Simple Pleasures...

- Buried in a pile of paperwork, you get distracted by a spider nonchalantly making its way across the table. Driven by your first impulse, you squish it with one swift motion of your hand. You feel invincible, ready to take on the world. Nothing seems impossible anymore.

- Its three o' clock on a Saturday afternoon. After a sumptuous lunch and hours of your favourite television show, you decide to sleep. Curled up under your comforter, you doze off without setting an alarm. Without stressing about what you need to get done when you wake up. Without the slightest bother in the world, you sleep. Like you never knew it to be.

- You look outside the window of your apartment, on a dark gloomy day. Amidst all the bland grey monotone, you catch the slightest hint of orange in the leaves. Autumn is here. You smile.

- You wake up in the morning to a call from an old friend. From thousands of miles across. You talk about all the times when you randomly met, sat down together with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, and hours passed by in idle conversation. You talk about the last time when you met at a party and danced to loud discordant notes all night long. Carefree. You talk about your last heartbreak and how in hindsight it seems like such a waste of precious time. You laugh at your own stupidity. Your friend laughs with you. From thousands of miles across. A touch of melancholy. A moment of unfiltered joy.

- You spend a weekend working alone. And at sundown, just when you are about to leave, sad that the day is over, you step outside and find yourself caught in a hailstorm. Tiny, ice crystals falling on your head and covering your foot-trail in white. A muffled pitter-patter. Like the low vibrato of a drum. You catch the scent of wet earth. You still find yourself fascinated by the arresting beauty of it all.

- You have a particularly rough day. A friend tells you that everything is going to be fine. You know it probably isn't. But you want to be naive. You remember your mother telling you the same when you were a kid. Whether you fell down the stairs and hurt yourself. Or you failed an important test. 'Everything's going to be okay'. There's a strange sense of comfort in those inane, meaningless words. The familiarity is reassuring. You want to believe. You feel better instantly and start over.

- Its your best friend's birthday. You try calling at twelve. She doesn't pick up. You leave a minute-long message and hang up. She never returns your call. You think about the time when you stayed up nights planning her birthday. Hours of running around. Secret late-night meetings. Figuring out logistics. Making it happen. All to catch that sparkle in her eyes when she sees it all. How simple it all used to be. Uncomplicated. Spontaneous. Impulsive.

- You spend hours squinting at your computer screen, reading out your favourite apple pie recipe. Its your first time. You're nervous. The adrenaline. You hear the ping of your oven. Your heart is beating in anticipation. You slide the tray out carefully. It looks beautiful. The crust is golden. Crisp. You heave a sigh of relief. You let out a cry of elation. You take a picture and save it for posterity.

- You plan a trip home after a year of skype and expensive phone calls. You book your air tickets four months in advance. You spend hours excitedly planning every day of your vacation. Who all to meet, where all to go, what all to do. You want to make the most of those days. Just the thought of it gives you a high. Enough to take you through the rest of the year. In that moment, it all seems like a breeze.

- Your sister's getting married. Your friend's having a kid. Your cousin makes it to the school of his dreams. Your dad wins his first golf tournament at sixty. You're thrilled for them all. They all seem like your achievements. Your victories. Your moments of glory. 

The Art of Manipulation

Its subtle. Its divine. Its rare. And most importantly it works wonders, and you're hardly the prototypical 'obvious' villain in the exchange. At least that's what I tell myself - 'Taking advantage of naive, unsuspecting (often dumb) people to get your way is OKAY'. And that's enough to squash whatever little conscience I have left. Peace! But seriously, don't you think conscience is overrated? I mean what the hell do you get out of it, except maybe earning the 'you're a good man' tag that doesn't really do you any good in the first place. You get laughed at, trampled upon, taken advantage of, every waking hour of every single day and you almost never win anything. So if you ask me, get out there and fight your own battles and fight them dirty, as a wise man once said 'All's fair in love and war'. And in this world its mostly war. And aren't we all headed to hell anyway? Sounds like a really fun place to be!

But I digress. Let's get back to the topic of manipulating naive trusting souls. *rubbing hands in glee*

Here's an exchange I recently had with one of my roommates. Lets call him Bo.

Day 1: I entered the kitchen one evening and found a pile of dishes in the sink, the kind of thing that makes me seethe. The counter-top was a mess, strewn with shells and what looked like octopus tentacles to me, which I later found out to be pork intestines! I'm generally quite accepting of different kinds of food that people are into and I'm sure when cooked, the intestines would turn out to be delicious, but I don't necessarily want them hanging off the oven door for show. Nope. Not having it. But somehow the dirty dishes disturbed me more. There's something about half eaten meals floating in a pool of water that grosses me out. The prospect of having maggots in your house maybe?

