Crushing Crushes!

A dear friend of mine just got me down the memory lane to where I began my journey of handling crushes and being crushed!

While growing up and as adolescence set in on my hitherto super seedhi life, I used to have crushes @ of one every day...yes, you read right-almost EVERY DAY on an average. I think it is a little girlie thing don’t you dare single me out now my sisterhood gender on this. We little girls become all ‘awwww-ed’ with and about anyone who is relatively nicer or essentially cuter or gives us a little more than usual attention. For some, this inbuilt defective tendency continues till an unfathomable age, as I am a living proof. So I used to think the world about the new computer teacher-the only male teacher by the way in a convent school, governed by super staunch nuns-are there ever nuns who aren’t those anyways? Also about the friends’ cousins, the aunt’s brother, my elder brother’s friends, the shop keeper’s cute son and heck, much to my embarrassment now, even the boutique owner in those days he was called a tailor but that sounds even more awful and hence these small fonts to escape readers in a rush. There’s a reason why the government does not provide voting rights to adolescents and I just proved them right. But on second thoughts, if they did, at least the leaders representing our country would be good looking...sigh!

So my friends could pretty much count my crushes on their fingers, not the middle ones, please. And for accurate counting here I mean each finger getting into further sub divisions of three and thereby thirty at a time would suffice for reference’s sake. Just so that our moms would not know while eves-dropping, we rechristened the hunks as Anita for say Arun, Sonia for Saurabh, etc*the names have been changed to maintain the privacy of those concerned and also a concerned me* And before you think I was the worst, to keep a count of my friends’ crushes we had to maintain the abacus!

But more of my crushes some other time...this post is not about THAT!

I can almost imagine with sadist pleasure, you watching the screen with a gaping mouth and a disdained look that says, ‘She ranted one page about this crap and says she will “talk” about it some “other” time.’ Yes, sorry, this post was meant to be about people who had crushes on me and the encounters thereby which thankfully did not lead to the ‘happily ever after’.

Cut to my first year in college-the bubbling excitement of being on the threshold of adulthood was barely under control and we attended college for almost a full month as dedicated students. Of course later we realised that in Kanpur, you DON’T attend college, you just appear before the exams to collect your admit cards and then for the exam itself.

There was this College Union Leader. Remember Salman Khan in a flick called ‘Tere Naam’ but minus the atrocious hair flicks? He was the dada of the college-everything, even the teachers seemed to be under his control. He somehow developed a fascination for the plain Jane in me. While I would sit in the class and try to listen to the lectures, he would stand outside and watch me through the French windows. Then like the good Hutch puppy or is it Vodafone now, he would follow me around. This went on for a month till I became the butt of everyone’s jokes, as the moment I entered college and till I left, I had acquired an obnoxious, unpaid, almost pupils dilated for he would just stand and stare, as if in life there was no care body guard. I remember just when I had decided to not come to the college because of him that I got into trouble with not getting an admit card for some stupid reasons. And who else would I have to turn to instead of standing in long queues to wait for irritated professors to hear my plea!

His answer- “You do not worry, the admit card would reach your home.”

Me- “But I can wait here till you get it, sir.”

He- “Girls like you should not wait around here, aap jao, mein hoon na.”

Needless to say the admit card reached my home, without me being asked for my address.

I had not complained about him for he never really tried to approach or talk to me and anyways no one would have listened to me against him. I did not see him again, although till now I can picture precisely his slightly tilted stupid head and fixedly gazing face and all the filmy drama that he created. Maybe that was my preparatory ground of influence for acquiring the title of ‘drama queen’ that I subsequently developed.

There was this another time when a friend’s cousin managed to extract from me, my phone number after badgering me about it for months. After five days of telephonic conversations, he proposed to me I do sound vain here, don’t I? Well, it is a good thing I can’t show you pictures of these samples, so you would then sympathise with me instead. Now, I was in a fix. How do I tell this totally bhaiyya ji type manushya that this was the worst idea ever, even worse than watching shows like Rakhi Sawant or Rahul Mahajan getting hitched on television-my epitome of experiencing hell on earth? So I managed a little argument to confuse his duh-brain-ic abilities. He was thin like a rake and dim like a cake*used the analogy for rhyme’s sake*.

Me- “I don’t think we would have a future. You are soooo thin and I am well, not soooo thin. We would look terribly odd and soon you won’t like me anymore.”

He- “You think I am so shallow to like you for your body. I like your soul”

Me- *Oh my bloody hell-actually thinking that and not saying it aloud...probably because he had rendered me speechless and thank god I did not lose my voice forever out of shock, after hearing such utterances*

Somehow I succeeded to use my weight for the first time in my favour. Sometimes when I still bump into him in public gatherings, after a cold eye, I get a murderous look from him of his late realisation that he was hoodwinked then and how!

There was another episode that is tumbling down the annals of my suddenly revitalised memory. When we gang of school girls would get together at someone’s house, our idea of fun would be to get phone numbers of the hottest, cutest guys in towns and call them up to indulge in anonymous chats over the speaker phone. One would talk and the rest would indulge in mute guffaws. My friends were professionals in the game and we would later sit and do character assassination of too eager boys to spill their beans. With no caller Id’s and cell phones in those good old days, we connived with panache, knowing we’d never be caught.

