Have you ever got a Hair Spa?

“Have you ever got a hair spa?”

A year and a half back I was asked this same question and I had looked despairingly at the saloon owner thinking here she goes again, trying to push through another product/service that I don’t want and what is wrong with the world and spending on frivolities that we can definitely do without? I mean a ‘hair-spa’ sounded like another chochla of big people with bigger pockets and the biggest of vella time.

“Just get one,” she had said with eyes so full and assertive as though she was coaxing me to volunteer for a mission of world peace. Post that she began to enumerate how my hair was begging for moisture. “But I do wash them every second day with water,” I stressed, half wondering what these women wash theirs with. I was then explained to that my hair was dry and damaged and more blah-blah on some pollution crap. I wanted to tell her how my beloved still loved to hold them tenderly in his hands and not so tenderly when not so tender, but let the urge pass. Hitherto I had lived on the premise that pollution is only fatal for the lungs and breathing and glaciers. Apparently like most of my premises, this one too sucked and sucked my natural and otherwise eternal beauty.

She had already made some not-so-flattering remarks about my non-toned and sagging skin I can’t believe I just typed that and I am not even deleting it and bulging sides and age spots on my face-it was a fitness cum beauty centre and so what do you expect-the diversions from my face to the body were natural yes, I am trying now to salvage the damage done. I had finally begun to wonder-not about the so called flaws in my physicality but rather what the f@#$ was I still standing there and doing, listening to her rip me apart? My self esteem was wilting so low that we’d need cranes to lift it up again.

I told her point blank- ‘Lady, you are not helping your own cause if you are going to pick my faults even worse than my husband!’ And finally she got the jhatka, immediately realising that she had overdone it and then began a butter dipped little speech on how fair my skin is otherwise, and how fair-soft skin could LATER be prone to problems now she tells me and how my hair just needed a bit of pampering. She just saved herself from being crowned with the worst salesgirl tag and almost won the best one, for I gave in to a trial session. Okay hair spa me and this better be good!

I was led inside a chamber and little red lamps and candles were lit instead of the harsh glares of bulbs and tube-lights. Light instrumental music to the likeness of a flute being played near a waterfall with soft chirping bird almost made me look around. In walked a guy wearing an apron and asked me to change into a gown. I was suddenly alert-dim red lights, gown, guy-all seemed too red-light-y for my own good. But what the heck, my mom had got it done and survived it to praise it, so who am I to act all touch-me-not. Reasserted henceforth that wackiness runs in our ‘genes’, even when we wear a salwar kameez-okay, very poor joke, I know.

And there I sat on a plush, cushioned seat all set to be experimented on. Why do the thirties have to be so hyped everywhere as the warning knell to watch out for, just because they want to sell their stupid anti-wrinkle and age-defying creams and ‘you are worth it’ hollers...rather all a bunch of gobbledygook? I so love this word and wait to use it at the first hint of hinting at nonsense. Yes, I wrote this post just for it! So I was given the head wash and some cream was lavishly spread out on my strands and roots, enveloping just my head but giving me an overall feel good. My legs were placed in between an automatic mechanical massager that totally lightened them from knees to the toes, with soft squeezes and pressures so that I almost felt after a while as though I had no legs at all-and that was a good thing by the way.

So then began the unexplained aren’t you lucky that you are on a page where even ‘the unexplained’ is explained in such great lengths? The guy could create magic with the so right movements of his fingers. He used the pressures to unlock every tired and knotted vein running through my head and spine and the rest of the body took to the impulse and let me be free. It was the most relaxing head massage I ever got okay the most relaxing of the two official saloon massages in my lifespan and I think I even closed my eyes for long gaps in between as though I presumed I was being transported to the ethereal and I would open my eyes and ask, "Mein kahan hoon?" Of course the best was yet to come. The ‘hair’ spa then culminated into the disentangling of my neck, arms and shoulder build up and also of the back-over the gown of course! And I thought I’d died and gone to heaven and there Yamraj himself was welcoming me saying that the back massage is the heaven’s way of a shake hand and I am nodding in unadulterated pleasure wait, isn’t Yamraj supposed to be at the entrance of hell? Then who the hell guards heaven-damn, my mythology!

Thereafter there was hot steam treatment, some equally hot coffee with yummy nachos along with a mayonnaise cream dip nopes, I don’t go there for the free food, a hair wash again and conditioning and a very well pampered me. Two hours of such indulgence that I almost felt spoilt. My tresses caressed my top like Solomon’s silk! I thought the hair clip would fall off, it became so soft and smelt and felt so sexy.

Okay, I have been trying very hard to evade using this word but I think if I do not I shall explode (with no puns intended) and the essence of the feeling would not be conveyed just as well. The experience can be defined as good as being orgasmic! Phew! There! Said it!

And you know what else did I say, which I can’t believe till now that I actually said it that day to the hair spa guy- “Your wife is a lucky woman if she gets this kinda massage!” Yes, extreme gratification tends to cloud my thinking and vocal abilities. And he just smiled shyly in response, interpreting it god knows how and showing his tobacco stained teeth in his own version of a gratified expression.

When I returned home and told my beloved how unbelievable was the experience, he mocked me saying that I only loved it so because I got close to an actual massage by a guy although it was just in my head-literally and otherwise. And also was added that since I had got it done, he should also be fairly given the freedom to get a massage from a woman whenever we go to Thailand. Alright I said and then mumbling under my breath, as long as I get to pick the woman and praying in the next breath that the sexed up country also has obnoxious and ugly women available for these stupid services instead of the just-out-of-magazine-cover models, using whom they have spoilt the imagination of half the Indian men! And as soon as I agreed, his suspicious eyebrows now got raised even higher wondering what exactly happened that got me convinced so quick.

