Facebooked out!

It will perhaps go down in my book as the most short-lived, yet the most intense relationship I ever had. Facebook and I are almost over, and all it took was less than two weeks.

Let me begin at the beginning. To be fair, I had my doubts, when the beau sold it to me as 'a fun way to stay in touch with so many friends at the same time' when I was leaving for the States. He said, "Even if you are not thinking about them, you know that they are thinking about you..." Wait a minute...I asked myself... Is there anyone you want to be in touch with that you are not already in touch with? The answer was no. Do you really care about those you are not in touch with? The answer was no. Are you seriously 'looking' for new friends? The answer was still no.

I guess I am at that point in my life when I have reached just the optimum level of friends that I could handle. I Secondly, I was the type who never really succumbed to the collective seductions of ICQ, IM, Orkut and other such networking delights. So I wondered how different this could be.

Yet, I yielded. It's funny what just two days out of a daily 32-page newspaper rut and endless stretches of time and good weather can do to you. And before I knew it, I was Facebooked out of my mind.

I registered and filled in my details. I sent out invitations to friends, some randoms and some not-so-randoms, I added photos, I filled up activities, interests, books, music and other trivia that 'define me'. To add a dash of social consciousness, I also added causes that define me.
Then suddenly, my cousin threw an omelette at me. And then a dear friend threw a sheep. The beau's words came back to me.."They are thinking about you even when you are not thinking about them...." Hmmmm..this is how...
I decided that since I am not a lurker, I had to go all the way. I did, and made it my full-time occupation. I wrote on people's walls, sent them beers, cocktails, joined food fights, stroked and fed their pets, got bitten and turned into a zombie, got bitten and turned into a vampire, threw tomatoes, pancakes and ketchup at others, and had shrimp, and pickles thrown at me, And before I knew it, my cup had runneth over, and my friend list was burgeoning.

I have sent people pigs and teapots, Porsches and even Johhny Depp as presents.
I have shared my thoughts, moods, pictures.... I have peeped into other's thoughts, moods, pictures.
After ten days of poking, hugging, tickling, spanking, kickboxing, karatechopping, biting people, tagging them in photos, asking them to join my causes, and sending them free beers and cocktails, writing on their walls and even getting into food fights with them, I am utterly and completely bored,
I have been poked by strangers and bitten by people I barely know. I have unearthed cousins and bamboozled dear friends to get on it. I even managed to convince the brother, who has suddenly turned into a 'private person' after being one of the crusaders of icq at a certain point.
What was I thinking?

The good thing is that unlike a real relationship, it is so undemanding and open ended that you don't even have to break up..you can stay ambivalent all your life and no one will know any better because they are busy throwing sheep and sucker punching each other.
To those who have managed to resist the urge--may the force be with you. To those who are still addicted, well, may be there will soon be Facebookaholics Anonymous, and I will be there to help you zone out...

Lost in translation

There is something about queues. It's like when you finally get to the end of it and reach your 'said destination' i.e the person at the counter at the end of the queue, you are expected to give a completely choreographed performance. And so when I waited inordinately long in line at the US Immigration last week, I realised that an act at the end of it was in order. Not that I hadn't done it before -- it's just that you never really get used to these things.

So as I waited, I shifted my not so ample frame from one foot to another, itching to open a bag of crisps, but wondering if that would be against immigration etiquette. An hour later, I was the 'next in line', waiting to be summoned. I could see from the corner of my eye that the Immigration officer, who was bordering on cute was having an exasperating time explaining what 'extra pressure' was to a bewildered Japanese tourist, who was having his index fingers thumb printed, not to much avail. I made a mental note of applying 'just the right amount of pressure'. And voila! It was my turn.

"And how are you today?", he asked in a voice that only Americans can. I was, by this point suitably distracted by a family that had nearly paraded their heirlooms in front of another officer. 'I don't know, I am too dazed..it was an awfully long flight," I blurted.
'Ah, I see (sound effects of pages of my passport being flipped here).
He then asked me what I did in Bombay and I said I was a journalist.
"What kind?", he probed. I was distracted again.
 "Magazine or newspaper?" he prodded further...
"Oh, yes, newspaper"
"So what do you write on?"
"Men, women..."
Curiouser and curiouser...
"People, places, celebrities, trends, lifestyles, attitudes.." I did some damage control...
"So you are a generalist, not a journalist.." His verdict was out, and my passport was stamped.

I seriously have to re-examine my job, I thought.

