Don't Ask, Don't Tell!

"Unless a woman's lips leave a bloody stain on the length of that cigarette, it ought to be impersonal. The concept of Western Imperialism is poison here. Till Death do you part." Perhaps even literally.

And so began a new chapter on my cantankerous clamor for rent, for mediocrity, for a brush against forgotten history, and cigarettes. I found some solace in music-- and yet again I was forced to re-affirm my position as a consumer and not a creator-- all for escape. Advertising was the enemy I had chosen, a genial notice to create new allies. Ironically, I found myself forging a career in it. I had to draw up storyboards for Santoor, a mildly poisonous soap - that I had the misfortune of using to clean up a sleeve of unsolicited puke from the night before, in a hobo friend's home who didn't believe in soap. 

Friends. They were seeking out Naxalite movements in Pune, traveling to encounter Aboriginals in rural Tasmania and making documentaries on alien-loving homo sapiens. Very inspiring people who felt I was particularly talented, yet indisposed to exploring that part of my conscience. I like to think of my contributions to the adventures we had. Riding on the top of a SUV to get some decent shots - when it was moving downhill at a precarious speed, writing a poem when I was stranded atop a particularly jagged rock that had cut me severely over a dirty sea, kissing while being smuggled... It was becoming a time-consuming hobby- collecting these interesting people and incidents.

It has been two years now. And I suspect I have lost my sense of humour.

This is my current frame of mind- What about the gay men raping women in Delhi? They are violated; in fact they probably have it worse. That tiny closet shrinks further. Contemplating on the violence of other circumstances is all good but when my own choices are informed yet badly made, it all adds to that feeling of being a callous hypocrite. I haven't really written anything apart from dishonest pitches for soap, shampoo, even sanitary napkins on one account. It isn't all bad. I find myself engaging in these YouTube video sharing sprees that really assuage my guilt. People remark at my good taste and for a while, my life takes on new meaning. 

Am I a pathetic whiner with an interesting writing style? Probably. I am that perfect by-product of the current psychosis, straddling the wasteful ebb of capitalism. It has been three days and my hand won't stop shaking. It is a mild tremor but it quickly progresses to creepy tensing whenever I think of anything remotely important. It has me working up a storm on Google. Ten open tabs and still no answers.  

I am switching to another browser and looking up - "May I have a cigarette" - in every language out there. I have started with French. Wasn't that obvious now?

Chicken fillets

You know it is good fun puking onto the Internet about anything and so I want to talk about a somewhat pointless issue.So anyway certain things irk me to the point where I may really want to lambast them through investigation, of course these aren't thorough and I'm a minor bigot.
This episode is a very basic example. Let talk about padded bras!

Is it ethical for La Senza to be in business?
I get the fluorescents and graphic prints selling them
But that's not the trick that has them falling off shelves, is it now?
Two words.

Breast Enhancers.

I don't mean to play rancid here but you know push up, pads, gel boosters, perk me ups...
chicken fillets?

Yup, they exist. 
Chicken fillets are silicone enhancers for breasts that feel and look bigger to a pair of hands and eyes. 
La senza does them and I don't really know if it has hit the here and now in India but well, it's a damn possibility. Think about it, more music videos where a conglomerate of horny editors who can't decide between breast and ass jizz over an extra quick montage of delectable assets. Now you walk into a store playing some song that had a derivative of that montage and you subconscious kicks in and you feel your boobs might not be good enough?
I understand the obsession with fairness creams now coz I mean there's too many famous actresses selling them to us and I didn't have hdtv with the recording option to skip the ads. I don't have a t.v. now and maybe that's why I play safe with choices when it comes to my breasts. I'm not a desensitized rupee note strutting down Palladium with bags of perk me up support but I must admit, that might partially have to do with other reasons, e.g.- lack of an A.T.M. card.
Yes I know, what am I thinking? Must rectify.

Anyway my shopping insolvency is besides the point but I will allow the possibility that chicken fillets might sound a little far fetched to an adequately large vegetarian shop-ulation. The nickname is chicken fillets? I don't know how that's down with people but really even otherwise, what's the big idea!!
(Remember awful Lina in Singing in the Rain?)