One fine day at my friend’s house, I was challenged and a new number was put on the platter. I was handed the baton*in this case the telephone receiver* and instructed to get him bewitched. Come to think of it, television shows like “Emotional Atyachaar” where boyfriends/girlfriends get loyalty tests done on their lovers, was actually our brain child, devised years ago but sadly not patented. Anyways, there was a capsule course of voice training given by my batch mate followed by a briefing of what I should or should not do and say yes, the only thing missing was an armour and gun for I felt I was going at the border for a war and the onus of all womankind was on my not-so-little shoulders.

I spoke to this so termed ‘newest dish on the block’ for half an hour and was quite proud of myself, as everyone looked at me with a new respect for they didn’t expect me to last beyond 5 minutes. I still remember we all used the name “Anamika” ironically and left half of the eligible guys in quaint little Kanpur wondering who the hell for ‘who the fuck’ was not so common then was Anamika, screwing up the happiness of their lives.

The drama began when two days later I got a call from this ‘dish’ at my home number. What the fuck! Yes, I decided to fuck decency even in my thought bubble. This had never happened before with any of us girls that the guys managed to know who we were or get our numbers. They were always left at our mercy, to make the next call at OUR pleasure-that is whenever we got together again.

All hell broke loose. My virginal attempt became the biggest screw up and for a long time I got blank calls and pleading calls when I picked up the phone, till he eventually gave up. We never got to know how he reached me but our little secret enterprise died an untimely death and all Anamikas were wiped off from the face of Mother Kanpur for good.

Another dim wit of the highest order, called at my house and the schmuck flirted with my mother thinking it was me and my mother carried along with the whole idea for a couple of calls, throwing in her defence that she wanted to get to the bottom to know how deep my knees were in it. Years later, now I tease her that she did so then for her own little kicks that she must have got out of it!

Enough revelations for now! Such is life-there have been rarely “crush”ed people advancing towards me whom I did not actually want to crush with a rolling pin.

Does everyone go through these buggers or am I god’s special child?

My God-Where did you buy that accent from?

It is a tough world/life when some of your friends you went to school with and who have spent the better and most parts of their lives in humble abodes of dear old Indian cities, suddenly one day jabber and rant their guts out in the most obnoxious of accent that you know has recently taken an illegitimate birth and not developed naturally! You can’t seem to make up your mind, what is more outrageous- the non-stop bickering about things you don’t care a flying f@#% about or the omg-pronunciations and unnecessary elongation or gulping down of words and syllables that makes you wonder if the Indians should be more ashamed of such an English or the Englishmen!

I mean what is it, people? Where and how do you get an accent after breathing in the same town as I did and never been to a phoren land for enough time at least, that it would/should affect any part of your body, let alone the vocal cords? Agreed perhaps no one can tell whether you are carrying a fake LV bag or not, but you don't have to make us raise an eyebrow even at the actual genuine brands that you may be flaunting just because you opened your mouth and put your feet in it. And when they say "I didn't knew that" or "I did liked this", the teacher in me dies a million death and turns over in her grave at this merciless screwing er...massacre of English and just because I can't take out my red pen and put a big fat cross on their faces that indicates "Tried and tested and injurious to your tolerance powers".

I know Salman Khan and Priyanka Chopra are popular but even they have no excuse for taking away everything appealing about them the moment they open their delicious looking gaps of protruding lips that is and reek of loathsome fake-ness. Priyanka takes the cake with her oh-so-ready-to-giggle-like-an-innocent-girl and get onto my nerves.

I have a set of these amusing friends who would express the suppressed and the most unheard of theth-Hindi gaalis in one breathe and then sound like Princess Diana-reborn-as-a-trashy-rock star in the next. Even the rap singers would be timorous of using such short forms and slangs to evoke tomatoes from the audiences and just because we can’t throw anything better than glowering glances at you, you make us bear it all with a straight face. To give you an example-my becomes ma; now if they were to say ‘oh my god’ like ‘oh ma god’, can you imagine the confusion in my gullible mind in comprehending the implications of that?

People are so diet-conscious these days that along with that, they have become word conscious too or probably so hungry due to it that they eat up syllables and tones of words. So it is sad that while I can understand every word of “How I met your Mother” on the television without the English subtitles required, but to comprehend some of my socialite acquaintances, I just don’t need the subtitles but even the translations.

Wow, I am so tempted to write more and more and more, like my normal habit is...but to see the shock on my readers face on seeing just a one page blog update would be so unusual that I would let go of the excruciatingly painful urge ;-)

Seeeee....don’t tell me again, that I can’t write short blog posts!

When the f@#$ did womanhood happen here?-In search for the Girl in me!

Why aren’t there more women’s night outs and get-aways in India that are so religiously performed and basked in by our fairer sisters abroad, as depicted in soapy soaps and sit-coms from the West? Yes television is spoiling us, admitted...can we now move on? Our very sexier version of forty somethings of ‘The Sex and the City’ in the U.S. of A have a ball meeting up for a drink to discuss and dissect their sex lives or the lack of it and we are still stuck on maids and mothers-in-law? Excuse me, it is just not me, it is a disease of infectious proportions prevalent among the species that have mated and consummated the task of having junior versions of themselves sauntering along the planet.

