The other Veda

Creative, are you? Read on.

2012-02-10T17:43:00.000+05:30

All you need is love…

I’ve always thought of advertising as a big waiting room of sorts. All kinds of people spend a few years in our wonderful profession, often on their way someplace else. Investment bankers, science graduates, engineers, architects, MBAs, marketing interns – you find every kind of professional here, a lot of them chilling in the creative department, making paper planes out of client briefs. They’re attracted to this industry, one may assume, for its creativity. The opportunity it gives you to do something exciting and awesome and stupid, which no other business in the world would let you.

But as amazing as it is to work in a creative profession, just being here comes with a risk of burning out someday. It doesn’t happen to everyone. One only has to throw a stone at Goafest to hit twenty people who’ve been in the business for twenty years and who STILL have a passion and love for advertising that the rest of us can only hope to have when we’ve been around that long. In an industry where people hop jobs faster than you can say ‘appraisal’, this kind of ‘lambi race ka ghoda’ should be a shining example, but somehow isn’t.

Why do creative people burn out? I think cynicism might have something to do with it. When getting a decent ad out becomes a daily battle, sometimes you just get tired. You fight the temptation lesser and lesser every day. You start churning out drivel, KNOWING it’s drivel, KNOWING you hate it, KNOWING that the only reasons you’re sending it out are a deadline and a paycheck. And slowly, over months, maybe years, a part of you dies. The day comes when you look at an ad that falls below every standard you’ve ever had and don’t even consider improving it because honestly, what’s the point, right? Servicing is okay with it, the client will be okay with it, let’s just send it, yaar.

Look over your shoulder. There’s a younger version of you looking back at you, aghast.

Every single one of us creative types entered this industry as a fresh-faced intern. We had big dreams back then, and not necessarily of winning awards or pitches or getting fatter paychecks or another promotion. No, we wanted one thing more than all that nonsense: we wanted to make a good ad. That’s it. Period. A good ad. That’s what we tried to achieve every single morning we walked into office. A good ad. Not a full page, front page ad, not a billboard on Marine Drive, not a multimedia campaign. We wanted to make an ad. That we could put into our books and say, “That’s mine. I did that.”

We loved advertising back then. We didn’t bitch about our jobs, our paychecks, the hours or the deadlines. We loved the good parts, despite the bad parts. The rest of the world looked at us like we were idiots, not realising that we had what so few do: a job we loved. Where’s the love now? Buried under stacks of rejected campaigns, under piles of unreleased work, in the graveyard of cynicism.

And that’s a damn shame. Because I think the only way we can escape death-by-burnout is by bringing back the love. The buzz, the kick, the joy of coming up with something you’re proud of. Regardless of whether it sees the light of day, whether it wins an award, whether it gets you a promotion or wins you a pitch. Love your work, refuse to settle for something that doesn’t put a spring in your step, come to work itching to make a good ad and that’s exactly what you’ll end up with. A good ad. That you can look at and say, “That’s mine. I did that.”

That way, twenty years down the line if a stone hits someone at Goafest, that someone could just be you.

Bite Me

2012-02-07T11:27:00.000+05:30

I have a confession to make.

I may be English.

No, seriously.

I'm an English Lit grad, prefer Brit writers over American, can happily watch Blackadder re-runs over and over again, love the understated-ness of the understatement and am married to a London-born man who till a few years ago, held a valid British passport.

Also, I have bad teeth.

No, scratch that, I have terrible teeth.

This may not seem like a big deal to any of you till I mention that till date I have had about eleven teeth pulled out, roughly eight root canals done and have gone through almost my entire college life with braces.

That's a lot of pain, for one person.

And it's not like I asked for it or anything. Okay, sure, when I was a kid I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the wash-basin come brushing time, but hey, I was four. I didn't know better. And maybe I was a little dumb too - because it took quite a few teeth being pulled out for me to realise that maybe it's a good idea to brush twice a day. But when I did wise up to the tricky ways of calcium and fluoride, I took every single piece of dental advice to heart.

Now, I brush twice a day, floss before going to bed, never have chewing gum, keep a small bottle of mouthwash in my desk drawer at work (and a large one on the basin stand at home), avoid food like guava (whose sadistic seeds make it their business to stick to teeth) and in general, have dental hygiene practices that border on the obsessive compulsive.

I can laugh about it with the people who find it amusing, I can live down the nicknames it's earned me, all the you-shoulda-married-a-dentist jokes, I can handle it all.

Except the pain.

It never ends, see. Every few months, up pops another problem, I scamper down to my old friend the dentist and it begins. The local anaesthetics, the drilling, the little tools that look like instruments of torture.

It. Never. Ends.

But I guess that's okay. After all, on the upside, I get to be English.

Happy? Yes. Gay? Giggle.

2012-01-23T10:50:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, I watched J. Edgar at a downtown multiplex. The performances were incredible, the casting superb, the direction Clint Eastwood, which in itself should tell you how amazing the movie was. It was the story of one of the most powerful characters in the American arena, told through one of the most powerful actors of our time.

And yet, it left a bad taste in my mouth, thanks to an audience which seemed to have the collective emotional maturity of an eleven-year-old.

When Hoover and Tolson get into a fist-fight that ends in a kiss, there were titters in the audience. When an anguished Tolson leaves the room, leaving behind a emotionally charged Hoover who professes his love too late, there were giggles. What was one of the most touching scenes I've seen in a movie, these imbeciles turned into a farce.

No, I get it, there are people out there whose sense of propriety is so fragile that it crumbles at the sight of two grown men kissing. I personally have felt uneasy at a similar scene - the first time I saw a gay kiss on TV was in the remarkably dark comedy Six Feet Under. I remember being distinctly uncomfortable and reaching for the remote. In hindsight though, it might have been the nature of the kiss, the way it was shot, rather than the participants that put me off. But then, the same can be said of scores of terribly orchestrated kisses in Hindi movies of recent times or indeed, Hollywood movies down the ages.

It takes getting used to, I'll grant you that. But on what basis does it warrant giggles for chrissake? And let's not pretend it's a conservative-ness issue. There is a disturbing number of Indians out there who watch Jerry Springer and Emotional Atyachar, so don't tell me that after a hard day of moral policing, we go home and treat ourselves to an ethical debate.

And I'm certainly not open to flimsy excuses when it comes to J.Edgar. The way the whole homosexuality issue is handled in the movie is exemplary. There is so much tenderness, such a deft portrayal of love and desire and the raging frustration of being unable to express either in a society that would simply not allow it - if this wasn't a movie about the bigger picture, it had all the elements of being a truly well-told love story. So much so that towards the end, when Hoover and Tolson share a tender moment, I found myself putting my head on Rook's shoulder. That if anything is a sign that some of us have come of age, when it comes to watching romances both homo- and heterosexual.

Now if only the rest of that damn audience would catch up.

The R Word - my post for Campaign India

2012-01-20T11:28:00.003+05:30

Ok, hypothesis time.

Say you’re dating someone. Your partner is very important to you and you really want to make it work. So you compliment her/him on everything they say or do. You’re unfailingly complying, agree with everything your partner says, you put their needs before yours, let them choose the date, time, place and nature of your date and pretty much everything else. If you make a mistake, you’re apologetic and make up for it by being extra nice to them, maybe even buying them a gift or two. If they ever make a mistake, you never point it out. In fact, you pretty much bend over backwards to please them, and any argument that ever occurs, ends quickly and in their favour. Every time.

And then one day they dump your sorry ass for someone who’s not even that nice to them.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Nobody likes a doormat, not for too long anyway. That’s something all of us in advertising agencies need to think about.

Time and again, I’ve seen this. An agency wins a pitch, impresses clients with their work, then the clients start asking for ‘safer’ (read tired, boring, soul-sucking) ads, the agency complies and a year or three down the line, the clients take their business elsewhere. Where the same thing happens all over again.

Yes, I get how important it is for agencies to retain businesses. It’s what pays our salaries, we damn well need to keep clients happy. But there’s a very big line between addressing their concerns in our campaigns and letting them dictate the copy, art, strategy and everything in between.

Clients come to us because they think we can help them sell more products or build some kind of brand equity. Somewhere down the line, maybe from past experiences with other agencies, they’ve learned to see us, all of us, as a bunch of self-indulgent, extravagant, decadent snobs who wouldn’t recognize a real market scenario if it got up and slapped us in the face. And God knows, we’ve earned some of this prejudice. But definitely not all of it.

For crying out loud, behind those alcohol and nicotine addictions, a lot of us do understand both the business and the art of advertising. What works for a brand, what stopped working years ago, where a risk must be taken, where it pays to play safe – we understand these matters and should have a say in them. And if the clients don’t listen, we need to make them listen.