Think about the poor guys too;  they sincerely dig breasts and ass and the idea that some take you out on dates based on cleavage might seem disgusting but those just didn't fall too far from the genetic design and what of the elusive after rumple rendezvous?
NOTE: same thing with wisdom teeth by the way; we had them as a third pair of molars before evolution took charge-when all men looked more or less like midget versions of Hyde and we didn't cook and ate food R  A  W. So I suppose wisdom teeth aren't wise at all, just like some men. And even they're having a tough time with the perk it up kits doing the round.
(Just thinking aloud.)

In consolation, a couple of years later there'd be courses on picking out those tricky bras out of a crowd and men would talk about their foob-busting exploits but then its not really too stuck-up of me to say this is a monumentally idiotic hobby. Of course another path is surgeries but I cannot stand for cloning either. And beautiful people everywhere in the richer quarters, hmmm.
Creepy, creepy, creepy.

But mostly, Is it cool to buy padded bras? Well too bad my adders don't compare to sucklemonger assets elsewhere but doesn't the same argument stand for conscience if I boast an illustrious D cup?
This is a question, so answer it? If you managed to read it up till here anyway.

And don't tell me plastic surgery is the same thing. I know that -_-

RECOGNIZING YELLOW PELLETS

Hi,

I will share a story I wrote. Basically want to gauge how full or not full of shit is this.
Hope it's readable  -_-
yup in case you're wondering it is called- recognizing yellow pellets!

Someone once told me water is the most convenient form since it can flow anywhere but anything else displaced lends itself closer to death. When I heard that I felt a momentary stab -I wasn't anything like water. Then I thought of water moulding rocks into smoother forms and realized other forms changed around water and this is the story of my life. My life and its truth twisted itself around the ethos of modernity and its precociousness while I pined away on nostalgia. 

My mother was a pretty slight woman and my father was a hulking fellow and I took after her in every way. We lived in Bhoi, a small village below Shillong and my father told me stories about Assam and our home in Titabor and how we'd soon go visit his brothers. We never did go to Titabor but I live in Assam now with my son and his family in Guwahati. My parents raised me to be a woman of conviction and virtue. I could sing well and I cooked using minimal ingrediants saving on curd, sugar etc. Frugality, after all bought the fruits in the living room of my childhood home. 

"No way i'm giving you 50 anna for that. It's worth 35 anna," my mother said. "no more." . My mother fought every vegetable vendor for 15 annas off a dozen and she mostly won her battles. The rickshaw drivers knew better than to overcharge our colony since my mother bullied down the rates for every ride. Her haggling exploits went into the folds of an embroidered handkerchief that she locked away in a drawer every day. Month after month we watched her win her battles and come October she would finally count these shiny coins and crumpled notes while we'd wait outside her door. They formed the budget allocated to our Puja gifts and every year we waited on the weight of that embroidered handkerchief.

thud, thud, thud! 

If she clicked her tongue irritably then we'd get lozenges and sweets but if we heard the thud of her leg hitting the bed then we'd get new clothes and trinkets.

Thud, Thud, Thud! 

It was a good year and the five of us children excitedly left for the fields to discuss what we could ask her to buy us this Puja. That Puja was important for me because I bled onto my cotton underdress for the first time right after returning home from the festivities. My mother took me to the kitchen and asked me to sit down. She looked at me solemnly and talked while tidying the pleats on my mekhela. "Your journey begins now. You will be married to a man and you will have children. You can choose to be purposeful in living that life. I have been living for you and your father. Soon you will live for your husband and his children." 

I listened to her and I only had one question which I didn't ask her -will he be like my father?- and I sat listening it seemed, till the day I got married. 

My husband was nothing like my father. He was born into a rich Bengali family, he had been educated abroad and he didn't love me. I married him and went to Guwahati to stay in a big building his family owned. They had a telephone, an Ambassador and in my second year there they even bought a television. We became one of the five families in all of Guwahati to own a television and even the neighbours, the Sharmas weren't invited to dinner anymore since they didn't own one. I remember my husband but it was his washstand that occupied my mind more so. 

Hand pressed oils, talcum powder, cologne, shampoo, soaps, his comb; my husband's obscene vanity and bathing routine put my femininity to shame.

