Episode 4: In which I fight militant dishes...and lose

It should be a truth universally acknowledged that a house inhabited by a single person not in possession of a large fortune must have at least one dirty dish in need of cleaning at all times. The only reason this is NOT a truth that is universally acknowledged is because we single peoples not in possession of full-time maid affording fortunes do not like to expose our struggles to the judgemental world that is full of people who think we should a. get a roommate (so that you don't have to be alone, beta) b. get a job that can afford a full-time maid (If you HAVE to work, why work for so little, beta?) c. get a spouse (so that you don't have to be so single, beta).

Of course, one acknowledges the first-worldness of our problems. But there is only so much privilege you can check, while also checking that ever-growing pile of leftover curry and burnt milk laden saucepans, so that it does not turn into a many-forked monster than murders you with chilly while you are passed out (mostly from exhaustion and unrealised potential).

One also acknowledges that years of living around people who preferred cleaning to cooking might have spoiled one a little (okay, may be a LOT). One is used to happily prancing out of the kitchen post-cooking with the assured comfort of knowing that dishes would be taken care of by one's friends/roomates who are just so glad that they didn't have to cook that they look at that ugly pile of dirty dishes with no more dread than they would look at a distant relative who has decided to visit unannounced.

And now, look at me. I spend more time cleaning up than I do in cooking. And I spend more time worrying about the amounts I have to clean up than actually cleaning up. I am not exaggerating. I leave one frying-pan in the sink at night thinking, “Meh, too tired, will deal with it tomorrow,” and the next morning, I come back to find that while I was blissfully asleep, the frying-pan has gone out and got itself some buddies in the coffee-mug and the milk-pan. And then they thought three made for an odd troupe, so they acquired some ladles and spoons to spruce things up. Of course, at this point the party was the talk of the kitchenhood, so the woks and plates just turned up like uninvited gate-crashers and brought with them lots of unwashed unspeakables. This is the point where someone should have called the cops on these juvenile delinquent vessels, but that would be in a world were justice and karma have some meaning.

Seriously. One wonders at the math that produces no less than six things to wash for every morsel of home-made food. One scrubs through the small Everest of pressure cookers, kadais, tawas and bowls. Then, one unclogs and cleans the sink, and moves on to clean the damn stove. Having scrubbed those burners till they gleam and grin at your bleeding fingers, one moves on to the kitchen counter (ha, ha, did you think that bleeding fingers is where one is done?). Once the kitchen counter starts to resemble a battle ground a little less, one sweeps the kitchen floor, takes the garbage out, comes back and crashes on the armchair (one wants to imagine with a glass of wine in hand, but then one's reality-checking subconscious points one to the opening argument of not having a large fortune at hand).

End of the day, finally, one sighs in relief! And in that little moment of imagined sense of accomplishment, one's eyes fall on the table, where one finds the coffee mug that one forgot to clear away in the morning rush, grinning in an evil fashion. AAAAARRGGGHHHHHHHH. There is no winning. No silver-lining behind this brown, burnt milk coloured cloud. Certainly no walking into the sunset in slow-mo with triumphant instrumental playing and one's comerades-in-arms doing a slow cap. There is only accepting the soul-crushing truth that one was bested by one's own kitchenware, and vowing, in a desperate attempt at holding on to the shards of one's self-respect, to never ever eat again.

Episode 3: In which I said "What's up, Yo?" and immediately felt old

At what point do you realise that you are not eighteen anymore? For most people it is their nineteenth birthday, I suppose. I of course, do not fall in that bracket. Which is why, when at 28, I say those hitherto innocuous words as a response to a friend's  unsuspecting "Hi!" and those words turn back and smack me on the back of my head with a "Who do you think you are, eighteen-year-old Crumbs?" I can only offer a mouth gaping like a goldfish in response. How do words do that? Where did they even get those tiny vicious hands to smack you?

That starts a depressing spiral of thought-processes, which goes from, "My god, I am too old to say 'What's up, yo?'" to "Why the hell did I start saying 'What's up, yo?' in the first place? What is wrong with 18-year-old me?" Which, of course, my now 28-year-old self immediately sees as an opportunity to be snarky and mean. "Lack of a mouth-to-brain filter, terrible over-estimation of capabilities, SO MUCH ANGST, to name a few," she smirks. "If you want a complete list, we'd both be 30 before we finish."

