Rumanations

Swine's Up!

2009-04-29T00:36:00.001-07:00

It doesn't take much to excite people. Especially when everything has gotten boring - IPL (but we've discussed that already), Politics and Elections (The long weekend has taken precedence for most people. As for me, I voted in the last LS elections. Yawn.), terrorism (even the Bombay HC thinks the 26/11 case should just be transferred out of sight and more importantly, out of traffic). Now, we have a new source of entertainment, especially for the hypochondriacs amongst us - swine flu!

The name provokes an initial humorous reaction, which is understandable. In the words of my friend Gaugau: "All sentences ending with "...when pigs fly" should now be coming true - because swine flu!" Anyway, am sure there are people stocking up on the medication which has been front paged in all major newspapers this morning. This just shows that the media can mess up everyone's happiness, be you a concerned-for-your-health citizen or a hostage safely (or so you think) hidden under a bed in the Taj. I'm pretty sure that by the time there is an outbreak (what are the chances of an epidemic not hitting India?) there will be a shortage of the antidote, having been hoarded by hypochondriacs and mommies concerned over their toddler's snifflings (because it couldn't have anything to do with the ice gola and the central air conditioning, can it?).

Poor piggies. Why are diseases which usually target animals suddenly mutating and wreaking havoc upon us homo sapiens? Do they get bored? ("I'm tired of pork tonight, honey. Let's go out for dinner.")

I don't know how much pork is consumed in India, but quite a few communities enjoy the "other white meat" (yes!) - Coorgis (the Pork Curry has to be tasted to be believed), Malyalis, our friends in the north east (sorry for generalizing, there) and of course, my Goa.

Goa's catholic community sees a lot of variety in Pork Cooking. There's the famous Sorpotel which I have never had the guts to try - it contains pig's blood as a secret ingredient, in some recipe books. Recently I was at a wedding where it was on the buffet display, but I couldn't get myself to spoon it onto my plate. How brahmin of me.

The ET claims that more than a 100 pigs have died in piggeries across the State since the breakout of the Flu. My brahminical upbringing is astounded. Pigs are raised in piggeries? In Goa, pigs are on the road. You'll see fat sows with their little brood of piglets, all black as soot, marching about, eating unmentionables on the ground. Particularly rabid relatives would tell me as a child - "Catholics eat shit! You know why? Because they eat pigs! And what do pigs eat?".

Take a wild guess.

So my parents, having been indoctrinated as such, would happily eat spare ribs in New York but when it came to indigenous produce, it was a different story altogether.

Mom and Dad do to visit a Roman Catholic friend and his wife in Brooklyn, who has prepared a scrumptious feast for their party. The piece de resistance was the sausage pulao, which everyone eyed greedily.

After serving the guests and enjoying the praise, Aunty lets everyone know that secret of the pulao was in the sausage:

"I got them from Goa!"

Before my parent's eyes, visions of scavenger pigs floated by, followed by the familiar view of a chain of sausages, hung out to dry on the porch of an old Portuguese house, covered with flies.

My Dad put his fork down. My Mom, being the ultimate polite guest, finished her plate and later lost her dinner in the toilet bowl.

Anyway, Chorizo, or the Goan spiced sausages, are still in my good books. I admit to loving a fix of chorizo-pao whenever I get the chance. My mom gives me the dirts everytime I stow away a packet in my luggage.

"You're such a kiristao" she says, and if you can figure out the pronunciation you can probably figure out what she means.

Of course now there are professionally manufactured, packed and marketed sausages which is probably where the piggeries come in. And it's good. And let's not forget Salami, Bacon, Pork Chops and Spare RIbs.

But pigs have had it pretty bad even outside GSB households. The Bible has a story of the sins of a man which were absorbed from him and expelled into a pig. Hence, the Old Testament bans eating of Pork, and apparently that is why communities like Muslims and Orthodox Jews refrain from eating Pork. The New testament allows for eating anything "in the name of God".

Hindus aren't so bothered with the Pig. Lots of people told me, as a Child, that eating Pork was not allowed. That was before we learnt to raise an eyebrow and ask "Oh yeah? By whom?".

However, the swine flu shall now unite all communities, against the Rind. Just like Mad Cow made everyone Hindu and Bird Flu made everyone... umm... chicken friendly (no it didn't - the KFC Bucket was at the concessional rate of 150 bucks, and we were all on grass.)

Or maybe this is some ploy to make us all veggie?

God Forbid!

Stared out

2009-04-28T03:37:00.000-07:00

I knew it was all too good to be true.

I have a gym starer. Ugh!

Now as much as men continuously astound and shock me, this guy takes it up a notch.

Staring is in itself a terrible thing and it makes women feel uncomfortable and it's a violation of space and all, which is true - however gym staring is the worst of them all, I think, though I don't have a very expansive being-stared at experience.

Why gym staring especially sucks:

1. For the woman, you are covered with sweat and wearing gym clothes, which in themselves are figure emphasizing. Lots of women wear loose t shirts and track pants to the gym. I don't believe in that school of thought. Think about it - how will you encourage yourself to work out if you can't see what the problem is? And there's lots to see, thanks to the second issue here -

2. The mirrors. Gyms are wall to wall mirrors, presumably so that exercisers can watch themselves and check posture etc. It is also helpful when your trainer is forced to work a simultaneous double shift thanks to someone being on leave, so he can watch you do your jumbo squats while he's helping someone pump iron on the other side of the room. Unfortunately, your starer can see you too, wherever you are.

3. Workouts often involve strange postures and movements which perhaps can be construed to be sensual, if you're sick in the head and need professional help. Then again, that's probably why you're staring at women with no regard to public decency, 'innit?.

Even so, why you'd want to choose to stalk someone and so obviously stare at them in the gym is beyond me. You see me run 3 kilometers, do 200 ab crunches, pump iron, and you still want to piss me off?

So this hasn't reached the stage where you can complain to the authorities (or even my trainer). He hasn't said anything offensive, or anything at all (till today, that is), or made a pass at me, or feel me up - he just stares. I know plenty of men (and the numbers are rising by the day - isn't that scary?) who'd think that I'm just making a big deal out of nothing and that he probably isn't even staring. Well to all of you - fuck off. Never argue with the chick sense. When a creep stares the stare at you, you can feel his eyes upon you like a red ant. However the sad reality of the Gujju gym is that it isn't quite the right time to get my trainer to dump a 30 kg weight on him.

The stares aren't the lechy kinds, but more like (and you must understand that I've been observing him discreetly, the last thing I want is for him to catch me looking at him in one of the mirrors) soulful looks, which are just as pissing off.

Doesn't take much to guess this guy's athletic capabilities since he has enough time to stare. He uses a small room at the side of the cardio workout area where he does some pansy stretches and yoga (You call that a surya namaskar? Ha!). One day I was reaching for a bottle of water and he made a grab for it as well, our fingers brushed against each other and he turned away in embarrassment.

Seriously. Is this where we're at now?

Today (again at the watering hole, it seems like that's his hunting ground) he waited till I was finished talking to another fellow gymmer about how I stumbled on the treadmill because I was thinking about a case today and NOT because I was dizzy or anorexic or anything (Jesus!). When I turned to drink a sip of water, there he was, in full open mouthed glory. I saw him do his thing through 45 minutes of cardio and I slowly lowered my bottle and looked him straight in the eye.

Not so comfy anymore, are you, buddy?

"You are having very good stamina", he mumbled.

"I know." I muttered, in a "Guess what. Dumbbells can fly." tone of voice.

He looked away as if one was flying right at him.

This guy is not "cute", he's not "sweet", he's an ass. I'm just waiting for him to slip up badly, preferably under a thigh cruncher.

I don't get this new breed of obnoxious men. First there's the serial SMS-er and his assholic friend, and now this - men who are educated, earning well, are exposed to society but enter some random woman and BOOM! They become social spastics.

Someone set up a society for them, please! Or at least classify them as a special class and make them walk around with identity cards which they need to produce when involved in social events, like dating, gymming, pubbing and breathing.

Or else we women will have to take matters into our own (well toned) hands.

Preface

2009-04-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

My mom told me this story once, about how she was, as a young girl, laughing at her mother for some archaic practice she was following.

Her mother smiled at her and said “When you grow up, you will understand.”

I’ve never been a very fan of the “when you grow up, you will understand” school of thought. I have been getting it a hell of a lot, and while all of the instances involve the use of this term are devoid of any sense, the most bizarre instance was when as a 11th standard hostelite, I was discussing this new movie, Dil Kya Kare, with my Seniors.

Now, for those of you out of touch with early 21st century cinema, DKK’s main plot is about how the happiness of a family (Mahima Choudhary and Ajay Devgan) is shattered when they meet the mother of their adopted child (Kajol) and find out that the child has been fathered by none other than Ajay Devgan himself.

How this comes about is the crux of this movie. Kajol is being dragged by goons who have decided to loot the entire compartment of a train. Ajay steps in, beats up and throws goons off, Kajol weeps and next thing you know, they are at it on the 1st class coupe. To my mind, this didn’t make any sense.

“You’ll understand when you get older”, said our Hostel in Charge, a post graduate student.

I’m 26. I still don’t understand that movie. Like I understand that after a near death experience, it’s easy to crave some physical comfort. But forgetting that you are married and to use a condom? Naah.

I figured out very early in life (i.e. about 2 years after I started getting this ‘when you will grow up” nonsense) that I would never understand (or perhaps never grow up) and so my endeavour always was to train my parents to understand things the way they should be. At the risk of cringing my teeth out, I would address important issues with my parents and even other family members, but particularly my mother, to understand how things should be understood (at least to my generation) and to make peace with the bizarreness of human nature.

And till now I thought I had succeeded.

That is, until I decided to get married.

All pretenses I had of my family being cool and “above all that” have literally been flushed down the toilet. Apparently the approaching light that I saw was the headlight of an oncoming train. Before my very eyes, my parents are turning into the very antithesis of what I painstakingly worked on for the last 10 years, at least. I watch them with the desperation that one feels when you’ve been playing expert level minesweeper for the last 45 minutes and your mouse slips up when you have 2 mines to go, reducing all of your hard work to a dead smiley on the computer screen.

Yes, ladies (and a few gentlemen), welcome to the Bridezilla blog. Watch this space. Or get out of the way.

PS: Inspired my M I spent a valuable part of this Sunday checking out my stats on Statcounter.com. To my horror, I found that my blog has an incredible number of hits from all over the world which have been linked to a post I put up on India’s first graphic porn star (I shall not repeat her name here for obvious reasons. Do the math.) Jesus H. Christ!

Moral of the story: Now all of you know how to increase traffic to your blog.

Happy Feat

2009-04-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

Last night I went for "Monsters vs. Aliens" at PVR, Lower Parel. We paid a bomb for the tickets (haven't these guys heard of recession?) and were anyway about 10 minutes late (thanks to a messed up order at noodle bar) and as much as I had nothing else to do I didn't think watching an animated movie was the best way to pass time. When we went into the (nearly empty, see, told you so) theatre, however, the screen was slightly blurry and I fumbled in my bag for my glasses, when I realized that I already had them on.

A breathless theatre attendant who chased us in handed us both a pair of what seemed to be sunglasses. Then it hit me.

3D! Yahoo!

I hadn't seen anything in 3D in years, decades, even. Faint memories of my childhood in New York reminded me of the few movies that I had seen (which were totally the rage among -10 year olds) and even a few TV programmes (the glasses would be available at Taco Bell, which was the only acceptable eat out joint for my parents, I suppose because it was spicy food. You can't take the mirchi out of the Goan, apparently) I watched the movie open mouthedly - the movie was no great shakes, but who cares! It was in 3D!

That's the great thing about being a kid. All you need to make you happy is things jumping out at you from a screen. But I'm glad to say that it still does.

Other kiddish things that have made me happy recently:

1. Hopscotch

2. Traveling in an open air bus

3. Trying to watch aeroplanes land and take off (without the influence of Marijuna)

Besides that, I find that the things that amuse me most are things that involve people getting screwed over. I love watching Seinfeld, and I love the fake Steve Jobs blog primarily I suppose because he's being mean to people because he can.

Am I turning into the Wicked Witch of the Western Line? I don't know. And to be honest, I don't care. All that much.

But I like the moments of childlike bliss which shows that I'm still a human being capable of enjoying simple and pure pleasures. Phew!

Justice delayed?

2009-04-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

It's been said a thousand times before and I'm saying it again:
Someone shoot Arnab Goswami.
Now.

Though I've always had a death wish for him (remember how he declared war on India on behalf of Pakistan during the November terrorist attacks?) I completely lost my mind a few days ago while I was flipping channels during (another) rained out IPL game.

Apparently cashing in on the public outrage (?) that had erupted as soon as it became known that Qasab's new lawyer, Abbas Kazmi, made two applications before the special court - one, that he be given a period of four weeks to read the charge sheet and two, that Qasab be subjected to a medical test to determine his age - Times Now quickly assembled a cast of characters to voice their strong opinion against such "tactics" being adopted by the lawyer.

Arnab angrily pointed out how Qasab was now being given an ultra expensive lawyer from tax payer's money to a patient Majeed Memon.

"But surely there was no need to give him a extraordinary lawyer!" gasped Arnab, obviously referring to the fees (because it's OK for the State to pay extraordinary fees for a Special Public Prosecutor but not to a Defence Counsel)

"He's not extraordinary, just...ordinary" mumbled Memon, obviously not referring to just the fees.

Yee-ouch.

Anyway, the other panelists included a screechy Doctor who saved a life during the Taj siege by conducting a makeshift operation on a security personnel who was shot in the stomach, which was an incredible feat for which she has received many laurels. How this makes her capable of commenting on legal processes I fail to understand. She seemed very disturbed that some factions of the media were referring to Qasab as a "cutie" and referred to Facebook to point out that the sentiment of the public, in particular, young Indians (10 and 13 year olds, she clarified) wanted to tie a time bomb to Qasab's genitals and put him back on the boat where he came from.

I know that Times Now is full of other such ridiculous nonsense (if any news channel wants to pay me to blog on each and every episode of Arnab's panel questioning, I will gladly do so) and that no one besides Goswami takes it seriously, as a legal practitioner who deals with the pressures of conducting criminal trials on a regular basis, I would like to offer my humble opinion.

The other day, I accompanied a new Client who was being served with a copy of the charge sheet for allegedly committing an offence under the Maharashtra Protection of Trees (Urban Areas) Act. The Judge asked me how long I would need before he would explain the charge and record the plea.

I asked for a month. And I'll tell you why. This is what I needed before I decided my strategy in the case:

1. Clear instructions from my Client as to what exactly happened

2. An inspection of the site of the alleged offence

3. Studying the act, which was a new one

4. A good reading of the chargesheet and the witness statements to determine if any offence was made out from a bare reading of the chargesheet, and if so, what offence(s)

And of course as I handle so many other matters I need time to study those matters in as much detail, and hence, I asked for a month, and the Judge gave me two. (Blame it on the backlog)

And I'm not a spastic lawyer. I consider myself to be thorough and I do my homework. Quality is the least I can offer my Clients, right?

My point is this: we're talking about a 10,000 page chargesheet and some 300 different charges (mostly capital crimes) under at least 10 statutes that I can think of. Mr. Kazmi has not spent his entire life waiting for this one case and I'm sure he has other matters to deal with. As I recall he was Amicus Curaie in the 1993 blasts as well. Of course he would apply for adjournments in other cases (and most judges would willingly allow this) but my point is why should his Clients languish in jail because their lawyer was appointed to represent Qasab?

Look, I work here. Don't make a farce out of my profession. If you want this to be a "fair trial" to set an example to the world and what not, then let the law takes its own course and give the lawyer a fair chance to at least flip through a 10,000 page chargesheet. If you want vigilante justice then you should have just accidentally let his prison cell open and let the mob claw him to a gory end.

The screechy Doctor asked why we couldn't just have a trial like Saddam Hussein's? What a great idea!

One month isn't going to kill anyone. Except Qasab, ultimately.

Or are we all just worried that our laws and judicial system are so screwed up that this Lawyer might just get Qasab off the hook?

Faking It

2009-04-22T06:28:00.000-07:00

What niceness. My friends are so happy with my resurrection (it's alive!!!) that I feel like a Celeb. They've even dedicted blog posts on their own respective blogs to celebrate my return. So cute - thank you! And Mem, stop making me sound like a slapford wife!

Right so to the blog of the moment. It's entertaining even if you don't give a rat's ass about IPL (and with the incessant rains in South Africa, it's hard to do otherwise). IPL is the luscious combination of Cinema and Cricket, and this blog throws in gossip and sex. The latest update is about one particularly bubbly team owner who's doing Brett Lee! Personally, I would like dope on Lalit Modi (pun not originally intended but am finding it amusing now) and to find out exactly how many plastic surgeons it took for Nita Ambani to look like she does right now. I can understand the pressure to look good when being seen with the likes of Preiti and Shilpa, but she looks just plastic. I saw an interview of hers with Mandira during last night's match on an LCD screen and I wondered about Botox Overdoses and whether they were potentially fatal. It seems to be a thing with the Ambani brothers, one brother is as fit as a maniac while his wife is much unlike the svelte heroine of her time, and in the other household it seems to be the opposite. Whatever.

My boyfriend as usual made me a little more aware of the (geek) world around us by pointing out that this was a clear take off from the fake Steve Jobs Blog. I was stuck in the High Court all of today and so i settled myself in a chair with decent network coverage and began to read the real fake blog. And I was in major danger of getting debarred. Here's a particularly funny post.

Now that's what I call a fun blog.

I also wonder which celeb I would spoof if I could write a fake blog. Then again, maybe it's a bad idea. Maybe not, but it's definitely a time consuming one.

Well, the Courts are off in May, so maybe... :)

Of Snakes and Jeems.

2009-04-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

The lack of activity on this blog is but one indication of how fucking lazy I've become. As if I decided to take a "vacation from myself" (in the spirit of the Seinfeld Butter Shave episode) the sluggish and cynical writer of this blog has decided to become "fit".

Which is funny, because I honestly never considered myself to be unfit. Sure, I would think twice about buying most clothes I've ever laid my hands on, but I had the stamina for a physically demanding job and I wasn't fat enough to repulse the opposite sex (to be that fat takes some doing, look at the excitement to watch Susan Boyle lose her virginity on camera). I have lots of girlfriends whose waist size is <30>

Like most women, I decided the way to go was to diet. Many people find diets to be a lazy person's idea of fitness, which in my case is certainly true. And I've worked hard (or as hard as a lazy person can work) at my diets. I tried the Atkins, which worked wonders even though it had me sobbing at bread baskets. Unfortunately I missed the part about slowly incorporating carbs into the diet, and that's when things went, well, back to normal. With interest. A friend suggested I do the South Beach, and I didn't quite see the point, almost everything I ate seemed to be permissible under this strange eating regime. It wasn't totalitarian enough for me.

I then decided to do the professional thing. Think about it - you buy a book for 30 bucks from Flora Fountain or read some website on the internet and expect it to work, just like that? People spend years studying nutrition and these books seem to indicate that they are complete idiots who would be better off working at some Burger King Drive In Counter. Luckily, a friend of a friend (I love how significant new entrants in my life make their entrance dramatically and ridiculously on cue, like a slapstick Gujarati Play) who had just turned into an overnight celebrity nutritionist introduced me to the small meals plan.

And how I love the small meals. I don't care if they don't work (yes I do - I paid a lot for this) but I plan for them and look forward to them with such eagerness that I scare myself at what an obsessive mother I will turn into. I eat, eat and eat, and if I don't get to eat I get goddamn cranky. Luckily, the plans do work. It helps that I get hardly any career satisfaction so I divert my creativity into planning my snacklets. Now do you get why I stopped blogging? :)

Suddenly this all looked promising. I liked the shape of myself in the mirror. Maybe this fit thing wasn't such a bad idea after all - of course there are always limits (size zero - hahahahaha) and I got to eat everything I wanted to. Voila!

It was then that my celebrity nutritionist friend pointed out that celebrities have much more than nutritionists at their side:

"Why don't you start some weight training?"

Ah ha.

The Gym (or as my first not-boyfriend and countless other Puneri boys put it, "the jeem") and I share a chequered history. My first experience with the gym was post my 10th Boards when unlike most of my friends my parents were not taking me anywhere on a holiday and I had nothing to do but sloth around and wait for my results. My dad suggested I join a gym. Come to think of it, the gym has been suggested to me for almost every conceivable reason - "You're bored! Join a gym." "You're fat! Join a gym." "You're depressed! Join a gym." "You're single! Join a gym." "You're getting married! Join a gym." "You need to network! Join a gym." "It's cheap! Join a gym."

FIne, whatever. So he enrolled me in a gym, and I was to report there every morning. I had paid a princely sum of Rs. 600 to enroll for the month.

The instructor was built like a bull on steroids who also ODed on Prozac.

Throughout my life, I have noticed that it is difficult to cultivate meaningful and lasting relationships with people who poke me in the tummy on our first meeting.

He was no exception.

I lasted about 2 days and 6 sit ups.

Various other experiments included College Gyms, another private gym and finally I made my peace with the help of 1) A fitness freak friend, Daze 2) Aerobics and 3) An instructor with a butt like a work of art, no matter that he from the front he looked like just another Digga Superstar.

In Mumbai, it was back to the sloth. I had a partner in crime, my roommate, (though she managed to rise above the Sunday Morning Spazz Outs and run the Half Marathon, wow) who bought a stepper after a hasty tryout session at the Hypercity Mall. The roommate's off to conquer the world (bank) but her loyal Stepper still sits in the living room, drying clothes, and scaring my sister who spends sleepless nights in Mumbai imagining the shadows cast from its handles to be the horns of a crazed antelope.

Anyway. I digress.

I joined a gym about a month ago. And I am ashamed to say that I enjoy it thoroughly and it gives my life new meaning and I think people who think that they are above physical exercise are lowly human beings even if they think my life must really suck if going to the gym is what I look forward to the most.

I started by paying extra for the personal trainer, K, which was the best decision I've taken in about 4 months. K initially shyly suggested that I come into the gym later in the morning to avail of the services of the lady trainer. I didn't, but I met her while being measured (more on that later). Waking up at 545 every morning was worth it. My trainer rocks because he is so damn fit. However, he also has a baby face and is so nice that I actually guilt myself into going to the gym at times. K always comes up with some new method of trying to kill me so I never get bored. It must be all those endorphins. And it's true. Early morning physical exertion makes you disgustingly energetic through the day. K gives me heavy weights and assures me that spot reduction is for losers and I smile through sweat blurred eyes.

The gym is partly airconditioned and fully Gujarati (this is Vile Parle, what did you expect?) and wonderfully entertaining. Today I was cornered by the staff and K who insisted I come to get myself "measured" in the morning. They did this when I joined as well - they didn't seem too concerned about when and if I was going to pay the fees as long as I get myself measured.

So there it was, loss quantified in terms of inches. I was like one of those chicks on TV commercials holding oversized pants over their new and petite frame, except I just had half an inch (and at one place, one and a half inches!) of measuring tape to show for my efforts. But I was grinning like an idiot. Especially when I found out that my weight on the measuring scale was absolutely the same it was a month ago.

The lady trainer who was sizing me up wasn't, but she obviously hadn't been doing as much internet research as I was.

And apparently I make a valuable contribution to the gym as well! I went home for a few days and when I came back, K looked more pleased than I expected him to be.

"You see, when you were out, the guys weren't working out as hard as they used to."

Cheesy, I know.

Ooh. That reminds me. Snack time!

Spring Cleaning

2008-11-04T06:40:00.000-08:00

I managed to inherit the worst family traits from my parents - instead of my mother’s metabolism (at least pre pregnancy), height, skin and patience. As for my Dad, I get his family’s hips, height and complexion and his outspokenness (the last one I don’t have much crib about, though my grandmother does).

Now that my parents have decided to move house, I have to confront what my Dad alleges is my worst mommy–like behaviour - my tendency to hoard.

I took a lot of offence to being compared to my mother on this front. Until I started rummaging through 15 years of accumulated items of varying value.

I was turning into my mother. Seriously this time.

So, welcome to my mess, which could be largely grouped as follows:

1. Usable: Items of stationery etc. which had definite use. Unfortunately “definite use” was limited only to the time at which I had decided they had some use which was about 10 years ago. So I found around 6 different compass sets, lots of (dried up) markers, pens and pencils, cotton balls, rulers which could also be used to trace out stars and moons, erasers (the ones in the shape of fruits, cars and animals which were absolutely useless as erasers but cute as hell), playing cards (useful in the imaginary world where I found the other 51), monopoly…

2. Useless: Let’s not even get into this, but to illustrate, I found 3 decapitated Barbie Dolls.

3. Sentimental value: Ah.

As a young adult, I would meticulously store all letters, cards, chits of significance – basically any written correspondence from ANYONE for reasons that I cannot recollect right now, but which largely have to do with one day looking back fondly at them and sharing them with the original authors. Nearly 10 years down the line, I was presented with the opportunity to go through them and bask in nostalgia. Right?

Not quite. If anything else, my reality was quite distorted.

Sifting through birthday cards, I found a very setting-sun-random-boats-and-palm-trees-having-no-relevance-to-the-theme-of-the-card-but-hey-what-did-you-expect-it’s-hallmark card with “To a Dear Friend” in bold Monotype Corsiva. Besides the usual corny 6 line message, the sender had included a handwritten message:

“Thanks a lot for being there. I never really liked you and the way you handle things but now I know that it was because of what people say about you and really I hope we can be friends. I know you must be surprised with this card because I think (I could be wrong, I hope so) you don’t like me, but still I hope we can be friends. I didn’t want to give anyone a card this year but I found this while shopping for raakhis and thought it was apt for you.”