Why aren’t there more bars/night clubs/lounges where single beauties and even the marginally so ones can go by themselves and get a date? I have a plethora of still single women friends, who have given up hope of ever finding a suitable guy at a night joint for it is flocked by “boys-girls” or couples...whatever happened to those in between? Why do we have to give up on girlhood and adapt to womanhood, just because we cross thirty?

The Desperate Housewives gals/women or even some of our own metro chicas know how to ruffle up smooth surfaces and raise many an eyebrows when they make entries and we are still hung up on who’s watching and thereby how we should appear to be. And those who don’t bother about the onlookers, the onlookers are most bothered about them and brand them as the next slut on the block. Wtf!

My god, the society-we can neither live with or without it, in or out of it.

There are days when my husband can have one of his many frequent boys’ night outs term it as a stags’ night out, for boyhood would be an illusion now and for me it would remain just a distant dream for many reasons per se:

A. Why do you women need a night out when you can meet over coffee or visit your friend’s home during the day or mall hop? ya right, we meet over soppy coffee and you over wicked vodka-isn’t that a fair world we respire in...sigh!

B. How would you return home baby at late hours, it is not so safe you know? Me: Reallyyy, why don’t we all stack up at one woman’s house then for the night and return home next morning in broad daylight and when we are sober.

He =HUH!!!!!!!!*that sound that emits from your beloved’s now-not-so-beautiful-seeming mouth asserts that you have just committed something short of a terrible blasphemy, even by the mere thought of it*

C. Log kya kahenge oh, crap! Now the only remaining thing to say would be-tum hamare khaandaan ke izzat ho!

Last year while visiting my still single friends in Delhi, we went lounging till the wee-hours, sang songs at the terrace and drove back with blasting music way past midnight enjoying the cool breeze of half deserted and yet alive lanes of Dilli. What a blast it was, making me empathise just for a wee bit of a weak moment with my beloved’s need to do a night out by himself for you realize it is so liberating, when done once in a while. I recommended it to all and sundry in my gender of sisterhood at the cost of being branded as someone whom husbands hushed their wives to listen less to. Needless to say, after many months of trying I could not materialize an encore in my small town and gave up. Maybe it is not so much a matter of small or big town as it is of small minds.

Till three decades of my life, I tried to keep alive the girl in me, so much that I never really felt I had left school so long ago and even unknowingly called some of my age-mates ‘bhabhi’ for along with the fringes of their saris were tagging along toddlers and not so tiny tot brats. I was wild in some sense though always bridled. Heck, last year I was even thinking of joining tennis classes so I could accompany my G when he goes to play squash every morning, learn an instrument/language and lose so much weight with vengeance that Salman Khan signs me up for his next movie session that is, totally besotted.

Things stand at a different shore this year.

Seeya’s bought a change and made me grow up. And needless to say I see-saw between the inferences of whether THAT is a good or a bad thing. You can’t be the girl anymore when the girl in your arms searches for the woman she wants to look up to.

There are days when friends who knew me from then and now turn around to comment how serious I have become or how they miss my puns and double meaning innuendos and banter that would keep them in splits. It makes my heart go split wide open with a strange ache despite the love balm that Seeya’s smile spreads on it each day. I miss writing blog posts that “I” liked and that did not whine. Someone mentioned the other day how I ruled Face book in my hay days with the wittiest of status updates on a daily basis and a string of 60-70 comments on each one. Hay days?????????? My god, what happened since then? Who the donkey, ate up my hay? :(

Somewhere in doing this and that and being here and there, in doing what we must and in being what we ought to, we lose we. And although the men enjoy the pleasure of continuing to be boys all their lives, we women struggle to be more as well as less of a woman yes, that confused is our subsistence.

There were days when I advised these pearls free of cost:

You can’t help getting older but you don’t have to get old!

Growing old in inevitable and growing up is optional!

It is not the years in your life that counts, it is the life in your years!

It is important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle!

Today I look back at these and say what the crap probably the recipients muttered the same under their breath. There are phases in life that very few can obstruct and go past unaffected. You change while shifting from school to college, while transcending from the bachelor state to that of having walked the aisle. Should we then lament and relent or accept and forget? I am now trying to make a mature room for the fun craving girl within me.

Growing up/old is as unavoidable as the sun rise each day no matter how much you like the dark to party. It is important to keep the old girl alive in me but not at the cost of strangulating the young woman also within at each of such attempts. I don’t resist growing up, I resist growing boring. I don’t mind having a wrinkle in days to come, I would mind when that would be all that my face would have to show to the world.

We would always be little girls from inside. We would wish for mothers when we get sick of all that’s happening around and for daughters when we want to see our dreams manifesting through someone else. We would wait for love to happen to us that fairy tales are made of. We would want to be free like men and pampered like women and struggle between realizing ourselves between this to and fro of genders. We would constantly be haggled by “what ifs” and “why nots”. I guess the girl within never gets drowned in the lake of the mirror of time, she just sits by the shore watching the woman tamper with the hitherto silent surface. I guess if I could make this woman happy, she would stop inviting the girl to fill in the gaps.

Romance at Short Notice-Part 2!

Please go to Romance at Short Notice-Part 1 before reading this to get the full import of the story.

Turning her blatant gaze away from his face, Nilu finally managed to fish out words from her slightly quivering and very embarrassed self.
“I am sorry! I thought the house was uninhabited.”

