Zoheb Hassan, where art thou?

I was struck by a bad bout of nostalgia yesterday. I went to this garage sale, where I spent an obscene amount of money on CDs, DVDs, books and some toys for the boy (yes, real toys, for the real boy).  One of the CDs was a Disco Deewane- Star combo. Does Biddu still ring a bell? 

The next few hours were thoroughly entertaining for the boy as his mother transformed into an 80s disco icon, bouncing around, crooning away till he buried his head in shame.

24 hours later, I am like a love-struck puppy, wondering what became of my adolescent crush, Zoheb Hassan, brother of the more famous Nazia Hassan of Aap jaisa koi and Disco Deewane fame, the boy who made me graduate to denim and checks, the boy who made curls look cool, the boy who looked cool grooving with his sister, the boy who knew exactly how to tuck his shirt in, yet make it look like an accident, the boy who should have never turned into a man.  Ideally speaking.

Nazia-Zoheb happened when my brother and I were on the verge of adolescence (at least I was). We were finally bonding, sharing our friends and had just got our first TV, a Keltron black and white.  Both of us, armed with badminton rackets (our pretend guitars), dressed in denims and checked shirts, our sleeves effortlessly rolled up, shirts tucked in or loosely knotted at the ends, would bellow Tere kadmon ko, choomoonga.. or Mujhe chahen na chahen, never realising that they were the most inappropriate lyrics a brother would ever sing to his sister.

Funnily, Nazia was who I wanted to be when I grew up (she made two plaits look cool, which made me feel better about mine) and Zoheb was who I wanted to marry. So what if he was her brother? I could still be her while having a crush on her brother, right? Wonder what Freud would have said to that?

Ironically, Nazia died of cancer around the same time that I was going through a tragedy queen phase of my life, confused about men, career and what to do with myself. It was a sign for me, no less, and I decided to pick myself up and get on with it, be grateful for what I had and find my new life. I was still too depressed to find out what happened to Zoheb, lest it was revealed that he was lolling about in Spain or some such with an exotic beauty, while I was still grappling with a bad-hair life. It was pre-internet times.

Yes, I know that today, the internet can vomit 20,000 or an equally monstrous number or pages on the said person, but I somehow don’t feel right to stalk someone I fancied in a non-internet time through the internet. It feels wrong. 

Do I sound suitably nuts? Well, it is one of my virtues. So I guess, I will keep wondering for a while and wish for my current phase to fade away and for my mind to get over-populated with other inanities that I don’t really care for.  Like Katrina Kaif’s wardrobe malfunction or why can’t the Kapoors get over their Nargis fixation or what happened   at the 19^th fashion week of the year (yaaaaawwwn!) 

Because, to me, Zoheb Hassan, like most unadulterated crushes of adolescence is best left unvisited.

But as I was dancing in abandon for my son last night, I missed my brother, and our badminton racket-guitar phase, which continued right through most of Rishi Kapoor’s capers. So this summer, when he is down for his annual visit (the brother, not Rishi Kapoor) from sunny California, I am already plotting to re-enact our simulated guitar performance (perhaps with real guitars this time, not that I can play one, but I can definitely afford it). I am sure my boy will be delighted. Perhaps embarassed. But at least he will have a story to tell that can begin with, “A long, long time ago, when television was black and white....”

Coochie booooo..

“Hang up now.. I have to go back to work..”

(No, you hang up..)

“No.. you..”

(You..)

“You..”

Have you ever eavesdropped on such a conversation?

A strange phenomenon has begun to envelop the office, at least the estrogen-rich half of it. I heard somewhere that women who work together tend to coincide their biological cycles, but this is getting a bit far. I am talking about women in my working habitat coinciding their cooing cycles. Nothing wrong with that, except they are choosing to do it in the privacy of the ladies loo.

And people like me with small bladders are bearing the brunt of it. Okay, when I gotta go, I gotta go, and sipping goblets of herbal tea infusions does catalyse my ‘going there’ a lot. But these days, I am increasingly irked by the queue outside the ladies loo (even though there are four of them, and at least three that work).

Pray why? It’s not that everyone is under the influence of diuretics or anything. And it’s not winter either. The ladies are just taking their time, as they are cooing sweet nothings on the phone to their sweet somethings and choosing the loos as their boudoirs for doing so.

Call me a practical, no-frills type, but I find such conversations very amusing. And the body language, dulcet tones and sometimes accents accompanying them, even more so.

I am not saying this in a “been there, done that” voice, because I have never been a phone person, even in my giddy 20s.

So even though I have been through the nerdy boy phase and the cadaverous poet phase and the bad boy phase and the cute boy phase and every other phase one can go through before one “settles down”, I never went through the cooing-on-the-phone-for- hours phase. (Though I have done my bit of letters/email/sms flirting, but gushing over the phone is something I never graduated in.)