 He would begin by lathering his hair with shampoo, caressing it with a fervor he never afforded my body. Then he'd use scented soap after which he's use the pumice stone for his feet and elbows. Finally he'd emerge from the well employed bathroom to dab cologne under his ears, pat himself with powder and comb his oiled hair. This entire exercise lasted three hours and rejected memories of my father's sweat. He was a handsome man and we played the marriage well. I bore him a son and daughter over some complacent weekend and I managed monthly accounts. In this home we regularly bought butter, eggs, meat and vegetables and never carried food over to the next meal. They ate poached eggs and meats already cooked at a shop and drank juice and called it an English breakfast. I was an alien to such excesses but my pretty face helped mask my uneasiness. Then one day their paper factory caught fire and suddenly creditors rushed in and bankruptcy was in order. Now the english breakfast tapered down to egg and toast and butter could only be bought twice a week. My mother's words came back to me- "you can choose to be purposeful"- and so I did what I knew best how to. I found my feet again soaring above the mire of wealth to successfully cutting costs. My husband however found it difficult to reconcile to just soap and talcum powder; he missed his shampoo so much so that he took to alcohol and began hitting me. I watched him waste away on cigarettes and alcohol but it was his beloved shampoo that had the last laugh a couple of years later. With my haggling exploits I had managed to save enough to buy him shampoo and the next morning he passed away in his sanctuary reeking of the shampoo. I rushed to the bathroom when I heard the loud noise. He had managed to slip under the shampoo's lather and crack his neck against the bathtub. He died instantly and there was a little blood but it was the expression on his face that deeply stirred me. An annoyed grimace held his death in comic timing as if he knew when he was falling that he would be laughed at in death. 

After his death and several change of maids in an empty house I moved in with my son and his family. I was so far removed from their youth and its happy illusions that they excluded me. This exclusion found its prefect expression in the dining table, It was a square table with eight seats and two of those were always unoccupied- that left the five of us and everyone had their specific place on the table except for me. The children sat next to each other and my son sat with his wife. I sat alone with interchangeable company in the form of different guests who came to visit. My son was a sensible businessman and he ignored me out of indifference. Guwahati with its affectations made my transparent morals seem flimsy and so my very identity struck my son and his family as deficient. Maybe I should have lived alone but the building- as my son had decided- was to become a shopping center so I was without a home. 

A year after living with them I joined a welfare association which was a pitiable excuse conjured for rich wives and widows to monger gossip. There, Mrs. Das' anecdotes were famous for her inadvertent sobbing during recitations about her husband's infidelity. I always tried my best to hide my smirk when everyone clambered to console her. I thought weakness was a handicap and vulnerability never seemed a fair weapon to use against your family, not when it gives you a dull advantage. I think sometimes that my husband hated me more so for these philosophies I endorsed so publicly. I didn't smile much and my laugh was brittle; even my pretty face couldn't hide these absences of vivacity. Guwahati's whims only inspired apathy in me so I held onto my mother's convictions with fierce loyalty. I fought every rickshaw driver for my three rupees and I was infamous in 2nd Gate market, Paltan Bazaar and even in the fancy Pan bazaar area for my haggling.  Haggling however is now considered miserly and unethical and I am a monolith of that uncivilized time. I wasted my breath on every single one of the vendors and drivers and with resigned sighs they absently pocketed my bargained price. They went on doing their business treating me with the slight malignancy wasted on mosquitoes every time I went shopping but it wouldn't deter me.

I thought back to Bhoi more often these days and every time I thought of the day Monty ran away I felt nostalgia warm me all the way to my toes. I had chased after her, the truant cow that managed to sever itself from the tether and run into the wild. It was my turn to milk her and I was an obedient child so I saw it as a duty to get Monty back. Everyone else saw her absconding but they didn't chase her because they were afraid. However when they saw me running after her, my anklets sounding off brass tacks they followed suit. I ran after her for almost an hour and I made sure I milked her that evening when I quietly put her back in the shed. My father was proud of my tenacity but this same quality now poisoned me to the present and it called me-

"foolish," "nag," and "illiterate."

