as shakes my hand differently, I know.

Most importantly, back then, it was so easy to just say NO. If his hands so much as wandered to the lower part of your abdomen, your right hand immediately attained Alien hand syndrome and wacked the daylights out of his head. Stands to reason. You just didn’t miss what you hadn’t yet had. And that exactly was what my friend didn’t quite understand about her ‘colleague still fucking ex husband’ scenario.

What is it about sex that changes everything for a woman. From the way you think to the way you respond to the way you live life to the way people view you. For me it’s simply geographical. In Bombay it’s not even an issue, it’s a given. But in Bangalore, suddenly everything changes like a bad A/C. My ‘status’ hangs on me like a scythe. My friends know but choose to ignore. It’s attained Voldemort like reverence.

How did virginity or lack of become such a moralistic issue in a country that had temples educating local folks on positions of greater ecstacy…how? ! I know some people are raising their hands up maniacally saying ‘AIDS’, ‘Syphilis’, ‘it takes two hands to (get the) clap’ and all of that. But in India it certainly runs deeper. It comes from an egotistical Aryan race of virile men who want purity. Who want goddesses. Who want white nymphets dancing to their tunes in the cosmic bed. And then it comes from years of mothers worrying about catering to that demand. Of ensuring that their burden, their daughter didn’t soil herself, was clean and would make a pure bride to her ‘has probably slept with all the worlds whores and has herpes’ groom. It comes from catering to a double standard.

[And yes, my dear concerned friend who sparked off this post, many men who may be prospective husbands, may see this blog, and I do encourage them to. Because they’ll just have to accept me, psychological warts and all ;)]

Crime and Punishment

2007-07-10T06:18:00.000-04:00

Bombay can make you feel like shit most of the time. But every once in a while it can bestow upon you that mother of all feelings - Smugness.

I was on my way back from town and every time I pass through Mahim, I do something that makes me feel rather smug. If you’re headed from Shivaji Park to Bandra, chances are you’ll have one of two routes. Past Bombay Scottish, you can either go straight (if the roads open) or take the right at Hari Om and slug through Mahim causeway. If you do get a chance to go straight and you’re not excitedly chatting on your cell phone and you happen to look on your left, you would probably notice a line of impoverished roadside eateries. Except no one’s eating. There are just groups and groups of squatters. Thin, emaciated, filthy, sewage and soot covered men, teenagers and boys squatting. Not eating.

Four months back, it had started off simply enough. My mother was visiting and I took her for a mandatory visit to that wonderful edifice of religious commercialization – Siddhivinayak. On our way back, the squatter road was open and jammed. Jammed for so long that I finished chatting excitedly on my cell phone and proceeded to look on my left. And then I saw them.

I can’t remember who had told me about the phenomenon. But at that moment I remembered it well. Ten rupees for a plate of food. For a plate of rice, roti and dal. I motioned to my mother, pointed in their direction and passed on the story. She was amazed. She suddenly felt what every Mumbaikar has felt when they hear the story. Goose pimple pride.

My mother proceeded to rake her bag around searching for money. She pulled out a tenner and looked my way. I looked at her disparagingly and bestowing on her a smile that a royal would to a waving plebian, I took out a 500 note and held it out of the window. A man materialized. Taking the note out of my hand, he screamed across the road ‘Pachaas’ and was gone.

Abdina?’ my mother looked puzzled.

’50 people amma. 50 people will sleep with a full stomach tonight’ I replied.

The cabbie turned around and smiled at me – “madam aap bahut acche hain”.

I gloated.

Yesterday, I passed through squatter land again. Except I forgot to stop. Somewhere near the signal, I remembered. Battling between whether to stop and call for someone or just keep going because the signal was green (such a rarity no?). I suddenly asked the cabbie to stop and reverse for half the length of the road till the last eatery. I didn’t have to give him an explanation. He knew.

Again I took out another 500 and it was inhaled before my hand got out of the window. As the cabbie shifted to forward gear, he remarked “madam aap bahut acche hain”

The feeling came soon enough. Like liquid heroine driving up a clean embossed vein. It lasted for most of the day.

Until everything went horribly wrong that is.

After a boring trip to the neighbourhood cyber café. Checking mails, checking orkut, sending mails, checking facebook, I trudged past the adjoining McDonalds in an attempt to walk home to make up for missing the gym. I was hungry. As hell. In my fat days, I enjoyed a nice medium strawberry milkshake every evening thinking that one small liquid delight does not a fat woman make. But when I joined the new job and had to work around size zero women in double zero fits (it stopped their circulation but did everything for their circulation, if you know what I mean), I took an active step and eliminated all traces of sweet milky substances. But today was different. Today I was 7 kgs lighter, today I was walking home and could burn off the calories I would consume. Above all, today, I had fed 50 poor people. I was an annadatta. Annapoorna herself. And Goddesses don’t put on weight now do they?