Me: Hey Bo! (Trying to be exceedingly sugary) What you cooking?
Bo: Pork. Umm. Ma-ki-ng soup. (Dragging every syllable.Yes. His English is more than stunted.)
Me: Pork Soup? Sounds delicious. What are these? (pointing to the mound of chopped up octopus tentacles. I was convinced it could be nothing else.)
Bo: PORK!! (I could sense from his tone that he was slightly annoyed.)
Me: (Gasping) Are you sure? Isn't it octopus? (Flailing my arms in the air and doing a little bit of a tribal jig, trying to make them look like tentacles, quite unsuccessfully ofcourse. And in case you're wondering that the question was rather dumb and he obviously knew what he was cooking, in my defense, I doubted his limited vocabulary and thought maybe he referred to all kinds of meat as 'pork'. Ahem.)
Bo: NO! Pig.
Me: Got it.

Slightly offended at being cut short this way and determined to finish what I started, I continued.

Me: Bo, the sink is almost overflowing and beginning to stink. I think 'we' should get the dishes done soon. Don't you think? Sometime tonight maybe?

Without a word, Bo quietly proceeded to do his dishes, frantically scraping away at the two week old, dried out gravy clinging to his plates. I barely suppressed a smile, when I saw the sweat on his forehead and defeat in his face. Revenge is sweet.

Day 2:  I entered the kitchen the next day and found Bo standing in front of a wok of boiling sesame oil, releasing large chunks of chicken into it, rather ungently. And as expected, with every release, there was a deafening sizzle, a cloud of smoke, and spurts of oil all over the chimney walls, counter-top and the floor. My sandals squeaked as I tried to make my way through the oil puddles. Way to go, Bo! ( and that rhymed! )

Me: Bo, is that chicken you're cooking?
Bo: Yes. Taste? (His face lit up)
Me: (unable to refuse) Sure.

I dipped my spoon in the curry and greedily gulped it down. It was hot and had ten times more spice than I could handle. I almost choked. But a couple of tears escaped me.

Bo: (disappointed by my reaction) No good?
Me: (wiping that treacherous tear) Its great. *cough*

Bo went around his business, with a smile of contentment on his face. I guess I AM a good actor. Recovering from that unprecedented assault on my alimentary canal, I continued with renewed enthusiasm.

Me: The kitchen floor is really dirty. 'We' should clean it up sometime.

Bo runs to the next room, and re-enters a minute later with a mop in his hand. How sweet! But well it's oil. And dry mopping would just end up spreading it uniformly on the kitchen floor, thus laying out an impeccable death trap for all of us. No, thank you. Riding high on my manipulation success rate so far, I continued.

Me: Bo, that won't do any good. You know what 'we' should do? 'We' should get some soap water instead.
Bo: Sorry. Me has assignment. Submit tomorrow. Clean after. Please?
Me: (alarmed at the prospect of having to do it myself) Err.. It wont take too long. Its really easy. Wait.

I ran to the bathroom, fetched some soap water, and came back. Animatedly splashing the mop in it, I continued.

Me: See. Its very easy Bo. Dip it in the water like this. And then take it out and....
Bo: Late. Assignment. Good night.

And before I could say anything more, he fled.

Moral of the story, it doesn't work all the time. But hey, one in two times is not so bad eh? Also, my victim turned out to be smarter than I thought. Maybe you'll have more luck?!

9-12-2012

Before you start presuming that this is post is about how life has changed post 9-11, you're sadly mistaken. Its about change, certainly. But not one that concerns the world for sure. On this day, last year, I landed in Seattle, embarking on a journey I had absolutely no clue about. As excited as I was to start this new chapter, I had too many butterflies fluttering maddeningly in my stomach to feel even remotely comfortable, or rather associate butterflies with any form of beauty at all. And now that I look back, the past year seems like a blur. People warned me about how slow life can be in Grad school and in a country outside your own, you had that many more apprehensions to thwart. People who've known me for long tell me I've changed. Some tell me I've not. It mostly depends on how honest I choose to be with them. But I feel I've changed. I know I've changed. And here's how:

- I have a checking account with money I can actually call my own. Well, I did earn some in the months before I got accepted into Grad school, but after I quit, I pretty much blew it all away on unnecessarily expensive latte in coffee shops (I could have just said coffee, but using fancy names makes me feel less guilty). On the downside, I'm still barely above poverty line in the US, but converting it to the ever-plummeting Rupee makes me feel a whole lot better. Its really stupid. But it does the trick.

- I can cook! And considering I could barely poach my own eggs (It sounded a lot different in my head!) not so long ago, its quite gratifying. And I can not only cook, but do a pretty darn good job of it. And that's not the usual me patting my own back. People have actually eaten stuff I prepared for them and liked it. Also the fact that they live to tell the tale, and that I haven't received threatening letters from WHO yet, telling me to stop whatever it is I do in the kitchen in the name of cooking, for the fear of endangering hungry, trusting lives out there, I think I can safely commend myself on my acquired culinary skills. I did think of opening a restaurant once, but going over the list of things I want for myself before I die, it seems pretty impossible to realize that dream in this life. Maybe if I was a cat, I had a better shot. Hmm. (Now I'm thinking what kind of cat I would make if I was born as one. But never mind.)

