A bit about marriage, because we turn 8 soon

It’s a bronze! (Though a diamond would do just as well.)

Yep! We turn 8 together on July 11th, husband and That-which-he-signed-up-for-sans-a-clue-of-what-comes-next (which is me, for now, till our kid turns a teen). Thank you. Thank you very much for your advanced blessings towards our well-being and togetherness and contentment (whatever that be).

Now, I intend no romantic musings here on this day or any day, especially because my husband has been sitting put rather quietly on the opposite side of the Expressive-Lover spectrum all these years. And hence, no pink hearts will fly out of this tiny piece. In fact, I don’t even know what I am doing here, instead of swiping his credit card to indulge my fantasies in shops selling firangi surplus at the price of airplanes. Or, mollycoddling him into flying me away for a 2nd honeymoon (we’re yet to reach 8 on that front). Or prattling my way on the pillow to convince him how a separate car for the wife keeps the mechanic away. Yes, yes, the materialistic wife you must have read about when marriage gets stereotyped. Of course, I am not the kind, and quite kind in being a ‘low maintenance’ object.

But these stereotypes, I tell you. They spare none, and everyone stands naked at the judgment door of shoe-boxing. As “modernity” would have it, marriage has not been spared.

Over 8 years of compulsorily being tied-up with one man, I’ve been hearing a lot of “truths” about marriage and married couples, especially from those who are happily single and not ready to mingle (smart ones!). And listening to that itemized fact file confuses me. Because, as Fate would have it, I can’t match their list to what my marriage has actually been like. Obviously, it must be all thanks to the dashing, super-intelligent personality that my husband got married to.

But whenever I read marriage defined in self-help bullet points, I do sit and wonder if no two people are alike, can two marriages be the same? Is it so simple to define what ‘Being Married’ means, in order to guide humanity a certain way and down the single cliff facing the sea? Yep! I do believe in marriage, and while I may never start my own match-making site, I leave no stone unturned to guide people towards the trusted ones. (Disclaimer – this is not a sponsored post.)

You shouldn’t get me wrong, not today, please. I don’t undermine people who tried it and took the highway anyway. In fact, a part of me admires them for it. I also don’t mean to naively overlook the not-so-pleasant experiences so many of my friends and family members have been through. But, I do feel afraid that people will believe in the stereotyping enough to never have the cake and eat it too. (I enjoy a sweet tooth.) 

It may seem so, but married couples don’t follow set mundane patterns of love-marriage-kids-charm lost-school-college-kid’s love-kid’s marriage-kid’s kids … you get the drift. They’re not drowning in a river of the mundane, certainly not always. It is what they do and how they do it, together, at each phase of life that brings in the uniqueness of experience. (Of course, the same khichdi may taste different on different days depending on the marital mood and likewise different khichdi may taste the same because he always forgets the salt!) But travelling as a family of three is as fun as partying with your girls sans the men. I know a lot of us who are fortunate to not feel ‘restricted’ in our persons and beings just because we are married, so really don’t believe all marriages are corsets around your chests. In fact, if any husband has a super wife like me, he will vouch for the intoxicated free-spiritedness that can be a part and parcel of many knots, up until the kids come to sleep in between you. (Then, you start resembling each other!)

Another thing. We all begin by cherishing the idea of ‘our space’, and elders believe hostels are to blame for us becoming the ‘private type’. Let me tell you something. That slice of your plot on the moon doesn’t always get annexed by the warfare of marriage (though the wardrobe may, much to the chagrin of a tidy wife). In fact, co-habitation gives a different meaning to the word ‘space’, and one which may allow for enough room to not just ‘be’ but also ‘become’ in another’s company (how beautifully I write).

I had broken up with my husband even before I had said ‘yes!’ to him, because I mistook his idea of ‘space’ for zany nothings. I made up (on Gandhi Jayanti, just a digressive detail) because when I shared my misgivings about us changing with time (okay, typical, I get it) he assured me that we will change; change as we go along, and so will our relationship. ‘Wouldn’t that be such a beauty?’ I never heard such poetics again, but that day it had driven me to foot the bill. And say yes to taking our shared cause to my parents, all alone, terrified, foot-in-mouth, heart on sleeve while all the while mister probationer partied up in the Academy in Mussoorie just because he cleared the darned UPSC! On top of that …

Okay. You’re bored. And a matrimonial site has still not contacted me to sponsor this post. But I must end it with a flourish, nonetheless.

How would I have all this gyan if it wasn’t for him, no? Am I thanking him? Somewhat. But all claps need two hands, and I’m giving him one half of the thank you and retaining the ‘better half’ of it for myself. 

8 years soon. 

On Saturday, we plan to be 2 again. You ask why not one? No. That first year was all about throwing rocks and rolling away. More about it in case he doesn’t get me a big gift. I already have got him a present he can wear all the time. I got it for free, so he really should be happy.

Happy Anniversary to my husband, and obviously a very nice one to me also!

The Uncle’s Secret

Once upon a time there lived an Uncle in a double-storied house, with ornate railings and palm trees, in a small colony of New Delhi. It was a colony where the pride of knowing the property’s worth was much more than the breadth of the lane separating the windows of houses. Not once did the residents mind what others saw as congestion. After all, most Jaguars could well slide into the ground floors, uniformly turned into garages with elevators to carry the owners up one floor, or more. Uncle’s old-but-maintained duplex, enjoying a view of the lush-green Jassa Singh Park, was considered prime property. Plus, he had no tenants, like some others. He didn’t need to. This fact had got him a seat in the RWA Executive.  

At the time of this story, Uncle must have been 50, or something. His dusky cheeks, slightly saggy, were usually clean-shaven except on Sunday mornings. On Sunday mornings a grey stubble was allowed to erupt in holiday mood to make merry with the wet henna in his hair, now receding South-ward. The draw strings of the Puma hosiery shorts he slept in dangled in delight till late afternoon, and in places they waited all week to be walked to – garden, gate and even across the lane. It was an exposure they did not get, thanks to Uncle’s realty business where meetings with parties happened so often, so suddenly and in such secret circumstances sometimes that Aunty stopped caring about waiting to eat her meals with him. That she was usually on a gluten-free diet helped. 

He was a proper Punjabi, this Uncle, as was his wife, the parents tucked away in separate places, the two daughters, one son and one dog he bought instantly on learning from a close family friend that it was imported. Overall, it was a happy family. The women in the house had their lives, the boy his, the Uncle his own. But, it was this routine of Uncle’s that had always carried a secret none knew, except Shaggy. 

Yes, he had named the dog Shaggy, the one he bought from his close family friend, and for reasons unknown to him his children hated that word, or its short form. And so they hated the dog. Uncle loved Shaggy though, so much that not a morning would pass without them both going for a walk to Jassa Singh Park, adjacent to the Press Colony (only a patch of which was an open-defecation ground). There Uncle would talk to Shaggy ever since he was a pup, about his secret. 

His secret love for dancing. 

Yes, Uncle lusted after dance. Anywhere. Any kind. Just watching good dancing was not the point. Being in the middle of it, hands and body and all, was what made his heart beat like the clang of drums. In long dialogues with Shaggy, Uncle would tell him how he always wanted to become a dancer but never spoke another word after his father threw a ghara full of water his way to drown the dream forever, in a small village in Punjab. Uncle had taken two days, and downed three glasses of Lassi just before mustering enough courage to whisper his dream to his father. But the Punjabi expletives deafened his passion out.  Like the five rivers in monsoon had flowed Uncle’s tears. Then one day, they just dried up. As did the sound of some names his father called him, in place of a simple 'dancer'.