I’m not suggesting we throw mounted foam-boards in their faces, call them philistines and stomp out of the conference room. But how about a conversation where the agency makes it clear to the client that it’s open to feedback, but not to Hitlerian missives? I’m proposing a discussion where we say, as diplomatically and politely as possible, that we’re the world’s SECOND oldest profession and will not stoop to things best left to the first.

Make the logo bigger? Sure. Make it 16.38 point sized precisely? No sir, will not do. This line isn’t working for you? I’ll send you eighteen more. But don’t ask me to “say something like” a line you’ve written, because my job title is copyWRITER, not REwriter.

The time is ripe to draw a line. And it’s not exactly an unheard of idea. Top advertising agencies manage to retain the best accounts for years without bending over for their clients. They’re courteous, meet deadlines, deliver quality advertising and stand up for the ideas they believe in. And in return, their clients trust them, take their opinions seriously and don’t treat them like junior studio operators. So clearly, there is a way to keep your clients and your self-respect too.

Bottom line: we have expertise. We just need to convince clients that we’ll use ours to the best of our ability if they just trust us a little. Considering we’re in the business of selling ideas, that shouldn’t be much of a hard-sell now, would it?

Don't tell anyone, but...

2012-01-04T17:49:00.001+05:30

After a serious conversation with Rook, I have realised something terrible about myself.

I suck at secrets.

Not others' secrets - those I keep well enough. Oh, not stupid things like how much she weighs, or how much he drank the other night. But when someone tells me something deeply personal to them, something I have no business telling others, I shut the hell up. I don't go around broadcasting it like some kind of public service news station. Which is as it should be.

But my own secrets? Things I should seriously not go around publicising - I can't seem to keep those under wraps. I tell people everything - the good and the bad, stuff that brings me up and puts me down, evil that's inflicted on me, good things that have come as blessings, my lucky-me moments and my poor-me sob stories - I just let them loose on the unsuspecting public.

And for most part, I genuinely believed that I needed to do that. Talking about the crap in my life was a cathartic experience. Talking about the joys was just a way of me reassuring myself by saying "See? Good things happen to you once in a while. You're NOT a total nitwit."

But that's not what people see. People see a self-serving egomaniac out on a self-publicity trip. Which is especially weird because those who've seen the soap opera my life can resemble have no business resenting me for being happy once in a while.

That's denying human nature, however. Are we ever truly happy when someone else finds joy? Sure, we say it out aloud, but do we actually ever feel happy when someone else wins the lottery? Is this yet another evolutionary joke, where the survival of the fittest is so ingrained in our psyches that we forget that we're not animals fighting over the last scrap of mammoth?

There are days when I'm not so sure. I look around and it still seems like a battle - it's just that the scrap of mammoth has evolved into something else. Now knowing what I know, the sensible plan of action would be to resolve to keep mum, to keep your sorrows close and your joys closer.

But what is my New Year's resolution instead?

To write everyday.

Because, you know, it's not like I ever write about myself or anything.

WWW.YOU’RE-SUCH-A-LOSER.COM

2011-12-27T11:32:00.000+05:30

Back in school, I didn’t run fast enough, look good enough or act cool enough to be popular. I got picked on too. A lot. And in the process, I learned a valuable life lesson: kids can be evil little sods. And now, with the Internet on their side, there is no escaping the truly mean ones. Nasty comments on social networking forums, embarrassing pictures posted on class websites, whole blogs dedicated to the mockery of a single classmate, hell, even mean little sing-along videos that make fun of people— bullies have no dearth of powerful online weapons.

It makes me miss the good old days, really. Back then, you could come home from school or college, watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and let the world go hang. You didn’t need to worry whether the most popular girl in class will turn down your Facebook friend request and effectively render you a social pariah. You didn’t need to lose sleep over whether some vicious bugger was planning an online smear campaign against you.

And you didn’t need to wonder if the source of your embarrassment was getting 153 ‘likes’. Whatever insulting nickname you got called in school or college, whatever malicious rumour that was started about you, didn’t leave those corridors. It didn’t follow you around, announcing itself to your friends and family, who’d never even have heard it if some jackass hadn’t posted it on your Facebook wall or created a Twitter hashtag out of it.

No doubt about it, kids have it tougher these days. The trick is to tell them the truth about bullies, both online and offline: if you stand up to them, you get some respect. Oh, not from them, from yourself. Because at the end of the day, that’s the only kind that counts.

(This was my column published in Deccan Chronicle on 24th December.)

One

2011-12-13T16:27:00.000+05:30

Around this time last year, I was swinging wildly between reasonable composure and all-out insanity. I was going to get married, see, and the term 'bridezilla' was suddenly making total sense to me.

I wasn't sure about it. The plain simple fact was we hadn't dated each other for long enough. In fact till about three years ago, the only thing I knew about him was that he was once in my friend's class in college. And that he liked to read.

He, on the other hand, knew about me. He knew what I did for a living, how sarcastic I was, how bitter and cynical, how messed up and how I chose to write about it all. Because he'd been reading this blog the whole time. Now how he reached the conclusion that I was a normal, lovable person based on that, is beyond me.

But he did and decided to leave a nice, decent, gentlemanly comment about my writing on a social networking site. I thanked him kindly, there was an amusing case of mistaken identity where I thought he was a totally different classmate of my friend's, we had a nice laugh and it ended at that.

But then, a year later, I left a comment on his blog and it started again. The conversation moved to Facebook, then to G-chat, then to Vodafone and finally we decided to meet. It was all very You've Got Mail - let me tell you, it's really ridiculous when your own life decides to throw originality to the winds and gets busy imitating Hollywood.

He was nothing like I expected. Not even remotely like the men I'd have usually gone out with. And get this, he liked that I was sarcastic. All this while I'd been watching my tongue, hoping not to bite a guy's head off with my barbs and along comes someone who not only doesn't mind it, actually thinks it's all cool and spunky. Go figure.

And me, little old cynical me, who thought she'd never trust men after what the Assholy Ex did, I knew within two months of dating this man that I could only ever consider marriage if he was going to be involved.

Curiouser and curiouser, as Carroll would say.

But don't let the movies fool you - marriage is not a happy ending. Sure, bits of it are really, truly filled with happiness, but there's no 'ending' in sight. In our case, it's two totally different people, who're still getting to know each other. I'm finding out what he's like after ten hours of work and two hours of TV. He's finding out the sides of me I don't write about here.

It's a wonderful process of discovery that leaves us alternately sulking and giggling, even in the middle of an argument. Which I'm taking as a good sign.

So as we celebrate our first year of this glorious madness that is marriage, I'm going to be raising a toast to the most important supporting character of our story. Here's to the internet, ladies and gentlemen - may it bring you a surprise as pleasant as mine.

Wake Me Up When December Ends

2011-12-13T15:23:00.004+05:30

It’s that time of the year again when everyone nudges everyone else and goes, “It’s that time of the year again.” December is here, guys, and while to some people it means Christmas shopping and goodwill and cheer, to us ad folks it merely means booking space in The Free Press Journal. Seriously, that newspaper must make its annual advertising revenue in a single month thanks to the lot of us.

Which brings us, of course, to the whole issue of scam ads.

I think scam ads are a concept unique to our industry. Think about it. Architects don’t design mock buildings to win awards. Doctors don’t cure fake illnesses. Lawyers don’t… no, let’s not go there. But honestly, I can’t think of any other field where people churn out a piece of work for the sole purpose of winning awards for it. Documentary or art filmmakers perhaps, but those guys don’t count, they’re a little nuts anyway.

The thing is ‘nobody else does it, then why should I’ has never worked as an excuse, has it? It didn’t work when you tried to tell your mum why you shouldn’t wear the aunty-type skirt (or uncle-type shirt) she bought you and it isn’t going to work now.

We all know the argument. You shouldn’t make ads your clients wouldn’t ordinarily release. You shouldn’t make ads for clients you don’t even have. You shouldn’t put your own money or the agency’s money into producing and releasing said ads. And you certainly shouldn’t do it for a shiny little award, because that’s just plain wrong.

The thing is, we all know the counter-argument too. If all the good brands willing to take risks on bold ideas for their everyday advertising are in the coffers of a few good agencies, what are the rest of us supposed to do? Turn in our pencils, shut off our creativity and do offer ads all our lives?