When I did try the phone-flirting for a lark—after getting suitably excited by the thought of sounding husky and dulcet on the phone (which never happens unless I have a cold), was when I cracked up with laughter. It so wasn’t me!

So phone-fixated boyfriends had to be dropped, as I was more a face-to-face kinda girl. In any case, after spending an evening with your boyfriend—what’s there to talk, was my point. So if he did call, I would be like, “Oh my god, we have to talk again!” Also I was never the type who needed to hear ‘his’ voice the last thing before going to bed and the first thing on waking up. And the last place I wanted to coochie-coo was in a work environment, and I wouldn’t understand what business men would have calling their women at 12 pm on a working day. And if the husband does call and asks whether he can have 30 seconds, I feel like saying that his 30 seconds are already up.

My two best men

The brother and the beau have finally met. For me, this was more significant than meeting the parents, or getting along with his best friend. Because, in my world, the brother was always 'the man', although I don’t think he ever knew it. Never mind the fact that he is younger (but looks older) or the fact that he always thought I should edit my dialogues and compress everything I said into 30 seconds, as that was the maximum he could deal with, or the fact that we both liked talking so much, that sometimes, no one was listening. The point is, as a younger sibling, he was often subjected to my domineering ways (or so he says), for which he is exercising payback time.

The tough thing about men you love is that sometimes, they don’t necessarily love each other, rather apply the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ rule. In my case, all it took was ten seconds and the magic word at 2 am. Beer?

And there began the bonding.
Both think that beer is something you drink when you are thirsty.
Both believe that the fridge and the larder should be full of juices and cheese and chocolate and ice-cream and preserves and things that they will never eat, but what if the food in the supermarket runs out?
Both believe that a moody remote is good reason to buy a new DVD player, which is good enough reason to buy a new TV, a hometheatre system, a fridge, and a washing machine — it’s always better when you buy in bulk, is their justification. Also, you get a free coffeemaker, so that’s great, isn’t it?
Both believe that the body can be challenged to consume the most toxic form of food at 4 am.
Both go to sleep with the television on, but wake up the second you switch it off.
Both buy clothes they never intend wearing but squirm when you ask them to give them away.
Both can spend an entire day watching squirrels and cats, and eat a lamb while they are doing so.
Both spring into extreme masculinity mode even if you mention in passing that a guy is sweet on you.
Both are extremely anal about their gadgets and wires, and treat them as if they would a lover.
Both take longer to get ready and spend more time in front of the mirror than I do.
Both have a natural aversion to smaller men and believe they should all perish.
Both have no qualms sleeping over their food, but will raise hell if they spot a crumb on their gaming station.

It’s funny how the things that have always irritated me about my brother are the very things I have to deal with all over again with the beau. But I think its all my doing — I remember I said in my very first column, I have always dreamt of having a boyfriend who was like my brother. Endearing, adventurous, spirited and someone who makes me laugh. Guess I am paying the price for it.

One flu o’er my nest

One thing my parents never succeeded in teaching me was fear. Topmost in their wish list when we were kids would have been fear of teachers and doctors. Now the teacher bit, I had my way around— most of my teachers adored me. The doctors however were a different ball game…

Now I was a sickly child, so at least two visits a month with any parent who could drag me to the doc was mandatory. Back then, my parents usually measured the efficiency of a doctor by the assortment pf pills he prescribed. Whenever we moved house, we also moved doctors, and after a visit to the local doctor, my dad would come back with the verdict, “Bah! He doesn’t know anything…just two pills….” But they never missed their jaunts to the doc.

I could never see the point of going to a place which was infested by sad, sick looking people, and then being thrust an assortment of evil looking pills in white, blue, yellow and pink, not to mention that half or quarter pill in orange. So I did the unthinkable. I asked them why? I thought the clinical examination room was an extension of my classroom and it was time to ask questions. I wanted to know what each of those pills planned to do in my body. The doctors bristled, and huffed, and wished me out of their sight as soon as possible, and I noticed a parent turning nervous..

Things never changed—in fact they got worse— I majored in Pharmacy and now I actually had the benefit of knowledge. I knew exactly when a doctor was taking the easy way out, or making you a guinea pig for a drug he was trying to promote. And since I come from a family of pill poppers who consider the doctor as god, I had plenty of opportunity to ask why.

The beau joins the ranks in my family as another benign soul who never questions the doctor. When he has a flu, he diligently visits a neighbourhood quack, who douses him with the same high-end antibiotic (which costs ten times as much as the more common ones for respiratory infection). He has been doing this for the last four years, and not once has the beau asked him why. I don’t get this. It’s not that it makes him feel any better—in fact every visit gets him even more annoyed…but perhaps not enough to exercise his right to information, or opinion for that matter.