Shaggy knew the whole story. Shaggy also knew Uncle secretly danced. After all, he and the mirror alone stood witness to this expression of hidden love, every time Uncle’s wife and children were off to live their happy lives in their own cars with their own friends. Oh, those were the times when Uncle felt so alive! He would tune in to FM Radio and without bothering to select the music just let his arms and legs, belly and thighs, feet and toes, fingers and hands follow his heart. He would pant, he would sweat, stop a second to catch his breath or put the stray orange-and-grey strands back from his forehead, but he would not stop till a party was calling his mobile, or the gate guard was calling him because the gardener had spoilt his wife’s rockery, again. He lived to dance. He loved his secret. He loved Shaggy for being his confidante. He loved his wife and children for seeing the sweat and thinking it was cholesterol’s doing. He didn’t even mind that on such days he was asked to not eat the meat-curry. For health issues, that is.  

That is why, when the doorbell rang and he received an invite for a wedding, he was ecstatic. Of course, there would be a DJ called Melodhika with lights and sounds from another planet for him to dance to. But before that and what’s more, he would be dancing in a baraat! It was a distant cousin’s son’s wedding, and following the mare-with-the-groom would be a glittering mob footloose on the road. That special moment of dance, knowing that one is being watched, yet also knowing that one can dance without being noticed, being judged, being mocked by one’s father, freed his soul. 

He still remembered the wedding from last year, when he had danced from Subhash Nagar all the way to Tagore Garden, crossing markets and a temple, a metro station and even two schools. It was a joy he could recollect with such passion as would make his pulse treble. That day on the road, he had lost two shirt buttons, his watch and the shagan lifafa, which his wife believed he used to stock-up his cousin’s Car-o-Bar but only he knew he had rained the currency all over the orchestra and light wallahs. Happiness made him generous. Plus, he could swear he saw appreciation in their eyes for his dancing moves. 

It was a freedom he hungered for. Oh, he could barely wait!

But not all stories that begin ‘Once upon a time’ end with a ‘happily ever after’. This chapter of Uncle’s story does not. On the evening of the wedding it rained. It rained for hours on end, refusing to let up. In the middle of March, the unexpected downpour refused to stop, spoiling everything from the wedding pandal to the wheat crops. At the auspicious hour, the baraat was reduced to a train of one decorated Merc, four SUVs, and three smaller cars humbly following behind. The mandap has been shifted indoors, and the DJ had fled. In umbrellas and over three rounds he tucked his family into one of the cars, and promised to reach Hotel Privilege Punjab the moment the rain stopped. It was a promise he knew he would not keep. 

He didn’t go, at all. 

His wife called once to ask after him, and then told him over a happy din to warm the pulao with dal and have it for dinner. She thought she heard wrong when he asked about the DJ. She hung up after telling him to instruct the gate guard about their expected time of arrival, to lock the main door since she had a key and just go to sleep. They were going to be very late. So, Uncle did as he was told. He gave Shaggy an extra helping of Pedigree biscuits and switched off the lights of the house, one slow click after another. Shaggy knew his master’s heart was broken. Only Shaggy knew why.

As if in a syrup of sadness, Uncle changed into his shorts in slow-motion and looked at himself in the mirror. Was this his father’s doing, colluding with the weather Gods and pouring a ghara of water on his day’s dream for which he waited three whole weeks? He laughed a quiet laugh at the analogy. It was just the simplest of wishes, of dancing freely as if the world didn’t exist, wasn’t it? When fathers and sons all danced together. Yes, they did. It was just that wish...just that, wasn’t it?

In the quiet of the house, the refrigerator chortled to a halt. The tap in the basin seemed loud, suddenly. The rain made the rest of the music, on the ornate railing, the palm trees and the snoring guard’s hut. The furrows on Uncle’s brow eased and he took a deep breath. And before Shaggy knew it, the walls around him became alive with shadows of arms and legs, belly and thighs, feet and toes, fingers and hands following his master’s heart. He had slipped to the bedroom door and curled up there a moment back. 

The only witness to Uncle’s secret.

The fault in our laughs, on Karvachauth

Let me begin this post by a status update Sfurti Sinha shared on the morning of the Karvachauth fast. 

‘Whether I am fasting or not - NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Whether my husband is fasting or not - NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. My life is mine, not yours. You are not in my marriage. Freedom and equality in true sense means choosing whatever I want to do, whatever makes sense to me. There is a fine line between having an opinion and sounding judgemental. Your opinions should be the basis your life, they shouldn't sound like a judgement on others.’

On a day when she had much else to take care of, Sfurti was ‘driven’ to vent publicly thus. If I wasn’t around in the same place last year, I would not have understood why. But I was. So in a way, I have been meaning to write this post since a year now. I waited because I wanted to see if rituals other than Karvachauth garnered loud amused laughter too. Not that I noticed any and certainly not equal in magnitude to the humour that surrounds a woman observing a fast for her husband. 

Here is me now, thinking aloud.

Humour is important. We have all read its various forms in different genres of different media. For instance, Theatre has used ‘uncomfortable laughter’ in the audience as a way to hold a mirror to their lives – political, social and even marital. Slapstick comedy shows a man slipping on a banana peel with similar intent; it could be you up there. Scatological references make us laugh because shit and spit is best seen on the other’s person. On television, we see stand-up humour including in its funny tentacles commentary on the government, the news channels and the entertainment industry.

While humour in the various arts was named and came with a larger purpose, the picture in the tweeting-updating social media is often like a mock-epic of what was once classic. ‘Art for art’s sake’ is no crime, but then really, what may be the point? Except wondering at the end of a virally-sharing day - whose line was it anyway?

On Karvachauth day, it doesn’t take much to realize that loose laughter is not just directed at the patriarchal ritual of fasting for a husband. The butts of the jokes become the women following it. Those laughing? The women who do not believe in it, of course. While what’s between the husband and the wife stays where it is supposed to, between them, everything else associated with Karvachauth occupies centre stage and space in the minds of those who have half-baked ideas about the ritual and none whatsoever about the fasting woman’s idea of it.

Thinking …

Is poking fun the best way to ‘guide’ a woman out of a deep-rooted patriarchal discourse? Isn’t it as unfair a ‘peer pressure’ as was given to her by those who made her embrace those traditions in the first place? How does our lackadaisical ‘promotion’ of an antithetical thought-process towards a redundant tradition differ in lack-of-substance from the stoical one of far Right. Are we, in our fun and games, creating but a poorer alternative even if at the other end of the spectrum? It is for this reason that I liked #FastForHer movement. It did nothing to do away with the day. But for now, it got men into the fray. A constructive step towards re-examining the necessity of it all by being a part of it. From inside the circle. A much better, more understanding way, to reverse trends. More sensitive too. 

Because …

We are not providing that line-towing woman sensible alternatives to a symbolism codified over generations, one she has believed in and which provides her with comfort. A kitty of jokes may get us a few giggling followers, but nothing more. The shell we want to break is built on three very thick layers – obedience, belief and comfort. If we are so desperate to break it, we'll need to know more about it.

But, why do we laugh?

Are we, in the larger scheme of things, trying to show her sense or poke fun at what we see as obsoleteness that she surrounds herself with? A bid of one-upmanship and modernity, maybe.  At the same time, furthering lines of difference based on our ideas of modern and ancient, tradition and revolution. Disservice is what we are doing, by making her feel outdated, conscious, stuck and worst of all outcast in lobbies which don’t fast. When the idea of feminism grew this mocking army amidst all the painstakingly-built theories and practice I know not, but I wish we remember what the movement we so glibly use essentially stood for. One word – Choice, as Sfurti’s status above signifies. 