It’s a stalemate, that’s what it is. The fact of the matter is we can try to get good creative campaigns released, but if the client doesn’t want to put money on them, what are you going to do about it? No, I want to ask everyone who slams scam ads this question: if I don’t have the kind of client that says, “Jaa, Simran, jee le apni zindagi,” does it mean I don’t deserve an award even if my campaign is fantastic?

Besides, all advertising awards we stress for in December are awards for CREATIVE excellence. They judge how CREATIVE your campaign is, not whether you were able to convince the client to release it and pay for it. That’s what the Effies are for.

But all this pales in comparison to the greatest truth in the industry today: whether you get a job, what designation you are offered, how much salary you can demand, it’s all related to how many awards you’ve won. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

And till this state of affairs continues, you can bet good money that there will be a healthy amount of scam campaigns every award season. Whether we like it or not.

(This was my December blog post for Campaign India.)

There, But For The Grace of God...

2011-12-09T15:17:00.000+05:30

Back in college, we had learnt in psychology that as life went, most people regret things they didn't do rather than those they did.

The roads not taken, the choices not made, the people they allowed to go out of their lives rather than taking their hands and asking them to stay.

I have my own morbid version of this exercise, where I think of what life could've been like had I chosen different. I daydream about where I would've been today had I not gone to ad school, had I not taken advertising, had I not started this blog, had I held on to certain people - where would I be, who would I be and who would I be with?

Some of the answers leave me wondering. Perhaps I could've had a better life, more fulfilling, a better paying, more satisfying job where I don't have to blog to get my writing kicks. Maybe I wouldn't have met Rook and would today be still single or some completely unimaginable Mister's missus.

In an alternate Universe, maybe these possibilities still exist.

And then, I think of the flipside. Where life would be sadder, darker, lonelier, where nothing and nobody could help shake off the feeling that I'm standing on a precipice where a single word, thought or deed can push me over the edge.

The funny part is, I've already stood there twice before, in this very Universe itself, so I do know what that's like.

So, in retrospect, what life my choices have led me to seems to be one to be profoundly grateful for. I don't know if the same holds true for you. But as someone who gets practically daily updates of how bad a life I could've had, let me just say this: enjoy what you have, because trust me, it could be SO much worse than it is.

Slap? Stick? Life? Art?

2011-11-25T10:21:00.001+05:30

Today's Mumbai Mirror had a front page headline that read 'Thappad and its Goonj'. I don't know about the rest of you, but it made me think of Karma.

Remember the part where Dilip Kumar slaps Anupam Kher, who was playing Dr. Dang (to perfection, by the way)? Anupam Kher responds with a menacing "Ab is goonj ki goonj tumhe sunaayee degi" or some such drivel. In the movie, Dr. Dang's terrorists spark riots across the country in retaliation to the slap - innocent people are killed, public property is destroyed. Which is all well and good and acceptable.

FOR TERRORISTS.

Whether Sharad Pawar deserved the slap is a matter of opinion. But what the NCP goons did after the incident just baffles the mind. It's your country, you morons. It's not all lovable and nice and doesn't always inspire spirited renditions of the national anthem, but why take your anger out on its infrastructure?

I mean, as Delhiites never tire of reminding us, Bombay's infrastructure is ALREADY pretty screwed up. And not one politician sitting in Delhi, including Mr. Pawar, give's a rat's ass about it. So for his guys to come down here and set fire to the Bombay-Pune Expressway, the one decent stretch of road Bombayiites can use, that too for an incident THAT HAPPENED IN DELHI, just plain takes the cake.

You want to flex your muscles? Go flex them in the nation's capital. Let's see if you can get away so easily if you deface their precious (and as opposed to Mumbai, completed) Metro.

Coming Soon To A Newspaper Near You...

2011-11-21T13:09:00.001+05:30

... if you live in Bangalore, at least.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be doing a monthly guest column for Deccan Chronicle, Bangalore on all things internet. Well, some things internet anyway.

So if you live South-side, keep a lookout for my mug on their pages. The rest of you can go visit their website, the latest piece looks like this.

Say yay now.

Just To Clear Things Out

2011-11-16T12:00:00.000+05:30

When you put a lot of yourself in a relationship, no matter how long its shelf-life is - a couple of months, a couple of years, whatever - when you invest a lot in it, sharing, caring, loving, getting to know someone, getting someone to know you, your favourite book-movie-band-song, what gets you down and lifts you up, when you consciously try to remember the same things about the other person, it's deep and intense and you think this level of involvement is possible only once in a lifetime. I'd hate to do all that all over again with someone else, you think. So much to show, tell, know, remember. Too much effort, too much to bother with again.

That's bullshit, by the way.

Because no matter how jaded you are, and trust me I should know all about that, you don't lose your capacity to love and to want to be loved. And as long as that exists within you, you can and will put in the effort. Because then it doesn't seem like effort. Merely a matter of course that comes naturally.

Post Mortem

2011-11-14T13:21:00.001+05:30

The Hindu religion equivalent of St. Peter is this chap called Chitragupta (literal translation: secret picture, which is weird). Like St. P, he has a book with all your good deeds down on one side and all your wicked acts on the other. After you kick the bucket, you face him. He does some basic maths and tells you whether you're going to Heaven or Hell.

Now me, I wonder what will happen when he sees certain things I've done. What if, at some point, he looks at the list and back at me and asks me to explain myself with the help of a short note, because those things just don't make any sense. On a scale of one to ten, one being pure evil and ten being sainthood incoming, these deeds are the irrational numbers. What if, puzzling over those he scratches his celestial scalp and asks me "Why?"

What am I supposed to say then, "Well, gee, it seemed like a good idea at the time"?

I have a lot to worry about. Clearly.

Petty Little Thing

2011-11-09T14:16:00.000+05:30

It's a terrible thing, I know,
There's really no excuse,
I should've tried harder not to show
This thing that I'm feeling.

It was so long ago,
That you did what you did
I should let it go,
This thing that I'm feeling.

I should feel some shame
For grinning at your dream deferred
I should really learn to tame
This thing that I'm feeling.

I should, I must, I ought
I could, I can -
But you know what?
I actually rather enjoy this feeling.

New Thing

2011-11-03T12:53:00.000+05:30

So the Overheard section is out. Not because people have stopped saying outrageous things around me, but because I can't seem to remember them later. Age does that to you, yes, let's move on.

The good news is, I've replaced it with a new section: Bookshelf.

This is where I'll put down the stuff I happen to be reading at the moment. It may not always be cool or interesting or anything you want to pick up later. But on the off-chance that it is... scroll down the sidebar and look.

PS: I know I haven't been posting much lately, but there's a valid reason and everything, I swear.

Mind Game

2011-10-21T12:20:00.000+05:30

So there was this time when I mocked the very idea of decaf. What's the point, I wondered, of coffee that doesn't keep you awake? It's like non-alcoholic beer or a cheap Mercedes Benz - a pointless exercise that completely defeats its own purpose.

Or so I thought.

You see, of late, coffee has been keeping me awake. No, let me rephrase that. Coffee has been keeping me awake at night when I have no intention of staying awake. I'll feel a yawn coming up around 3 in the afternoon, have a half-cup of coffee and that's it - I'm left tossing and turning well past 2 at night. Which, naturally, leaves me all drowsy and incapable of telling my arse from my elbow come morning time. So then I do the logical thing - have more coffee. You're smart, you see where this is heading, don't you?

Now, if there's one thing I've learned after four years of studying psychology (apart from the fact that there's a disturbingly large variety of disturbed people out there), it's that the human mind is complicated. And also, fairly easy to fool.

Decaf is what I've been using to make a total and complete ass of my own mind. It tastes the same as regular coffee (at least Nescafe Gold decaf does), tells my brain that I've had something that tastes like coffee in the afternoon and still, doesn't stop me from hitting the sheets like a sack of overworked potatoes. Which means that my extremely clever, I.Q.-of-145 mind can't even tell when I of all people, am playing silly buggers with it.

Deplorable, isn't it?

Ah well, like they say, whatever helps you sleep at night...

My October blogpost for Campaign India

2011-10-13T16:26:00.000+05:30

Read it here.

Hug Me Not

2011-10-10T19:23:00.005+05:30

There are times when it's appropriate to hug and there are people who're appropriate to hug. You get good news from someone, you feel a sudden rush of affection, you win the Nobel Prize for Sarcasm, and yeah, you feel the need for a little squeeze. From your mom or dad, siblings perhaps, your better or maybe your worse half and close, wait let me put that in capitals, CLOSE friends.

In my Poona college, things were a little different. Completely random classmates thought it was perfectly acceptable to hug you, you, someone they know the name and maybe the subject combo of. It was weird. You'd be standing perfectly innocently, minding your own business, maybe bitching about the ridiculously short deadline on your assignment and wham! Some person you barely knew would come charging at you with a "Hi, sweetie!" and you'd be hugged for no fault of your own.

