Gadgetisizing Me!

It is strange how you are born one person and how you evolve into another. I was born a gadget-free girl ya, right, I know everyone is- there are chances you can be born with a silver spoon but never with a silver laptop, can you? But I was different initially-too many machines and wires and processes would put me into foreboding and I almost anticipated that someday I might take a premature retirement in my teens and go to the Himalayas to lead a confusion-free, tech-free life. 

That of course did not happen because:

A. Himalayas did not have McDonalds or KFC and hunting down animals to make my own burger, would require hunting down bakers to make my own bun too -huh?

B. I wasn’t married yet so I would need more than just clothes to keep me warm and I didn’t think I’d meet sexy rishis on the way.

C. Wriggly and reptile-ish things with many feet scared me more than all the wires put around me together.

D....Never mind, point is I did not retire and it is just a coincidence that the ‘Save Himalaya’ Movement has been relaxed since then and they shifted their focus on ‘Save Tiger’ instead.

But along with adulthood came the subtle inevitability of technology seeping in-television and the advent of foreign soaps brought enlightenment that if at first you don’t get the good looking hunk to walk the aisle, wait a while and his father would anyways jump the bandwagon nopes, I did not call you a bandwagon, it was for analogy’s sake. Being the ‘couch potato’ was the training ground for being the eventual ‘couch slave’.

The mobile slowly became such a permanent fixture at the edge of that thing called my arm that so many times I almost shuffle my hands vigorously to make sure my cell phone hasn’t got stipulated there. Thank god I also slowly understood the need for vibratory mode on this gadget, before doing ‘Ram, Ram-ghor kalyug!’ and shunning it as a device meant to corrupt gullible and experimental minds and bodies. It is so me now that it faithfully sleeps by my bed side and is the first thing I peer into after opening my eyeballs yes, I live in the belief that the humanity has nothing better to do than give me missed calls and forwarded messages in the dark, wee hours by which we can change the world and make it a better place. Even during the night sometimes I wake up with a fright, not because the baby may have woken up but because I seemed to have “heard” the message tone beep. My mobile is now synonymous with me, my E63-big yet handy, communicative yet trouble free!

Also came the realisation for wanting the air conditioners to keep me looking sweat-free and touchable and for geysers to keep me from freezing so that I melt others at first fright...er...sight. So what if I did not understand what was happening inside those big fat boxes, I could at least switch them on and off and be done with it.

However, the machinery that slowly grew on me was the computer yes, look closer and you might almost find little laptops budding here and there so much has the “growing” been effective. I used to look down disdainfully at those addicted to the World Wide Web-but like they say, tab tak sherni ke mooh mein khoon nahi laga tha! You need to be in Rome to do like the Romans do!

My first computer was a laptop gifted by my dearly beloved after our wedding bells had rung loud and clear. Little did he know that he was inviting competition for himself into his own home and right onto his bed. If I am not found anywhere in the house, rest assured I could be located curled up at the edge of the thing I sleep on with the thing I often sleep with-my laptop. In fact sometimes when by chance I leave it for charging on his side, I can almost trace visible fume like stuff of envy emitting out of his head. I sniff and ask him if something is burning and he says with a mad scientist grin, “Yes, your laptop” and I make sure I call the insurance waala immediately and double check if I have got the fire insurance claim on my gadgets. “For god’s sake,” I tell my beloved, “It is just a machine” and then wink back to my machine and tell it, “Oh, he is just a man!”

When I started my relationship with this gadget, I was often left wondering how similar we are in so many ways and yet so different:

A. We are both kind of harmless when we are on sleep mode/shut down and lo, the moment we open up, you just can’t stop the action and the jabber!

B. We come in various shapes and sizes-I have forever been oscillating between various volumes and magnitudes and I think neither can the computer make up its mind of what’s the best statistics for it. The previous bulky models were so me-we fitted extremely well in the lap, as its name was meant to signify. But then the manufacturers got inspired by size zero and the belief that ‘less is more’. I now have to sweat out my hard earned flesh to keep up to fit into arms and palms.

C. We both can do wonders if you press our keys right and when charged fully, you just have to watch us perform please don’t ask me to decode that, there are some answers that even Google is afraid to provide.   

D. We both use “enter” mode more than “shift/control” and we can go up to a lot of F’s when required-F1, F2, F3, etc. Okay time to shut up with my ABCD!

However, I do wish I was as user friendly and the memory within me just as vast and just as easy to delete! *Sigh!*

We recently upgraded our laptop model-I wanted something more colourful and snappier-something that defined the colours in me, brought the globe to my finger tip and transformed carrying its weight into a child’s play. I know I can be demanding sometimes but then why not demand when/till when you are in demand? I can now carry it along where ever I go and it does the work of a stylish clutch in my arms-yes, it pays to have it, in its own way. My beloved no longer minds for he realizes there is no winning when it comes to Man Vs the Machine, unless they bring in laptops that have rounder bottoms than his.

Alas! It would be an understatement to say, that my lappy is now become my best friend! I speak to it whenever I need to vent, I connect with it whenever I need to reach out, spend time with it whenever I want to be left alone. You might as well say, ‘You never know how well you click, till you click’. My beloved going away for a week is not such a ghastly/life altering premise now as the lappy going away to the repair shop for a day. I don’t understand how can two people sit for hours looking into each other’s eyes but please don’t ask me to explain how I can sit for sometimes a full day looking at the screen. And when that little internet blue balloon emerges on the little bar below, no blues can sustain and no bars entice enough. Such is life-technology happens and gadgets snap in!