I wonder what it is about doctors what intimidates people—and I think I know what. It’s the clinical smells of the examination room, the combined aura of all those certificates on the wall, the stethoscope and the asking you to pull your tongue out to look at your throat, the intimidating and aseptic smells of disinfectant—the sterility of it all creates a fear bubble, and the doctor knows that. If you were to meet a doctor in a lift, or in the gym, or at the multiplex, would he have the same effect on you? I hope not…

I am finally in a place of holistic healing, and swear by my homeopath. Even though friends and acquaintances and just about anyone who can get a word in always asks, “Are you sure?” or , “Why don’t you see a real doctor?”

Yes, I am bloody sure I don’t want to dump myself with antibiotics, antihistamines, cough suppressants and pain killers for a flu which anyway deserves its 5-6 day cycle. After all, every germ has to get its due.

You had me at Chak de!

(This was written soon after Chak De!, a movie that made me look at Shah Rukh Khan in a whole new way)

Dear SRK,

You had me at Chak De!
Actually you did have me at Fauji, a long long, time ago, although the “I say chaps” guy lingered longer in my memory. And then you did have me at Circus, and then at Baazigar.

Somewhere along, you lost me….for a very long time. You were busy prancing around in your Tommy Hilfigers and DKNYs or singing unchained melodies to chiffon clad lasses in deserts or haystacks. And I was suitably distracted by the other Khans and life and general, and it didn’t really matter much.

And then, out of the blue, you had me at Swades again, when I was hit by a surge of patriotism, wanting to build dams and get electricity into people’s homes and write on inland letters and postcards all over again…

The thing is, I never really had a favourite Khan — I find superlatives very hard to negotiate — reason why I don’t have a best friend, the best book I’ve ever read, the best movie I have ever seen, the best thing I have ever eaten or any of that.

Chak De changed everything for me. It’s irrelevant that after years, a movie had me choked, or the fact that my I-hate-Hindi-movies beau was as taken in by its implicit honesty and passion as I was, or that it had no songs, and no pervading gloss. But it all added up to the larger outcome — I had found new respect for you — something that will help me forgive everything you ever did. And that, to me is big.

I find the world of sport and movies about fascinating — probably because it is an alien world to me — a world that I could never really be a part of. When I was a little girl, all the big, bad girls were always into sport, while I was the nerd who sat on the first bench, knew all the answers and did all her homework.

I so wanted to be like them, but my puny frame, weak lungs and tam-bram upbringing never really allowed me. The closest I came to was being a reserve player in the volley ball team at school, and I was so petrified that I would have to play that I fell ill on the said day, and everyone thought I was the traitor.

Finally, after all these years, sport and me have kind of reached middle ground, what with the bro and the beau’s collective passions. I can now survive a game of cricket or golf or football and sometimes even ask the right questions without being totally off the mark.

So when I watched 16 feisty girls of seemingly different shapes and sizes (some who reminded me of me) get together and survive the collective politics resulting from their disparate energies, I am awed.

I think of the man who got them to think of the whole instead of the self…and yes, I know its all about good screenplay and direction and all that. But at the end of the day, it’s what you see. And I saw someone who was large enough to be smaller than the team. And that did it for me. So, SRK, I salute thee!

Gift me not

There was a time when birthdays made me nervous. Not that I ever gave a damn about getting a year older, but it was the sheer trepidation at opening my gifts and being horrified by some of what I found inside. I have gone through years of being saddled with hideous earrings, books I would never read, music I would never listen to, clothes I would never wear, photo-frames, lamps, vases, purses, pen holders, makeup, knick-knacks, T-shirts, accessories and jewelry that was SO NOT ME.

Not that they all got it wrong. I do have a few friends who always asked me what I’d like or by instinct, got me exactly what I wanted. Thank god for them.

Wouldn’t life be so much easier if people just asked you? Or took you shopping? Or just gave you gift vouchers? May be the reason they don’t is because they feel a certain nakedness in revealing their budget. It’s like saying, “Okay, this year, you are worth Rs X to me…”

 Which is why they try and enforce their choice on you. But I don’t get it. Surely they know you enough to know that you are not going to ask them for a plasma TV or something equally ridiculous. Why don’t they give you the benefit of doubt? And what are multiple options for?

After an era of un-me gifts, I finally mustered the courage to ask people whether it was okay to exchange. So, a not-so-becoming-red-and-yellow sweatshirt was traded for a crisp white linen blouse that was more me. Or the bland Alchemist or Six thinking hats for a Tom Robbins or Bill Bryson that was missing from my collection. They didn’t seem to mind —they were glad it was off their back…

If I have so much trouble with birthdays, I shudder to think of the innumerable monstrosities people receive on their weddings. I know for sure that everyone gets stuck with at least 20-30 gifts they don’t know what to do with. It is quite likely they donate it to charity, or worse, gift it to someone else — someone insignificant enough not to be invited to the wedding. But no one ever talks about it. I wonder why. May be because as a culture, we are taught to be grateful for anything we receive.