There was no provocation. There was no reason. Any reason was a good reason. "Hi!" hug. "Bye!" hug. "See you there!" hug. "Good morning!" hug. "Such a fucked class, no?" hug. "Oh god, it's Tuesday!" hug. Magic Pants suffered particularly badly, marginally nice-looking boy that he is. There he'd be, checking out the notice board for class timings, rucksack in hand, when out of nowhere there would be a sudden woman on him. And before you get all jealous, boys, the woman in question wasn't always pretty either.

And apparently this hugging disease wasn't only prevalent in my college. Rook knew guys who were into it as well. True to the male form, they were called 'chamdee' - wormy little buggers out for a quick feel.

Which leads me to wonder, how bloody starved for affection are we? Because I see how guys might spring a spontaneous hug on a woman for less-than-honourable reasons. But women? Seriously? I get hugging best friends and, I don't know, acquaintances you may have girl-crushes on. But I REFUSE to believe that that particular category can contain more than 40 girls. Or, given the circumstances, me.

My theory is that a lot of these people came from places where it wasn't just taboo, but borderline illegal to touch a person of the opposite sex. So when they saw the affection extravaganza that is the one-armed hug, they thought, "Hmm, I need to get me one of those. Or a thousand!"

Whatever the reason was, it was a weird, weird time. And now that I think of it, a lot of the few people I genuinely cared about from that class, I've never hugged.

Ever.

So, in honour of the blatant unfairness of it all, I have a small request to make of all of you.

Make all the friends you like and have a lot of fun, but for god's sake - hug responsibly.

Honey, Does This Make My Ass Look Bitchy?

2011-10-04T12:17:00.000+05:30

Men, I'll say this again: you guys have it easy.

In school, in college, even in offices, male bullies stand up and practically announce that they're bullies. They shove you on the playground, trip you in front of the girls, tell everybody how you got shit-faced and threw up in the boss's cabin at the last office party.

Girl bullies are different. Tina Fey got that bang on in Mean Girls. Girl bullies play mind-games, pretend to be your friends and then, when you've let your guard down, they swoop down and crush your self-esteem with one quick barb.

I don't even mind the overtly bitchy type. Like male bullies, they broadcast their pettiness and that's easily taken care of.

She: "Wow, that top is NOT looking good on you."

You: "Funny, your boyfriend didn't seem to think so..."

Badambambhish. It's that easy. But the underhanded bitches, ooh, them I can't stand. Because their bitchiness is disguised. Sometimes as well-meaning concern, perhaps even as jollity or small talk, it's all fun and games till the claws come out.

She: "You're looking SO nice! Is that a new top?"

You: "Thanks, but I've had it for ages..."

She: "Oh. Well, it's looking different on you. Have you put on weight?"

To which there isn't a quick enough, bitchy enough comeback that'll strike you at that moment. And then, like Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail, you'll replay the conversation in your head over and over again till you find that perfect retort that would've flambéed her ass, but by then, of course, it's too late to do anything about it.

Or maybe that's just me.

What's even worse is, if confronted, these women get all indignant - as if they meant it as a compliment, as if it didn't strike them, god promise, that comparing you to a blimp could be construed as anything except pure flattery.

Oh shit me not, ladies, you KNOW what you're doing. But if you're going to pretend otherwise, well, two can play that game. So the next time you are uncomplimentary about my weight, my clothes, my hair, my name, my work, my talent, my life - I'm just going to look surprised and ask in a stage whisper that will carry through the room: "Hey, is that... is your fly open?"

30

2011-09-20T17:42:00.001+05:30

I turned thirty yesterday and this is the part where I should say, "... but I don't feel any different." But that would be lying. So I won't.

But I'm not going to tear my hair out and refuse to come out from under the bed either.

I turned thirty yesterday and I feel older. Not old. Just older. What's the difference? Well.

When you mention Fireball XL5 to someone and they look blankly at you and you realise they were born in the 1990s - that's when you feel old. So, so old. When you see the same someone sing a Justin Bieber song with an expression you reserve for The Doors, you feel older. And so very grateful for it.

I'm feeling older in that sense. And no, I'm not going to pretend that there is no flip-side to hitting the big three-oh.

Being 30 means that I can no longer drink vodka the whole night without getting a hangover.
It also means that if I raid the buffet the way I like to, it takes more than one session at the gym to get the stomach flat again.
It also means coming to terms with the fact, that my dream of being a published author by 30 is going to be pushed to a more realistic deadline.
And now that marriage has been ticked off the list, it means the world is looking at me with shining eyes, hoping I'll give it a brand-new human who has some of my genes.

But somehow, as I savour my expensive Scotch and eat 3-course meals at fancy restaurants, as I wear clothes that make me look good without exposing my mid-riff, as I hit the gym to stay healthy instead of skinny, as I revel in my birthday gifts (grown-up ones like jewellery and fun ones like the Batman poster and the Scrabble set and that dress I'd never have bought for myself), as I get recognised for being "internet-famous" if not a published author, as I go home every evening to a wonderful husband instead of a silent telephone, I realise that having spent the last 30 years trying to "get somewhere in life", I'm sort of, kind of, almost, halfway there. It begins to dawn on me that it's now officially time to forget all the little age-quibbles and start enjoying that.

And that is the real upside of being thirty.

Legacy

2011-09-05T11:55:00.001+05:30

I've been reading a lot lately. After months of re-reading Terry Pratchett, I've let some new authors into my life. And the effect, it must be said, has been like jumping into a cold pool after hours of lazing under a comfortable quilt.

The book I'm about to finish is Iravati Karve's Yugaant. I'd picked up the book ages ago, but somehow it had disappeared into the depths of my bookcase and I'd never gotten around to finishing it. Now, thanks to a copy I've borrowed from Rook, I'm close to reaching the end of this incredibly interesting dissection of the Mahabharata.

Towards the end of the book, Karve says something I found significant. "The Being is afraid of the Non-Being". I take it to mean that everything that exists is afraid of not existing. The fear of death, from which all our survival traits emerge, seems to be a direct manifestation of this. And while subconsciously we KNOW we're going to pop it one day, there's a part of us that really, really wishes that wasn't the case. For a lot of us, this fear of death is superseded by the fear of oblivion. 'I was here, I lived' is something we want people to know.

The book was playing on my mind over the Ganesh Chaturthi weekend, when I visited my ancestral house in the village. And that's where I realised something - not everybody creates great works of art, literature or whatever, to live on forever. For the vast majority, the simplest way to be remembered is through their descendants. Take me, for instance. I've never met either of my grandfathers, they both passed away before I was born. But I know what they were like, through the memories of my relatives. I know the names and deeds of their fathers and grandfathers, through the house in the village. There is no question that they lived. And they didn't have to write War and Peace for someone three generations down to know that.

What will I be remembered as? A thought-provoking writer? Someone who wrote about their life on the internet? A Hitlerian matriarch? A sarcastic little know-it-all? As the big three-zero approaches, it's a question that's becoming increasingly important to ask and equally impossible to answer.

Rage

2011-07-14T14:42:00.000+05:30

I was down with the flu since Sunday and had decided to give my body one more day of getting properly well. So I was at home when Rook first BBMed me about the blasts. He called to ask where I am, if I'm ok, told me he was fine and would be on his way home soon. I called my family, faced a few seconds of stomach-gutting panic when my calls refused to go through the jammed lines, then a quick bout of relief when my mum picked up and assured me they were all home, alive.

That job done, I switched on the news and got down to watching the gaudy tickers, the flashy 'EXCLUSIVE!' banners, the rolling parade of the now-familiar visuals.

Again.

To those of you who haven't been to Bombay, these are the places the explosions took place at.

Kabutarkhana, Dadar: Like the name suggests, it's a giant pigeon-coop in the middle of the road. Its floor is littered with grain and poop, the sky above it is filled with rising flocks of grey and white birds. My father, my uncles were born in a hospital not fifty steps away from it. So was I. They spend several years of their lives living in a chawl not twenty steps away from Kabutarkhana. Through their stories, so did I.

Prasad Chambers, Opera House: The Opera House used to be an actual opera house once upon a time. Now it's just a majestic reminder of a golden era. If a man with a good throwing arm stood on the roof of Prasad Chambers and threw a stone in every direction, they would hit my favourite paani-puri joint, my brother's school, my maths and sanskrit tuition classes, the building where my mother used to work, her doctor's clinic and my homeopath's office.