“It is and I am the one who should be apologizing for giving you such a start. Actually I don’t live here as it is quite away from the city. But it is my great grandfather’s house and I don’t want to give it up. Being opened for some famous tourists from Delhi, I thought I might as well come here and pick up some stuff.” He breathed a pause, “I assume you are one amongst the many outside?”

She raised her eyebrows in consent and smiled at the reminder of being a part of the flock, almost a wry one and he returned it back as though empathising. “My god, I couldn’t help but peep outside earlier and with no offence intended, living in that must be like being on a highly dramatic stage always?”

“Not really, we do manage breaks in between when there is lack of audience.” And they both laughed, the ringing mirthful and reverberating through the hitherto silent room, watching it all like an engrossed spectator. “I can’t imagine though how someone can, not-live in a house like this. It is so perfect.”

He beamed again, spreading the charm on his countenance dwindling between the boyish and the manly, with the delight of one who was enjoying good company after a long dearth. “Yes, but when you live alone it becomes a little waiflike. And when I need to write books or paint, I do come here on a sabbatical of sorts.”

That was like rain wetting a thirsty flaky crust. Women in general have this compelling fascination for writers-men who express the world in words like the stringing of the perfect pearls; for men of the world otherwise always lack the right ones to do so. Nilanjana was doubly hit as she was a voracious reader and literature was her escape route from the accounts and figures bound new family. She couldn’t help but gasp at the prospect of meeting an actual writer.

“O-oh, I have seen that expression often young lady and before you pitch up your expectations, my books are still in publication. So I am miles away from being a celebrity yet.” And then mocking himself he added, “Tch, so the autograph would be of no use now.”

He watched her intently as her face see-sawed between being disappointed in one second to instant flushing again at perhaps the hindsight of what-the-heck-a-writer-nevertheless! “That’s okay, maybe someday I can gloat about this little brush of claim to fame, when you do become famous and proclaim that I stood in that house where history was being written.” Nilu cut short shyly at the realization of how dramatic it sounded- a rub off perhaps of all the bonding that’s been happening of late outside. She added rather dramatically again, “Literature is my first love.”

“And trust me it would be the most faithful one. Destiny has brought you here it seems. I have some original documents, photographs, etc, of writers, even of Wordsworth and some lesser known ones, a sort of a lineage and it would be a pleasure to share them with someone who understands their worth...just a moment, I’ll be back.”

Nilu couldn’t control the butterflies in her stomach and felt her heart would explode at the prospective excitement that was surging and was suddenly glad at not having come up with any excuses for this trip. She looked through his sketches and how immaculately they expressed faces, as though she knew them, as though she would cross them on the way.

Within minutes a box of treasure was opened before her and had God himself told her not to go near it like the proverbial Pandora’s Box, she would have sinned and shown that history repeats itself. She devoured unabashedly the unsullied pleasure derived from wondrous collection of things that were more befitting museums than be found in a house like this. Things spoke volumes to her and she was lost with no sense remaining of time, space or reality. She wished it was a giant ping pong ball and she would never get out.

Women of whatever ages are always similar to little girls yearning for real life fairy tales. Or maybe women from insides really are little girls who grow up on fairy tales but never grow out of them.

They kept conversing, laughing while he wittily recounted backgrounds and she entered the portals of history, passion and emotions, so generously unbolted before her. Unveiled were letters drenched in love so fragile, a locket that stood the test of time, a hand written diary that spoke volumes despite the dilapidated pages, pens of masters that rule eternity and what not. Imagine the fulfilment of a pilgrim upon reaching his destination-such was the unrestrained content ebbing in her little heart.

And just then came a sudden thump of an open window, made by a jealous, strong gust of wind, rudely breaking the trance!
Have you ever been in a dream where you were attaining something tangible after having craved for it from the longest of time and feeling it lovingly between your fingers; but then suddenly awoken, you clasp the palm trying to grasp the illusive, that is gone forever?

Sometime had elapsed as she returned to the present and finally managed to tear herself from the assembly of what had taken her breath away, to look up; and what she saw did not help transport her back either. Right before her eyes was her own sketch that the veritable stranger had made within minutes perhaps while she was lost in ancient manuscripts and she looked more beautiful there than any mirror had ever communicated to her.

Nilu was speechless. She fumbled for words. What words do you use before writers to express what you feel, so eloquently enough that it gets effectively conveyed to reach to the levels of how it is being felt?

But he didn’t want her perhaps to say anything as in the next moment he wanted to take her elsewhere.
“And if you think these are amazing, wait I have something more!”
And he disappeared again into an inner room before Nilu could summon the right words, leaving her with emotions that were not so familiar.

“Nilu, Niluuuuu... ah, here you are. I have looked all over this spooky house. It’s getting dark baby, we are all packed up to leave. It is a three hours journey back you know and we’ve already wasted much in looking for you.”

When Nilanjana had heard Anshul, guided by some weird gut feeling she had folded the sketch sheet and put it in her coat. She would spend years wondering why she did that, but at that time some voice within left her with no choice. With Anshul were the two nosey brats who had startled her earlier and who must have led him to the room. She had not realized how much time she had spent there. She panicked within, 'I don't even know his name...I didn't even express what I felt!' She looked around hurriedly and at the desk she wrote on a sheet kept there,
“I cannot thank you enough for today.
Please call me,
Nilanjana
9922518399”

She kept the note under the same magical paper weight while Anshul was looking around at the sketches.
“Huh! What a waste of time and energy someone is going through in here! Come on let’s go.”