Sigh. Some days you function like a well-adjusted adult person, on the other days, your present self and your past self decide to have a conversation and give your future self a headache.

Episode 2: One with all the characterless single people

Ask anyone who has to had to hunt for a house in India, and they will most likely have at least one story where they were denied boarding on the basis of their marital status. Until a few years ago, the story used to be that all the single peoples were what the landlords used to be indignant about. Even as there is some semblance of equal discrimination now (mostly because the landlords have wisened up to the fact that the single peoples usually have more money to spare than the married and/or child-ed peoples, and they are less likely to leave any signs of having lived in the house when they rent, spare a carton of empty beer bottles), the whole notion that a single renter is the harbringer of the plague (or whatever is the modern equivalent of the plague. What would that be? Swine flu? Ebola? Honey Singh?) lingers on.

Back in the days when one was young and full of unrealised potential and other illusions, one has, with a bunch of friends, knocked on every door in a small locality outside of one's college campus. Twice. And it is not a pleasant experience. But one learns, and ergo, this time one was armed. As one called the potential landlords, the first question one asked was not, "What is the rent?" but, "I'm single, will you rent your house to a single woman?" One felt very proud of having thought of this and saved much of one's time. One, of course, overestimated one's enterprising. 

Having the single-phobia tackled, one was immediately confronted with, "Are you vegetarian?" One would comment, but then this discussion would quickly disintegrate into a vicious bloodbath, and much feelings would be injured? In a land where KFC, KFC, boasts of separate vegetarian kitchens (because mattar and murgi cannot mingle, of course), a solid number of India's vegetarians spend their entire lives convinced that non-vegetarians have but one agenda in their minds--surreptitiously feed them chicken and ruin their chances of at heavenly vegetarian afterlife. Ayio, karmam, karmam only. I do know that a lot of non-vegetarians DO make this their life's mission (mostly because they are bad people, NOT because they eat meat), but most of us are just happy that we don't have to share our chicken. Why would we want to work hard to spread our food resource pool thinner?

Having learnt this lesson also, and because one is nothing if not altruistic with one's store of knowledge, here is a quick, handy (and updated) check list to measure your renter-worthiness:
1. Are you single?
2. Are you a girl?
3. Are you a girl who is single?
4. Will you come back home late? (Up to two hours after sun-down can be considered the extent to which respectable stay-out time can be stretched. If you have to be told this, then give yourself a minus point.)
5. Are you a girl who is single and may come back home late?
6. Are you non-vegetarian?
7. Will you cook in the house you aspire to rent?
8. Will you cook non-veg in the house you aspire to rent?
9. Are you a single, non-vegetarian girl who plans to cook non-veg in the house you aspire to rent?
10. Do you have friends?
11. Do you have friends who will visit you in the house you aspire to rent?
12. Do you have friends of the opposite sex?
13. Do you have friends of the opposite sex who will visit you in the house you aspire to rent?
14. Do you have friends of the opposite sex who may spend a night in the house you aspire to rent?
15. Are you a single, non-vegetarian girl who may come back home late with friends of the opposite sex who then may stay over in the house you aspire to rent?

Give yourself a score of -1 for every yes, and -15 if the answer to the last question is yes. Also, consider acquiring some virtue and shame and give up your life of sin. THEN may be you will get a house to live in. May be.

Where I begin documenting my life again.

"It paid, she said; it was camouflage. If you kept the small rules, you could break big ones."

So, I moved (again). Living the life of a single woman in an Indian city is not nearly as glamourous as Konkona Sen would have you believe. There are no dusty, cute apartments with beach-view terraces. Neither are there random guys you meet in randomer parties that you gate crash into who then get their friends to haul all your furniture for you. There is however, a lot of paperwork. SO, here is where I attempt to create a realistic guide for wannabe grownups on filing the paperwork required for living, tentatively (and unreasonably ambitiously) called Growing up for Dummies.