Zaveri Bazaar: Most people think of gold and diamond merchants when they think of this place. I think of one of my father's favourite restaurants and of all the times we were dragged there and sat sullenly bitching about it to each other while drinking chaas from beer bottles as Dad went for the paapad churi.

And that's what I was thinking about when Mr. Chidambaram was asking the people of Bombay to keep calm in the face of this crisis. When the news channels were talking about the resilience of the people of this city, I was remembering all those times I went to Dadar with my grandmum and she bought me little plastic animals from roadside vendors. When the bigshot policemen were talking about intelligence failures, I was harking back to the times I'd traipse into Mum's office on a Saturday and wait for her to be done. Or the trips to the pani-puri walla, where Dad and I would have a who-can-eat-more contest.

And I was angry. Because there wasn't, never has been any accountability. Not once in the history of all the terror-strikes against this city has one person stood up and said, "I'm sorry. We fucked up." Not one politician, during all the hours spent making it impossible for 23-year-olds to drink said, "You voted for me and I let you down." Not one member of the police force, while enforcing the midnight curfew for discos, has said, "You trusted me to protect you and I didn't."

Nobody.

They just stood there, pointing fingers at each other and let a bunch of bastards rip away my city's soul again. I can't do anything about that. But Mr. Politician, I'd suggest taking the time from now on to make up some really convincing answers. Because come election time, I'm not going to be asking what you'll do for us in the next five years.

I'm going to be asking what the fuck you were doing, while we were wounded, miserable and full of impotent rage. While Mr. Chidambaram was asking us to keep calm.

Calling All... um... Sluts?

2011-07-05T11:29:00.000+05:30

Ages ago, as part of reference reading for my feminist literature paper (yes, yes, it's true, move on) I'd read an article about a remarkable movement that happened in Britain years ago. It was part of an initiative to Reclaim the Night.

As kids, we all, little boys and girls alike, wet our pajamas at the thought of the creepy monsters that lurk in the shadows. Then we grow up and some of those little boys become the creepy monsters that lurk in the shadows. We girls are warned to come home before it gets dark, not to stay out too late with our friends... you know, in case something bad happens.

We're taught to fear the dark for reasons that have nothing to do with evolution. We're denied our freedom in the twilight hours because god forbid, some oversexed male predator spots us and decides he's in the mood for a quick rape.

Reclaim the Night said that the problem was the predator, not the victim. The man, not the woman. They said that if boys couldn't keep their penises locked away after dark, maybe parents should keep their boys locked up after the dark. You don't hide from rabid dogs, you lock them up, right? And that's how Sister Walks came into being. Candlelight walks attended by women of all kinds, in an effort to Reclaim the Night for women.

Was it effective? Can't say. Did it get the message across? Yes maam, it did.

I don't know if Slutwalk is going to do that.

First of all, because the men it is aimed at are NOT going to see it as a protest. They're going to see it as a commercial for Axe. Hundreds of women in skimpy clothing marching down the roads in broad daylight? Yeah, I don't see guys shaking their heads going, "Man, I'm so ashamed I ever objectified these fine samples of humanity."

It's not going to happen.

I'm not saying Slutwalk's intentions aren't noble. A protest against the belief that a woman's clothing can invite rape?* Sounds good. But then its objective shouldn't be to reclaim the word 'slut'. To me and I'm guessing to most of the un-Elizabethan** English-speaking world, a slut isn't someone who merely dresses provocatively. It's someone who trades sex for money. Or sleeps around a lot. And while the morality of both those acts is a discussion for another day, I'm pretty certain I don't want the word associated with me. I certainly don't want to be part of Slutwalk Bombay, which in a stunning display of tactlessness is being called Maal Chaal.

It'd be like wanting to be called a cunt to celebrate the natural beauty of the female form.

*Years ago, in America a rapist went scot-free on the "She was asking for it" defense. To which American columnist Lewis Grizzard replied, "She may have been asking for it, pal, but she sure as hell wasn't asking for it from you."

** The term 'slut' derives from the word 'slattern', and orginiated sometime in 15th century England to mean an untidy, prominscuous or uncouth woman. Litgeeked. Doesn't have the same ring as 'Lawyered', but what the hell.

Come Back, Email, All Is Forgiven

2011-06-10T11:45:00.000+05:30

I miss email.

This is a dreadful sign of the times, I suppose, where we've gone from mourning the loss of letters to that of email.

But seriously, whatever happened to those good 'ol fashioned long mails you got from friends and others? Yes, 1 paisa a minute call rates have made it easier for all of us to reach for the phone and call others when we have something to say. And as someone who's been in a long-distance relationship, let me tell you, I can't thank Vodafone enough for that.

But... well, you can't save a phone conversation, can you? I was just clearing my inbox this morning and I found a bunch of old emails from all kinds of people. It was like opening an old photo album - it took me right back to the place I was all those years ago, riled up all the bittersweet memories and even made me, ME, go all "Awwww" at various points.

You don't get that with a phone call. Or a tweet or a BBM or a text. You just don't.

The cynic in me shakes her head and reminds me that those people, my relationship with them, even I myself, have changed since those emails were exchanged. But somewhere, somehow, it feels good to know that at some point our lives intersected to create such exchanges.

And while it rains outside my window, I'm feeling quite in favour of such charming accidents.

Have High Standards? Read On.

2011-05-25T12:48:00.001+05:30

If you've been reading this blog for a while, then you know that till about two years ago, I was quite definitively single. This meant that in the grand tradition of Indian singles, I was being punished for it by being made to register on matrimonial websites. And by having to meet and greet the wonderful examples of humanity those sites threw up for me.

Now while I'd love to pretend that all of those guys were unequivocal geeks, creeps, Neanderthals and complete and total Orkutiyas (I ADORE that phrase, don't you?), fact is, they weren't. And yet, a lot of them went down the crapper for me because of things they did, said or said they liked to do. At some point, in a very woman-like fashion, I began to wonder if I was asking for too much when it came to men. Others clearly thought so. One colleague even asked me, "But why does he have to be interesting? If he's well-to-do, good-looking and you two get along, why does he need to be good to talk to?"

To which there was no sensible reply except, "Because I can't keep having sex every time there's a lull in the conversation, what am I, Paris Hilton?"

But I didn't say that. I thought, maybe I should open up my mind a smidgen, see how that goes.

It didn't go well.

Once, because we had no similar interests. I liked trying new things like white water rafting, he liked trying new vegetarian restaurants. I liked reading books, he liked collecting pens. I liked coffee, he rarely set foot in a Barista. It... just wasn't going to happen.

The other time, it was because of Thomas Hardy*. The writer, yes. The guy I was meeting was into him big time. Hardy was his favourite author, in fact. Him and Kafka. And in his free time he liked to sit at home and think about Nietzsche and existentialism. Which basically made me amend my list to 'Good conversationalist, decent-looking, must read books, must have sense of humour, MUST BE CHEERFUL'.

Anyway, here's the burn:

Rook lurrrves to sit and think. About Gaudi's architecture and the capital of Argentina and the per capita income of the average Guatemalan greengrocer and whether or not he should buy a BlackBerry (the last one has been on his ponder-list for the past three months). If you gave him a choice between an hour with Katrina Kaif and an hour spent just thinking about stuff, he'd have to think really, really hard about it.

He'd never heard of Terry Pratchett before we met and prefers to read the works of John LaCarre (whom I'd never heard of before we met).

He doesn't talk much in the presence of humans. But if you coax him into a conversation about, say, the gardens in Venice, he'll wax eloquent as long as you don't bring his attention to the fact that he's talking.

And he never, ever, ever, on the pain of death, ever, has coffee.

So us being together makes no logical sense whatsoever. But we are and it's all hugely amusing in many ways to people who know us. And to us too, mostly. Which finally, brings me to the much-delayed point of this post: If, like my friend PurpleJeans, you're being shoved into the arranged marriage race with a shaky ounce of sanity as your only weapon, consider this: you don't have to adjust for someone who doesn't meet your standards. But you may want to give a chance to someone who doesn't have all the requisites. Because it might just turn out to be something you didn't expect at all. And pretty damn amazing all the same.

*(To the uninitiated, a typical Hardy novel stars a protagonist who has a giant KICK ME IN THE NUTS, UNIVERSE sign on his or her head. S/he gets fucked by destiny and fate and luck at every turn in life. Then s/he dies and everybody goes home relieved. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, for instance, is born poor, accidentally kills a horse, is raped by her employer, gives birth to a bastard child who dies shortly after, gets dumped after being married to the man she loves, is evicted from her house after her father dies, becomes the mistress of her rapist, kills him to join her husband when he returns for her and is arrested for murder and executed, while her husband marries her sister. They should sell special editions with a free strip of Prozac inside.)

