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....”

Dear god and all that

Strange things happen when, after bashing men for four years, you actually give birth to one. For one, it almost feels like the joke is on you. And for another, you wonder if you are contributing to the largesse of convoluted, messed up, “I-have-issues”, “My-mother-did-this-to-me” men who are in queue for being rehabilitated.

So when the boy turned one recently, I found myself saying my “dear gods” with far more passion and fervour than I have ever done. So here are a few that are top of my mind.

Dear God,

1. Let my son not grow up thinking that handling a remote control device will pass for exercise. Even if he has six of them. Even if he is rocking himself in his easy chair and chomping on French fries while doing so.

2. Let him not say yes when he means no.

3. Let him know how to say no.

4. Let him not get any woman pregnant unless she really wants it. And of course, is of appropriate age.

5. Let him be man enough to laugh when it is appropriate and cry when he feels like it.

6. Let him not think that being an alpha male is about being the most obnoxious person in the group. Or the loudest. Or the one with the most trivia rolling off his tongue. Or the one who has the silliest girls eating out of his palm.

7. Let him not grow up to be one of those people who feels totally bereft when football season is over and doesn’t know what to do with himself thereafter, and so cries “Waka waka” in his sleep or worse, sleeps with his Vuvuzela.

8. Let him not think that puffing his lungs away or being the last man standing in a bar is a sign of macho-ness.

9. Let him know, and remember this forever, that he will always be a bad liar, so let him not even start going there.

8. Let him appreciate that grunting and muttering are not accepted vocabularies and that one needs to speak full sentences to convey a message. Even if the sentence is as boring as, “Can I please have some potatoes?”

9. Let him never, ever hurt an animal, because I will hurt him.

10. Let him not sit around waiting for an inheritance, because frankly, there is none.

11. I will come back to you dear God, because I have to take a break now as the son has put something suspicious in his mouth and it better not be the cat’s food.

Four idiots

Okay, my life is turning out to be a constant source of material for this column, but in case you feel I need to address issues/peeves/idiocies beyond that, just write to me and I will address that. After all, there is only so much husband bashing that might be permissible. Competing with which will soon be boy-bashing, and then you will call me a bad mother, which is why I am offering you an open invitation.

So, there I was, not so long ago, leading a perfectly blissful life as a singleton—a job I loved, friends I absolutely dug, potlucks that were the rage, holidays I maxed out, a pad that was perfect for me— where I could find my oregano and my Season 7, Episode 5 of Seinfeld whenever I was in the mood, where plans were spontaneous and one could take off to Pondicherry on a whim.

That was then. Now, I live in boy-land with four idiots. There is a husband, a boy who thinks he is a cat, a tomcat who thinks he is the boy and a she-cat who thinks she is Don Corleone. Together, they drive me nutsidaisies. I like that word. (Note to self: use it abundantly in future conversation with said parties).

If that was not enough, there is football. Now I am not going to lament about the whole soccer widow thing, because, honestly, anything that keeps the boys to themselves and away from me is welcome. Because the thing I miss the most in my new life is me. So I will not be the one who asks the husband for some soccer compensation like a measly movie or lunch or a dress from Zara (which by the way has come a decade too late). And so, here’s my advice to soccer widows. Use this time to get you back. It’s a great opportunity.

No, my only problem with the football season, (and I fear there are too many to keep track of) is being asked to participate in the proceedings. So I am regularly given updates and statistics I haven’t asked for, asked to join in for beer and some rowdy rooting, staring at our 42 inch monster with surround sound, when I could just curl up with a book or do nothing (again, something that has become increasingly difficult to do). I don’t mind devouring cute butts on screen (or in real life) once in a while, but too much testosterone makes me sick. And then the husband blames me for not being into the game, but into the men. Well, what else will I be into, dude?

The boy, by virtue of majority, wants to be where the action is and the cats are excitedly discovering the Messis in them (give them a piece of rolled-up silver foil, and see what they can get up to) and messing up my house. That’s my life currently.