Episode 1: Through the Loophole (since rabbit-hole was getting old)


After years of living with roommates, and not-really-mates, Providence decided to cut me some slack. Which in the present situation is code for momentary-lowering-of-parents'-protect-single-daughter-from-the-world-and-herself-but-mostly-herself-shield. Which goes on to prove my theory that with parents (or at least parents like mine) the best approach is really slow exposure. Have a difficult decision you need them to sign off? Don't spring on them in the last minute and expect them to jump on recklessly speeding bandwagon (in the interest of near-complete honestly though, more often that not it is jumping off the wagon, not on, that you need them to do). Mention it casually in a phone call months before the actual event ("So, I might get this new job. So I might have to move. Since I might have to move, I am thinking, I will just get a place of my own.") Show your willingness to fight for it ("I'm 28 years old, and I am NOT sleeping in a bunk bed in a room with 4 other look-like-adults. WHADDAYA mean it may not be safe for a single girl to live alone?"). Then drop the topic and pretend you've forgotten about it for months. ("So, my boss did the damnest thing today. How are the neighbours?") Collect data to support your cause and casually drop it in daily conversation ("Remember that friend of mine from college you approve of? She moved into the city, and she is looking for an apartment. No she does not want a roommate.") And then months later, just as casually, in your best (non-confrontational and seemingly well-adjusted) adult voice, announce that you would, if they so agree, like to go ahead with the plan, probably. "So, I saw this ad online about this place that looks very neat. I was considering checking it out this weekend.) Pretend they are, and always have been, on with the plan, and ask for suggestions. ("I was thinking, I will look such and such areas and such and such rent. What do you think I should look out for?")

By that time, they would also have thought about it ("Why can't we have a nice, normal girl for a daughter?") and decided that they have bigger battles to fight ("Listen, we need to tell her that she needs to wake up at 4 am to sit for a puja to bribe gods to please find her a boy.") See, emotional blackmail and barter work is a two-way street after all.

In that moment of confusion and vulnerability, when they haltingly concede that may be your decision is not so gasp-inducing and the society may just live through the shock, you swoop in and quickly move into your cozy little studio apartment, above the homemade pastry shop and across the street from the neighbourhood library. Ha ha, I kid of course. This is the point when your chick-flick and Bollywood influenced naive brain meets the minions of Satans of the modern world, aka, the prospective landlords. But that is a story for a different day. (One must at least attempt at cliffhangers, no?)

Snapshots

The mornings are of purple skies streaked with deep crimson. It smells of cinnamon and coffee. And of course, of love. One wants likes to think that being whimsical is what one does best. It is when one is happiest.

Then he came along. And suddenly there was chaos. She could not think what was it about him that confused her so much. Feet. His feet. First time she told him that feet are the first thing about a person that attract her, he said it was very wise. "Clean feet are the basic sign of hygiene. If a person cares enough to keep his feet clean and stink-free, you can live with that person." She had sighed an exasperated sigh then. Trust him to take the romance out of everything.

She looked at him now, searching for his glasses that were on top of his head. Wondering how he is going to live with his absentmindedness, she reached up to pull down his glasses to his nose. He smiled, that amused, indulgent smile of his. She grinned back. It was going to be quite a morning.

Cost of Independence...and its Worth

I am often told, by well meaning friends, that I am a Grown-up now. That somehow, this business of being a Grown-up implies that I can, and should be able to make my own decisions. I am sure, I often say this, well-meaningly, to my friends as well. But of late, and only of late, I've begun to wonder what a sham that really is.

Being a Grown-up, does not mean a thing. Or perhaps, it means too many things, and not one of us can quite put our finger on an exact, enclosed in angular brackets, sort of definition. Which probably is why we walk around, all of us, with these myriad ideas of what our role as a Grown-up in Modern India should really entail. Traditionally, of course, things were probably much simply designed. I say probably, because I have no real experience having lived in these "traditional, more organised times", and as such, I can only venture what I can, at best, call an optimistic guess. Optimistic, for the thought that, if present times are such a mess, the times before and the times to come must offer a clearer perspective, a neater thinking to things. I may be entirely wrong, of course, but I am rather hoping that I am not.