My first reaction was denial. I couldn’t believe that there was a time where we all thought that life’s emotions can effectively be conveyed by a Greeting Card. This was also the same time that we were setting dance routines to “Backstreet’s Back” and “Five Six Seven Eight” so I suppose we could have been forgiven anything. My second reaction was shock, because lo and behold, the person who wrote this letter (was not a guy who came out of the closet, I know that’s what you were expecting, but ha ha ha) is a girl who I had gone out to dinner with the previous night, one of the few classmates from school who I was actively in touch with, and with whom I had no recollection of ill will whatsoever. I flipped the card around. It was a 25 buck card. 25 bucks for a greeting card was a lot on those times, and this wasn’t even a birthday card. What on earth had gone on between us? I tried to imagine the worst thing 8^th standard kids could do to each other. Did I not give her homework to copy? Impossible – I never did my homework until I got to class. Did we have a crush on the same guy? What? What?

I moved onto the next set of cards, best of luck cards for my 10^th board exams. I counted 15. Amazing, considering what an insignificant exam it is. A bookmark fell out.

“I’m going to miss you now that you’re leaving.

Have a great time and all the best to achieve whatever you want in life

Above all, NEVER FORGET ME!!!

With love, Fiona”

Cute. Obviously a memento from our farewell party. The only question was, who on earth was Fiona?

More sifting – cards from various admirers, relatives, and friends. A letter from a boy from Chandigarh which accompanied a birthday card, pleading with me to reply to his previous letter and despairing how my silence was making his life a living hell. Definitely not his finest hour. He had managed to contact me on Orkut and is a much more refined individual working for an MNC.

I then stumbled upon (literally, by now there was no place to stand) a pile of carefully preserved chits, letters and cards from a “bestest friend in the whole wide world”, who was the world to me and whose opinion was the only thing that ever mattered and she was such a dear friend that after school, in the five years that we studied in the same city, we met only once, when she wanted to buy food coupons from the cash counter at our annual rock festival.

Trust me, it gets better.

In a Manila envelope, I find mound of cards from one of my oldest friends. Like most close friends between different sexes, we had our period of “uncertainty” long long time ago where I developed a crush on him and where he started seeing an old “friend” and then we got back to being “just friends”. We never really discussed this, and my telling of the story was that I was naïve and really impressed by the guy in a school girlish way and I was on my own trip and got carried way with my own fantasies, while he was all the while in love with his girl back home. I found a lot of the cards (yes, again) and other paraphernalia that he sent me in 1999, just after we had met, all of which were signed off “with love” and “with lots of kisses”. That was alright, I suppose.

I then found a “miss you more and more every day” card from him, typically Archies, full of pining and “waiting to see you again”. Again, a handwritten message (if you have to include a handwritten note anyway why bother with the card?)

“I woke up this morning and realized that I was dreaming of you, and I’ve been missing you ever since. I don’t think I can stay without meeting you for long. So now I’m waiting…”

And others.

My Criminal Lawyer tendencies drew me to check the date of the card and compare it to the time period surrounding our “uncertainty” and when he started seeing the other woman (and of course I managed to remember that he didn’t tell me he was seeing her until 6 months after he actually did) Luckily I managed to check myself just before I drowned in overanalysis.

I shook the dust off me and went for a run along the beach. When I came back, my clearing up speed increased exponentially. Everything was neatly torn up and hopefully will be found on its way to the incinerator in a day’s time.

There’s a reason why the past is the past and that’s exactly where it should stay.

But it was reason good enough to get me to blog again!

Culinary Pursuits

2008-06-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

My roommate has moved away, and I officially live alone. One of the best parts of living alone is the independence of thought and planning - there's no chance of anyone even suggesting a course of action which is contrary to your own, even if you have none whatsoever. So after a whole spate of doing-everything-possible-in-Mumbai before A left, suspected flu, and another round of doing-everything-possible-in-Mumbai when A came back (quite similar to the first round, only with umbrellas), I spent what feels like the first Saturday in ages (1) Not working and (2) at home (3) not drinking, but that was only because my stash of Carlsberg was finished. The only productivity was thanks to my attempt at snacking before leaving for Dashavtaram with Bunny and Co., when I reached into my cheese box (30 cubes for 30 rupee discount) Who moved my cheese? Well, that didn't matter, but a trip to the Big Bazaar certainly was required. And I picked up a lof of exciting stir fry pastes from the Dollar Store, along with cold cuts, dressing, and a lot of other (discounted) goodies to experiment with at mealtimes.

Someone once expressed a lot of shock at the fact that I loved cooking and would cook for myself even when I lived alone, earlier.

"Isn't cooking for yourself boring?" she asked.

Of course it isn't. In fact, it leaves more scope for experimentation because there's only you to bear the results of your efforts. Also, there's no "other person" to think about - you may want to cook, your partner may be voraciously hungry, so ordering in is the most polite option, rather than have them hovering around you eating raw ingredients and hopping up and down. That's the sort of thing that brings out the worst in me (ask my sister). Also, as I am the least fussy eater I know (I eat anything that moves, and even stuff that doesn't), the widest variety of seasonal vegetables have made an entry into the kitchen pantry.

The painful bit is the preparing of the tiffin, not so much for the fact that I have to wake up early for that, but also because the tiffin is eaten in public view (office) and open to comments and questions from interested bystanders, basically, Pooh.

(You do remember Pooh, don't you?)

On one occasion where I chanced to bring ladyfinger (bhindi):

"What is that?"

"Bhindi"

"Oh God, why does it look like THAT?"

I was a little taken aback. Was there fungus on it?

"Huh?"

"Its in such small pieces!"

"Pooh, it cooks faster that way."

"Oh..."

Pooh prides herself on bringing sorry looking sabzis to office. Of course if you prompt her she will tell you this whole story about how she made her maid cut the vegetables but she didn't cut it properly, and so Pooh had to re-cut it, and make the sabzi along with another sabzi for dinner, and rotis, and so on, and how in the whole mess she missed the 9:00 Thane Mumbai AC Bus and then she had to take the 930 one, and that is why she made someone else rush to attend her matter at 11 at the Sessions Court. Despite all these efforts, her food tastes really crappy. For instance, she was so proud of a spinach curry which was so oversalted that I couldn't taste anything else.

All women who I know who make "dabbas" for their husbands/significant others complain about how much of an effort it is and how no one understands that. So I usually give them the option of the friendly neighbourhood dabbawaala, which they are not willing to discuss. Preparing a dabba for their loved one gives them a lot of pride, evidently. But, they still crib about it. The reason I feel the exact opposite (no pride, but no effort either) is because, I am convinced, that I am doing it for myself. I cook nice food to spoil myself. Where's the effort in that? There's no pride, because no one envies you for having yourself to cook for yourself. If nothing else, they feel sorry for you.

I stopped making myself a Dabba (I'd only carry a veggie, I'd buy rotis at a place near office) when my roommate moved in. There was no real issue in making one for her too - but it's not that simple. Anyway she had office catering, and then I'd just be cooking for myself, which was selfish, in an unexplainable kind of way.

Pooh once asked me what my roommate used to do when I'd be cooking.

"Nothing", I said after some thought.

"Nothing? Nothing at all?"

"Well, most of the time she isn't home. If she is, well, she talks to me and all."

"I mean does she help you?"

"Well, she sets the table, and things like that, here and there."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

I hate that question, simply because it is evident from the previous conversation that the fact that she does not do anything has not even occurred to me, let alone cause me any anguish.

But there's another dimension to this.

Pooh gets up and makes breakfast for hubby, and then makes lunch and dinner. Her Husband wakes up, reads the paper, drinks his tea, and leaves at 730am for work. He'll come back and help her heat stuff in the microwave. But that doesn't bother Pooh, because he is a MAN - and its OK for men not to help around the kitchen.

Girls, on the other hand, need to "slave around". One girl "slaving around" for another is not acceptable.

"Pooh, I don't know about you, but I find cooking very destressing".

[For the record, Pooh does not find cooking destressing. In fact, when she has lots of guests over and insists on cooking, she actually takes the next day off to recuperate.]

But yes, cooking is destressing to me, because in a lot of ways it is the exact opposite of my professional world. Between 11am to 5pm, my life is full of frustration and uncertainties. I have a matter, I prepare for it, I have the precedents, I'm clear on the law, I'm ready to rock. However - sometimes the other side isn't present, sometimes they are present and aren't ready to argue. Sometimes the Judge isn't present, sometimes he's not willing to take up the matter. Sometimes the other side is present and ready to go on, sometimes the Judge is present and is ready to hear the matter, but they can't find the case papers. Sometimes the other side is present and ready to go on, sometimes the Judge is present and is ready to hear the matter, and they have the papers and I argue but the Judge doesn't order in my favour because he doesn't like my face, or because he's been bought by the other side, or because he just doesn't see my point. Sometimes the Judge rules in my favour and I am thrilled but only to step outside the Court and find the Court peon sneak upto me and tell me to tell my Client that the Judge is waiting for his last and final installment.

In my kitchen, however, there are no uncertainties. I prepare myself by using the best ingredients and I know my recipe well. The bright flames of the gas leap up and embrace the kadai I place on it, after a good rinse. The water droplets sizzle and boil away, the pan is as hot as it can get and calls upon me to present my case. In goes a little oil, and some spice, some excitement. I work furiously, with my spoons and spatulas, and the art continues - colourful vegetables, succulent meats, some seasoning. I let the heat and the steam do its work, and I become the master - a little too long, and it will burn, and little too less, and it will be raw. There are no distractions, no adjournments. In the end, I turn into the Judge in my own case, and I bear the consequences of my actions. No stress, just Art.

Am wondering whether I can drive Pooh to early retirement by bringing a dabba of phad thai noodles, kimchi salad and salami and cheese roll ups.

The thought of that is more destressing than even cooking. Hmm.

Daddy Cool

2008-06-15T03:29:00.000-07:00

Coincidence or otherwise, my Daily Dilbert email had a very interesting sidebar link. Usually I ignore such links the the fear that through my IP address my email address will get tracked down and then I will be spammed to death. Mentally, I am still in the year 2000 when I had a hotmail account which had a non-functional spam mechanism, which meant that I actually had to sift through Betty Crocker discount emails and advice on increasing penis size (I don't know why I keep getting spammed with that, and viagra on 81% discount either) to get to the few emails from people who really mattered, which also would end up to be "forward or die" emails.

Anyway.

This was a find though:

http://www.fatherhood.org/

Of course, since we have so many American men (and at one point of time, Ravi Shankar) running around the United States impregnating women and leaving them to fend for themselves and their children, what else can one do but put up banners and hoardings and sell CD ROMS telling people the difference between "fathering" and "father". So you have, among other things, a group of secret agents who pounce on unsuspecting men playing Frisbee with junior in the park and give them huge gift hampers to celebrate their doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. Men getting gifts for not acting like jerks. Why didn't we think of this before?

Besides advising men (especially Army men) on how to become true Dads, the organization believes in starting early. The Boyz to Dads link provides for educative materials for

Dads, moms, educators, mentors, social workers, youth ministers, or any concerned adult can use this program to help prepare boys to make good choices on topics like relationships, sex, and peer pressure. Because boys learn best in a visual, interactive, hands-on environment, the Boyz 2 Dads™ interactive game format is the perfect way for you to capture their attention and then start a conversation on these important issues.

I have something to say about this, but it isn't quite forthcoming.

I was suddenly excited that maybe the US Government had programmes to improve men in every role possible - husbands, boyfriends - but to my disappointment, www.husband.org is all about links on finding our whether your husband is cheating on you or not, and www.boyfriend.org deals with shady lingerie. Wah wah.

The morning after a night full of sedate revelry, we suddenly realized that though people around us are getting married left, right and centre, that even among people 5 years older than us, we couldn't name anyone (besides this one woman) who had moved from the recreation to the procreation stage. Do people not have the time? Do people (understandably)not have the inclination? Or have people actually been failing at attempts, which is mother's nature's way of telling us that 5 years of law school have made us incapable of bringing up a sane and happy child? Like a slow genocide?

Anyway - the moral of the National Fatherhood Initiative is to remember that "Have you been a Dad today?" is not a nice way of asking if you remembered to use protection.

Happy Father's Day.

Always the professional

2008-06-13T03:09:00.000-07:00

(Note: this is a highly technical post and involves a lot of legal procedural bullshit. Avoid if possible)

I just got back from a gruelling day of Trial Court litigation, with a glow on my face and a grin that could put Jack Nicholson to shame. On paper, it was a sucessful day, but in actuality, it was kick ass.

Where do I begin?

Cut to many many months ago, when I was a struggling clueless junior without a friend beyond the souls that inhabited my chamber. I latched onto friends of friends (very Orkut) who were the most easily available and who I would be hanging out with most of the time anyway. One such "friend of friend" was CP, friend of the much admired SP. They had started their careers together and were professional buddies, often appearing for co-accused. That means that if one of them, say SP, is approached by a pair of Accused persons, he will make CP represent one of them. Having different lawyers gives an impression of there being no nexus between the two Accused, and if you've got a buddy defending the co-accused then you can even have heated arguments during the cross examination while trying to pin the blame on one of the persons. Which goes a lot like this:

"So you saw the guy who did it"

"Yes"

"Was it him?"

"Or was it him?"

"No, it was him."

"But that guy was tall. My Client isnt tall."

"No, he could have been short"

"Stop trying to pin the blame on my Client"

"YOU stop trying to pin the blame on MY Client"

JUDGE: Aargh. Adjourn, adjourn!

(Note: No Judge ever says Order, Order. Not even in restaurants.)

This is done rapidly and repeatedly until the Public Prosecutor has lost his mind and everyone is clear beyond the shadow of a (reasonable) doubt.

Anyway CP and I would catch up for a tea here, a coffee there, maybe lunch at the Sessions Court canteen, mostly with SP, but we had become friends - for me it was the kind of friendship where you don't really care about the other person's feelings or remember their birthday but you feel comfortable in the knowledge that you have a familiar face in your surroundings. One day, he asks me to go for lunch with him. I'm expecting Pritam da Dhaba, we end up at one of the most happening restaurants in Mumbai (at that time, now it serves 6 stale prawns on 6 pieces of stale bread for 400 bucks) on the pretext that he needs to pick up papers from the owner, his Client (the former partners are our Clients. Co-Accused, tra la la). Random chit chat, and then a mention about his daughter.

"You're married?" I asked. Yes, blog slasher, I know it's a stupid question. And I know it makes it sound like I was disappointed to find out that he was married. I wasn't. I just found the whole thing shady.

Not mentioning your marital status is shady behaviour, in my book. Of course this doesn't mean that married people need to walk around with yellow stars or tattoos which say "married to ...", but if you've met someone and had actual conversation with them on several occasions and they do not tell you that they are married, it's pretty shady.

Hmm. That doesn't sound quite right.

Okay. It's not like the person has to make a curtsy and say "Look, I'm married. Now, about last night's Croatia Germany match...". It can be a very subtle reference, like "my husband and I went to big bazaar last week" or "my wife is allergic to mushrooms" or "my father in law has a gun license". It's pretty weird if you don't mention something like that.

Especially when, after not mentioning his marital status for several months, CP then asks me to go out for lunch with him every day.

I admit that in the beginning I would oblige. I mean, married men are supposed to be safe. [I should point out here that CP is too desi and unattractive for me to want for him to hit on me.] Anyway, married men never hit on other women, at least that's what I thought when I was 23. Especially when the married man in question had a "love marriage".

"Well, it wasn't really love", said CP. "I decided to marry her."

"So why isn't that a love marriage?", I asked.

"Because love and passion are things I'd like to keep away from marriage," he smiled, and winked at me.

What actually caused me to sit and wonder what the fuck was going on, were the shady (shady is as shady does) messages that I began to get:

"I miss you every time I don't see you."

"I'm depressed - I haven't seen you all week."

The Ick-o-meter was running amok. I gently tried to show my "I don't think I'm really comfortable" face to him, and he said it was "just a little harmless flirting". Alrighty!

And then, on New Year's:
"Last night I had the most wonderful dream - I dreamt that I was on a deserted island with you."

It was time to pull the plug. And strangely enough, I wound up feeling guilty about this, about being the "other woman" who a (presumably) happily married man finds no qualm about flirting with or dreaming about being on a deserted island with. Can't any normal guy want to be with me? And other similar whines.

Time went on, and I realized that I was no villain - CP, and many many other men that I encountered in Mumbai, were all suffering from the same asshole disease.

I've been handling a matter in the Magistrate's Court at Mazgaon, involving a case dating back to 1986, in which my Client, along with his wife and landlady, were accused of forgery by my Client's own cousin. In the last 22 years, my Client's wife and his landlady both expired. In 2006, my Client's cousin, the Complainant, also expired. Normally, in cases initiated by the Complainant before a Magistrate, if the Complainant dies, the case abates, unless you can find strong reasons supporting the Complainant being replaced. The Original Complainant's younger brother made an application to be substituted, and thereafter never turned up for 2 years. Family gossip says that the young boy, who was only 12 at the time of the alleged offence, had gone mad after an accident and does not recognize anyone. Be that as it may, for about 10 hearings no one turned up on the part of the wannabe substituted Complainant until yours truly went there and kicked up a royal fuss until a final notice was sent to cousin fruitcake.

I walk into court and ask to see the original court papers, when I hear a voice asking for the papers of my case. I whirl around.

I won't even ask you to guess who it was.

"CP, you are appearing in this?"

"Arre, you are there in this matter?"

Arre indeed.

Two questions later I realize that CP has no idea what he's getting into, and I also realize that though I thought I despised him beyond belief, I was actually okay, now, with CP.

"This is really something," he said, looking at the 2 ft pile of papers, known as the case file.

And just when I thought things had gotten better:

"I think we should take... a date." The last two words were whispered so close to my ear that I had to wipe my earlobes after jumping out of my chair.

Goes to show you, pigs is pigs.

Luckily the Judge walked in just then.

I was hopping mad about everything by then - the random flirting, the making me feel bad about myself, the unnecessary display of intimacy, and now, above it all, the fact that he was using all that to completely take me for granted and make a quick escape from the proceedings.

One should never let personal equations hamper legal practice. All the while, I only had my Client's interests at stake, I swear.

The Judge pulled out my application for dismissal. She asked CP to give his "say".

CP took out his pen and scribbled half a page. "Read it", he said, and I had to bear him coming closer to me so that I could read.

"The proposed Complainant has been attending the Court regularly and has been very diligent in dealing with the case".

I smiled. "CP, are you sure you want to keep this line in?"

CP gave me a very confident sidelong glance. "It's a standard reply."

I shrugged.

Our turn came around again, and the Judge asked if I was ready to argue.

After laying down the basic legal mumbo jumbo, I attacked the reply.

"First of all, the Advocate of this so called proposed complainant is making a clear misrepresentation to the court. While he says that his Client has been attending the Court regularly, the record of the Court will show that for the past 11 dates, neither the proposed complainant nor his advocate have been turning up for the hearings, whereas my Client, a senior citizen has not defaulted even once. If anyone is to be termed..." I pretended to relook at the reply "...diligent, it should be the Accused, and not this person."

The Judge snooped through the roznama and glared at CP.

CP took a break from asking me to adjourn the matter in whispers to make a legal point.

"My lady, the law on substitution is very clear."

"Is it?", I asked.

"My lady in case of the death of the Complainant his next of kin or other aggrieved person can step into his shoes and carry on the proceedings."

"My lady, I submit that this depends on which stage of the proceedings we are in"

So saying, I looked at CP for his reply. He had none, because he didn't know what stage this matter was on anyway.

I wasn't quite done yet.

"I don't blame my colleague for making such an error - I don't think he has been properly briefed. As it is, he is neither or record nor has he been instructed by the Advocate on record..."

The Judge glared even more and shuffled the papers for the Vakalatnama, CP was honest enough to admit that he had just been orally instructed and not formally authorized.

"Then?" asked the Judge, clearly irritated.

"My lady, a date may be given?", whimpered CP.

The Judge grunted and began to dictate the day's proceedings.

"The matter is adjourned for arguments on the application."

"Last chance?" I suggested.

"Yes Yes. 'The last chance is given to the Advocate for the proposed complainant to argue the matter.' " She looked at me thoughtfully. "With proper authorization".

CP muttered something while digging out his calendar. "Shall we take a date in September?"

"I'm okay with anything she says", I said, nonchalantly.

"Next date", announced the Judge.

"My lady, September..."

"July 1st!" roared the Judge.

CP bowed down and cringed at the case file.

"Much obliged", we chanted in unison.

I stepped into the corridor to appraise my Client of what exactly happened there, he isn't very good with english but he figured something had clicked for us. CP rushed past me after a quick "bye". I walked down with my Client and as I walked into the compound, I saw CP's balding head turn towards me. He was talking to a young girl, who I recognized to be the trembling intern who was trying to keep her Senior's matter back earlier that morning. When our matter was called out for the second time, I had to go find CP, and he had been in a corner of the corridor chatting with this same girl.

CP gave me a smile - not "a" smile, but "the" smile, a smile I don't think he would have given me even if he won the case we were arguing. As far as he was concerned, CP had won his case, and he was very happy about it.

I still can't wipe the smirk off my face.

Class of '99

2008-06-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

I finally had a long overdue school friends reunion, but it was under the worst circumstances possible - a friend got into an accident with his young wife, in which she expired. Incidentally we found out only when one of us called him up on his cell to fix the venue of our sixteenth (planned) reunion. His brother picked up and gave him the tragic details. And so, I called my sofawalla in the morning so that we could all meet up and visit Rahul that evening.

I’ve been for very few condolence visits before. As for funerals, I avoid them whenever possible – stemming from my fear of death, I suppose. Condolence visits were just an extension of that – you had to talk about death, it was all around you, Someone would be around to give you the whole details – when it happened, how they tried to help, how it almost didn’t happen – but then it did. Talking about the person very rarely happens on such occasions, besides an occasional comment on how nice the person is. If s/he was so nice, then why did they die? Because God takes those who he loves the most. And some other clichés like so. And on top of this, this was for the death of someone I didn’t even know – the wife of a school classmate who I hadn’t spoken to since Class IX with the exception of a few random Orkut Scraps. As I left the scene of my upholstery work I scanned my cupboard for something to wear. I eyed my whites, but then thought it was too filmi – white salwar, followed by a white dupatta over my head and topped with dark glasses to complete the ensemble. Anyway it had been a week since the funeral. I toyed with the sleeve of a black kurta, but rejected it on the grounds of being labelled as someone who had been watching too much of Star TV since childhood and was under the mistaken impression that Black was the colour of mourning. I settled on a Olive Green FabIndia Kurta teamed with a new black churidar. The FabIndia Kurta betrayed my ever expanding beer belly, while the waistband of the churidar cut into my midriff. I put up with it because despite all this, I looked the part.
An hour later, new sofas snugly placed on the chair, I met up with my estranged classmates at Andheri, and after commenting on how much weight I had put on, they informed me that they didn’t remember where our friend lived.
“We could Just Dial his Dad, maybe?” suggested one.
I raised one badly-in-need-of-threading eyebrow at him.
“Or then maybe we could call GS?”
GS was the one friend of ours who had been to his place, but pleaded memory loss. Suzy looked at me. “Could you call him, please?”
Both eyebrows this time. “What?”
“Well there’s no other way to find out, is there?”
I walked to the side of the building that we were standing at and dialed the number. My heart sank when the phone connected, and almost stopped when it was picked up. Surprisingly, there was a lady on the line. I introduced myself as a classmate, and told her that we wanted to see him. She explained a very complicated set of directions to us, but five minutes later, we were right outside his doorstep.
As we entered, I saw the familiar faces of his father (“Hello Uncle”), and his sister, our Senior in school, now betraying her Punjabi genetics by becoming a plump member of the “aunty” species, and I specifically noted that she was wearing a very pink salwar kameez. She noted that I had “changed completely” (glasses, no braces and a swanky haircut) and we sat down to wait. The sister looked a little forlorn, and told us that they were trying to “cheer him up” but nothing seemed to be working. From well wishers we were now supposed to be entertainers.
Rahul walked out of the bathroom, limping, having just washed his bruises. He looked at us and nodded politely, and I thought to myself, this is it, he’s just going to walk on and not talk to us and sulk in his bedroom. But a split second later, he came back in with the embarrassed smile that was is trademark in school, and then we settled in to talk. I did not ask about “what happened” – I didn’t want to know, and nothing could change the fact that he was a widower now, knowing whether she died of a head injury or internal bleeding would make no difference to my life. So we talked about school - of the good times, of whose pant ripped during PT and who was given that embarrassing name by his teachers. And then we talked about the present, but just in terms of statistics: where X was working, where Y was studying. By the end of it, Rahul was laughing and we had even nudged him into accepting a school friends meet on the first weekend in June.

I remembered our big plan just a few days before the date. My first instinct was to pretend like it never happened - like how you say "I'll call" or something as vague and never mean it. But I needed to keep my moral high ground as the charming ever ready hostess, and so I messaged the lot, hoping for a round of "Can't we do this next weekend?"s. But all I got was confirmations, a few "I'll be late but I'll be there"s and even a drop in from a Delhi based school mate who was in town. Oh boy.