Interestingly …

The tray that a woman carries for her Karvachauth puja holds a few symbols of matrimony. Most of those objects are found in most women’s dressing drawers that you and I anyway may use as a matter of routine, or during festive times. The difference is, she wants to spend a day with them while you may freely reserve the biggest bindis for your designer saris or Durga Puja times. (Yes, you may include that idea of a parlour visit in this, which for so many is one of the greatest social outlets in a year). To not eat is not so much of a suffering as it is made out to be, that too by those who are eating their three meals anyway. Concern doesn’t mock. It helps. But first, it has to try to understand what is wrong to understand the ‘victim’ of it all.

Did you who jest know … 

We don’t have to dress up as brides on Karvachauth. We don’t need to use sieves to look at the moon. Henna is not compulsory and neither is touching the husband's feet. I blame popular media for propagating limited understanding of this tradition. Which does mean, more groundwork needs to be done before the laughing party decides to become a mouthpiece carrying the cause of fasting women on its shoulders.

Manjulika did this for her mother-in-law.

Tanya created 'American Karvas'.

I think … 

Humour cannot alone help cut through years of nurture. Not even shake the idea of obedience to elders and fear of Gods; especially for rituals created around husbands’ well-being, because they are based on a relationship. It also will never stand ground against the idea of Choice, which women like me make when we decide to fast or not fast. If we are to liberate minds, we need to show them how our freedoms are worthy of emulation. In all the mindless cackling, the voices of sanity who seek to deliver women from coerced and oppressive rituals get drowned and lost. 

We need to question traditions to see how they affect gender narratives and we need to reinvent some of them to better suit the changing times, or do away with those which we no longer agree with. How we do it is the point, and the key to it is in each one of our hands or in our homes.  Read these lines shared by Hrishikesh Bawa:

“Fasting does not lead to anything … Love and respect for each other is more important," said a woman’s mother-in-law to her. I think a hero is not just the guerilla rebel. Sometimes, she is the one who is a part of the system too. Likewise, the one who impulsively jumps out of the ancient window might just have been a hasty fool.

This was probably my last year of observing this fast. My husband’s tank of patience with it is full. I no longer have to give company to my mother-in-law – in deed or in spirit – by not eating with her and enjoying the evening katha too. Next time, I will probably go to the other side of the fence, well aware of what made me follow the Karvachauth ritual and promising myself not to forget it. Perhaps, that will help me remain sensitive towards those who wish to do as they please.

Because you know as well as I do how private choices get played with on public trampolines all in the name of jest.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Community Service - Your entire community — however you define that; your hometown, your neighborhood, your family, your colleagues — is guaranteed to read your blog tomorrow. Write the post you’d like them all to see.]

Oldies Online and a Silly Switch

Mickey Mouse in his modern Clubhouse has a Silly Switch, which is essentially a multi-coloured lever with an ‘up’ and a ‘down’, the handle pilots use to fly planes faster in the storm when snakes, aliens or terrorists hijack them. Now, when this silly switch is switched on in this Clubhouse, silly things start happening all around. Think of H. E. Wilkinson’s poem ‘Topsy Turvy Land’ and multiply it by 10. That silly! Loony hell breaks loose. Tea pots start dancing, pairs of shoes elope and gadgets develop a mind of their own. The only thing that helps is finally pulling the lever down and stopping the silliness. 

While someone from Mickey’s brigade manages to do that sooner than later, it seems the young blood of today wonders if a Goofy has pulled the Silly Switch lever full way up in the world of chubsy-tubsy Oldies and their newly found retirement plan - the Internet. I will explain, but first some background. 

If we were to calculate the number of old people socially networking and those in queue waiting for the password to come to their minds from two hours ago, I am sure we will arrive at a mind-boggling figure. Those lovely pastimes of yore like gardening, knitting, sewing, walking and staring into infinity on park benches are gradually making way for a new found love lovingly called ‘doing the Internet’. Of course, there is a time for everything so surfing the web will probably mean post-medicines and after Philips Top 10 re-runs, but can be adjusted before cleaning the dentures, because teeth we don’t need in the www. So progressive, futuristic and so very cute! 

That is exactly why the youth of today are not amused.

With children either settled abroad or as far away as is needed to keep nostalgia alive but trips back home expensive, parents running free and wild online are becoming embarrassing, time consuming, reputation-downing and even heart-breaking for the sons and daughters of the said hexa-hepta-octa-genarians. While the old men and women were unavailable for comment (it must be www time), I spoke to some youngsters on why they seem so disturbed with their parents opening Gmail accounts and ‘coming on’ FB, for instance.

Says a 28-year-old woman (name withheld) working in the private sector – ‘My mother started using the internet a few months back. I was home for a holiday and for the first time ever she was more interested in ‘learning the net’ than rolling besan ladoos for me.  I opened her accounts, made the necessary flow charts, painted the CPU button red so she could locate it and came back to my working life without home-made achaar, ghee and nighties. My train was yet to reach when a Facebook notification said she had posted on my timeline. My moment full of pride turned dreary when I read ‘You have left two bras and one matching panty hanging on the clothes line. Please buy new ones. Only cotton, okay? Make sure you check the elastic. Bye Chunchun.’ At that moment, my phone lost signal. Needless to say, going back to office was a feat worthy of a bravery award. Clearly, she had not understood the concept of a private message. Still hasn’t. I catch her publicly having a private gossip conversation about a third party on the third party’s wall. How silly is that! No, I am not going home for Diwali this time. She can anyway email me spam forwards on how to keep my skin glowing, how to be a grateful daughter and how to find the right match. That is, if she is not posting them on my timeline.’

Zach (name forged) a 19-year-old college student shares his experience with utmost honesty, spiky hair and a hole in his jeans. ‘My dad is becoming an internet addict, man. It’s beyond me why he doesn’t want to read the newspaper any more, or, or talk to his other chums or something about cricket or whatever. It’s like every time I see him he’s sitting in front of the computer, with his nose touching the screen. Gosh, what could he be up to? I saw him on Twitter the other day. A ‘RampModelGal’ was talking about types of balls and he was discussing cricket with her. To think that my coach from school follows him. Shucks. Help me, man. I worry for him. He even sent a ‘namastey ji, have a blast ji’ to Savita Bhabhi thinking she’s his office senior’s wife celebrating her 50th birthday. He even accepted the invitation and RT-ed it when she said ‘my place, tonight ji.’ I am so screwed. To top it all, he will reason it out with me why this is the same Savita who I rode when I was a baby by poring over her picture. WTH, dude! He just doesn’t get it. Get him off!’

The Silly Switch is fully up, indeed.

Horrifically silly tales of oldies on the web can be heard from all corners of the world. A hypochondriac woman had a mild anxiety attack when her son screamed at her for getting a virus into the system. In the US of A, a man confused Google Plus with his insulin injection’s name and forgot he was yet to take it. He had spent 4 hours joining well-being communities there. A woman who won a spam lottery got so over-excited that her coronary arteries made her faint, come to, faint, come to and finally faint in the neighbour’s driveway. She could inform her friend only after gaining consciousness.  

This is not all. Oldie BPs are rising sky high looking at how impolite the youth of today are (even error messages are better mannered) refusing to troubleshoot ageing parents’ www-problems in the dusk of their lives. ‘Sorry, I’m busy’ is what the children have to say in answer to simple questions like ‘where is the key to the keyboard?’ and ‘Shared your diaper pics on your timeline. How do I tag my kitty friends now?’

Youngsters are not amused. Why else will they even refuse to respond to their parents’ calls beginning with a merrily innocent ‘Whatsapp, puttar!’ with no net-strings attached? Last I checked, such abused children were looking to form an underground organization for finding Mickey The Mouse. Why? To turn the Silly Switch down, of course. 