Ewwwww! I retorted almost offended, not because he had raised scepticism at my Ganga ki tarah pavitra intentions and actions but because he still didn’t trust me to have a good taste. The massage guy was half balding, married and ugly I said, although those hands and their skills didn’t tally with the rest of his body. I also slowly added that I had shed a few grands in taking a package of 15 hair spas at such a heavy discount that he would be super proud of me as a thrifty and prudent home-maker and not to add the hot hair one.  

This was prior to Seeya happening and while I took 10 of those in the next six months, I have managed to avail just three in the last year. The second last just happened today and hence the nostalgia and the super feel good. If you have already got it done, you know what I am saying and certain 'chochlas' come guilt free. If not, try it once and preferably by a man, for sorry my genderkinds but this requires a certain amount of strength and knowing a woman’s head-all puns intended!

My Understanding of Women and Men!

•    A woman will not expect a man to impress her, but she expects him to try.

•  Women fantasize more than men.

• A woman does not relate to why his palm sized techy gadget should cost a world but expects him to understand that one single pea sized diamond is worth it.

•  A woman wants you to tell the truth whenever she says, “Tell me honestly” and later wishes she had not asked you in the first place.

• She may spend her better years professing how she wants X-Y-Z qualities in her man and also proudly declare in the same breath how she always falls for the opposite.

• She knows there is no ‘happily ever after’ but she pines forever for the Prince Charming to come along.

• A woman expects a man to share all his work tensions with her but does not expect him to expect her to remember about it when questioned later.

•  Most women are more in love with the idea of being in love than a person.

• A woman may speak for hours and then end by saying, “I somehow find it difficult to express what I really feel.”

• You would hear this more often coming from a woman’s mouth than a man’s, “Something is missing in my life/I don’t feel good inside today but don’t ask me why” when she would bloody well know what and why.

•  Women would like you to open doors of restaurants for her and pull the chair before they rest their cute butts on it; but they may throw a tantrum of equality and accusations of biases when you say, “It is not a woman’s job.”

• When they say “I am in a bad mood and want to be left alone”, they actually want your company the most.

• Most women can handle alcohol, men and women better than most men.

• A woman knows that her man may not have the best of voices but she loves to have him use it to sing for her.

• The speed with which a woman says "Nothing" when asked "What's wrong?" is inversely proportional to the shitstorm that's coming. 

• She dresses less for herself and more for others.

• Women use their smiles to get away with ANYthing.

• When she is in her teens the older men are always more appealing and when she is not, the youngsters are suddenly so bloody hot.

• Women are of three kinds: high maintenance, low maintenance and those who think they are low maintenance but are actually high maintenance*thank you Billy Crytsal for this superbly quotable quote*

• Women may age in their bodies but never in their minds.

Now the man’s point of view:

• A man knows his wife would never agree to a threesome; but he believes that miracles do happen.

• He would expect the woman to understand if he had a fling; but he wants her to understand not to expect the same from him.

• Men always like options.

• Men have better traffic sense but poorer sixth sense.

•  A man may want to bed a woman but not wed her and the one he weds is not always the one he beds.

• Watching television is the greatest stress buster and porn is god's gift to mankind.

• A man may crib about all those woman’s magazines that crowd the washroom space; but in his private enthroning on the pot, these become his philosophers, friends and guides .

•   Men are better flirts than women.

• A man may grin big time when he elucidates about his skills in bed to his guy friends; but he would frown big time about his woman doing the same to her guy friends.

• A man would not mind ogling at other women but gets all ‘saala, kutta-kamina’ when someone eyes his.

• He would mock at gatherings about how women love to gossip; but after the party, he would corner his woman like in an interrogation about who rules the gossip-vines and how.

• A man would not really talk to his woman on the phone while in the work space; but when she stops calling on him there, he would wonder what is wrong.  

•  For a man, some sex is good, more is better and too much is just about right.

• A man would crave for a woman till she is a chase and when she ceases to be one, he goes in a haze. Hard to get are always harder to forget.

• Men get better with age*don't ask me in what*.

• A man loves compliments just as much as a woman does, if not more.

• For a man, the relationship is on the rocks only when the sex decreases.

• Most men actually talk more than women, contrary to the popular myth and listen lesser, as is an established age-old fact.

• Men use alcohol as a reason and justification for making passes. They always test the waters before wadding in.

That’s about it from three decades of dealing with both the sexes, in different measures of course! Happy Gender Dealing!:-)

Age is a relative term!

Contrary to what the mind set has drilled into us, age is not really an indicator of maturity and thereby wisdom and substance. We have heard people say umpteenth of times, ‘I am older and have seen the world’ and thereby implying you should blindly follow what they are advising. ‘How could you know better being younger?’ is the typical belief on which the society in structured.

Yet, experience and the number of hours spent on Mother Earth cannot always ascertain the sagacious streaks in an individual. A twenty year old in this decade is smarter than one when I was one. But the adult forum around these twenty years old is still as was before, wrapped snug in the hazy, self-conceived notion that their off-springs are never going to be smart enough to have the last word. And consciously or unconsciously it is telling upon the gullible minds.

Credit should be given where due. The newer generation has the one-up card of modern and pro-active learning up their sleeves. This makes them more street smart than worldly wise. Even in emotional matters, it is often surprising to see many of the early twenty somethings behaving better than those taking precedence by several decades.

Are we heading towards a more mature young force?
Or is the older group suddenly losing its dominance over precision?


Sense and sensibility is an individual thing and can be cultivated!

I can still be corrected for my grammatical mistakes by a twenty two year old college going blogger and in all humility I must graciously accept where I falter. I often get into arguments about the home remedies to be tried on Seeya, with many well-meaning relatives and even my beloved. I refuse to follow just about every counsel that is thrown my way just because someone with more gray hair, is dishing it out, custom-made, without even me soliciting it. I’d rather go by what the doctor says now than what you experimented with, many years ago with your siblings.

However, often not just the oldies but even many-a-children are getting ensnared into this fabricated idea that the elderly are better equipped to handle almost any predicament.