I chided myself for being lazy, especially with there being so little to do - my living room was clean (since my roommate left, the living space was now confined to the bedroom), the fridge could be stocked easily enough, and the boys insisted that I not cook, but we'll all just order in. Then it dawned upon me. I wasn't lazy, or anti social - I was just scared. I was throwing a party and inviting over people who, just a few weeks ago, were mourning the loss of the wife of our friend. And I was inviting the same friend as well. True to my habit of staging my worst apprehensions about an event in my head, I visualized a breakdown, his getting emotional whenever we mentioned marriage or settling down or future plans, perhaps he would lock himself in my bedroom to cry, perhaps he would leave early so as not to make a nuisance of himself. Well, it was too late (or too early, even) to angst about all that. I ordered 6 bottles of Carlsberg (this was a party, after all), picked up snacks, and settled in with the first arrivals.

Then Rahul came in, and I braced myself for the climate change. But there was none. The stories continued in full flow, as did the beer (reinforcements were called for), and we were a group of smiley happy people. The random anecdotes came tumbling out of our memories, as did gossip and speculations about the unfortunate classmates who weren't present with us. All of us were transported back to a time where even crushes were platonic, where competition was only about marks, where you would gasp dramatically if anyone would say "fuck", when you weren't fat, when years of smoking hadn't hampered your ability to run like crazy, when you could buy Pepsi sticks for 50 paise, and when the worst thing that could ever happen to you was a DeMerit Card. And of course, a time when you would never imagine sitting around with these blokes in some other city drinking copious amounts of alcohol.

While serving dinner, I remembered a follow up that I needed to give on something I had appraised a few friends of mine on.

"Guys, the parents meeting was completely successful!"

"See, all fingers and toes intact" said Q, who was a guest of honour for the evening.

This brought a round of cheers from the folks. It was then suddenly that a doubt creeped into my beer high that maybe this was not the time for such an announcement. But just then, I heard a voice.

"When's the wedding?" asked Rahul, excitedly.

I think all of us did a double take at that one.

We had, amongst us, one of the youngest guys in our batch, easily the most soft spoken of them all, who had gotten married when he just turned 21, and was now a widower. He had his wife's name painted on his bike and had her picture on his phone screen. He had removed his plaster but he was still hurting, it was obvious. But he was now getting visibly excited about attending someone else's wedding, while I had, all this while, been expecting a total break down in my living room. And from the looks of everyone else in the room, it was quite a common expectation.

We may have wound up shooting tequila shots like kids, but I think we all grew up a little bit that night.

Tagged

2008-05-21T02:20:00.000-07:00

Jesus!

What Book Are You Reading: Nothing afresh. Rereading Serenssima by Erica Jong. Am generally a big fan but this one's a little random. Also picking through "Maximum City" by Suketu Mehta, again a re-read. Enjoyable in parts. But why does he need to tie it all up?

Favourite Board Game: Monopoly! And Risk, for a while, until a certain Bengali with a sheer lack of sporting spirit ruined it for me one day when I was down with the Cold of 2006.

Favourite Magazine: Time Out

Favorite Smells: Right now, my Jasmine Plant. And also, Calvin Klein One. But only on One particular person.

Favourite Sound: Wind Chimes. And the Doorbell when Q's coming home.

Worst Feeling in The World: When I need to pee really badly when I'm in the Metropolitan Magistrate's Court.

Is the First Thing You Think of When You Wake? Do I need to be in Office/ Court early or can I afford to snooze a little more?

Favorite Fast Food Place: Chowpatty Pav Bhaji and Bhel. That's pretty fast food.

Finish This Statement. "If I Had A Lot Of Money I'd... stop a lot of my present Cribs.

Do You Sleep With A Stuffed Animal? Yes yes!

Storms-Cool Or Scary? Scary. A little.

Favourite drink: Appy Fizz and Green Apple Vodka.

Finish This Statement, "If I Had The Chance I Would ...travel lots.

You Could Dye Your Hair Any Color, What Would Be Your Choice? Some red streaks I think.

What's Under Your Bed? Dust. Suitcases. Raddi. And some clothes.

Would You Like To Be Born As Yourself Again? Yes, but with a flashback hitting me at age 10 about all the crap I wound up doing in my past life. Forewarned is forearmed, of course.

Morning Person Or Night Owl? Depends on what needs doing.

Over Easy Or Sunny Side Up? Sunny side up. I like my yolk a little dribbly.

Favourite Place To Relax: My living room diwan.

Favourite Pie: Pumpkin!

Ice Cream Flavor: Fig and Honey

Testing Times

2008-05-12T03:25:00.001-07:00

Holding fort in Office today while my Boss called in sick, he made feeble inquiries about the state of affairs in Office and then told me that he was on his way for a few tests.

"All Okay?" I asked, out of courtesy.

"If it was all OK I wouldn't be undergoing all these tests, would I?" His attempt at sarcastic humour was tinged with a little stress, and some gentle probing revealed that his blood sugar and cholesterol levels had hit the roof. Now his Doctor had advised him to take all sorts of investigative examinations, and so he was on his way to Bombay Hospital from Cumballa Hill, and obviously not very happy, after all, these tests don't come cheap.

The Hypochondriac in me resurfaced. On several occasions I had convinced myself that I had various life threatening diseases, including Cancer, Meningitis, Tuberculosis, Leukemia, and Internal Bleeding, and all at the same time. This has not been helped by incompetent and brash doctors and extensive use of the internet (more importantly, the Symptom checker on Mayoclinic.com). Today I therefore decided that I would use some of my stashed cash to go in for a complete health check up - after all investing in yourself is the best investment, yes no?

In my enthusiasm, I called up Bombay Hospital and clocked myself in for an appointment on Friday, 9am.

"Ma'am, just a few things. You'll have to take nothing from the mouth from 9pm the previous night, no water also. And you will have to come with your samples."

"I'm sorry?"

And then she proceeded to tell me which samples I needed to carry along with me.

"Okay Madam, have a good day."

I winced. Not only would I have to wake up, have a bath (I couldn't subject a Doctor to a stinky patient, could I?), collect my 'samples' (on second thoughts that should have been before the bath) in containers (she was helpful enough to suggest that I could use 'any' container around, provided I cleaned it well before use), take a train and land up across town by 9am.

Yeah, right.

The good thing about all the Big City Hospitals is that they all have very informative websites, and I jumped 21 kilometers by calling Nanavati, which is just a stone's throw away.

"Hello." I began. "My name is Ruma, and I'm 25 years old. I am interested in a Health Care Package."

After taking down my basic details and outlining an extensive package for me, the chirpy guy on the line asks if it is sufficient.

"I'd like a PAP Smear test also. And a mammography."

"Ma'am, actually, your package would not have a PAP Smear test."

"Well, then upgrade me", I said, in my best Diva voice.

"No Ma'am, actually, we don't give PAP Smear tests to unmarried ladies."

I was so taken aback, that only stupidity tumbled out of my mouth. "Why?"

"Actually," I could feel the red flow into his cheeks even so far away. "Ma'am it involves invasive procedures Ma'am, so Ma'am, we don't perform it on unmarried ladies."

Of course. I changed my voice settings back to normal. "Oh, but I think I would require it to be done."

"Yes Ma'am?"

"Yes."

A nervous laughter was heard across the line. "Actually Ma'am normally the unmarried ladies don't take Ma'am, that's why. Sorry."

If I wanted to, I could have gotten really mad at the guy for daring to imply that I was 'abnormal'. But then again, I could think of a lot of women who would get highly annoyed after having unknowingly signed up for the test, the ones who compromised on sexual pleasure in order to protect their pristine honour (like a friend from College who would blush on admitting to 'interesting things' happening with fingers but prided herself on having responded to her mother's asking her if she had done 'it' with a melodramatic "Mother, look into my eyes, see how I am looking into your eyes and saying NO, I haven't, how can you even doubt me!") only to lose their virginity to an Aylesbury Spatula.

The young intern (I am assuming) then told me that I could pick up sample containers at any pharmacy, and lowered his voice again while informing me that for the PAP, there was the additional condition of "no periods can be going on".

"Yes, I think that is under control."

Upon Googling, I found out that while before going for a med check up, you should stay off alcohol and cigarettes for at least 24 hours before the tests, and you shouldn't have sex within 24 hours of going in for your PAP smear test. It's amazing how much of crucial information I was denied just because the poor guy was afraid of pissing off the 'normal' teetotalling virgin who lands up at Nanavati. Hmm. Do normal teetotalling virgins even ask for Medical Check Ups?

So anyway, I am going to find out how many years I have to live sometime early next week, before which I think I'll have to give up the juice for a day, not a mean suggestion considering I've been drinking at least a mug of beer every day for the past week. After all, I don't want the Doctors at Nanavati thinking that I'm a Slut AND and Alcoholic.

Slutty Savitri?

2008-04-27T03:33:00.000-07:00

For the men, don't despair. While you may not get free booze and food, you can feel happy with the first virtual Indian porn star - Savitha Bhabhi, a 100% bharatiya naari fully adorned with sindoor and mangalsutra, who doesn't wear a bra and is desperately in need of the good stuff. http://www.savitabhabhi.com/ will give you a daily dose of her interesting antics - in the first month's episode, its your friendly neighbourhood door to door bra salesman who gets lucky. I went through a few episodes in the morning but failed to get agitated and all feminist about the representation of this desi wet dream fantasy, perhaps because I found this as an interesting antithesis to the Balaji Telefilms Sati Savitri. Personally I find Savita much more believable than a long suffering daughter in law who is married off to an older man to save her other two sisters but the older man won't sleep with her and so then she suffers until the older man finally has pity on her and sleeps with her but then he dies in a car accident and then she has to marry her husband's younger brother to take care of her baby, thus invoking the wrath of the brother's spurned girlfriend but then brother and bhabi find true love and get busted when, twenty years later, older brother comes back from the dead and then spurned girlfriend plots to bring them down and then twenty years later, they both die after being attacked by hired killers and are then reincarnated and then twenty years later...

Will this make Savita Bhabi the new age mascot of the "real" indian woman? Well, I don't see too many men (especially milkmen) having an issue with that.

Hope this makes your Monday, male friends.

Paying the Price

2008-04-25T06:07:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, A and I took a walk on the wild side. We left office early and walked into a new and happening pub in Andheri. I had, in the following sequential order - one mojito, one strawberry daiquiri, one pina colada, half a pina colada (A didn't like hers), one more strawberry daiquiri, one more mojito, and just to make sure that this wasn't an anagram of a drinking pattern, a mug of draft beer. We chomped on many nacho chips and impoverished chicken wings. Any guesses on the bill?
It was a trick question. It was all free.
Three cheers for ladies night!
As I struggled through the next day with my Bacardi White Rum induced hangover (it was for free - cocktails made with the "house pour") I was pouring over a full bench decision of the Bombay High Court wanting to sock it to the Chief Justice for his verbal diarrhoea when a strong pang rumbled in my stomach. I continued to read, distractedly, for the next ten minutes when it dawned upon me that it was time.
To pay the price for ladies' night.
Every month, this becomes the routine. I'll pick up my bag and walk out of the Office, the office peons will joke about how madam was leaving early, madam informs them that she'll be right back. I go to the ground floor to the pharmacy below my office and bark out my order.
The deja vu continues, I walk in and don't give a second look to the people teeming around me, a lot of them just talking to the Gujju boys who run the pharmacy and watching the greenish tinted TV for whatever cricket match is playing. I name my brand, the boy hops on the table to reach for the sanitary pads which are kept in the highest glass doored cupboard. The door is slid open and then the directions begin "no, not that one... no the blue one... not that blue, THAT blue, wait, does that one have wings? (the packet is tossed to me) No, I want the one without wings. Yes yes." The young man's acrobatics have successfully got me my purchase, he hops down and bills it. He looks at me hesitatingly because he knows I'm not done but he's too embarrassed with the situation to say it in a "would you like fries with that" tone.
I make his life easier.
"One strip of Spasmol Proxyvon, please?"
Spasmol Proxyvon has been banned in most countries, and I'm guessing they are all patriarchal nightmare regimes who want women to suffer in pain month after month after month. Nothing beats the cramps like the SP.
The old man who sits at the cash counter (in family businesses the oldest relative will sit at the cash counter. Its OK if he can't see or can't walk, but he's the only one authorized to return change.) gave me my change and a strange look, a very "i know what you did last summer" look. Puzzled, I recounted my change and then I remembered that I had come here 2 weeks ago to buy a Pill 72 for poor old Pooh to stop her from recounting the gory details of her not so safe encounter of the previous night. It was a look of "congratulations, it worked".
The pharmacy is populated by a family of identical looking kutchi boys who certainly have an information overload when it comes to me, at least. They know when I menstruate, the shampoo I use, when I have an embarrassing rash, my preferred brand of deodorant, when I 'forgot' to use protection and when I have a bad stomach. Of course they are sweet enough to be non judgmental about it all and act as if they've never seen me before in my life. Or maybe I encounter a different brother every time.

In the meanwhile the kutchi boy is busy wrapping my packet of sanitary napkins in newspaper. I've noticed this right since my early days. The packet is wrapped tightly in several layers of newspaper, and then put in a plastic bag - not just any plastic bag - but a black plastic bag. So when you are walking around, so one will look at the elongated newspaper wrapped package in the black bag and ever mistake it for a packet of sanitary napkins, right? It would save a lot of time if Johnson and Johnson just gave up on the birds and dancing women on the packaging and stuck to camouflaged packaging.

Personally I don't give a shit about hiding the fact (actually I did earlier, but one day I had the entire investigation team of an arms haul distracted by the bright blue packet which was peeping out from my bag, and from then on I decided that it was pointless to really angst about it from now on) and so I asked the guy to stop wrapping, to not give me the plastic bag (another routine which gets repeated every month) and I stuffed the packet and the pills in my bag and trudged up to office.

Growing up in a confused-brahminical-hangover household, where only one generation ago women were made to sit separately from the rest of the family when religious festivities coincided with that time of the month and clean their sitting area with cowdung, I was often warned that proper decorum demanded that men never found out that you were "down". My mother's father apparently never found out until she was well into her post-teens, that that too he was informed only when he asked (I never claimed to come from the sharpest family in Goa, did I?). This was what was curtly informed to me when, despite having been adequately warned about the possibility, I screamed when I discovered that I was, well, bleeding like an animal. That was also the point of time where I realized that I would never make it in the medical profession. In a 500 sq ft. Mumbai Law Firm Office, it seems a little impossible - right from excusing yourself to go to the bathroom, carrying you entire bag along with you, coming out with a small ball (again newspaper wrapped) clenched tightly in your fist, politely requesting the office peon to move away from the pantry sink so I can stoop down, open the cupboard door and chuck. The new office peon, a 17 year old sprightly boy, looks away in polite embarrassment, if there can be such a term, and continues looking away until I leave the pantry room. We don't have a trashcan in the bathroom - which I don't crib about, because things would just be more obvious then, wouldn't it, with the evidence "on display"?

Those 4, 5, or in the case of a dear friend, 11 days (her conciliation was that it only happens 11 times a year for her) are just the pits - you're emotionally challenged, your face is an oil slick, your back is busted, sex life screwed, tempers flying, you're bloated, dogs follow you around (at least street dogs. I swear this is true.) and even God considers you as non existent. So I shall have my free drinks and chicken wings and fuck all of you who think that it's a little excessive for being born without the Y chromosome. :)

Moving out: Or why you should dump the bastard NOW

2008-04-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes moving out is as difficult as moving on.

My current pre-occupation, a case under the Domestic Violence Act, involves a couple who dated for ten years and then got married in their late 20's, which is a great step towards a "mature" relationship, right? Some months later, the Husband smashes her nose into a bloodied pulp in an alcoholic rage, but they make up over several rhinoplasties, she gets pregnant, he gives her a hard time, and even when a baby can't salvage the situation, she leaves the house to retain her sanity, and when she tries to go back to talk to her Husband, he isn't home.

And he's changed the lock on the door.

After a much contested order from what can be only described as a very stoned Magistrate, I obtain interim relief for my Client in being able to enter her house and reclaim her belongings. So braving an auto strike, me, my Client and her Dad travel in an Armada to the back of beyond suburb in an attempt to reclaim her life.

The house was already teeming with people - the Husband (who had been sweet talking me all week), his friends, his lawyer (who only was asked to come because I was coming) and his lawyer's friend, my Client and her father, and her friend (a celebrity nutritionist), and me. It was like a funeral - everyone recounting the good times and the eventual demise of the loved one - in this case, the relationship.

There was a clear divide - there were some, like the Husband's friends, who all had participated in the couple's clandestine dating rituals and seen them right from the time that he "proposed her", who still looked hopeful and all maintained that "he didn't mean almost trying to kill her", and still calling her Bhabhi much like bereaved relatives who keep calling out to a dead person in the hope that they will suddenly awake. There were some who were actually relieved that it was over - like the nutritionist friend. And then there were some who probably would have killed it had it not died its own death - like her father.

"She's so educated," he lamented, "and she married this disgusting man." He had sneered at his soon-to-be-ex-son-in-law's attempts to offer him Iced tea "to refresh himself". I rejected on the ground of added sugar (and perhaps added sedatives. Dude, he disfigured a woman's face. Don't think I was going to push my luck). "Actually whatever happened, and what ever is happening now, only she is to blame."

The Husband's lawyers put down their newspapers and suddenly leaned forward, having obviously heard this strange admission. I was also shocked. "Why on earth would you say something like that?"

"She was the one who wanted to marry him, she married him, it was her mistake. He is like that only. We all knew his character, we told her so many times. But she was stubborn."

The eavesdroppers leaned back and went back to their newspapers. I was intrigued. "What do you mean you knew his character?"

The Father removes his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He inhaled deeply.

"We used to hear her speak to him on the phone. All she would be doing is soothing him and apologizing. Some parents hear their children say 'I love you', we had to hear 'Sorry, sorry, sorry'. But she was stubborn."

I remained silent.

"And then he breaks her nose. The sick, sick man." I thought he would spit, but he didn't. "And she didn't tell us. She told us, she fell in the house. And we thought OK, she must have fell in the house. That sick sick man."

'Sick' was obviously this man's equivalent of the worst vernacular cuss-word I knew.

"I spent 8 lakhs on her wedding. 8 lakhs. And I didn't even want her to get married to him. If she had told me, then, then... well, even we know people. We could have gotten things done. He only did this to her because he knew that he could get away with it."

I could sense his helplessness mount and his cynicism about me handling his daughter's case (he was slightly shocked to see me on the first day of the hearing) was slowly withering away. In the meanwhile, my Client was huffing and puffing over all of the items "mentioned in para 30 of the Petition" and some which she forgot, which her husband was, in a clear attempt to pacify, handing over to her.

She looked around at the things she set up, she paid for, all of the things she had done to her own house, her very own house, and now, she was stuffing all that into Big Bazaar bags and carting them unceremoniously into an uncertain future.

The packing was mingled with her Husband's trying to make polite conversation with me and the nutritionist ("He hates my guts and didn't let her even speak to me throughout the marriage", whispered the Nutritionist, "He's really pulling out all the stops now."), some small memories which seeped through the building concrete of pain ("we bought this in Australia, don't you remember?", "this was a birthday present to you, you should keep it"), and despite everything, little moments of tenderness. As she was going through her books, she found the Holy Bible.

"Keep this properly ya, or your parents will kill you." There was a slight tone of warmth and humour, probably some inside joke. The Husband smiled in recognition.

A quick relook at the things she needed to take back, she walked into the kitchen and opened a cupboard to see a huge stash of foreign liquor, that he collected from the duty free on the way back from his last tour.

"This is all yours only na!", quipped the nutritionist, sarcastically, referring to the Husband's reply to our domestic violence complaint in which he called her an alcoholic.

My Client gave her Husband a scathing look.

"Come on sweetie. Yeh sab likhna padta hai. She should know." pointing to me, of course.

"Nice try." I retorted.

Packing over, it was time to leave. But not just yet.

I was obliged to bring up the fact that since the Husband had made an offer to "Settle out of court" that now we were willing to try and end this "as smoothly as possible". At this, Husband makes a cool "why don't we have dinner" offer to my Client.

"What is there to discuss?" she asked him.

"Everything!" he replied earnestly.

"Arre..." she looked at him, began to say something, and then stopped and urged him to enter the bedroom to discuss the situation in private.

From the hazy reflections on the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, I could make out vigorous hand movements, agitated expressions and even a very filmi tug-and hug. For a minute, I wondered if they would come out of the room, hand in hand, ready to renew their vows. I was then disappointed at the fact that I was so vehemently against this happening. It seemed like the ultimate anti climax. But weren't we supposed to work towards preserving the family, I thought wryly as I remembered the preamble to the Domestic Violence Act.

As we all sat in anticipation, the father of the Client came up to see what was taking us so long.

"They are talking", I informed him.

"There's nothing left to talk about" he said, under his breath, and charged into the room and asked his daughter to come out. A very timely intervention, because my Client was visibly irritated and stormed out as soon as she heard her father's voice.

Thereafter we had a very late lunch and lots of girl bonding between the Nutritionist, the pained survivor of Domestic Violence, and me, the buy-a-lawyer-get-a-friend-and-shoulder-to-cry-on-free. Beyond the call of duty, and moreso when I even went up to say hello to my Client's 7 month year old daughter.

Can you really know a person well enough to eliminate the possibility of having to enter your own house on the strength of a Court Order and trying to remember which of the fab india pillow covers you had bought with your own money? How does love end up resulting in pulverized nasal bones? I remembered the first time I supervised this kind of job, I saw a girl, 5 years younger than me, sitting there and packing her school books (the "urgent" belongings we got a Court Order for), shaking her head over having married her College Sweetheart in a fit of QSQT like headrush. Especially when he placed her under house arrest and wouldn't let her attend College, and beat her with a bamboo stick if she would protest. It left me shaken, and I realized that this time, I was still shaken, and even more so. God forbid tomorrow I would have to hold the hand of a friend who had to undergo the same torture - mental, physical, emotional, in the end, they all leave scars which take as much time to heal. These women all have the same pattern - the surrounding society disliking the guy, her slowly sinking away from her friends, and silent suffering. While the women themselves may be responsible for the relationship and the man for the violence - every single loved one and well wisher of that woman is responsible for not telling her what she needed to hear - dump the bastard now. But of course, would she be listening?

I don't think, with this level of involvement, that I would make a good "lawyer". But then again, is that really what I want to be?

The "Ex" Factor

2008-04-21T02:28:00.000-07:00

On Sunday evening, one of our friends popped in for a little girl's evening at home. Now, I know a lot of people out there (none of whom are ever going to read this) are very pained with the popular cultural notion that women who get together only discuss the following things:

1. Men - and how they are such b%$#@^&s

2. Shoes

3. Clothes

4. Bags

5. Men - again for good measure.

For all those people, I would like to emphasize the main events and topics which we covered between 7pm and 12am last night:

1. Our guest's recent break up with long standing boyfriend and how he deserved no less than to be doused with Domex and allowed to whither away like the toilet bowl germs in the ad.

2. She brought over my Thai gift - the sexiest red bag in the world - which I have named Schumi and is officially the "other" man in my life (always by my side and never has issues with having to hold my wallet and keys when I don't have pockets to store them in).

3. A pair of shoes which were too small for her and which fit A like a glove...err...isn't 'sock' a better analogy?

4. All the wonderful shopping A did at Colaba/Fashion Street and how no matter how experienced you are, you will always make some mistakes while shopping off the street.

5. All the fun in store for A in her second innings as a student, after which A hid under the cushions and we had to calm her down by discussing...

6. ...my Exes and A's Exes and everyone's Exes including the DomEx boy.

See?

I kind of envy my friends who are undergoing painful earth shattering breakups now - not that I desperately want to be dumped (I was JOKING about the red bag, okay?), because when I was going through my painful earth shattering break-up, I also had to deal with the following:

1. Being surrounded by friends who were ALL in happy lovey dovey relationships. They were great and I don't think I would have been able to get through it without them, but when I would be sobbing and inhaling a joint of Marijuana, they would one-by-one disappear to have cuddly-coo phone conversations with their loved ones.

2. Being in the 5th year of College and having no idea what I wanted to do with my life and losing the one certainty I (thought I) had.

3. Being a member of the Recruitment Committee of College, which meant that I was in night long meetings and was left with only 20 minutes a night to call my Ex, not that he was picking up my calls anyway.

4. And most importantly - that they were at least given the dignity of being broken up with, at least on the phone. At the risk of delving into my irritating habit of "really? Well, you wanna know what happened to me? I'll tell you..." my break up went a lot like this:

One fine day, during a weekend trip in the outskirts of nowhere: Though we both have plans to "settle" in Mumbai, he tells me, "I'm thinking about going to Delhi for an internship".

"Cool".

One month later: "I won't be able to call you tonight, I'm giving my friends in Mumbai a farewell party"

That same night: Suddenly I wonder: If he's going to Delhi for an internship, why on earth is he giving a farewell party?

The next day, evening: After much fretting and racking my brains over 'maybe he told me that he was going, did he?' I call him.

"If you're going to Delhi for an internship, why on earth are you giving a farewell party?"

"Well, because I'm leaving."

"No, but it's an internship, right? Internships last for 2 weeks, 2 months, and then you come back, right?"

"No... its not like that. I'm going to work there, and if I like it, I'm going to stay."

"And you were planning to tell me this when?" In the meanwhile I had done the stupid mistake of planning my entire life around him, in Mumbai.

"Didn't I?"

"You told me you were going to Delhi for an INTERNSHIP"

"Did I?"

After much huffing and puffing over this doesn't look like it's going to work if you can't even let me know when you're changing the plan of your entire goddamn life, I slammed the phone down, angsted lots, went for daru with my friend Daze, and slept off.