And lest I forget. Yes, Chetan Bhagat, the title for this column was indeed inspired by the movie that was inspired by your story, and unlike the filmmakers, I hereby give you due credit. Happy?

Oh boy!

It is politically correct and rather fashionable to say that you can’t marry a man and expect to change him. So much so that we have started believing it. But almost every woman I know is subtly and steadfastly working on her man to at least change him enough to be able to live with him. For instance: Change what he eats. How often he sorts his paperwork. What he wears. What he buys. How much he talks. How much he doesn’t talk.

For most men, marriage is the ultimate and possibly, the cheapest rehabilitation program. Let me officially rechristen it to MRP (Man Rehabilitation Program). Coincidentally, MRP in its other avatar is a trivia most men love staring at. For example, the husband examines every bit of packaging, from a tooth brush to a jar of mustard for manufacture and expiry dates. Funnily enough, my father does the same, and so does my brother, and the former even sniffs everything like a dog would.

As if one MRP wasn’t enough, most of us are on multiple ones. I am on four, since I have a father, brother, husband and son.

I know what my friend meant when I told him I was taking a baby sabbatical and he said, “No, you are not. You are making a man.”

Had it been a girl, would he have said, “You are making a lady?” I guess not, because it is assumed that unless something really untoward happens, all girls grow up to be ladies and there’s really no work required. For boys, everything is a work in progress, whether they are seven or seventy.

Most of us have had fathers, brothers or both as projects when we were growing up, and did our best to redeem them. They either ate badly, flung clothes around, smoked too much, played the television too loud, messed up the kitchen, had bad friends or were just being themselves.

Yet, we go and get married. And then wonder, how did the men get by life thus far? And let’s not even get into lousy wardrobes, bad accessories, cholesterol friendly eating habits, electronics overdose or retail junkiness.

And then some of us go and give birth to men. And then actually end up doing more work in not getting him to turn out a certain way.

Curiously, the rehabilitation never ends. And the men aren’t really complaining, although it is considered macho to whine about it in male company. But secretly, they are grateful that someone finally makes them look good.

The husband has one redeeming feature though . The love for order. On a totally superficial level, but there it is. Call it OCD or what you may, but it gives me one less thing to do. Perfect.

About a boy

The husband and I went on a lunch and movie date this Sunday, infant duly in care of the mother and the newly acquired baby maid. It felt like courtship again, both of us all dressed up, chatting nineteen to the dozen as we drove into down. The out-of-turn October rain added the right touch of romance. But what made it really significant was that the movie chosen was Wake up Sid.

Two minutes into the film and we turned around to look at each other in shock. The movie was about us! He is my Sid, the silver spooned diplo-brat of 100 dollar-a-month (or some such obscene amount) pocket money, driving a BMW at age 18, partying for a living, downing shots like there’s no tomorrow, master of the after-party who once thought credit cards were actually assets one earned, and the kind of person who, if there ever was a fire, would save his games first.

Me, I spent my entire youth in labs I didn’t want to be, doing research I didn’t want to do, hanging out with people I didn’t really care for, and, in general, doing things that were not really me. To top it all, I was negotiating down payments and housing loans at age 25, worshipping my PPF account, learning the power of compound interest, understanding mutual funds and plotting to run away from home and live my own life, spend my own money, drive my own car, cook my own food and buy my own furniture.

And then, somewhere along, we met. And fell in love. And got married. And had a child. And are still as different as chalk and cheese. Or Sid and Aisha.

“Thank god I didn’t meet you when you were 24. You’d have been too immature for me,” I said.

“At 24, I was too immature for me,” he admitted.

I realised why I married him. It’s because the Aisha in me totally digs the Sid in him.

And more importantly, he helps me find the Sid in me, and celebrate it! What keeps the romance alive is that the Sid in him will never die — age, job, infant notwithstanding.

Post the movie, I saw him prancing down the aisle, breaking into dance as the credits rolled down. He was no longer the responsible daddy that he has become, but transposed into his Sid avatar, wanting to be a mall rat, go clubbing, buy more gadgets, the works. (His response to ‘unpleasant’ things like taxes, accountant fees, brokerages and other expenses is still to spend an equivalent amount of money on games and gadgets). I gently reminded him that we had a three month old and this was not the time to buy a 50 inch TV.

