Of suitcases and toothbrushes

I hate the day before you go on a holiday. It's when the impending work looms large, as it seems as though the holiday has to be earned all over again by doing all the menial tasks that precede it. Now, I am a list-maker and am also very diligent about things I tick off the list. Why is that a problem, you might ask? The problem is, when you are efficient, you get a raw deal. You do the work. So whether it is a rice-cooker for the boy (for quick meals at the resort) or his paddle pools and beach toys or his air-pump which inflates the paddle pool or his swimsuit (checking if it still fits) or the camera and charger and roaming activation and resort confirmation and cab-booking, guess who's going to do the work? Bloody efficient me!

I wish vacations are just about showing up some place where everything that you need is already there. I am not talking gourmet meals and wine and stuff, but the mundane stuff that you have to pack and are doomed otherwise. Like toothbrushes. Or swimsuits. Or moisturiser. Or hair product (now don't tell me anything will do, you have to see my hair to believe it).  Since I am not a which-dress-goes-with-which-footwear kind of girl, so it is kind of easier for me on the clothes front. Because by the time you do all that you have to do, you suddenly think life is better where you are, so damn the vacation. But it is kind of reassuring that even Megan Fox has to pack her toothbrush. Or hair product. Or whatever. So it can't be such a bad thing.

Look at the husband. His only contribution to the vacation (apart from the fact that he is paying for it) is the following:
a) getting his leave sanctioned
b) changing his mind about dates, and getting it re-sanctioned
c) reminding me at least three times in the past two weeks that his leave might be in jeopardy
d) reassuring me 24 hours before departure that even if he might have to go for a meeting on the day we have to travel, the vacation is still 'safe'
e) offering to pack the electronics (?)
f) ignoring above offer and only packing his PSP (and charger)
g) asking me (and this takes the cake) if we have the tickets!

To top it all, nowadays there is the additional fear of your-baggage-may-go-to-Nasik-while-you-go-to Goa. Or some honeymooning couple who can't wait to get to their resort might walk off with it (it happened to us last time). So to add to my woes, I have to pack everything in triplicate.

I have started chanting.

Must do lunch

You know a scam when you hear one. In my book, “Must do lunch” makes it quite high on the list. Coming close are “Must meet up”, “Have to catch up”, “We must chat,” or “Let’s have coffee sometime”.

I have a quick detection program for such scammers. I set a date. “How about Tuesday?,” I ask. It is enough to sift the ones who want to do the work from the ones who don’t. For the doers, I’d do anything. Cook up a storm, negotiate downpours, ignore cats, travel great distances, drive on second gear, anything. And they would return the gesture in ample measure.

Which brings me to wonder why people say things they do not mean. I am not talking about the dating game or work politics or filmi interviews. But food? And eating! Why mess around with that?

Unlike, “Must meet for a drink,” “Must do lunch” is three words not to be used shabbily and without sincerity. It is certainly not like clicking “like” on Facebook which essentially comes with no set of deliverables, no call for action, nothing.

To me, food dates are sacrosanct. I find it easier to cancel on someone going clubbing than having lunch with them. And I would never suggest food and not mean it. It’s just not on. It doesn’t take much. Not a great table or silverware or French wine, just a desire to bond over food, which I find a great leveller. Unlike alcohol for instance, which sort of blurs the real issues and makes you micro focus on the idiotic ones.

I know we live in Bombay and there’s all that traffic and work sucks and no one’s getting laid, so more is the misery, but none of this is reason enough to not “do lunch” if you have proposed it. So what if you had a nervous breakdown and are busy recuperating. You still have to eat, right? Or if your dog died. Or your cat gave birth, and you didn’t know she was pregnant. Or if you have graduated from having bad hair days to having a bad hair life. Now, I mean I am not dating you or wishing to date you or anything. Just that you proposed an idea and I am suggesting how we take it further. When I want to do lunch with someone, I do something really simple. I fix a place or invite myself or the other person over for lunch, and it’s done.