He put a hand around her waist as though it was not a suggestion but a command and she followed silently although her feet seemed to have been planted there. She took one last look at the room to keep a memory etched in the private domains of her mind and continued to be dragged against her emotions. Something had happened today that had shaken up her boring existence for good...something that would continue to stir her for years despite all calm exteriors.

So just like that she left, wondering what he would think when he came out.
And just like that also left the two little brats, but not before one of them looked around sheepishly and pocketed the fascinating paper weight-his very own souvenir to show off to friends back home.
And just like that came another mischievous gust of wind and took Nilu’s little note out of the window with it before it could reach the desired hands.
And just like that ended a love story that could have been a forever romance happening at short notice!

My take on the Semi-Finals, MY way!

So how did I spend my day on 30th March, when 99% of the human beings and conceivably some species of animals also in Mother India sat glued before their idiot box and the remaining 1% were perhaps straining their bodies in Mohali stadium in Chandigarh or busy updating gyan on Twitter and Facebook, bringing to life their latent dreams of becoming cricket commentators and critics, rolled in one? Waah, such vast talent in India, lying undiscovered-not of players, of people who have so much to opine, whine and declare crime!

My god-calling India a cricket crazy nation is an understatement. And fortunately or unfortunately I am not a part of this flock that eats, drinks, sleeps cricket when normally you are just expected to watch it and move on. But na ji na...our nazuk naak and the rest of the body and some people’s zindagi bhar ki kamai depends on this one sport, which at the end of the day is just a sport.

The day India beat Australia to reach to the semi-finals was another ordinary day for a boring housewife like me. At 10.30 p.m. I take my beloved daughter for her one hour ritual of beckoning Goddess Sleep. Suddenly the thunderous sounds of crackers broke the serenity of an otherwise solemn night. And in the middle of March, when Diwali was months behind or is months ahead, I knew it had to be one and only cricket responsible for blackening the skies a little more.

12 midnight and Seeya slowly succumbs to the lure of Madam Sleep and I log in on Facebook to catch up with all that I missed during the day yes, facebook times are now either on the shit pot at dawn or after darkness falls...sigh! And do I get a thorough summary of almost ball by ball account on my friends' statuses! Innovation was at peak as hitherto lesser mortals, as far as writing catchy statuses are concerned, were churning out one smart ass after another talking of statuses still of course. My poor fingers and thumb were tired of “liking” them all yes, I was almost thinking of what body parts to use now to express my deep admiration that must be expressed. Men and women were walking shoulder to shoulder, without any gender bias in making Facebook seem like the blue-book. And I was also enlightened on the fact that 30^th March would hereby be a war by any proportions.  

Cut to THE day: Now my beloved, who is not a cricket fanatic, so far as other normal citizens like my brother are concerned (read his status-Office Holiday: CHECK, Wife Out Of Room: CHECK, Cheerleaders: DOUBLE CHECK, Chilled Beers: CHECK, Pizzas: CHECK, 2nd Innings @ Felix: CHECK, India f@#$in Pak: CHECK.. All CHECKED, now BRING IT ON) was suddenly behaving weird nopes, we don’t need to call a doctor. He overnight became a cricket enthusiast-finally I guess, the nation calls you on duty and stirs dormant patriotic streaks in all individuals at the time of crisis-whoaaa...what crap am I talking! Anyways, he got up in the morning and ordered a 32 inches LED television set that my mother-in-law had been pestering him to get from months. Grrrr- I don’t know what made me grumpier: the fact that he suddenly and without seeking my super valuable advice, had turned into an extremist that I would not have approved/ advocated or the fact that my pesterings are never as effective as hers squinting the eyes and raising one eyebrow in the unbelievable typical fashion of the saas-bahu serials that she watches all day and I have to bear them when passing by.

Putting Seeya to sleep, for her one-hour siesta in the noon, I turn again to Facebook for some solace and it was like any other news channel, where the masses were giving free and unsolicited but so-thought expert advice, right from the toss to the boss. Some gifted individuals were updating statuses within every few minutes, making me wonder if they were more diligently cricketing or facebooking! I saw Sachin being compared to God and comments about him having many lives. Now, had I been Anjali Tendulkar, I would have been seriously worried, but as I am not sigh multiplied by 1000, I let it pass. Here I am unable to manage my own ONE life; I expressed mute sympathies and log out.

I woke Seeya up. Got her dressed and took her out on the pram for our customary one hour walk in the lush green HBTI College campus, where she says ‘Hi!’ and ‘bye!’ to every bhaiyyas and didis passing by and even raises her cheeselings that I put on the board before her saying “aa-aa” to them I give them a half apologetic and half explanative look that says I know you guys are not cows as we beckon cows in this way but she’s just a kid, forgive her. She thinks it is her moral duty to feed cheeseslings to everyone tumbling down the road from cows to watchmen to students, as though we live in Somalia and the poor souls would succumb and perish without the generosity shown from her end.