“Well, what can I say? My moron days are over, but my child days are not….,” was his reply.

Game zone

I got hit on!

By a twenty-something. In broad daylight. Straight out of his daddy’s car. Not at a club or a brunch, but at the local nariyalpaniwala. And I didn’t see it coming!

Great, I can still score, I thought, and must say it felt good. Flattery always does, even if people tell you otherwise. Thing is, I have so been out of the game, that it took me a good 30 seconds to realise what was happening. I was caught off-guard, and it was the last thing on my mind—I was still recovering from my post-partum belly, having a bad hair day (nothing new) compounded by a wardrobe crisis, flaunting my greys (now that’s another column, but I believe that if I don’t do it now, I never will, and then one day I will be 60 and wrinkled, but have jet black hair and pretend I am 55, which is all a bit lopsided if you ask me)

Here’s a snatch of the conversation between PFY (pretty fresh youth) and me:

He: Nice shades!

Me: (irritated at being distracted from my nariyalpani): Thanks…

He: Where did you get them? They are really cool

Me: (perplexed as they are really vanilla shades, no big deal about them): They are Fast Track. You get them anywhere I suppose.

He: You come here every day?

Me: No. Why?

He: Just asking. I live in X building. How about you?

Yay! I am still in the game — marriage, infant, notwithstanding. And don’t you believe women who say it doesn’t matter once you are ‘settled’ and have kids and all that. Of course it matters. Else why do books on how to get a man, make him stay, make him think the world of you, etc etc fly off the shelves? Why are parlours never out of business, recession or no recession? Why are women always getting their face, nails and hair done? The pheromones never stop working, do they?

It sounds really lame and clichéd, but your self-confidence is hugely related to your scoring potential, whatever life stage you are at. So the more you are out in the open, the better it is for you. If you are not out there, you will never know.

Most women spend months and years, not to mention a huge amount of money trying get back their body image (and it’s not about how many pounds you gained or lost) post baby, and in the meanwhile impose a reclusive lifestyle on themselves. I know it’s a bit bizarre that I was reading The Game soon after my delivery, but it wasn’t intentional, just a book I hadn’t read before and a friend visiting duly got. But something from the book still rings true: You are the prize. And it’s not whether you look like a million bucks, it’s about whether you think you do.

Boyzone

“At least he doesn’t have to wax, unless he turns out to be one of those metrosexual cleavage-flaunting weirdos,” I thought and sighed, amid cries of “Congratulations, it’s a healthy baby boy!” at Breach Candy hospital, where I was attended to by an all-boy doctor squad. Since I was rooting all along for a girl, in this column and otherwise, I was a tad disappointed. The husband however made me see the brighter side. “Now you have two men to bash in your column instead of one,” he said. Ah well, we’ll see. Anyway, the bloke has inherited my curly mop and my cleft chin, so that’s reassuring, I thought.

J however made me feel better about the new Y chromosome in my life. “Look at it this way. The good looking guys get the girls, the nerds get the good jobs. He sure has the looks, and he will have the intelligence, at least genetically, unless he screws it up by not reading, or some such. So he will get the girls and the jobs. That’s a win-win. Plus, you don’t have to worry about the hymen.”

Shudder. I never thought of a girl so metaphorically, but he had a point. “Believe me, if she is pretty, the day she steps out in those short skirts, you’ll start having them palpitations, and make dagger eyes at all within vision,” he further explained. He also believes that for a girl, not getting a prom date (God forbid) leaves a deeper scar than a boy not making it to the school football team. Trust J to always come up with a gender theory for everything.

His theory, and it suits me fine, is that since it’s a boy, the job of making him a man is not mine—all I have to do is see him through infancy, and then it’s up to the father. So whether it’s football or cricket practice, archery, or whatever is cool then, it’s not my responsibility, so that’s kind of cool.