I happily bought my treat and stepped out. Except I was feeling so cosmically blessed and guilt free that I decided I shouldn’t taint my pretty legs. I should take an auto. I slurped with glee and felt the fresh evening breeze relax me. We soon hit the four bungalows/lokhandwala signal. As the auto was slowing down aligning itself in the middle lane, a beggar girl caught a glimpse of me slurping away to glory. I immediately knew she would run up to me. Sure enough in a trice she was hanging onto the railing of my auto. She couldn’t have been older than 7-8.

“Didi milkshake do naa…”

“Nahin”

“Please Didi, subah se kuch nahin khaya didi”

“Nahin”

“Didi, thodi hi baaki hai. Dedo naa Didi”

I was furious by then. My Milkshake. My prized milkshake. And I couldn’t even drink it in peace. Why did I have to give it to this little wretch, who like a zoo monkey had gotten used to the expensive titbits the crowd threw at her and wouldn’t eat anything else. She was tugging furiously at my pants now.

“Kya samajthe ho tum log. Kisi ko khate dekho to uspe toot padthe ho. Logon ko chain se khane bhi nahin dete. Mere paas paise hain ka ye matlab nahin ki main har waqt kuch na kuch deti rahun” I screamed at her with sheer frustration. With repressed anger that I never thought I had. I was close to tears and yanked her vice grip off my pants. The automan looked at me a little taken aback. “aap kya dekh rahen hain, aage chalo” I spat.

I hated that I felt so much hate for this child. I hated that I was so zen and smarmy in the morning and now a wicked witch depriving a child of a few meager sips of milk. I hated that I still refused to give her the milkshake. I hated that I was a hypocrite.

She was scared and stepped off the flanking “thik hai didi, main samajthi hun, gussa mat ho, koi baat nahin, aap hi pi lo…..next time naa didi…?” she waved sadly.

And I hated above all that she didn’t hate me back.

What I thought deeply about today

2007-07-04T02:40:00.000-04:00

So since I have started writing what I think will be a book, we can now safely throw all serious, lucid, verbose, hyperbolic thought out of the window and discuss the more potent, generic issues in life… like what confounded me for most part of today.

Apparently, Maggie Gyllenhal is hot. And not in a weird way. Not in a ‘dude you have sick taste’ way. But in ‘fuck dude I want to do her dude’ way. While I give you a minute to digest that keep reading as I tell you where this wonderful tale starts.

One day I am sitting in an amusement park with my boss. No this is not a weird situation. Not if you hear the whole story it might not be. Amidst the 20 something swings that have weird looking children dressed like a day out in Lokhandwala market and swinging so high it seems possible they’ll start orbiting any minute, the myriad legs part to reveal the reason for our rendezvouz.. High profile, verbal diarrhea infected south Indian superstar is here shooting a film. And we are here to sign a contract. Ho hum. Anyway, you must have digested the Gyllenhal is (egad) hot factor by now so I’ll get to the point. So boss and I are making very arbit conversation to pass the time till superstar finishes his shot. Arbit conversation our firm style is to talk about who’s hot in office and who’s not. So that topic leads to “you know the one chick I find really hot is that chick in um..whats that movie…um…Mona Lisa Smile” boss says.

“What Julia Roberts ah?” I volunteer

No…no… the other girl

“Oh ya…Julia Stiles then’!

No ..no…The other one….

Kirsten Dunst?

No ya…the other one… the one with the actor brother.

Her name is already seated on my tongue. Not tip of or anything. But I can’t say it. I’m incredulous. Finally it tumbles out.

Gyllenhal….Maggie Gyllenhal??!!!!

Yes! That’s the one! She’s hot dude!

(I proceed to feign not fainting)

Part two of this confounding tale took place yesterday. It’s pouring and best friend and his flatmate have decided my house is new theatre hall. We watch a film called ‘Stranger than Fiction’. Brilliant film. Great story, great camera work, great screenplay, great performances, great actors (Will Ferrel, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Queen LAtifa and um. Yeah Maggie Gyllenhal). So basically there’s a lot to talk about when the film gets over and I turn the lights on and both lads look transfixed. Okay the movie was heavy, but this affected stupification I wasn’t expecting. Finally a line escapes best friends lips. :’Fuck she’s hot dude’. Flatmate agrees : ‘yeah dude, she’s fucking hot man’.

