Relationships and fiscal bottomlines

My buddy R was over a few days ago, and he has never looked so ‘in the pink of health’, despite the fact that he had broken a leg not so long ago and was still recuperating. I asked him what the secret was, adding the cliched, "Is it love?"

"Mad or what!" he said.  "I haven’t stepped out much in the last few months and I am not dating either. I just realised how much being single helps your bank balance. I have never had so much money in my account!"

He had a point. The thing is, when you are on the pull, you have to be seen at the right places, doing the right thing, hoping the right people from the opposite sex will notice you. Plus, you have to eat the right thing, drink the right thing (eating vada-pav and drinking nariyal paani  and going for a walk on the beach doth not a date make, although it looks good in films like Chhoti si baat). Sometimes you have to offer to buy a round of drinks, (or worse, shots!) to impress a certain someone. Not to mention having spent enough on self-grooming—a good haircut at the very least, some cool, yet not over-the top clothes. Having done all that, you have to be able to spot a suitable someone you might want to chat up, and then that suitable someone will have to want to chat you up too.  By the time you call it a night, you are a few thousand rupees poorer (at the very least) and may or may not have scored. So over to the next outing, and it all starts all over again.

Even something as low-involvement as a movie date sets you back by a couple of  thousands. Think weekend. Think gold class. Think nachos and popcorn that cost as much as a starter in a decent eatery. Think water that could well buy you a pint of beer. Think transport to and from the multiplex and drinks pre and post movie. So much for holding hands or at best, a snog.

Single (though not by intent) women, on the other hand, are constantly shopping. Being seen in the right clothes, bags and shoes takes their mind off their sexual bankruptcy to a large extent. In fact, too much retail therapy is a dead giveaway for dubious-state-in-relationship for a woman. And more often than not, she ends up being disappointed with the men she is on the verge of dating, because they still haven’t recovered from their fiscally viable singledom, in fact have begun to enjoy it.

Marriage on the other hand, is good economics. You save on rent, petrol, random socialising (having to score is no longer a priority) you spend less on takeways, you share domestic helps, drivers, etc, and you start SIPs. Of course, the minute the marriage is on the rocks, your credit card bills shoot up again. A friend of mine who is going through a separation seems to be spending absurdly on makeovers, clothes and shoes while her other half is spending it all on alcohol. Clearly a no-win moneywise.

Dating is an equally unviable stage, and the shorter it is, the better. People in relationships for several years are a perennially broke lot. They shop way too much, drink way too much (how else do you hang out all night long), buy too much stuff, and then borrow to pay their credit card bills, get too many manicures, go on too many getaways. Plus  there is the added pressure of having to buy expensive gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, valentines and whatnots (who was the twerp who came up with expensive gift = true love). If they ever get to the point of getting married, they are in debt again, because by then, their finances have cleaned out doing random shallow things.

Which is why I increasingly notice people of undefinable status hanging out in groups of total randoms, pretending to have a great time. It insulates them from having to flash a date or spend (they could well be nursing a beer all night), it increases the probability of scoring, it gives them an easy exit option, should the night not work out to their favour. Plus, there is no pressure on making serious conversation, and the whole night could go by with just a few words like “No way!” or “What are you saying?” or “How cool is that?” while shaking your head and totally escaping eye contact.

I guess times are a-changing. When you have more Facebook friends than real ones, you also pay a price for it. The price of make-believe. 

And then there were mums

I have never thanked Chickwit enough since I became a mother. It is the one place that still allows me to be me, without fearing a mutiny, a PIL, or worse, voodoo, every time I post something.

In the four-going-on-five years of Chickwit’s existence, I have taken on the beau (with unfailing regularity), the husband (who thought graduating from the beau would grant him immunity, but alas), various friends, randoms, the mother and other family, assorted annoying singletons who still write I miss you on other’s walls,  the Kapoors, the Khans and other Bollywood insects, Tiger Woods, Chetan Bhagat, Raj Thackeray, Shashi Tharoor and some. But all has been well so far. No legal notices. No major hate-mail. No significant outpourings on my wall or comments page. No threat to my life.

But ever since I started my other (mommy) blog exactly five months ago, all hell broke loose. My enemies multiplied. I started receiving hate mail. (One of my fellow bloggers told me that it’s a good sign). The blog was for pure reasons of documentation, but mostly for a good laugh at the way things were.  I didn’t think I could do motherhood without laughing at it. Plus I didn’t want to burden Chickwit readers with mommy stuff (and I know a few of you don’t mind it, but I have to look at the larger good, even though I am, as the mommies believe, a mean person).

I noticed two things:

• Mommies have zero ability to laugh at themselves or their children. Mostly.
• Mommies get very very angry if you do. Always.

Interestingly, the same mommies are totally okay making fun of their husbands, neighbours, in-laws, family or other animals. I wonder why.