But I find it amazing that people who are closest to you can also goof up. Like my mother who gave me the shivers with her surprises. I really love her, but don’t necessarily love what she chooses for me, from grooms to gifts. After much deliberation, I had a heart to heart and asked her to leave both departments to me. To my surprise, she was relieved. Now, she either hands me a cash envelope, or buys me exactly what I want (color, design, style, model non-negotiable). It’s been a few years into this arrangement and both of us are extremely happy.

Or when the beau who once called me from Goa claiming he had sighted a ‘nice purple skirt’— I gave him the green signal, thinking purple, obviously. I later realised that there was much more than purple happening on that skirt. There was pink and elastic and flowers and sequins and layers. But his enthusiasm was endearing, and I bravely smiled my happy smile. (Okay, now you know..)
But I am finally in a happy place. Each year, I have a wish list (of items in varying budgets) which I sound off (upon being asked) to my inner circle… This year, I got exactly the wine glasses, perfume, dresses, books, pendant, i-shuffle and the DVD collection I wanted for my birthday. I have perfected the art of made-to-order gifts!

And if anyone out there plans to start a gift registry, I will be the first to sign up.

He shops, she shops

I hate shopping. Malls make me tired, restless and impatient. Choices leave me miffed. Trying on clothes and shoes is an ordeal. Retail overdose makes me claustrophobic (I am the shop-around-the-corner kinda girl). So when I volunteer to shop with someone, it is a really big deal.

This weekend, I offered my services to the beau — he needed a clothes rack and some groceries (to finally inaugurate his new microwave, on which his only successful experiment was making Act II popcorn). Now the difference between the beau and me when it comes to shopping is the difference between multiplication and subtraction. So while I was looking at items ‘on the list’, he was enjoying the wanderlust…

He actually contemplated a 20s pack of toilet roll which had a special offer of ‘buy one get one free,’ at which point I had to intervene and tell him it was a bit excessive. “But it’s cool no? Think about it, we don’t have to worry about toilet rolls for a year!” Shudder…

At the billing counter, I noticed the trolley was pregnant with a hundred things I hadn’t picked and he had slipped them in while I wasn’t looking. There were varieties of cheese spread, a hundred cheese slices, cartons of juice(that I have never seen him drink), cookies, doughnuts and croissants (that never get eaten), pasta sauces, self-serving pasta bowls encased in wicker baskets (which he thought was really cool, I can’t fathom why) toothpastes, air fresheners galore. And the only item he really needed was not available, to his glee, and my chagrin.

The fact is, the beau loves being surrounded by things he doesn’t need. He has over 200 Play Station games of which he has opened nine (and he is threatening to buy more). He has a hundred t-shirts and he still wears the same one (or what appears to be the same) every time I meet him. He has an assortment of colognes he never uses, juices and sodas he doesn’t drink, snacks and savouries he doesn’t eat, but ‘just in case someone comes over.’ There are DVDs unopened, books unread, clothes unworn—some of which he doesn’t know the origin of.

I remember the rare occasions when my dad would take me shopping for ‘that Diwali dress” or something equally inane. He would stand at the door puffing his cigarette, and say, “One, two, three, go finish it off” and leave me to my devices. And if I ever liked two dresses instead of one, he would say, “Just take both, so we don’t have to come back again for your birthday!”

Ditto when I went mall shopping with my brother in the States. Costco was his mecca. It’s is the kind of place that monster families with twelve kids should shop at. Not single men who do their laundry when they run out of clothes to wear. So, if you need one set of batteries, you buy a pack of 20, because it’s a bargain. If you need muesli, you buy six of them. If you need detergent or fabric softener, shampoo, toothpaste, or even toothbrushes, you buy them for the whole neighbourhood. I could never understand why my brother had to drive ten miles to shop for things he didn’t need when he could get them at the super market next door. The reason? I am not sure. But may be there is a thrill in knowing you have struck a good bargain, even if it is for things you don’t really want.

He says, she says

It’s an arduous task choreographing a relationship with a near 24X7 job, usually when your ‘day off’ is mostly a theory. I don’t know how I do it, most of my friends wonder how I manage, but miracles do happen, and this is one of those…

On the bright side, at least I know when my day ends (small joys of not being in advertising) unlike the beau who ends up burning the midnight oil more often than he cares to notice. Plus he is under the impression that anywhere north of Worli is visa restricted, and his idea of movie watching is INOX.
I always thought I was the adventurer, the eternal vagabond, the one who is game for anything, but all evidence seems to point otherwise, and I seem to emerge the ‘practical one,’ at least in this relationship.
Let me give you an example: On the rare day that our astrological charts coincide and the gods conspire to give the beau and me some exclusive time together, this is what happens..