It is sad that often a vulnerable, young mind is led to believe by his parents that they are right in deciding the course of action of his life, irrespective of their personal successes or failures, but by credit of the fact that they seem to ‘think’ they are better positioned to take these decisions. Many youngsters are still opting for a vocation based on their parents’ sketching it out for them, rather than scribbling through vague lines to reach to perfection themselves.

You are pushed into the ‘marriageable’ circuit or ‘child-bearing activities’ because the adults pull your reins and feel it is high time. A surprisingly high proportion of boys and girls let the issue of a life partner be decided for them after a couple of bad ‘love’ experiences, having lost the faith in them and patience to wait and watch.

Age has nothing to do with proficiency. Twenty years spent in erecting a life for oneself, are not less to know what we want. Children are not always wrong and adults not always right. If you are smart enough to know between right and wrong, you should also become smart enough to know what is right and wrong for you; or else give up on yourself as a bad job.

There is something that we are not teaching our children, despite providing them with a plethora of hand-picked facilities and nuances. It is the Midas touch of self reliance that can turn every obstacle into a landmine of golden opportunities. They are so accustomed to decisions being taken for them, that when the onus comes on to their own shoulders, they find their steps hesitating, voice mumbling and mind fumbling. We are not giving them the strength to take their decisions or courage to take responsibility for their actions. We want them to move on in life and yet wait for them to get prodigal and return to us again so that our relevance is reasserted.

Next time someone turns around and tells you that he is older and hence better suited to express an opinion...please give him a piece of your mind too, of whatever age n make it is! Let the children be. We all learn by one own experiences more than by sermons of a hundred epiphanies heard. We all have to make our own paths and walk on them with our own legs...high time we use our own minds too and let others use theirs for their own bodies. Amen!

Happy in Stereotypes, are we?

What would happen if men would think like women n women began to consider the man-view of aspects in life?

Imagine a wife eyeing her man lustily from top to bottom as though a mouth-watering chocolate dripping cake with a cherry on top*and yet a promise of no calories* has been alluringly put in sight!

Imagine then the husband says ‘Not today honey, I have a headache’

Imagine again the wife saying, ‘You always have that excuse. Why in God’s name have I married you then?’

Hypothetically again...a man remembering all dates of all kinds of insane anniversaries or a woman remembering routes while driving or even parking right between two vehicles just a few feet apart.

Or cut to a restaurant where the girl orders a hearty four course meal and the guy nibbles on the salad coz he’s on a diet to attain a zero figure.

A woman who is constantly on the mobile phone *not for gossiping*attending ‘urgent’ calls or emailing and a man cribbing about it or about the fact that she has too many girls night-outs while he sits around at home waiting for her!

The woman repairing the electric mains and the man telling you how to remove the haldi ke stains from a table cloth!

Actually such predicaments are not so difficult to imagine with modern day role reversals but instead of these being sporadic episodes, what if they become the scenario at large?

Certain roles have been pre-defined to suit the genders.

I am not averse to a duo going dutch to foot a restaurant bill or the idea of women initiating sex or proposing to a guy...

But certain stereotypes look cute as they are, don’t they?

It is sweet to have someone you’ve been eyeing come across the bar to ask you if he could buy you a drink*of course in a more innovative way*

Nice to have a boy fall on his knees to propose...

With a girl doing so thoda technical locha bhi ho sakta hain na...like the skirt getting lifted or if it is a mini skirt...too much excess being proposed than is intended.

Let men do the dirty work.

Ah the world where chivalrous men open doors for their better halves or even someone else’s better half or remove their coats to cover the slightly shivering petite form of their princesses in the harsh cold wind!

Rippling muscles adorning the Greek god like male form rather than the female’s.

Where men get ready to fist a loafer’s face blue if he raises so much as an eyelid at the girl on his arm...

Where long hair in ponytails, were strictly a woman’s domain and casing, bullet-proof looking leather jackets bore a ‘men-only’ tag.

Where men pay the bills when women shop!

Where women in sexy lingerie welcome home their husbands with a surprise and they live happily ever after in the room...at least for a few hours!

Where men are treated as gods and women as queens!

Where only women keep the KarvaChauth vrat*actually no point even in women keeping it but men observing this fast is a little too Karan Johar-ish!*

It is equally nice to have the man cuddling you for comfort more often than the woman doing the same round the clock.

Having a man cry once or twice in a movie is so cute, try living with a fully grown man-like something who is a cry baby!

It is better to have a woman tying up a neck tie than watch a man do his beloved’s sari...I mean like EVERY time!

I know of a working couple who stay alone in a metropolitan city and hence as need necessitate it to be...the husband gets up every morning to polish her and the children’s shoes and iron the clothes of the kiddos and his wife before he can do his own and go to office. Without intending to be prejudiced or high headed, but sorry, it is not a very pleasing sight for me...

I would like to give certain respects and benefits to the husbands by default just as women deserve certain pampering without having to ask for it.

I remember a while ago a tag doing the rounds of ‘What you do as opposed to your gender stereotype?’

I was tagged too...but couldn’t manage to do it then.

So here I go, on how though I love the basic stereotypes I equally adore breaking the moulds...

Oxymoron to the core!

I am not a normal girl...matlab ke sab straight hain magar kahin kahin crooked turns aa jaate hain:

1. I hate gossiping n talks about maids n mothers-in-law n children put me off like an electric short circuit darkening it all.

2. I absolutely like the idea of being a single or rather sole woman in a group of men*partying of course, you dirty minds* while the other men having their wives sitting in some corners and bitching.

Too many women in sight, is not a pleasant sight for me!

3. I can handle my man looking or admiring other women...I even join him to discuss some vital statistics...er...vital issues of it.

4. I don’t mind scurrying around getting the car repaired or paying mobile bills or circling the BSNL office to get my internet connection running*many women I know refuse to do such things as they consider them to be the men’s jobs*

5. I like ‘chedo-ing’ guys...not like a tapori whistle or ‘Aata kya?’ type ke sidey remarks...but a subtle tease works super duper with me! Sometimes I feel I flirt like a guy too...now how is that possible...we’d keep it for some other time.