Anyways, much to our shock, the campus was deserted today. I make her pass her time by pointing to cars/motor bikes/cycles and walkers passing by but today the road was as empty as my hot chocolate fudge cup after I lick clean every bit of it, when I don’t have sophisticated company. So much inflation, I can at least make my contribution by saving on the washing powder, that would be expended on uncontaminating that cup. See, a little speck of thoughtfulness and we can save our planet.

Anyways, coming back again, there were very poor visibility of human specimens- actually there were a couple of couples in the gardens, making good use of the fact that nobody 'known' would bump into them today. That’s what we call ‘Incredible India’-we know the ways and means. But I couldn’t point to them now, could I? And neither could I tell her look at that bhaiyya and didi for they weren’t so for each other, na?

A handful of motor cycles passed by with youngish looking boys that made me raise my eyebrows now not for what you think silly. I was wondering that something must be wrong with these kids maybe they were retarded/ had violent family backgrounds/ unhappy childhood/ inferiority complex and the likes for how else would they manage to un-cling to their homes and the television sets. And before you blame me saying ulta chor kotwal ko daante, aise mein nahi, normal perceptions hain. I know I would be heavily lambasted after this post, you wait and watch for being an outsider or even gaddar for writing anything not pro-cricket, especially with an Indo-Pak match at hand I can already hear “How could you?” and see accusing fingers pointing at me.

As soon as we reached the entrance gate of the boys hostel, to cross it on our sojourn, we were shaken out of our wits by the loudest of cheers from inside. Sigh! If only it was to welcome my presence, I would not have minded the rude interruption of my sweet reverie, but for a match...ah! To top it, I received a message: Today is National Women’s day! A lot of mothers and sisters would be remembered from 2. 30 pm onwards. Ah...eeeenough...time to head back.

It is 7 pm and G has just returned home early today- not because he thought of babysitting Seeya one evening out of the two months since the maid’s untimely departure no, she’s not dead so save the condolence letters for me or not because he thought of taking a long walk in the nice weather with his daughter’s mother. But because the new television set was coming and he wanted to watch the match in peace. “Baby, will you please take Seeya and sit in the other room till the match gets over?”

Huh? What? Whoa?

And the rest like they say is history.

P.S. My woes list refuses to peter out:

1. I was left wondering through the day if stingy mobile service companies had cruelly  connived to cancel the blessed free SMS packs today akin on festivals, etc and for every vella forward that I forwarded in vellapanti, I was being charged double so that they could sponsor more such dumb matches.

2. I have had a tough time explaining Holi and Diwali to little Seeya. Now why in God’s name and all that is holy and pure, was a mini Diwali being celebrated this night when the country’s complaining of lack of funds...it would take more than all my blogging skills to explain and more than all her comprehending skills to grasp.

3. Over excited husbands after such victories evoke over-doubled efforts from already over-fuming and neglected wives to calm them down for more things than one :(

All said and done...we won...and happy cricketing anyways! :) 

Romance at Short Notice!

Nilanjana stepped into the silent edifice of the house.

She felt as if she had to. The maddening clamour of all the people outside was irrevocably dampening her spirits. She had not been excited about this ‘family trip’ as it is, whereby every nook and corner of the big joint family of her in-laws was hunted and pestered with the proposal for a get-away and the most obnoxious ones it seemed were hand-picked to be taken to Shimla for so-called family bonding. But just two years of free matrimonial inclusion into the most illustrated gas stove making business houses of Delhi and she knew better than to object. Sometimes obliging others becomes a way we oblige ourselves.

Nilu set one foot inside the manor and she felt she had meandered into a different earth altogether- a quieter, solemner, life springing in the inanimate earth and all the jarring sounds relegated to the distant backdrop. Her sister-in-law could not feign to really hide her subtle contempt when Nilu had asked her to accompany her within. “Oh dear, little Nilu! What will you see in a god-forsaken house that some haughty Britisher made a hundred years ago? I knew that stupid guide was no good. If it were not for this beautiful garden and flooding last rays of sunlight here, I would have asked papa to sack him for bringing us all so high up on this mountain for a picnic. Stay here baby, we are about to start an antakshari of all the men versus the women.”

Phew! This almost a Semi-Hum Apke Hain Kaun types ‘reality’ show proceeding from the last three days was taking its toll on Nilu and she moved in by herself into the uninhabited house. Who would discern anyways if one was missing in a crowd of 34? Not her husband for sure, as Anshul was diligently conniving his custom made cocktails for all the guffawing jeejas and chachas, bubbling more with pride on each loud request and pat on his back, than the soda fizzing within the glasses. And the true bloodied Punjabis that they were, he would be busy throughout the evening handling bottles and stirrers instead of her thoroughly bored emotions.

The house though not very exciting from the exterior, was exquisite and pristine from inside to say the least. The furniture was Victorian and vantage with rare, intricate carving and in antique teak. The walls were adorned with antique plates and life like portraits of savvy ladies in dainty hats and stern looking men in uniforms and badges casing the better part of their chests. Some beautiful artefacts, artillery and sculptures were sprayed here and there standing out against the mute pastel milieu. It spoke volumes even in the minimalistic that was there. It seemed she was sauntering through an early twentieth century adobe in London. Spellbound, she moved into the central courtyard that had just a glass ceiling and multi coloured stone flooring so that sunlight played most impishly in her sphere of influence dancing among the ivy leaves that it swathed. It felt like an ethereal world existing within a not so real one either.