“Who Emma Thompson?! “ I ask slightly surprised. Maybe these boys liked their women mature I decided.

“No Dude..what’shername…the other one”

“Um…Queen Latifa?!...dude!” I say. But still willing to accept that maybe it’s the ‘once you go black you never go back’ thing.

“No ya…the other one… the one with the actor brother”

“M..Mag..Maggie Gyllenhal?!!” I say and throw my hands down to break the fall.

This morning I got up angsty. It just couldn’t be. Three men did not hot a woman make! I needed more stats. So I call over another friend (No 4) to watch ‘Happy Endings’ – another Gyllenhall wonder.

Now, No. 4 is gay. He’s into nice girlie boys. The prettier the better. And since Gyllenhall looks like frikking promagnen man, I decide he will be the best judge. I don’t give him the slightest sniff of my grand scheme, after all I want an immediate unbiased opinion. So I’m thinking I’ll wait till the end of the film and casually pose the question. Instead, horror of horrors, Gyllehal makes first frame appearance and no 4 remarks. “Wow she’s hot!”. I control myself for a second and pause frame. There are two women in the frame, so I keep my calm and ask… ‘the girl in the white top?’.

“No Dude…black top….Maggie..Maggie Gyllenhal…that’s her name. She’s Jake Gyllenhal’s sister. If I was into women, I’d be into her dude…dude?…dude?…you ok dude…dude…!!”

TMTP

2007-06-28T05:46:00.000-04:00

Loneliness breeds like rabbits in this city. No, maybe Rats would be a better comparison. Yes. Like Rats. It leaves you gnawing and groveling in the garbage of your mind. Is it any wonder then that a girl left to her own devices with a large(ish) house; turns to a world of virtual reality? Not the Xbox kind (which btw DOES NOT WORK in the landmark in Infinity mall, its not that I didn’t know how to play the goddamn thing), but the Season 1-3 of Grey’s Anatomy, Entourage, Prison Break, LOST, 24, Nip Tuck and the Little Britain kind.

And it’s a lovely world really. Last week I floated around my home and some random meetings thinking I was ‘E’ from Entourage, all busynessy and Jerry Maguiresque. I dressed up all high heels and black and white and slapped my clam shell hard after every phone call. The fact that my real job is also rather Maguiresque helped. Immensely. Picture a line of coke followed by iodex on bread. The first too expensive and imaginary and the second hommade and real and bingo!

This week has also been rather fun. At best friend (who doesn’t read this blog’s) birthday party that took place at my place, I flitted around all thin lipped and sighing at the end of every sentence like Meredith from Grey’s (though after two vodka’s vile, cynical me took over). But the surgeon in me was back all of today as I kept taking work calls in between season 3. I immediately switched to Meredith/Christina (surprising never Izzy) mode. Thank god for space bar = pause function on laptop.

Just finished whatever I had of Grey’s today and I feel so empty. Like my difibrulator thingy was cut off. So amputated. Phantom limb and all.

(and for all you saps still stuck in season two - Meredith decides to date McDreamy and Fin and then she settles on McDreamy (big surprise there), Addison and Derek get divorced, O’Malleys father is admitted with coronary something and the whole hospital finds out about Burke who has a tremor in his hand but keeps conducting operations with Christina’s help, and Izzy and Kerev get back together. So there!)

Now & Then

2007-06-25T08:10:00.000-04:00

Then

Diary Entry : May 7th, 2005

Bunked work today because Blue eyed boy is on set and I’m not talking to him these days. Plus everyone thinks we’re still together so it’s such a pain. Was sitting in my balcony today realizing that the last time I’d had sex was in April. I thought about my options… there was always one opening, there always was. I had unconsciously, subliminally made sure that option existed. My mind then proceeded to moralize. I wondered if contacting old lovers was a good idea. So much baggage, so much ego, so much protocol. But Diamond boy didn’t have any of that. For starters, he wasn’t technically an old lover now was he?

There’s a thin line of course between wondering and replying to a message in the affirmative. I was still wondering minutes before he entered my house. I think I continued to wonder…wondrous oblivion really, even when we started making out while Neo kicked Agent Smiths ass in the background. Somehow if it were Frodo Baggins looking constipated, I might have thought back to an intelligent decision I once made and stopped right there. But with Keanu, I threw caution to the winds, I made risk my bedfellow…and a risky bedfellow he was!