So, my problem with the present state of affairs is this--we are still a culture which places an enormous emphasis on the family unit--and the family unit, where the parent/parent figures make most of our decisions for us. All keeping the child's best interest at heart of course. And I say this, without sarcasm, condescension or judgement. Neither is this my problem, really, it is merely one of the parameters that define my problem. My problem then, is this change that some of us have perhaps willingly, and perhaps unknowingly, entered into. The change, from being our parents' children to independent, but unattached adults. We, who sort of, kind of, "move out" of our homes, either to study or to work, and then a few years, or if we are lucky, months, later, learn that we are now independent. We can now make decisions, where previously, we would have sought permission. We find that we are responsible for finding (and funding) our own food, rent and bills, and by that extension, we can also decide what we wear, where we go, when we go, and who we go with (or without, for the matter). But then, the problem arises, when we realise that no one remembered to send this whole we-the-independent memo to our parents. Who still are under the impression that they make the decisions in their child's lives, just as their parents made theirs. You can clearly imagine the possible conflicts of interests. And when the said conflicts of interests do arise, the best anyone can do, is fumble and feel their way through the dark. Hence the several make-shift arrangements. "I drink, but please don't tell my parents." "I can never wear these shorts at home, but they are okay for here." "My mother still thinks my roommate's a girl." "Don't you dare put the pics of Saturday night on FB, I have family on my list!"

This, this, is the reason why we have been fighting for the same things since the last 50 years--more independence. And it does not help that all of us have friends who have parents who are more progressive than ours, and friends who have parents who are more conservative that ours. So on one hand, I have friends whose parents sit with her and drink, and on the other hand, I have parents who wont even let her pick the clothes to wear. So we are constantly off the mark while judging our own parents' progressiveness (or should I be saying permissiveness, really?). Which is probably why I was shocked when at 18, my parents let me move out of a convent hostel and into an apartment in an area they had not even been to, with 3 girls they had barely met and I knew for less than 6 months myself. And probably why I am shocked now at almost 27, and having survived 'independently' 4 jobs, 2 different cities, 3 different houses and more threatening-to-be-life-changing crisis than I care to even tell them, my folks won't let me take up an apartment on my own. So when my friends tell me I am a grown up, I am not even sure what that even means.

Am I looking for an answer here? I am not sure myself. I am just asking the question, and hoping that would take me somewhere. Answers, are after all, just collateral damage, are they not?

And just like that

While endlessly wandering in the back alleys of the Internet, I stumbled upon this picture today. And just like that, I wanted to write. Not particularly about the picture, not particularly about the over dramatic futility of it, not particularly about anything. Just write. You know, scribble words, then see if they can stick around to become a sentence, and then see where that takes me.

It took me till a second paragraph, the question, as always, is what now?

Her

There is something intrinsically beautiful about dried flowers. Like photographs. They remind us of some beauty we once experienced, the memory of which still lingers, like the musty fragrance of a dried petal.

Which is why she never had the soul to throw away the flowers she received. She liked to preserve them, leave them, scattered in through the intermittent pages of books. So that someday, she turns a page, and is unexpectedly faced with a yesterday.

She said she hated it when people got her flowers. Perhaps, it was the burden of that carefully preserved memory that tired her. Perhaps, she lied. Perhaps, this ping-pong game of today and yesterday is what kept her locked in her own head. Perhaps, she just didn't want what she thought she wanted.

As the tea goes cold...

It irked her no end that people did not have time to talk anymore. Not the usual whining about work, kids and beyond, not the "discussions" on all things important, but just good, old fashioned, while-you-have-other-important-things-that-can-wait-or-go-to-hell talk. Like that time in college, where she and that friend who always made her laugh snuck out of that very boring class of the pretty teacher, and sat by the football field to ogle at Wasim Akram lookalikes. Or that time, when that friend and she sat on the steps of her then house and discussed life and love. She was in her night clothes and the friend was in a tee and a towel, but the fact that they were out, at 3.30 in the morning, sharing emotional gossip both of them pretended not to care for, gave her a sneaky sense of gladness. Then there was that time, when she fell asleep, as her tears dried on the shoulders of that friend, the one who never ceased to bring immense calm into her always chaotic life.

One day, she hopes to set a table for two, pull out some old, chipped mugs, that hold more memories than tea in them. And she hopes, those friends will come and talk to her again.

Ephifunnies

They say that in the deepest moments of our solitude, is where epiphanies lie. But then there are some of us, who just find comfort in solitude, not wisdom. Certainly, not clarity. Being alone is perhaps over-rated, but then so is surrounding ourselves with people. Maybe it is all about finding the balance. Gah! What a perfectly boring paragraph.