6. I like to pay the bill at a restaurant once in a while or take all onus of a short holiday sometimes as a treat to my man... ‘Jao tum bhi kya yaad karoge ke kiss cheez se shaadi hue hain’ types ehsaan to his being.

7. I love action movies...though not the Jackie Chan kinds...I can’t stand the sounds they emit of ho-ha-wha*from their mouths of course* when they hit someone!

It’s like unpleasant noisy love making in the room next door when you aren’t getting any in your own.

8. I love driving fast...really fast...in fact I sometimes honk the life out of a youngster who drives at a snail pace ahead of me.

An oldie doing so is fine, but for a young blood...offo...move it!

9. I would love to someday get so drunk that I get onto a table and dance*hopefully the table would not give away n neither would I in the attempt to get over it*

10. Then there is the list of what I’d do if I were a man...have multiple girlfriends...walk bare chested on a very hot day...not bother about growing eyebrows...try to get into a wrestle game at least once n where the prospects of my winning are high...or punch someone hard on the face, without hurting my fist in the bargain...ride a Harley Davidson kinda bike...

Aaa....Actually not much else...

I am happier being a woman n batting the eyelids to get all these things done somehow anyways!

So while following the stereotypes is cool...deviating from the usual is sometimes ‘cooler’...now what concerns being AC*poor joke*is very much your take to be in life!

I am!

I am...Me!
But what is me, I myself am not sure!

Am I what I have lived for?
My ideas, my principles, my attitude defines me?
My ideas, my principles, my attitude defies me!

I am in grain, as I was created by the master
And in spirit, as formed by the humans!
I am a face, a personality... a life!
I am a daughter, a mother, a wife...
Am I what my relations make me?

I am that which evolves every minute...
I am part this and part that and yet a whole!
I am what I want people to be like!
I am full of me and yet empty!

So what am I?
What makes me an individual and not a face in the crowd?
Does not every face in the crowd think himself to be so?
If we all want to stand out...who would stand within?
We need a crowd to be able to be singled out...
We need others to be able to define ourselves!
Then if I am like others, why do I struggle to be unlike them?

I am...what I think I am!
But do I think fair?
Or am I prejudiced towards me to make me fiercely believe I am right or better or stronger or smarter?
I think I like me too much to point out the faults and then love myself much too for I easily forgive when I err!
I am what was made of me...I am what I make of me!

Am I what others tell or opine about me?
But who can really judge that they mean what they say?
I get convinced in all my egotism of what I feel others perceive of me...
I am what I project to them or what I am in the confines of my privacy when I unmask all the layers and put away all the mirrors?

Am I what I critically dissect myself as?
I am harsh with me for I feel I know me better than all who say they do...
I let them gloat in the surmise that they do!
I let them see what I want them to!
I hide myself sometimes even from me...
And at other times I combat within my frames to let “me” surface and emerge as it should!

I am sometimes noble...free spirited and giving...
I bask in my own light, treading cautiously between vanity and respect!
I am sometimes selfless, yet eventually think high of me for being so and defy it totally!
I am fun and funny...making me think, am I like this or has life made it for me?

I am something and nothing and yet everything to me!
I am the reason for my existence and not love, relations, money or the likes as we believe to be!
I am the only person I can truly make happy and the only person who can truly understand my fears!

I am my best friend and my worst enemy...
I have within me the entire cosmos...
The strength to make me happy...
The will to make me strong...
The desire to make me persevere...
The need to make me reach out...
The elation of a soul reaching its destination...
The desolation of disappointments!

I am honest and naked only with me!
I am and will continue to be!

Hot Momma!

Alrite...for those of you who’ve missed me...biiiiiiiiiiiig hugs
And those of you who did not...cold, murderous glares...subjected still to slightly lesser-big hugs if you make amends asap*whoa...don’t look at me in that duh-way that is reeking of no-idea-what-to-do air.
Now if “I” will have to tell you even this how you should make amends to phir what you did on this planet from so many blessed years?*

Anyways, I have been away from the World Wide Web for a while*actually just one week to be precise...but seems like eternity*
And the reason for this would unfold now:
So pretty, witty n hot ladies n gentlemen, girls n boys*yes I prefer associations in this order of adjectives only*...
This is to inform you that I, Suruchi Arora am officially a mommy now!

So goodbye good old days of freely bouncing about as n when I wanted to...
Good bye to being a compulsive flirt*for it was as it is difficult targeting preys after being a naari with sindoor n managlsutra....now I seems dinosaur-ic being a woman with nappies and rattles...boo hoo...there go my hope of ever having an extra-marital affair*

Also good bye to days of massages...hair spas...holidays...gyming*oho...my choti se love story in the previous post...looks like sabke nazar lag gaye...forget about nabbing now no chances of grabbing or even peeking at him!*

But then again...when one door closes at one point*in this case many doors actually*, they say another window opens somewhere else:
Hello days of responsibility of a seven months old angel, whom we now call Seeya- after Goddess Sita, to be explanative of her name!

And before I hear ‘What? Why? How? Whoa’ from my blogosphere world...
Lemme do some further clarifications:
Nope...I was not pregnant*dodos, if I had been, don’t you think I would have recited my guts out on morning sickness...increasing bumps...inclining/declining sex drive and the likes...I am very dedicated to the cause of my reader’s all-round enlightment!*

We have been at it from ten years to my marriage*that is making babies by the way...any reference to the act of making love coinciding with the ritual, is purely unintentional. What the heck...it is not...now go ahead n burn in jealousy...although our average of 5 days a week is in serious jeopardy now so you may also gloat in sadist pleasure*

Anyways again...all that effort...sweaty sessions, late night adventures, early morning drilling and the likes but to no effect....
Matlab we just enjoyed the act of making babies and never really got to make one actually!:/

Doctors, palmists, astrologers, tantriks, saints, sinners, co-travellers, strangers, chemists, grocer...anyone n everyone had some advice or suggestion or remedy for our “curse” the moment they got to know we were not having kids*thankfully the proposals did not include altering ‘positions’...phew!*
But seems like the universe was conspiring against me remaining half-single and half ready to half-mingle*if only I had found my other half...sigh!*

Aaaah...long, boring, sob story there...so would not bother you with details. Let’s just say every smiling, mad face has sometimes an ocean of not so smiling or happy moments!