Although I’d rather his elegant fingers pick up guitar strings or a paint brush, rather than a Play Station controller, it’s a risk I have to live with. “At least there’s 50% of me, so it can’t be all that bad,” is my only consolation to myself. But each day, as we (father, son, and I ) do family time, I am constantly wondering whether the ambient sounds of Elder Scrolls Oblivion (the husband’s latest PS3 addiction) is going to subliminally corrupt the mind of the infant.

The simple fact is, every boy wants to be exactly like his father or exactly unlike him. Both ways, the dad is a great role model. We’ll see. At least that’s what they call having your boy and having you too.

Yours, hormonally

Yes, I’m back, and no, motherhood hasn’t mellowed me, much to the disappointment of some and sundry. It’s as though they expected me to acquire this ‘touch me not’ aura that new moms seem to cultivate, avoid expletives and questionable language (one of my friends who can only speak sentences that begin and end with the f… word told me he stopped using it for a year after becoming a parent), and turn all soft and somber, chuckling only at baby-related things. Sorry, but that isn’t happening, although I find my little boy Rehaan quite amusing, as he alternates between his Manoj Kumar pose and his Rahman pose.

Which is why this column is not turning into ‘Mumwit’ any time soon and I am not going to be writing about the different hues of poop or the nine ways of tying a nappy, or burping a baby or interviewing a maid, neither am in going down the clichéd yummy mummy road.

Two weeks post my turning mom, people in my universe are surprised when they find me taking calls, reading while nursing, shopping, cooking, answering emails, logging onto facebook, uploading pictures, changing status messages, lustily rooting for Roddick with my baby in tow, while the whole world (including the husband) went ga ga over Federer. I reason it out in my head by thinking, “As long as I am performing my mommy duties, there’s no harm entertaining myself on the side, is there? After all, I have a life!”

Their reactions range from shock to disbelief. “What? You are up and about?,” said one who came to the hospital.

“I can’t believe you answered the phone,” said another. So dude, why exactly did you call me.

“What’s a good time to visit?,” is another common enquiry. Well, I am still figuring that one out, but if you can come and hang in there, or entertain me while I perform my motherly duties, you are more than welcome, any time of day or night.

“Motherhood has not mellowed you one bit,” remarked a third, on my acidic response to a comment on facebook. No, and why should it?

Blame it on the hormones. Fortunately for me, the feel-good ones took over. So oxytocin and prolactin and more estrogen won over corticotrophin and the other bad guys, and as my uterus shrinks back to normal, here I am, feeling bouncy, with no visible signs of post partum blues exactly two weeks after birthing. (My poor mom! Her last chance to sober me down has also gone down the drain.)

My point is, I would have the benefit of doubt even if I was feeling any other way. Like my best buddy J says, “Hormones are a girl’s best friend.” What makes hormones such a great thing is that they tend to legitimize every conceivable state of mind—a privilege that men don’t have—and this unfortunately, is a conversation I cannot have with my little boy for a long, long time.

And then there were boys

13th Nov 2007

I can’t wait to see Om Shanti Om. I am thrilled that finally, there’s a movie about the seventies, my favourite era — it was an era where men were men. Whether it was Shashi Kapoor’s flamboyance, or Vinod Khanna’s arrogance, or Amitabh Bachchan’s simmer, or Dharmendra’s bravado, or Feroz Khan’s panache, or even Shatrughan Sinha’s bellowing, or Sanjeev Kumar’s melancholic drama, there was one thing in common. They were all men’s men. They were men your dad celebrated, brother emulated, sister had a crush on and mum adored (I know mine had a deep fondness for Amitabh Bachchan and Manoj Kumar — wonder what they had in common)

Even the villains had flair. Whether it was Prem Chopra in his sharp suits and designer mufflers, with that gleam in his eye, or the clean chested Ranjeet in his micro-briefs, who, for some reason was always lounging on a float in a swimming pool surrounded by a bevy of very svelte babes in bikinis, when he usually got a phone call that got him to say “What?” in annoyance.

For someone like me who grew up in a topography that just about made it to the Bombay map, movies and books were my window to the world. We didn’t have a TV till much after the Asian games. And Star &Style was a piece of work to be taken very, very seriously.