Disclaimer – Age is just a number. Do not take offence. I speak from the horse’s mouth.



[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Sorry, I’m busy - Tell us about a time when you should have helped someone… but didn’t.] 

Beard Talk

I will begin this manly post with swearing. Here goes – I swear that any resemblance between the items of this post and your brothers, boyfriends, blogger-throbs, sons, husbands and fathers-in-law is a matter of pure coincidence. I am pinching the skin of my Adam’s Apple and saying this. Swear! No fingers or toes are crossed as I say this and what is, remains none of your business.

I also promise you this post has not been written for a shaving contest with a year’s supply of pretty blue ladies razors up for grabs, even though I need one so badly my son has been mixing up my legs for my husband’s. Like it matters! Horses all kinds are meant to have hair all over. I’m only keeping it very real for my child’s favourite four-legged activity.

This post, macrocosmically, is a confession of the handful of regrets I have. Microcosmically, they are all to do with me commenting virally on the various kinds of beards I see walking-talking around me and how! Just imagine yourself a priest with me in the confession box and read. Also, I have made peace with the ‘Woman, you have sinned’ in my life so keep it to yourself and “listen” in silence. You see, I had to drink half a glass of Horlicks to feel encouraged to do this, especially since I’m not a regrets-on-the-table kind of person even though I am often quite a regrettable companion .

Like when I couldn’t resist asking my best friend’s brand new husband why he sports a week-long stubble every time we get together for a formal party. If only I had asked him just that on his house warming do. But no. How could I? ‘When you get your house whitewashed next time you don’t need sandpaper to scrub the floor.’ My husband, oh that clean shaven man God bless him, had choked, coughed, caught my thigh under the table and squeezed it. Our secret signal for when my sense of humour is lance-shaped. We met for my friend’s birthday at a swanky restaurant where he gifted her a pug in pink ribbons. All seemed to be going well with the mike being passed around and barks and blessings being tuned out when ‘Happy birthday, Sheena. Oh, you won’t need a brush to make your dog’s coat shiny and flea-free. You married one!’ said my mouth, half full of apple custard. I wasn’t drunk. Four vodkas with lime make you honest, not drunk (Do try it at home.) Of course I went home soon after, but with the greatest doubt playing aloud – does she wear gloves before doing paari to him? 

Did I ask her boyfriend this the next time we met? Of course!

A very cute boy in college had my full attention, till he started growing hair on his chin. No beard no moustache. It spread like a coir door mat covering what didn’t anyway seem a strong point of his features. Just his chin. In a few weeks, there was a forest there. I always wondered what shape the hair was in – Oval? Circle? Star? – Till he took a proud selfie with his chin raised and I realized it was shaped like algae and looked it too. Anyway, his door mat went wherever he did and I was certain I saw the guitar on his back green with jealousy in Chandni Chowk, wondering how come guitars were no longer the sole cynosures for 20-somethings. 'Did you kiss the ground Anil Kapoor walked on? His assets are stuck on your chin!’ The face he made I thought no human could. But then again, anything is possible with golgappe in the mouth. By Diwali we had made up. His mom sent gajar ka halwa for us poor hostellers. ‘Happy Diwali, Jiggs. You peeled the carrots well. Hope your mum didn’t take those nods as a yes for marriage.’ 

Obviously, I said it after I had eaten up the halwa. It was yum!

The most sinfully fascinating of all is that tiny beard (beard?) middle aged men have taken a liking to. Irrespective of the shape of the face, or any shape at all, so many are seen sporting an inverted triangle right under their lower lip, the most unloved place. An attempt to look kewl dewd? Younger? Nostalgia for college? While I was still trying to solve the mystery, one mister I had to encounter. Had to. Across a meal table. First I thought it was a bit of dal makhni stuck. After much staring in the direction of his lips, I realized it was follicular growth. That’s all it took to make me imagine him shaving in front of his mirror – razor in one hand, magnifying glass in the other, chin out-stretched with the combined efforts of teeth and tongue, and Van Gogh’s artistry. ‘You a fan of Shakespeare, sir?’ I had blurted before stuffing my mouth with biryani and hoping the “imperial” bone didn’t go the wrong way down his throat. It didn’t. The talk veered to the favourite topic between just-met friends – the GoI - and between sips of Coke and high on camaraderie I pointed towards him and said – ‘You could be a mascot for the government's Family Planning Scheme. Just paint the inverted triangle red.’

Needless to say, I blamed it on the caffeine. Needless to mention he will never lunch with me again.

I regret to have said all this and then to have repeated it here. So to whomsoever it is due, here's a heart-felt apology. 

But then, Humanity is bound in the sameness of being. Plato Neitzsche Decartes Anonymous said so. I am sure you too must have had the same beard thoughts. No? Very similar thoughts? Come on! Are you saying you have never noticed how the biggest most well-maintained mooches grow beneath shiny clean pates? The Gods work in crazy ways and the human body in crazier. ‘We can have hair!’ the foot-long monsters seem to be symbolising.  

Wait, let me go write about it in another post. 

And regret it all in yet another!  

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Regrets, I’ve had a few - What’s your biggest regret? How would your life have been different if you’d made another decision?]

It's a beautiful life

There was a fly sitting on her eye. She knew that. She could feel that. It’s a beautiful life … She did not know how to make it go away, as it tickled her slightly swollen eyelid looking for something between those lashes and making tiny footprints with the kohl that had formed wild black streams near her nose. It was moving around, that tiny fly, confident as if knowing the hands that could smash it away would not do it because they were stuck above her head, feeling the wet straw between the numb fingers. Wet. The cow must have urinated again. How many times do cows urinate? Is this the third time since I got here? Fourth? Is that the Sun outside? It’s a beautiful life … Something is crawling up my thigh … or is it flowing down? 

Her eyes remained motionless as she lay there, as if in deep sleep, while her mind played images ridden with white noise like an antenna on a stormy night which could not handle the gusts. Cannot handle any more, how tired I feel … that … that man … was just a child … murderer … no matter how hard she tried her hands still disobeyed and refused to crawl to that patch between her legs and under her. What was warm a few hours ago was fast becoming dry. And brittle. 

Then, she urinated. 

It burned like acid through her very being. The fly flew away. A drop of hot tear had disturbed its peace. The cow looked on, still confused after a whole night.

There were whispers around the house which her pregnant mind had not comprehended. To her, all that mattered was the reason to celebrate. For the first time in her year old marriage, if someone was to remove her ghunghat and look at her face, they would have beheld happiness personified like never before. Hope too, but happiness more. Where once a will power of steel was required to make unheard taunts about her family, her sisters, her father, her mother, her clothes, her thin frame, her 12th pass certificate, her oily food, her wasteful habit of buying bangles, not minding her pallu, her … now nothing was required. Once, it was as if she was made to stand barefoot on a hot tava, and still expected to not jump. But now, with head bent and eyes looking at her chipped toes in respect of everyone but herself, she just shut her ears when venom was poured into them. She now had something to look forward to. To keep her expectant mind cocooned. Beyond this noise. 

Whenever people disturbed her thoughts about the future that was fast approaching, she would let her finger brush against the gold-plated earrings which then chimed a giggly-girly tune. A tune that would make a few waves around her ears dancing like a dervish before entering her being making her whole body ring with happiness. A reminder to self, or maybe a secret signal shared with what was to come? Nervous with excitement she would clutch her stomach, look for a vacant spot behind the mud house and just close her eyes, feigning giddiness. To feel one with herself, all parts of herself. It’s a beautiful life. It’s just so beautiful… and her 19 year old mind would cook up a tune singing this line on a loop. As if it was a tiny girl sitting on a swing with the ribbons on her two plaits flying carefree in the wind.

