Paying the Price

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. :)

On Feline Feminism

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 Perfect Fit

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. :)

Pissing Off

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.