Anyywaaaaaays....so now we have adopted this adorable little doll who has brought a 360 degrees change in my life!
And like everything else I share with you guys...
This story just had to come here too!

The idea of adoption surfaced about two months back due to extreme fondness of my beloved for kids. And despite me asking him to call me “baby” to suffice that...it just did not go!

As for me...I had come to terms with the way things God had sent my way...filled my little voids with teaching, blogging, facebook-ing and even gyming*which I got to join just last year after ten years of being injected with medicines n hormones n what not...please rest the dirty minds here*!
I could finally be in some shape...other than the distorted one!

So the cold feet came about at the onset and did not seem to leave me despite my warm heart that is always ready to give, embrace n share love wherever and however!

And then one day...just like that, God sent little Seeya to us*yes, so dramatically only*
She looked at us with her big, beautiful eyes, through those long curly lashes and little fingers pointing to me and we knew she was perfect!
Though when she first saw us her face was swollen in anger as though saying, “God...couldn’t you send me a better pair...alrite...kaam chala lete hoon inhe se!”

The more I held her...the more little frontiers of motherhood awakened in my hitherto frivolous heart n mind!

And that was a cause of apprehension erstwhile, a source of astonishment when it occurred and a reason of jubilation now!
Why?
You see, I never considered myself as a mother!
You know how little and not-so-little girls dream of a house, a husband and two kids...
Kids were never in my frame of things*as a matter of fact, neither was a house or husband...I never thought of my future...I just live joyfully for and in the present!*

And neither had I been around kids much...the only exception being myself!
Plus ten years of grinding my body, mind and soul for a child had kind of killed the urge for it!

So there was fear... the ‘what if’ fear!
What if I do not feel as mothers do?
What if I am unfair to a little child?
What if my personal freedoms and selfish ambitions take over my responsibilities?

But it has been a week of revelation!

Not only did I not have a maid for the child*which is considered as a norm by the way* the maid who cleaned my room n bathroom, washed my clothes, did the ironing...decided to call it quits the very day Seeya came!
*I know what you are thinking...the cribbing mom begins*

However, for four days I gave myself completely to her cause...
I barely slept for about three hours intermittently through the day and barely sat during the waking hours!
She was taking time to adjust and I was making efforts to do the same!

But every time she would wake up and I’d be there...she’d look at me with her big beautiful eyes and smile with her 6 teeth peeking and nose scrunching so adorably that I knew it was all worth it!

Here was a little bundle of life that depended on me entirely!
Here was a big bundle of a whole unadulterated gratification when she would cling to my torso and her little frame almost jutting into my bigger one!
She would put her soft cheeks to my face or tiny fingers to hold my ears and I felt like never before!

Some of my dear friends had encouraged me earlier but I feared I was not made for it. I now believe...motherhood does not get born...it is there...it just gets awakened in a woman when she holds a child!
Sounds filmy but it is very true!

I sometimes miss my carefree life!
But then when she kicks her legs in pleasure as I talk gibberish with her...I become numb to everything else!
Once every day I yearn to teach again or go into the blog world, both of which have been my sole caretakers of sanity till now...
But so many other times during the same day I thank God when she sleeps comfortably or when she says ‘ta-ta-ta’ to me*I take it to mean as I love you momma*
Awwww!

Enough of Karan Johar mush....can I return back to a bit of cribbing again!
In one week I have washed n cleaned her bum more times than I have probably cleaned mine in the whole month*may I assert that it does not indicate anything about my hygienic qualities or my bowel movements*

I have held her in my arms and swung them to put her to sleep for hours at a stretch, as she wakes up every hour through the night!*hopefully that should get my arms in better shape*

I eat less because during the eating times I am generally washing nappies or ironing them or sterilizing bottles*I just might FINALLY lose some weight*

We*my beloved n me* have had almost next to nothing sex *finally a spate of relief...yiyee, yiyee, yiyee!*

I think I may soon suffer from some of these syndromes....having under eye bags...back ache...arms muscles...sloppy dressing...no eyebrows done and sometimes no time even for a head wash!*but worry not my competitors*who aren’t many* or my suitors*who are even fewer* for I’LL BE BACK!

The first sign of it is returning to blog...
And slowly the wheels of time would for sure make me a ‘hot momma’!
For I always believe in one dictum...there’s no point of doing something or being someone...if you do not create it as an example for others!
Amen to my thought n aim!

P.S. Sorry for being unable to read your blogs...would return to do so as soon as I get a little more settled!
Oho...got to rush...the baby just woke up with a howl!:-)

My Childhood Goof-ups!

Okay this one goes in memory of how weird I was as a child...
That would kinda explain the way I am as an adult!
Thank you Mohit for the inspiration!

Picture this:
I am ten years old...sitting at a table in a restaurant having ordered my favourite chicken noodles soup...
I have besides me my parents, a handful of married couples and bunches of kids*yup family planning was not so much in action then or young couples my parents age were simply put-too horny*

Everyone was asked if they wanted soups and my dear papa had declined...
When my soup came...my eyes widened into little globes and mouth literally watered enough to create a farce that there can be no water scarcity till the world has me!
And my papa asked for tasting...
I scrunched my nose, took a long whiff of the aroma to make it stay with me while the bowl took a round and returned!