- I have started working out. I recall having mentioned how lazy I am as a person, sitting on my ass all day being my favourite 'activity'. So keeping that in mind, I think I've made great progress. Its only been a week though, and other than the thought of chopping my limbs off just to be able to change sides while sleeping without groaning/tearing up, I'm feeling quite good. And before you know it, I'll be ripped, toned, with sixteen-pack washboard abs giving the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme a run for his money (only that he has none I'm sure).

- I have started taking things a lot less seriously. And by 'things', I mean the sort of regular pettiness that used to bother me to no end only a year back. It gives me a strange sense of freedom. And coupled with the God-given sharp tongue, there can be nothing but disaster. But who cares. Life's too short (And no, I won't be dying anytime soon in case you're wondering). So, live life on your own terms. And die your own man. *Applause* (I'm shocked at my own profundity. Good job Me!)

- And the thing that I'm most proud of, is the decision of making this blog a regular feature. And by 'regular' I mean twice a month. (For all those sniggering out there, its better than writing once every six months or less isn't it? So I say its a start.) And I still dream of writing that book that's going to make me famous. And the film I'm going to direct. And the music album I'm going to record. And the Oscars and Grammys I'll struggle to find a place for on the shelf. And the day I'm going to be President. There's so much to do and so little time! Gosh!

- And most importantly, I'm alive to document this bullshit. Hail and hearty. I made it! Way to go survivor!

Revelations

Last week I had a couple of visitors: my brother and his (infinitely) better half P. The fact that it would be an exciting week was beyond question. And a delightful week it was. But more importantly I learnt a  thing or two about myself.

1. I'm quite the hyperventilating perfectionist. I always thought myself to be calm, almost stoic and perfection was never up on my priority list anyway. As long as I did a decent job I was happy. But when my brother told me about his plans of coming down to Seattle for a few days along with P, I freaked. I wanted to do ten thousand things with them and couldn't for the life of me decide on an itinerary. And considering I had a whole spectrum of activities to choose from, ranging from whale watching to sky diving, it didn't make my job any easier. I would make a list every morning, and then over the course of the day, painfully scratch the items off of it, one by one, on the grounds of whether it was too over-the-top-bordering-on-impossible or just plain lame. I always prided myself in making quick decisions. Well that went for a toss! Although what I ended up deciding for them wasn't half as bad and they really liked the plan (or at least that's what I would like to believe), what I went through to get there was far from pleasant. I guess I'll just hire a travel agent next time to do all the planning for me while I do absolutely nothing but snore noisily. Oh!! But I'm not an investment banker. I forgot I was a grad student with no money. Dayam!

2. There's hardly any difference between me and a paranoid housewife. Why? Cos I couldn't decide what to cook for my guests. Not that they were particularly finicky eaters. But they cook quite well. Both of them. And considering not many people have eaten anything I cooked over the last year, there was ample room for self doubt. I couldn't decide whether to cook chicken or beef. So I called up my brother and asked what he preferred. He said "Should we get some food?". The faith he showed in my culinary abilities was disturbingly low. Annoyed, a teensy bit hurt and out to prove a point, I decided to cook both. And the time frame I was wrestling against turned out to be rather formidable. I cooked and I cooked and I cooked till the house smelt of a strange concoction of spices. I couldn't tell if it was good or bad cos my nose was blocked. Such immaculate timing! Not happy with just savory entrees, I decided on good old traditional apple pie for dessert. Excited to see how it looks, I tried taking it out of the oven and singed myself against the burning upper rack! Ouch. I almost dropped the pie on the floor and almost closed the oven door on my fingers. None of which thankfully happened. Exhausted, injured and with a severely deflated ego I decided to end this ordeal and crash. Only I couldn't sleep. Not a wink. For three whole nights. Man! I'm glad they lapped up everything I prepared for them. But this paranoid housewife syndrome is NOT cool.