I am not good at writing commandments of motherhood. Or ten places to take your child this summer. Or ten things to do to make your child stop picking his nose.What I am good at is telling you (if you ask me) that the only way to get ‘organic' cow’s milk is by buying a cow and milking her yourself. I was being funny (you know that!), but mommies take offence to the fact that I proposed such an impractical idea. So every time I make fun of a learning toy, over-obsessive parents, bald babies, bullies or gauche birthday parties, the mommies are thinking (or saying),What if someone did that to you? So do it, bitch!

The only person who has been a Zen factor since I turned mommy is the boy, even though he does have annoying traits of various members of the family as a rule of genetics. But I can deal with that. As long he doesn’t sue me any time soon for defamation or some such.

Sorry to burst the bubble for some of you. All this ethereal motherhood bliss is crap. Mothers are a very militant lot. Most mothers I’ve met are dour, angry, irritated or plain frustrated. If they are not any of this, they are plain boring. With a few exceptions, and you know who you are.

So every time I need a fix for my funny bone, I still count on my singletons. Like my beauteous, supremely intelligent and wickedly funny friend Tasneem who said, Mommies have every right to be militant. Mommies are like Osama Bin Laden with more facial hair.

So I think it is time to announce, like Shobhaa De once did, I am a journalist. Speak to me at your own risk.

So far and yet so near

You know you are truly married when it’s hard to say ‘I miss you.’  

The husband has been away for three days at a scam fest (sorry, ad fest) and will be back tonight, so I write this in a hurry.  Through what seems to be an act of some divine pact betwen the ‘misser’ and the ‘missee’ in these situations, the misser calls the missee with some regularity (in this case, once or sometimes, twice a day). Not that I am complaining, but it seems somewhat expected of the missee (me) to say the aforementioned three words to the misser (him). Which means the missee also has to pretend to be the misser. O, whatever!

Unlike most people who fake it and say the fateful three words with a great degree of nonchalance (I am sure some of them mean it too) to their significant other, when they are away from them, I don’t. I can’t. Say it. To anyone.  I have explained this to the husband, who is still learning to deal with it, but I am sure it strikes him (and many others) as odd.

I don’t miss people. Or places. I remember all the times I have been away, and there have been plenty of those, and the calls back home (whether to the mother or the husband) have always been more of an obligation than a need. I am in the here and now, so flashbacks seem like a waste of time. May be the homeopath was right. May be I do have too much testosterone.

Marriage is full of motions, and saying that you miss your partner when he/she is away is one of those. Although I have come to terms with many others, I am still grappling with this one. I also think the true test for when you love someone comes when the person is away. It gives you the objectivity, distance and space to examine your love, to nurture it, feel it all over again. If you still have through the ‘I miss you’ motions, you never get the room to do it. Makes sense?

So yes, I had three days (going on four) of life without the husband. It felt strange to have a house to myself again, although said house is populated by a baby, two cats and a maid. But the point about these are that pleasantries are not expected and it’s a ‘to each its own kingdom’. It is liberating. The boy is just happy to have me around and speak without being spoken to, the cats are in their own hidey holes, waiting to be excavated, feeling a sense of calm that the paranoid cutlet who is always worrying about them running away is actually away. As for the maid, she is a girl after my own heart. Efficient, pro-active, and likes her silences.

The one thing that was truly liberating was that I didn’t have to act excited about a 42'' (television, what else?). There was less garbage generated (what’s with men and garbage?), easier to plan menus (the husband likes four vegetables, so I made all the rest in the vegetable kingdom in the last three days), read the paper and grab the pot without having to make a dash for it.

I think marriages should come with a built-in contract of one partner being away at least a few days a month (I would bargain for a week). It feels good. It gives perspective, objective. I have a friend who is constantly whining that her husband is never around (he is a pilot) and I wonder what her problem is.

Tomorrow, it will be back to business and choosing from four vegetables again. I am already plotting my getaway. 

Feelings? You must be kidding

These Mars-Venus jokes are really getting to me, or perhaps I am getting old or undergoing a sex change, as my homeopath once insinuated (You have too much testosterone in you!). Okay coming to the point. After a semi-adventurous journey cross-country (actually north to south Bombay) last week, I found myself in a mid-week date with the husband at the Comedy Store. The beer was cold, the blokes were funny, it was 50% off for ladies that night, I could see the performers from where I sat (which is a big deal, especially if you are as small as I am), and for once, the husband didn’t get heckled. So far so good. 

Then the second stand-up comic went ahead and spoilt it all by saying something stupid like ‘Women always like to talk about their feelings’ and that ‘Men actually like it when they have to sleep in the other room’.  He said it like it was some huge gender revelation, and the blokes looked at each other like a big secret was out, and chuckled. 

At the risk of marital harmony, let me just say here that the said bloke is clearly living in another era. Or he is just dating his mommy. Of course we don’t need you to talk about our feelings.  What are our girlfriends for? The maximum we need from you are  ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers. Let me give you an example.  Which of the following is a woman more likely to say to a man:

“Do you feel like going for stand-up comedy tonight”

“What do you feel like doing tonight?”