The next day, early morning, say about 11am (we were in the 5th year), I was sitting on the stairs of the Hostel, waiting for Daze to finish her dolling up (till now she's the only person I know who'd wear lipstick before even going out for a smoke, but she's still a gem) so we could go to Hegde's for tea, and I called him. He didn't pick up. So I figured he was busy.

He didn't pick up for the next 8 weeks.

I tried everything - messaging, emailing, calling - I called once from Daze's phone and he hung up as soon as he heard my voice, I couldn't call from other people's phones because he figured the Bangalore Cell Code (and also I couldn't deal with the whole "excuse me, I need to make an STD Call from your phone, my boyfriend isn't picking up my calls, I promise not to take long, anyway he's just going to disconnect as soon as he hears my voice" discussion). Finally, when I completely lost it, I called him from my cell, he didn't pick up, I called him on the landline from my Cell, he didn't pick up, I called him from a landline on his cell, he didn't pick up. Finally I called him from a landline to his landline.

Success!

And what do I do? I yell, I scream, I curse him and the next seven generations of his entire family, and then I very spitefully tell him that I wasn't going to give him an opportunity to slam the phone down on me ("how DARE you slam the phone down on me") because "I AM GOING TO SLAM THE PHONE DOWN ON YOU".

The thing with cellphones is, they may be convenient, but you can never get the satisfaction of actually SLAMMING the phone down on someone. Poor sod.

Of course it didn't end there, I managed to lose a lot more of my self respect over the next few months, mostly due to the fact that I NEEDED a reason WHY. At the end of it, I was working, I was doing the job I always wanted, I had a place of my own in a great city, I had great friends who were slowly becoming single, and... well, the rest is the rest.

Now, my friends who get crap in relationships have the following benefits:

1. They are surrounded by women (or at least me) who are living proof that this too, shall also pass.

2. They are making money and thus have the potential to get a life.

3. They have friends (or at least me, though there are people better at this that I am) to teach them how to get a life.

4. There aren't any love-conquers-all women to advise them and say "just give him some time" or "but you were so good together" - even those of us who now are in relationships have become cynical enough to prioritize self over ex.

5. I have a copy of "He's Just Not That Into You", remember?

Meg, my desperately-in-need-of-Domex friend, has asked for ideas, and I am bored and I actually have the gall to act as a relationship expert (experiencing so many crap men should count for something, after all) and propound:

The Ten Commandments of the messy Break Up

1. Thou shalt not be obliged to "still be friends": You already have a lot of friends. Friends are people you can discuss the things that are bothering you the most. Common sense tells you that people don't like other people telling them how horrible they are. Can you bitch about your Ex to your Ex himself? I didn't think so.

2. Thou shall realize that as a concept, 'closure' is overrated: I still don't know what that means. So don't break your head over it and keep repeating "I need closure I need closure" like a moron. What you need is...

3. A life, which thou shall realize getting is easier said than done : Sit down, scroll down your phone contacts and note every person who's number you took down at a party or off facebook saying "oh, you're in Bombay? we should meet up!" (unless you're in Delhi, which would just make it a stupid effort) Message them casually, try and get out of office and go meet them, get introduced to new social circles. This isn't about getting a new guy in your life. It's being able to do something else than sit and remember that it would have been 3 years since he first unhooked your bra (I actually know someone who remembered that date from her relationship. Am sending that one to Ripley's.) Remember, when you have no teeth and actually need to wear diapers all the time, you're going to feel really stupid that you spent some part of the best years of your life acting like you were.

4. Thou shall start dating: Dating, as a term, is used really often but rarely actually done. See, dating is when you don't know what's in store and you're taking a chance. We all have these cut off issues and other hangups. I met a gentleman a few weeks ago who was telling me of the time when he was looking for a bride. He told me that he had a list of 10 qualifications his potential wife would have to have. He met a woman who possessed only 2 of them, and I know this is a cliched story but at the end of their first meeting he knew he wanted to marry her. They've been married for 30 years and appear totally besotted with each other even now.

Anyway, dating is fun, and gives you some much needed attention from the opposite sex and reaffirms the fact that you are an attractive being. And it gives you an excuse to dress up and eat at some cool restaurants. Also, when you meet other men, you get to appreciate qualities which your Ex never had. For example, I never realized the importance of being with a well read individual (I dated a guy who hadn't read a single book except a Judge's Autobiography) till I started seeing a Mastermind India Quizzer. And dating also gives you great stories to tell your friends. Just make sure you go to public places and never leave your drink unattended. But that's just me being my paranoid self.

5. Thou shall not rely on Friends, Sex and the City and any other White Urban Sitcom for inspiration on how to handle your situation: Rule of thumb - if you are talking to some friend of yours about your breakup trauma and some sentence ends in "just like in that episode of..." stop right there. Stop whatever you are doing. See the serials may be fun, you may relate to them, but that's about it. The Mr. Pigs of the world never follow you to Paris. You don't have to be friends with Moss so that you can get back after 8 years. Wake up. Watch Seinfeld instead. Remember - though it comes from the writers of Sex and the City, the theory was confined only to one episode.

6. Thou shall get angry. Very angry: Don't think that the need to be dignified means that you need to act as if nothings gone wrong. When I hear the story of a friend of mine getting dumped, I get angry. So if as someone who's been broken up with, you aren't getting angry, it's a major problem. Don't cringe if you can't help thinking about the past. After all, it was a part of your life. Give yourself the right to be angry and to break some glasses. Your own - we have only two martini glasses left.

7. Thou shall ask thy friends for their 'honest' opinion: In most cases, your friends have already realized that he's a jerk even before you even smelled the faintest whiff of scum. Therefore, when you break up, don't be surprised to hear a lot of sighs of relief and "finally"s. Probe them into what they thought was wrong with him. Although a lot of them might be saying it by way of being polite (I've never heard of anyone saying 'Oh, that's too bad. That was the best you could ever have done, anyway. Can I have his number?'), some of them may have cogent reasons which you should listen to and internalize and that'll help you realize that this was certainly not your best shot. Not a chance.

8. Thou shalt not forget the best person to help you get over your Ex: Is your Ex himself. Really. This was a gem from a friend of the Sensei. An exception of sorts to the "friends with the ex" commandment. At times, after breaking up (either you being broken up with or you being so fed up with the situation that you call it quits), you are filled with doubt - did I do the right thing? Was I too hasty? Maybe I should give it another shot? Especially when you remember the 'good times' in the relationship. In this case, sometimes talking to your Ex helps you realize the reason why you wanted to call it quits. At some point, he'll say something that will leave you with no doubt that ending this relationship is certainly the best thing to have happened to you since Whisper Ultra prices falling.

9. Thou shalt not underestimate the support of your friends: Feel uneasy about the whole thing? Need a shoulder to cry on? Think that Ruma would have gotten fed up considering you chewed her brains for 1/2 an hour on gtalk? Stop right there. You're thinking too much. Keeping everything bottled up inside is a big mistake. Talk about it, especially to people who've been through it. It helps. Really.

And very very importantly:

10. Thou shalt not forget: You are gorgeous, smart, and at the very least, deserving of more than this piece of excreta. So don't even think of breakup sex. (I had to slip that in somewhere, didn't I?)

I'm not going to say that one day you will look back at all this and laugh, because I still haven't been able to get to that stage. But you'll be stronger and think more about yourself. Since they haven't found a vaccine for the scumbag virus in men yet, women, many of whom will be those close to you, will keep getting raw deals in relationships. And you can help them get through it. But screw them. This isn't some NGO you're running here. Don't let the bastards get you down. Seize the day. And any other cliches you can think of.

(Dedicated to Meg. There's always light behind the clouds.)

Playing Safe

2008-04-19T02:22:00.000-07:00

My life appears to be the dream existence for people back home to have to contend with living with their parents, strict deadlines, and well, living with their parents. I was telling a few friends about my fabulous (pronounced faaabyoolus) life and my fabulous friends and how another friend was coming down to live the fabulous life of the single woman in Mumbai and yadayadayada. Isn't it great? You go out, meet a guy, date some, stay over, doesn't work out, oh what the hell, meet another guy... now, I know my fabulous (stick with the pronunciation, people!) friends will protest that this is pure fiction, which it is, but we've done some of it, A and I, so I can't sign an affidavit (excuse the lawyer humour) that it CANNOT happen.

Then, yesterday, a not-so-fabulous thing, I got myself a Water Purifier. I called up the helpline, placed my order, and the guy said he'd come around 11. 10am, I was sitting in a spag and my sheep shorts trying to draft a Writ Petition when the doorbell rang.

3 men are standing outside my door. Whoa. I look at them, puzzled.

"Filter Order kiya na aapne?"

I heard an imaginary "baa" from the sheep on my nightwear, drawing attention to the state of my undress. "Ek minute" I said, and closed the door, pulled on a kurta and jeans, and made a quick mental calculation. Three of them, one of me. Is that safe? Yes, if they are water purifier setter uppers. But do you need three people to set up a water purifier? Shouldn't I be asking for ID?

There was only one way to find out.

Two of the men trooped in while the third took his own time, I led them into the kitchen. The box was placed on the floor and one of them looked a little perplexed about opening it. The other, in a split second, bent down and ripped through the masking tape.

With my kitchen knife.

Gulp.

As I watched them create a water purifier out of random parts, I remembered about guy No. 3. Now I had left the door open ("Always leave the door open when you're alone at home and some stranger has to come in", says Mom. Apparently you are better off with the possibility of other random goons entering your house than with a closed door and a repairman.) and so I went out to check on him, then suddenly realized that the repairmen could be pocketing forks and knives while I was looking away and so I took a stance which appeared that I was able to survey everything and coolly asked, "So where's the third guy?"

One of the guys looked up, "Oh, he decided to wait outside the building."

Did he? What if he was under the sofa? Or in the bathroom? I hopped into the living room (screw the cutlery) but couldn't see a thing out of place. I left the door slightly ajar (my mother does not live on the ground floor in a colony which houses bandicoots) while the men finished their work and gave me a crash course on the workings of the water purifier, after which I shooed them away, politely. I made some random conversation and threw in, in spite of myself, a silly line on how my husband would have to be explained everything - just because they were nice didn't mean they needed to know we were two women living alone.

And then I wondered, for someone who was that paranoid about undertaking repair work alone, I was pretty careless in letting perfect strangers know that I was living alone, or with my roommate, just because they seemed "interesting" and "nice" and spoke fluent English and laughed at shady characters who frequented clubs like Enigma. Imagine, you meet a guy, get him home, and bam - he knows your house, he knows you live alone, he knows your phone number (which is probably the first thing he got off you) - talk about an information overload. Especially since you don't even know if that was his own credit card that he paid the bill with. The next morning you might want to have nothing to do with him, but the feeling may not be mutual. Oh, and God forbid he's a kleptomaniac. Or if he smses his friends and invites them over. Or (shudder) if he doesn't flush the toilet?

Sex and the City has women getting random men over all the time. None of the lead characters, however, have men stealing stuff from their houses, no men are waiting outside their gates to throw acid on their faces, and none of them date serial killers with a heart of gold. Of course, we all like to think that we are "beyond" all this, and that we have "taste" and that we have a "good judge of character". But in the end, the only judgment you can actually vouch for is your own. I've been lucky with my roommate, touchwood. Think about it. How many women would smile and offer coffee to their roommate's latest 'find' at Poison, who says he's from Bandra and when she doesn't even know his last name? Me, being the paranoid freak that I am, I'd lock my door before going to sleep, if I could manage to get any sleep that night, that is.

I guess in the living-single women's world, safe sex involves a lot more than just condoms.

Enter the Dragon - Part II

2008-04-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

Attempt No. 3 (also known as the last chance): As sitting around at home clearly was not conducive to conversation, I decided to move the talk outdoors. Ruchira, the restaurant run by the Goa Tourism Development Corporation, was a family favourite - good food, good view, and cheap booze even by Goan standards. Of course, things HAVE to go wrong, so not only is it raining, it is also peak painful tourist long weekend (good friday etc) and the Catholic Staff has obviously taken the day off and the Hindus etc. were very sore about it, though they would be taking the next day, Holi, off. A disdainful waiter handed menus to us. I recalled my mother wanted to have a Gimlet the other day.

"One gimlet and One bloody Mary Please"

"No Bloody Mary"

"Well, make it two Gimlets then"

My Dad scowled and began a long lecture on ordering alcohol in restaurants.

"How do you know how much alcohol they put in it? They probably put some drops of booze and plenty of sugar. Nonsense. You should have just ordered Limca and Gin."

Yes, my Dad was pained at the prospect of me getting less alcohol than I was paying for. Most people would think that with a father like that, I should be making out with my boyfriend in front of him instead of dying over having a conversation about my love life. But it's never that simple, and it isn't about to start just now.

A long time later, our drinks arrive, lots of fizz and some candied cherries thrown in. My father scoffed as I bent down and sipped the sugary limca hybrid.

Which is what it most certainly was not.

The Gin hit me like a BEST Bus at a Bhandup Crossing. I hadn't had this much of neat alcohol since the time I shot a 3/4th full glass of Romanov one afternoon at Surya.

"Too sweet?" asked Dad.

"I don't think that's the problem here, Dad."

My mom's drink was as loaded, but she finished it without making too much of a fuss. I took about 1 hour, 1 bottle of soda, 1 60ml of lime cordial and lots of ice to finish mine. Dad was down 3 drinks, and we were faced with terrible service and confused cuisine. I was slightly comforted by the high, what's wrong with a little Dutch Courage, right? Then, my mother put her head down on the table, right in the middle of my changing the subject.

"Why are you putting your head down in a restaurant?" my Dad shrieked. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing", said my Mother. "Let's go somewhere else?"

Somewhere else was a new hill top restaurant in Panaji, with arguably the most gorgeous view and surprising rates. Also, it was a lot more quieter. Perfect, I thought. Mom disappeared to the ladies room, and came back giggling.

"I haven't been this gone in a long time - I couldn't even fix the door!"

Great - now I had to break the news to them while they were drunk. After we finished dinner, I went to the ladies' room for a pep talk. With myself.

You only have to have this conversation once. After that, the subject is open, things will take their own course, all will be cool.

In a fit of desperation, I had earlier asked the Boy for gyaan on how he did it.

My boyfriend, being the consultant, had come up with a list of potential questions that he thought his parents would ask, and he anticipated each and every question they shot at him and was able to answer them confidently. I tried to recall the question checklist I had prepared in my head.

1. Where does he work?

2. What is his educational qualification?

3. Will his family have issues?

4. When will we meet him?

and some such.

I walked in confidently to the restaurant and uttered the words which would ensure things would move away from the giggling highness which was prevailing at present.

"One pot of coffee, please."

Halfway through the coffee, I intercepted a stupid conversation topic and decided to get over with it, finally.

"Guys, I need to talk to you about something."

"Huh" said Dad.

"There's someone I want you to meet", I said, unabashedly stealing Q's opening line.

"Huh?"

I stared into my coffee cup, at the slowly forming layer of cream, while I muttered something about the tam brahm (this had to be established at the outset, even prior to the fact that the person I was dating was, in fact, a male) guy I've been seeing...dating...whatever... for the past year types.

"And so, I want you to meet him"

I looked up to catch my Dad looking at my Mom knowingly. Oh crap. They were planning the Good Cop Bad Cop on me. Sweet Jesus.

"So, why should I meet him?"

"Because... you should know who he is."

"Why?"

"Well because this is getting serious now. And though it's not like marriage or anything..."

My parents looked at me intently.

"...yet".

My mother looked slightly relieved.

"...Because, well, neither of us have figured what we need to do - I've applied abroad, he's trying to figure out what career path he wants to take..."

"Does he even have a JOB?" asked my Father, in all seriousness.

"Yes Dad", I said, pissed off at the ridiculous question but at the same time thankful that this gave me an opportunity to bring out the educational qualifications and the cool job story, which of course I was not given an opportunity to do, as my Father decided to contribute to my chaotic state of mind by asking me another unheard of question:

"But why should I meet him?"

"What do you mean why should you meet him?"

"Look, I could meet the guy, take one look at him and decide I think he's a loser because I don't like his face..."

Trust my Dad to be so reassuring in the circumstances.

"...but I guess I cannot do that, because its, well, stupid." I thought I detected a bit of wistfulness in his voice, like he almost wished he could be like that, "And anyway I don't see the point of talking to him when I should actually be talking to the person who will actually be making the decision."

Thus, two things were established: One, you can never discuss boyfriends with parents when you are above the age of 25 without the issue of marriage cropping up. Two, my parents were threatening to move into the twilight zone of relationships - parents meeting parents.

I panicked.

"Look. We haven't discussed this, long term or anything... " again, "yet. But when he was at home, he told his parents."

Oh f*&^.

"He told his parents?" my mom squealed.

My Dad just looked at me expectantly.

"And they seem to be, well, enthusiastic about the whole thing", I concluded, the bad use of adjective immediately striking me as making myself sound like a new mixer grinder.

"So when did he tell them?" asked Dad.

"Some time ago."

"Some time ago means when?" he leaned forward. "It could have been two days, two months, two years..."

EESSH!!! "Last weekend Dad, before he left for the US", trying to slip in a brownie point, "we hadn't discussed it at all. I was going to tell you..." (quick cover up job, why doesn't life come with a concealer?)"... but I didn't want to discuss this on the phone."

Dad leaned back into his chair.

Whew!

"So?"

"So I want you guys to meet, to get to know each other."

"Now why do we have to meet?"

My mother, the good cop, realized that this was going out of hand. She says my Dad's name slowly and seriously to attract his attention, which is definitely a "mom means business" sign in parent lingo.

"But we have to meet him"

Dad looked pained at the ad lib by my mom. "But what am I going to say to him?"

"Look Dad, there's nothing to say. There's nothing to discuss. You just have to meet him. Okay?"

Dad looked away thoughtfully for a minute, and then said, "But what am I going to say to him?"

At first I wondered whether this was the sign of some geriatric disorder. Then I realized it. My dad was actually looking for a topic of conversation to have with my boyfriend.

"Come on Dad, you can talk about anything - stock market, cricket, whatever it is that men talk about."

"But..."

"No. Stop. No. No no no no no. Figure it out! Do some research! Talk to some of your drinking buddies!"

"But what..."

"Dad," I sulked, "dude, it's my first time man. I really don't know how these things happen. Really."

My Dad finally smiled.

In the end, I mumbled something about the educational qualifications and the parents and the fact that he was a vegetarian.

"So do you think they have any objections?"

"Well, no."

"No?"

"Nope."

"None at all?"

"Well..." I thought hard, and then I remembered. "Maybe they wish I was a little taller."

"How tall is Q?" asked Mom. She knew the answer to the question but she wanted to know it again.

"6 feet" I lied, just to make her happy.

She tried very hard to conceal a gloat meant for all the aunts who thought I wouldn't find anyone who would be OK with my 5' 2" ness.

My Dad wasn't impressed. "I'm sure they wish you were Ambani's daughter too."

The statement was so random that I strongly believed that my Dad had it mugged up all these years just to be used for this kind of occasion. Now that that was over with, I finally relaxed. It was done.

Yeah, right.

Dad finished his coffee. "So do you think they will ask for Dowry?"

I spluttered the rest of my coffee out.

"Actually, I don't think they will be like that."

Much like I never thought my Dad would ever ask me such a question. I had most certainly underestimated how ridiculous he could be. Enough was enough. There was only one thing to do in the situation, only one thing left to say.

"Cheque, please".

***

I didn't know what my Dad's actual take on the whole thing was, till I was given permission to go to Bangalore to spend the weekend with Q's parents (something which went fabulously well, and hence I do not deem it fit to blog about it). I messaged my Dad as soon as I landed to tell him that I had reached safely. I get a reply about a minute later.

"OK. VANNAKAM!"

This may not be as bad as I thought it would be. But then again, that won't be saying much.

In Spite

2008-04-07T22:41:00.000-07:00

Today I bunked work. It wasn't about the fact that I had very little sleep over the weekend and particularly the previous night thanks to a 20 hour visit by Q, or the fact that some of the most fantastic women from my batch in College were in town, or the fact that the workoholic law firm which my roommate works for had declared a holiday despite the fact that Gudi Padwa was yesterday. Oh no. Nothing of that sort, nothing that meaningful a reason.

I was stretching out on my makeshift bed in the living room, all set for a day in Office, conquering the world etc etc. having had fulfilling weekend of chilling, alcohol, partying with friends, alcohol, junk food, some more alcohol and of course, the boy. My phone rang and I reached for it lazily. It was Pooh.

Pooh works in my Office, and makes everything seem more difficult than it really is. Pooh used to live at Churchgate and would get to office after everyone else managed their hour long commutes, Pooh would cry after getting adjournments from the Court, Pooh would forget procedural niceties and get our cases dismissed for default, then Pooh got married and angsted so much that I still get the heebie jeebies when someone says the "M" word, and now, now, Pooh has moved to Thane.

Pooh has developed a strange strain of the flu since December, about the time she moved to Thane, which kicks in everytime she has a particularly long day. By a "long day" I mean her coming to Office from Thane and maybe attending a Court or two in between. She develops fever, a bad throat, and will croak pleas to us who need to then run around and handle her matters as well as our own. For the past 2 weeks, the flu has had her completely dead and she hasn't been coming in to work.

You, of course, think I'm a bitch for dissing her like this. You think I'm being a meanie. And you may also be wondering what the fuck this has to do with my bunking work today. Well.

Today Pooh called me, and told me in her oh-my-God-I-am-going-to-die voice that there was a matter she was handling on today at Girgaum, and she was going to come (really, but I'll come by 12), so was it possible for me to pick up the papers from Office and come to the Court by 11 to hold the matter till then?

Taking a cue from A, who had sarcastically suggested a way to handle this situation, I choked my throat and spoke in a oh-my-God-Pooh-these-could-be-my-last-words voice:

"Pooh man, I've been puking all morning. I don't think I'll be coming to Office man."

Don't be fooled. I didn't call in 'sick' I called in 'spite'.

And for all of you who think I'm being mean, not only has Boss told her to take the next 3 weeks off, and not only had he told her not to come during the monsoon season, and not only is she allowed to leave office to catch the 7:05 Thane Fast every day, but also, every month, my Boss gives us both a paycheque - of the same amount.

"Poor thing." said Boss, in a rare display of sensitivity. "It's the commuting that makes her sick. She should actually move closer to here."

I waited a minute actually expecting him to trump up an empty flat in Colaba for her to move into. Then I let it out.

"All of us Commute, and I think we're doing just fine."

He smiled at me.

"You're different"

Oh, how I hate that line. But for now, I am going to have brunch at the Juhu Mocha. :)

Enter the Dragon - Part I

2008-04-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

Of all the retarded relationship stories I know, this one ranks right up there. Usually in my retarded relationship stories, its the guy who acts like he flushed his brains down the toilet. Here, the chick is from outer space, truly. She was seeing a guy for some 8 years and declared herself engaged to him and all that and had full on plans of getting married. For some 8 years, she decided that it wasn't necessary to inform her Dad, because he would probably (she thought) wind up killing her and that wouldn't really fit in with her plans of becoming Mrs. like-you-really-thought-i-was-going-to-name-names. Finally the law firm for whom she (and her rapidly balding beau) were working had to step in to unite the couple while it was still biologically possible for them to produce offspring, and so they actually got a Senior Lawyer of the Supreme Court who is actively into politics to step in and do the dirty job for them. Her father would have been shocked, much like how people used to react when a deep voice would mumble "Main Amitabh Bacchan Bol Raha Hoon" in the heydays of "Kaun Banega Crorepati".

Unfortunately for me, I had to do the task myself.

As stated in an earlier post, my earlier attempts (oh all right, it was just AN attempt) amounted to a flop show, and since the other set of parents were now involved, it was either now or not at all. The Parent-Politics of the situation were mind boggling.

Parents Politics Une: My parents vs. His parents: There could not be anything more than a reasonable gap of time between the informing of his parents and my parents. Then it would be all "Oh you people have decided so why the hell are you even asking us, do whatever you want." Nothing stings more than the "do whatever you want". As the high priestess of the "do whatever you want", let me tell you, no one means it when they say "do whatever you want". What they really mean is anyone's guess, but never do they actually mean "its OK you take whatever decision your independent and unbiased mind deems appropriate in the circumstances and I shall act in whatever manner is deemed appropriate by you accordingly." NEVER.

Parents Politics Deux: My Mom vs. My Dad: There could not be anything more than a split second of time between the informing of my mother and my father. As it is my mother had an unfair advantage. Any time lapse would be construed as trying the oldest parent politics trick in the book - the play off, which works like this in every child's imagination:

"Mommy, can I go for the party?"

"No Way"

"But Dad was pretty chill about it"

"Hmm. Okay."

I'm sorry if this is coming as a shock to most of you, but guess what? It doesn't work. And while we're on the subject - there is no tooth fairy. Sorry.

Therefore, at my last trip home, I had a mission.

Attempt No. 1: Post Siesta: Parents together, awake, post tea comfort zone, flipping channels on TV. I was about to open my mouth to begin when my mother exclaimed: "Bobby!"

For the uninitiated, Bobby was Raj Kapoor's ode to the pangs of adolescent love, the rich and poor divide, and the bars of religion. Maybe the ideal background piece, for some. Unfortunately by the time we settled in to actually watch it, the happy song and dance was over and Premnath, playing Jack Braganza, Bobby's father, was emerging off a ship with a bottle of Rum in his hand, wearing a triangle of cloth, and looking bemusedly at his skimpily clad daughter's attempts to get him to wear a suit to meet her young rich boyfriend.