3. I've apparently lost a ton of weight. Or so they thought. My brother politely put it as, 'You look like a hanger!' Honesty can be quite painful. If you ask me, lying is the way to go. But now that it was out in the open, and I couldn't exactly deny it, I asked him what I could do to address the issue of uncontrolled weight loss, knowing fully well what the answer would be. Exercise.*Shudder*. So here's the deal. From as far back as I remember, I've always hated exercise or anything that remotely involves the movement of limbs. I could sit on my ass for days without getting off my bed, holding a cup of coffee, watching my favourite TV show and you wouldn't hear so much as a wince while my insides rot. I'm quite certain I was one of those lazy feudal landlords, with a hundred servants, one fanning me from above, one pouring wine in my ornate brass chalice, and another giving me a relaxing foot massage while I revel in the decadence of it all. Bliss. In my defense, I did try joining the gym for a couple of months last summer but gave it up soon enough, complaining about it being stinky, and them not having enough equipment (which is a lie!) and that the trainers were conspicuously overweight (which is true!) and hence far from being the 'well-toned' example they were supposed to set. Fine, I agree they were mostly excuses. But hell, it was boring. Not to mention, I could feel muscles in my body I thought I never had, and the feeling was far from rewarding. I felt like a bag of brittle bones threatening to snap with every move. If anyone has gymmed seriously even for a few weeks and not spent their time staring at themselves in the mirror, admiring their non-existent muscles, they would know the truth in this. Anyway having established how lazy I really am, I decided to take charge and start doing some exercise. Maybe swimming (which I used to love when I was a kid)  or running (which is a lot more convenient cos the University gym is quite some distance away. Averse to exercise remember? I'm not going to be a completely changed man overnight, right?!) So yesterday I went running in the evening. A thirty minute brisk run. I almost died panting. But it was totally worth it. And I felt alive and totally in control which is an awesome feeling. Except that I can't feel my legs today and am already having second thoughts about going running tonight. Divine intervention needed. NOW.

NOT my fault!

I tried to keep movies/music out of my blog for a while now, lest it turned into one of those blogs. However, considering they are an integral part of my life, and keeps my otherwise mundane grad school life even slightly interesting, I thought they deserved a place here. Don't worry. I'm NOT going to bore you with the millionth review of The Dark Knight (I STILL haven't watched the movie can you believe it? Sadness. No points for guessing why I find its reviews particularly annoying, especially the ones that talk about how amazing Anne Hathaway was as Catwoman. I love that girl! L.O.V.E. ). What I will talk about though are some of those movies/songs that ruled the charts at its time and left an indelible mark, on a particularly impressionable kid (I'm still kind of a kid no? All those itching to correct me, screw you!). So if you think I'm  weird, mad, say or do things that are majorly inappropriate and often uncalled for then you know who/what to blame. Its NOT my fault. And just so you know, it NEVER is. 

Jumma Chumma: One of the first songs I learnt as a kid (Can you believe it?). In my defense, I never intended to learn it. It was on radio and television ALL the time. And considering I was three, and had no idea what 'Chumma' meant, and had a ear that picked up almost anything it heard, you can't blame me for finding the tune incredibly catchy. Mom was tying my shoelaces one morning, and I happened to hum two lines of the song. Well what happened next was nothing short of legendary. Although I don't remember most of it ( Did I mention I was three? Lord! ), but I do remember that there was a lot of yelling and frantic flailing of arms in the air. I think my mom cried too, thinking she'd lost a perfectly innocent child to the 'adult' world of Bollywood, despite her strict regulations revolving around the idiot box. I just didn't get what all the hue and cry was about, except that my brother kept saying "Haww" for a week after the incident (He was rather annoying then. Hope he's not reading this. If you are, I want you to know that I love you NO MATTER WHAT. :)) Years later, when I heard the song again, I was quite disturbed by the utter lack of taste I had as a kid. Also the idea of a fifty something Amitabh Bachhan shamelessly hitting on a twenty something girl in a hideous black and red can-can was not exactly appealing. My first stint with the inappropriate. And seriously, what's with the mugs? Sheesh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

Don't break my hut: Why would you wanna do that? No really. Why? Why break some poor bloke's hut? Especially when he pleads the girl not to break his hut, she nonchalantly screeches, "I weel. I weel." How incredibly mean! And the most confusing part of it was how the guy seemed to enjoy it, and danced and jumped in the air in response. As a perplexed fourth standard student I asked my mom:

Me: Mom?
Mom (anticipating a nonsensical question, hardly looking up from the newspaper): What?
Me: Why does Madhuri want to break that boy's hut?
Mom (answers disinterestedly): Who's this Madhuri now? Some new girl? (Seriously, I was NEVER a playboy.)
Me: No no. Dixit. Actress.
Mom (swaying her head disapprovingly): You should stop watching TV all the time and do something constructive. 
Me: Maaa! Not the point! Tell me no. Why does she want to break his hut?
Mom: You think they live in huts? Really?! (In all seriousness, I never thought about the obviously foreign locations this song was shot in. Not to mention the gross-but-expensive looking black leather jacket, dangling silver chains and what not. Question. Do black leather and silver go together? Except that hip-hop artists seem to carry them off with considerable ease.)
Dad (chipping in from afar): Its not hut. Its 'heart'. 
Mom (turning to dad): I guess that's worse.