These were the words my grand children likened to me. They loved me with a halfhearted zeal that would perk up every time I bought back lozenges after a shopping trip and retract back to sulking when I summoned them for meals. They had perfected maintaining some form of employment just when it was time for a meal and so that resulted in separate eating times. It worried me because dinner was the most important meal in my childhood where my father told us fables of good and bad, Sometimes it would be about his friends who fought in the civil war and other times it would be about my mother's clairvoyance which saved our family from doom several times. He'd always end with a joke we didn't find funny but we were kinder than the children today and so we laughed along with him. My son sometimes decided that it was family time and they'd go out for dinner but I wasn't invited so I'd stay up in bed waiting for their return, all the while thinking whether he would tell a joke at the end of dinner- and if they'd laugh. The virtues of today revolved around something they call honesty but I think cruelty wielded this petty disguise. My son and his wife bickered, other times they would make love furiously and then again they'd be indifferent to the other's presence and the children saw them through all these since they never bothered to keep their business private. I even caught them kissing in the kitchen once. Maybe this is a better way to straddle relationships but my understanding was limited to my experiences. Even so I went about trying to make sure we'd eat a meal together everyday no matter how futile it seemed sometimes. 

Isha and Mainak were beautiful children borne off good looking parents and they were clever with schoolwork. They weren't rebellious or difficult but they lacked respect and their obsession with computers and television made them insensitive. They had queer traditions of dismantling their mother's collection of cosmetics, looking through drawers they had no business with and eating with sullen faces. One day they came up to me and asked me a question I had no idea how to answer.

 "Aita, why do you never reply when you're in the bathroom? I just want to know if you're shitting or peeing so that I can wait accordingly for my turn." 

Isha backed Mainak up with an even more insolent  query "And we never know if you fart. Do you go into the bathroom to fart?" 

They both had such sincere expressions that I just didn't know if I should just tell them but I know this wasn't fair to my sensibilities and so I didn't answer. Then I caught them waiting outside the bathroom door a couple of days later and realized they were trying to gauge my activities in that private space and I didn't agree with this assault so I formulated a plan. I used the bathroom for exactly the same amount of time every time I went in, mirrored all actions for both my businesses and this way I managed to evade their games and soon they tired of it anyway. Isha kept buying frocks and skirts and ridiculous hairbands in all colors and her pretty head bobbed away in excitement every time she went out shopping with her mother. Mainak would accompany them and end up buying another computer game that would ensure he skipped more meals and stayed locked up in his room. They never wanted to listen to my fables and complained about the heroes saying they were stupid for wanting to marry the princess even though she is a swan. They asked me questions about my life that I didn't wish to tell them and they thought I was queer and poked fun at me. Sometimes we'd have a good time when I told them about my father. My home in Bhoi made them curious and stories from my childhood fascinated them mildly so we found some ground to lay the premise for love. 

It's October and I've been very particularly aggressive in my haggling exercises to make sure I could get Chini and Geet some nice gifts. Additionally Baba had promised me some extra money this month because it was Puja. I thought I could use both these funds and be a little extravagant. I had planned to buy myself a sewing machine and thereby save on Chini's expenses by making her frocks. 

Of course my son was a successful man and he didn't need to cut costs but I have been a woman of habit. And water I'd never become- if evolution meant disrespect and apathy and more consumer durables I'd long chosen to wash my hands off that humanity. The children - the evolved ones- sneaked away and watched television to avoid the ceremonial rites during Pujas and only participated when we went shopping for new clothes. It vexed me but I worked instead upon buying them the nicest gifts. The day came and we decided to go to the fancy Pan Bazaar, We finally decided upon a frock for Isha and a t-shirt for Mainak but we walked around the market to make sure there weren't better clothes we were forfeiting. When we went around the corner to cut across to Babu Enclave, Mainak stopped at a shop window and he pulled me in after him. It was a toy shop and he wanted a particler gun. It was a fancy toy gun with a box of cartridges that had these little yellow pellets. 

"Aita, I don't want the t shirt. I want this gun." he said.

I looked at him and I knew I wouldn't buy him that ridiculous gun. He continued since he couldn't hear my thoughts. 