When I was operated for tonsilitis as a kid, I was asked to name whatever I wanted to make me feel better about the fact that I couldn’t talk for two days. I asked for a supply of Picture Post, a delightful movie digest with lots of stills and glossy portraits and bios of movie stars. Believe me, it felt better than the ice-cream.

And what do we have now? If I look around moviedom today, I find the masculinity so manicured, it is not even lech-worthy. There are no men, only boys ( some descendants of the aforementioned) desperately trying to be men, but no amount of jackets, guns or SUVs is helping. Neither are glossy stunts and stylized dance moves and the waxed chests and the woven hair. There are no villains either, as the good guys are also the bad guys. And no vamps, as actresses are ready to break into cabaret-like gyrations.

The 70s was also a time when movies had real sexuality — even if we only saw a symbolic fireplace and torrential rain in the tacky back drop, a dropping of blankets, flowers nodding in unison, thunder for sound effects — the point is, one could feel the sex on screen. When was the last time you saw great chemistry between a man and a woman on the Bollywood screen in the last five years? Think hard.

Yes, the men are metrosexual and yes, they have the moves, good hair and biceps, an occasional cleavage and six packs and all that. But even when they turn 45, they will still be boys. And that to me, is not a great thing.

One of the boys

Scene 1
I am eight years old, and get punished in class by being made to sit in the boys’ row. The teacher doesn’t know that I love it. I poke a chubby-cheeked boy next to me to show him my pencil is sharper than his. He gets a clot in his eye and has to be taken to the hospital and my mother thinks I have had enough of ‘being with the boys’. She soon relegates me to an all girls' school, and endless death by estrogen. I never forgive her for that.

Scene 2
I am on my fourth cup of tea at the university campus, hanging out with the boys (again) trying to get that terribly important degree I didn't much care for, when a tall gaunt frame walks into my frame of reference. He looks like a cadaverous poet—gaunt, stubble, thick glasses. "Remember me?" he says. It takes me less than an instant to squeal, "Shit! Nikhil….You are the guy that got poked in the eye.” He tells me he recognized me for being the only girl in an all boys adda. We spend the next four hours discussing the past twelve years, and a crush is born. He writes me notes, poems, songs; he reads me notes, poems, songs…He brings out the girl in me. I stop hanging out with the boys.

Scene 3
Third job. Highlight of my day is lunch from Bhavnaben, a local caterer who doles out piping hot, gujju food day after day, which pretty much gets me ready for the dumbest brief from the client servicing team in the agency. Only that I share my dabba with a boy, and we are constantly in a race for who makes it first. Because there's no loyalty to the co-eater, only to the food. And since I eat like a man, it makes it all the more challenging to Amit, who comes huffing and panting from wherever he is at the dot of one p.m, only to find that I am already on my third phulka. It annoys him endless. When I quit, he is thrilled. Now he can share the dabba with a real woman, he says.

Scene 4
Suitable boy says he loves being with me because I am like one of the boys…..What? This is not going well, I think. He explains that it is because I am a straight talker and I don't speak in riddles like women do, and don't talk when not required; that makes him less stressed around me. This gets me curiouser and curiouser. Oh! We are getting into buddy zone, I think. Who are these women, I wonder. I want to be the mysterious one, I resolve.

Scene 5
I still haven't acquired that aura of mystery. But I am definitely getting closer to being a woman. Even though I love to drive, do my taxes, and I don't dig blow-drying, or being fetched and dropped. But then, neither do I dig pool, play station or soccer— things that the object of my affection would love me to.

Scene 6
Before I move into my new apartment, my architect-interior designer landlord looks at me approvingly and says I look the type who will keep a good house. And the type who will not have wild parties. I am stumped by his stereotyping.

Scene 7
I am in a open-air restaurant in Jodhpur, trying to get a voyeuristic view of the big fat wedding. I am being served by a two-earringed waiter who asks me if I want a beer. I am stumped by his non-stereotyping.


P.S….I have finally decided that I don’t need to choose. That I can be both women, and they both can be me.