******

And then there is something about brothers. Even if you have been in queue for two years, there is still no performance expected at the end of it. By this I mean, on either side. So it's okay to unwrap your Xbox 360 and gloat over its goodies the exact same night that your sister has crossed seven seas (I am not sure, I wasn't counting) to meet you. It's okay to have piles of laundry so high, that you can't walk around the house without being run over. It's okay to have stuff in the fridge so old that illegal aliens have acquired permanent residency status. It's okay to have mails unopened, houseplants unattended and consequently withered, books and DVDs unreturned..

But, at the same time, it's okay for you to lie in the exact same posture in bed when he leaves the house and when he returns. It's okay for you to tell him you don't really want to meet any more family. It's okay for you to ask him to take you out for a drink at midnight, because you just 'feel' like it. It's okay for you not to talk when you don't want to.

Because no matter how much older you are, you will always be the 'little' sister that stayed a foot shorter.

The undomestic goddess

“My maid gives me a complex,” said Anshuman, who seemed completely befuddled with his domestic diva in a very ‘settling down in Bombay’ kind of way. She apparently gave him the impression that she earned quite a packet through her assorted retainers in various households, added to which was one at a rather posh restaurant in Andheri. She also claimed prowess in the real estate market, having bought and sold a few flats, and made a killing.

All of which all added up to a total income that was far higher than that of Anshuman’s. Ironically, he was her said employer, yet having a hard time finding something more than a pigeon hole for the arm and the leg he was willing to pay.

She of course wielded further powertics by admonishing him on how slow an eater he was, how much time he wasted in the mornings, and how he really didn’t have a life, since he had to travel to work ‘all the way to Bombay’ from Andheri.

Her rather vocal opinion had its effect on him. Despondent, he immediately rang his local friend and discussed prospects of being a maid in Bombay, which suddenly seemed far more lucrative than his banking job.

As he was narrating his woes, I entered into flashback mode about a certain svelte siren who was in our domestic services a few years ago. Her name, apt to her appearance was Sundari. Everyday, she would sashay into the house, spend a good half hour over her tea and biscuits, purr at the cats, pout at suitable moments, help herself to the fruit on the table every once in a while, glide her way through the washing and cleaning, before she did what she most loved to do. Preen.

Yes, I would catch her every once in a while posing in front of the mirror, sometimes trying my shoes, perfume or favourite neckpiece on. And it irked me that things actually looked good on her. Soon, I began dressing up for her arrival, lest it got confusing as to ‘who bears the broom.’

There is more — Sundari had a retinue of admirers — watchmen, liftmen, drivers, cooks, courier men and other assortments who were in completely in awe of her and gave her their undivided attention whenever she passed by. I once noticed the maali handing her a bunch of flowers plucked from the building compound. Some would share their lunch with her, another would come bounding with an umbrella every time she got stranded in the rain without one. The day she didn’t show up, there would be at least two enquiries.

One day, she was caught red-handed stealing my Issey Miyake, and that’s when my mother finally gave her the sack. The entire neighbourhood was in mourning for the next three days.

Things haven’t changed much. Though the current maid is not a kleptomaniac, my mother complains that she is too posh for her. She is also more voluptuous than all of us put together, better attired, wears trendy footwear, looks gorgeous and is super-savvy with her latest cell-phone (my mother is too technologically challenged to even use my hand-me-down Nokia 1100). The cherry on the cake was when she gifted the manicured maid a saree for Dusshera — she turned it down saying she doesn’t wear cottons.
I am seriously thinking of switching professions.

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.

Tooth and nail

“Spank me,” said the note from suitably mysterious woman a few tables yonder, sitting pretty with her bunch of friends. The recipient was a friend of mine, who, by no stretch of imagination was an Adonis. I was amused. Why him then, we wondered. But more importantly, I was thinking, “What did he do to earn it?

Turns out not much, except he was in possession of that serial killer gizmo called Blue tooth. He was just sending out the right signals, pun unintended. And there was a whole community receiving it.
For the uninitiated, the blue tooth is a feature on your mobile phone that senses its gadget equivalent within a certain radius. And it seems to be the latest catalyst in the pick up circles, or so I am told. The modus operandi goes something like this: Girl with blue tooth enters club. Boy with blue tooth enters club. Girl gets alert on her blue tooth. She looks up, scans the place, and takes in the new entrants. By a process of elimination and eye contact, she finally zeroes in on blue toothed boy. To take it further, she sends him an sms. Or a note. And the deal is struck.
(Note: Boy can also send aforementioned signals to girl.)