"Hum ko kyon Suit Pehene ko mangta? Hum lungi mein kaam karta hai aur lungi mein milega usko!"

"Ha ha", my father said, stretching his arms over his bare chest and burping loudly, "what kind of a lungi is that. This," he pointed to his own checked attire, "is a lungi."

I suddenly heard a loud voice: "Yeh rishta kabhi nahin ho sakta!"

Pran, the rich father of the loverboy, was throwing Premnath, stuffed in a suit with his fly open, his bottle of rum and Goan daughter out of the house.

"I think I have some work to do", I mumbled, and left the room.

Attempt No. 2: Same day, after dinner: I even told them that I got rejected by Harvard to create a wave of "aww baby". I had it all planned.

"I got rejected by Harvard. It's all over."

"Aww baby, don't say that..." (my mother would get a little emotional, even)

"It would be nice if you could meet my boyfriend...."

"Of course, sweetie, of course!"

So there we went:

"I got rejected by Harvard. It's all over."

"Why?" asked Dad. "Isn't your litigation going really well?"

"Yeah, kinda", I said reluctantly, trying not to lose the emotion I could see emerging on my mother's face.

"So how much are you making this year?"

After a few calculations (I kept the droopy face on) we arrived at a figure. "That's very good for your 18 months!"

"Yeah, well, I guess, hey Dad, I wanted to ask you..."

"So, you'll have to file returns then."

I looked up. "You mean I have to pay taxes?"

Oh shit shit shit shit. I said the T word. Shit shit shit. All the empathy on my mother's face disappeared in a second.

Suddenly, before I could say anything to prevent the situation from spiralling totally out of control, she turned into her alter ego - from soppy mommy, she turned into Tax Planner extraordinaire.

"Of course not - see, you have your education loan which you repaid, and then you have your insurance premium, and in any case, women are exempt for the first...'

Well, at least I managed to get my financials settled.

The Rant

2008-04-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

I think all people who've had it easy in their life should take a fall, at least once, just to feel how hard it is to get plonked on the ass. Unfortunately, that list of people includes me. The idea of wanting something - and by something I don't mean a strawberry cheesecake gelato, or a boyfriend, or anything that stupid, however not-stupid it seemed to me at the time - and not getting it, was something alien to me. After I finished my boards, I wanted to do an Arts Course in one of the best Universities in India, and there I was. After Arts, I wanted to study Law in the best University in India, and there I was. After Law, I thought my game was up - I wanted to work as a Criminal Lawyer, an ambition that was practically unfeasible, and poof - here I am. And mind you, all of these ambitions were not well thought out, nor did I actually strive and work hard to achieve them. I did the minimum work possible, and somehow, it all worked out. It was almost the luck of the draw. So when I wanted to study abroad, I slog my butt off - wake up early, sleep late, spend tons of money, get a hundred opinions and drive myself totally up the wall - for what? To be informed by a University Graduate Admissions Member that :

Although the Committee on Graduate Studies recognizes your fine record of achievement, we sincerely regret that we are unable to offer you admission to the *** course at the *** Law School. It is never a pleasant task to advise that an application has not been accepted, but we are much encouraged by the fact that our applicants are so well qualified that most will gain admission to one of the many other fine graduate programs around the country. We hope that this will be true in your case and wish you every success in your graduate studies and professional career.

Well guess what?

And now, much like my failed relationships in the past (for the record I have more University rejects then failed relationships, which is a good thing), I sit to angst over it - was it something I said? Something I didn't do? Did I make my move too late? Was I not just good enough? Did I not deserve this? At least I didn't have to annex photographs to the applications or I don't even think I'd have the guts to get out of the house today morning.

All I can say is, it hurt. One day I'll think back and rate this below the disappointment I felt when I went to the Metro Gelato shack and found that they had just ran out of Strawberry Cheesecake Gelato. Or when I didn't get tickets on the Toy Train at Matheran. But for now, it's right up there, my top three shitty moments - along with being dumped by SMS on my birthday and losing my first independent case thanks to a rigged judge.

But then I think - something better always comes along. I am much happier than I could ever be with the Birthday dumper, who was a loser (obviously - I mean, who on earth does that?) and later on I got strictures form the High Court against the Magistrate and I forced him to rewrite his Judgment. So how's some stupid little Ivy League (and some which are not even Ivy League) Colleges going to change the path of my destiny?

Ah, I ranted. And now I shall go to fight Domestic Violence.

An OUTstanding performance

2008-04-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

I heard his voice even through the thick wooden door of our conference room. I immediately tried to slip under the table but to no avail (except for spooking the hell out of the CBI Officers in the room). He may not be an army Officer, but Captain Bahadur was too quick for me.

"THERE YOU ARE!" he said, joyously. "It's today, it's today!"

What, the apocalypse? Then it all came back to me.

"Tonight, blah channel, blah time. I told Boss also. You know, your Boss said, don't call her Ruma, call her Lady. I doff my hat, lady," so saying he made a curtsy, and all the machoness I had developed over the past half hour explaining to Senior CBI Officers why their investigation completely and utterly sucked, went flying through the AC vent.

"You look fabulous, though your lovely speech was reduced to just half a second. What a shame, a crying shame."

I wondered whether the human attention span could catch half a second of airtime and secretly heaved a sigh of relief.

"Go through this, " he said, while exiting, handing me a huge bundle of paper. "It's my high court case." He held another one in his arm. "This I'm going to distribute all over."

The compilation included cartoons of his wife eating him up with a fork saying 498A. I also spied a High Court Order which was in respect of a Civil Case he filed against his wife (who else?) and his landlord, incidentally a sitting High Court Judge. The Judge delivering the Order was very critical of Capt. Bahadur's contemptuous acts towards his Brother Judge, but decided not to take strict action on account of the fact that Bahadur "had a case filed against him by his wife and mother who disowned him a very long time ago and so he was obviously disturbed on account of the same".

Even the Judiciary thought he was a lunatic.

The photocopied letter meant for distribution caught my attention.

"Please watch *** Channel at 10PM today for evidences against my wife and corruption in Judiciary. Special Attention to Justice *** and family!"

It was on the letterhead of the POMERO with Boss's name and number as the "Legal Aid Cell".

I began considering who could be engaged to represent us at the Bar Council in contempt proceedings.

A few hours later, A and I gathered at Lax's place to watch me make an utter fool of myself. I called my parents and forewarned them - it was OK to date a guy for a year without telling them, but not informing them of a television appearance was unforgivable. As the programme began, Capt. Bahadur stuttered and stammered through the one minute introduction time, and then a one minute life-clip was aired. I caught a glimpse of Boss, and noted how good the conference room was looking. The clip ended, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Don't worry", said Lax. "Am sure there's a concluding segment."

Yeow. Lax had already painted a scenario of my clip being broadcast and the audience booing me, and a voice booming from above.

"YOU SUCK"

I laughed nervously, and was distracted by the other contestants - a righteous old man working towards creating awareness and training individuals under the Right to Information Act, and a wannabe feminist activist working on implementing the provisions of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act regarding banning of sex determination and sex selection of the foetus. The woman had the Judge's sympathy but she was too irritating to be taken seriously and looked like she'd use the 5 lakhs to fund a new fabindia wardrobe. The Old man had to be led to the stage and the mike was too high for him so the host had to hold it to his mouth.

As a child I would be forced to compete in various random competitions. My parents encouraged me to do my best and never give up, like all parents. But unlike most parents, my Dad gave away the secret of competition - if you ever find yourself up against a child, someone handicapped or an animal, don't even think that you even have a hope in hell.

In short, Captain Bahadur was shot down.

Round after round ensued, and after a recap on how the candidates were to be voted for, to our utter surprise, the credits began to roll.

Without my clip.

It was no disappointment, but an anticlimax all the same. I imagined my words being taken out of context, morphed and dubbed to sound like something I wasn't meant to say, or worse, actually having said something which should not have been said. What if this stupid sound byte cost my position as one of the little princesses of Domestic Violence litigation? What if the ladies in the train would point fingers at me and accuse me of being a traitor? What if lawyers I was fighting tooth and nail against in 498A cases where I represented the woman would hold this deposition of mine in a Court and say "Judge sa'ab, she had admitted that false cases are filed! Is it too much to presume that this is one of those cases?" I was prepared to cry, to hide my face in shame, in fact I had even rehearsed defences for whatever I said if it provoked strong enough reactions:

1. (looking nonchalant) "They just caught me out of Court, man."

2. (looking shocked) "I had no idea that THIS was what he was working towards!"

3. (looking angry) "These people at Star can't get away with this. I'll take them to Court!"

4. (looking lost) "Show? What show?"

Instead, all I got was a phone buzz. It was a message from Boss:

"You were OUTstanding!"

Mixed emotions in the end, but on final analysis, I agree, that all's well that ends well. Sometimes, it's not so bad to lose out on your five minutes of fame.

Lights, Camera, Argh!

2008-03-27T04:29:00.000-07:00

Every lawyer dreams of gaining recognition as the expert on their subject - some people are recognized by a ever increasing clientele, some people by academic interventions, but the most sought after form of recognition is certainly the TV Interview. So when I was approached, after almost two seemingly unsuccessful years as a legal practitioner, for my thoughts on an aspect of criminal law which can only be described as explosive, why was I hiding under the table?

Well, first of all, the "show" in question was not a glamorous BBC debate, but rather, a show to decide who gets 25 lakhs on the basis of SMS votes (oh no, not that again). Secondly, because the 'cause' which was being represented, and for which I was sought to be roped in as a brand ambassador, had a very very dubious history for which you can look here.

Capt. Bahadur, who apparently still has not caught the eyes of the armed forced for falsely carrying on with a fake title attached to his name, is at it again. This time, he's managed to find a platform for his angst - a TV Channel has introduced a TV Show in which every day, one lucky person wins 5 lakh rupees on the basis of convincing an audience to send 5 rupee SMSes in his favour. At the end of the series, which till now has been consisting of people who want to go on a second honeymoon and people who want to build a golden plated commode (hmm...), there will be a bumper round wherein people will actually be competing for 25 lakhs. Obviously these 25 lakh guys will have to be bigger freaks than the ones with the gold fetish. And you can't get freakier than Capt. Bahadur, can you?

With the 25 lakhs, Capt. Bahadur wants to give a boost to the PAWAM Legal Aid Cell, and in addition to that, Petition the Supreme Court to introduce men-friendly laws. This is what was told to us when Capt. Bahadur peeped into the conference room a few months ago and asked Boss for a moment of his time.

"Yes, what is it, Captain?" my Boss asked, nonchalantly.

In stormed a huge crew of people, some holding cameras, some holding microphones, one with a Styrofoam board. I rushed out of the room in a panic, and partly out of spite, because I was having a particularly nasty encounter with my Boss that day and I thought it would serve him right to be stuck with the Captain and his crew of Media Jimboes.

Turns out, Captain needed a sound byte from reputed (ha ha ha) people who knew him.

"So," asked the crewman, "how do you know Captain Bahadur?"

"Well I met him when he appointed me as his lawyer to get him out of Jail when his wife put him behind bars."

Apparently even with an introduction like that, Captain managed to convince the Channel that he was an asset to their TRP ratings. I guess they realized that they'd be competing with the Indian Premier League and so they needed to pull out all the stops. Next, Captain needed to get some experts in the field to discuss the issues he was proposing and give their honest opinion on his work and, well, whatever. Captain has used Boss up for intro, he gets another senior lawyer (a constitutional criminal expert) to give his opinion, and then the Channel needed a female lawyer who works on Domestic Violence related issues who would be able to give a few bytes on the subject.

One Saturday morning, my Boss gives me a call. "Captain wants you to go with him for a shooting. He wants some thoughts on all this 498A B whatever he does, you know."

I use some okay-to-use-in-front-of-boss expletives.

"Feel free to say whatever you want - that he's crazy or whatever."

Unfortunately I had a meeting in office, and thereafter a plan to head home with Lax and make big plans for our Absinthe party. Despite Captain's fervent requests - he was being nice to a woman, which makes you realize how desperate he really was - I manged to switch my phone off and the rest of the day is a subject of an earlier post.

The other day, however, dodging him was not so easy, but I was smooth and did not take any calls from unknown numbers, and finally found myself trapped at one end of the conference table having finished with all the conferences for the day, when there was a tap on the door.

It was a dead end. I had screwed up royally by not assigning a matter that was on a date on which I was at home, and so I owed one to Boss. After being assured that there was only one minute of shooting time left, I was led to a corner of the office where a crew - a smaller one this time - let me have one minute to brush my hair and set my new haircut (with bangs!) and put a little lipstick on my lips which I had chewed to a pulp in the Sessions Court.

I was made to stand, and then sit, turn my head, look up and down, until they found an angle to cover both me and the lawbooks which were behind me. The lawbooks were important to establish my credibility, of course. I asked a guy in the crew if I looked okay.

"You don't look like a lawyer", he smiled.

Apparently that was a compliment!

After achieving an acceptable angle, I was getting used to the strange bent of neck when I noticed something sliding up to me. I lowered my eyes to see a man holding a long black pole, on which a foam mike was mounted, and positioning it next to my lap. I looked at Sameer, the in-charge, very disconcertingly.

"Try not to look at it" he suggested helpfully.

Yeah, right.

The interview began with a few plain questions which were easy enough. Then he asked me about me about the 'legal' aspects of the issues which got me a little excited, at which Sameer remarked that I was the best of the lot that was interviewed. I smiled in spite of my scary-criminal-lawyer-who-means-business efforts. As I began to answer (the camera was paused while I let the colour drain from my cheeks), the cameraman clicked his tongue in disappointment - they were all out of reel.

No problems, said Sameer, they'd just reshoot. And reshoot they did. A few more questions on why this cause should get the 25 lakhs - "Well, it's a cause which certainly will find it tough to make money - you don't find too many men saying 'hey, my wife harassed me, so I'm donating 25 lakhs to the cause" - and on Capt. Bahadur where I stated very diplomatically "well a lot of people go through bad experiences when they are falsely accused of committing crimes, but Bahadur is actually using his experiences to make a difference...".

Interview over, amidst kudos for my poise, I asked if I could see myself on camera. Why not?

The Camera view flap was opened, a headphone set was pushed onto my head and the reel began.

They say the Camera adds 10 pounds. Guess what? They lie. It's more like 20.

I gaped in horror as my face took up all of the screen in the horrid close up view they took of me. My bangs, which I thought were smartly pulled in a side parting, were puffed up, looking like I had worn 3 toupees to work. And the light dabbing of lipstick made me look like I was on the Balaji Telefilms payroll.

"Uh... Sameer? can I talk to you for a second?"

"What's up?"

"Don't you think I look a little funny?"

"Oh this is a small frame. It'll look fine on the big screen."

I furrowed my brow. "Look, I think I look a little - um..." and averting my eyes from Sameer who was spilling out of the swivel chair on which he was seated,"...um, fat."

"Oh you women," he laughed. "Don't worry." He suddenly looked very puzzled. "Don't you want to know when it'll be aired?"

I smiled. "I'll be in touch".

I then realized how a lot of the things I said on camera can be effectively cut pasted to make it look like I was a Dick in a Chick's clothing. Oh well. Just remember one thing - please don't believe everything you see on TV.

Pretty please?

Internet Immortality

2008-03-08T23:29:00.000-08:00

I have entered the stage of relationships that I never have before - the entry of the family. Q, the boyfriend, has taken the step of sitting down with his parents and explaining the existence of "someone", and contrary to all (read as me and Q's) predictions, they are all gung ho and want to naturally see the "someone" in the flesh now. I had already done the honours, but have not met with any success - six months after I told my mother that I was seeing someone, she casually asked me if "this Q thing is serious?" and makes very feeble protests against other relatives attempting to fix me up with loser GSB boys. As for my father, the less said the better. Our conversation went pretty much like this:

Me: Dad, I'm seeing someone.

Dad: So?

Me: So...

Dad: So...

(ten minutes of silence later)

Me: What?

Dad: What?

(ten more minutes of silence later)

Me: Well?

Dad: So what? Are you asking me for permission?

Me: (thinking) Oh, that's how it works, is it?

Me: Well Dad, can I see someone?

Dad: (pouting) Well you've already done what you had to, now what are you asking me for permission for?

Am guessing that with my parents, this is going to take some time, at least enough time for my to pull my Dad's fingers out of his ears when I do break the news to him, again.

Anyway, as caring parents, Q's parents do the most reliable background check that can be imagined in the circumstances:

They run a google search for my name.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have been googled by my boyfriend's parents.

Googling someone is the most effective diligence that can be performed on someone, besides Orkutting them. You never know, their name might turn up on an "INTERPOL MOST WANTED" site or something. As A and Laks both rightly pointed out, at least my blog is under a pseudonym. I admit to having googled Q after we went out on a first date of sorts, I found a PBase album with wild photos and a Blog of which I understood very little, but other than that, nothing incriminating. The rest, as they say, is history.

So I also decided to do a little ego-surfing to see what turns up. I found an interview I did with a legal website on litigation as a career choice, a few articles I wrote, some college activity website postings. My articles had even been referenced on a few BBC websites, and even as an external link on Wikipedia! My google name search was almost impressive.

And then I saw it.

I thought I had erased all remnants of the biggest mistake of my life, a three year relationship I had with a person who can only be described as (and will henceforth be referred to as) the Psycho, and there it was, right in front of me.

Relax, it's not a proclamation of love or anything that mushy. It's rather innocuous. One day, in the pre-psycho days, Psycho decides that he had to be part of some World Organization which controls domain names, or some such internet gibberish. The selection of the committee is on the basis of votes, and even though this was before the advent of the SMS voting era, our man had it all figured out. After not much pleading for the same, Psycho got me to second his name for the selection after registering on the damn website.

And there it is, immortalized for eons to come: ruma@yahoo.com has posted "I Second the name of Psycho for this damn organization that I care two hoots about".

AARRGGHH!!!

Since then, I have been trying to find out someone in google who can kindly remove this link from turning up as a hit in my name. Look, it's not because my boyfriend's father will look at this and say oh whatay fallen woman who once proposed some strange boy's name for world internet domain name domination and now she cannot date my son. No no no. That's the least of my worries. I am appalled that somewhere, there is the immortalization of my name with this psycho who, according to my shrink, is responsible for driving me to near insanity, and there's nothing I can do about it.

The moral of the story is that people should be circumspect about what they lend their name to on the internet. Even a comment you leave on someone's blog can be potentially harmful. In Law School, seniors would sit with the list of students who made it through the entrance exam and painstakingly google each and every one of them. Once, they hit paydirt with one sweet boy having left a "nice website, really enjoyed the content, keep it up" comment on http://www.bighotboobs.com/.

Of course, sometimes things like these can work wonders, especially when you're a lawyer. A very agitated woman, whose husband got her checked into a mental asylum while he was philandering with a belgian transferee in his office, was hitting dead end after dead end with Right to Information Applications being rejected at every possible office for information on this other woman. In a fit of boredom, I keyed her name in my google toolbar for a search.

The Husband had tried everything in his power to make sure the relationship was well hidden. Even though they were living in together in the Company Flat, as HR Head he had fudged all official records to make it seem like he and his belgian babe saw each other only once a year on the Company's annual offsite. Well, they say even the smartest of criminals makes at least 14 mistakes which a smart cop can catch.

As for the stupid ones, they visit a Hotel Website in South Africa:

"Karen Colma & Raj Kapoor, India

Thanks so much for your hospitality and your genuine warmth. Your place is gorgeous and we enjoyed every moment of our stay."

(names changed so that when they make a google search for their names, they don't find out that they've been busted)

An additional affidavit in evidence has been filed in her maintenance petition. When I showed it to my boss, he had a glimmer of new found respect for me in his eyes. Just a little.

Actually, now when I think about it, I got off pretty easy with the Psycho and the internet. Things could have been much worse. Anyway from what I hear, though a wave of votes from his juniors and family members and other Indians (later known as the Sanjaya effect) ensured he made it to the post, he was sacked on account of inactivity, something which probably turns up when you google his name.

Heh heh heh.

Happy Endings

2008-03-08T18:35:00.000-08:00

I met an old friend the other day who had an interesting story to tell. She had gone for a friend's wedding where she played the role of the "maid of honour" or some such, and sometime during the sangeet, all of a sudden, she found herself looking deep into the teary eyes of the bride's brother. Now, my friend is sassy, attractive and has a decent head on her shoulders, but even she admits to getting carried away by the scenario. You know what I mean? The guy was attractive enough and had all the general prerequisites, and he was actually, in the spirit of "He's Just Not That Into You", doing the chasing. He was looking for random excuses to talk to her, kept calling her out for a little rendezvous in the middle of the night, there were flickers of meaningful conversation, even. It had all of the makings of a great 2008 romance - a good looking guy well qualified guy with a high paying job to match my super-successful friend's qualifications, a single guy, a guy who was caught up in so much emotion at his own sister's happiness that it was evident that he was "ready", and what's more, it had the best "story" amongst all the relationships in our friends circles. All great relationships have a great story, well, almost all of them. (Let me tell you, some relationships which started off as "hooked up randomly after too many tequila shots", "we were bored" and even "I don't remember" are doing quite fine, thank you.) The story is the answer to how did you meet:

"Well, I had gone for abc's wedding, and then.... "

You think.

A day and a half later, on the pretext of going for a walk, our gal and her boy are out in a secluded area. In the spirit of potential relationship, Gal decides to "take it slow", and suddenly, the cute, sensitive brother of the bride is slobbering all over her. No conversation, no getting to know each other, well, not in the way my friend imagined it.

To me, this was just symptomatic of the death of the happy ending. The last time I saw anyone use the word happy ending convincingly was when Pizza Hut introduced a new garlicky crust. What do you do when even the most perfect Yash Chopra Sequence goes terribly wrong? Another friend met a guy, I confess that this guy was a friend of MINE, with whom she had wonderful chemistry which sizzled all through the Roger Waters concert last year, and he even had his arm on her shoulders all evening and patiently probed into her recent break up. Soon afterwards, he tells her that he's not in "that place". You know "that place", of course - the concentration camp called "commitment". Now she can't even listen to Pink Floyd without cringing.

One of your best friends tries to set you up with her "so ready to settle down" best guy pal, and guess what? He can't get involved with you at a 'conscious level'. You meet a guy in the oddest of circumstances leaving you with no belief other than that you were made for each other, and three years later when you cross paths in the Supreme Court, he actually runs as fast as one can in a full length gown past you to avoid even taking in the same air which you might have just exhaled.

Really now, people keep whining about how we are so damn cynical, but then do you really think its possible to look forward to anything which even suggests romance and happiness? The next time you're standing under a makeshift shelter from the rain and an attractive man also rushes in, I suggest you run as fast as your legs can carry you, because he's probably a serial killer. Find yourself warming upto a man you met on facebook in some common interest community? Guess what? He's a Woman. Face it, the happy ending is turning into an Urban Legend, right alongside waking up in a tub of ice with "CALL 911" scribbled on the mirror with lipstick. Come to think of it, the latter is more of a possibility.

Meg points out though, over dinner at Pot Pourri, that a Happy Ending is possible, It's called a Jack Daniels Chocolate Cup.

It takes my great friends for me to remember that we still have reasons to celebrate. :)

On Feline Feminism

2008-02-25T21:43:00.000-08:00

I am addicted to FM. My job involves so much of intercity travel that it's the only thing that stops me from going insane at the clutter inside local trains, in traffic jams, in BEST buses. RJs are the only problem with FM, or at least, they used to be the only problem. There's the Akashwani requests from "Sheelanagar se Tinku, Rajesh, Pravin, Menaka, Manju, Arya, Upen, Gaurav" for some godforsaken song from a Manoj Kumar movie which was not about patriotism and so no one is aware of it - no one outside of Sheelanagar, that is.

For a couple of hours day you cna hear the AIR 107 FM RJs with the convent accents taking requests for English music from the Bandra Reclamation Catholic Brigade. Here, both listeners and RJs have the worst taste in music: "The next track here is a romantic track, a lovely track This is requested by Anthony for his girlfriend Melinda, and I dedicate it to Xavier as well, and to Bibiana who love this song as much as I love playing it... here's Michael Bolton's 'Can I touch you there' ..."

And then there are the Hinglish RJs - the Jaggu and Tarana and other people whose names I cannot recollect despite them repeating them over and over again. I like Jaggu and Tarana with their spunky spoofing of random issues. Radio Stations also love their little skits. 'Chai with Charan' was fun, at times, but most others are just too goddamn painful for words. But if I ever get into an accident while crossing the road, there's a 78% chance that it was because I was too busy laughing aloud to 'Phone ring toh Ghanta Singh'.

But everything, no matter how bad, is all welcome entertainment compared to the new entrant on the FM scene - 104.8FM.

Look, I'm all for women's empowerment. I consider myself a feminist lawyer and I'm proud of it. I stand up for women, be they my friends who have just broken up with trash men or clients married to trash men. I would like to find a way to help them help themselves. Don't we all?

However, a radio station was never a plausible idea, to me, for some reason I didn't think that a women's only Radio Station would lead to the upliftment of women and the solution to all their problems.

Guess what? It still isn't!

Let us begin with the Radio Station's theme song:

A woman begins screaming, because calling that noise 'singing' would be a crime...

"THODI MEETI

THODI CATTY

India ka first Women's only Radio Station"

Louder and shriller, now:

"THODI MEEEEEETI

THODI CATTTEEYEEE

104.8 EFF EEMMM

MEEEOWWWW!"

Oww indeed. And if you are used to hearing the radio at full volume, and if you're lucky, you might be rendered partially deaf, as apparently there are no regulations on things like this. If not, like I was, you'll have to bear the content.