He: “Honey, what would you like to do today…?
Me: (still shocked that I have a day off) Nothing, hopefully….
He: Okay, I have a plan. How about we go for breakfast at Banyan café? Then we can just hop across to that cheese shop near Amarsons and pick up some gorgeous cheese. May be we can even stop at Moshes and pick up some multi-grain bread to go with it… And while we are at it, we can stop by at Ruby Tuesdays for a quick drink… what use of our membership if we never end up going? And, guess what, I have some microwavable popcorn, so let’s go to Big Bazaar and pick up a microwave, so we can make popcorn while watching your favourite DVD. And then we can chill…and then may be Bunty and Babli can also join us for the movie, and we can play cards for a bit and then it will be just time to watch the Man U match….how is that?
Me: (speechless)
He: So how does that sound?
Me: (thinking) Sounds more like a nervous breakdown
Me: (saying)…Umm.. sounds like a fun plan…
Of course, none of the above is intended to happen, or happens in the sequence that it is supposed to. Also, geographically, the aforementioned items are not exactly compatible, so that makes it harder for them to coexist on one sheet of paper.

Fact is, the beau is a planner – he loves having a list of things he has not done, and thrives on reminders—they rule his life. So while his reminders pile up into an ever burgeoning list, I am just happy to take each day as it comes.

It’s not that I am a homebody. But given a choice, I think the beau would like to run a casino, and I, a bookshop. While he dwells in noise and clutter (he whines playing PS2 at anything less than volume level 32), I on the other hand revel in quietude and minimalism.

What keeps us together? For one, he makes me laugh. And he has a list of ten thousand things to do as long as he inhabits the planet. I just about know ten.

Glory, gory..

Until a few months ago, Manchester was just a drab, cold airport I was stuck at, having missed my return flight from Paris to London. Today, Manchester United (Man U, for the afflicted) is a looming presence in my life—usually something that competes for my time with my object of affection—and wins!

I guess it is one of those functional disorders of dating an alpha male (and enough has been written, some by me, about the lack of them in this universe).

Although, by his own classification, the beau is a simple guy with minimal obsessions —Kingfisher beer, XL t-shirts, mutton do pyaza, Final Fantasy II and Manchester United (not necessarily in that order), it isn’t really as simple as that.

I sense the first alarming signs when “watching a Man U match” is deftly planted as one of those ‘fun things’ you can do when you are together.

Ok, I can deal with 90 minutes of testosterone overdrive, I tell myself. I have no idea what I am walking into.

Next, weird things happen. I leave restaurants with my bladder full (on my own accord) just so that the significant other can catch a few more minutes of the game. I apologise for not carrying football listings in my paper. I scream, “Die Chelsea, die! ” or worse, “Glory, glory, Manchester United” at the TV with the passion of a soccer (sorry, football) fan. I find myself looking at sports pages to find out when the next match is, wondering when one could really have quality time with the beau. Turns out, they are always playing, even if they lose. I don’t get it. (He does try to explain the complicated logic of the whole thing—what was that again?)

I soon resign myself to the fact that Man U will always have to be factored into our lives, and any rendezvous (or lack thereof) would depend on whether or not Man U was playing that night.

I find myself in a strange place. I try to get us to watch Fever Pitch (superb adaptation of Nick Hornby’s classic) in the hope that Drew Barrymore would speak my mind to Jimmy Fallon, and the message would get across. But the americanisation of football (book) to baseball(movie) doesn’t quite work in my favour. And then the power goes off, and that’s a sign, I think..

So then, I go on this spree of knowing my enemy. A few days ago, I solitarily watch the whole game of AC Milan Vs Man U (he misses it, and is peeved at being suspended 30000 feet up above during the ‘biggest game of the season’). With much trepidation, I text him the score. I write, “We lost”.
We? I used the royal ‘we’ for Manchester United? Me, who has never subscribed to the collective pronoun? I need to see a shrink.

Anyway, I am ensconced in the glory (!) that since the “biggest match of the season” is over, life will be back to normal. Little do I know that every match is the “biggest match of the season.”

May be I’ll turn into one of those people who writes letters to agony aunts saying, “I lost my man to another man… make that eleven men..”

My family and other paparazzi

Surprise, surprise! At a recent wedding reception of my cousin, the discussion point was not my singledom or my ‘settling down’. It was my column!

Practically everyone worth his grey moustache or bald pate or diabetic eye or bypassed heart had something to say. And it was all very interesting, as none of them, except one, may be had anything to do with the print/publishing/journalism industry.
They were all readers! That magical, mystical species.