Okay, I don't think this would ever happen but OMG, I  just might reach here some day!

P.S.: This blogpost is written in response to the contest 'CHANGE IS EASY' hosted by Dell Inspiron Laptop with customizable covers on Indibloggers.

I have participated for the first time. Please go to this page and vote for me there if you like it:-)Thanks!

For the Love of Books

“Have I died and gone to heaven?” Kreesha mused.

When she was told “Book Lover” was an incredibly delightful little haven tugged away in the outskirts of the narrow, buzzing lanes of Chandni Chawk, she had almost chuckled at the idea of Old Delhi being hipper than the ‘with it’ bookstores sprawled across the eagerly emergent New Delhi, seething with modernity. Her avidly reading, connoisseur of sorts of a landlord had been a little more than usually insistent, even by his own standards on her going for this little treasure hunt that took her almost two hours to reach to the periphery of Delhi from her whereabouts. He had been going there since his grandfather’s time, which itself seemed to be establishing its credibility. And as she had devoured all of the books in the roomful of his humble library in the last two years of her college life in Delhi, her own modest means now left her with little choice but to rummage through the streets of din and madness to satiate her interminable hunger for good literature.

She often wondered how anyone could replace the enchanting epiphany of holding a book tenderly in his hands, with the sans-emotional experience of almost cruel clicking on the computer keys, to read a book. Technology had made information easier to access but literature difficult to enjoy. She could think of no way of swapping the pleasure of lounging in a corner of her room with the crisp feel of a best seller or a classic in the hand, thumbing pages or reading with such an invasive interest that you lose any sense of time or existence. Ah, the subtle delight of putting a finger to your lips and turning to the next page because the curiosity of the suspense can barely be constrained in your insides! She was still old school in this- Something in the hand is better than “virtually” everything at the finger-tip. She had a cupboard full of such riches back home in Jammu, squirreled away when her family had seen better days. How she achingly missed them now almost just as much as she craved for her mother in the simulated pace of Delhi!

Kreesha had taken extra time to dress that day for Mohinder Uncle had advised her to wear something traditional and go to avoid unwarranted attention, since she was going alone and was still relatively less aware of the capital per se. She had tried justifying how the western attire is no longer scandalous in any part of the country, but having gone through Delhi’s lust laden glares, she didn’t laugh the matter off. There are two different worlds within and outside the bookshop he said and he wanted her experience to be nothing short of an affable one. Kreesha had just one salwaar suit, bought for her school farewell, as otherwise she lived in and out of two pair of jeans and some ten tops. She knew her widowed mother was doing way enough already than to expect her to provide her with a life of an ‘ordinary’ twenty one years old. She had come to Delhi with the focus of becoming vocationally independent to support her mother now and nothing came in track of that. Books were her only escape route when life’s drudgery became excruciatingly grim. She knew she was a little overdressed for a trip to a bookstore, but heck, wouldn’t everyone at Chandni Chawk be anyways?

‘Book lover’ was a reader’s paradise alright. Piles after piles of neatly stacked books adorned the meticulously well-laid shelves and the sombre ambience in itself she thought was enough to keep her meandering around its little by-lanes for days. Criss-cross rays of sunlight played along through the airy chamber providing it a vintage feel and despite many people trudging around with their keen eyes, the serenity inside was unfathomable. She was feasting her eyes at the beckoning volumes as a glutton would if he was left by himself in a shop full of delicacies, almost sniffing with a rare fulfilment, the muggy smell of paper. How could such a store be obscured in oblivion like this? But it seemed it wasn’t really, for students, the aged, housewives-everyone seemed to be indulging there to their heart’s content and yet leaving so much to explore. Books there were available on rent, discount, second hand or for just sitting there and reading-you name it and they had it-the rarest of first editions, the silent yet eloquent manuscripts lying there from ages perhaps, waiting for someone to swab off the thin veil of dust and open them to life again.

“It is idyllic just standing here, isn’t it?” said a calm voice from behind her, that almost startled and broke the all pervading trance. She smiled as she turned, for that was exactly her sentiment. “I have an expression of a child, who’s somehow found his way to fairyland, haven’t I?”

“I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats over vales and hills,” he said, as his tall frame rested upon a rack that housed the romance section, as though he had was just come to life from there.

“When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils?” she replied with the grin that only enhanced her dimples puckishly and a grin that only books could hitherto evoke from her and a grin of remembrance that would have made William Wordsworth proud in his heavenly abode. “I don’t know where to begin from here...it’s massive. Despite me being a very frequent traveller to bookstores, I don’t think I have seen so many books at one place in my life. I could live here forever.”

He chuckled, “With books-when there is a vast city calling you out to mingle with frivolity and mirth?”

“Bah, humbug-Uncle Scrooge style, eh? Outside is a world that would teach you with experience. Inside books is a world that has been experienced and waiting for you to take a dip- to enjoy the greatest of highs-conquer the Himalayas or triumph over territories and the self -watch generations go into submissiveness and eventually revolt to liberty! People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading!” And there was a pregnant pause, “Aaa...I am sorry, sometimes I don’t know where to stop.” She broke a little awkwardly thinking she just gave an unwarranted lecture.