I was seriously attracted to him for the first five minutes that we were at it. I took in the feeling of another human beings lips against mine, the tactility of another body grinding against mine. Five minutes later as my immediate need to be touched was sated, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t remotely turned on by this boy. I literally sighed as he was pulling my pants off realizing that there was a point of no return, and this was it. Plus he seemed so excited; it would be a shame to stop him. I gave into him then like a mother does to her bratty child thinking ‘this is the last time darling… really now!’.

Now

Diary Entry : May 7th, 2007

Fish’s birthday today. Fish is also very pregnant today. She talked about smells and vomiting and was generally very gross. But happy. Yes, she seemed happy.
Tall Actress made Boss and me wait at the coffee shop for an hour and then didn’t turn up, even the Cannes meeting at AA’s house didn’t happen, or I wasn’t invited, the details seem sketchy.

Switchboard in bedroom isn’t working so that means no fan or light. Got terribly scared when it didn’t come on initially thinking that Reliance had cut my connection for non payment, which reminds me have to pay frikking bill tomorrow.

I took a bus today for the first time in a long time back from a meeting in town. A cute college boy wearing an Ipod came and sat next to me. It dawned on me that I haven’t even sat next to anything I’m remotely attracted to in so long, let alone slept with anything (sorry…anyone) in a long time. So I felt quite pleased with the pretty boy’s thigh scraping mine occasionally.

[Sigh]

On Life

2007-06-21T05:13:00.000-04:00

I remember thinking from the time I was 12, that I would die by the time I turned 15. It wasn’t a notion. It was a conviction. I remember telling my grand aunt who I was extremely fond of about it one afternoon at her house in December, a few days before I was to turn 15. She laughed at me and said that the thought was utter nonsense. The problem was she wasn’t one of those jovial loud aunts. She was the somber, subtle, intense kind. So I never really believed her. I waited those last few days with gripping anticipation of my impending doom. On the day of my birthday, I got up expecting to die. The last night I had wept copiously visually simulating what my funeral would be like and worried sick how my mother and sister would take my death. How my friends would collect around my body and offer their last respects… But the day passed on uneventfully. I cut my cake and ate it too. At night I couldn’t sleep. Upset that I was still around. After that day I didn’t feel that certain about my transience anymore.

I did realize very early on that I was largely an unhappy child. Nothing kept me happy for long. Most times I simply belied my stubborn zodiac and exercised tact by pretending to be happy or pleased with a situation. Sometimes it worked, most times it didn’t. You will never find a childhood picture of me smiling or even showing the least interest in anything going on around me. It has always been a dichotomous existence. On one hand I truly believe that disgruntled people like me really shouldn’t have been born. That we should have left way for the happy babies, the happy people. And on the other hand, I see suicide as a palpable crime. As utter cowardice. So I’m constantly in an impasse. I’m constantly irked by my very existence and my not being able to do anything about it.

A few months back the question of my mortality presented itself again. I was traveling with my celebrity client. We were flying from Dehradun back to Delhi in a bomber jet. A Deccan VTR. The aircraft looked and felt extremely dodgy and we were its only occupants. As the engine whirred to life outside and I was just planning on starting to think about whether this would be my last journey, my client leaned into me and said “Are you scared of death?” Though I smiled and retorted with a firm ‘hell no’, he had got me thinking. Was that my whole predicament? My whole peeve with life? That I was ultimately so scared of death that I had dressed it up as morbid fascination instead? Had my sister been right all along? Had my poems that glorified death and pathos and loss all meant the same thing? Fear? I’m not too sure if I still know the answer to that question. It’s a conflicting thought. Whenever I attempt to answer it I sound like I have hair on my tongue. Unintelligible and silly.

Nowadays though, apart from the general sense of doom that I carry with me, my only thoughts on death are in my auto rides to the office and back. Instead of holding both railings and saying sri ram jayam in an 108 loop like any good Brahmin girl, I deal with the auto like a virtual video game screaming in my head ‘yeah right, kill me, motherfucker, lets die together’, ‘that’s it, crash into the divider and lets sever our necks together’.

It seems to be working like reverse psychology though because my subliminal incantations on the contrary sharpen the automans reflexes and I just keep having a series of near death experiences….minus the light at the end of the tunnel that is.