So. If you really want to "do lunch" with someone, well, you just have lunch with someone. So whether or not you pray or love, eat!

Now that I’m in possession of a child, it’s graduated to “Must do play-date.” But more about whiny moms later.

Kapoor vs Kapoor

So papa Kapoor is really pissed that two exes rated his beta Kapoor very low on sex appeal. What a classic! For those who came in late, Sonam Kapoor and Deepika Padukone had a ball tearing Ranbir Kapoor to shreds on KJo’s Koffee with Karan this past Sunday. They had a BFF camaraderie even though they were alleged to be foes at one time, and spoke reams about Ranbir’s credibility in relationships, his zero style quotient, his uncontrolled libido and his bottom, among other things.

KJo, in true KJo style, lapped it all up and gave us some more. And why wouldn’t he? What’s a show host for if not to make people talk about things no one else can make them? Star World is meanwhile laughing all the way to the TRP bank, but the Kapoors (Sr and Jr) are miffed.

Now, what did he expect the ladies to do? If they rated him 5 on a scale of 1-5, it would mean that they are still not over him. If they played safe and rated him 3, they would be accused of being politically correct. Since they’ve rated them the lowest, they have been asked to concentrate on their careers and accused of not having class.

Had the ladies rated beta Kapoor poorly on fidelity or brattiness or other such attributes, papa Kapoor would have basked in the implied virility and bravado. “After all, he is a Kapoor,” he would have said. But low on sex appeal? Not on.

Even Jennifer Aniston would have rated Brad Pitt pretty dismally on sex appeal. Would that bother Pitt? Would that bother his daddy and mommy? That’s what exes do, they rip you apart when they are given a chance. So take it easy, daddy.

I guess being stuck with the ‘cute, but not sexy’ tag for decades must have taken its toll on Rishi Kapoor who finally redeemed himself with Ranbir-post-Saawariya-Kapoor. Bollywood is replete with sexy daddies and not-so-sexy sonny boys, as with non-sexy daddies and sexy lads. So Rakesh Roshan was redeemed by Hrithik Roshan, and Rishi Kapoor by Ranbir Kapoor. Feroz Sexy Khan was hugely short- changed in Fardeen and Sanjay Khan didn’t have much to redeem, so let’s not go to Zayed. Kabir Bedi was over-optimistic when he named his son Adam. Sexy Shashi Kapoor produced an even sexier Karan who chose to go the non-Bollywood way, so was out of the reckoning. Vinod Sexy Khanna hasn’t done badly with Akshaye and Rahul, who are fairly sexy too. Raj Babbar got really lucky with Prateik. As for Sunil Dutt, Sanju has been a fair hand. Dharmendra wasn’t too badly off with Sunny, until the boy needed a hair transplant, and got one. Amitabh Bachchan has been redeemed after Abhishek lost his bovine fat, got a real haircut, Ash and an Idea! As for Danny, I still have too much of a crush on him to find out what his son (if he has one) looks like.

Moral of the story: If it’s important for a sexy daddy to have a sexy son, it’s imperative for a non-sexy daddy to have a sexy son.

Now which reality show is going to have Ranbir over and charm a certain Veena Mallik to reaffirm his sexiness? Hint: It’s Big and very Bossy.

Lost and found

Okay, guilty of going under for a few weeks (no, Bitch Central did not get me into any trouble). I just felt like observing life for a while instead of having a point of view on it every week, and realised it is therapeutic not to have an opinion sometimes. But there is still enough bitch left in me, so I am back again.

Meanwhile, stuff happened:

People got engaged on Facebook.

People broke up.

People are trying to get engaged or are breaking up by putting it all ‘out there’

I watched The Social Network. Like!

I realised how much our state-of-mind is reflected in our state-of-walls.

The husband found out his BFF was single again. From me.