Aunty No. 1 said she knew who idli-face was.
Uncle No 1 accosted me in front of my dad, and said in his I-know-what-you've-been-upto voice, "Did you know she stole your cigarettes?”
Dad and I had the last laugh.
Aunty No 2 told me she never knew I was so traumatised by my hair. She also said she was happy I made women look good.
Uncle No 2 said he was proud that I gave maximum footage to my mother and not my father. I stared at him.. what paper was he reading exactly?
Uncle No 3 moaned that his vendor gave him HT minus Café (Marketing, are you listening?), so he still hasn’t read anything, but gets regular ‘updates’.
Uncle No 4 said DNA gave him a better deal.
Uncle No 5 said he likes the way I spice my articles up, and that he was very proud of me. Spice? Now wait a minute. Now what was that about? Didn’t he know that in the case of our family, truth is stranger than fiction.
Uncle No 6 wanted my visiting card.
Uncle No 7 dropped names of big daddies in HT and asked me if I knew them. I mumbled something about ‘I will, when I have the time’.
Prim and propah Aunty No 3told me her kids also tried smoking and quit. She was amused that an independent woman like me still gets vishukanni from my mother.
Uncle No 8 wondered if Café was going the Bombay Times way, because he saw Pooja Bedi in a bikini on the cover(!). He gave me a mini lecture on how HT should maintain its niche by not doing so.
Uncle No 9 felt that I had finally arrived, as I was working with none other than Khalid Mohamed, and reminded me how he had got me inducted into his film reviews. (Go KM, go!)
Uncle No10 felt that I should be writing my travelogues in the paper, we should be doing more sports features and less gossip.
Uncle No 11, a paper expert wanted to know more about our press and our gsm.
Uncle No 12 dropped some more names.

What baffled me was there was nothing from the ‘young ones.’ Obviously, no one is reading (knock, knock, marketing!). I began to wonder if ours was a geriatric paper.

But what intrigued me the most was that no one asked me who was the significant other I refer to.
May be I had drawn my boundaries of ‘space’ a little too tight. May be there's too much of the 'don't mess with me' hangover I seem to have left behind.
Ho hum!

Oh! To be a smoker……

I am in awe of smokers. I am intrigued by the natural choreography their bodies assume as they pull out their packs, wrench out a solitary cigarette, look purposefully for a lighter, put the ciggy to their mouths, light it with a flourish, and emit a heavenly sigh.
Before they choke you, that is.

What’s fascinating is that the entire sequence takes less than twenty seconds. And it happens with the same languid aesthetic time after time after time.

I tried to do the same thing one (sorry dad, I stole from your pack) and looked so gauche, it wasn’t funny. First of all, the cigarette came out crooked, then the lighter didn’t obey me at the first flick, so I went at it with a vengeance till the entire room smelt like a gas chamber. Then I choked and spluttered, and then felt as if a part of my interiors was sucked out by vacuum.

Gosh, this was really complicated. Beats me how most of my team at work, my friends, my dad and my significant other do it with so much élan.

It intrigues me how the mere act of smoking can transform a gauche body into something that has rhythm and purpose. Take TV soaps, or even plays for example— I always find it odd when eight people stand in a semi-circle and have a conversation. No, I don’t watch them— I only did once when a friend of mine was playing a blue-eyed villain who plots to kill everyone from his wife to his daughter to his daughter’s lover… and stares at a fish tank while plotting his next move, smoking, and blowing rings on to a green-eyed siren. It worked, as he had something to do with his hands.
Yes, I agree. A cigarette is a good prop.

There are other uses too—smoking makes you look engaged, even if you are doing nothing. It gives you an exit option from potential psychos in a random gathering, with a, “Hey, I am stepping out for a smoke.”

What does someone like me say? “ Hey, I have to go munch a carrot”. Not cool.

No wonder I thought my dad was the coolest guy on earth while was growing up, and the only cool uncle I had was the one who smoked (I got a kick going and buying ciggies for him when I was eight or ten, although my grandma thought it was most unladylike for me to do so, and most ungentlemanly for him to ask me..)
As for the rest of the gentry, they were all vibhuti-wearing, sandhyavandanam-chanting, curd-rice eating, sabarimala-going, non-smoking uncles, who ironically, are all ageing gracelessly.

Instead my dad wore tees and jeans, smoked, played bridge (and tried hard to teach us)…and challenged us to the spelling of exorbitant and itinerary. I mean how cool can it get?

Soon, my brother and I went into wheezing zones, and dad was relegated to non-cool status, but he still goes on smoking…although he now lurks in corridors while doing so.