The channel has little self-ads in which they talk about how women are different, they have different roles, and how the station is "there for them" yadayadayada. So they have more of a focus on "content" than on music, naturally. With wonderful pathbreaking shows like "tu tu meow meow", which is a male female debate show, and "meow matinee" in which they discuss things that affect you, and "meri meow" which is all about solving your problems, Meow FM proposes to be the best thing that ever happened to women!

I don't care how many women with scratch marks on their faces are blowing kisses on every BEST bus in Mumbai not already advertising for the Firangi Channel, the producers and content supervisors are probably men. Why do I say that? Let me see...

1. Meow matinee, a few days ago, proposed to discuss one the most important issues in a woman's life. Guess what it was? Breast Cancer? The Human Papilloma Virus? Dowry? Stridhan as a woman's exclusive property?

Get real guys. Figure out the real issue:

Kitty Parties!

2. One of their USPs is 'advice to women' and encouragement to call in with issues and problems, and of course women need their own radio station for this, after all, all women are messed up and need help. And there are too many radio stations with Agony Aunt shows in which the RJs blatanly hang up on women.

3. Excuse the sarcasm. Fine, I can understand that a lot of women have no one to talk to and no one to understand them, but if that's what you are looking to combat, why can't we get a few sensible people to render advice? For instance:

"Mera boyfriend hai, we have been going out for past 3 years. Now he is saying that he doesn't want to get married to me, because he wants to make carrier. My parents want me to get married but I have taken an oath that I will not get married without him."

So what's a solution that a woman needs to hear from a radio station devoted to her needs? Maybe a dose of a little "he's just not that into you"? Maybe a little dose of reality? Maybe a little 'would you like to move on now or when you are 35 and when he is conveniently married to someone else?'.

No no no, now, that's not what a meeti and catty friend would do, instead, the girl is advised:

"Have you told him about this oath of yours?"

"No..."

"You should tell him. He needs time. He needs to know your feelings..."

Again, people do not realize that it is this very approach that screws plenty of desirable, intelligent, popular, witty and smart women all over the city. So now, more desirable, intelligent, popular, witty and smart women will join the screwed over brigade. Come along sisters, the more the merrier.

And lastly, its ironic that a Radio Station which seeks to make a place for women on FM names the station after one of the most painful stereotypes attributed to women. I suppose we should all be thankful that they chose the feline over the female canine, should we not?

The Fall of the Diva

2008-02-25T02:30:00.000-08:00

After a weekend of pure unadulterated fun (absinthe, cold chocolate vodka shots, passing out for the first time since college, southie grub at Woodlands, a live karaoke by the most stunning singer and insider information on bollywood), I was finally living the life I always wanted to live in Mumbai. To me, the ultimate city life was Sex in the City with a 130 IQ. I may not be able to buy $400 Jimmy Choo shoes, but Rs. 400 at Metro isn't a bad deal either. After 1 1/2 years of the working life, I finally had the 'Bombay' checklist down:

1. Getting anything done in 3 phone calls flat.

2. Alcohol Home Delivery

3. The best of friends who are game for anything

4. Attending Page 3 dos without actually getting on page 3.

5. Knowing people in the glamour world who I can afford to be seen with in public.

6. Hosting the best parties without people puking all over my floor.

7. Being able to comment on what's "hot" and what's "not" without looking like an idiot.

And so, though it was a Monday Morning, I strode out to the not so glamorous suburban Metropolitan Magistrate's Court, in full Diva mode.

What's with the Diva infatuation? A 'Diva' was being the woman who everyone wanted to hang out with, because she was so cool, so out of the ordinary, she had it all, or something close to that. I strode into the Court premises in my cool work heels and my Victoria Beckham

gigantic sunglasses, gave everyone around me a Diva nod. The Diva-ness worked, because the Judge informed me that he was all set to acquit my Clients on the next date. I smiled graciously, did the little bow/curtsy that we lawyers do, and picked up my files and sashayed out of the Courtroom.

Apparently I should have quit while I was ahead.

As I was travelling back, suddenly, the air around me became cloudy. The Diva didn't see this coming. Before I could react, my body did. My eyes began to water and my nose began to run with the cold that I was convinced that the Absinthe had cured. I tried to close the window but failed. The smog penetrated even the sunglasses. I held a tissue to my mouth in a desperate attempt to filter the air my lungs were desperate to take in. As the dust subsided, I removed the tissue, and nearly gagged again - the tissue had turned brown. Repulsed, I did the only thing a Diva could do in the circumstances.

I spit.

Well yes, I know - it was disgusting and totally uncalled for. In my defence however, I would like to state that nothing was harmed except my pride and the LBS Road. I sat back in my seat and thanked the BMC for only having dug up 1 km of road for me to suffocate in.

Suddenly, I felt queasy. I was getting stomach pangs, not the hungry kind, and a terrible taste in my mouth, even worse than the chalk powder taste I was getting in the smog attack. I thought I was going to hurl, real soon, that too. My head hurt, my whole body hurt, I felt like I was running temperature - it was the stuff nightmares were made of. However, as I was still in Central Railway Territory, I decided to wait till I was taken to civilization. I closed my eyes and tried to think of that wonderful singer of last night and her arabian melodies.

By the time I got to familiar territory, I decided that I needed a sugar high, and so I went to Cream Centre, which was the first decent eatery I saw. I was a Diva, after all, and Cream Centre was arguable even semi-classy with its South Mumbai roots. Ask Napean Sea Road Gujju kids. I stride in as best as I can, and am surrounded by three waiters.

"Table for one", in my best Diva voice, hoping my face didn't look three shades darker with the dust.

I am scanning the menu for a drink, and I unconsciously sip the water poured in my glass. it's hard to describe what that water felt like, but suddenly, I was relieved. My insides, which till now felt like they were being removed by a slotted spoon, cooled down, my mouth tasted sweet, my head stopped hurting - everything suddenly went back to normal. Better than normal, actually. I greedily gulped down the glass and in a very un-diva like manner demanded another one, to which similar treatment was meted out. And then I realized that though the roadside construction was the catalyst, this body condition of mine was on account of something else.

That Goddamn Absinthe!

Having hence recovered, I also recovered an appetite, and so, I ordered a pizza. Yes, for the record, I write a food watch blog and I like the pizzas at Cream Centre. They are thin, crisp and there's nothing wrong with them. You can stop snickering now. Also, I had had a major pizza craving for some time.

As I tried to find the 12 differences in my table mat as I waited for the food to arrive, I could feel a pair of eyes on me. A guy was sitting at the next table, in front of me, and he was looking in no particular direction, which meant that every now and then, he was looking at me.

And then arrived my pizza.

I bit into the slice, and as I moved to pull back and chew, I realized that the entire pizza topping was following the little nibble I was trying to sneak away.

Pizza ranks second in my worst-first-date-dinner-ideas, the first being a burger. There is no neat way of eating a burger that's worth eating. I'm not talking about the anorexic 20 buck McDonalds trash. I mean a Hard Rock Cafe Burger, or even a Big Mac. Just no clean way. The sauce drips out from the other side of the burger, followed by the lettuce, and invariably, one of the slices of bread will finish before the other, and so you will have to hold the juicy soaked vegetable/meat patty in your hands and eat it. You could eat it neatly by taking small bites and then evaluating the damage caused to the burger and repositioning the 'participants', including elimination of the weak links, but in that case you'll go down in dating history as "the guy/girl who went out on a date with me and never, not even once, looked up from that goddamn burger".
Ditto with Pizza. Some people eliminate the messiness by eating their pizza with a knife and fork. If it was meant to be eaten with a knife and fork, then the concept of pizza slices would not exist. As a child in the US, I walked into a Pizza Hut once with my parents and was aghast to see, contrary to my popular cultural notion of pizza eating developed from our highly gregarious neighbourhood Italians who ran a pizzeria (pronounced pitzah-reeya), someone eating a pizza (pronounced peetza) with a knife and a fork. That person was also wearing a hell of a lot of cloth on his head and had a big beard.
"Dad," I hissed. "That guy is eating pizza with a knife and a fork."
"He's a sardar, sweetie. Don't worry about him."
That was also my first introduction to Indian regional stereotypes.
What I'm trying to say is, though I fancied myself to be a Diva, I just could not get myself to pick up a knife and fork.

Instead, I bit further into it, taking the slice on. I held the slice right in front of me, chewed a little, bit more into the crust to support the cheese, olives, mushrooms, onion, tomato and babycorn (unfortunately for me, they were really generous with the toppings) that was already hanging from my teeth. I was using one hand to hold up my slice, but in the end, with the cheese threatening to cover my nose, I had to use my left hand to severe the fevicol consistency like cheese from my bite. I put the truant slice down, picked up the napkin and wiped my mouth (and my nose) with it.

My bored neighbour was watching me through this, in case I forgot to mention, and all of a sudden a teeny bopper hopped in and joined him with profuse yet fake apologies about some extra lecture. I sighed in relief with the thought that she would sit opposite him and so they would have eyes only for each other and so I could munch my pizza in peace.

I had forgotten how lovey dovey couples prefer sitting on the same side of the table.

Good Grief.

I sipped my iced tea and the girl and I, our eyes met.

She gave me the sympathy look. Not the "I know eating pizza is messy, but hang in there" look, but the "you're eating ALONE?" look. Then she whispered something into her date's ear and she giggled.

Wait a second. This was some shit. I wasn't going to sit here and ruin my meal and my thankfully recovered appetite because some ugly people on the next table are staring at me because they have nothing else better to look at. That's not what a Diva does. A Diva does, ladies and gentlemen, whatever the fuck she wants, and that is true style.

I chomped down the rest of my pizza, wiped my mouth, paid the bill and finished off my gigantic and refreshing iced tea. Just before leaving, I drew in the straw of my iced tea one more time just so I could make the obnoxious sucking sound that a straw makes when your drink is over that I haven't gotten enough of ever since my mother told me to "STOP IT" when I was 4.

The Diva may have fallen, but at least she did it in style.

PS: The title of the blog is misleading to the few people who decided that we would all collectively blog on a Model turned Actress who has married into a filmi family after having first been "kept" by a Politician who turned her over to his thespian friend who married her off to his homosexual son. We wanted to do this because we tried to google the story but came up empty handed. Anyway. This blog is not about that. Just so you know.

The Perfect Fit

2008-02-22T04:14:00.000-08:00

The other day I helped myself to a shopping spree at the Shopper's Stop sale, during my Court lunch break. This isn't as glamorous a post as you think it is. For starters, I was shopping for work clothes. Which can be fun. But not for me. You see, my life is, and I kid you not, black and white. And maybe grey, and off white. Beige. Brown, but not too much of it. The Bar Council of India refuses to "move with the times" and allow for Indian lawyers to appear in Court in Formal Clothes, and not the black-and-white rule that we have been following for centuries. Harsh, but then again, looking at the way most Mumbai lawyers dress even with the dress code, I shudder to think what I could be subject to if the rules were relaxed. If you don't believe me, you haven't seen the infamous Zebra Crossing trousers, highly popular amongst the men in trial litigation, and on certain occasions, my Boss also strides in with them. I'd have burnt them, but I would rather see the stripes that get my Boss to take his pants off.

Now Shoppers Stop has its "Sale" merchandise arranged in several piles of clothes marked "XS", "S", "M", "L", "XL" etc. I gleefully moved towards the "Small" pile, gleeful because I discovered that that was where I belong just a few weeks ago, at Westside. After subjecting myself to various shapeless Medium sized Kurtas, I found one which was just right - and dare say I - flattering. As I slipped out of the kurta (as opposed to squeezing out of the kurta) I noticed what was different - it was a "small". Yay!

After much digging I found one smart looking beige one, and one in black, with interesting work in front, including a metallic attachment which resembled a small photo frame. At first I thought I was playing with fire, but when I put it on, I wore my band (the freakish white collar that lawyers wear for no explicable reason) I found that it served as an efficient cover up. However, the sleeves were baggy, the waist was of no consequence and it looked a little like a sack. As regards the beige one, while it was a little too snug around my hips, the lower back portion of the kurta puffed up, there was easily enough space in there for a Nano. Which brought me to the conclusion: I needed a size larger for the beige, and a size smaller for the black. One woman, two sizes.

I was a circus freak.

I pulled my own clothes on, shoved past waifish women trying on clothes and asking their mothers, who are bearing the burden of middle age and the accompanying bulges, whether they looked fat in them. As I returned to the pile, I found an XS (gasp!) in the black, but was not so lucky with the beige. Harrowed, I returned back into the room, threw on the XS and cringed at the lack of adjustment to my lower body (but admired the fit of the shoulders and sleeves). I put the beige on again, for a second look. Maybe I would have lost the weight I had on 10 minutes ago and this would fit just fine!

As expected, it was as ill fitting as ever. I decided to take a second opinion from the one person who would tell me the truth and not feed me some candy floss just so I could feel good about myself and buy it.

I opened the door and stood in front of the scowling trial room attendant, who looked grossly underfed.

"What's wrong with this?"

She looked me up and down, and turned me around. "It fits well up here... but..."

Well, at least she didn't have an issue identifying the problem.

"Aye raju, is mein bada size dekho! Large!"

"This is a SMALL" I growled.

She looked at me disbelievingly.

This could not be happening. I was a Large now? This was one promotion I certainly wasn't looking forward to. Women around looked at me, in my ill fitting kurta with the back that made me look like a confused kangaroo, I could hear their not-so-sympathetic-tut-tutting. But I wasn't going down without a fight.

"Aur size nahin hai ma'am", scowlface informed me.

"Look. It fits till here. Why can you just get the alterations guy to open it up from the side till the point at which it fits?" In actuality, this would result in the beige kurta becoming party wear, but this was a prestige issue, and besides, it was 40% off.

She exhaled slowly, and realizing that she was way out of her league, she called the alterations guy.

The AG was short, with a measuring tape draped around his shoulders and a pencil behind his ear. He was scruffy, bald, and wore nothing that looked designer even by a longshot. He walked in looking completely bored and nothing seemed to catch his interest, not even the semi naked women or my ill fitted disaster story.

He took one look at me and said the words I least expected from him:

"This has to be tighter."

So saying, he bunched up my 'backpack' and furrowed his brow.

"Not tighter," I explained. "It's already tight. Here." I placed my hands on my hips for emphasis.

"That I'll open." he yawned. He scribbled some notes on a pad and yawned again.

I suddenly had a brainwave.

"Wait right here"

For the next ten minutes, I modelled Black XS and Black S in front of him, explaining how I loved how XS fit my frame, but the fit of S was so much more comfortable, but even then, it looked like a sack. Or some such gibberish. He watched my little parade nonchalantly, made me wear the Small, again furiously scribbled, and that was that. I paid, and was told to come back in 1 hour.

After window shopping and a Bembo's burger (don't even ask) I walked back in, and claimed my clothes. I was too scared to even try them on. I went home, in the midst of Raj Thakarey's arrest, and while Mumbai speculated on whether he was going to be remanded to Judicial or Police Custody, I tried on my Kurtas.

And, by Jove, it was, a perfect fit.

In the midst of the mad scribbling I asked the AG if this was normal, having to all but restich garments completely.

"Size ka kuch nahin hota hai" he cooly replied. "Har aadmi ko suit karta hai, waise banana padta hai."

Life may not throw up situations in which you fit very well, but at least there are some places where you can achieve a perfect fit. :)

Ho jaata hai baba...

2008-01-30T04:38:00.000-08:00

I always thought my Clients would kill me one day. Yesterday they almost did.

I have this Parsi client, who is trying to battle encroachers on to his humble ancestral property at Malabar Hill. The Parsi has been living with a Gujarati for the last 40 years, ever since they studied together at undergrad. Thereafter, they roamed about all over the world and now stay together at Malabar Hill. Neither of them are or have been married, and they are now pushing 70. They have never discussed their sexual orientation with me, and I have never asked. Of course, they've never given me any time to bring up the subject because the Parsi is, as all Parsis are, obsessive, and he is compulsively obsessive about his case.

Coming back to the incident at hand, after completing a Court hearing, the Parsi pulled out his Maruti 800 while the Gujju and I waited at the curb across from the Court. When the car pulled up, the Gujju insisted I sit in the front, and I complied while the Parsi sat and muttered a check list of things to be done. The Gujju took his time moving the stuff at the back, so that he could sit. The Parsi, having finished his update, pressed the accelerator to move.

Only, the Gujju had only one foot in the car.

Initially I thought that only the door remained to be closed. Then I stuck my head out of the window, and saw the Gujju running to catch up with the car. He screamed the Parsi's name, and the Parsi seemed to take this as an indication to go faster, and to my utter horror I saw the Gujju fall and tumble several times, I heard glass break and the screams of other mortified onlookers. This entire scene just took a split second, in case you are wondering how long it took me to react.

"ABC!" I screamed, "STOP the FUCKING CAR!! XYZ has FALLEN!"

The Parsi slammed the break. And my head went right onto the dashboard.

Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to put my hands on the dashboard so that they cushioned my headbang. Still, there was some impact. I sat there, with my head resting on my fingers, dreading to look up to see that the Parsi had made a Gujarati Chutney out of his boyfriend.

The Gujarati was intact, but hopping mad.

"ABC, what the hell are you doing, huh? What the hell?" He fumed, throwing the backseat clutter with an energy which can only be channelized fury.

"Arre bhai, sorry na, ho jaata hai baba..."

"What sorry, huh? Every time same thing same thing and then sorry sorry. What is this? You don't care about anyone else, you are not bothered..." and some abuses in Gujarati later: "What sorry?"

I was right in the middle of a gay domestic squabble.

I excused myself on the ground that there was some work in court that I needed to do, picked up some ice and a 10 rupee cotton napkin, and flagged a cab as I pressed the icepack to my forehead.

On a seemingly unrelated note, on our way to work A and I were discussing the "thin line" between the end of the "honeymoon period" of a relationship and just not caring. We all know that relationships do not enjoy the same feverish level of involvement as they do in the beginning, but does that mean that we should allow them to settle into a world where everything is taken for granted? Do you think the Parsi also never called the Gujju when he should have, that he forgot birthdays and anniversaries, never noticed a new haircut, and then finally, running over the Gujju was just another "ho jaata hai baba" in their relationship, 40 years down the line?

I agree with A when she says that there never is a perfect relationship and there will always be problems. I guess, in time, people should stop being naive about being taken for granted. Isn't the entire point of a relationship the fact that you can take someone for granted? You don't need to call on that one day you're swamped with work, you don't need to shave your legs every day, you don't need to go to the most expensive places to get a drink and still, you won't get dumped, and you can still have a person to call your own. But is there a line which shouldn't be crossed? Or is the secret to a successful relationship not running over each other?

Anyway, this has given me at least one day off from work - so what if I can't move!

Observations of the world around us

2008-01-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

Some observations of the world around us from the weekend gone by:

1. Sunday: Just in case you weren't thrown off by the real random happenings and bad acting just 10 minutes into the movie, the item number should be enough to get you walking straight out of the theatre. Any movie which uses Tushar Kapoor as an item boy should not be allowed a release on grounds of humanity. As if that wasn't bad enough, in a flashback scene, they insist on replaying Tushar's introductory footage. The only good thing about the movie is Arshad Warsi and Irfan Khan. See, its movies like Sunday which make me think that some movies should only be released on DVD and not in theatres, sort of like a committee of brave souls which watch the movie and say. "Well, now that you've put in all this effort and come up with this piece of shit, let's not torture people too much, shall we?". So you can watch the movie with the luxury of fast forwarding the real crappy parts. Have you heard that if you watch Sawariya on 4x speed on DVD it can actually be a meaningful piece of cinema?

2. The possibility of there being too much of a good thing: Or how my enthusiasm over writing for the food blog has given me indigestion.

3. Sometimes no rent can be a bad thing: It's nice to live in your parent's flat and not have to pay rent in a fuck-all real estate place like Mumbai, but it's kind painful when they drop in and you find out that they haven't done return tickets.

"I'm the master of my time", says Dad, stretching out on the sofa.

Hmm.

4. Long Distance relationships: Work for very few people. For the people who make it work, let me tell you, it is a complete and utter bitch. I am now convinced that the only feasible long distance relationship is with your parents. Come to think of it, any other relationship with your parents is unfeasible.

5. Mumbai weather: If someone tells me about tropical climates, I might hit them. Yeah, it's cold in Delhi, I know, but its cold in Mumbai too - and it gives you the shivers because you're not ready for it at all - almost like a snap test for 5 of those 20 marks which were part of the murky "internal" component of the board exams, and flunking this test could mean messing up a possible 10% of those 20 marks which, back then, was the end of the world.

6. PMS: Is certainly not the recommended frame of mind to be having, however, I welcome it with open arms. It's wonderful how a bad mood and water retention can sometimes put a lot of things into perspective.

7. Peer pressure: Never really ends, it just gets you to do new things. So I was on the "ha ha I lived my childhood without peer pressure and look at what it got me so what if i was a fat kid with bad skin and braces with no social life at least i'm not like the cool kids I studied with who now work for Barista" trip for a long time. Now suddenly, as I lay awake one morning (see point No. 2) I realized that a lot of things I have been doing are not because I want them, but because they seem the right thing to do by my peer group. I have been forced to place a ban on conversations with people who a. are getting married b. are quitting their jobs c. are trying to lose weight because I am tempted to get all gung ho about doing things I do not particularly want to do. This has to stop somewhere. After all, the world cannot possibly handle 80 unemployed, married and anorexic Law School graduates.

8. The secret to alleviation of all potency problems: I was forced to have a discourse on sex with my Boss when I was working on a case in which a guy allegedly raped a woman 6 times in two hours. I went into his room, hesitatingly, to tell him that this allegation counters everything I knew about sex from biology textbooks (yeah, right). I never thought saying "multiple orgasms" in front of my Boss would be that difficult.

"Rape connotes only penetration," explained Boss. "Not an Orgasm. He penetrated her six times, and the entire act went on for two hours."

This put things into an entirely different perspective. You see, the first half of my sexual partners (taking a broad definition of sexual) have suffered from, well, deficiency. Of course, this was a rape case and I had sympathies with the victim. Also, my curiosity was not reflective of my present sex life, or rather, the lack of it. This was a purely academic interest.

"You mean," I asked. "TWO HOURS?"

Boss smiled, like a smug lecturer who deliberately leaves out a detail and says "I knew this question was coming..." and said words which would help women claiming sexual deficiency on the part of their partners all over:

"He was coked out of his mind"

I downloaded Clapton and listened to it while reading the chargesheet:

If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; cocaine.

Dont forget this fact, you cant get it back; cocaine.

She dont lie, she dont lie, she dont lie; cocaine.

The Numbers Game

2008-01-23T22:50:00.000-08:00

I walk into the little lane that leads up to my office to see that the local newspaper and magazine vendor has erected a poster of the latest filmfare with Kareena saying: "Who gets love bites on your back?"

Somebody can use a little imagination in the bedroom, what says?

The power-couple of Bollywood, or so they would like to believe, should be banned from appearing on the Cover of ANYTHING, even a can of sardines. If Khalid Mohammad places Kareena on the cover of HT Cafe one more time, I might be provoked enough to swallow my pride and go back to ToI. As for Saif Ali Khan, well, he will now be immortalized as the first cover boy of Rolling Stone India. What, are we completely out of photogenic men able to pose with musical instruments? Of course, all good Indian rock musicians are actually Pakistanis. But surely, something better than Saif is manageable?

Then again, its better than Shah Rukh Khan, airbrushed 6 pack and all, holding a violin.

Bombay, I'm back. As you can see, Bombay has made me suitably crabby and I sulked the entire commute to work. It's this city, I tell you.

Yesterday, as I was waiting to clamber into the train, I got a call. Excitedly thinking it was my boyfriend, I whipped the phone out, only to find that it was "Ajay" calling.

"Who's that?" asked Dad, noting my obvious irritation.

"Some random guy", I said.

"Then why does he have your phone number?"

Good question. This goes back to one day in the Metropolitan Magistrate's Court at Bandra, when I was supposed to appear in a Colleague's matter. A fair, young guy was standing next to me, and I was in need of making my stupid sarcastic quips to someone, and he seemed to grasp basic English, so there we had it. He also helped me on a few tactical tips while appearing before this Judge. Everything was fine. He told me about how he was practicing with some guy who was a Professor at his College (talk about Campus placements) and was based out of this Court. After my matter was over, he then asked me for my phone number.

You know what? It's easy to say "Well you should have told him that you don't give your numbers to strangers... that you don't have a phone... that you would rather eat yourself whole, starting from your toes, than exchange contact numbers with him...". But when someone a guy asks a woman for her phone number, especially in a professional set up, denying it is not so easy. If you're a lawyer, exchanging phone numbers can ensure that Clients are referred to you, that you have some trusty soul to keep your matter on hold while you are stuck in traffic, that you have someone to consult for a quick tip on advised course of action before a particular Judge. Socializing was a necessity, created by rules made by the male bastion. In those days, there were only two female criminal lawyers. One was a majestic Parsi Lady whom no one would mess with, because in Bombay you never messed with a Parsi. They'd probably wind up being your landlord. The other woman was about 6 feet tall, 4 feet wide and with teeth which jutted out from her mouth like a coconut scraper, if you know what that is. Anyway the standing joke about her was created when a new whisky in the market was rated by the Bar Association (not pun intended):

"After two pegs, you can see Mona Lisa smiling. After four pegs, even *** smiling looks like Mona Lisa"

Sad, sad. But that's the Bombay Bar for you.