One cannot understand why one get into these ridiculous moods where one wants to ponder on the nature of life, the universe and the precise timing of the next door neighbour's pressure cooker whistle (which is perfectly synchronized with the other neighbor's unholy barking bout [yes, the said neighbour is canine] every morning). One is perfectly happy with one's natural state of ignorance for most part of the year, and then comes one of "those days" where fancies oneself as unrealised potential and feels slightly guilty about not waking and (ab)using one's prodigious but largely dormant genius.


Sigh! One feels like one is in one of those confusing before-and-after type commercials, that being with being black and white and deary and then suddenly become loud and colourful. Only in one's case there are fewer hot people to look at.

Fridays, what does one do with them?

Whispers

Once upon a time, she met a secret in a corner. She didn't know what to do with it, so she carried it with her everywhere. Then one day, it threatened to consume her from inside. So she took a chance, and whispered the secret to a dead tree. The tree spoke to the wind, and the wind blurted it out to the mountain over evening tea. The mountain told it to the river in jest, and the river ran to tell the pebble...so that when she met the pebble next, the pebble called her the evil one, and accused her of stealing his spirit away.

She has been scared of secrets since then.

Look Mommy! No Goosbumps!

So, by now one is guessing pretty much everyone in this country has seen Zoom's new version of Mile Sur Mera Tumhara and hated it. Everyone, with a TV or access to cable television, and time to care that is. A lot of lucky people one knows, just gave the whole hoopla a miss. But then, a good number of these lucky people would give life a miss, if they could (one is always amazed how a lot of people can go through life in a somnolent haze, it's a marvel of the modern times. Or not). Anyways, one digresses from one's original rant about the horror of epic proportions that the Times of India Group so creatively called "Phir Mile Sur".

One really feels bad for Rahul Gandhi at this point. The video pretty much has every progeny that made big by carrying daddy's glorious name to further heights, and our man, the poster boy for dynasty politics, was left out. The video was so horribly wrong in so many different ways, one does not really see why Times could not have gone ahead and have had him also.

Perhaps, for most of us, who grew up around the late 80s-early 90s the new version is so hard to digest because we associate a certain part of our early life with the original song. Less than a month ago, one spent a happy evening with Gee, looking up all these DD things--Mile Sur Mera Tumhara video, the Baje Sargam song, the ek-chidiya bit, and that Pyar ki Ganga Bahe song and on and on--on YouTube and feeling elated. It was like looking at old albums (the ones that have photographs, and not songs in them)...you kind of remember not just the photos, but how you once were. It's like finding an old faded pieces of yourself.

As a kid one considered oneself very patriotic--one was the kind who passionately delivered speeches for every other Republic Day and Independence Day assembly in school, who meant every word of her "Why I love India" type essays etc etc. One remembers once when one was in 3rd standard, how upset one was because one could not get hold of a tiny paper flag to pin up to one's shirt pocket. One sincerely believed that this was part of the I-day protocol, and one will be considered a second-grade citizen for not having one. one almost felt guilty eating the free laddoo they'd distributed at school...one had to earn that, and without wearing one's patriotism on one's pocket (not sleeve), one certainly had not.

For that kid, Mile Sur meant something. One honestly believed in the whole idea of unity in diversity, one believed that India did indeed have one voice. Even though, growing up, one learns the hard way that along with Santa Clause and Maveli and the Abominable Snowman, a lot of these theories and feelings are just myth and gas, but then there is that child-alter of yours who wants to hold on to them still. Which is why, you still hope for some joy and wine for Christmas and stay up till 3 in the morning to make a pookalam the day before onam. Which is why when you hear Mile Sur Mera Tumhara after some 15 odd years, and see those hundreds of children dressed in green, white and saffron running ahead, you still get goosebumps. And which exactly why, you will hate the new version so much (one WILL NOT call it Phir Mile Sur, unless one is aiming for sarcasm, which right now, one is not).

The new version just pulled the ugly reality which was lurking at the back of your head, and shove it right in your face. It will tell you, that, "Ha! There is NO real India" --not one that belongs to the "real people" anyways. What was then was a media myth, what is today, is also a media myth, only a less romantic one. The "real India" today, has movie stars (and stars, not necessarily actors) as their social idols, has your surname for your ticket to succeed. The "real India" does not care if you work namelessly to train the rural illiterate to harness solar energy, you will still need Shilpa Shetty in a see-through saree to get you in the frame.