And I waited and waited...and waited...
Watching my father gulp down a spoonful and another and yet another...
*Just for the record, I was that kinda child, who would measure in a tray full of coke glasses which was closer to the brim or which plate looked more filled up with Maggie and then pick it up!*

So now my poor soup within the bowl was going deeper and deeper...when emptied by five spoonfuls, it was time to throw a fit!
Sitting hands folded on my chest and pouting like a kid*err...I was a kid then...anyways!*
I said firmly “Humph, I don’t want that soup...papa can have it all after saying he did not want soup!”
Everyone stopped dead at my comment n my father was red as a tomato!
Yup...I was born this dumb!

Now this is when I must be 5 years old and symptoms the symptoms were apparent till maybe 21*I know that does not categorise in “childhood” memories but my childhood got extended by a couple of decades*

This is about my mortal fear of lizards!
I just can’t stand *or even sit or lie* them!
No matter if it was my board paper the next day, I used to waste a complete hour in just looking by how many centimetres the wriggly character had budged! And if it won’t, I would scream at the top of my lungs for someone to enter the portals of my room and ‘shoo’ it out of the door! If I had to kiss a frog to turn him into Prince Charming, I could do so...but were it to be replaced by a lizzy, I’d rather never be kissed at all!



Again me in some blessed years when I was smaller*in age n width*. No matter where food was hidden I would find the way to reach it. I remember my grandma tugging the muffin box in between her clothes, in the ration shelf behind the pulses boxes, even in her undergarments drawers and I would find them, finish the contents and leave the empty box in exactly the same spot, to let her gloat for days in the belief that it is lying there untouched and safe! Till eventually we would hear a screech from her room one fine day and the theft was caught! I would have been a master at crime had those skills been aptly honed and encouraged in my tender years! Tch, what a waste!

How silly though I could get, does not really end here!
When my parents would go out for dinners n stuff, my sniffing would begin through in my mom’s cupboard too!
Now I was not a malicious or materialistic kid...just a perpetually hungry one, who seemed to think all the adults of the world have hoarded chocolates, dry fruits and the rest of the delicious sinful goodies in remote corners of their cupboards!

So I would get down to investigating, with my microscopic eyes and tong like fingers! And one day, just like that, my fingers groped upon a video cassette....

Now an ordinary kid would think that since it has been hidden in the piles of my mother’s suits, it is supposed to be untouched!

Naah! But not me!
Being all of fifteen and ALL of curious, I had to put it in the video player to realize that it was about what ‘adult’ people played when they applied the game of ‘hide and seek’ to the human body!



Ah! So this is what I am supposed to do when I grow up...I thought! Thankfully I soon got a bit scandalised and gave up on the idea of doing it all! Till of course better reasoning prevailed with maturity!

As a child I would get infatuated with every remotely interesting boy that came my way!
As a child, I would sing Michael Jackson songs holding the water pipe of our bath tub, blaring my lungs out and then suddenly switch to being a swimmer and make a dive full length in the poor 12 by 12 tub!
Needless to say, the poor tub suffered from having a big crack that never got repaired and it got transformed into a laundry basket thereafter!

As a child, I also wrote a little diary...but when it stopped being child like...I decided to stop at that too!

As children in our class rooms, we gang of girls would duck down while sitting on our school desks and take a peek n tease those behind us about the colour of undergarments they would be wearing or not be wearing at all! And then sit all glue-joined legs when we were at the receiving end!

As a child...okay a teenager, our gang would get together to make crank calls to hot looking dudes of the town! My friends were professionals at the task and would put any call centre bimbo to shame! The only time I tried it out, I was caught*I still don’t know how* and the boy ended up giving blank n crank calls to my house for months!

Again as a teenager, I was the gutsiest one in my gang and had gone to a video parlour alone to ask for a soft porn flick*this was prior to me discovering the one in my mom’s cupboard!*
That’s a different story that the parlour owner made me run for my dear life when he said, “Beta, pehle apne papa ka phone number dena...unse confirm kar loon!”

What else did I do as a kid?
Did I tell you I would pretend to be the latest n hottest actress of those times and stand before the mirror pretending to be talking to the hottest actor*yes, only talking...I was a kid then for Christ’s sake*?



Did I tell you I caught a friendly neighbour couple doing the act, one afternoon when we kids were supposed to be playing on their terrace?*I tell you some libidos*
Did I tell you I ran on the edge of a fountain pool in a public garden, thinking I was feather light and went thud into the algae infected water, much to the amusement of the throngs there?

Did I tell you I pricked a condom pack for my cousin brother’s wedding night, with a needle*although it left me miffed big time eventually as it didn’t materialize into a baby in exact nine months*?



Did I tell you...?

Oho...never mind if I did not!
These things aren’t worth telling either!
Some other time ;-)

The Sad Void of Youngsters!

Although every phase of life is beset with difficulties and its own set of issues...a sad trend is emerging in the young brigade-including teenagers to those till around 25-30 years of age and especially those who are single. One would think that getting a partner in today’s time is the simplest thing of all and just about everyone has a boyfriend/girlfriend!
Sadly it is not so!
There are too many frogs to be kissed before hitting upon the prince or princess!

The youngsters are most boggled by a sense of emptiness in their lives which they can’t put a finger on! Sometimes it is parental pressures, ambitious expectations and uncertainty of the future! Often it is lack of love or someone to share their thoughts with!
Of course it is not age binding, as the symptoms are being apparent in older generations also. However, the youngsters lacking the experience or appropriate support to handle it are getting sucked into a pathetic state of being in solitude even in a crowd!

The more I interact with those venturing into the threshold of youth, the more apparent it becomes how isolated is their existence. They have so much to say but refrain from the fear of not being understood or snubbed or laughed at! So on the surface they appear hale n hearty...but a little bit of scratching shows within a vulnerable grown-up child!

They may have friends, flashy lifestyles or good family back ups and yet somewhere down the line they are also harrowed by a gnawing sense of loneliness and a void, often a constant mind-nag that something or someone is missing!