“It is true. You remind me of Helen Keller. She once said that Literature was her Utopia,” he smiled and though it was warm, she somehow felt it was not used to of making very frequent appearances. “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one, you will feel that it all happened with you and after that it all belongs to you.”

“Aha, wasn’t that Ernest Hemingway who said that?”

“Damn, it is difficult to please a well read woman!”

The well read woman blushed, half so for the compliment and half so for the need to having please her. “The well read woman is called Kreesha and she assumes the better read man is not called Ernest Hemingway?”

“You could call me Earnest if you do so, so very earnestly Kreesha!”

“And would you be reading all of those?” she pointed to some ten books lying on his arms. “And these would all be reading me,” he said again in his puzzling ways. “Come let me help you select something that you may not have read before and what you may not be able to not-read again and again. And by the way, did I tell you, you are among the few truly beautiful things I’ve seen around here?”

“Are you flirting with me Mr Ernest and if I say I am not, would you next tell me true beauty is skin deep?”

“No, I am not referring to adorable pancreas here, something like ‘A thing of beauty that is a joy forever, its loveliness increases, it will never pass into nothingness’...”

“So we moonlight as Keats too, either that or you just got lucky with all the quotes that you mugged up.”

“Either that or I just plain simple got lucky today....”

Kreesha did not remember when she had last flirted with someone-was it at school? And then when he had opened his mouth to use his limited hoard of verbal skills like they all did, she was so thwarted by what emerged from it that she gave up on the idea altogether. Words make worlds for how else can beauty be seen and felt if not worded?

“Would you mind holding my books, till I do something to satisfy the lady?”

“That won’t be easy, but the lady seems to realise that the gentleman does not like taking up tasks that promise to be a cakewalk.” And she followed him around like a puppy as he picked selections from famous authors, romance, autobiographies and philosophies of life. As much as she was enjoying delving into her passion, at the back of her mind was a faint flutter of how she might shell out for them all. Before she could decide, they had reached the payment counter. “Thank you so much. I think I will manage from here, I have wasted a lot of your time,” and they exchanged the piles of books.

Much to her surprise, the young man walked over to the other side of the counter and gave a gentle pat to the man sitting there who at once vacated it. Without a word, he took her books and put them in a jute bag and put pen to paper on a ‘Book Lover’ card kept there. He looked up and smiled and just like that left. She asked for a bill from the man who took over and he said that the books were with compliments from the store. Kreesha mumbled an insistence knowing it would be futile.

She walked out of the store and crossing the lanes, came upon the main road and called for an auto. As she boarded it and began her two hours journey back home, she looked again at the card,

“Greetings from one book lover to another,

Divya Vardhan Singh,

Book Lover.

P.S. Writing is nothing more than a guided dream. And a dream is no longer a dream if shared. Ernest hopes to see you around so that we could decide who pays for the next set.”

Her hands somehow instinctively picked out a book from the bag to begin it without further ado. Needless to say, it was romance and the title was ‘Making love, out of nothing at all.’

Photo-holic!

I have always been fond of clicking...pictures, that is.

A saner part of me wanted to become a photographer, so in love have I been with the camera. But there are a 1000 other dubiously sane parts that want to be something else, so let’s not talk about my parts anyways! In the weirdest of hypothesis, one may not unearth cash in my handbag but fat chance of not retrieving a camera in it. You never know when life throws at you a frame-worthy moment and my friends, ‘It is better to be prepared now than sorry later’ is not just believed in by me, but even upheld by The Population Control Board of our country. I don’t mind being the butt of people’s jokes at get-togethers, when I take out my camera ala Rajnikant taking out a gun from some hidden corner; for these very people put a hand around my shoulder to get clicked too and later ask when am I uploading these pictures and I must tag them. Shoooo!

Longer before Facebook and Picassa happened, I have had humongous albums of every trip/event/random nothings that crossed my path in my barely there decades on Mother Earth. However since Facebook, I like to be more in front of the camera than behind for posterity’s sake. Fb and the blog domains have contributed to the uprising of subtle though excessive vanity and other syndromes in users amongst many more things-Like say The Comment Itch-every blogger has it...we itch till we don’t see comments awaiting moderation, working like a soothing balm for our narcissistic nerves and once clicked to publish, the itch surfaces again. The deadly You-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours disorder that makes people visit your page and say “nice read” and leave, when in all probability they have not read beyond the first paragraph. And Facebook- well, there were good old times when we danced like the photo was not being “tagged”, loved like we were never “unfriended” and status updated like nobody is “liking”.

Vrooooooom...back to the topic, so I click now with a vengeance thinking these would be my trophies of old age, to show to my grandchildren how happening their daadi/naani was in her hay days, even though half the pictures may be cropped or taken at such an angle so that my big butt appears smaller (or does not appear at all) and my smiles, just about perfect. They weren’t around when these were being clicked...so they’d have no choice but to believe them and quote stories of how their granny could have been the next Aishwarya Rai, if only she had been to Mumbai long enough to be noticed. The shots, where my face looks all teeth or the lead in my pants is displayed obnoxiously, would never see the daylight-hehehohohohahaha *devilish laughter*.