Great Expectations

2011-05-23T10:03:00.000+05:30

Do you ever wonder if we're doomed to be crushed by the weight of our expectations? What we expect from ourselves, I mean.

As far as I can recall, nobody specifically came down with a couple of forms bearing an official-looking seal and said, "You... with the long name, you're destined for greatness, so shape up and all that, you have some serious work to do."

Nope, can't say I remember that happening. I don't know if it's happened to anybody for sure, but I think I can safely say that it's unlikely.

And yet.

We continue thinking that we're somehow meant to be up there, with the big ones, that one day we're going to be mentioned in the same breath as Hemingway and Wilde and, I don't know, Marquez or someone. And we watch in rising frustration as anything of the sort stubbornly refuses to happen.

What the hell is going on, we wonder, didn't anybody get the memo? I'm supposed to be huge by now, and not in terms of waist-size either!

And while we plod along in our day jobs, not quite hating, but not quite loving our existence either, we begin to wonder if this is all there is to it. If we'll end up just as our mothers and fathers did: with decently-raised children and a twenty-year EMI on a house we can't properly enjoy till we're retired from the job, that takes half our lives and most of our will to live.

Will I be considered a waste of talent, we ask ourselves. As someone incredibly gifted who ended up living a cookie-cutter life, which could have been, should have been, so much more.

I think the real question to ask is: by whom? Fifty years from now, who do you think is going to care that you didn't win the Nobel Prize or the damn Bharat Ratna? And how incredibly arrogant are you, that you think someone apart from you will?

If you choose contentment over ambition, it is your choice. Whether it is a burden to bear for life or an act that sets you free from the straitjacket of your own expectations, depends on what you do next.

Veda Vs. Food

2011-05-19T17:51:00.001+05:30

So Rook and I have recently taken to watching Man Vs. Food on TLC (a ridiculous name for Discovery Travel and Living, which sounded so much classier and not like the second-last album of a particularly bad girl-band).

There are two things that appeal me about this show.

One, of course, is the vicarious eating.

I mean, unless advertising suddenly starts paying me the GDP of a small country, the chances of me actually going to Philadelphia and having an authentic Philly cheeseburger are slim to none. So basically stuff like hot dogs piled with mustard and relish, mountains of fries, plateaus of fried onion and large islands of different kinds of meat swimming in rivers and seas of cheese is something that's not going to suddenly happen to me. Not outside my imagination, in any case. It's not just the gargantuan quantities of the food involved, mind you. It's also all the exciting combinations the Yanks have come up with basically, meat, cheese, condiments and frying.

That being said, the second thing that fascinates me about this show is the sight of what seems like a normal human being downing six pounds (roughly 3 kilos) of food AT ONE SITTING. That's the average weight of a healthy newborn child, by the way.

And bleeding heart that I am, I can't help thinking how many famine-stricken people could die of cholesterol poisoning by just sharing this one single meal. So much food, dammit! Half of it going to waste in some stupid friggin' challenge that pits the human digestive system against complex carbohydrates.

But then the bacon raises its beautiful head and all these NGO-type thoughts are silenced. I'm left craving helplessly for things a lot more exciting and a lot less healthy than my daily home-cooked meals. Which basically led to us having Fun Food Night last week. Rook ate a six-inch veg sub and a 7-inch thin-crust pizza.

I ate one entire six-inch turkey sub and a 7 inch chicken pizza. NOT THIN CRUST.

Heaven? Hyperacidity? Yes.

I blame America.

Blast From The... No, Wait

2011-05-18T15:55:00.000+05:30

Earthen floors, maybe clay even. Lamplight, flickering but not eerie, casting warm shadows on uneven stone walls, smooth to the touch nevertheless. Inside the room, the lamp makes everything yellow, orange, amber, brown. Its light is bright enough to make the outlines of the objects in the room visible, but not bright enough for individual colours, textures, to be seen clearly. A thin curtain separates this little oasis of light from the rest of the world. Outside, the night hasn't yet surrendered to dawn and the sky and the world shift between shades of blue, as if uncertain whether it's time for light or darkness. There are no trees outside, only bare mountains, rock and stone, but beautiful in a hard way and not inhospitable. Inside, on the cool floor, a cold breeze rippling across the room, I sit crosslegged, covered with some kind of dark, woollen shawl or robe, only my face uncovered as I drink hot, spicy, unfamiliar tea through a small earthern pot.

For years, this image has fixed itself in my mind. Where it came from, I cannot say. Perhaps from a short movie clip watched between forty winks. Or a figment thrown up my the imagination, on reading a piece of writing somewhere. I don't know where it springs from, but it stays and fills me with a longing I can't describe. It makes me want to go to places with exotic names like Istanbul and Samoa and Casablanca. Hell, even Bhutan will do at this point.

I need a vacation.

Cracked

2011-05-10T10:06:00.004+05:30

The human mind is a scary, scary place.

If it wasn't, you'd see psychiatrists standing on streets with signs saying 'Will Resolve Oedipal Complex For Food'. But you don't. Because the complexity of the mind, the horrors that lie within, would put Tarsem's The Cell to shame. And if someone is willing to go down there with only Jungian theories to guide them, they deserve all the cash they charge.

Me, I wouldn't do it for all the money in the world. Because just dwelling over what all goes on in my head can keep me awake at nights. I don't need a desperate housewife sharing her innermost feelings to add to the horror-fest, thanks.

Desperate. Yes, that's the word of our times. Not in the Poonam-Pandey-for-publicity kinda way. But the kind that implies a frantic search for sense, order... something so elusive you don't even know what it is or how to get it. Just that you feel a big, gaping whole where substance should be.

And over the years, we've begun to find a sort of twisted beauty in this desperation. A kind of art, in broken things. Ginsberg's Howl, Eliot's The Wasteland, pretty much any season of Dexter - the examples are endless.

A highly-strung personality buckles at the knees with the force of all the stress, the demands, the wants, the needs, the impossible pressure that life throws at it. And instead of breaking into two with an audible snap, the mind unravels. And crystallises into something quite different from the original. That's when the person who's been knocked out by life gets up again, and you can tell for certain that he or she is... gone. And the thing that's occupying that body is to a sane mind what Lady Gaga is to Norah Jones. No relation whatsoever.

And yet, you can't help noticing how much more interesting it makes them. Face it, Catwoman is hotter and more intriguing than Serena Kyle ever was. I think it's because a messed up mind is always messed up in a truly unique way. No two psychopaths are alike.

But this shouldn't be a stretch to imagine. Think of row after row of delicate champagne glasses. They're elegant, ethereal in their fragility. Now imagine one of them breaking to pieces. See the sunlight shimmering on the shards, the fine latticework of cracks spreading through the broken pieces, glinting like diamond dust on the carpet. A broken glass is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Like I said, what goes on in my head is enough to keep me awake at nights.

The Most Fantabulously Awesome Blogpost You Will Ever Read!

2011-05-09T14:31:00.000+05:30

As someone whose livelihood depends on how well I can make muck look like Mardi Gras, I have a question for humanity at large: when exactly did we become a race of exaggerators?

Spend ten minutes listening to any damned conversation these days (I'm not suggesting evesdrop, just... be conveniently around when people are speaking). Everything it seems, is 'mad awesome' or 'insanely brilliant'. And we're not talking about particle accelerators here or the Aurora Borealis. No, we're talking about Youtube videos where one toddler bites another. Or a cat trips over its own paws. Or somebody talks about homosexuals eating poo.

Seriously, world? You think that's frickin' amazing?

Justin Bieber's music is like so amazingly fantastic. OMG, Robert Pattinson is so totally the hottest guy on the planet. That watermelon martini was like the best I've ever had in my whole life. Wasn't Saturday night so frickin' brilliant?

No. No, it wasn't, kiddo, no it was not.

Einstein was brilliant. You'll change your opinion about martinis in the next fifteen minutes, forget the rest of your life. The hottest man on the planet could in all likelihood, be living a quiet, lonely life as a monk in Spain. And nobody will remember Justin Bieber's music after the next pre-pubescent singing sensation arrives on the scene.

Get a little perspective, would you? And leave the hyperbole to us ad-people.

Now that, would be... nice.

Save It, Sweetheart

2011-04-19T11:22:00.001+05:30

The most inaccurate term of our times is "a mutual breakup".