"Ronny bought this last week and everyone in school wanted it but he told us his father got it for him from Delhi. He said there's nothing like it in Guwahati. I'll show that idiot. Everybody thinks he's such a great guy but he's just a liar." 

Maybe he wanted to keep talking about this classmate but he stopped and just hugged me in that selfish way children use their warmth to get their way. I didn't budge.

I said, "I don't have the money to get you the gun. It's durga puja and we're Bengalis so we have to make sure we follow our traditions with more zeal. For the Doshomi Puja you have to wear new clothes." He looked at me and unrelenting, went on about how much he liked the gun and that if the gift is for him then he should be able to decide what he wants. His argument wasn't without grace but we went back to the shop and purchased the frock and t shirt regardless. He sulked all the way back home and I was glad we lived so close to pan bazaar so he could get away from me and be angry with more ease.

They were in the study when I heard them. Chini was trying to console him. 

"It's just a gun. She bought you a nice t-shirt. She's so miserly with money and she still buys us these gifts. She's got ideas about god and religion." 

"I just wanted the gun. If it's about money then the shirt costs as much as the gun. She's so stupid. I hate her."

I didn't listen to the rest of their conversation but I found myself taking a rickshaw to the market. They didn't know I had haggled the whole year only to buy them gifts and I didn't like explaining myself so I decided to resolve this crisis by buying the gun with the money I had kept for the sewing machine, I called him to my room and presented him with the gun. His face looked somewhat disfigured because it couldn't accommodate the former resignation and present ecstacy at the same time. He quickly shook off the bitterness and with a promiscuous deliberation hugged me very tight. After saying his thanks he ran around the house showing off his gun.  Isha came up to me and gave me a hug and I didn't understand how a plastic gun could be such a source of comfort to these children. I was admittedly a little warm inside and the sewing machine retreated into the recesses of unsolicited memories. It was the Ashtami and so it was the night we all feasted together as a family. I went about cooking fish in the traditional spices and all the while I could hear Mainak's footsteps energetically echo around the house shouting "bang bang". 

Everybody had washed themselves and there was a general energy in the city that had found its way into our house. I went to call everyone for dinner and they were all ready but Mainak was playing a computer game. It was the one I hated the most. It required him to shoot various creatures and walk towards more such creatures only to shoot them. It seemed a ridiculous preoccupation and I had read in Panorama that violent games  were a catalyst for the school gun violence in America. I reiterated this fact to him and he didn't even look at me. With a studied reflex he shut the door to his room and said he'll be out in five minutes. I was used to this behavior but today was the Ashtami dinner and we always ate this meal together. I went back to his room in five minutes to call him and he shouted at me. He said he'll be done soon and if I keep calling him then he can't concentrate and it'll take him longer to finish the level to come for dinner. So I left him alone for a subsequent five minutes and this time when I went back I had decided I wouldn't leave till he came along with me. Suddenly -and it was all a moment of madness- he took the plastic gun lying next to him on the table and shot me in the face. 

The yellow pellet hit me squarely on my forehead.

I looked at his face as he said sorry several times but his eyes boasted a vacant glaze from playing the computer game too long. After dinner I went out to the terrace. There I watched the cars pass by and the city lights till I couldn't watch any longer. My eyes blurred and I cried for myself. In that moment of desperation I made a temporary resolve to evolve; maybe try and see through other eyes because I had worn mine out. I stood there for a while but nobody came out to look for me and this was a consolation.    

OF HOT CROSS BUNS AND DOOMSDAY

There are those songs we listened to as kids and grew up to find them completely not the hot cross buns sorts(hahahahahaa) that we should have linked to childhood. I find myself confused as to why and how did my parents not revolt to my obviously promiscuous taste in music even as I was all of 25 inches( i know what you're thinking). Then there was the cartoon network and that episode on power puff girls when everyone turned into cats and finally when they save the world by turning everyone back to humans the mayor is licking a cat's kitty. The more I think back the more I find content that could have been hilarious if I was an adult but I wasn't- and I never thought the mayor was a horny guy. Now I'm all of 68 inches(now you know better) and my brain finds amusement in innocuous men holding hands on the pavement. Dirty is the new favorite word in my brain and mostly everything makes sense with that being the logic. Maybe the origin to this development stems from these affectations that I was afflicted with as a kid but that's a discussion for another time. I'm going to post my musical timeline that are identifiers to the different times I was a part of and you can laugh with me if you felt the same damn way.  In fact, post your favorite tunes and obviously corresponding inches in case you want to feel stupid happy.