The small but undeniable role of drugs in modern fiction

2007-05-30T02:48:00.002-04:00

Drugs are an area for profitable enquiry, especially when you’re dealing with fiction writing. Right from Beat writers like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac to arbit coming of age Pakistani authors like Mohsin Hamid, the roll and twist of a heady joint is evident, whether in practice or perception. Freud was on Cocaine, Coleridge was on opium and two women with the same name, why even Lewis Carrol put Alice in the wonderland of Fly Agaric (a potent mushroom), but none of them particularly wrote of what had caused all the inspiration. While production, trafficking and racketeering of narcotics, hallucinogens and stimulants have shaped some of the eras most fundamental philosophies and provided much of its economic wealth, authors and writers who wrote under its influence or wrote about the effect of drugs seemed to have done equally well with themselves.

Take the ‘beats’ for instance. The 'Beat' generation, a phrase coined in 1951 by Kerouac consisted of a set of dope heads who took road trips looking for odd jobs, quickies and kicks and churning out in the bargain some of the best American literature and poetry. But why was it such a big deal? Well, it turned out to be extremely reactive when faced with forces such as Vietnam, hippie culture, eighties consumerism and so on. In fact, Jim Morrison summed it up quite tritely "I'll tell you bout Texas radio and the big beat, wandering the western dream". That’s what it was ‘The Western Dream ’. American Pie with a cherry on top.
Almost all the beats wrote under the dictation of some drug. Some of the best beat books like Kerouac’s 'On the Road' and Burroughs 'Junky' were written under the heady influence of Morphine and Cocaine. Hallucinogens like these produced visionary states, a sort of cleansing and spacing of the mind to allow abstract thought, 'Junky' incidentally being one in a series of novels recounting the perils and ecstasies of drug addiction.

The beats of course took all the credit. They theorized and concocted terminologies; the 'spontaneity' technique of writing that hailed the beat generation was Kerouac's personal creation. There was also a deformation of the senses that went along with it and lead to the most radical and rigorously adhered to theme used by the beats of 'spiritual investigation', this again much to their delight sparked off a Buddhist connection where they claimed, writing exuded the archaic shamanic style of Zen non-attachment and irreverent modern wit, as seen in Kerouac’s 'Dharma Bums'. In fact books written on cannabis had an elaborate marijuana openness to them, so we have Doctor Sax, a daytime football coach and night-time bogeyman crafted by Kerouac.

So while the beats grew their pot and smoked it too, other writers like Irvine Welsh experimented on and off and thereby wrote strictly of the experiences under acid and drugs. Welsh though presented an nauseating picture, of all the withdrawal, filth, turd, and every other form of excrement that goes along with the addiction to hard core acid. Welsh did get tiresome though. Acid trips seem to have the same symptoms all the time. But that’s where Welsh steps in as a cult writer – he spices up his narratives with typical Irish problems of unemployment, homosexuality (phobic, of course), gang rape and voila! His books are almost always bestsellers, some even becoming critically acclaimed movies. His books are easily identifiable, look at the titles – Marabou Stork Nightmares, Filth, Ecstasy, Porn, Acid house and the like.

In April 1995, a not so young anymore American was released from Terre Haute – America’s toughest penitentiary after serving seven years of a twenty five year sentence for drug trafficking and promotion. Without losing heart or time the man in question – Howards Marks kept himself busy and steadily wealthy by writing about (and in the process continuing to promote) in the best way possible, the very stuff that landed him in trouble in the first place. His autobiography smugly titled ‘Mr Nice’ was an instant bestseller not to mention having indirectly raised the sales of cannabis by a rocking 52 percent after its release.
Realizing that he was getting away with everything in the name of popular fiction, Marks went one step ahead and published a tape of all his nefarious activities – Howard Marks : A Video Diary. In 1997, Howard even stood in the UK general election on behalf of the Legalize Cannabis Party. And his life continues to be in a marijuana state of transcendental bliss with his second best-seller ‘Dope Stories’ released in November 2001. Howard even has songs written about him and dabbles in DJing and remixing more than just music on the side...

‘Moth smoke’ written by Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid, is a sensitive look at Pakistani upper middle class decadence. The book is refreshing, in the sense that for starters, its not about cross border terrorism and that it suddenly shows a human side to a society that has always appeared to us Indians as turban clad, gun wielding barbarians. That we all lead such similar, desperate and frustrated lives, on either side of the border makes the book all the more endearing. The story line is simple enough, a cocaine addicted, horny hack writer desperately trying to lay his best friends wife. That he does get laid, OD’s and dies in the process is presumably the twist in the tale. I just finished reading Hamids’ next after a seven year hiatus (how do these writers survive?) – 'The Reluctant fundamentalist'. This one was sober. Like he had been in rehab in the interim. It had structure, was concise, crisp and compelling.