It is anyways an established fact that no one looks half as bad as their driver’s license picture and half as good as their Facebook/blogger profile one. Now if only I had more idea about photo-shop or more sense to handle pictures apart from just cropping them, I would be giving sleepless nights to others than being subjected to them! My biggest woes on many days when I am looking super sexy for a change, is that I am not being shot like that I mean not with a bullet yaar, though God, please let me die presentable! I often pray that the day dear Death visits, let me be blessed to have my dying wish granted already-have my eyebrows and waxing in order and hair freshly washed and by that age include facial, face lifts, etc too! Otherwise it just might me the worst funeral I have ever attended.

When I look at fashion bloggers getting clicked away to glory looking so model-ish, my little heart aches a little more. Sigh! Wish I had great photographers in my life too and a decent camera that makes me look illegally beautiful-matlab so beautiful that it should be illegal to watch without desiring me. I am conveniently forgetting the third requisite of a figured body for the beautiful part to come true, but then I never claim to have the best of memories to figure out such nitty gritties. My only photographer is my husband, who when asked to do the honours, makes the saddest of yester years’ Rajendra Kumar face don’t ask me who he is-Google him and you’d know just how sad as though an inexplicable tragedy has occurred with his wife. I feel as if I am taking him round Hitler’s gallows, such a let’s-get-it-finished-fast expression he has.

In fact he would wear one of these looks:

1. Constipated and clenched angry and thereby making me reflect the same.

2. Lost Puppy who would fidget so much with the camera before clicking that my smile would slowly start transforming into a tired grimace.

3. Clumsy and clicking pictures without giving me a moment to decide how to pose, so that half the outcomes would have my one eye closed or lips open in a scream, giving unwarranted directions or hands half raised in air to settle that lock of hair strategically. Needless to say when I peer into the result and look up to him to express my dissatisfaction, I somehow paranormally behold an image of a volcano about to burst and let the urge pass! Point of this big fat paragraph-I look much better than what my pictures show or do I?

Last year after some enlightenment that-it is not the person being clicked that’s important for a good image rather the camera is, I managed to summon my hitherto latent courage to argue with my beloved over why we need a more expensive camera with better megapixels and zoom yes, I sounded all techie because whenever I do that, it is so much more scary than global warming that he almost always gives in sooner than usual for obvious reasons. Simply put-our 3.2 megapixels is not doing justice to our appearance. I managed to make him dish out some thousands to get a Sony DSC-WX1 with 10.2 megapixels, G lens and 5 optical zoom yes, they dupe you with such high sounding stuff that while signing the cheque, you feel you just bought the camera that is fit for the red carpet alone.

I returned home all smug and bubbly holding in both my hands the camera box as lovingly as one would hold his newly born. However, after the pictures were clicked and I saw them on my laptop my disappointed countenance probably resulted in me getting my first worry wrinkle.

“But it is making me look the same????????” I partly whined and partly shrieked.  

“What did you expect, it would suck out ten kilos from your frame, diminish the tired lines, blur the pimple spots, turn the grey on your head into black and even your teeth?”

Offended I got defensive, “Haaaaw, that’s not fair...I have no grey yet.”

“Huh, is that ALL you noticed in my question? I give up. No new camera now for ten years hence.”

I hate it when beloved gets all honest-y, minus diplomacy.

Needless to say, I make him pay for it too with a Touch-me-not issued, so that he quotes from thereafter, “Honesty is the costliest policy!”

Alas, now I have stopped practising my surreal O-that is making a Rekha like...er...Kareena like O with my lips to signify the oomph factor or having one hand raising my ruffled hair up and the other on my waist look. I know I badly need better/tolerable poses, but at least get me these two materialized first and rest my childhood aspirations to peace. Philhaal, I can see another O forming on my beloved’s face-more like OMG as I am relating to him what I am writing! Sigh!

So I am stuck with my older but not old enough camera, something just like me! Please pray for me- that someone somewhere reading this gets inspired to do a photo shoot with his own paid make-up artist and inspired enough to not charge me for it, except just ask for my smile. I am already giving the biggest monkey grin to him. Amen!

Sex and a whole lot like that!

These are just some baap of random thoughts/observations concerning/alluding to sex or lack/need/desire/madness of it and a whole lot like that kinda topics!

So bachcha log, please don’t read this and if you must then please don’t blame me later for not giving you spice enough!

•         I often share posts of bloggers I like on my Facebook page and generally my friends log do read trusting my taste and instincts god help and bless them all. However, when recently I put up a link to a post entitled ‘porn nights’ there were more “likes” and comments than ever before hmmmmmm...acha ji-wink, wink, even though ironically there wasn’t any actual porn or even a whiff of it anywhere. Just the title was enough to generate curiosity and thereby clicks. Even my own most famous posts have been those with double meanings and hints of titillation do you sniff some inane pride there? so much that I have to physically stop my dainty right hand with my super dainty left hand, from typing more of just that stuff. Pooooooint is-sex sells!