That night she had woken up when she felt something was pressing down on her stomach. Or was it pressing from within? It was him, her husband, on top of her. We shouldn’t … it’s not right … please … it’s risky, it doesn’t feel right … please and in that moment she had realized her hands were tied. And he was tying up her legs too, right at the thighs. Bewildered beyond belief she had tried to scream but her calls for help only fell on invisible ears acting abettors. A black tape sealed her lips together to make her swallow her own disbelief. It made mute the gold-plated earrings too. As if her secret signal had been found. The prick of the injection was the last feeling she remembered. Not even the sounds and smells of the cow shed woke her up for that one hour. She remained on the floor. Alone. Like a bundle of clothes one tosses out for they have no more use for it. 

It is then that she woke up, and died a million times over. 

The labour had been induced. The girl was coming. But, it was not meant to. Not today, nor ever. It was pushing against her insides desperate to be freed and here she was, helpless to let it come to spread her legs to even scream. It must be a mistake … he should know … help … but all that the cow heard was muffled sounds it understood not. 

Her back burned and radiated shocks of pain towards her front, tightening those claws by the minute as if asking for deliverance for itself from committing this evil deed. Her wrists bled and the rope dug deeper into her thighs as her legs ached to open wide. To let out, let go, let be, be free. Nothing worked, as she writhed like a worm that has been stepped upon. She lay praying she would explode. Hoping her belly would burst open and make the baby come out. Alive. Alive, please… please. By now she had swallowed her vomit three times. The pain didn’t let her faint, waiting to reach that threshold which even Gods must shudder to think about. Where are you, dear God? Help me, please, help, hel … and then she had passed out, imagining the last sound that she heard to be a baby's cry.

My belly has burst … my … my baby is free. Free. It’s a beautiful life. How many times do cows urinate? … Is that the Sun outside? It’s a beautiful life … Something is crawling up my thigh … or is it flowing down? 

It’s a beautiful life … my … my baby is free.

The fly was back, this time on the gold-plated earring lying murdered below the tape.

Hit me baby one more time!

The Gods must be crazy, and the goblins running the rumour mill crazier. For the latest on the grape vine, which hangs heavy with sour bunches, is that if you are good looking by some standard you get more readers on your blog. That it is not about writing any more, like it was once (for after all, Shakespeare did manage plenty of hits). That it is all about features which match the ideal assets the fantasies in your reader-head enjoy. Insulting, sad and unbelievable, all at the same time. But who is surprised?

Picture this. 

A stranger who considered himself a brilliant-but-wronged writer asked me to write a post for him and him for me. An experiment that would involve us to publish each other’s works in our own names and exchange the hits number at the end of the day. He wanted to prove that content is not king, but pretty faces are queens, and that under my hat his ink will find kisses while mine will fade in comparison. I politely refused, finding the totally resistible offer slightly offensive for implying my writing unworthy of sustaining a readership and also realizing soon enough that some heads which hate to take no for an answer even fail to spot nonsense planted in their own. His parting words threw ‘you vane woman’ at me. But before I could tell him to make that ‘vain’, he had vanished into thin air. Probably hiding in another’s inbox which acted abettor in his research crime to make me publish, in my name, something written by a dude whose commas and punctuation were like drunk ants doing striptease atop an express train. With full stops flying everywhere, off course, of course! 

To think that someone's else's balderdash flowing from upturned toilet bins can make you think … 

Reminded me of a man asking his wife to pick a gynaecologist who was the least good looking of the lot, for that meant she spent more time studying medicine properly rather than in front of a mirror. Hence, a better doctor! So strange that his wife would believe him; all ten manicured nails and highlighted hair of hers included, to pop her kid out! So strange again that we have reached Mars but our minds sit cosy inside a caveman’s animal skin toga, quivering with inferiority or envy on spotting in others physical features matching brain quotient in their sharpness.
   

And you don’t even need to be blonde any more to take the sh** cake! I talk of only one segment, where Blogging meets Bollywood and apparently proves that if you have the right face you need have nothing more, for then a good number of readers and publishers will follow as night follows day. And good writing, well, who needs that anyway.  Isn’t the dude who sent me the message for a life-changing research sitting without a woman’s bullet lodged in his chest?  

First things first; thank you for the compliment. It is super to know one belongs to a good looking genepool. For such fortunate planetary disposition I thank God first, then my parents, Galileo, some of my favourite teachers, Mendel, my dog Timmy, Darwin and the latest ladybug stuffed toy we got and named Gaston (after Gaston in Ben and Holly, that is).

And now for some serious talk. 

Pray, what is wrong with making oneself look good? Of showing aligned teeth in profile pictures or legs-above-the-knee in party ones? Of knowing the waist-to-shoulder proportion is perfect or that the face turned leftish looks best? Does colour on my lips make me any more fake than the free-flowing compliment on yours? That kohl in my eyes is as much a part of my outdoors as is my phone, and it is me who decides if the blush is pink or not there at all. About berries, I love to eat them and wear them too, sun shine or star light I decide. Only me!

Such misplaced are the times that a pretty picture in ‘About me’ on your site can make not just men but women too to attribute to you feats the very devil on your shoulders would shudder to perform. Of course, the devil may make you pout those lips, all the way from your timelines to theirs. But then you wonder, why bother, why kiss and make up with a dinosaur or use terms like sexist or feminist for brains which think no bigger than a pea.  

And more importantly, how, just how does a blogger's face conforming to conventional ideas of beauty make a reader spend 2 minutes and 30 seconds (average, Alexa says) reading a post about a book review or a short story, leaving behind feedback which proves they were paying attention and not fantasizing sipping coffee with her mascaraed eyes? It is not as if I'm picking my peasant skirt just over my knee to hitch a ride. Even if I were, why did you stop the car? If you expected to see me in my Sunday best lingerie in a post about exactly that, then, delusional reader, it tells everything about you and zilch about me, apart from saying nothing about the others who enjoy reading me. And who, gasp and fume and beat your chest as you may, keep those ‘hits’ coming in! Quite steadily!

I don’t hang around your breed to know enough about it, but I can still advise. How about you experiment on your own the next time around, without trying to rope in a pretty face allegedly unfairly enjoying it all or posting anonymous comments on Blogger Confession pages with the courage of a rat in the deep end of a pool? You don’t even need to doll yourself up. Just make sure the grammar is in place, creativity bribed in and something, anything, unique enough about it to make your readers want to ‘hit’ you again. You need the support of imagination and language, not a wonder bra for sustained readership. You see, you need to turn that gaze in the right direction to get inspired, and that direction is not another’s body. In the mean time, don’t forget to remain polite and pleasant. Sweetness is fashionably under rated, and last I checked it helps you look good too!

PS – You saw the picture on the top, didn't you? How silly and stupid I looked. But you still read me to the end? Hm! That would be another 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Thank you for ‘hitting’ me, baby, one more time! 

[WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Opposite Day - If you normally write non-fiction, post a photo. If you normally post images, write fiction. If you normally write fiction, write a poem. If you normally write poetry, draw a picture - As you can see, I did post a picture, but then I had to write too. I just had to!]

Foot-see and Me

It was my first time. 