I've encountered potheads in every stage of my life. In college they were the cool ones. They came into class dazed and confused. (um actually at the time we all were so it didnt quite matter). But they were the intelligentsia. They were the writers, the cul team, the lit team.
When I started working though, it was a whole different equation. The Potheads were now like old army generals with a bad case of shell shock. They were slow on the uptake and didnt take to team work very well. They still spounted profundity from time to time. But it was too sporadic for anyone to take them seriously anymore.

So they all did it and wrote under its influence or didn’t do too much of it (the liars) and just wrote a lot about it. The bottom line being that though no one expressly impresses the use of drugs as an assistant or catalyst in churning some great modern fiction, all we’re saying is that if you are an extant druggie, or better yet a druggy cum writer (that classic combo), you could very well be writhing with laughter all the way to your neighborhood ATM.

Funny that I can’t seem to put my finger on any famous Indian writers on dope or acid. There’s Arundhati Roy and the more recent Mizz Desai. Though on second thoughts, in their case the whole booker jury must’ve been on something.

Sex and the Stupids

2007-05-29T02:25:00.000-04:00

There are six women in my office right now. All of us are single. The estrogen levels are threatening to pour over our seventh floor balcony, but its still quite fun. We’re all in our early twenties, we’re all pretty adept in the promiscuity department and we’re all looking out for love. And there’s the rub. We’ve all played the ‘don’t worry even I’m in it for the sex’ lines on men and we’ve all realized we’re hopelessly in love by the end of the week.

Honestly, what is it with the female sex? Why are we all evolved and detached in the beginning and groveling towards the end of a relationship? I’d read somewhere that it was ‘oxytocin’ or the ‘trust hormone’, released during orgasm in both the sexes that is the culprit. The hormone makes a couple grow to love and trust each other and thereby ensure procreation. On the Darwinian level, since the human child has one of the longest gestation periods among mammals and probably the longest nesting period, it is cardinal that the parents stay together. Oxytocin is therefore dubiously dubbed ‘the love hormone’. Research shows that people with higher levels of oxytocin are more susceptible to committed relationships than others. ‘Susceptible’ yes, that was the operative word.

I re-saw 'Before Sunrise' and 'Before Sunset' – Richard Linklaters’ cult romantic films starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy back to back last night and the films have left me in an emotional tizzy. Love is never something I can safely define. It’s like taking Foucault’s pendulum off the shelf, reading it for the 14th time and putting it back up where it seems best – looking wise and collecting dust. But it’s a feeling you can always recollect. Almost all love save for maternal is in retrospect. There is probably only one person I can hesitantly say I was in love with. If love means he left a gaping hole in my sternum when he left. Either that, or my oxytocin levels were off the richter at the time. I’m not too sure.

But, answer me this… if both the male and the female release the same hormone, why aren’t their reactions to the relationship the same? I’m obviously not talking about cases where the guy is a philandering prick or where the woman calls mummy to buy the mangalsutra in the midst of a post coital cuddle. I’m talking about when everything’s there – when there’s attraction and chemistry and conversation and great sex. Why do most men still run away? Why do they rarely fall in love? Why are they just not that into you? Why do men have sex like ….Men??!! Is there some other esoteric endocrinal secretion that counteracts the effects of Oxytocin? Or is it simply like Samantha put it to Carrie –

“Why do dogs lick their balls and men cheat?

“Because they can!!”

2007-05-24T08:22:00.000-04:00

There is method to this madness
like the sane in-sane
there is love in bondage
a tortured refrain

Does the heart yearn or the soul
Is life so prosaic
From moment to moment we pose
Like some ritual archaic

Love must be the answer
An accentuated heartbeat no less
Lust must be the cancer
That eats and feeds and lives...

why worry wanton wart?

2007-05-16T10:58:00.000-04:00

Of late I’ve stopped reading books of any intellectual significance. Its complete sacrilege as far as my reading choices go. See, I was the type that you wouldn’t even catch reading commercially intelligent books like Catch 22 or Paulo Coelho. I’d have ‘Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch’ or ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ positioned in my lap. I was that pig headed a pedantic snob. Somehow over the last few years though, maybe because of the lack of time when I was on shoots or maybe because you felt it was time to experience life rather than read about it, the erudition slipped out of my hand and started collecting dust on a forgotten shelf.

I do believe though, that the city got to me. How can you possibly attempt a cerebral moment when most of your life is mired in survival. Worrying. That’s the symptom of Survival Disease.