•            Like it or not, believe it or not, we are a bunch of sex starved voyeuristic lot no matter how many times we rattle the bed post in the cosy confines of our homes. We by which I am generalizing and in no way stating my personal preferences get thrilled still by watching hot lip-locks on screen or hearing about whose wife was caught in bed with whom. Complete crass shows like Big Boss, evoke such mass interest because the public is waiting with bated breath to hear someone abuse another in unfathomable terms or falter from the moralistic path into a fling. A hot item number ensures saleability of music and the movie no matter how crappy the content is. Katrina and John Abrahim still rule vast dingy corners of human imagination though they can ‘not-act’ the pants off anyone. Rahul Gandhi never mind masses calling him baba...he can be many’s baby;-) is the preferred politician among the youth for he is relatively sexier looking than the rest of the one-foot-in-grave or mouth-drenched-in-tobacco lot alright, maybe I am speaking for myself here, but isn’t he really?

•            Recently a dear friend of mine was very annoyed when he went to his bank for his usual dealings. Upon questioning why, he said that they had changed his Relationship Manager to a GUY and that was most disagreeable for him, as from the last twenty years of his ‘relationship’ with the bank, he had pretty and even passable, marginally pretty females, more ready to oblige than otherwise for business of course. Another dear friend of mine does not like female instructors at the gym for she feels they do not have the understanding of the body as a male instructor does. And in my many years of discerning people and their drift, I know better than to ask them to explain their weird surmise.

•             Why, sexier people do have greater chances of being hired than the ordinary dorks! And sometimes greater chances of being fired too. In my quest for maids came a damsel of a regular height and standard weight, except the top half of her body, just below the neck was inexplicably super bestowed, accentuated more hideously by the clingy kurta that she wore. So while I spoke to her, despite all my normal tendencies, please don’t raise that eyebrow...do I still need to convince the masses of THAT? I would inevitably find my eyes juxtaposed to those humungous things that would be called breasts in normal human understanding. My god, I was wondering, did she accidently take in those injections that is rumoured to be used on mini watermelons to make them ripen into the most giant ones on the shelves in a day? And I said ‘no thank you, I don’t want you toppling over with my daughter just because the 2/3^rd of your top half might not be able to handle the rest of the 1/3^rd of the weight below’.

•            It also is true that whatever we try to smother emerges out more strongly than ever. Tell your teenage daughter to stay away from boys and surely she’d be adventurous enough to commence on that very path to know ‘why’.  Create a hullaballoo about hot scenes in a movie and indisputably it would have more than the regular takers, wanting to satiate some urge or the other, if not just the curious one. Like I remember how a whole bunch of us friends and even many other ‘selective movie goers’ also, thronged the theatres for the movie Love, Sex and Dhokha although it boasted of no star cast or anything else, except what the title sheepishly hinted at. Neha Dhupia would forever be remembered, not for any movie that she was a part of, but for a simple quote she made, “Only Shahrukh and sex sells in Indian movies!”

•            Most boys do not begin as “men” unless circumstances make them promiscuous. This I realised post my blog article on ‘My Understanding of Men and Women’ where men have been cruelly stereotyped as solely driven by their libido I am sorry, please don’t take a morcha against me to ban me or something, I do love your specie at the end of the day. There a dear blogger Anshul remarked that he did not find many traces of himself or perhaps he just had to grow up to be a “man”. Bless you for being such a nice munda, bringing hope for my despairing sisterhood not yours obviously. Like always Anshul, even your comments give me food for thought; forget about your posts which are like a sinful banquet by those standards.

   

         Anyways, I then realised that although most men would say that there is    no man who does not have sex on his mind in his relation with a woman, I almost began to beg to differ. There are still boys who want to fall in love with one girl whom they’d eventually settle down with, dream of eternal love and bed hopping is just not their game though this variety is under a serious threat of extinction and such specimens are already declared as endangered species, fiercely guarded by the owners like Kohinoor Heeras. It’s easier to find tiger’s milk than them! Or perhaps, they are yet to become men- these tendencies surface even in the boy next door, more so in the middle ages, as a cynically wise dear friend says, when you realise that you gave up the best part of your twenties believing in ideals like those of teenage girls-even the teenage girls don’t think like that anymore, he says. 

•             Recent cases of celeb infidelities have made headlines everywhere. People scrunch their noses in disdain at the Strauss-Kahn saga, from Tiger Woods okay, his tally more than anything else makes him so outrageous to Ryan Giggs and Gordon Ramsay. Actors like Charlie Sheen and Hugh Grant have ruled the roost more so with their sexual escapades. While I am in no way defending polygamy, I do sometimes feel how difficult it must be in show biz to continue tightening your leash around the flimsy slippery corners of conscience. It is okay for us lesser mortals to sit comfy in our not-so-glamorous or powerful arenas we don’t have to bear faces of a Hrithik or a Kareena, within breathing distance every day, crooning love lullaby to us and then test our god damn moralities We just have to raise an accusing finger at those who reach unfathomable heights through the sheer beauty of their countenances and body or swoon-worthy talent. It is so pleasurable to pick faults in others whereby you make an assertion of a lack of them in you, without having to say it in so many words.

I mean come on, if I were a Bill Clinton and sexy females thronging me would flirt and make passes, I would be too abnormally human to let it pass without retorting suitably back, especially after the world known established fact of my gift of gab. And no one counts the 101 times he may have resisted but the one time he could not dodge no puns intended he was crucified. Sometimes it becomes difficult to realise when the blurring lines of harmless flirting have crossed over. So before we burn their effigies, let us at least put ourselves in their shoes oh how we’d love that, won’t we?