But just then she heard a thud of the door behind that startled her. She turned around to find that two nosey children of the jing bang outside had followed her into the house. Nilu decided to walk out in case more kids attempt to come in too and spoil any of the unscathed beauty that emanated in the bleak isolated interiors. She shhhh-ed the kids and told them to walk out saying it was not the place for children to be in and they giggled and disappeared behind one of the curtains. Also sad at the rude interruption of her aesthetically satisfying experience, Nilu took a deep sigh and turned her steps to go back to the on-going circus outside.

Just then something shone from inside the open doors of one of the rooms, almost like a ball radiating colourful rainbow rays and despite herself, Nilu found her feet moving towards the source of that almost magical illumination.

She hesitatingly drew aside the floral print ornate curtain that fluttered in the cold breeze of the open windows, even as she drew her coat more tightly around her own petite frame. It was a room full of books and unfinished caricatures and portraits spread on easels and on a large sofa. The source of that light was an exquisite paper weight of crystal kept on a bureau, with colour sprayed within that reflected the sinking sun’s light like the most glorious spectrum.

She palmed it gently and almost dropped it in the next second when she was startled again by a voice from behind her.

“It has a sense of magical attraction, doesn’t it?”

She gathered herself and the “magical” paper weight, putting it back to where it lay and turned around to see a tall man in his early thirties perhaps and dressed sprucely in casual jeans and black shirt. He was an Indian but had almost blondish hair with a flick falling over his impeccably white complexion that made her rethink if he really was a Britisher, who might have walked right out of one of those paintings after a costume change and make-over.

For the next few seconds none of them spoke and incessantly viewed each other as an awkward silence crammed the room.

(To be continued...)

Midnight and Cinderella must run away!

Dear You,

If I just caress a little more of your strong hand intertwined in mine

I would probably walk miles without a panting.

A little more of you viewing me like you did which seemed to the world as though you were devouring the ethereal,

And I would not espy the scratching and scathing edges poking out of the tricky path as we continue to tread.

If I just sense a little more of the comfort that your broad shoulders assure of,

I would allow life to prolong its excruciating task of making my head dizzy with all the bafflements of fate it strikes me with.

Just dab a tear gently now and I promise not to let any vestige of it appear again.

Let me feel the proximity of your willing ears brushing against my trembling lips, while I exude the whines and moans and mumble all the wrongs meted out to me, I would perhaps press them shut to let them spread into infinite smiles.

If I could experience your hot breath against my skin, inhaling the whiff that you could never get enough of, I would perhaps stop sniffing out for more.

And hear your penetrating, silken voice, talking out the furrows and soothing me out of any quandary like a sweet lullaby,

I would perhaps again be able to create music out of living and not just being!

If only what we have got, was always enough and ‘a little more’ was just a harebrained, greedy, presumptuous demand,

If love would not fade and fading would not seem so painfully unreal.

Senses could be sensed and feelings really felt!

We could love like we did and we would live like never before.

If sympathise would swap positions with empathise,

May be we could breathe life into the hollow ‘happily ever after’

And not be a part of the thronging crowd wherein one wanders with a meaningless token and empty search in vain,

Maybe there would be no midnight for Cinderella to run away!

Yours,

Me.

Seeya's First Fifty!

Naah...Seeya has not joined any cricket league despite the cricketing fever gripping one and all, though she is making sixes of her own.

And naah...this is also not about Seeya’s first fifty dates either, which omg, I would have to tackle someday dates that is and not fifty of them-omg multiplied by fifty otherwise.

As Seeya turns one year and three months now, here are few of the words she blabbers besides aa-aa, baayla, yoo-yoo, pata-pata, apriya app, etc, that she keeps saying incessantly and we are still in the process of de-coding what these stand for.

She started with proper nouns a long time back...

So mamma, that’s moi, she alternates in calling Sucha smart girl, she knows how sucha and pavitra is her mom-who dareth snigger?

G she calls Thom-tom cause she cannot pronounce or perhaps take the effort of saying his entire name Gautam see, like mother like daughter, I just hope it does not shorten to G for her too some day

She calls my Gauri bhabhi-Gooyeeee

Preeti bhabhi- Pri-ta

Her cousins Chaitanya-Chayta, Kartikey-Kaka, Yashveer-Yajshu

Our servant Bablu- is Bubbbal, which he calls himself now

And Cheela for Sheile and Moyee for Munni, she learnt before all of these thanks to gyrating on their numbers watching the idiot box.

Since many months she constantly asks one question to all and sundry, no matter who they are and what they are doing. Her eternal quest is to find out ‘ka kal laye hain aap?’ (What are you doing?) -some very nosey grandma traits there that kinda bother me, but when she dances like Sheila, my fears kinda rest in peace, before new ones take birth.

And if I tell her once ‘aapko pyjama pehna rahe hoon’ perhaps she is slow on understanding that or just too sharp and insistent on learning what she hears, for she would persist in asking me that again and again till the damn pyjama is up her little legs. Needless to say I hurry up with the process as much as I can, but then comes the wearing of socks and sandals and the rest of the jinga-bang and her intriguing, grilling interrogation continues I wonder then if I should make her join the police force when she grows up-she’ll easily crack up the toughest of nuts

She learnt saying dogh and cat almost along side of saying paapaa and mumma not very good at selecting the synonymous pairing, is she?