The modern era has enabled us to communicate with a thousand people at the click of a button but not have one true soul to hear us just bare our guts out!
We may have three hundred people following us on our twitter account knowing:
-Have left for hostel!
-Mutton biryaani in lunch...mmm!
-Damn, these traffic jams!

Yet not even a handful who’d know
-That you had a pathetic fight with your parents before leaving for the hostel
-That the biryaani you may have made but have no one to accompany you to enjoy its pleasure and you shall be gulping it down alone, talking just to yourself or to a black hole called the internet.
-That while you stood there alone stranded in the traffic jam, the thought of being stuck in a life-rut drove you to the point of self destruction!

Busy schedules and just too many chores and deadlines at hand...wanting too many things too fast and then getting bored of them as easily as that....are not just the symptoms of this depressive tendency but also the factors that are preventing them from reaching out!
So it is all a viscous cycle at the end of it!
And before you know...you are whirling in a hurricane of your own emotions!

You get inclined and addicted to the first person who shows consolation and empathy towards you!
You get drawn irresistibly and addictively to any hint of empathy or understanding, isolating yourself even more from the real world!
So while our best friend may not know what’s bothering our mind...an internet buddy would not just know but also be guiding you through the mess! A puppet show, anyone? The strings slowly move out of our hands as we merely become slaves to our emotions! We feel crappy one day and happy at another for no apparent reason at all triggering them!

Everyone’s bored of just existing...
This despite that we now have at our disposal a host of technical facilities...a hundred channels on the television, the social networking sites providing you a throng of “friends” at the click of a button, mobiles to help you be tracked no matter what, blogs to vent out your deep n latent feelings and more hang outs in posh looking malls to kill time! You have the world at your feet and yet your feet refuse to budge...take you further!
What fetters are these?

And yet the boredom!
Is it justified?

Or is it the case of too much on the platter spoiling the fun out of enjoying each individually!
We are gulping down instead of relishing!
We are texting a “send to all” message instead of taking out time to spread out a sheet of paper n penning our thoughts!
We are now window shopping more than going to a favourite store to lovingly hand pick!
We prefer to sleep around instead of getting into the hassles of love...or some at the other extreme edge...keep waiting for true love so desperately that they forget to reach out altogether!

We create little cocoons to shelter us fearing too much revealed is too much putting at risk!
We show the world what they and we want them to see....not what we really are!
And hence the short-lived gratification of an achievement that is as quick to fall out as sand in the hand!

What should be done?
If we are all alone...aren’t we united then in our loneliness?

Is there a solution...a suggestion...or some help?
Or is it just a part of growing up that they must endure the hard way...be killed a little everyday...to feel alive*hypothetically* some day?

The Shackles of the 'Modern' Woman!

Despite all the calm that appears on the surface...there’s hardly a woman who does not have a storm hidden below!

I quote here some examples of myriad emotions and silent misery of the fairer sex, women whom I have been fortunate enough in knowing and who for me personify sometimes the strength of the Himalayas, the purity of the Ganges, the serenity of a silence and the fragility of the flowers on their way to being crushed! These are people who have confided in me with all the trust in their heart and I share this with you, in the hope that it helps someone out there in some way! Thank you The Bald Guy for your write up that motivated me to write something like this also...beyond the giggles and our colourful frames of perceptions!

These are real people and lives actually happening about in the world somewhere as we speak...names have been changed to respect their privacy!

Astha- The Nervous Wreck!
Astha is a 26 year old married woman living in a metropolitan town. She was a career woman till four years ago when she fell in love and within a few months of giddy romance gave up her everything to settle down with her fairy tale Prince Charming!

But harsh realities of living together every day, caused the bubble of romance to burst sooner than she expected. She was on her toes perpetually to keep her husband happy but mean-makes were discovered on every step of the way! Everything he liked about her became a distant memory as what all he disliked came to the fore! Her follies accentuated and glories diminished...a strong, independent woman lost all confidence in herself, to be able to even purchase an outfit without someone’s consent and approval! Although a full time mom to her only son, she was blamed for the concentration disorder perceived in the child at school! Today she is bullied not just by her spouse but also the child for he sees his father do so!

It is sad to see how her chirpy self in now relegated to the backdrop because she fears perpetually that she’d blurt out something inappropriate or laugh where she should not or stay quiet where she should burst with fake glee! So a passive and no-expression state is her expression now of all times.

The issue:
Low self esteem is as serious a malady in today’s time as any of the fatal diseases that you can come up with!
It not only sucks the life breath out of you but makes you a pathetic vegetable...you are living and around but not better than a backdrop that is barely noticed! A difference of five years between the couple gets her to be treated like a kid and reprimanded in that way too...which is certainly beyond the respectability demanded in a marriage!

My constant struggle with her:
I tell her to move out and mingle with people...watch what they are doing and wearing and then comparatively realize first if her taste is actually bad or has she been convinced of the same to be cut off from the mainstream and unable to flutter her wings and dare to fly away someday!

It’s not that her husband does not love her...it’s just that he considers her to be his acquired property and till she’d silently bear all he throws at her, she would go on to prove that he is right about her being an object!

I tell her to insist on her going back to work and she was doing fine till the marriage came along*although she used to then cling on to her cousin sister every time she wanted to run errands*

I see her all ready to shake up in fear by a mere loud sound, hesitant in voicing her opinion and calling up someone for every small decision to be taken and it breaks my heart! I fear she would never grow up like this!



Meghna- The Lost Wife!
Meghna too began as an independent woman*it’s scary at the rate such sufferings are borne by educated and independent women...I shudder to think how the lower classes must be accepting just about any torture*

Meghna also fell in love with a boy in her MBA class and decided to settle down soon! Her father being very affluent and suffering with cancer, she easily got the consent for it all!