Ranbir Kapoor is accused of being philandering. Hell! When women like Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif and the recent bevy of beauties associated with the Casanova, cling on him or they spend days and nights in locales that only the dreamiest of fairy tales could boast of, it should not really come as a surprise with his kind of charm. I don’t know how Sachin Tendulkar and Shahrukh have managed to not create such headlines but then do we really know the truth always?

Ordinary mortals attached to their families and living in a closer knit set ups have really no excuse to stray but the stars...they are stars after all, beyond reach and part of their appeal is the hype around them!

All I am saying here is that you can’t beat the drums about being loyal and moral till your morality has been suitably tested by something which is difficult to resist. When Vishwamitra can give in, the rest of the men are also only humans!

•          While I am not being judgemental in the above cases, I would really like to jump the bandwagon in another one. In this age of internet relationships, it is easy getting hooked and easier still is assuring privacy with a person even though it may not be “touch”-phone like easy physical. While there may be chat rooms and the likes catering to such needs of individuals, it is sad how the youth is prone to blind faith or stupid thrill of exchanging nude pictures of themselves, with such non-chalance. I try to keep an open mind in most cases and think from the other’s point of view before being driven to conclusions yet I do believe that here one needs to be a whole lot more cautious of what is sacredly hers even after trusting the other to the point of obsession.

The younger lot are more confused than ever about their own preferences and loyalty because in relationships like these, they give too much of themselves too soon and then are extremely disillusioned if it does not work out. Sexual experimentation is worse when you are ignorant of the real world and worst still if you are on the internet, speaking from a girl’s point of view. From a man’s side-How can you let go of the belief in your loyal streaks because of a couple of failed internet relationships and convince yourself that you might not have it in you to not stray and thereby stray with the most guiltless of conscience?  

Enough! So much of sex talk is making me sexy oh how I wish it was THAT easy!

So until next time when I make more sense...stay sexy! :-)

The Mysterious Caller

I know what you are thinking with a smug expression-this lady thinks no end of herself. First it was that stalker at the walk story, then getting a lift from a handsome stranger, to all the crushes on her and now a mysterious caller. But by the end of this all, you would be sympathising with me again dear friend, instead of envying...trust me, even though I don’t do so myself.

I absolutely wait for the ridiculous to happen with me which is rarely a disappointment so that I could splash it across here for my readers to float along with big monkey grins on their blessed faces over my misery yes, I know I am weird. And anyways, the last two serious posts had got me unbelievably itchy you don’t wanna know where to find my funny bone. After giving up searching in lards and yards and what not of me, I think I finally found it or at least hoping here that I did, thanks to a relative stranger again god bless them all in their species.

Since the evening of 3^rd June, the Friday, I had been receiving messages on my mobile from an unknown number-the usual philosophies of life moving on to love notes and hard-to-fathom shayyari. I delete numbers on my contact list after a while if there is no exchange or need of the person’s details on that space. What can I say, I just hate clutter. So on the 4^th morning, after the “good night’s” and the “good morning’s” became a little obnoxious and a tad bit curious for curiosity might not kill the cat here but it could definitely send her in a mini coma of sorts I messaged back asking, “Who’s this?”

Pat came the reply: “Ur friend”

Wow, wasn’t that unexpected!

Me: Say who you are or stop messaging.

After this the shayyari continued, getting much to my nerves for it was of the variety that shows like Comedy Circus boast of, dashed with romance to render it the most outlandish spectacle on the face of mobile phones. I mean who creates that kind of crap and worse still, who betrays humanity and his duties towards being a responsible citizen by circulating the preposterous!

Anyways, an hour later or so I received a call from this number and absent-mindedly I picked up. I do receive calls from unknown numbers I am not a celebrity yet.

He (in an amazingly squeaky tone): Hellooo Surucee!

Me (in an amazingly aghast tone, put there by just those two words): Kaun bol rahe hain?

MC (Mysterious Caller that is-any resemblance to any other anagram is purely coincidental and the author takes no responsibility): Mein Sameer!

Me: Sameer who?

MC: Arre, tum nahi jaante?

Me (wondering if someone called Sameer was just crowned the President or married the Prince of Wales that I am expected to know of this name even in sleep): Ji nahi. Politeness in the face of the absurd is the true quality of a lady my dear...what crap, I didn’t know how to blast him at such short notice.

MC: Acha I am a Second year student, kya hum dost ban sakte hain?

Me (losing it now): Whaaaaaaaaat? Please don’t call up again!

MC (with unmatched confidence, Dhoni should learn from him actually): Arre kal se messages kar rahe ho, thode der baat to kar lo.

Me (lost it now): *disconnects and does not pick up thereafter from Mr.  Persistence Personified*

Omgggggggggg! I was flabbergasted!

MEIN messages kar rahe hoon...MEEIIIIIIIIIINNNNN????

I didn’t know what to get more angry on this guy for:

1. He presupposes after badgering me with about 50 messages, to which I innocently and eventually just asked “Who’s this?” to MEEEEEEEE messaging him...sweet mother of lord, the guy needs help!