She knows what is hot and cold, though she would put her palm on her cheek and take a deep breath, with an aghast expression on her little face, to indicate both as the same. While feeding her with the bottle, she’ll take one gulp and say hawt for she knows mom would then go to the tap to put it under water the bottle silly, not the milk so that it cools and she would get time again to stand on the bed and run in circles as though the pillow was the sun and she must orbit around it diligently like mother earth, to honour the holy processes.

Paani she learnt a long while back too and thank god she did not call it mum-um like other children do-she has now learnt waater, reminding me much of Rani Mukherjee in ‘Black’ saying the same. Now if only my daughter’s teacher ala me, was half as mesmerizing as Rani’s teacher ala Amitabh-I said “half” because one-forth of that I already am but it does not sound good enough, na?

And though I drilled into her whatch too indicating to my hand, just to annoy me she would insist it is not watch but ghaadiii as one of the maids casually explained to her and come back to saying watch only after I would thump my head in despair sadist tendencies too, eh?

And then she would say soyee to imply sorry, touching her ears and tilting her little head that beams with her charming smile and a minute later repeat the mistake. 

She’s a fruit-o-holic and hence ay-apple, guavaaa, papayyaa and o-ange feature big time on her speech list. Ask her at any time of the day, what she is eating or what she wants to eat and pat would come the reply aaaapple! Ask her what you should draw on the paper and voila ‘apple’ again. I mean agreed it is round and red and juicy and scoopy, but it is just a god damn apple at the end of the day, na? Since the time of Adam dadaji and Eve dadi ma, man has not been able to translate the essence of this tempting fruit and Seeya stretches the idea even more.

Other items on the list: 
Ba-ba-is what the balloons are called
Shauce-that is actually tomato sauce, which ends up on her fingers and tongue I don't know how!
Choos for shoes

Book-her eternal friend giving her company on the potty seat.

Boy n gaarl-thank god she can make out the difference from now itself and thank god not in the way that you are thinking of with your naughty mind.

Zip, ship, cow and bird are the lucky names too, that made it to the elite list.

Aur- to indicate more-and her dil forever maange more of everything

Door- which she would pronounce with a big rounding of her sweetest of lips, causing me to ask her on every bloody door step like a moron with the forgetful disease ‘what is this?’

Doll, whom she loves to ill treat-tear their legs apart or rotate their heads.

And teddah for teddy, her first love- you have to see how she makes her huge teddy lie down on the floor and then she lying on top of him to give him the greatest of crushing and actual bear hugs. It’s scary sometimes but then it makes me thank god even more for:

A) I am not that crushed tedda, 

B) It is just a tedda and not a boy, at the end of the day 

C) It is just a harmless hug, at least for now.

A-eyes, thigh, toes-e, arm, navel, carrot, bread, cot, soap, car, bush, Santa, star, oon for moon, naaye for Naani and maaye for mami...

Aa jaayeye aap- to call just about anyone or anything. She would look at water and ask it to come to her for her highness would not take the pains to walk up to it.

Yeh-bhi hai for two of anything- like ask her to kiss on one cheek and she’ll point at your other one asking yeh-bhi, almost indicating mom, what are you saving that one for omg-I hope she is not a reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi, but then she screams one of her blood curdling yells for just about nothing consequential and even Gandhiji turns in his grave in horror.

She’ll pick up the phone and say hewylooh reminding me that I have to work big time of rectifying that accent.
She loves to get herself clicked and would insist on you showing her the fhoto then on the camera.
There has to be the sound of band-baaja on the road, even at a long distance and watch her go shaayee for she would want to go out and see the shaadi.

She would say haaat in the most offending of manner to all passing by cars for madam’s car is on the road and all must hato to give her way and if they don’t, she takes out her toy gun and says tha-tha-tha to shoot them all off contrary to what you might think, I did not teach her THAT...you ought to know by now that I don’t use guns to shoot and I never do tha-tha-tha anyways...there are sounds of a different variety and pitch altogether.

And when the car reaches home she has to scream out kholo although I may be thumping the horn for all my dear life implying to the watchman to do the same.

She has also learnt shtop and chup, both the words, used on none other than me, when I am asking her to do something or am in feeble attempts of getting something done out of her.

She also knows what I call her and ask her ki aap mumma ke kya ho and pat she would say dodo again in an amazingly cute rounding of her lips.

Well, aren’t we done with the 50 yet, you ask?

 Offo, haaaw, fire, heart, no...okay enough already.

For when people say, wait till she begins to speak, I feel omg, I mean there would be more?

You’ll have to meet her to know more and baby sit her for me to allow you to meet her...for it is exactly one month now post no maid still...boo hoo, some anniversary, I’d say!

I will survive; I know I’ll stay alive
Please imagine that being played in the background for a better import of my situation here.



P.S. I am sorry for not being able to reply to the comments on my posts in the last few cases. The reason here is obvious, I do so much talking with her that I can barely manage to blabber back on my page beyond a few blog ideas and these too are connived actually for the hunger of more comments...ah, vicious cycle. I promise to do that at the earliest.