They consequently got sucked into an extremely animated conversation about how breaking someone's heart is worse than demolishing someone's apartment. And how men are dogs, and women only sing about breaking hearts while in reality guys do it all the time. Mom won the argument. As usual. Duh. But seriously, wasn't horrendous English pronunciation the primary focus here? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ07sN1b-ZY

Kaun: I was never a man with a strong heart. I think I blamed my mother for it in a previous post. Can't remember which one. But that's besides the point. The thing you have to know about me is that I have always been TERRIFIED of ghosts. Like the peeing-in-the-pants type (Although I had a cousin who was worse. He screamed like a girl while watching a movie about impossibly large and hairy mutated spiders. If you're curious, go watch 'Eight Legged Freaks'. I think its a laugh riot). At the same time I was a sucker for ghost stories. From the more popular/widely read 'Monkey's Paw' and 'Dracula' to the more obscure 'Bandage Bhoot' and 'Brahmadoitto' (which translates to Brahmin Bhoot, complete with a sacred thread and kumkum-smeared forehead ) that my granny created to entertain an often annoying grandkid, I had them all by heart. Literally. What happened as a result, was that I was perenially scared of the dark, of anything remotely unfamilar/unseen. Its like living in a world of ghosts. Also the fact that I had a particular sadistic Dad who reveled in jumping out from weird corners, with flared eyes, clawed palms, shrieking hysterically just to see his own kid shiver till his knees rattled, didn't help in the least. (Seriously. Who does that? That too to their own kid?!) 
Thrillers came a close second. Especially the ones involving psycopaths/serial killers/ gore fests in general. The movie that damaged me for life was one called 'Kaun', released in 1999, that met with a rather luke warm response at the box office. I was twelve then. The empty house, an eccentric Manoj Bajpai looking for Mr. Malhotra on a rainy night, a lonely woman hearing about a serial killer on the loose, and all that went on in those two taut hours had me hooked, cowering behind a cushion for cover, aforementioned sadistic Dad jumping from behind at the worst moments. I was traumatized. Literally. I couldn't sleep for days. I thought my dad strangely resembled Manoj Bajpai from the movie. Eeeeee. I think that was one of Ram Gopal Varma's best. But then he degenerated into someone who made 'Phoonk' and later,'Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag', both intolerable yawn-fests. Not to mention a talented Urmila Mantondkar ending up playing the lead in all movies that required the central character to be traumatized/crazy/mentally disbalanced/possessed by a spirit. In her comeback venture Karzzzzzzzzzzzzz, she did look strangely ghost-like. Scary. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqtSQ6KWRSg

No Entry: Officially the worst song that Bollywood has ever churned out. There are a few close competitors  but this is undeniably the worst. The WORST. The song has a total of 51 'NO's in the chorus. Fifty-effing-one!! Can you believe it? My head starts spinning after the first ten 'No's. And incase you're wondering, YES I counted them. (Ya ya. I have nothing better to do. Blah Blah. Keep talking.) My head starts spinning after I hear the first ten of them. Seriously. There's no entry in 'Ishq di Gali'. I get it. Its pretty straightforward. There's a red light and you need to stop your car. But you DON'T have to say it so many times! Shut the f**k up already! But considering the men involved in this song ranged from Salman Khan to Anil Kapoor to some other fifty something old hag of an actor whose name I forget/never bothered to find out, I can imagine why this had to be reiterated to the extent that the only word that was buzzing in your ears was NO. Also why would you want to walk through this Love-Gali holding Bipasha Basu's hand? Have you seen her in this song? What with the psychedelic purples and pinks, golden shimmer face paint and the rather obvious wobbly flab made worse with all the furious gyration, she looks likes a witch, or even better, Amrish Puri. (Do you see the resemblance? :P) *Shudder*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGdRVy5Poc0

And all those million people out there who had this song as there ring tone/caller tune/door bell/morning alarm at any point in your life, I think its time you consider killing yourself. Or else I'll hunt you down and make you pay. The former will be a lot more respectable. Trust me. 

'Aap ka Suroor' crap club: Ooooooooo Suroor! The constipated thing called Himesh Reshammiya. Enough said!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSVlg08l50w&feature=fvwrel

And after Britney Spears, Rebecca Black, Justin Beiber and Carly Rae Jepsen, all my mental faculties have been successfully numbed. And recently, the last nail was mercilessly drilled into my coffin. Psy, you killed me. Yes. YOU!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

My Didu Strongest!

Didu = Maternal Grandmother.

My maternal grandmother.

And just in case you're wondering, NO! My granny does not look like the lady above. Maybe she owned a pair of glasses like her, sometime during her lifetime (Didn't they all?). But the similarity ends there. Then why the pic? Well, that was the only good blog-worthy picture I got when I googled the words 'Awesome Old Lady' (Well I can't really blame google here, cos the closest match I could think of was Miss Marple, and all she did was sit in a chair, knit and solve mysteries. I think they should come up with an octogenarian  caped crusader kind of thing for senior citizens. They need a role model too right?!) Yes. That's Didu. Awesome Old Lady. She might not have gone out into the wild, chasing lions with a rifle, yelling 'Bad Kitty!', but she has some serious star potential. I always knew it. She was never the regular grandmother that I heard stories about from my friends. Ofcourse she was loving, and spoilt us brothers with candies till we complained of toothache. But that was not all. I always suspected she had some hidden superpowers, or had been a spy in her past life, or something similarly cool. Well, the last bit was a bit of a stretch, I agree. But hey! This is my blog. Deal with it.