Infancy
Ya of course I remember that song. Mama's loudest decibel point and it was the same with you. I am surprised we  mostly come out with decent hearing. Hmmm actually maybe we all had that expendable ears range but that screaming deafened us and leaves us as mere mortals :( Now we can't be Goerge or Fred Weasley.

25 inches
Boom Boom Boom,
I want you in my room
gonna spend the night together
together in my room.
Don't you lie to me, I know you loved that one too. I still don't know what to say. I loved everything sweet, boys traded scratches with me and I thought one day i'd fly on a cow to Pluto.

40 inches
Backstreet Boys. Blue eyes was my drug then and I dreamt of shipping off to the U.S. and marrying Nick. I can't believe i'm owning up to it. But well, every other boy smelled strange, I wore two plaids and my favorite instrument was my cool merry- go- round sharpener.

58 inches
Now it was time to finally grow up and I certainly did. System of a down and Slipknot teamed with some harmless vandalism helped make me feel normal and calmed me down. I could rap to Chopsuey with a sort of vigour the bloody nazis would never know since they already were grown men and I bet they had a nagging suspicion about Hitler( I'm guessing because of his choice of moustache and general fashion sense)

68 inches
This is Class 10 by the way-and i haven't grown since :/ I remember watching my juniors in school singing Avril's girlfriend tune to death and I was a little obsessed with mass murders due to this. Think about it- What is the most creative way to kill 10 or 12 class 6 girls and be called generous. I never found the answer- i mostly thought of stilettos but that's coz i couldn't walk in them without feeling slightly suicidal. Anyway I already had a couple of crushes, I belonged to ze coolest band- Deranged Angst and I wondered what my identity was and if this life meant anything- yup teens! I guess i am a late bloomer. Evanescence rocked my world and I could fake sing in my Amy Lee falsetto pretty well.

68 inches, 50 kgs
This is college and Stephens allowed me to sink my teeth into the world music scene and suddenly Porcupine Tree, Brahms, Jacqueline du pre, Sigur Ros, and the like became my retreat from bad days and that was mostly everyday. I had realized that now you had to study to score a 70  percent and that never sat too well on me. So I found my space, the delhi free bird. That entailed being a slacker; albeit a bindi wearing, cool music peddling, Murakami reading snob.

Now i'm 58 kgs and well I listen to all music including Katy Perry on that day when I know there will be more days. Right now i'm wondering about the future of mankind and that's why i went back to my childhood and the answer was clear- it's Rebecca Black and her groupies taking it over- Doomsday is close. We had Vengaboys and well ignore the lyrics but they had a good tune. Now it's hot problems (people please listen to it if you haven't because education is best off google- it's free!) and most music involves no real instrument (read edm, trance, dark dub step- dammit there are too many genres).
What I wonder is that will my kids be singing to 99 different orgy styles and will their Prince Charming be a Delhi boy. Oh I hate those deodrant stinking amplifier listening tight tee wearing breed. But that's coz I grooved to Celine Dion too.

I think my father did it for me with his Deep Purple records and evening guitar strumming sessions.  Now I breathe air and I listen to music. What am i listening to right now?
Zara Zara Behekta Hain from RHTDM but in my defense that's not an everyday thing- I'm feeling sentimental and i don't trust men.