Don’t ask how old I was, for by many standards it was late enough to have ushered in at least three babies, if not four. Perhaps, a few dinosaurs too. But so what? Don’t they say there is a right time for everything, and if indecisiveness, ignorance or fear-of-the-unknown has delayed the much needed, blame the lateness on a cocktail of Karma and Kismet with a dash of Zodiac? That is exactly what I was doing as I bathed and perfumed myself, and dressed it all up in Sunday best. Especially the tiny vales between my ten toes, you know, where the dirt unseen rests feeling cosily at home till you discover it one day when it has formed a tiny hill there, much like termites. Or moles. I wore my best flip-flops to walk to the occasion too. 

After all, I was going for my virginal pedicure. 

A lot of firsts happen after your marriage. Ouch! But many in the days just before it too. Somewhere in my 20s I was off to a salon which promised me the most freebies (read pint-sized bottle of Bisleri, a mug of coffee, an umbrella stand to hang my coat/dupatta). Freebies, for the palatial fortune I was to exchange for just getting my dear nails clipped. Moral of the story till now being, I like freebies, and that then I had no idea about pedicures.

A separate section called ‘Foot-see’ opened into a pink and black room lined with chairs which would put the PM’s gaddi to shame - with their grandeur, their gadgetry and the chest-size of the gentlemen standing behind them. Men? Suddenly my nervous lips licked the lip gloss away and my toes twisted into such strange positions of awkwardness that they could just have been possessed with the spirit of an ashamed exorcist himself. I cushioned myself into one which seemed three sizes too big for me, and dipped my feet into a tub of water I swear I wanted to put my head in. And drown. Why? Here I was, ready to risk a pedicure just to escape that-talk-which-forms-the-about-to-be-married-day-at-home, and all I got was a brain on an over-drive, trying to think of ways to keep the legs together enough to please the nuns and fathers who moulded me in school but apart still so the young man with the lovely cheek bones could reach all corners of my feet once they were soft. And supple. And ready to be peeled. 

I peeked at my two innocent feet somewhere down there and blessed the bubbles in the water which were, truth be told, quite relaxing. What wasn’t relaxing was the man with cucumbers on his eyes sitting next to me, getting a head massage, a facial and a pedicure done, even as he spoke on the phone sealing a property deal. Because now, as my eyes held him while his the cucumber slices, I felt it rising up my gut, twirling in my belly and knocking on my teeth to open up my mouth, for Laughter Express was on its way. With its brakes failed! 

Past tense.

To not laugh is impossible for me. Ever since I remember I have had uncanny urges to laugh at just the socially wrong times. For instance, as a little girl in stranger aunties’ and uncles’ arms I would laugh with glee, sometimes because their nostrils looked like obstacle courses and often because the hair on the chin would be singing to me in the breeze. Of course, I escaped censure then, for because of my laughter they gave themselves certificates of merit for being good with kids. Later, I started getting caught. In standard 7, after chopping the hard ink-erasing dirty green rubber into tiny pieces and putting them on the head of the girl just before me, I started laughing. Mrs. Abraham did not find humour in the concept of pulleys and fulcrum that she was teaching and I was standing outside my class the next moment. Still giggling, by the way. And braces on teeth played traitor too, for my mouth would barely close. In standard 12 it did not help to have a Hindi teacher who kept repeating to us ‘Bharat krishi pradan desh hai’ after every full stop, and tautology I do find amusing. What to do! Also, if you think no one gets sent out of class on laughing out-of-context (but in-context with what’s inside the head, imagined or in full view of) you are wrong!

Present, in Foot-see now.   

Testosterone had done its deed on that man next to me, and in patches it had left hair-free there was cream. If he was Greek, I could have passed him off as a chocolate frost cake with a cherry on top. But he wasn’t, and there was nothing on top. With jeans folded up to his knees his feet were getting massaged, as mine would be soon. I watched out of curiosity, I swear, for it was my first time and clearly he was a veteran. And then, the right pressure points started getting activated on his sole by a man in black who seemed responsible for his feet by the day, and his drunken safety as a bouncer at night. And how they touched his soul! ‘Why don’t you talk to Golden Foresssttt … ten, he will give ten … its two bighaaaa … aah … so what if the approach road it narrow … oooh … 20 flats? Hmm … mmm … no man, just getting paddy done ... nnnn...’ and it went on. Property dealing and orgasmic foot healing, as the pedi-curer did his job as if nothing was wrong with the world. 

My belly was distended with the whole 9 months of laughter, as if an army of feathers was tickling it on the inside. I had to get it out, oh, I just had to laugh. Should I fake a phone call and release it? Bathroom, no, I won’t reach in time. Shame shame! Marriageable woman and still doesn’t know how to hold it in. Little did I know the solution lay in the problem itself, for as my good looking worked my now-soft feet, the tickle buds all over them got provoked beyond all Edens. Forget awkward toes and legs apart moments and all monster men frothing next door. Forget even that I was all grown up. It started showing its teeth, from the feet upwards, and with all things in the head acting the very fuel for it.

First, a little giggle. Then two, together. And then, like floodgates of a whole generation repressed from expressing, I laughed. The mouth-wide-open, head-thrown-back variety of laughter. Louder than ever. The dumbstruck staff stared, first at my funny feet and then at my face contorted like a monkey, as I jerked my right foot alternatively away and towards my attendant to make them clean. Almost as if I was cycling! This had to stop. And stop it I did. I just told myself then that maybe this could wait too for after marriage, among other things. Ouch!   

Of course, I paid the full amount. My overly tickly feet were not their problem. Thankfully, neither was my tickly tummy for the man who was now in stage four. Of his paddy, of course. 

P.S. - I continue a virgin in this department. True story, this. 

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - From the gut - Tell us about the last time you had a real, deep, crying-from laughing belly laugh]

Swimming-Shimmying

I love swimming. Especially early in the mornings. You know, when the birds are twittering awake and the sun playfully winking at them from behind lush green trees swaying lightly to the cool and clear wind and …

Right, as if! When you wake up to 35 degrees at 6:00 am, the birds are tweeting rants in more than 140 characters and the brown trees trying their best to give the sun a blue eye for being such a butcher in heat. 

You exit your air-conditioned room where your cherub happily snores and it’s as if you entered a black hole spinning closest to the Sun. You gulp your cold coffee in precisely five sips lest it turns warm. As warm as the “fresh water” CPWD releases your way for an hour expecting you to tank-up and shank-down before the heat evaporates their whole office and the pipes run dry for the rest of your baking day. You water your plants and they seem too tired to raise their heads in gratitude even. Depressing. Try reading a newspaper under a fan-on-five-number and you might as well do dardey disco with your arms, neither needing eyes nor brains. 

And so, I thought of joining a DDA Sports Complex nearby to use their pool and spend some hot morning time feeling like a cool mermaid, swimming-shimmying up. And it is sitting exactly there, on a white sun bathing chair (which we Indians use like berths in a train) under an umbrella that came free with Bagpiper Whiskey, that I write this. Sitting by the side of the pool which my toes touched a few minutes back.

If I did not belong to Haridwar’s neighbour, I would have thought this is the ghat people come to dip their free sizes in after freely sinning. Citizens of a whole continent are in this pool right now, a length which takes me no more than 15 seconds to cover – all interruptions included. Like excited tadpoles in a mug of water the previous tenant left on the roof top, God alone knowing what the mug was used for. That many bobbing up and down, in that little space. And many around the pool too. 