I'm too sexy for my shirt : Considering this is a post about Granny, some of you might think this to be a bit inappropriate. But the song defines her. Yes. She has an aversion towards excessive clothing. And by excessive I mean regular. Often to the point of embarrassing her grandchildren and family members in general. Her absolute favourite activity of the day, is to emerge from the bathroom after an hour-long shower in nothing but a soaking wet translucent gamchha (which is a threadbare inexpensive cotton rag-towel, for the uninitiated) and walk to the verandah in broad daylight, with the intention of putting her clothes to dry. She walks nonchalantly paying no attention to the red-faced family members, zig-zagging across the room  with various items of clothing, just to cover her up. FAIL. She spends another hour spreading her saree out on the line. Such ceremony, I tell you. I wonder why she takes the pain to wash it everyday when she hardly puts it on. She even spends a few minutes chatting up some obscure vendor passing by on the street below, about how expensive potatoes have become these days, as if they were best buddies from school, mostly yelling to make herself heard, and garnering unnecessary attention from the curious. All of this, in just a bedraggled gamcha. 

After contemplating how to avoid being seen with her in the future, lest they find out we're related, I drum up my most I-mean-business like voice and ask, " Didu, why don't you put some clothes on next time? " Her reply. " Its the age of exhibitionism. Also, it's hot no? " Point taken. I haven't come up with a good enough counter to that argument till date. Honestly, if she was born in today's age, she would have at least become a Bollywood star/starlet, if not a successful swimwear model. She has talent. Trust me.

Penny wise - Pound foolish : Didu has always had a fascination for coins. And irritatingly so. Its like, anything greater than a rupee doesn't stick to her. And imagine paying ten bucks in quarters on a regular basis. Here's a sample conversation with a regular rickshaw driver. Let's call him Dhanno ( I know Dhanno was a horse and its a bit demeaning, but in my defense, he was NOT as pretty as Basanti. )

Didu (getting off in front of our house): How much?
Dhanno: Mashima, ten rupees.
Didu (yelling): What?!! Are you mad? Take five.
Dhanno (shocked by the drastic reduction in fare): What are you saying, Mashima? What do you get for five bucks these days?
Didu (sounding profoundly wise): This is not America or Bombay (They have the same cost of living remember?). This is Calcutta. You get a LOT for five bucks. For example...
Dhanno (cutting her short, and sounding slightly defeated): Okay FINE! I'll take eight. But not a penny less.
Didu (decisively, her game face on): Seven!
Dhanno (exhausted): Deal!

Particularly pleased by her victory, Didu goes on to 'gather' seven bucks from her purse, her fuzzy glasses not helping in the least. Turning to me ( Yes. I was standing next to her, with my head down, the entire time. )

Didu: I can't see very well. Darned glasses. Would you be a dear and get seven bucks from my purse?
Me ( sensing this was a trap ): No! Why can't you do it? Your glasses seem perfectly fine to me.
Dhanno (chipping in impatiently): Hurry up you two! I don't have the whole day.

I proceed to rummage through her purse obediently. All I could see were coins. No paper notes. No fivers. Just ones, twos, quarters and quite a few embarrassing 20 paisas, which had gone out of circulation twenty something years back. I swear I wanted to cry. After a good fifteen minutes of frantic searching and furious counting I manage to put together seven bucks. Phew! But there was one problem. How do you hand over a bunch of coins to someone? In a pouch? Tell him to cup his hands so we can pour them in? Well  Didu tackled that with ease. She told him to do exactly that. CUP HIS HANDS! In hindsight the entire scene was kind of funny. But at that moment, standing there, soaking in the shame and gawking at Granny's incorrigible behaviour, there was nothing remotely amusing about it, trust me.

On our way up, I asked, "Didu! What happened to the ten rupee note I stuck in your purse yesterday?" I did it secretly the night before when she was fast asleep, to save myself this inevitable trauma. That ten-rupee note was precious. It was my weekly allowance. It was hard, but I absolutely HAD TO do it. "You did? I had no idea. Where did it go?" Seriously. Where did it go? Did it just turn into quarters overnight. Or her bag had a hole in it, which only allowed paper bills to pass through. I guess there's only one explanation. Magic! I told you she had superpowers. Wait. I think I saw a cape. *goosebumps*

I am a DiscoDancer : Didu has had arthritis for what seems like ages now. But she has a fascination for dance. (Not that they are related. But when I think of weak knees, dance doesn't exactly cross my mind. ) And I'm talking Bollywood here. Not Bharatnatyam. Not kathak. Bollywood. If there's an award function on TV, she's hooked. What with all the Sheelas, Munnis and Chikni Chamelis  gyrating on screen, her seventy-year (?) old eyes light up at the slightest sound of thumping techno beats. Its not surprising that not everyone in the house share her sentiments on this issue, especially my mom. She's more into singing reality shows. Thus ensues an unending battle for the remote control. Who will win? Music or Dance? Not to mention the men have no say in this. Nada.