2. He was in Second year of college-I am hoping he didn’t mean second year school for that would mean class 12 and take my omg to the Himalayas. I mean agreed, age is no bar, but it is not an éclair either-Okay poor joke, but the guy must be twenty for crying out loud! When I was in my flaming teens, he was in his wetting nappies...such thoughts flashed my mind, which was in no way flattered by the attention.

3. Never mind that....story does not end there...picture abhi baaki hain!

The whole day thereafter the messages continued and also the hourly calls. He was instantly saved on my contact list as “DON’T PICK” to avoid making any blunders again. So DON’T PICK now said, “Mere se koi galti ho gaye kya?”

“Somebody sounding so sweet, how can she be so sour”-YEEEEEEEEEES...these were the exact words, followed by crueller massacre of the English language that almost prompted me to check his messages, edit with a big red pen and send him back with a big F that’s Failed by the way!

When the saga went on way into the night, G was informed and he seemed grim. I thought he would get angry. He seemed sad...I wanted to console him saying I belong only to him, my body, heart and soul saat janam tak, with a whole lot of drama that would put the entire Bollywood to shame, but then he uttered those words...Na bachche ‘DIVORCE, DIVORCE, DIVORCE’ nahi, re!

“You still get calls from admirers and are in demand but I don’t. Tum abhi bhi jawan ho aur mein buddha ho gaya kya?”

Omg...would the men orbiting my horizon please act as sensible men?

This is not about you baby, it is about me and I shake him up like a nice cough syrup ka bottle, after reminding him of the saat vachans to guard my izzat, taken round the holy fire eleven years ago during our wedding day!

So the next morning is encounter time*playing background music of some cowboy theme where the two opponents wear squeaky shoes and walk up to each other in painfully slow motion, reverberating with thak, thak, thak...you can also imagine close up shots of the silly faces in the crowd and bemused faces of the horses, for absolute imagery there*

At the first “good morning” G calls the bugger from his cell.

G: Kaun hain bhai aap?

BC (that stands for Badtameez Caller now, situation ke saath thoda adapt karna padta hain na): Aap kaun hain?

G: Aaj kal bade messages and phones kar rahe ho kisse ko? Kya baat hain?

BC: Haan kar raha hoon...to? Kya kar loge?

G: Beta, yeh sab jo kar rahe ho, lagta hain tumhe maar khaane hain?

BC: Kha lenge...ho sakta hain ulta ho jaaye.

G: Acha to milo tum abhi mereko station ke paas, mein batata hoon!

BC: Theek hain...arre nahi abhi nahi, 3 baje milte hain!

And he disconnects the line.

OHHH MYY GOOOD GOD!

One would think two people were asking each other out on a date! I didn’t know about the BC’s sexual preferences, but mere aapne maathe ka sindoor and yeh sab! Ghor Kalyug! I gave a stern look to G, that said, "Kar kya rahe ho aap? Usse time pass nahi karna hain...hadkana hain!" And what on earth would you derive on meeting the bugger anyways? 3 baje to aise bola jaise facial, manicure, pedicure ka time mind mein set kar ke aayega, mera haath maangne- @#$%%#$@##@!

A minute later I get another message, “Tumne apne boyfriend ko bata ke acha nahi kiya”. Omg please don’t keep the omg count here, some situations demand repetition!

Nahiinnnnnnnnn! Yeh meine kya kiya*one hand on the forehead with the 'mein lut gaye, barbaad ho gaye 'expression* I almost imagined a group of bikers in high boots, growling engines, leather jackets-oops, okay it is summers-costume change-in white shinning vest with muscles-shuscles rippling, circling my poor G in the nukkad near the station. And as soon as G got up with a very determined look that said ‘do or die’, I also thought of maaro-ing the favourite line, “Station tak pahunchne se pehle tumhe mere laash par se guzar ke jaana padega!” Thankfully or not, G had only got up to go to the loo!

Half an hour later he emerged from the washroom looking all victorious, which is generally anyways his look after every such trip and generally the IST-Indian Standard Time taken by the men in this family inside there I have often seriously thought of putting cameras in there but that for some other time.

G: The matter is solved. He won’t bug you any further.

Me: Huh? What did you do? (I was thinking he had contacted Pappu Bhai, whom I have overheard him saying umpteenth times on the phone, “Is baar bhai mera kaam theek se karvana, koi gadbad na ho!”)

Well, to cut the long story short, G had asked the bugger point blank if he knew whom he was calling and that the woman in question was married and ek bachche ki ma! G said I should have heard his tone for it seemed someone pulled the earth off his feet. He obviously didn’t know. The bugger had bought a mobile phone from a friend ka friend, found a girl’s name on the contact list and randomly sent messages hoping someone would get hooked.

Five minutes later I get the last message on the phone,

“Sorry yaar, chal bye.” G has not been able to wipe the smug grin off his face uptil now and I am still recovering from the disappointment of not being able to render my drama lines.

Morals of this story:

1. I may not be as jawaan as G thinks after all and G may not be all that useless in handling my izzat ke questions as I thought.

2. Though I truly believe we should not disclose marital status and baby issues in such sensitive matters to ensure a complete closure...where is tact, people?