My dad won a 14 year-old property case, and is plotting to be a farmer. At the ripe young age of 72.

My FF has a whole set of new weird friends that I can make no sense of, but I am left wondering if I should say anything at all.

My only under-30 buddy was almost run over and is now lying horizontal, with his leg up in the air. The rich boy who ran him over got out on Rs 900 bail.

I got de-friended by fat ex-boyfriend. Fat. Yay!

I ran into thin ex-boyfriend. He needs a hair transplant. Yay!

My 16 month-old son has a girlfriend.

Chickwit lost to ads in HT Cafe and I am left wondering whether to turn this archive into a real blog. Which means I don’t get to disappear on you, and you get to hear all the gory details of my life, like what I had for breakfast. Or who I had for dinner. Not like!



**


Coming back to The Social Network. Okay, men do weird things to get the girls. Some paint. Some write Booker prize winners. Some, like Mark Zuckerberg create Facebook. Others, like Eduardo sue Mark Zuckerberg.

I must say I was a bit let down when I heard that Zuckerberg, who is a friend of a friend of a friend, has actually been dating the same girl since his freshman years. Now I find the whole premise of the movie or his multi-billion dollar idea – that of inadequacy and rejection— to be false. If he was in a long term relationship, where did the angst from not ‘getting girls’ come from? Unless, in Facebook parlance he was looking for ‘anything he could get.’

The husband says it’s cinematic liberty. But David Fincher is no Bhansali.

Talk to me. It’s been a while.

Bitch central

Now don’t tell me, “I don’t have to read this because I never bitch.” Really now! As much as we love to deny it, we all do. It’s therapeutic. It’s de-cluttering. It’s detoxifying. It’s introspective. Men love it. Women love it. There is enough statistics out there to support high prevalence of bitching in both sexes, so no gender issues there.

But like a famous dialogue in a Hindi film which translated as, “Even if you do something unscrupulous, do it scrupulously,” I believe there are ethics of bitching. There is an unwritten code of conduct, an underlying morality to the whole thing, and hence, I am taking the trouble to write out the ten commandments of bitching:

1. Thou shall have (at least) a mental list of “People I will bitch about” and “People I will never bitch about”. It doesn’t matter how many people are in the former list, but there have to be at least five in the latter. There have to be bitching exemptions for everyone, no matter how many flakes and twerps you know in real life.

2. People from the former list can migrate to the latter, but the reverse should not be possible, unless you’ve had a major fallout or discovered that you have been bitched out royally by a member of the latter.

3. Be consistent. Pick a few bitching targets and stick to them. If they qualified in the first place, they will make sure you always have enough material. Don’t randomise your bitching, because then, no one will take you seriously.

4. Thou shall not bitch about someone and then shower accolades/superlatives about her/him the next day, even if the audience is different. You are not a credible bitcher anymore if you do that. There has to be a bitch quarantine period for things to simmer and settle down before you apply your antidote.

5. Have some integrity: which means, whatever happens, never bitch to the one you bitched about.

6. Never try and undo a bitching in haste. Which means thou shall not bitch about someone and then ‘like’ everything they say or do on Facebook soon after. Have some credibility for heaven’s sake.

7. Everyone has a bitch fatigue point, which means you have to draw the line at bitching somewhere and move on to other stuff, else you will be classified as "one who always bitches."

8. Never put all your bitches in one basket. Which means you should have different people to bitch about different things. One for work, one for social life, several for husband/boyfriend, one for family, one for miscellaneous..

9. Thou shall not bitch about your BFF, no matter what happens.

10. Though shall never bitch in writing. No text messages, no email, no social networking site; nothing that can be printed or displayed. There is nothing more crude than documented bitching. Leave it to the gossip columnists.

What Balooney!

This weekend, lust got the better of me and I found myself (alas, with the husband) at the local multiplex trying to get my George Clooney fix on a Saturday night at 300 Rupees a pop (weekend rates, but it was Clooney and I couldn’t wait).