Didu (in a rather reproachful voice): Your mom makes me so angry.
Me (paying no attention): When does she not.
Didu (sensing the indifference): No. Listen to me. She always watches that stupid show on TV. And never allows me to watch what I want.
Me (rather curious): And which one would that be? (expecting the name of some KKKK.. serial. The four K's apparently have some sort of numerological significance. My Ass.)
Didu (solemnly): Indian Idol.
Me (quite taken aback. Actually I dont mind that show. Although Anu Malik gets on my nerves with his retarded efforts to rhyme): Why? What's wrong with that? What do you want to watch instead.
Didu (excitedly): Jhalak Dikhla Ja.

And here I thought she wanted to follow Aastha or some similar 'spirituality' channel, where they keep chanting tunelessly all day like a bunch of dead men. I guess that's not her thing. And considering I've seen her often doze off in the name of prayer/meditation, and the fact that her day-to-day questions range from whether Ranbir really loved Deepika, or whether Saif's 'Kareena' tattoo was real, I should have known better. She should have been in showbusiness. Dayam!

Madame Smartypants :

- A recent skype conversation during which I happened to be in an extremely whiny mood :

Me (sulking): Didu! I hate making lunch everyday. I'm sick of my ham sandwich.
Didu (peering into the webcam. I think she brushed her nose once too.): Why don't you buy something for lunch everyday?
Me (more sulking): It's expensive. You know how big a miser I am.
Didu: How expensive is it? Can't be more than two dollars! (She's still not used to inflation.)
Me (trying my best to enlighten her): Two dollars converts to a hundred rupees!
Didu (in a tone of correction): Nope. It converts to 111 rupees.
Me (shocked out of my wits): How the hell do you know that?
Didu: Simple. I follow currency exchange rates in the newspaper.

I died. Well almost.

- My Mom and Didu keep fighting all the time. They cannot live without each other, mind you. But their life seems almost incomplete if they don't lock horns at least once a day over something inconsequential. I guess its just women. Anyway the verbal exchange that eventually follows is a guaranteed treat. Here's a sample.

Didu (to a yelling mom. I still don't know what the issue/non-issue was.): Why do you scream so much?
Mom (still yelling): Cos you're hard of hearing.
Didu (unable to contest that): Err. So what? You can yell and still be polite no? (That's not possible right?) Anyway, when you yell you sound just like Bimala. (Bimala has been our househelp for almost ten years now. With a heart of gold, subliminal cooking skills and a shrill glass-shattering voice, she's a force to reckon with.)
Mom (flipping her lid): Are you comparing me to her now? Ofcourse. I'm illiterate.
Didu (strangely calm): You don't have to take offence. So was Kalidas.

Well she does have a point. Mom stopped yelling almost instantly. She was taken aback by her spontaneous brilliance. Who wouldn't?

So are you convinced that my Granny is awesome-bordering-on-superhuman? If not, I feel sorry for you. Cos I'm a believer.

The Adventures of BongMan and Me - Part II

There's so much to crib about and so little time! Gah! So without much ado, lets get down to some serious BongMan trashing.

More excerpts from previously mentioned travel journal:

- Some of the most annoying Bongs I had the misfortune of travelling with are the ones who come with kids. Usually two. And each more intolerable than the other. The kicking, screaming, crying, scratching, running-up-and-down-the-length-of-the-compartment kinds. Makes me want to yell and tear my hair out, to say the least. But maybe its gotten less to do with them being Bong. Maybe its just KIDS. Look I love kids. I think they have the most adorable 'behinds' among other qualities. But they're not my ideal companions, so to speak, on journeys or inside movie theaters. They unleash the Devil in me, and that's an understatement. If I hadn't been introduced to the concept of self control I would have been behind bars for assault ages ago. Trust me. The problem in most of these cases is bad/terrible parenting. According to me, kids should not be allowed to travel/enter movie theaters till they're at least ten. And if they are, their parents should be prepared to see their kids with popcorn buckets dumped on their heads. Anyway, lets not digress from the issue at hand - Bong parents with kids on trains. FOCUS.

BongDad (Bad), BongMom (Bom) and BongBaby (Butt) enter air-conditioned compartment of the Calcutta Rajdhani (I refuse to call it 'Kolkata'. So give it a rest!). Me, hiding behind my book, sigh, almost audibly, attracting unnecessary attention. Damn. They've seen me now. Pointless conversation becomes inevitable.