But as always happens, after the wedding the realities began to draw in.
All material comforts or rather the lack of them that she was so eager to overlook before walking the aisle, suddenly became conspicuous by their absence. It was not that her husband’s side was poor...they just didn’t want to spend! The mother-in-law came up with stories that they didn’t have enough money for the furnishings knowing full well that Meghna’s father had left her a hefty amount, enough to sail her through life. He had provided three flats in her name in different posh localities of her erstwhile home New Delhi and also many LIC policies that matured at regular intervals to ensure her sufficient liquidity for many years to come!

Meghna began to spend her own money on the renovations and soon the eyes that squinted at the prospect of a possible cash flow became enlarged like ostrich’s eggs viewing the wealth-well that had suddenly sprung open at their disposal. The subsequent deliveries of her two children, her own personal expenses, managing the kitchen budget and the like soon came to her own head and the mother-in-law even asked for “loans” from her!

She would have borne that too had the husband not turned cold all of a sudden after the father’s death, realizing she had no family now to turn to in case she would decide she had had enough here! Also accidently discovered was a monthly recurring deposit of a lofty sum being credited to the sister-in-law’s name, when pocket money to her was refused, on the pretext of deficits!

The issue:
Often being gullible fools, women fail to understand the motives of prospective love proposals. They are so eager to become one with the new fabric of their married life that they barely realize how completely their identities and belongings are being merged too! They are ready to give up the jewellery they brought with them and succumb to off-hand remarks about requirements of new electronics, etc in the house, made in all awareness and deliberation so that it would be well conveyed to the parents and suitably presented on the next festive occasion!

My struggle with her:
I often tell her to let things be as they are! If the monthly ration has not come...don’t get it yourself! When there would be no food...they’d have to arrange for it! But she becomes helpless as her two children’s demands are at stake! She works at the family’s office too and demanded no pay till we friends insisted upon her to do so. She continues to stay underpaid now, as an MBA hired from outside, would have to be given thrice the same amount!

All the property that she had got renovated to an absolutely changed house now, is in the mother-in-law’s name, who is a widow. She has been refusing to transfer the house even in her son’s name, citing the fear that she’d be ignored if that happened! After repeated discussions I have got her around to insist the house being transferred to the grandchildren’s name to avoid the bias towards the sister-in-law. She has now stopped using the joint bank account with her husband, for funds were deposited there by her but withdrawn by her husband, sometimes even without her knowledge!

She uses a separate account, has all her policies edited to make her sons the nominees and not her husband, has refused to get the kitchen and households items and takes her sons out for lunch when there is nothing at home to cook with! She makes a list of all items that she spends on and hands it over to the husband to meet the household expenses. Yet she is often emotionally blackmailed and still exploited of her own money often without any reasonable security!




Sugandha-the mother-in-waiting!
Sugandha is a college lecturer, a topper in all fields and a go getter that her college boasts of as an indelible asset! She has also been married from seven years into one of the most illustrious families of her town! And out of these seven, she has spent six in trying to produce a baby! Her in-laws are educated and civilised in every sense of the word and there is a grandchild already from the elder brother-in-law!

Sugandha has been taken to pundits, tantriks, palmists, horoscope makers, astrologists and even babas who ward off evil shadows. She has eaten balls made of cow dung on the pretext of that being a Prasad, brushed with the holy broom based on the argument that there is an evil spirit within her stopping her from the conception! She has bent her forehead at the feet of any holy man whose name is mentioned before the mother-in-law. She’s been to a gurudwara in Amritsar, a temple in Meerut, a dargah in Rajasthan and many other places where well-wishers deemed that she’d be blessed with a baby!

Not just that she has been poked by at least two dozen doctors all over the nation, been on severe and strong injections leading to complete hormone turmoil within her and removing any little faith that she had in the god!

She shudders at the idea of going even to the temple because she’d be singled out there again and asked before a hundred prying eyes to be given special blessings as though she was cursed! She puts her career at hold each time she undergoes a monthly treatment and stays on bed rest till bad news breaks again and is yet blamed for not making child rearing her priority.

The issue:
Bearing a child is considered as the next logical step in Indian marriages and the inability to do so is deemed as a curse. Even if you are happy in a particular set up, the society makes it a point to emphasize this to you that you are incomplete. Although meant in good terms but even random strangers stay travelling in the train with you or chit chatting in the gym may end up advising you on what to do or not to have baby and leave you with the card of another doctor, who is known for sure shot success. As a result, Sugandha may appear to be moving on face value...but she is rotting inside being in stagnant water of indifferent thought and unable to walk away!

My struggle with her:
I have time and again told her that having children is a part of life and not the end of life! It is a silly argument to give that whom should I earn or save for?
Why not do that for yourself? How many parents are there in this world, whose children go abroad and settle and never turn back to find out about the parents except send a cheque each month!
Create your own cheques for your old age!

Do we want children for our selfish needs of later life?
Can’t two people be happy just with each other? Her husband is supportive of the misery and stands by her in times of tears...but he too feels helpless before his overpowering urge to have successors to carry forward his name! She wants to stop the circus going around her but feels pressurised by the expectations of those that qualify under 'near n dear ones'! I also tell her for adoption but the urge to have a baby has slowly died within her!

Issues like these may not make headlines, yet they make a woman silently suffer and crush within.
Have we really moved forward?
Education is said to be the key...but then it does not work on all kinds of locks, does it?
The most rational step is to put your foot down and say "NO"!
But then sometimes the invisible shackles of emotions become stronger than the physical, visible will to break free of them!

I read this in the newspaper the other day by motivational speaker Deepak Chopra and it made so much sense, that I wanted to share it:
-Confront the following beliefs that turn women into victims:
-I am less than a man
-Without a man I am nothing on my own
-Suffering in silence is something that a woman is born to do
-It’s saintly for me to be miserable so that someone else can be happy
-Life is unfair...all I can do is put up with my misfortunes!

You were not put here to be a saint, martyr or a victim!
You were put here to claim your life as your own and to pursue your own vision of fulfilment!