Daddy’s girl

"How are you? Everything okay? Under control?”

It was a first from my dad… okay, it’s a first for me to be pregnant and ready to pop and all of that, and I notice the dynamic around me slowly change with every passing month, but still… this degree of articulated concern from the father is something I haven’t been used to. And I have been through enough to deserve it.

For the longest time, I was always ‘one of the boys’ as far as my dad was concerned. We went to the same salon for a haircut when I was little, watched matinees together, played rummy, I was his errand girl for ciggies till my mother put a blanket ban on it, he inducted me into watching test cricket… exploring obscure places on the map, and quizzing. What we also shared was a passion for cooking, in which we collaborated quite often, to produce delicacies ‘off the rack’

Of course he also took me shopping, but it was always, “One, two three… pick up something soon, while I have a smoke at the door. Five minutes?”

Later, as I dated suitable and unsuitable boys, he had just a peripheral interest in what they were all about, and rarely went beyond a handshake or a grunt in his communication. To him, they were mere distractions, something that his "limited attention span Gemini daugher" would soon lose interest in, and until I announced I was marrying the man, he was never of any consequence.

It’s true that he never thought I needed to be ‘escorted’ for an early morning class that I had to take a 5.30 am train for (and the railway station was a good twenty minute walk from the house), or even fetch me post a late night excursion. As my mother whined about how times were bad and one had to take special care of daughters, my dad puffed away, “She is a tough one,” he would say. “I wouldn’t worry about her..”

I guess I was, and amply demonstrated it at age fourteen on a trip to Delhi, when a country bumpkin tried to paw me in one of the Teen Murti Bhavan museums… I picked up a stool to hit him with before dad arrived and tried to calm me down. He realized then that I was a woman.

Now, as I waddle into my last stage of pregnancy, dad can’t help but notice how vulnerable I am, physically at least… and I can sense that there is a lot he wants to say and ask, but all he manages, on the phone or in person is, “How are you?”

I guess it’s a big deal for him being a grand dad and all of that. More importantly, he realizes that finally, we will be even. We will soon both be parents, and that’s a bit surreal to deal with.

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.

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.

Some daughters do ’ve ’em

Yippee! My mother finally knows what I do for a living.

Okay, correction. She thinks she does. I mean she always had a vague sense…She is one of those people who thought I was finally redeemed when I got a byline associated with me, after years of what she considered anonymity in advertising. Well, something’s gotta give, she must have thought, especially after I murdered my PhD prospects in pharmacognosy.

But somehow, she was in a strange haze about what I did for many years. She never got it. I spent years pointing out ads or hoardings I had written, displaying mailers and brochures I had done, but all I got was a wall. She would stump me with, “How will people know you have done it?”

I secretly wished I worked at a bank, or some job where people can actually see what you do. Somehow, being a teacher or a lawyer, or even a dancer or a singer seemed more straightforward.

Things have changed. Now, I get a call every week, almost saying, “I know what you’re doing, girl, and I am happy for you.” Yes, she is my biggest critic and my biggest fan. She actually reads the paper because I am in it!

For my newspapers-are-only-good-for-sieving-flour-and-lining-dustbins mother, that’s a leap!

My father, on he other hand is interested in what I am writing for a different reason. He loves proof-reading it and telling me that I had a comma where I shouldn’t have, or that there was a spelling mistake in para five, line four in my copy, or that I cannot start a sentence with 'because'.

So, currently I am at a point where my family is watching over me…and suddenly, I am craving for anonymity….

Sure, I know why my job works for my mother. It makes it easier for her to explain to Mrs Ranganathan what her daughter does. I am not too sure she was comfortable telling people I worked for a Men’s magazine (I am sure, till I bombarded her with enough copies of the fine material we produced, she was quite sure it was some kind of semi-porn). But now, it’s easy and above board. “She writes articles for Hindustan Times,” says my mother. And her photo also appears in the paper,” I overhear her say. In my mother’s head, I have attained stardom. (Thank god, she doesn’t have to be a witness of the circus I go through every day..)

But there is a thing about mothers. Just at that point when you think they are happy with you, they raise the bar. Mine casually remarked the last time I met her… “You know, Mrs. Shankaran’s daughter is doing a talk-show on TV. You can also do that, no?

Gawd! Just when I thought I had got it right!

Whither, alpha-male?

On my last visit, my homeopath revealed two bits of information that completely startled me. One, that I had too much testosterone (now, don’t look at me like that; all women are supposed to have three tenth’s of a milligram, may be I have four). I guess this meant I was more yan than yin.

Two, that I was too practical to be in a relationship (I am guessing this is a fallout of the first). I am not sure which one bothered me more, but both got me thinking. May be it did have something to do with not finding enough masculinity in my universe?

More about my universe. I often find myself face-to-face with men who cringe at traffic from Bandra to Andheri, men who shudder at the sight of a scab, men who want to help the cause of wildlife, but get the goose bumps from National Geographic, or having to change a fuse, men who always have a cold, men who take a day off because their neck aches, men who feel tired all the time, men who carry a dabba or an umbrella (don’t know which is more uncool), or worse, a bag! However shallow it might sound, that is something that is so not happening (unless it’s a really smart satchel/ rucksack or you are a photographer, or you are carrying your laptop).

I always thought the best thing about being a guy is that you don’t have to carry a bag. No make-up pouch, no fat wallet with a million things you don’t need, no book which you will not require, no in-case-of-emergency-paraphenalia, sunglasses, lip-balm, scrunchies, clips or lunches.

And then there are men who only drink mineral water, men who shudder at the thought of a crisis, or men who can’t find their way around (pun unintended)

A couple of months ago, when I rang one of my interns about an assignment, he sounded faraway and muffled. I presumed I was interrupting some action, and was going to hang up, when he mumbled, “Wait a minute. Let me get my face-pack off…”

Now, wait a minute. I am the girl here. And I never get tongue-tied because of a facepack. On the other hand, I find myself drinking water from the tap, signing lease or sale agreements without batting an eyelid, understanding mutual funds, reading maps, decoding my tax-returns, wanting to understand my car better by enrolling in a mechanic’s workshop, assembling things from manuals, dropping XY chromosomes home in my car, when they are too wasted to drive theirs or too unambitious to own one, or bailing them out when their credit cards get maxed out. Even my mum calls me when her cable television doesn’t work!

And I never get a fever or a headache, and I very seldom call in sick. Also, it takes me ten minutes to get dressed (and I have a bad hair life!).

Was I turning into the man I that I want men to be? Does the alpha male really exist? Am I turning into an alpha-male equivalent— the alpha woman, for want of a better term? Does it have something to do with my childhood?

When I was a kid, dad and I would go for a haircut every first Sunday of the month at the local barber-shop (it was just cheaper, you see) and a matinee after. So then, is my childhood bonding time with my dad, (who incidentally, can still climb a tree, and never has a fever) going to be the cause of all my skewed equations with men?

So why is it that when a guy opens the door for me or offers to drop me home, or carry my luggage, I feel a bit surprised; I also feel like a girl all over again? Never mind what my homeopath said.