Say that man under the shower just outside the men’s changing rooms. Little does he know this is not his ghar da shaavar, or that open air ones are for a token rinse only. He just began shampooing his hair – eyes closed tight as if his jet is landing and such chaos between the hurrying hands and the hair that soap suds are flying to stick like white whales behind another’s behind; a man’s, the one next in line who is waiting his turn, respectfully keeping his back to the lathering spandex while keeping his front reserved for public gaze. As I notice his eyes trailing to the ladies side of this family-time pool-time, I wonder which is stronger - his elastic I hear crying SOS under a monstrous belly, or that one leg which carries all his weight as the other stylishly extends forward. With hands on tilted-hips, he’s discussing politics with two men swimming breadths at the deep end. Both men periodically sprout mysterious bubbles up their back whenever they stand still, or are not burping. I switch undigested Times Now off to turn my face away, hoping for pleasanter sights and sounds. Certainly less hairy ones! And that’s when I am enamoured by a bra.

A gang of girls about 40 years of age are having a mini-kitty in 3 feet water. Two have held on to the side rails and are floating belly-up, admiring their nail paint on the toes while two others stand bent at the knees, gracefully keeping their bergs below sea level. I can make out the discussion is serious. Could be about the class 12 board results, or about Mrs Nanda’s long nose – both horrific enough topics to garner haws and hmms. One kind-looking lady's eyes just bulged forward enough to touch the strapped goggles now fogged over with what could be rage. Must have heard Mrs Mehta changed her boutique. Clandestinely. And for those couple of seconds she stood up, with knees straightened, water to the waist, hand on mouth, head shaking side-to-side I saw it. A brassier under the costume! (How lovable must their bond be that he followed her chastely to the pool! Oh envy!) The straps seemed to match the costume frilly leotard she’s wearing, so certainly intentionally worn and not forgotten to remove when in a hurry. Why, it kind of matched well with the eye shadow too.

I did decide to get in, exactly when the two teens making chapatti dives at the deep end were leaving. But at the ladder I found a face staring at mine with such concentration in its eyes and pouted mouth. What is this? Ek choti si love story happening in the pool?

The child, about three years old, looked as lost as the Batman on his floats was in this Punjabi pool. He had stopped flapping (moving as successfully as a fish on a treadmill) a couple of seconds back, and now just floated. Staring. I climbed down holding the rail, eye-to-eye, in slow motion, suspecting a loving lunge or maybe a water proof firecracker going off under me making my one piece become three. Like a prank. His older sister was trying to swim underwater but ending up much above it instead. Something was up most definitely. Well, time revealed nothing was up at all. It was all down under, for soon as my toes felt the warm water, he turned around and screamed with an ace performer's glee – ‘Mummy, I just pee-pee on my own in the middle of swimming swimming.’

In the meantime, Mummy across the breadth was too busy to have heard her boy’s success story. The two political bums in the deep continued to laugh and bubble over jokes they shared, while their friend, the second-in-line, was now vigorously wiping himself with a towel near the shower, soaping-shampooing over, of course.

Might as well jump in now? Not me! 

You?

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Might as well Jump - What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to? What would have to happen to make you comfortable taking it?]

The Homecoming

Through her kohl-lined eyes she saw the white Volvo bus leave for Roorkee from between the greasy window rails of her own bus, which was still waiting to fill up. A small bag with her belongings was all she carried, tucked between her cracked feet adorned by a silver payal and the unseen dirt under her seat. It was hot, so hot that she looked at the AC Volvo with a parched gaze. Her eyes burned. 

‘Why don’t I take one of those white buses to Roorkee this time?’ she had half-implored her husband of some months. ‘You know, it’s quite hot and even the doctor says I should travel comfortable since it’s the initial few weeks and ...’ She stopped as he knotted his brow and looked at her. As if he did not understand. He thought her mad for asking for money worth an AC bus ride. ‘What a queen I have married. Spoilt totally. She thinks her father bought me, doesn't she?’ thought he, but only said ‘This Rs. 120 should be enough for a UP Roadways bus ticket to Roorkee.’ He also gave her a coin for Rs. 10. ‘Take a rickshaw from the bus stop to your parents’ house. 10 men will look you up if you walk to Chawri bazaar looking all dressed up as if you’re going to run away with another man.’ And then he had left. 

She had bitten her lower lip then, and now as she remembered the parting remark. Embarrassed. Slowly licking the maroon lip-stick which she had worn. Specially worn. It had only stood for happiness. A celebration that she was going home to be with her parents. A new sari draped, matching bangles, bindi in place and sindoor so deep so neat so red as if it was disciplined to stand at attention on her forehead. She over-did it, perhaps, her … happiness, thought she sitting on seat number 5B. The white Volvo with cool interiors had long left, leaving behind nothing but a cloud of dry mud. And a raging thirst, for cool air and cold water. 

‘Campa, campa, campaa’ sang the nasal voice of a young boy with chilled soft drinks, clanging to be picked and delivered from the crowd in the aluminium bucket. She looked at the shirtless boy first and then at his hands. Maybe I can buy myself a Campa? Looks so cold. I do have Rs. 10 with me. I could just quickly walk home. What will he know … But before she could make up her mind, temptation had left. Been pushed out of the bus by the conductor for it was time for the bus to leave. The boy had come to her slow-moving window for he had read the indecision in her mind and the decisive thirst in her eyes. And she in his, for her Rs. 10. A gust of wind devoid of any mercy blew. She was made to turn her face away!
    

The conductor slammed shut the creaky door and the bus began to pull out of Meerut Bus Depot. The journey has begun, maybe I should just drink a sip of water now? She pulled out the old dented Bisleri bottle she carried from home. She put it to her lips, dry terrain what was once glowing maroon, and swallowed just enough to wet her mouth. She grimaced. The water was already warm. Still, she had to save it for later. God knows how cruelly the hot wind blows over sugar cane fields, and through leafless poplars. The dust from pot-holes and the mirages of water on the road ahead merge to become genies, asking you to come take a dip. Luring you, falsely. It is then that she will need more water to drink. Her stomach rumbled empty. 

‘Maybe I should not fast today, maaji’ she had mustered enough courage to ask her mother-in-law that morning. ‘I have to travel far and alone, and I feel so tired already. Plus, I’m 6 weeks …’ and she could not say another word. For maaji was muttering apologies to a certain God to excuse this girl’s innocent crime already. Looking disturbed and shocked and sorry, only for the God, all at the same time. ‘You should know better than to skip a holy Monday fast and break the sequence, bahu. It is for the son you could be carrying.’ She wanted to add ‘Shame on you. Seems like your mother had not a single significant thing to teach you’ but kept it for another day. 

By the time she reached Roorkee Bus Depot, the weather the thoughts the hunger, all had taken their toll. One at a time. Raping her of comfort – within and without. Her stomach was cramping and the bumpy ride had not helped matters at all. Neither had the stares of the man sitting diagonally ahead of her. She had strained her eyes away and out of the window most part of the journey, forcing her face into the hot winds, braving the burning skin. Holding the bag tight between her feet and her hands joined, as if praying for the journey to end. Soon. Now, back stiff and feet swollen, she waited her turn to step down.

She knew exactly where the rickshaw stand was. For 21 years she had come to this bus depot with her family to enjoy Prince Chaat Wala’s famous chaat-tikki, often when the two sisters passed their exams. But just as she was walking towards a rickshaw to take her home, she spotted a new stationary store next to Guru Nanak Juice Corner. She stood staring at the glass façade, with pretty posters of princesses and calendars with Goddesses calling one forth. 

Yes. She went in and spent the Rs. 10 her husband had given so she did not walk home in full view of strange men. Instead, she bought a tiny diary for her sister who was going to be married soon. So tiny, it fit on her out-stretched hand. She wanted it that way.