What I'm trying to say that the rules created by the male bastion never figured the possibility of young, unattached women in practice, desperate men, and the SMS phenomenon.

That evening, after exchanging numbers with the seemingly harmless Ajay, the barrage begins.

Good night messages, good morning messages, good afternoon messages, "look at the bright side of life" messages, "forward to 25 people or else you will drop dead of diseases you never even thought existed" messages - the works.

A few days later, he even called. And even more surprisingly, I picked up.

"Hi Ajay", I said.

I don't know why people do the whole "hello? who is this?" on cell phones to people whose numbers are saved on their phone. Thanks to my moving with the mobile times, however, I robbed him of 2 lines of conversation.

"Hi. How are you?"

"I'm fine. How are you?"

"Fine." silence.

Why on earth do people call for no reason when there's absolutely nothing to say to each other? It's different when of course you have an existing relationship and you call to say "Hi." In the course of conversation there's every chance that something new will trump up, like "Guess what? I'm getting married!", which is the reason why I have stopped calling up people "just to say Hi".

Idiot that I am, I actually try and make conversation.

"Well, I got your message..." he had sent me a message, about 10 minutes before the call, with lots of asterisks and dollar signs which are supposed to look like some tangible object, to the trained eye. If the Rorschach Inkblot Test Blot test was replaced with SMS artwork, I'd probably be strait jacketed and sent to the loony bin.

"Yeah..." he said.

"So, what's been up?"

"Nothing. Practice. You tell?"

This was obviously not going anywhere.

"Okay. I am out with friends. I have to go."

Perhaps it was my distinct and subtle disinterest, but the chronic messaging stopped thereafter. Except, of course, the Christmas message (I'm still wondering if it was a Christmas tree or a Santa Cap), the "wishing you a happy new year before the phones lines get jammed" message on the 31st, and the "Happy New Year" message on the 1st.

I was reclining on my diwan, having been sent home early on account of rumours that Bal Thackeray was dead. Sipping a gin and tonic, I was curled up with laptop on belly warmer mode and halfway into Season 4 of Sex and the City when my mobile beeped.

It was a message from Ajay.

"I have been trying to call you for the last half an hour. I am waiting outside your house. Please Come outside."

I sat up. He knows where I live? How does he know where I live? Who told him? Nobody knows where I live. Is this something you can find out from 28888888?

Now that he's standing outside, will he come ring the doorbell? Damn all those boyfriends and home deliveries, now the watchmen let bloody everyone in.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Disturbed as I was, I somehow had the presence of mind to scroll down.

And down, and down, and down.

"MY NAME IS MOON

I jus wanted to say gud nite!"

AAARRRGGHH!!!!!!

So I'm still wondering what to do about this serial SMSer. Surely there must be some Bharti Mittal Clinic for people who just can't get enough of their cell phones? The problem is that I cannot scream at him or accuse him of sexual harassment or get the CBI on his arse (perks of the job) or anything because there's a thin red line between frandship and harassment and he hasn't quite crossed it yet.

But I'm waiting. And when he does, he's definitely not going to get an SMS warning.

Foodie alert

2008-01-22T11:00:00.000-08:00

My ever expanding waistline is finally being put to good use: John has roped me in to write on his food blog http://foodwatchblog.blogspot.com and I've been stuck in bed nursing my wisdom tooth and writing about food I cannot chew. Please check it out and suggest some good stuff to write on.

Don't you wish you get could paid for doing the things you love?

Just (not) married

2008-01-21T23:10:00.000-08:00

My peer group, officially, is now divided into two. Those who have gotten married, and those getting married in the foreseeable future.

Initially it was one classmate. Then it moved to four. There were the cousins older than me. Then it became the cousins younger than me. Exs (all but one of them), school friends, new friends, office colleagues, former roommates, clients – you name them, I name the date and venue.

And then there was me. And a few other trusty souls, of course, like A, M, Lax and the boyfriend. At least, that’s what he tells me.

I was living in a world where marriage was something obscure, something that would never happen to me, like making a full house at a Bingo game. I never saw myself wanting it either – I didn’t quite see the “value add” of marriage in my life. Come to think of it, I still don’t.

In about 40 days and 40 nights, I will be 25. I will reach an age when things that happened 20 years ago will be in my recallable memory. I already find myself making statements like “Oh, but that was 10 years ago” and doing a mental double take. Still, it’s not that old. Not when you think of the fact that I’ve been in college till age 23 and the last 1 ½ years have passed in an entire blur.

According to my relatives, however, I should be receiving pension.

In my community, women are married by my age, partly because of the dwindling size of the community and the rare commodity status of the single ‘decent’ saraswat boy. Luckily for me, marriage talk in my house was non existent. Nobody ever uttered the M word – my Dad only addresses personal issues through my mother, my mother is still disgruntled over her own early marriage and the amount of compromises it forced her to make, and that was our own little universe.

****

I met my old pal SS for a drink and red snapper at Viva Panjim, one of my favourite restaurants. Being a divorcee, SS was not only at the bottom of the feeding pool of Saraswat arranged marriages (he claimed one woman he was referred even looked like a catfish), but he was also an expert on the subject of societal relationships.
We discussed the marriage disease. SS had boycotted the arranged marriage mela on the ground that he was being unfairly discriminated against on grounds of being a divorcee, with attempts to being set up with women who he’d have to “…fuck from behind, because if I saw their face I’d puke”.
Alright, so he was shallow.
I was amazed at the whole concept of arranged marriages. How did the information that you got about a person in a few meetings suddenly amount to enough to go through an entire lifetime with them? How did you ever know if they were “the one”?
SS exhaled harshly. “Do you think people really think about all that? Look at Pooja.” Pooja was a girl who worked in my old office, who had had a relationship with a guy in her college about 10 years ago which included trysts at the shady London Hotel with a pool table and rooms for rent, wink, wink. She had paid for the hotel room – the guy had receipts to prove it. The relationship never lasted but the London Hotel jokes certainly did. Pushing 30, she married a guy from a Karnataka based Saraswat family, far away from the google news engine that reared its head up everytime an arranged marriage proposal came about.
“She wears her mangalsutra on the outside of her kurta, flashing it around like its some kind of fucking Bharat Ratna. She gets so excited at the thought of performing the silly rituals – like applying sindoor and kumkum on other women’s foreheads, distributing those little matkis at those haldi kumkum parties.” [Haldi kum kums were the religiously ordained kitty parties of my community] “You have to understand. Marriage is the priority. The guy is only secondary. Marriage, apparently, makes you culturally complete.”

Which was true. Amongst Saraswats, for example, the first religious ceremony that a woman was allowed to perform was her own wedding ceremony. After the thread ceremony, a man was allowed to worship the idol of his kul-devta as and when he pleased. A woman was only allowed this privilege after she was married. I had been observing married women for decades (ha, ha). When a married woman came to our house for the first time, my mother would make her sit on a chair, the lady would spread her pallu on her lap and my mother would place a coconut, a blouse-piece, a envelope with some cash and lots of rice in it. Then my mother would put kumkum and haldi on her forehead, and touch her feet in blessing, no matter what her age was. It was the blessing of a “savashin”, the vernacular term for the Married Lady. Any married woman coming home would not be allowed to go without applying haldi and kumkum to her forehead, and in turn she would do the same to my mother. Women would fast on hartalika, the day before Ganesh Chaturthi, to get a good husband, and after marriage they would fast to secure him for the next seven lifetimes. When someone was getting married, during the anointment ceremony, he or she would be blessed by 5 married ladies who would anoint him or her with oil. And of course, the presence of one savashin was required at every pooja conducted.
A small fringe benefit, considering all the pain they had to go through.

“SS, come on. Getting a cultural identity can’t be the only thing that drives these people…”
“I’m not saying it is. There’s also the license for sex, and of course the fear of dying alone. Parental pressure nothing but a force propelled by these reasons.”
Parental pressure is also what got SS married. His initial uncertainties were dismissed by optimists who said that “you’ll feel attracted to her, don’t worry”, and “you’re just nervous” and “this is what your destiny has ordained.” Six months later, SS found himself impotent – in every sense of the term. The annulment followed soon after.
“Arranged marriages,” he continued, after a refill on his RC – Coke, “are the safer bet, because these reasons are always a constant. They will never change. Love Marriages, on the other hand, are even more skewed because all everyone is trying to do is arrange their own fucking marriage.”

****

The next day, I found myself at a family get together this evening, and when I reached down to touch my uncle’s feet, he asked, to no one in particular: “When are you getting this girl married?”
Note please how the question was not even “When are you getting married?” Note also how the question was asked in the same tone of voice as “When will you put the trash out?”
As the question was not directed to me, I decided to shut up.
His wife chirped up 5 eligible bachelors whose parents had even politely inquired about me. Matchmaking was kind of her thing.
Again I smiled politely.
Uncle goes on “I don’t see the point really to this delay. What is her problem?”
My mother volunteered: “Well she is planning a lot, she’s practicing now but she might want to go abroad to study…”
“Whatever it is, why can’t she do all this after marriage? Who says she can’t study after marriage?”
“Well then she needs a guy who will understand that!”
“So what are we there for? We’ll find her a guy who understands! Who doesn’t understand? Everyone understands!”
Another aunt chirped up “This is unacceptable. This is not any way to behave anyway, leaving her like this on her own.”
Holy cow! Alone? Hell, I could take better care of myself, albeit not financially, then any of the men I knew.
The other aunt began trumping up boys who lived abroad.
As the subject of this brewing storm, I decided to speak up and make the crucial mistake of attempting to use a little humour.
“Anyway, mama, I think getting married before the age of 25 is child marriage, don’t you think?”
The family gasped collectively.
“Who says?”
“It’s a new law!”
My Uncle stared. “The law is 21 and 18. There is no 25 age limit now. There is no such law.”
My aunt squawked. “Unmarried till 25? This is ridiculous.”
My mother intervened. “Nobody did me a favour by marrying me off early, for sure.”
The indirect vent at her elder brothers patriarchic stance went unnoticed by all, except me, even while I was mentally noting that my sense of humour must have definitely come from my Dad’s side.
“What law is she talking about?”
“I was JOKING”, I smiled.
My mother’s sister cleared her throat: “How can you be joking at a time like this? Don’t you realize how serious this is?”
My eyes widened. My mother’s brother, who had started this whole hellhole, was recovering from a gall bladder operation that he had put off for 2 years and it nearly killed him, or whatever it is that a bad gall bladder can do to you. And now suddenly I was the one with the emergency status?
The matchmaking aunt decided to be helpful. “Maybe she has someone?”
Now shouldn’t this question have been directed to me?”
“Hayn!” said Mom, the Konkani displeasure word, shaking her head violently.
“What someone? How can she have someone? We can’t be having some outside brought in!” screamed my mother’s youngest sister, the aunt I loved the most.
Suddenly, I imagined all of them taking out stones and pelting me to death, for refusing to get married by age 25. Everyone thinks Goa is progressive because you can walk on beaches topless. Well, if you are a Saraswat, you’re no better off than a Pashtoon tribal lass.
“I just need some time.” I said.
“For what?” boomed everyone.
“To figure out my sexual orientation”, is what I should have said.
“What’s the big rush anyway?” I asked, irritated.
“It’s something you have to do.” said my uncle.
“You won’t get a boy later on,” said the matchmaker “besides, you have to start looking early. You’re very well educated, and also, you have a bit of a height problem.”
I am 5’2”. The shortest guy I had ever dated was 5’9”.
I opened my mouth to say this, but then I thought about the stones.

On the way home, I was amazed at how suddenly, I was four again. I could talk, but other people were asking questions about me to my parents. Remember “She’s so cute…what’s her name?” Twenty years later, life comes full circle. Your opinion still doesn’t matter. You still don’t know what’s best.

As I stepped out of the car, my aunt warned me:

“You have to get serious about this now”

A phrase I hadn’t heard since my Board exams.

When you’re a kid in the throes of adolescence, everyone is out to keep you juvenile. You’re brought a dairy milk every time a relative comes over, at birthday parties you’re made to wear the party hat and stand along with the other kids and sing “Happy Birthday” in return for the party favours bag, and all you want to do is sit in a corner and sulk like you see all the adults do. And when you’re all grown up and you realize that all you want to do is savour the moments that you have and live your own life, all everyone wants you to do is grow up and take responsibility, and more importantly, get married. We all are expected to, as Russell Peters would say: “Be a Man. Do the right thing.”

And my friends wonder why I just don’t sit around in Goa and chill.

Being Bhatkar

2008-01-20T21:08:00.000-08:00

The problems typical to Gaud Saraswat Brahmins [GSBs] are rather typical to every small caste confined to a small area. Everyone knows everyone, everyone knows the livelihood of everyone’s forefathers, and so there is never a dearth of material with which to get people down. As a result, or perhaps incidentally, GSBs never hesitate from using such illogical arguments.

GSBs, and for that matter, all Goans, are divided into the classes of the “Had” and “Had Nots”. The wealth and standing of a family is usually more contingent on what they could claim to have had rather than what they have now. I don’t really know why this strange class distinction exists. But it has deep roots in Goan Society.

I was sitting around at Dad’s office the other day when a young man and his father who walked into his office one fine morning. The father wore a thin cotton shirt, light brown with white faint checks, and trousers, slightly frayed at the ankles. The boy wore an FCUK (China Bazaar near Hotel Rajdhani, Panaji, 99 bucks) t shirt which betrayed a slight paunch. The soft spoken middle aged gentleman had an offer for my father – he had heard that Dad had spent a huge amount of money for a plot in a certain area.

“So?” asked Dad’s silence while he surveyed the pair.

“So, we were wondering if you wanted to buy a part of the adjoining plot.”

More silence.

After a pause, visibly dejected by my father’s lack of enthusiastic questioning, the old man laid his cards on the table.

Apparently he owned the adjoining plot, which was worth 3 crores at current market value, and situated as it was close to the upcoming international airport, it was just going to go through the roof. After a few queries and initial title inspection (Dad wasn’t about to accept the offer. He had to make sure that this land was not being acquired for the airport, which is exactly the fear that had brought the men into the office that day) it was time for a round of personal questioning. The father had just taken VRS from his Nationalized Bank Job. Dad then looked at the son.

“So, what do you do? Are you studying?”

The son looked appalled at the question.

“Haav Bhatkar”, he replied, defensively.

Proclaiming “Haav Bhatkar” or I am a bhatkar [landlord], is still considered to be a career option among Goans. Thanks to elitist schools ICSE private schools, there are now Bhatkars who can appreciate Shakespeare, so it’s not like all is lost. As my father, who has moved from Professional to Bhatkar will argue, however, sometimes, being a Bhatkar isn’t a professional. It’s a frame of mind.

Bhatkar superiority, which, like all angst between the proletariat and aristocratic classes, can be traced back to the times of strife, like during World War II, when provisions in the Portuguese Colony of Goa were limited in the open market. Bhatkars owned the land and the produce of the land, and so were self sufficient, and there were some things even money couldn’t buy, as most moneyed individuals in Goa, like mineowners and Sashtikars (shop owners) were learning to find out. Bhatkars got money from sales of produce and other means but amazingly never had to spend their money, except of course, for their daughters weddings. The money could be out to good use often, for instance, for lending.

Smaller land owners would offer their plots as collateral for moneylending to bigger bhatkars, the only source of financial stability, the loan sharks of the pre banking era. The money would go unpaid at times and the land would remain with the big bhatkar, making him an even bigger bhatkar, and provide fodder for tales for further generations – how one cruel moneylender ‘ate up’ the land of another, or how one patriarch mortgaged his land and blew up all the loan money on gambling, depending on whose side you were on. Bhatkar families have rosters of all the people who once came to their “daar” (door) for help to be pulled out in times of need – whose grandfather had come to whose grandfather’s door and never repaid the money but hey, hey, we are all mature adults here and all that is way behind us. These stories are particularly popular while playing the Devil’s Advocate during arranged marriages.

Maintaining your Bhatkar stamp was crucial. All over Goa, dozens of people have entered into fruitless litigations just to establish themselves to be Bhatkars, litigations which have been going on for decades at Civil Courts. But for some reason, even such a ridiculous tag has still commanded so much of respect in the Community. Bhatkars did everything differently. A bhatkar bride would receive the heavy gold bangles – ghot and patli, by her family for her wedding, and in turn her mother in law would adorn her with a surgawaisar, or gold braid, to wrap around her hair bun, and a bazuband on her arm.

The ultimate test of social status in Goa is the fish market. Secretly, everyone has an eye on what everyone else is buying. Bhatkars ate only certain fish – nouveau delicacies like flounder, squid and tuna are still looked down upon in most families, despite their spiraling prices in 5 stars – my mother is often not even offered availability of these species, and as a bhatkarni she is expected to pick up kingfish, pomfrets and mackerels instead. A bhatkar forced to buy cheaper fish, whether out of taste or financial constraints, would meekly ask, “Give me a few sardines for my cat” and not maintain eye contact with any of the other bhatkars examining the gills of Snappers.

Concepts like Naxalism don’t really perturb the common Bhatkar. There is unending faith in the strength of custom, family honour, a bottle of beer and a plate of prawns. Susegado, or ‘chilling’, was never the prerogative of the landed, and perhaps that is what kept the lopsided societal arrangement intact.

Till then, I sip my Bacardi breezer and await my lunch of clams and prawns :)

Depression

2008-01-15T08:04:00.000-08:00

I personally hate it when people crib. There is just too little time on hand, and all everyone wants to do is whine. However, in the very recent past, a little too recent, in fact, I have come to realize that sometimes, there really is nothing left to do.

Imagine you working on University applications. Maybe a lot of you have. Remember the anxiety, the pressure, the thinking up corny lines to open your personal statement, the repeated spell checks (not relying on Microsoft word, because we all know that "Bomb" can suddenly become "Boob"), the pleading for recommendations and the suppression of hints regarding the 'special lines' you want put in, the fights with college authorities for transcripts, the nailbiting rush to beat the deadline? And the huge sigh of relief when you walk out of the Courier Office, receipt in hand, it's over, finally, it's done.

And then the courier tumbles out of the delivery bag, somewhere in the US heartland, just like that.

Welcome to my world.

DHL University Express has single handedly ruined my happiness. And not only that, they also have the most socially inept person on their customer care panel to handle my case. Most of my efforts with DHL, when not focused on tracing the application, was to get my customer service in charge changed. Finding no success while even complaining to the higher ups, I started bitching about the girl to her herself.

"And then they keep this completely insensitive and incompetent person on my case. Fancy that!"

"Yes Ma'am, yes ma'am, I completely understand"

Finally, now that my application has been certified as lost and now that the University has kindly agreed to look into my case, I now have to run around recompiling all my material. Not to mention, redo a 100$ draft for Admission fees.

Which brings me to ICICI.

My salary cheque is very dear to me, as regular readers (all two of you) of this blog will know. It is not much, but it keeps me alive. Barely. My Boss gave me a cheque which was more than two months pay this time, whether this is a bonus or in anticipation of heavy poverty for the next 6 months, we shall never know, but it was given to me, 31st December, and duly deposited.

10 days later, my account was still severely depleted.

Thinking that this was most certainly a Boss fault (insufficient funds, varied signature) I pestered Boss for his chequebook, and found that this cheque had been debited from his account on 2.1.2008.

I stomped into ICICI, all set to file an FIR for misplaced funds.

For the next 15 minutes, I sat aghast as I was informed that the money was sitting in a "suspense" account, as the name on the cheque differs from the name of the account holder. The name on the cheque was spelt correctly. My name, on my ICICI Account, was spelt wrongly.Not only wrongly, but in a way so as to make it completely unpronounceable.

"Ma'am, are you sure you spelt your name correctly on the form?"

Of course other cheques, in my CORRECT name, have been deposited into this account with no problem. At least I hope so. You see, ICICI cannot trace which of your cheques are sitting in this suspense account, unless you provide each cheque number. Of course I am assured that if a cheque was placed in suspended animation, ICICI would send me an SMS or snail mail to my permanent address, none of which was done in the present case.

"Oh Ma'am, I sincerely apologize for that."

So within 8 working days, the amount will be deposited in my account, after they check the account details, you know, just in case, in a moment of severe insanity, I might just have spelt my name in a German kind of way.

As a result of the cheque fiasco, when I got to check Boss's account books, I also found out something else. The same "bonus" amount was also paid to Poo, another associate in the office. Normally I would not object. However, Poo was on matrimonial leave for the past 2 months and I was the one doing all her work.

I was crestfallen - the kind of disappointment you hear when despite yourself and your hang ups you get all comfortable with the idea of getting into a formal relationship and meeting the parents and then finding out that your boyfriend's mother is looking for a girl for him who is the exact opposite of who you are and who you will ever be.

Oh, wait a minute, that was yesterday.

And today, I check my balance, which is still hovering around minimum balance (and I have a zero balance account, mind you), and walk into the house dejectedly.

And find out that Reliance has sent me a notice of disconnection of power supply due to non payment of bill.

A bill which I have been walking around with for the past month - which I haven't been able to pay because I just didn't have the time, and when I had the time I didn't have the money. Looking at that notice of disconnection, I realized that I had never felt so irresponsible, so poor, so dejected and so depressed ever before, at least not on looking at a piece of paper. The Ambanis might have made a lot of people cry, but this might have been their most bizzare yet unintended success yet.

I am trying hard not to say that it could get worse, because it always can, and in fact I already know a few ways in which it CAN get worse.

And perhaps this is a rather sad way to vent, typing out my woes on a public forum and not sharing it with my loved ones, but then again I've lost my voice.

I'll keep the wisdom tooth for another post :)

Legal Paranoia

2007-12-19T22:25:00.000-08:00

Lawyering screws with your head. You know how they say, "Doctors make the worst patients?" Well, Lawyers make the worst everything - friends, sisters, girlfriends, mothers, anything. When I say Lawyers, I essentially mean Litigators, though my Corporate Shark friends may have their own point of view. If you watch Boston Legal, two names of the firm "Crane, Poole and Schmidt" are mentally deranged. Can you blame them?

Is this a sudden realization? Not really, though I must confess that the first nags came to me while I was working for an NGO which dealt with relief for women in troubled marriages. Most of my day would involve sitting with young girls, some of them my age, with three kids, crying about how they were beaten by their husbands, how their husbands were having affairs, how their husbands tried to sell them off... for some unexplained reason, the "client counselling" techniques would require one to probe into the history of the relationship, and many of them, surprise, surprise, would begin with a happy happy love story, with some minor aberrations ("once only... we were at bandstand, and he pinched me..." or "he would joke, see, by marrying you I am losing out on 2 crores dowry, ha ha") and then post marriage, it would work out to some sort of living hell. I was very sympathetic, having gone through an abusive relationship for about 3 years myself. Then, however, I began internalizing it. After a long day (and trust me, working there ensured very long days) when I would meet my then boyfriend, who was also working in Mumbai, I found myself over analyzing every small quirk he displayed, thinking, ohmigawd, this is it, he's a psychopath, he's going to sell me to some Arab shaikh once we get married, oh help, oh help.

So when my Sister spoke to me last night, talking about her psycho boyfriend, and asking me for my take on the matter, I had to stop myself several times from giving her "legal" advice. I did point out that he sounded remarkably like the trash a lot of my Clients are married to, and that she should think twice about going long term. She then moved to point out that it's usually me who is doing the trash dating, but at that I decided to change the subject. Whew!

Our entire office is plagued with the paranoia. Yesterday my Boss's crazy brother in law (i.e., crazier than him) landed up with a bag of diabetes medication, credit cards, a cell phone and an ID card, all belonging to the same person. He claimed that someone had left this in a cafe where he was having coffee. Why anyone would keep their entire world in a .5mm thick plastic bag was beyond me. The Crazy had left the bag with the bodyguard, saying that he had called the owner of the belongings and asked him to pick it up. My Boss was highly unconvinced. He stared at the bag in his strange sort of way, stared at me, stared at the bodyguard, and then began reciting the wordings of a Panchnama Report, which was possibly being prepared just as we were innocently studying the contents of the bag:

"He then led us to the Kingpin to whom he had given the stolen goods and who had accepted the goods, knowing them to be stolen. He led us to the third floor of XYZ Building to the office of Advocate...."

Crazy was called back and given the bag, and shown the butt of the Bodyguard's Carbine.

Lawyering, particularly work and research on Terrorism, makes it impossible for me to travel in peace. As if I weren't scared enough of flying, the prospect of getting bombed doesn't make it any easier for me. And last night in the 8:36 Andheri harbour Local, was the pits.

I step into the compartment to find a young girl sitting there, appearing to be slightly imbalanced. You know what I mean? Like there will be the cuckoos who walk around the street, screaming away and laughing at themselves, and everyone knows that they are crazy, and that it's easy to just shove them into a car, take them to the nearest mental hospital and earn the 1000 bucks + blanket + banana (please tell me that the reward for turning in a madman has been revised!). And then again, you have the people who look like all is not well in the brain box, but it's kind of politically incorrect to call for help to deal with the person.

She was wearing a dress, long sleeves, long skirt. Her face was covered with pock marks, it appeared, slit eyed, unkempt hair yet pulled into a ponytail. What got me thinking was not her appearance, at first. It was the fact that she didn't get off the train when it pulled in at VT. She just stood there. I opened my mouth to say something to her. But somehow I couldn't. Maybe she changed her mind, maybe she slept through the Masjid Stop and wants to go back. Fine.

She sat on one end of the compartment and I on the other. Other women got into the train, and two sat directly opposite her. Everyone was oblivious to the girl, some gave her a curious look, but she went largely ignored.