Go ahead girls, write down twenty others.

Asking a guy an open ended question is a death-trap, because it will just open the door for whining, or listing the nincompoops they have to deal with at work and how they are so dog tired by the end of the day that all they want is a beer and the remote control. How totally unpredictable! I would have never guessed that!And no woman ever asks a man what he thinks of her dress or her haircut or her haiku. Even if they do, dear blokes, it is only out of politeness. 

Coming to sleeping on the couch. Now who wouldn’t like an entire bed to themselves? Of course we are positively delighted that you are sleeping on the couch. We just want to know in advance.

I wish could rewrite the damn Mars-Venus books, because you know what?  It ain’t like that at all. Or maybe all the men have applied for citizenship to Venus.

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....”

Let’s meet up

So she called me.

It’s tough be in touch with friends, I understand. There’s work, career, social life, kids, husbands, television, movies to catch, things to buy, status messages to update, maid politics to manage, people to poke, ping or whatever it is they do these days, pedicures to get (although I think a pedicure is the best time to make pending calls to friends), sex to think about but not have, gossip to spread..

So you need time and consistency of purpose to be in touch. So I never complain when someone is not in touch or hasn’t popped into my inbox in a while. There are friends I talk to once a year. Some who I meet once in five or ten. But that’s ok. There’s no pretence of trying, but not being able to make it, or feeling guilty about not trying .

What’s not okay is someone who actually calls you when they need something. But they make it out to be about a bonding that never was. “I have been meaning to call, but just been so busy running around,” she explained. I never understand what that means, unless someone is getting married or house-hunting, in which case I do.

I am sure I am a target for such calls since I am a reservoir of information and contacts, or resourceful enough to get it even if I don’t have it (and it started way before my media job). I don’t have a problem with that.  You need information. I have information. You call me. I give it to you.

But then, don’t disguise it as a chat call. Or a ‘I called because I thought of you’ call. Say it like it is. I called because I wanted a favour, a number,  a pass to something, whatever.

She: How have you been? How’s R, D, your friend x, friend y?

Me: (gives her all the dope while wondering where this is going)

She: It’s been so long! We must meet up!

Me: Sure. Say when, and I’ll show up.

She: By the way, your friend z? Isn’t she a designer?

Me: (Realising that there is an agenda to this) Yes, why?

She: I wanted to talk to her because I wanted some information on a story I was working on.

Aha. So that was it. So much for thinking she was actually interested in how my boy and my cats were doing.

Recently an ex-colleague called me, all chatty and chirpy, and asked me if I had a nanny. I presumed one of two things:

a)     She was pregnant and wanted one

b)    She wanted to do a story on nannies

It turned out to be b. But at least she didn’t make it to be out about anything else, or pretend she wanted to do a movie or lunch or some such sacred metaphor for friendship.

Moral of the story: It’s totally okay to call people only when you need something from them. At least have the balls so say so.

Two cats, a husband and a baby: Love, actually

It took a nine hour date to seal the deal.  All of which was spent sipping a single malt (Glenmorangie, 12 years), talking (some), listening (a lot) and watching a Don DVD (of course, the old one, what were you thinking?).

Now if you know my attention span is worse than that of my 20 month-old, that must have been a big deal.

It happened when it didn’t matter whether or not it happened. I was, at that point, having the greatest love affair of my life – the one with myself. Yes, I am gorgeous, but it took me a long time and many wrong guys to fall in love with myself. When I finally did, along came the one.

I found many shallow reasons to write him off. The fact that he looked too young (I thought at that point that he was the younger sibling of the girl who introduced us). The fact that he had an American accent (diplobrat=American schools=funny, mixed up accent of no fixed address). The fact that he couldn’t cook. The fact that he couldn’t remember the last book he read. The fact that had never watched a play. The fact that he didn’t play any real sport. The fact that none of his friendships dated more than four years. The fact that he was technically, an alien in my city.

And then I found one solid reason not to. The fact that he totally got me. The fact that he made me laugh. The fact that he still does.

Now, many of you may find the sense of humour thing a bit overrated, but it is the one thing that can keep a marriage going. And when the baby comes, oh my god, you need it real bad.

I don’t understand very long engagements or very orchestrated ones. The best marriages I know are where neither party has officially proposed or been proposed to. He chickened out on proposing to me at an Indigo brunch, where he set the mood for me to expect it. Only to do so in the cab ride back home. It was funny.

He: May be we could do this forever.

Me: You mean brunch?

He:  No, I mean us.

Me: Ha ha, you are funny.

He: Is that a yes?

Me: Well, okay.

I reminded him it was a good thing I wasn’t into rocks and bent knees and all that jazz.  He thought that made me cooler.

A year and some later, we were married.

Four years, four mistresses ( a PS2, a PS3, a PSP and an Xbox), two cats and a baby later, I am still enjoying the ride.

Happy Valentine’s day to all.