The old version still could fit 3 major actors of their time together in one 5 second frame, the new one, each actor needed his own airtime, his own frame, even his own tune. The only people who agreed to share screen space were the children (or were they only the "charity projects"?) and the defense personnel at the end.

So is one surprised? Honestly, no. But one is angry. Because one would have wanted to hold on to one's delusions a bit longer. Because one would still prefer goosebumps to retching disgust.

(If you haven't already, you must, must read Krish Ashok here . Actually, you must, MUST read him here first. Go. NOW.

Gween!

My favourite colour is green.

Just so that you know.

And by you, I mean me.

Gween :)

Stream of Unconsciousness

Where do lost dreams go? Do they slowly melt into nothingness, or do they, like prayers, keep traveling around the world? One likes to think they are like free souls, they wander till they can find a new being to latch on to. May be that is why we all have the same dreams. May be that is why we all have strange dreams.

It is that time of the year again...when one takes stock of one's life and then refuses to decide if one likes what one sees or not. Resolutions are a thing of past, one gave up making them long ago. You see, resolutions demand some pretence of action and effort. One prefers to dream, and hope...one can always pass on the responsibility of those to fate, or Providence or parents or partners or the company or the next-door-neighbor. Anything to shrug responsibility, anything at all.

One is always overcome by a tinge of inexplicable sadness on New Year's eve. If one is alone, that is the gripe--the disgust and loathing with/at felt at the thought of ringing in the New Year (with a capital N and a capital Y) with bad television. If one is with a bunch of friends, it is always the problem of whom to hug and wish first, if to hug and wish anyone at all. Why do we make a big deal of it anyways? It's not like anything is going to change just because we change a digit or two in the dateline. One still has to go back to work Monday morning.

New beginnings are such a myth. Or maybe it's just the wannabe cynic in one talking. And here one was, thinking one was the optimist. Maybe one is. (Or maybe like everyone else, one is just confused)

2010 should be fun still. One will have a new sister-in-law to look forward to. The now extended family should be fun. One also has the time to be spend at home running around for a much-looked forward to wedding of the much-loved (and the only) brother--which one thinks is an excellent excellent way of beginning any year. However, there is also the cringe-inducing parading of self as the "next-in-line" thing. And middle-aged aunties pulling cheek and saying "now that your line is clear, we should not wait any longer to get you married" thing. Ah well. Collateral damages. One might as well pretend to have made one's peace with it.

One is guessing the next year should give one ample topics to write about. One can almost see a book title "Attempts to Get One Married and Other Horror Stories". Maybe one should start approaching publishers. If one is going to suffer, might as well make some money out of it.

One is hoping to put more posts in 2009 still, so one will defer wishing one's dwindling readership a happy new year (referring to one's readership as dwindling, gives one the false reassurance that one had a substantial readership to begin with. Ah, there is comfort in denial yet).

This and That

I miss blogging. So much that I think I am beginning to make a conscious effort to get back to writing. I miss those friends I made here. I miss the comfort of writing. I miss the joy in the realisation that I have been read.

I don't know how many times and with how many friends I have debated the purpose and pointlessness in blogging. I think we blog for the same reason that we get into relationships, or get married--because we simply want to share some tiny part of our lives with others. Not because our life has been great or consequential to the world and the grand scheme of things, but because our life has been lived. We want someone to be our witness, someone to acknowledge that we existed, that we lived. And when we cease to be, we want our life to be validated in that memory of us that is stored in the other's mind.

Perhaps, it is that validation that I miss.

Complications Aj Kal

Yeah yeah, so you guessed it, I am going to be talking about Love Aj Kal. Eventually.

Meanwhile...life has been, well...lifey. It's all been wonderfully busy and banal that I don't find a single thing to sit down and blog about. Unless you count out my newly acquired obsessive compulsive need to play Typing Maniac on Facebook at least 17 times a day. For a person who can neither spell nor type, it is amazing why I would even like the thing, let alone be pathologically addicted to it (in case my employers see this, the previous line is inserted only and only for its comic value, and is really no where near the truth. I have excellent typing skills and my spelling powers are what give Oxford English Dictionary so many sleepless nights).