Years later, when I was on a backpacking spree in the hills of Nepal, our mountain-boy guide took us to his ramshackle hut up above, and fed us on rice wine, dal-rice and some local nepalese cigarettes.. I had a reluctant second puff, and felt as weird as I did years ago. It just didn’t work for me.

I resigned myself to the fact that a cigarette doesn’t go with my look. Also I am happy in the knowledge that my lungs are not being coated with stuff that I don’t want, and besides, I like breathing… The challenge is how not to smoke and still look cool.

And oh, btw—cigarette smoking is injurious to health… before I get sued by someone.

Of ones and twos

‘Bring your spouse or significant other’ said the invite to our office party last week.

A voice of authority trailed off in the corridor, “How can they say something like this? What if you don’t have a spouse or a significant other?” Another echoes in support, “I agree, this is so unfair…”

There we go again, I think—damned if you do (have a significant other) and damned if you don’t. Is this going to me yet another ‘us’ vs ‘them’ moments?.. I wonder.

Not that I have a problem being on either side. It is as easy to slide into singledom as into coupledom. I have been through phases of significant others, not-so-significant others, or no significant others. Or even times when my significant other was my cat Lupooh Singh. And believe me, he was the hardest to please. Like Cinderella, I would leave parties and nights of wild dancing midway, because he didn’t quite approve of my night-bird ways. We went on long drives, spent weekends together, watched endless DVDs (dunno how the view is from atop the TV, but I never argued), played ball, ate candle-lit dinners, cuddled.

At times, he tried surprising me by bringing me dinner —a lizard, a pigeon, a sparrow— which I politely turned down, because I preferred things green, but it was a sterling act in tact display.
He ultimately decided that we had issues –he was a home bird and I loved to party. He even began to resent our weekend drives into the wilderness. So he started behaving like a dog in the car—tongue hanging out, panting, and I decided that was the end of our outings. Soon, he had a suitable feline distraction who obviously won him over, and matched his elegance, and I was bereft.

Fortunately, I was not shattered, and I didn’t slit my wrists. May be because a part of me knew that I had an inbuilt significant other that I could always count on ( I’m Gemini, there is at least three of me inside). So I moved on and they lived happily ever after.

********
Finally, I went solo (my significant other had too much to deal with that week), and had a pretty good time, till I had enough of the blinding lights and the gauche musicians. But when I looked around, I noticed that most significant others were absent as well. Which made me realise that it was much ado about nothing after all. It got me wondering— why does a harmless invite like the aforementioned spark off so much insecurity in people? Isn’t it more about having a significant ‘yourself’ before you can have a significant ‘other’?

Maid for each other

If there is someone who understands the nuances of male behaviour much better than a gender columnist, it has to be the domestic maid.
I find it absolutely amazing to see men in power, men leading companies—basically men calling the shots in their working life being rendered complete putty in the company of this mystical goddess.

A friend of mine used to unburden regularly about his travails with his domestic. He called her Maxi, as that was her preferred garment and for some reason, it pissed him off. It got his goat that she should trivialize the job so much, she didn’t even bother to be suitably attired.

But that was not all. She just disturbed his calm with her Speedy Gonsalves style of working, and every morning, he felt like his flat was hit by a hurricane. And before he even finished his cup of tea, she would be gone.

He soon reached a point where her attire started giving him the hives—much more than her working style, and finally, in disgust, he decided to sack her. The day he mustered the courage to tell her, she announced that she was pregnant. He freaked out and called me immediately. “Can I get sued for sacking a pregnant woman?” “Depends,” I said. He is still stuck with her. And she still wears a maxi.

In contrast, the benevolent beau has a classic slow-motion cadet who descends on him whenever she feels like, smiling in the most benign manner. When she started out, he, in his usual act of deep concern for fellow humans asked her to take Sundays off. “Good, no? Even we get days off!” he said in all earnest.

She, of course decided to interpret it her way, and decided to work only on Sundays. It took him a whole two months to communicate to her that there had been a misunderstanding. Once, when she disappeared for over two weeks, he even tried to get a replacement, but then she re-emerged, with her beatific smile and he succumbed again.

“Is she good at her job?,” I asked.
“I don’t know, but she is quiet,” he said.
That explained it. Not having to engage was good reason to be loyal to your domestic, even if she never showed up.

The couch-potato father gets instructions from the super-organised mother when she is out on one of her jaunts, “Make sure she cleans the counter and the sink. She has this tendency to slink away. Also insist that she return in the afternoon to do the rest of the dishes,” she tells him.
He turns a shade of purple that his chocolate complexion allows him to and winces, “Yaar, just tell her yourself. Leave me out of this…”

We all know that men have a problem with confrontation and closure. But it is actually the Maxis of the world who really know how to use it to their advantage. May be Maxi should be writing this column next.

Stumped!