There is nothing mutual about a break-up. Never in the history of relationships have two people spontaneously realised that they want out and expressed it at the exact same moment. No, it's always one person who suggests it and then, the other one, sometimes with a simple shrug, at other times with a lot of waterworks, accepts the suggestion. Sometimes, of course, one person suggests breaking up, the other person suggests sticking on and the process goes on for a few years till it ends in divorce or murder.

But that's the exception.

Invariably though, one of the two gets more hurt in the process. They may not acknowledge it, may not express it at all and everybody involved can happily carry on pretending that the break-up's been all peaceful. But it never is. The person who's more hurt is also usually (not always) the person who takes longer to get over their partner and the relationship.

Which is all fair and unavoidable and a fact of life et cetera.

What pisses me off are the sanctimonious sympathy coupons the dumper feels obliged to hand out to the dumpee.

Say a guy and a girl break-up. The guy is trying to be all manly and not cry while at the same time conveying in a million ways that he's one big hurt puppy. The girl's feeling awkward and ashamed. So far so good. A few days, weeks, months down the line, the girl has found someone else. The guy, not so much. He's not about to slit his wrists or anything, he's just taking his time. News and views of his former girlfriend and her current boyfriend are something that he can do without, but if forced at gunpoint to endure it, it's only slightly painful. In other words, he's doing okay. The girl is still feeling a little guilty perhaps. So she makes it a point to call him. To check on him, see if he's okay. Because, you know, she still cares about him, about how he's doing.

I have a question for guys and girls who do this: what THE FUCK is wrong with you?

Just let the poor schmuck get on with his life, would you? Your concern only messes up his mind. Oh crap, he thinks, she still loves me. Then why won't she be with me? Yes, why won't you, love? Oh, that's right - you just care about him, not so much love him or anything, right? Yes, well, he doesn't know that and you calling him and expressing your concern about his life, his career, the women he meets isn't helping him at all.

And you know that, dontcha? Because you're not doing this for him. You're doing this to a) relieve a little bit of the guilt you're carrying around and b) get an ego boost by talking to someone who's still hung up over you.

Which makes you an emotional parasite, by the way, not the goody two-shoes you imagine you are.

So boys and girls, who've walked out of a relationship for one reason or the other: save your fucking sympathy for beggars, stray dogs and people who've never read Terry Pratchett. Delete your ex's number from your phone, their emails from your inbox and their faces from your social circle. And if running into them on a daily basis is absolutely unavoidable, say nothing more personal than "Hi, what's up?"

No "I worry about you". No "I just hope you're okay." No "I'm only asking because I care". And definitely not "Please take care of yourself."

He's not three. He'll do that anyway. And with no more mixed signals from you, he'll probably speed up the process of evolving from a messy splash of roadkill to the regular, gloriously dysfunctional human being he was before.

Or so we hope.

PS: The opposite holds true too, of course - guys dumping women and so on. But I thought that'd be too much of a cliche, no?

This one time, at band camp...

2011-04-18T11:44:00.001+05:30

Nostalgia is an odd thing. It distorts your hindsight and does funny things to your memory. So that no matter how heinous a time you've had back in the murky darkness of the past, all you remember is a warm glow of contentment, bathed in a soft goldeny-yellow twilight.

Look at the past through sepia-tinted glasses and you don't see the jagged edges that ripped your emotions back then. You don't hear the false notes that ran fingernails down the chalkboard of your soul. You start forgiving people for minor personality flaws like being complete arseholes.

All you remember is the good times, the cheer, the alcohol and the partying. You remember how this one time, so-and-so said this-and-that to whatshername and how you all laughed together.

You remember that prank you guys played on Professor A, how that one and this one were caught making out behind the computer lab and oh, the times you all passed out shit-faced after a night of binge drinking.

Good times, good times, you think.

The problem is that nostalgia is a lot like alcohol. It can only make the world a better place for a few hours tops. And when the effects wear off, it all comes screaming back to you. The bad times, the worse times, the times that make you glad that the past is buried back in the past. You remember what he said about you, what she did to you, what they all made you feel like and the really tacky clothes you wore through all of it. And then you feel a little ashamed of yourself. For thinking well of people you've studiously avoided these past years. Of actually missing that period in your life where alcohol was predominant, not as a lifestyle choice, but as a cushion against the hard bits of reality. You feel a little disgusted frankly, now that the sepia has faded from your vision. And you're left muttering to yourself those oft-repeated words, usually uttered after realising the far-reaching consequences of alcohol-fuelled decisions: "What the fuck was I thinking?"

[To JVT, who uploaded all those college pictures on Facebook and to the other eager children of the batch of 2005: without you guys, it would've been one hell of a boring ride.]

A Brief Moment of Terror

2011-04-05T14:35:00.001+05:30

We writers, I believe, are a scared lot.

Not just ones with cause, like Salman Rushdie of I-pissed-off-an-Ayatollah fame.

Regular writers, like me or the ones I know on a personal level. Unpublished, naturally, or perhaps even the ones Penguin and Harper-Collins are stalking on a nightly basis.

I'm pretty sure at this point that those of us who can't think of anything besides putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard, spend an unhealthy amount of time being scared shitless.

Some don't put down a single word, afraid that it'll be absolute rubbish.

Others put down several dozen words, pages full of them and halfway down the road, it all goes to pot. We flounder and flail helplessly, crippled by a sudden tidal wave of self-doubt.

It's horrible.

You're sitting there, one moment, writing or typing away merrily, full, well-constructed sentences marching down the corridors of your mind like so many well-behaved soldiers. And the next minute, there's nothing. Total blankness. With an overwhelming feeling that what you're writing isn't just not good, it's average, below average, a waste of your and your reader's time.

And the overpowering dread that should you dare approach a publisher with it, quite soon you won't be the only one with that opinion.

Terrible thing, self-doubt.
Just as damaging as overconfidence, with none of the latter's joie de vivre.

Overconfidence assures you in cocky tones that you're the best, baby, they've been waiting for you their whole lives, those Man-Booker guys.

Self-doubt merely looks at what you've written and sighs.

Overconfidence brushes the lint off your jacket, calls you a rockstar and gives you a dazzling 32-watt smug smile.

Self-doubt just shakes its head sadly.

And they both look so real, so goddamn real, you don't know which one's the faker, which one you should believe, which one you should offer a small airy apartment in your mind on a daily rent basis.

Me, I live for the day I'll be able to look both of them squarely in the eye. And ask them both, with no politeness whatsoever, to leave me the hell alone so I can get back to work.

Not A Very Sen Post

2011-03-18T13:31:00.001+05:30

I really, really don't want to write this.

Because usually, when I rant and rave at famous-ish people, they're not necessarily my kind of people. When I poke fun at a Ramgopal Varma or an Aditya Chopra, when I chastise Abhay Deol or Qadros-and-Thambi, it's an everyman rant. I feel like I have a say in the matter so I say it.

This, is something different.

Because this is something I have to say to Raja Sen - a writer I have enjoyed reading immensely over the past months. His column in Mumbai Mirror is usually both entertaining and insightful and unlike the utter drivel pouring out Bombay Times, it's blessed with both correct grammar and easy syntax.

The problem is, he is a writer. I am, when you get right down to it, a writer. I feel like I'm betraying my kind, who're famously entitled to their own opinions, especially when it's on the internet, which practically hands you a laminated license to pour your mind out.

So when I read this, my first instinct was to stop and control the hurricane of choice words inside my head.

His post is a response to a post called Date A Girl Who Reads, which itself is a response to another, much more disturbing piece of writing.

I loved Date A Girl Who Reads. He didn't. Fair enough.

He thinks it was "a rather offensive piece of simplistic drivel that assumed women who read don’t do anything but live within paragraphs of their beloved books, books they keep mistaking for real life, presumably because they smell them too much."

Again, I don't agree, but he's completely within his rights to have that opinion.

What's pissing me off however, is the rest of his post.

He can't seem to decide whether a book should be like a woman (with sexy legs) or a dog (who runs back to you when you whistle for it). He advises you with scantily disguised metaphors to keep your two books with sexy legs apart from one another. And ends on the piece de resistance "You could, of course, choose to instead go for a book with breasts. They’re just fiendishly hard to close."

So I suppose Raja Sen, my question to you is this: is it possible that it's escaped you how utterly, unbelievable offensive this piece of writing is to women?

Maybe you are right. Perhaps Date A Girl Who Reads did imply that we women do nothing worthwhile except read books.

Well, at least it didn't compare us to dogs.

Or alienate us from a piece of writing by shoving a couple of boobs in our face.

Letter To Mssrs. Quadro and Thampi Esquire

2011-03-15T10:37:00.003+05:30

Good Morning.