THE CONSTIPATION REMEDY

Hola,

I saw my friend looking up the astrology section of the sunday newspaper hoping to find a divine solution to her love-woes-Domestic disputes are likely to afflict you and tact and calm can help you tide through these times. Well, I think it makes for a good joke and i'm sure Ganesha and venus and Madonna would enjoy this over some green tea. Most of us like to imagine that there is an external explanation to the shit we are in and sometimes you might be right but the truth I believe is that you brought it on yourself. You decided to join a medical school, go for auditions everyday, sleepwalk to the nearest garbage truck and maybe, god forbid, make choices to be happy. The What to do to be happy being the most difficult decision. Now that road is filled with unpaid bills, cheap food, and unemployment. We are here this one time for sure and you don't know if you're coming back-maybe as an Antelope but that doesn't count ever. You never chose your parents, sure you raced but that race was rigged and you made it through your pushy/sweet/understanding/cruel/bad-breathed/awesome mother with your father looking down at your closed eyes deciding where would she/he fit. Indeed your infant bones show promise so you become a cricketer or your head is slightly larger so you're obviously finding the 4th law of motion.  Whatever is your deformity is your parent's hope for a slightly better future for you. But have we once sat and thought about who do we want to be exactly and found the answer? Mostly we know what we don't want to be but beyond that it's a nice cozy hole reserved for your dreams and you forget all about it when you wake up to your alarm to rush to college.

Now this is what I think is important.

Smiling a lot. And cracking bad jokes. Chances are your jokes will get better and more people will smile.
Do what you like. If you like writing then write. If not a 1000 page novel then at least a damn blog and don't write once a year. That doesn't count(yep that's for me)
Make some good friends who'll keep you sane through the race that never ended.
Don't hurt other people-you'll only hurt yourself-if you manage to live beyond 50. Regrets stem from decisions you made and not the ones others made for you.
Don't hurt yourself.
And those choices to be successful/rich/famous, throw them out the window wrapped in expensive toilet paper.

Now you think you don't really know what you want but the truth is there is something you always enjoyed doing and chances you'd have been damn good at it but you never tried. Now you're stuck in college doing a course in advanced zoology but for you these guys look best on a plate dead. You're in for a bad year so you go to that store and buy yourself a guitar and strum your hunger away. Whatever it is you like invest some time in them. You definitely won't regret it and maybe you'll even make the G3 tour. But if you don't it still doesn't matter.

I'm not preaching. I have friends who told me to drink water since i'm always constipated and it worked. So i'm telling you what I know. I have my guitar, I sing loudly in the shower, paint my walls and write my blog every two weeks. And I know what I want most-   giddy lightness.

who we are and why we are

Are you a boy and you wonder why women are strange?
what are our motivations, when are we being honest and why do we automatically hate most women without even having a chat with them to figure that they wear the wrong kind of shoes?

Women we are- tempestuous we are, beautiful we are, mysterious we are, neurotic we are but more than anything else- we are confused.

 In a time when the glass ceiling has been shattered, unisex is fashionable and the kitchen is frowned upon where do we fit in? What is our identity?
 Am i the Crippled Housewife or am i the Corporate Hedgehog?
 In a time when we compete with men, when reservations in one prestigious institution (st. stephens college, new delhi) are seemingly for men and when women choose lesser children and a bigger paycheque what exactly are we?
Are we the evolved?

Is this the identity of evolution? buying into the world of consumerism and fueling an ever more disillusioned middle class and finding yourself questioning empathy and companionship. It isn't discriminatory of me to state the fact that good looks are an important determinant in your job chances or that uniqueness is a successful stamp on your resume. But what of identity? Does Simone De Beauvoir boast of the second sex as coming of age now or is she worried she may have pointed all our dreams into a sort of competitive nightmare. Competition has crippled us! The need to be the best, this theory extends to all realms of a philosophy that doesn't soothe or satiate irritable questions. It is merely a way to build a bridge over our own mind's abyss- one fueled with meaningless conquests and noise.

Medusa was punished for loving the wrong man and who did we err against? is it our own nature? What is the truth to us and our essence? I believe the answer in a round-about way would be to gauge our faculty of precocious-ness! where do we triumph and where do we falter? We are mothers, lovers, sisters, friends, daughters, goddesses. we aren't machines, and we aren't workers or owners, we are more. And in this time of misplaced greed we are lost to a world hoping to find us our true place.