I am amused at the way cricket changes the climate of this country and its people, no matter who or where they are.

My normally chirpy maid walks in looking like a thundercloud. When I enquire if something’s wrong, perhaps a domestic crisis? (there usually is—a thief walks into her house and sleeps over the night, her husband disappears with alarming regularity, and such like). She says, “India haar gaya, didi,” and looks melancholic for the rest of the morning as she potters around doing her thing.

My watchman goes missing, and I catch him leaning over a ground floor window.
My natural-born-killer gym instructor goes wide-mouthed staring at the television in the middle of an intense workout, leaving me entangled in a complicated piece of machinery.
My designer buddy at work is suitably distracted.
My normally communicative and prolific beau gets cryptic, with messages like, “Am in mourning..”

It’s that time of the year, I think.

In my childhood— the era of residual test matches; my super enthusiastic dad would engineer a few days of ‘casual leave’ or ‘sick leave’ as the case may be, to catch the game at home.

I remember it pat. My mother would walk in after work in the afternoon, day after day to find a house laden with testosterone, as my dad and his beer buddies sprawled all over our not-so-ample house and produced sound effects that left my super-disciplined-teacher-mom baffled.

It was an early induction into male bonding— I rushed home from school on my lunch break to hang out with dad and his boys, bursting into the house with “What’s the score?” and being greeted with stoned silence or extreme sound, depending on which way the match was going.

It was also a time when domestic tension was writ large. The kitchen would be a mess, dishes would pile up (Shankar, the hired help also joined the cricket revelry), beds would be unmade, clothes unwashed, showers abandoned, the air would be saturated with smoke and masculine aggression, and my mother would curse the game and the TV.

It all came back to me when recently, I was trying to grab some sleep at normal human hours with some intense PS2 sound effects in the background. I almost turned into my mother, when I suddenly realised— boys will be boys. And thank god for that.

Unlike my dad, who was at best, a trivia king or a walking encyclopedia, my brother actually played the game when he came of age. He still maintains he would have made it somewhere in the team, had he not been of Tam-Bram be-a-doctor-or-engineer-or-your-life-is-doomed upbringing.

So it was school or college by day, and matches by night—the sad part is, he still became an engineer, although he has found a way to pursue his passion by playing in an LA County team now. When I visited him last, he asked me to get him a cricket kit— I had never been in close quarters with bats, thigh guards, elbow guards, crotch pads and helmets ever in my life, and sort of got a kick out of it.

The fact is, I never got anywhere in any physical sport, and usually wound up in the reserve team in volley ball at school, praying fervently that no one gets hurt and I don’t actually end up playing. So I was surprised when I found myself in a bowling alley recently and discovered that I was as good as the boys (if not better).

I think I know what works about men and cricket, or men and any game. It’s about not having to talk.

O brother!

It was the same time last year when my brother was down from America for his annual bonding time with family. The funny thing is, he slept most of the day, and when he had his quota of sleep and food, he would call me, and make a plan for the evening. It continued in this manner for the whole six weeks that he was here, with sporadic visits to geriatrics in the family, which he pretty soon tired of, so it was over to me again.

It was a tiring, but exciting time, with me having to work two shifts of work and play with equal intensity (no less than 100% will do for the bro). Not that I am complaining. He and I are real buddies, we talk about everything under the sun (I listen most of the time), and we love doing stuff together.
And the best part is, we always end up saying yes to each other’s plans, and it is never out of politeness. Random pub-checking, impromptu traveling, eating anda pav near Cooper hospital at 2 am, watching English films dubbed in Hindi and laughing our guts out, taking off to Lonavala for breakfast, and pretty much anything that involves food or drink.

It was almost like having a boyfriend on call—someone who always says yes to your plan, someone who will try anything just because you want to try it, someone who’ll ask the head waiter for a peppershaker that you fancied, someone who is sentimental when you want him to be, someone who is not when you don’t, someone who can be a man and figure out what’s wrong with your car engine, and yet be in touch with his feminine side to understand your womanly woes.

My best friend has a similar thing with her brother. She loves his energy, his drive, the way he is inspired to experiment with his life, the way he almost always has the balls to do so, the way he can think out of the box and is equally kicked by what she is thinking, and the way he can play brother with his intuitive wisdom about stuff that she can sometimes miss.

And then, it got me thinking—would we really like to date our brothers? And if so, are we setting a huge precedent for our prospective or existing partners? Because a lot of the putty that has gone into making your brother is you. And I don’t mean this in a vain way. Simply that climbing trees together, playing marbles and learning how to string a kite at age 10, signing his report card when he has mostly reds, and being a part of his first break-up perhaps creates memories that the finest suitor cannot replace.
But then, that is a whole new putty to start working on. And a whole new set of memories to create.