Bad (turning to me): It's so hot isn't it? (wiping sweat off his face with an already drenched handkerchief.)
Me (still unable to forgive myself for inviting conversation): It is.
Bom: Its quite cold in the compartment though. (It's air-conditioned! Duh! Also notice the insistence on stating the obvious.)
Bad (turning to wife): Give Bontu some food. He must be hungry. (presuming Bontu is the name of the hapless child.)
Butt (whining): Noooooooooooo. I'm not hungry.
Bom: Bontu Shona. Please eat something.
Butt: No! (Yelling unnecessarily. Kids!)
Bom (Giving up. I would have killed myself or her if this exchange continued any longer): Fine! Do what you want. Next time you pester me for food, you ain't getting any.
Butt: Mummy! Where will I sleep?
Bom (Obviously offended by afore mentioned refusal of food. I presume she made it with all the love in her heart.): You'll sleep in the lower berth.
Butt (wailing): Noooooooooooooo. I want to sleep up there (pointing to the top bunk and simultaneously scrutinizing ways of getting there.)
Bom (Making weird facial contortions, supposedly trying to scare the child into obedience): I said NO! No more arguing. You'll be sleeping in the lower bunk. That's final. Now stop your nonsense. Look, uncle is getting angry. (pointing at me. Me infuriated at being called 'uncle'. Seriously?!! May you be pelted with stones Woman!)

Butt casts a quick look at me to make sure whether 'Uncle' was really mad at him or his beloved mother was lying through her teeth. It doesn't take long for him to figure out that the latter was true. Goes back to his usual shenanigans.

Butt (impatiently): Mummy! I'm going upstairs (meaning top bunk).
Bom (Looking out of the window, least bothered about safety of her child): Do what you want. (Me thinking why I never heard these words from my mother. But probably this is why I turned out so awesome. Did I hear whispering? Don't worry. I'll find you whoever you are.)

Butt, unable to control his excitement at being offered unlimited access to the delectable top bunk, starts swinging from whatever he could find, across the seats, showing unbelievable skill and letting out occasional ape-like noises (or maybe Tarzan. But what's the difference? Po'tay'to-Po'taa'to.)

Bom (suddenly realizing the damages associated with above mentioned wild behaviour, starts yelling): Get down from there! (turning to snoring husband) Get up! Look what Bontu's doing. He'll fall and hurt himself. Please put him up on the top bunk (Turning to Bontu, hanging upside down at this point) Bontu! Its very cold up there. You'll catch the flu. Wear your monkey-cap! (Now I know why they're called 'Monkey' caps!)

Bom forces a woolen, black and pink polka dotted monkey cap over dangling Bontu's head.  (The colour scheme/design is very important to completely visualize this bizarre spectacle. Stop scoffing you!) Bontu wriggles but he couldn't do much given the position he was stuck in. I'm sure he wished he was Spider-Man. I wanted to let him know that he was not far behind.

After what seemed like hours of yelling, kicking and dangling, Bontu finally made it to the top bunk. I thought now is the time for peace. But did I tell you he was a kid?!! Within minutes of reaching the summit, he wanted to come down again. But unfortunately, after considerable deliberation, the only option he could think of was free-fall. And although he wished he could fly, he realized he was not a bird or born of particularly superhuman parents. So he decides to cry. (At this point, I gave up all hopes of reading my book and tucked it away in one of the bunk-pouches. Yes. I gave up. I lost. Happy?) Not content with just wailing at the top of his lungs, Bontu decides to sneeze. He first irritates the hell out of perfectly innocent fellow travellers like me, and then goes on to kill them with mucus-laden bacteria. Yes. Kill me Bontu. I'd rather die.

Alarmed by the sneeze, Bom gets worried and severely pokes her sleeping husband (How can anybody sleep through all of this? Beats me. But in hindsight, I guess this goes on at home everyday. Poor old Mr. Bad.)

Bad (startled): What? Where?!!!
Bom: Bontu's caught a cold! I told you to not let him go up there. Keep sleeping. All your life!

Bad, being reprimanded by darling wife thus, promptly rescues Bontu from the dark, cold upper berth. (Not so delectable now eh Bontu?! *snigger*) Bom gives Bontu a bone-crushing hug, as if he just came back from the battlefield. Bontu, all sweaty from the excessive physical exercise, sneezes again.

Bom (alarmed) : Why're you sweating so much? (Why?!! Really?) (Takes off the hideous monkey cap, and finds Bontu's hair to be soaking wet) I told you not to run around in the train. But do you ever listen to me Bontu?! (nailing the I-am-hurt tone. Sorry to burst your bubble lady, but that won't work on the Devil you happen to call your son. Not in a million years.) The upper bunk is really cold. And the AC has been turned up so much. Its freezing in here!

No it's not. Get that darned Monkey cap off his head and all will be fine in Bontu-Land.

P.S. As much as I hate you BongMan, my journeys wouldn't have been half as eventful, if it wasn't for your annoying self . Not to mention your darling offsprings. There. I said it. You're not mad at me anymore are you? *nudge*