Home was as home is. The welcome. The sudden outburst of feelings that only some relations feel. The questions the food the rest and how is damaadji? They liked her sari, her payal, oh you look so dressed up so pretty! She liked her sister’s sagai outfit, her mother’s new idli maker and how terrible I feel for I left the bag of gifts I carried for you from Meerut in the bus! The ‘doesn’t matter’ and ‘you are our daughter’ that followed. And then, the unspoken in their minds, thoughts oft brushed off as only hunches, coming from seeing but not saying anything. For what if they were wrong? Wrong to think their daughter was badly kept? Or even worse, unhappy? 

Much later, in a quiet corner of her home, she gave the diary to her younger sister when they were alone. To note down every little unhappy thought or thing that will come her married way. To write out on its pages chapters she never signed up for. Write it. As loud as she wishes. Just … take it out.

Her sister cried. For she now saw what she had actually not seen. In her sister's life. Or around the bend where marriage waited looking all showy like a fairy-tale. It was a passing on, of something the elder sister had not the courage to do. Never could. To document. To write. To voice. The pain.

The diary was small, but it came with a big prayer. That it may never be full enough, and always big enough to collect within its folds all the troubles her sister was to face.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Never – Tell us about a thing you’ll never write about]

For all my bros: G-spot in(Scent)ives

Myself Bunty. Only day before yesterday, I shaved off my wiry chest hair. I was told waxing it will be like 237 butter knives cutting up my chest. Together. So I did not have the guts to enter Hero Hira Lal Saloon for Menz. Shaving was not as Presto as those razor people make you believe so it took time, and my mother almost broke the bathroom door down banging on it. But not her fault. She wanted eggs from the market for a breakfast of anda bhurji. (She makes it very nicely. In ghee. Proper Punjabi. But let me get to the point.)

I needed a soft smooth chest to go with my image personality image which has developed manifold recently. More development my personality has seen than what developed countries saw in the past 3 years. Combined. So, I broke away all top buttons of all my shiny shirts for a clear view. (Mummy insists on sewing them back, but their popping is no coincidence). Today, I confidently say that I am a complete man of substances. Gelled hair with spikes, jeans with thunder marks on thighs and bullet tacks belt with pointed boots, one chain in neck one on wrist, a tattoo of skull and bones on biceps and finally, a shaved chest. Totally tip top macho with face shined up!

You see, I have become quite a heart throb wherever I go. When I walk past women, any age or stage, they go into orgasmic convulsions. They take deep breaths a couple of times, then start panting with heads slightly tilted backwards, eyes closed, a sudden gust of wind playing I spy with their hair and when the nasal ecstasy ends, they start seeking me with unmatched desperation. Like bees to honey, or flies to motichoor laddoos in my favourite Roshan Sweat Shop.

The first time it happened, I ran home scared, thinking those women were fainting on smelling my socks in the Metro and then coming to beat me up. But the next day itself, I got promoted to Mr. Dewd in my friend circle, with all kinds of mythical stories getting attached to any and all appendages of mine, however unrelated to the nose.  And however unused.

And then it struck me, like a pebble another pebble in a game of pithoo that this was thanks to a manipulative genius of mine. I made an invention. It’s my 20-something life’s most significant secret, so I’m going to tell you in hushed whispers.

I have invented a magical potion to spray all over my body. Yes.

Here’s the story …

One day, a few weeks back, in between enjoying mummy’s favourite soaps and dum aalo I saw all these adverts on TV showing how a single application of a deodorant leads to women falling head over heels, literally, for the guy who used them, even if the guy is still in his tadpole-using-calamine-on-pimples stage. Taking off saris, opening wet hair and all, jumping through windows or even down from high buildings. Only and only because of the guy’s deodorant which tickled their G-spot located deep up inside their noses.

Then, just after the night-long jagran mummy loves to organize was over, an idea descended into my head from the Godly clouds above. I thought to myself, if one deodorant has the power to make women go so crazy, what will happen if I mixed two up? Or even three? So what did I do? I bought Axe and Denver and Wild Horse from my left over Rakhi money. I collected them (mostly gas!) into a coffee shaker till the cans were empty, then did shake-shake to them to the tune of ‘Ketchup Song’. No lyrics needed. Then, I transferred the solution into an empty cologne bottle, an original Huge Bose from Palika. It shone like good whisky. I swear.

And the effects of using just a drop of it? Priceless! Way beyond what you can ever imagine even. And no, it’s not just about women any more.

Hear this!

As soon as Chaubey uncle handed me the eggs, I felt a sudden shiver in the packet which held them. I looked around Tilak Nagar, West Delhi, thinking it must be an earthquake. Or a tsunami. No one else seemed to have noticed. It was the eggs, belly dancing making hoopla rings all 6 of them. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I stood back and watched. They came near my chest. I moved back more. They neared. And then, all cracked open instantly on smelling my sexy smell. The chicks, it seems, just couldn’t control themselves. (Mummy was very angry that day, screaming something about 5 bucks an egg and inflation and breakfast and something something.) But me? I was super happy. I just realized how successful my experiment of mixing those deodorants had been. Finally, I drove cutie pie chicks crazy!

Another one comes to mind. It was my 21st happy birthday so I wore my favourite white button down with buttons down to meet some friends for mall-ing around. I reached before anyone else so excited I was. So I thought I will go to the men’s room, wet my gelled hair a bit. Make the spikes afresh. Maybe do susu also. And you know what happened? I was walking to the men’s loo, swinging my hips like a happy birthday boy’s when I hear a strange tap tap sound behind me. No, it wasn’t my heels. I looked back, with my usual style. The board of the ladies loo, ‘She’ with a tiny hourglass female figure, had come off the door as I passed it. It was following me, hungry to be in my arms. The aisle was empty and I rubbed my eyes, for this time I couldn’t believe my own magnetism which was attracting that brass ‘She’. And suddenly, it stuck to me. Somewhere around my belly button. Imagine! A board which only read ‘she’. Not even a real her. What have I invented, man!

Of course, tender aged minds could be reading this so I cannot tell you the effects on real women, of just a whiff of my experiment. But I will end with a message for all boys. Just remember, bros. You don’t need the face or the brains, you don’t need money or cars. Why, you could be toads (those irreversible variety) with an extra dose of warts for all it matters. As long as you smell like a whole pack of agarbatti and 2 types of Odonil combined. Women will simply kiss the ground your incensed armpits walked over. Such power lies in my tiny bottle. Make yours, today!

But shh. It’s a secret between us and the bottle I have named ‘Poten-she’.

By the way, I’m planning to drink it up next! Oh G, sounds exciting already, mummy swear!

[The prompt for today was - Evasive Action - What’s the most significant secret you’ve ever kept? Did the truth ever come out?]

Guest Post - Chaddi: A Case Study, for Purba Ray

As if you don't know already who Purba Ray is!

If you are reading something A-Musing like nothing else for miles around, you know it is written by her. Satirical without being condescending and creating humour sans mockery, Purba Ray writes about our life and our times - to shock, surprise, tickle, tease, and basically make us have a good laugh, post-after-post. Rumour has it that because the velvet darts are thrown with such skill and style, many would pay to just get featured on her blog, even as a butt of her jokes (and end up falling in love with the very same jokes of which they form the butt. She is that good!).

I did not pay. But I did offer thanks to the powers above, for a most fortunate day in my blogging life had dawned. Purba had asked me to write a guest post for her space. I have never understood what 'you have arrived!' means, but I think I felt that on the left side of my chest, first, when she asked me to guest blog and then, when she loved the post I sent.

It is called 'Chaddi: A Case Study' and really, you should not judge a post by its title. Or its picture...

After you have picked your favourite one from my collection above, read the post at Purba's blog. And listen, spare me half the laughter you gift her, and I tell you I will taste Nirvana.

Here is the link then: http://www.purba-ray.com/2014/04/chaddi-case-study.html