Worrying about the rent, worrying about the deposit, worrying about reaching work on time, worrying about who you’ll hang out with after work, worrying about where to order food from, worrying about the carcinogens in the Maggi you have practically every night, worrying about work deadlines, worrying that you’re not doing anything about those deadlines, worrying about getting sacked, worrying about acne, worrying about too many men, worrying about no men, worrying about delayed periods, worrying about why he didn’t call, worrying about what to wear to poison tonight, worrying about not looking too dressed up for Toto’s, worrying about the taxi driver taking you to a dark alley at 3 am and raping you, worry about the auto driver killing you in peak hour traffic, worrying about worrying.

Somehow life didn’t start off like this. It had a house and parents and siblings and packed lunch and cheap auto rides and movies for 25 rupees.

So now when I step into the Crossword on Turner road, I read the backs of books very intensely. Words like ‘single’, ‘big city’, ‘sex’, ‘unrequited love’ jump up at me. I thrive on books that mirror my life. I know that it’s a silly thing to do.. How can seeing someone in the same situation; change or even mildly entertain you? But it does.

You read about another single, attractive, 20 something, workaholic girl in a big city and it warms your heart in a way nothing else does. Just the knowledge that this, is ok, is experienced by many before you and will be experienced by many after. That you’re not committing some mortal sin by staying away from the parental coop, and doing naughty things with boys and not getting married, and feeling deceptively full…this…your life…is OK!

Main Hoon Naa...

2007-05-13T04:37:00.000-04:00

I found myself in Filmistan today after almost two years. For the uninitiated, Filmistan, as the name suggests –is a film studio. One of the oldest infact; and the most decrepit. But it has a quaint, surreal feel to it unlike any other studio. Maybe it’s the moss covered fountain in the middle of what I think is supposed to be a garden. Maybe it’s the ferris wheel shaped panchayat baithak on which drivers, lightmen and spot boys sit around and exchange some of the most coveted information in Bollywood; or maybe it’s just the 25 foot tree at the entrance that has instead of what you thought were large brown leaves – an inflorescence of Fruit Bats! Yes Bats! Hundreds of the leathery, hives inspiring buggers just hanging there like leaves until dark. And just about wrap time, most crew members will come out of the six studio’s surrounding it to watch the tree literally; come alive.

Filmistan is also super nostalgic for me. Some of the largest drama’s of my personal life of two years ago have been staged here. My big fight with the big director, my realizing I was besotted with those blue eyes I stared into one ridiculously rainy day while standing under the awning of studio 4, my realizing I had been forgotten when my blue eyed boy said he would like to end ‘us’ and later feeling quite stupid that I had taken a child so seriously. And such fun times too like throwing canteen khichdi and maaza on each other (err..yes this was fun at the time, don’t ask me why). I really do miss my filmy days. Endless cups of milky tea, running in and out of vanity’s, insanely incoherent walkie talkie conversations and just the unbeatable feeling that we were creating something cataclysmic (and we very well did!)

Anyway on this particular visit, I realized I wanted to jump Shahrukh Khan. See, I never particularly liked this man. I still think he’s a horrid ham artist. But why the fuck is he getting hotter as he gets older. He was oozing sex on the set today and all us women were very happily swimming in it. He has the sexiest hair cut, even better I have to admit than Mcdreamy’s, he’s realized that his collar bone is the most do-able part of his anatomy and he shows it off like his life depends on it and then there are his buns. And are they swell. Swell little bunny buns.

During lunch we sat around together and while my AA (almost actress) cribbed about the pimple on her cheek and Shahrukh generally ignored her, puffing on the cancer stick that has never really left his hand since he gained manual dexterity as an infant. (though I did notice that he never inhales very deeply, and yes, I was sitting that close to him), I got the feeling of being in the presence of someone really magnanimous. The pride of his stance, the slender lean muscularity of his arms and shoulders, the failure of his garments to cloak his body in a normal clothing sort of way but in a satin thrown on sculpted marble way…. He was utterly detached, looking deep into your eyes when you spoke to him, but yet in a world of his own, like he was struggling against a current that pulled him within himself. Even my poor AA was left utterly star struck and giggled and perspired like a pimply teenager during the almost kissing scene.

Though I am one of those rare cases in the film fraternity that hates hugging people, I conceded this time as Shahrukh did his ritualistic team hugging exercise. The seconds before the hug are my fondest moments. For the next second I was transported to the curb outside the ITC factory near Cox town railway line. Never fall in love with a chain smoker folks. Swell buns and all.