I had just read about guerilla dating and the art of ambushing a suitable member of the opposite sex in a public place, and was suitably intrigued. May be the randomness of it all blows my mind. May be I am slower than I think—to give you an example, the beau and I had endless conversations spanning a couple of months about single malts, Men’s magazines, kitsch hindi movies, the great suburban divide and lasting childhood memories before we realised we spoke the same language, and started dating. If we were insta-blue tooth networked, I wonder if we’d have lasted this long.

Coming back to the girl who wanted to be spanked, it felt like that the laws of human behaviour had all changed while I wasn’t looking. It is no longer about cutesy stuff, romance or poetry. The rules of dating now resemble the law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest seems to be the only prevailing ethic. It is simply about sifting ‘potential serial killer types’ from ‘sperms you like to introduce to your egg’ types. It’s a place where rules are meant to be broken, and paradigms shifted. It is about complete disregard to the ‘this seat is taken’ policy, at least going by what one notices at clubs and other hangouts these days.

It reminded me of a certain menace I encountered a few months ago in a club. Now this hulk wanted to buy me a drink even though I made it quite clear not once, but twice that I was drinking water. When I finally confronted him about his pass, he said quite nonchalantly that he normally gave a woman the right of refusal three times before he decided it was a no. Quite magnanimous, I must say!

Recently my colleague noticed my phone and exclaimed, “You have blue tooth!” I felt like I was caught with ecstasy or something

I am clearly in a different zone, I thought. Or may be I am just old fashioned.

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.

Loansome tonight

Every day I get an average of five calls and six text messages from random banks, financial institutions, quacks, offering me personal loans to buy anything I want – a new house, a new car, a new face, a new body.. whatever.

Does anyone ever say, “Yes, please, I’d like two—can you make it medium rare…?”

Usually, I announce my verdict in about 10 seconds. “Sorry, I don’t need the money. I am renouncing the world soon,” I say. They sound confused, and continue to blabber, and I hang up.

But recently, I succumbed to upgrading my most luxurious material possession—my car, and the saga of paperwork that followed reminded me of how much I really want to give it all up.

I would have happily emptied my bank balance, signed off my mutual funds and fixed deposits, paid cash down and driven home in my passion red Xing, if I had my way. But fiscal interferences in the form of my CA, some money-wise friends and some hustling car financers prevailed, and I went down the long road. EMIs seemed to be the only way to add a dash of glamour to my spotless credit record.
After scribbling a list of numbers on a piece of paper and staring at it in stoned silence, Mr. Car Finance says, “Three year loan is really good for you. My man will come tomorrow..”

He does. Wearing his trousers at his breast. Smelling like he hadn’t had a bath in four days. Don’t even get me started on his hair. He opens his mouth, and a thousand pods of garlic roll out. He thrusts the car finance agreement at me, apart from an assortment of forms— my day goes from bad to worse, and my irritation index soars above the sensex. Apart from my cat’s birth certificate and the brand of condom my mosquito uses, I have to pretty much list every gory detail, with ‘supportings.’

I sign at 200 odd places. And after the first five, it doesn’t look like me at all. Seriously, why does signing your own name make you feel like a forger sometimes?

He remarks (more garlic breath), “Aapka signature bahut basic hain na?”

I quickly cover the next few cheques with my other hand as I clumsily sign on, lest he copies my practised flourish, and runs away with my fortune.

“Madam..one more thing,” he adds with the glint of a Nazi. “You also have to sign 36 cheques..”

I instantly switch to a one-year loan (I am too spent to sign 36 cheques). I also reach a point when I am so asphyxiated by his breath that I ask him to wait in the reception area. He says, “Sorry to irritate you, but one more signature…”

Why did I subject myself to such Naziness, I have no idea. May be it’s fashionable. May be it makes me look better on paper. May be it earns me the famous tax relief or depreciation, or whatever the money pundits say to get you to spend more money.

I think it’s over, but I am wrong. A few days later, as I am lounging at home in my microshorts with face pack on, the bell rings. Mr.Verification is at my door. He asks me if I live there. I say, what do you think, this is my ghost? He has this look of “you can’t even keep your face on, how can we give you a loan?” He then asks me for more trivia, this time about my religion and the area in square feet of my microscopic house, and why my dad and I don’t share a last name, even though I am still single. I am dying to scream, but my face pack resists. He leaves after I threaten to sue him for harassment.

Phew! I hear I have finally been approved, but dude, where is my car?