3. Pappu Bhai is the garage owner where our cars go for servicing and repairs.
4. For heaven’s sake, people-delete the contact list before selling your mobile phones. It can bring someone’s home/ego crashing down!

5. That picture up there is not mine- just mentioning, in case I still have some market value that may not come staggering down to below zero thanks to that lady!

I hear, I watch, I wait

I hear, I watch, I wait...

It is the story of my life heralding to its dusk but perhaps I am now getting weary of the same old chronicle as my pent up body feels drained of supporting my equally tardy soul. It has been seventy seven years of a life less ordinary and hence I can’t really blame my bones for giving up on me. How do I admonish these wrinkles that line up my once flawless face? They tried to stay at bay for the longest of times on the human calendar but couldn’t really hold up against Mother Nature’s. And when one came even though peeping out a little hesitantly, the others lined up earnestly, as if to party! My smiles and frowns and ups and downs, perhaps made their resistance even tougher. They say fairer and softer skin is more prone to visibility of age’s vengeance. Now do I thank god for them or call Him in court on charges of un‘fair’ness? I laugh at the irony, which like everything else, is evident to me alone.

Sometimes I wonder, had I led a common life of drudgery, would this decline into oblivion been less painful? Or should I be indebted instead that at least I had my share of envious gaiety even on the run? Lady luck had been kind to me although many others of my own gender could barely bear me; but even she has rules about availing her allotted quota. Mine extinguished due to mindless gorging. I managed to eat my cake and have it and even lick the plate clean! And whatever if any remained on my lips, others made sure to do the honours...if you know what I mean.

I have loved and been loved umpteenth of times in ways that could create epics, seen the world, been there and done that, raised many an eyebrows and then many a good children!

However, today the world seems to have moved on beyond my grasp. Love is just another four letter word that is still not slang. At my age you don’t ‘fall’ in love, for the vision is anyways impaired and the ‘falling’ is anyways an everyday affair. My good children are now struggling to be good parents and hence priorities have shifted. Wherever I have been and whatever I have done is something that can’t be done again. No matter how much the optimists proclaim that history repeats itself, I know it won’t, or at least mine won’t.

I watch how the grandchildren enter my room and bow their head in obeisance before filtering away in the blink of an eye to merrier milieus. I am not the traditional granny telling on her beads and watching freshly hair spa-ed and face lifted ‘saints’ on the idiot box. But I am a granny still...who forgets things, seldom walks and that too with a limp and the only thing hard about her is her hearing. I have a television set for company although everything there is either too soapy for my taste or too loud even for my partially deaf ears.

How I wish they would sit with me so I could relate to them the stories of my past! That’s all I have got with me-a hard disk of memories embedded in my brain that the virus of monotony and vagaries of life could not erase.

I was not hip and happening like they are now, but I had managed to create ripples in many tranquil surfaces. Suddenly the stories that I struggled to hide through my youth are now getting restless to see the daylight, hammering upon my insides ravenously, fearing that their lively exuberance would be embedded with an old body in its sepulchre.

 

If only someone could lend me their ears!  Would they believe me or would they be aghast to hear that old granny could be anything other than a dignified and antiquated epitome? I ache now to strip off the garbs of pretence, to breathe free in the element that is me-no longer so and so’s wife or so and so’s mother but such and such person, as I have always wanted non-judgemental people to know, admire and reckon which many did, who dared to knock repeatedly at my closely guarded portals.

I sit here and concentrate on the merry din that falls upon my eager ears like soft but happy mumblings coming from behind the doors of the other rooms of my house. I sometimes watch the empty bed beside me, run my fingers on its surface and then sigh. The empty bed has been my closest companion since the time its incumbent decided to quit the show while it was at the height of its glory. The empty bed seems to cruelly reinforce to me every day that it would never leave my side. It has loyally taken up the shape of my contours or whatever is left of them.

My materialistic accomplishments lie mockingly tugged into drawers. I sometimes rummage through them and take them out to adorn myself and relive in some iota my past glories. But these that once looked heavenly, pronto throw ghastly shadows on the looking glass, almost beyond redemption. No amount of even the latest accruements can adorn an edifice in its fading glory. My so-loved little black dress looks more of a little black mess at this point.

I wonder should I write a book on myself now, after all, I no longer bother about scandals and appraisals, with one leg in the grave. You can yack how much shit about me in the aftermath, how would it bother me when I can’t care or do a shit about it? Maybe I could disclose the hidden murky side to my perfection, which is instilled in every human, though very rarely acknowledged, let alone flaunted. I can relate how and where these legs travelled before reaching this space. Perhaps my shaking fingers would allow me this last consolation or maybe it is too much to ask of these petite things that allowed me every discretion, when they could enable others to dance on them.

And I hear again, the laughter coming from the adjacent room. What could they be discussing? Why can’t they come in here and talk for if there is anyone who needs to laugh most now, it is me. It is almost like a dying wish now-give me a moment to laugh like no one’s watching, to laugh like I did earlier that set the hearts fluttering, to laugh like it’s the only natural thing meant for me to do in this world.

I hear, I watch, I wait!

Oh my mute lips have spoken too much today!

Perhaps now I should go off to sleep and not get up ever.

Let my youthful soul be free of the dilapidated body that I was once so proud of, to find a new home and begin new glories!