‘There’s a killer on the road, his brain is squirming like A Toad’

2007-05-11T05:40:00.000-04:00

I hate the fucking chaar bangla signal. That behenchod junction between where Andheri stops and Juhu begins. It’s the bane of my life. My whole world revolves around how long I will take to clear that signal. And that’s the dichotomy. It’s a tricky fucker that signal. See, if you leave at 9 am, you’ll breeze through it, there will be like 4 cars and 3 autos lined up and it’s just a 60 second wait. But then once you hit the Marriott, the 8:30 traffic brigade is still moving like a sloth on valium towards Bandra and you get stupidly late. Then alternatively if I leave at 9:15, I’m stuck at the signal for at least 25 minutes. 25 MINUTES! Can you imagine what all people can do in 25 minutes! People can make babies in 25 Minutes, create life itself. Instead, I’m stuck roasting in a black leather roof, trying to avoid paan projectile and listening to the same 10 songs on my walkman phone (which I do love) over and over again.

And then there are the auto men…no amount of calling the perverts ‘bhaiyya, chacha’ etc will stop them from positioning the rear view so that they have a clear view of your torso and watch your breasts undergo painful jolts as they maneuver the smooth parts of the road and go exactly over the pot holes and khaddas. Some of the pricks will even give you a sympathetic smile when you wince after a particularly terrible jolt.

The city changes you so much that often you don’t see it coming. Like last night on the way to the Metro premiere, the auto man was a complete anomaly. He was trying to avoid the khaddas, wasn’t veering knee scrapingly close to the other auto’s, wasn’t driving the auto like a Hayabusa, wasn’t spitting and cursing, you get the drift…he was totally sane. And it irritated me like hell. I wanted to hit him on the head. I’ve gotten so used to my crude, pervy automen. I have become his ally. When we come onto a main road from an anterior road, (breaking the signal of course) and get stuck between the signals and cause general mayhem for the next ten minutes, I take the side of my automan and snarl at the main road traffic. When my maniac automan knocks down an innocent pedestrian because he practically goes onto the sidewalk to go ahead of a bus in front of us, I warmly join in in his “Choothia, dekh ke chal be, ayy ayy chal bose Dk, maa ki chooth”. So when I got dropped off at PVR, I cursed the automan in English for making me 2 minutes late, and walked into the lukewarm premiere of yet another (poor) commentary on the sad state that my city of dreams is in.

Why Blog when you can..um...write?

2007-05-09T01:59:00.000-04:00

I should have started this blog ages ago. It should have been born four years back when I actually moved to Bombay. My life had all the spice that your average blog needs back then. Sex, drama, loathing, passion, intellectual stimulation and most hallowed – Angst. Right now there is nothing – zilch. Why blog then? Well in truth, dare I say in sooth, life has slowed down. Slowed down so fast. And the book that has been churning in my belly, rising up and down like ugly bile and getting caught in my throat like an uncomfortable lump, simply refuses to pour itself out onto a blank screen. And that’s why I blog. Blog in the hope that no one will read this, in the hope that everyone will and I’ll get a corpulent signing amount from Faber& Faber, in the hope that this new angst – the kind where the city has got to you so much that you don’t recognize yourself anymore because you’re so besotted with it you cant see right from wrong, this angst…finds its peace. Amen

When your not waltzing Matunga, you’re pretty much living it up in Bandra

2007-05-08T09:39:00.000-04:00

Bandra has the amazing quality of making you feel rather important, like you are bang in the middle of it all. "I'm in Bandra". One single phrase meant so many things if you said it to a stranger. It could either mean that you're very wealthy and can afford to live there. It can mean that though you are not wealthy, somewhere somehow your parents are and they have funded the insane deposit to your 150 sq feet flat with the bathroom in which you can fit a two year old's bum. It sometimes can mean that you're not wealthy at all and are sharing a one hall kitchen in Chuim Village near Lilavati with four other struggling models, but will still mean that atleast your social life is not the cul de sac that is the Andheri Mumbaikars.

I work in Bandra. And I claim ownership to that title like it is going out of fashion "I'm in Bandra, I'm in Bandra, I'm in Bandra". It’s a rhetoric I muttered to anyone, even if I was at home in Andheri. Even if one of my poor fellow Andheri friends called me up to come over to pop tates for a princely meal, I’d still say it ; "I'm in Bandra" Nice and Slow, let the R curl around my tongue and slide down my gullet like honey.

Now, the only time I didn’t say it was when I was in Town.

Ah Town. Elusive, untouchable, desirable, art décor Town.

Bombay to me is very simply defined in biblical terms - North Bombay is Hell, Bandra is Purgatory and Town is Heaven, the Golden Ages, The Elysian fields themselves. Being in town feels like getting bail out of a truly heinous crime.