But well, life as an almost grown up does weird things to you. And I have had to be horribly grown up the last few days. I even get back from work and cook dinner. Please to be noted, I said COOK. Not eat, not order, COOK. But the frugal life of a single working woman does come with some perks. Access to fast internet, for starters. Weekend movies for another. And if you still have a little bit of Culture Studies hangover, the inability to watch a film without being able to analyze it to bits. Even though the last one is not much of a perk.

It was with this baggage that I watched Love Aj Kal. As movies go, I think I have seen worse. It was not a bad film, in fact it has got all the ingredients for a minor multiplex hit--hot looking leads, who play characters with cool jobs and inconsequential families, and a no-frills take on love relationships. So, then what? Then it is the same old, same old. The meet, they make out, they go their separate ways, and then discover that their happy place is in each others arms, thus reaching the bottomline, “ one true love theory: hence proved”. Finis. Everyone goes home happy.

After watching Love Aj Kal, we (me and the fellow boarders of the house) went ahead to watch Socha Na Tha. It was after that that the AHA! Moment hit. I like Imtiaz Ali films, they are smart, classy and very urban. And with the exception of Jab We Met has these enlightened females patiently waiting for the guy to grow up and realise that they are in love. Nice, but that is not what the aforementioned AHA moment is about. One could almost argue that they are not moralistic. But there, lies the subtlety of the man (The man in question being Imtiaz Ali. Try to keep up, will you?). It is in the realisation that he is not really breaking new ground, or saying new things in his films. He is, in fact, only selling very old wine in newer bottles (This adage is essentially meaningless, you realise that? How is that a bad thing for the buyers, if someone is selling old wine in new bottles? Doesn’t wine get better with age? So shouldn’t old wine in new bottles be a steal? But before you accuse me of digressing...)

Look at Socha Nah Tha...it's a film about essentially nothing--at the end of the day, Viren and Aditi go through all that trouble, confusion and Goa trips, for what? So that they can get married to exactly the same person that their families originally wanted them to get married to. So with Jab We Met. The dadaji says the kids are in love, and in love the kids are finally. And then we have Jai and Meera, the latest caricatures of Love 2.0, the modern age man/boy and woman/girl. They are smart, sexy and very career oriented. But eventually they decide to that love and marriage is after all what matters, careers be dammed. The film began and ended at the same place...they spilt because their work did not allow them to be in the same country. At the end of the film they walk away hand in hand into tall grass, but what about the bridges half-built in San Fransisco and frescoes half dusted in Old Delhi? Collateral damage of true love, I guess.

So as Gee summed up in her usual lucid fashion, our man Imtiaz Ali is only a more intelligent version of Karan Johar. But given that Karan Johar makes considerably more money than Imtiaz Ali, the word I'd use is probably subtle. Either ways, his films are funner. And much easier on the eye ;)

Between the two of us

"You know this won't work. This thing, between us. I love you, but it won't work"

"Stop repeating the same thing. I know it won't work. I know there is no future for us, and yes, I know that both of us have too much baggage. But you know what? That still does not change anything for me. I love you. I don't have anything to do with your past, and I know I can have no part of your future. But what we have today, I want that to be mine. Is that asking for too much?"

---

"Listen...we have to talk..."

"You are leaving"

"Yes"

"But why? I told you I forgave you! You cheated on me, but I still forgave you. I took you back, and now..."

"That's just it! You forgave me. You didn't get angry, you didn't shout. You cried your quite tears, and then decided to forgive me. I can't live with that. I can't look into your eyes and see all that hurt and broken trust...if I stay, it will drive me insane"

"You saw the hurt and broken trust...but apparently you can't see the love that is still there"

"That's the problem, I will never feel whole again"

---

"This has to stop"

"I know"

"We can't keep doing this, to us, to the people who love us. They, at least, deserve better."

"But what about us? Don't we deserve to live this love?"

"We should have thought of that 2 years ago...before we got married"

"But I still love you"

"I know. But we can't keep meeting once a year like this for the sex and the realization of how incomplete and broken our lives really are. We are now parts of two different wholes..."

"I wish..."

"Yeah...so do I."

---

"So you've made up your mind about this"

"Yes. I have"

"But why him?"