To say that I was terribly let down by The American would be an understatement. I was devastated. My mood was ruined. I was angry enough to ‘need’ a drink. Here was the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ brooding in the midst of obscure, un-photogenic mountains, giving you a crash course in gun-making, drinking brandy with a priest and espresso with a woman as bland as camomile tea, not smiling, not being endearingly mean, or funny or charming or wicked. Nothing that Clooney does best.

It was like watching one of those terribly arty movies where everything happens in real time, except everyone in the hall was still waiting for a twist till the very end. There was none. Nothing happens in the movie, Clooney notwithstanding. There is no semblance of plot, no distracting backdrops (Italy has never looked this boring), no back-story, no clever capers, no skin even. Okay, yes, he did some crunches in muted lighting, and there was a flash of a tattoo around the nape of his neck, but is that all? Where were the lines, the suave demeanour, the let-me-kill-you-with-that-smile attitude? And I don’t care who gave how many stars, the film is a no-brainer.

The last time I was close to this angry, it was during Kidnap, when, soon into the movie, I got sick of Imran Khan’s flaring nostrils and Minissha Lamba’s nose job and the famously overrated white bikini that never appeared. Perhaps it did long after I walked out of the movie but I can’t be sure.

Coming back to The American, I was going to say why would a producer make such an un-Clooney film with Clooney in it, when I realised that he was one of the producers too. What could this be? Celebrity fatigue? Reinvention of self? Spiritual quest? Then why not go and live in the mountains yourself? Why make us spend our hard earned money and not give us our Clooney’s worth? Why make a Clooney film without Clooneyisms?

There is a reason why Clooney exists. For the men, it’s a reality check on what they cannot be. For women, it’s a reminder of what they cannot have. For both of these to occur, Clooney has to do trademark Clooney stuff. Men as good looking as George Clooney have no business to talk their face away. So, if this was an experiment, Mr Clooney, please do not repeat it. At least for the greater good of womankind.

Stick-in-the-mud

I have had it with stick insects always whining about how they are so fat, or not 'thin enough'. Or how they look fat in ‘that’ outfit, or ‘that’ angle or next to ‘that’ person who is allegedly, skinnier than them.

For them, going on a vacation is about losing weight, as they have to look good in all those ‘holiday clothes.’ Coming back from a holiday is also about losing weight as they have to now work out intensely to knock off the 200 grams that they may have gained by eating a cookie too many, or not working out for four-and-a half days.

Now, I have a theory on body image. If you are never happy with your body, the problem is not your body, it’s your mind. Also, if you are not belly-dancing for a living or posing for swimsuit calendars every other day, neither are you a certain actress passing off as size zero, (which no one disputes as no one actually knows what size zero is), there is really no need to be ‘that skinny.’ Or is it just me?

What I don’t get about stick insects is, how come they are always meeting people thinner than them and feeling miserable? Why don’t they ever meet normal people who make them realise how thin they are?

I was a stick insect (blame it on my genes) when it was not fashionable to be one. I spent most of my teen years going to bed dreaming of filling out in all the right places so that I could be a woman instead of a girl. But no such luck for a long time. (Unfortunately, I never had any stick insect friends then, else I wouldn’t have been so miserable). And then one day, I had a decent bra-size and child-bearing hips and life was beautiful.

But what irritates me the most, other than hearing another person’s workout schedule is someone standing next to something edible and saying things like, “I don’t think I should be eating that, it’s too many calories.” Since I eat like a man, and by my homeopath’s diagnosis, have too much testosterone for my own good, my concerns are hardly the same. I just like people who eat well – man, woman, child, and most certainly stick insects.

As for the men, frankly my dear, they don’t give a damn. Dating stick insects would just mean more work for them (like sucking their belly in, or working out as a twosome) which they are happy not doing. Unless, of course they are dreaming of posing with you with a python wrapped around.