 Just because plants can't scream are vegetarians to feel more humane? As a girl becoming a woman i find it easy to make friends, easy to love others, but i also find it easy to bitch. and its too much fun. What i don't consider in my attitude is this branding, this judgement has painted that person's personality for A VERY LONG TIME because it isn't hard to find someone like me- i am you and so many more around. Unity is a troublesome word- the nazis used it to bring about death and misery, countries use it to resolve threats against sovereignty and us the women we mostly lack it. We are our vaginas, we are our breasts and we are our minds and hearts. However we mostly see all of these elements are somewhat disaggregated and separate units and that is the failing is it? If so lets see each other for all of that and then see the clothes on our naked bodies. Lets just try and get along together because i'm tired of pretending that i enjoy my independence. I need love. I want to grow to become a human being- not just a consumer, not just successful, but a less confused woman.

And i don't have the answers, just too many questions.

Pappa and me

                                                                                                                            

Living away from home in some fancy metropolitan city can have its share of promises and disappointments but most evident in this experience is the universal phenomenon of citing allowance requirements at the beginning of the month. Well, if you are a student or a struggling writer- director- actor- scientist- humanitarian- freedom fighter- barber.

This phenomenon is best related to a sort of timeline whereby your relationship with your dad changes with the number of days closing in on payday.  Since I’ll be providing my own views w.r.t. the subject matter you could choose to ignore the incongruities and make a nice little chart for yourself. The idea behind this exercise is to ascertain what you consider your dad to be from the folllowing:

1)     1)   An A.T.M.

2)     2)   An A.T.M. and idiot.

3)     3)   An A.T.M. and friend.

4)     4)   An A.T.M.  and inarticulate detective- of- sorts (if you’re a daughter).

5)      5)  A reluctant A.T.M. and mentor.

6)     6)    A mentor. ( I don’t believe you)

1^st   2^nd 3^rd 4^th or 5^th day of month

You call you father and

1)      1) Tell him directly that it’s payday.

2)      2) Tell him you love him and that it’s payday.

3)      3) Tell him you’re sorry for last month’s expenses and some more and that it’s payday.

4)      4)  He asks you about what you did last night.

5)      5) Tell him that it’s payday and listen for a while about how consumerism is the enemy.

6)      6) Tell him you love him. ( I don’t believe you)

6^th 7^th 8^th 9^th 10^th day of month

He calls you and

1)      1)   You don’t pick up.

2)      2)   You don’t pick up.

3)      3)   You pick up and tell him about how you couldn’t wake up for class ad if he could wake you up tomorrow.

4)      4)   Asks you about your friends w ho you mention are all girls and he tries to ask if you still don’t have any boyfriend.

5)      5)   Tells you how advertising is the enemy.

6)      6)   You tell him about how you are so close to finding a formula for eradicating poverty. ( see that’s why I do NOT believe you)

11^th - 20^th days of the month

He calls you and

1)      1)  You tell him you’re going for a trip to Goa and so it’s time for that travel allowance.

2)      2)  You tell him you love him and that the educational trip this month is to Goa so you need money.

3)      3)  You chat about the dog and how your college professors are incompetent idiots.

4)      4)   He tries to ask you if it’s safe outside at night and you tell him you wouldn’t know.

5)      5)  Tells you how the middle class suffers under the burden of capitalism.

6)      6)   I don’t care.

20^th -25^th days of the month

He calls you and

1)      1)  You tell him there are sales in Zara and its perfect time to use the credit card cashback schemes.

2)      2)   You tell him someone stole a suitcase filled with your clothes while you were washing dishes and so you         need money to buy a camera to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

3)      3)  You chat about the dog and you ask him if he can send some money since there’s sale going on.

4)      4)  You dodge questions barely managing to ask him if he could send some money since there’s sale going on.

5)      5)  You decide not to mention the sale.

25^th – 30^th the month is ending!!

You call him and

1)      1)   Tell him you’re broke.

2)      2)   Tell him how much you miss him all the time and that you are broke.

3)      3)    Tell him you are short on attendance so he has to hide the letter from college so that mom doesn’t see it.

4)      4)   Tell him you are a lesbian just to fuck with his head.

5)      5)   Tell him to read Ayn Rand.

I’ m pretty sure -if you aren’t a complete idiot that is- you’ve figured out exactly what you consider  your dad to be. Don’t get me wrong- I completely believe in the relationship a child shares with their father to be full of love and fond memories but it is one of a long duration. Complacency and convenient arrangements are always more realistic in the long way.  And don’t forget the argument for altruism- personally  I don’t fancy old age homes much.