She looked like she was in a trance. I suddenly remembered the tactic of suicide bombers to swallow nerve relaxants before embarking on their last mission. This woman's dress was also funnily shaped. Her waist belt seemed to be unnaturally wide, and slightly protruding. I tensed in a panic, my heart racing. What if this was it? What if she was going to blow us all up? Her hand raised to her face and she looked at them seriously. Maybe she was going to pull the plug, or press the button, or do whatever these suicide bomber types do. I stood up, my face pale, grasping the edge of the seat, wondering which direction I should turn my face to, oh what was the point, these bombs were stuffed with metal shrapnel for deadly impact within a 50m radius, I am such a goner, oh hell... I nearly shut my eyes while she brought her hand up right next to her face... and then into her mouth.

She began eating her fingers, and then eating her fist. She chewed them very purposefully, and even had a look of pleasure on her face, as if the chewing of her digits was satisfying her hunger. He entire hand began disappearing into her mouth, and her eyes kept closing. The women sitting opposite her were still oblivious, and looked up only when she started slipping to the floor in a stupor. Suddenly they realized that she was not wearing any shoes.

They got up and rushed to my side of the compartment. They were frightened by her lack of footwear. We all then moved to the door and tried to get Police intervention, but as usual, there was no one to help us.

Well. In the meanwhile I am trying to plan a holiday with the boy, and he's told me that I'm over-planning the entire thing, just because I got a little excited while booking a hotel and went completely ballistic with the IRCTC website today for repeatedly rejecting my transactions. (Internet reservations my ass...) Incidentally, I am also reviewing a Domestic Violence Case which my boss has thrown on my head. He's filed for Divorce, on grounds of mental instability:

"She would be completely paranoid while making even the most simple arrangements, and though I would tell her to relax she would hyperventilate and start screaming. In case anything did not happen according to plan, she would start screaming and beating inanimate objects which she thought were responsible, and even curse the weather gods. She thus had ample symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia..."

Gulp.

Pissing Off

2007-12-08T22:55:00.000-08:00

The problem with blogging is that I always get overcome with the desire to blog every time anything even remotely out of the way comes up, but I never have the time. But this time, I even scribbled some notes on my N-72 notepad to keep the hope alive till the weekend, and here I am, here I am.

I spent most of my week working out of the Intercontinental at Marine Drive, appalled at being 6 floors below the availability of the city's best Long Island Iced Tea, and having to work on the world's most bizarre software.

For the record, I'm still a Criminal Lawyer.

Anyway, one morning my pressed schedule got me to the IC at 7am, where I sat in the coffee shop drafting urgent petitions with my Clients. The waitress would come by at regular intervals to offer me a refill on my coffee, which I accepted for lack of a better response. After this, I was expected at Kurla at 11am, before which I had to file a Consumer Complaint at Bandra at 1030am. My Clients had to be in Santacruz at 1030, so we left the Hotel in a rush. I was placed in the air conditioned Innova and we were on our way. As I was dropped at the Bandra Highway, I realized that I had forgotten something very important.

I had forgotten about the need to empty my bladder.

It's funny how your body accustoms itself to whatever warped schedule you are used to, and accommodates your finickiness, to whatever absurd extent it may take you. So I have a cup of tea in the morning, and then I come to work, and go to Court by 11am. Sometimes, I'm in Court from 11am to 5pm. I eat lunch in the Court canteen. I do not use the bathroom in this period. I don't even have to. The prospect of using the Court loos was appalling enough to put my bladder on hold. I am never overcome with the urge to release. I hold my cup of tea, another cup of tea, and about a litre of water with exceptional poise. Back at the office, I allow myself to be human again. Many people are amazed with this talent. It has not been easy, cultivating such self restraint.

Firstly, I have excessive hangups about loo cleanliness. My Sunday routine is scrubbing the hell out of my loo. My mantra is that when you leave, no one should have any indication as to what exactly was going on in there. Look before you leave. Simple. I can't understand why people don't get it. People who have less than perfect loo habits deserve no sympathy. In fact, a one year intense relationship came to a screeching halt when, the morning after, I creeped out of bed without disturbing the love of my life, as he was then referred to as, to use the bathroom. My romantic weekend getaway went for a head first collision with what I saw in the toilet. The flush had been used, no doubt, but there was some remnants which were, well, beyond the reach of the flush, which could have been cleaned up by the use of the hand shower like thing attached to the pot (for a shady hotel on the outskirts of Coorg, it had decent facilities). I recoiled in disgust and reevaluated my entire relationship while smoothing out my tousled hair. I lay awake in bed, traumatized, with my bladder frozen in a state of shock.

We broke up a month later.

(Ok, not exactly, but that's the way I'd like to remember it)

Years of bus travel have also helped in my self restraint. You don't want to know what condition loos are at bus pit stops. If I woke up to find that I had turned a man for a day, I'd stand up and pee. And then I'd go back to sleep.

Anyway, my body having been so fine tuned to my own habits, I was pretty confident that I could bear any burden.

Until I felt the strange pangs when I walked out of the Bandra Court to catch an auto to Kurla.

Never underestimate the power of caffeine.

My discomfort continued, and worsened over the non existent roads through the Bandra Kurla Complex. Every bump and pothole worsened my agony. It was already 1130, and I was late for my case. I would probably make it just in time. I imagined the paranoid corporate manager who was the accused I was representing pacing up and down the corridors of the Court waiting for me.

I ignored my urgency. I could handle this.

I clambered up the stairs of the Courtroom and rushed into the Court, checked the Board. The Judge was a weirdo who liked his cases called out in reverse order. My Case was at Serial No. 23. Number 33 was called out. Ten cases. That's time to get to a bathroom, I thought. From the corner of my eye, I saw my Client, looking highly relieved.

Just as I pulled out my files, Number 30 was called out. This Judge was in a mighty hurry. Luckily, so was I. I began to twitch my ankle, unconsciously. Somehow, this distracted my discomfort. The case wasn't to go on for long, I just had to take a date, pretty much.

29, 28, 27, 26, 25 (the idiot lawyer made some kind of application which took 3 whole minutes to decide. grr.), 24...

Finally. I began to stand up as soon as 24 was adjourned, like some smug kid who knows he's going to get the "best student" prize.

"Number 22..."

What?

I hurriedly sat down and panicked. What just happened? How is this possible?

I hissed to the clerk. "What the hell is going on? What happened to 23?"

The Clerk smiled. "Madam, the file is lost. We'll call out the matter when the file is called"

Oof. "And how long will that take?"

"The peon has gone to find it. He'll be back any minute."

Which was essentially any time between now and the apocalypse.

I waited 5 minutes. "Where is he?"

"He's just gone down to get the file madam. It is in the warrants department.He'll just be back."

I knew exactly what was happening. The Peon was sitting in the canteen, smoking a beedi, yapping with some other peons. I was getting highly restless.

"Look. I need to go down. Can I finish my work and come in 10 minutes?" Hey, I couldn't tell this guy I needed to pee, right?

The Clerk looked at me doubtfully. "How long will you take?"

"5 minutes. I need to check something. Please."

"OK" he said, grudgingly. "But 5 minutes only. Remand will start then."

I nearly ran out of the Courtroom.

In Court, its easy to find the loo. Just follow the stench. I went to the ground floor, which was where the bar room was. I walked a few rooms ahead of it, and stopped where it stunk the most. There were two doors - one locked, and one unlocked. A male lawyer walked out of the open door, wringing his hands on a kerchief. He looked at me strangely as I moved to walk into the loo. I saw a clerk standing near the closed door.

"This is the loo, right?"

"Yes Madam," he said.

"Well... can I go in?"

He looked a little uncertain, and pointed towards the locked door.

"Ladies"

By now, I was really losing control. Being this close to a loo and still having to make polite conversation was really playing unsafe.

"And?"

"Madam, the key is with the Bar Association. Ask that Peon."

So I went back to the Bar Association Room and asked the Peon for the key.

He looked me up and down. "You new here?"

"Huh?"

"Are you a member of the Kurla Bar?"

At this time, I imagined that giving into this uncontrollable urge would serve all of these people right, the useless bureaucracy of the lower judiciary, to have to clean up the ensuing mess. Anyway, I have to put up with their shit, so its only fair that they get to deal with my pee."

"What, only Kurla Bar Members get to go, or what?"

The Peon shrugged his shoulders. "Return it when you're done."

I walked as fast as was socially acceptable, in the circumstances. I unlocked the door, which I half expected to be jammed, and went it and locked the door from the inside. The overwhelming stench of a stinky loo denied the facility of ventilation hit me like a truck, and I hung my bag from a hook which thankfully existed (the state of the floor was unmentionable) yanked up my salwar, and stepped into the toilet area, refused to look down at what already existed there, undid apparel and...

Sigh. Don't even ask me to describe the feeling. Words fail me.

I washed my fingers, unlocked the door and came out. After locking the door, I adjusted my clothing, despite the various people hanging around. I refused to entertain the possibility of my trouser cuffs touching the ground in there. I locked the door, handed the peon the key, and went back to the Court.

For the record, they never found the file. I stood up, informed the Judge, who adjourned the case anyway.

Bad toilets just make being a woman that much more painful than it isn't.

Courting Violence

2007-11-23T04:11:00.001-08:00

I came home to find that there have been serial blasts all over Uttar Pradesh. 6 blasts, and 13 people have been killed, so far. Extremely tragic, but what is interesting is that these blasts were all in Court premises.

I knew this was coming.

Security in Courts, at least in Mumbai, is pathetic. The High Court has a metal detector and any baggage is scanned, fine, but other Courts are oblivious to the need for security. Even Courts which have high profile cases going on. The only Court that takes any serious measures is the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crimes Act Court at the Sessions Court of Mumbai. Not that the measures are really impressive, though.

Once, I sat in the Court while a visibly disturbed individual came in. He pushed his way through the Security Check, and no one really protested because he was a lawyer. He came in, and started asking everyone something. Then he saw me looking intently at him.

"Is the Bomb Blast Case today?", he yelled.

"Shh...." I admonished him.

He came closer, bent down to my ear, and said:

"IS THE BOMB BLAST CASE TODAY?"

Luckily the Judge didn't notice. But everyone else did, and I got really flustered and rushed out of the Court. The guy followed.

"What Madam, you got angry because I shouted? I did not shout. I AM NOT SHOUTING!"

"Will you quiet down?" I hissed.

A Havaldar came to my rescue and led him out of the enclosure. I angrily walked up to the dozen Policemen who stood outside the Courtroom.

"What is your problem? How could you let this guy in?" I was so wild that I actually began hopping up and down.

"Sorry Madam, but he said he was an Advocate!"

"So what?" I asked. "Remember Ashwin Naik?"

Ashwin Naik, brother of Underworld biggie Amar Naik, was gunned down in the premises of the Sessions Court by two assailants who were dressed as lawyers.

"Yes, what Madam is saying is right," said one Cop, shaking his head from side to side like all Marathis do.

"I'm not here to play Underworld Trivia. I'm serious. I'm here almost every day, and I refuse to be killed because you guys can't do your job properly. If I ever see any random people inside again, you've had it. And what's wrong with checking every one who walks in? Check me, I have no objection."

"No no no no Madam, how can we?" the Havaldar blushed.

I sighed resignedly. This was really going nowhere.

But it got me thinking. So what if you were checked at the door of the MCOCA Court? You could walk into the Court with a bomb and explode it subsequently. You could walk to the door with a gun and shoot the set of decorative policemen down. Anything was possible. Even at the risk of having to get to Court ten minutes in advance to get through Security checks and get to Court by 11, is a worthy sacrifice, as long as it assures that you get out alive.

But why lawyers?

The blasts came a week after the Uttar Pradesh police along with central security agencies busted a Jaish-e-Mohammed module who wanted to target Rahul Gandhi. Lawyers had thrashed the three JeM militants when they were being produced before a court here. Police believe the lawyers were targeted because they refused to appear in cases where suspected militants arrested.

For more see here.

True. A suspected Militant in India would find it very difficult to find a lawyer. After the July 11th Serial Bomb Blasts in Mumbai, Raj Thackeray made the infamous 'fatwa' against any lawyer who would defend anyone arrested in connection with the blasts. Lawyers refusing to defend accused persons is probably one of the most blatant denials to the rights of persons which exist. Accused persons being beaten up by lawyers is also highly shameful conduct, doubtlessly. However, this is in no way a justification for blowing up Courts and killing lawyers. Needless to say that anyone arrested in this case probably will have the worst time getting a fair trial.

Another pointless Act of violence. And very scary. Because when these blasts went off, I was, well, in Court. Thousands of kilometers away, perhaps, but still.

Father of the Slime

2007-11-22T05:57:00.000-08:00

Sensei, my friend, philosopher, guide, role model (I must stop now) and I are very rarely in touch, however, we do make it a point to call or message each other whenever something bizarre happens. My Bizarre index, therefore, is whether an incident has provoked me to call Sensei or not.

Sensei and I share the same problem which plague women all over. We are young, pretty, sexually attractive (Sensei has those wolves howling, oh yeah), well qualified (am skipping the economically independent line), funny and smart. There's nothing wrong with us. At least too much.

But we've been with the worst men ever. Ever. Seriously.

(Ooh...ooh. Whatay opportunity to start ex bashing. But no, no. I am above all this.)

Sensei has a theory behind why the craziest things always end up happening to me. We have a theory on everything. Her theory is that the craziest things happen to me, because I have the wonderful capability of making all these little instances extremely hilarious and narrating them to her and the rest of my friends for their entertainment.

So Sensei, this one's for you.

Yesterday, at a wedding, I got felt up by a yucky old man. So what, happens all the time. There are zillions of yucky old men out there. This wasn't even the first time that this yucky man felt me up.

But what makes this one, uh, special?

Because, tan-ta-ta, about a year back, I was being felt up by his son.

If this turns you on, kindly close this browser window and never, ever come back to this blog again. Yuck. What kind of a person are you, anyway? Disgusto!

So this, I suppose merits a flashback. Here we go:

There once was a girl in Mumbai, who found herself single after about 5 years. To top it off, she was in a new city, in a new job, and very disorganized. She had a friend, who decided to do her a favour and set her up with her other best friend.

Enter: Sub Conscious Boy. (SCB)

If only he was a creation of my inner self. Oh no. Of course I dismissed him at once - a "perfectionist", a guy who got into relationships "for keeps" (I had actually gotten used to the idea of being single), etc etc. And then one night he lands up at my house.

Point: You never meet Prince Charming when he walks into your house at an unearthly hour.

No sparks, nope. It also helped that I was wearing my infamous "PMS - Putting Up with Men's Shit" t-shirt. Egged on by our Cupid, though, we wound up meeting up one evening.

Point: A date that keeps you starving is a bad date.

There I was, freezing on Marine Drive (it gets chilly in November) and starving to death while this guy went on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and... and... and... and... on...

To be honest, at the time, I didn't realize that he just kept talking about himself and that we just kept talking about HIS job and HIS plans and HIS family and HIS friends until maybe 4 months later, when I was sitting at Bandra Bandstand with a curly haired boy who now, hopefully, will end my accumulation of ex boyfriends. He asked me questions which were rather innocuous, but all about me - my job, my house, why I was single (grin, grin). I opened and closed my mouth like a goldfish. I had almost forgotten how to talk about myself.

Ugh, how distracted I get. Anyway, SCB and I talk on the phone, a lot, and when our Cupid is back in town, we get together to see her off and then decide to sloth at home.

Point: Dodging is for Dicks.

Now let's make one thing clear here. If a guy does not want to kiss a girl, and if he makes no attempt to do so, even when 'accessibility' is not in question, well. It's pretty damn insulting. So my ego decided to make the move, and I was unceremoniously 'dodged'. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I was Dodged.

And then, to add insult to injury, I get lectured. Lectured, on how kissing is only for the 'one' and its too early and...well, you get it. This story should have ended with me throwing him out of the house right then, but it can't, can it? Instead, he left for Pune, for study leave, for 4 weeks.

I expected in all honesty that the good boy would not be seeing much more of this giri hui ladki, but, surprise surprise, he would call me about 8 times a day.

Point: If he calls you to discuss 'feminist jurisprudence' and actually discusses 'feminist jurisprudence', then, Houston, we certainly have a problem.

So 4 weeks, examinations, bad time at work, and allied matters later, I found myself boarding a bus for Pune. He convinced me to spend his post exam weekend in Pune with him. And so it was - holding hands, footsies, random hugs, but no, no, nothing further.

Back in Bombay, however, I decided to pull over and ask for directions.

"Exactly what is happening here?"

"Nothing. I think we are very happy together."

"And what are we?"

"We are friends. Very good friends."

"Riiight", I said. "I think friends shouldn't be sitting on each others laps while having conversations."

Just as he had succeeded in explaining to me how happy he was with this warped arrangement and just as I began to realize he was crazy, we had a (very bad) kiss.

And that just killed it.

According to SCB, a kiss was just opening the Pandora's box to evil, and evil followed suit.

"I don't know what came over me, Ruma, I swear. What is my shirt doing on the floor?"

I had enough, and so I told him that it was not possible for us to be 'friends'. By now, I was really mindfucked. From 'kissing is only for the girl I want to marry' to now more-than-kissing with a 'good friend', this was not working out at all. I banished him, only for him to land up at my place a day later unshaven and bleary eyed.

"I can't live without you. Please don't leave me."

The damage had been done, because just the previous day a very pained Ruma called up Crossword's "Dial a Book" service and got home delivered the single woman's bible - "He's Just Not That Into You". I cried through it, laughed through it, and now, I was ready. That evening, his shirt may have done the disappearing act again, but this time, I was in control.

He shifted base to Delhi, and after one torrid bye bye session it looked like things were getting sorted out, although it was increasingly getting nasty. He felt the relationship was great but had no future as we were going to be in different cities, and he was getting married in 2 years. He didn't know who she was, she would be anyone deemed suitable. Don't get me wrong here, I didn't see marriage in the picture at all, but him prioritizing a woman who he didn't even know over me was insulting, to say the least, but then again so was this entire relationship. I was lonely, the city was getting to me, and I saw, rather, misread something to look forward to. Obviously, I hadn't paid close attention to the Bible.

Every story has a happy ending, and I'm glad that in this case it didn't end with another guy coming in and saving me. In fact, it ended thanks to a guy who I saved.

Republic day weekend, me and Singo are in a car to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, my lifelong cherished dream. We never get there, though, because our car gets smashed behind a truck, and Singo's life is saved by a whisker. Two traumatic days in Delhi later, I get back to Mumbai. SCB, ironically, is in Mumbai at this time.

SCB comes to see me, bedridden by a whiplash injury, and in spite of my resolve to now put an end to this farce of a relationship, I found my hurt body and peace of mind warming to the idea of some physical comfort.

And again, I am dodged.

I look at him, puzzled through the Valium and Ibuprofen.

"Ruma, I can't. I can't get involved with you."

"What the fuck were you doing for the last 2 months, then?"

"No... you see, every time I got involved with you, it was my subconscious' doing. I am involved with you only at a subconscious level. My morality doesn't allow me to get involved with you consciously."

"So you mean to say that if your subconscious took over and made out with me right now, it was perfectly OK."

"Exactly."

Perhaps it was Greg Behrendt's teachings. Perhaps it was the drugs. Perhaps it was the joyous look on his face when he learnt that I had figured out his warped thinking. I would like to think that it was the rush of life I felt, having survived a 7 car pile up and saved the life of one of my closest friends. Life was short. Too short to waste on scum of the earth, for sure.

"Why don't you, your Conscious, your Sub Conscious and your Morality go outside, have a conference call, and get back to me." I stumbled off the bed, and walked towards the door.

"Where are you going? Why don't you lie down? What happened?"

"ABC, just get out of my house."

And that is how the story ended.

***

Life must always be complicated, and so SCB's Dad and my Boss are chaddi buddies. SCB's Dad handles the Supreme Court work of my Boss, and in a sooper important matter, he even came down to the High Court.

As I stood, waiting for our matter, I saw him staring at me. Whatever.

Matter called out, Boss stands up, I stand behind Boss, but am forced to move away.

No excuse me, no friendly tap on shoulder. Instead, I feel a hand on my bare waist (saree, sorry) and am physically shoved to the side.

Enter: Father of Sub Conscious Boy.

Not only that, after the matter is over and we are collecting the volumes of papers which were being pulled out during arguments, I was walking off with about 4 bundles in my hand.

"Why should I take the papers? What are these Juniors here for?"

So saying he dumped another 3 bundles on my arms. Now, I was not only overburdened, and sexually harassed, but also, blinded.

That's kind of what his son did, right, felt me up and then treated me like shit? Just that he did it all in 2 hours instead of 2 months. Sweet.

And so he turns up at Boss's son's wedding, and spies me slinking away from his line of vision. He graps my hand and pumps it up and down.

"How are you?"

"Fine, Sir"

"Good, good." And the icky leery grin of the century. "Remain like this only."

Yes, whatever that means.

My Dad, while warning me against dating the son of a convicted molester (no, this isn't a 'type' I date), reminded me that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. As a rebellious 21 year old, I dismissed it. Now, am not too sure.

So much so that I consciously (haw haw) avoided the area where the sub conscious family sat - father, mother, other son and other son's cute baby. Maybe the whole family knows our history, I mused. Maybe they are into this whole sharing thing. What do I do if the other brother starts messing around? Or, god forbid, the little baby?

The killer of course was when I met SCB online after my first encounter with his father.

"I met your Dad. I can see where you get your influence from"
"Thanks :)"

Bachelor Party!

2007-11-17T21:00:00.000-08:00

I am so happy with my Saturday night adventures that I have decided to immortalize it on my blog. I am also very hung over and too dehydrated to sleep so I have nothing to do. Here goes:

What do you do when a Buddy is getting married and he tells you that he wants his Bachelor Party on a Boat?

You give it to him!

So when A asked Gaugau what he wanted for his big day, he also asked for me and A to come out of life sized cakes. That wasn't about to happen (not only because, In the words of Lax, as my boyfriend would also be present on this momentous occasion, "watching your girlfriend jump out of a cake must be one of the worst experiences that a man could ever undergo"), so a few days before the D-Day (he warned us that the 17th November weekend was his last bachelor weekend) A looked up from her essays and asked: "So, what are we doing?"

A, Lax and me began to angst much on who was going to get the details. We (actually gaugau) found out that it was possible, and that boats left from Gateway.

Finally, after much passing the buck I googled it and came up with a shady looking sulekha.com type directory. Snuggled between "Party - Fame Gurukul disciple to perform..." and "Event Managers", I found two mobile numbers for "BOAT PARTY MUMBAI".

I speak to Rakesh, who immediately directs me to his website after expressing displeasure at the fact that we had only ten people for our party.

Website?

http://www.funnfoodfiesta.com/ is interesting but gives little indication as to pricing. Rakesh, of Fun n Food Fiesta, is enterprising, enthusiastic and completely sympathetic to the difficulties of finance. So here goes, this was our big boat party budget:

Boat rental: 2000 an hour. 8000

Lights, Generator 2000

Barman + Ice 1000

DJ + sound system 2500

Snacklets and mixers 1000

14500

So for four hours, we were cruising the Mumbai waters, playing loud Punjabi Hip Hop and literally, living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. We got along alcohol (which we fell short of) and Jafferbhai's Delhi Darbar Biriyani (About a thousand more, for 1 kg veg and 1 kg chicken. 1 kg biriyani is not 1 kg of cooked biriyani. Its 1 kg of rice and 1 kg of the vegetables/meat. That's a lot.) And we had a whole BOAT to ourselves. Lovely weather, literally cruising away. And some of the best people to ever be with (A, Lax, Sidin, Gaugau and of course, the boyfriend).

Our only glitch was that everyone took "1.5 k a head" to mean "pay whenever you want", so we were rummaging around for finance at the last minute. But as I told Lax, I may have less money in my Bank Account that ever before, but I've never felt this rich in my entire life. After we progressed to Dome (at the Intercontinental) to top off the evening with a Long Island Iced Tea, and finally home, the elation has not worn off. And when I recline on my Diwan with the laptop on Belly Warmer Mode, I can feel myself bobbing up and down, still.

(Short break after I go to wash my feet. Ugh. Don't take your shoes off while dancing.)

So while I was doing my research on Bachelor Parties (yes, I realize that its ironic that two women were involved in the execution of this plan. SO?) I came across this blogpost on the Anatomy of an Indian Bachelor Party http://asterix2k.blogspot.com/2007/01/anatomy-of-indian-bachelor-party-i.html. At the risk of sounding naive, it's not as if Bachelor Parties are only meant for guys to get laid. That may be something to look forward to, since men are so obsessed with sex, but I don't know.

Marriage changes a lot, and I guess the one thing that gets compromised is the amount of time you get to hang out with the buddies. There's someone waiting for you at home, or something that you have to do. In the unaccountable life of the singleton, everything can wait till tomorrow, you can get smashed and sleep over at the house of the only guy who remembers where he lives and it will all be just fine. You can sit around in your drawing room guzzling beer with the girls without getting distracted by someone standing at the entrance trying to attract your attention. And most importantly, no one has to 'approve' of your friends. Saturday night is not required for the "quality time alone together", the Dettol Handwash of relationships. The truth is, that marriage for a lot of people means a complete change in lifestyle, and a Bachelor Party may give that person a handful of memories to hang on to.

Senti ramble, and no, I am not trying to over analyze the Institution of the Bachelor Party. Like for us last night, we just wanted to get drunk on a Boat. Any problem?

The noble aim of trying to create memories was slightly missed, maybe.

"It's good that you guys wanted to throw Gaugau a party that he'd never forget. Too bad he won't remember anything tomorrow morning."