"Because I see a future with him, damn it!"

"Yeah, a future. Something you never saw with me"

"We've been through this before. I like you. I really do. I may even be in love with you. But we'll never work out. We're too alike, too unstable"

"Yeah, and that similarity was enough to give us one night, but not half a chance at a lifetime together, huh?"

"There are other things--things like, stability, like balance, compatibility..."

"Yeah...fuck that too."

---

I wanted to write this as a he-said-she-said kind of a thing, but when I actually started writing, it made more sense this way. This, in a very rudimentary and crude way, is my first attempt at fiction. While there may be liberal influence of reality (and not always just my reality), no one thing is based on any one real event. Any inference or similarity, may or may not be intentional, but will always remain anonymous ;)

You may now proceed to pass judgment. Or leave comment. Or not. Whatever. (appears not to care by whistling to nothingness in a nonchalant-ish fashion, while hiding her crossed fingers underneath her table)

WYSIWYG

There are days, and there are days. Every once in a while there are also moments. And when they happen, things begin to happen. One decides to end it once and for all. If one were in the ages before Bill Gates and Google, one would pick up the pen and write. But these days one just opens one's laptop and blogs.

Sigh. Such is life. But then, such life is the good life.

There is hope for this world. Yet.

From the Pages of a Long Lost Book

It is curious how one thing can remind you of something completely unrelated--something that is from a different world all together. In the train today, suddenly we passed this stretch where they were burning weeds. The smell of smoke brought back the once-familiar smell of cashew nuts roasting. When we were kids, ma's tharavadu was this veritable haven of everyday wonders--of delightful sights and smells of unadulterated village life that held endless fascination for us city kids.

We would watch enchanted as our grand uncles, the formidable men of the house, would build the fire and toss the cashew nuts in heaps into its crackling goodness. This, of course, was done with great panache of seasoned showmen for the benefit of us impressionable kids. We would then watch enchanted, as the cashew nuts, with which we used to play a caroms till the day before, crackled and spluttered in the fire.

Occasionally, one of the more "grown-up" and hence, more adventurous, amongst us kids would dare thrown a small log into the fire, to be immediately chastised by the real grow-ups. But the immediate increase in respect and popularity amongst us lesser (and younger) mortals made it worth the mild reprimand.

The smell that rose from the fire--a heady mixture of smoke, cashew nuts, and a combination of firewood and dry leaves--was made more palpable with the collective excitement of us kids. And just about when we are about to lose our heads to the smell, someone in the grown-up party will declare that the cashews are just about done. The fire, if it was not breathing its last already, is killed.

And then begins the part that was my favourite in the grand ritual: cracking the nut, and of course, eating it. It used to be so much fun to watch the mighty men of the house go squirm squirm-twitch-twitch-and-jump trying to hold the hot cashews, while trying to get the outer (and now burnt) shell-like skin out, and get to the nicely roasted nutty bit inside. (This, of course, even the most adventurous amongst the kids never tried. The hot embers looked mean enough for all of us to stay away!). The whole house would smell of roasted cashews, and happiness.

Smells are such funny things. They are always lurking around the dark corners of your mind, waiting to jump at you at delightfully unexpected moments with equally unexpected memories. And I'm so glad :)

Conversations

Don't you wish sometimes that you could dive into the depths of yourself and pull out that self that you once were? Become that stranger that you once used to be? So that all your todays are as your yesterdays, and your yesterdays are as today?

Or perhaps, you wonder if you have such depths to pull yourself out from. Wonder that if you try and dive into it, you will only realise the shallowness that is inside of you. Is that so bad--this lack of distance between the surface and the self? The skin-deep being the only presence and nothing else that is real?

Aren't memories a twisted trick that our mind plays on us? Or perhaps it is only to protect us from our own past selves. It is easy to remember yesterday fondly. To think of our past as a long lost friend, with whom we lost touch with somewhere. Someone you can bump into at a curious bend, and feel a surge of happiness, a rush that comes from meeting our once lost self.

Do you wonder? Or perhaps you are so rooted in the details of everyday that you don't have the time for such flights of whimsical imagination. Perhaps, you like to think you live in the reality of today. Perhaps you even believe that there is a reality of today.

What does that make me in your eyes? And what does that make you?