Here, have a coffee. My treat. Why? Because you seem to be sleeping, perchance to dream.

Now I know you're not supposed to be sleeping. Not today. Not on the morning there's a CNG gas shortage, right? Because that means so many of your flock (of good-natured, virtuous, clean-living and high-thinking rickshaw and taxi drivers) are in deep, deep trouble.

Poor babies.

As you pointed out last year when you demanded a very rightfully earned fare hike, these guys are a poor lot in any case. They have to deal with so much for so little a price. Just imagine. The unthinking rudeness and leering at passengers, the meter-tampering that would put Ocean's Eleven to shame and the glorious refusal of fares as if they own the road, the RTO, the Republic of India and all its dominions. For that kind of service, of course they need to be paid a little more.

Because they're our only hope against walking to the nearest railway station of our choice. Without them, we are nothing. It's us who need them after all. They are the saints, the martyrs, the noble ones, who're sacrificing their life's worth to bestow upon us the great privilege of letting us ride in their little metal death-traps with the smelly rexine seats.

So I can only imagine their misery today.

As they charge passengers twice, thrice, four times the meter rate for every ride. I can almost see the tears rolling down their cheeks as they struggle to take advantage of this situation, milking it down to the last rupee. Of smiling woefully all the way to their little cooperative banks, no, who am I kidding, with the money they'll make today, HSBC will probably run after them with a free account opening form.

Don't get me wrong: I know there are exceptions. The guys who are even now sitting at home, wondering about where their day's meal will come from. And my heart goes out to them, all sarcasm aside.

But for the rest, the extortionists and the looters, the opportunists and the cheaters, perhaps it's time for you to notice them? Snap out of whatever pleasant fantasy you're busy living and realise that these bastards are giving you, your kind and humanity at large a bad name. A particularly unprintable one.

So sit back a moment, take a good, long sip of the coffee. Savour its sweet-bitter taste. And wake the fuck up.

Happy Belated Um.

2011-02-18T11:11:00.000+05:30

So once again, I forgot the birthday. Forgot all about this freshly turned five-year old who has brought so much love and laughter in my life. Unlike other five-year-olds, this one isn't messy or fussy or a terror on wheels. Never one to demand much, this one just stays put and waits for my attention and affection. And when I look back to all those years ago, it seems almost incredible that a few mouse-clicks, some hammering of the keyboard could've created something that has affected my life so much over the years.

Oh, didn't I mention? I was referring to this blog.

Without it, things would've been drastically different. Rook and I wouldn't have met for starters. I wouldn't have had a platform to find clarity and sanity (and you can imagine how important that is to someone who's usually just a coffee away from completely losing it.) And last of all, my list of acquaintances would've been pitifully short of some of the most interesting people I know today.

And the good bit is that while it may have started being all about me, it's become much more than that today. It would be terribly egoistic of me to make that statement, especially about something as prosaic as a blog, but the other day, I got a mail from a friend I hadn't spoken to in years.

This is what she wrote:

Hi Veda,
Congratulations, first of all. Hope you have a very happy married life. It's been long since we've been in touch but had to write to you to say thank you.

I was missing Mumbai in cold boring Delhi. And on a whim read your blog, especially the entries under `Bombay'. Can't tell you how much i enjoyed myself.

Thanks a heap and God bless.

A

I don't know if you feel this way or any way about this blog. But if it's given you a moment of respite, a brief flicker of a smile, a tiny window to look out of while wading in ennui, then I'm thankful. And humbled.

Thank you for reading The Other Veda for the past five years. Ego-boost junkie that I am, who knows if I'd reached here if it wasn't for your comments and the praise?

The Debutante

2011-02-12T23:01:00.000+05:30

Not a lot of people know this: once upon a time, I wanted to be a journalist.

Well, not a journalist exactly, more of a columnist. See, at the time, my understanding was that journalists have to be unbiased and fair, they shouldn't let their opinions colour their writing (this was before the bane of civilization that is India TV, naturally).

And me, as you know, I am all opinion. Which is fun, when the only people reading your two bits are blog-readers. But to have your words taken in and digested by people along with their morning cup of chai - that is no scenario for mere opinion. Unless of course you're Amitabh Bachchan, in which case even the friggin' Prime Minister will secretly be interested in what YOU feel about the Kashmir issue.

Long story short, like every other twenty-something's pipe-dream, becoming a columnist was carefully filed under the label 'Someday'.

Turns out, someday was Thursday. The second Thursday of every month, to be precise. You can't read it on the crisp sheets of your morning newspaper, it's mostly going to be about the inglorious world of advertising, but by god, it'll have my name on it.

And if I'm careful enough, this may actually NOT be professional suicide.

Little Miss Copycat

2011-02-01T11:20:00.001+05:30

Yes, I know, you've been wanting a post for a while (well, at least R has and he's not been subtle about it). Something mean and funny and insightful and sarcastic. This is not that post. Well, it is kind of. But it's also special, because it's about an issue that's close to my heart. And my ego.

This post is about plagiarism.
Except this time, it's not of words, but images.
My Facebook profile picture, to be precise.

A few weeks ago, I got a ping from Smiley telling me some random chick on Facebook was using one of the pictures I'd clicked of myself, as her profile picture. Now this is such a damn ridiculous thing, even as a concept, that it made me go "Huh?". It's a damn good picture of me - it shows my silhouette outlined against a glass cabin door. The effect is this:

Good no? I know.

Anyway, so this woman has obviously saved this picture from my FB album and is merrily using it as hers.

Now, allowing for the fact that she didn't realise what a gross invasion of privacy and all things normal her little action is, I sent her this little private message on FB:

"Hi, Guess who? It's me, the girl whose picture you've happily put up as your profile pic, without so much as a by-your-leave. Care to explain yourself?"

I didn't get a reply but the next time I checked, her profile picture space was empty.

Ah well, I thought, and carried on with my spectacularly eventful (okay, not so much) life.

But then, this week I get texts from TWO different friends saying the girl's put up the damn picture again. One of them happens to know someone who knows this girl. That person tells us that she is just a 20-something kid.

At which age I believe you're old enough to understand that you shouldn't take what's not yours. Especially when you've been told not to.

So Mithila Desai, since you obviously didn't take the hint with a private message, I'm going to break my 'no-names' rule on this blog for a second time.

Take that picture down. Or face the wrath of the internet.

Introducing Mrs. Soandso Hyphen Soandso

2010-12-28T17:32:00.000+05:30

And just like that, after a little drama and a lot of running around, I'm finally wed to Rook.

The most surprising part, if you can ignore the surprise value of me marrying someone after just over a year of meeting them, was how un-boring it was. The wedding, I mean. See, every Maharashtrian wedding I've ever been to has been sinfully dull. You wear pretty clothes, go stand near the bride and groom and throw ridiculous amounts of rice at them, an activity that loses its prank quotient the moment you turn nine.

Things are apparently a little different if you're part of the wedding party. Especially if you're the bride. And especially if the pandit has a sense of humour. Because that way, he'll tailor the wedding hymns to include tongue-in-cheek references to your impending sex life. Yes, that happened. Right after some uncle's mobile phone rang right in the middle of the crucial hymns. Twice. So between that, one of Rook's relatives mistaking my cousin for him, and Tibet in her quest for the right wedding hall, asking Rook (whom she'd never met before) if this was in fact Veda's wedding, it seemed like we had a good thing going.

Naturally, I was going batshit crazy.

Because nothing had gone wrong till then. I mean, come on, amusing asides aside, this was MY wedding. The end of a singlehood fraught with more scandal than Splitsvilla, more tears than Emotional Atyachar and more mind-numbing, blood-curdling nonsense than an entire season of Roadies. Something had to give. I could almost feel the other shoe dangling in the air, threatening to drop smack right into the ceremonial fire.

It didn't.

I, on the other hand, sticking to the grand old tradition of destroying all that's peaceful and pure in Rook's vacation life, promptly fell ill in the middle of the honeymoon. That's right, ladies and germs, I spent three days of my week-long vacay in the throes of PMS, cold, fever and a cough that made me sound like a TB patient.

Yes, it was all deeply romantic.

And after a weekend spent sprucing up the new house and feeling utterly domesticated, it continues to be so. Did I expect it to be any different? Can't say. But if my wedding has taught me one thing, it's that sometimes things turn out to be completely different from what you've expected. But in a good way.

So, since we're so close to the end of the year that we can poke 1st Jan in the ribs if we stretch a little, I will end this post on a New Year's wish.

May the coming year bring you surprises that defy all your expectations. But, and this is important, in a good way.

GQ, We Need To Talk

2010-12-03T14:55:00.001+05:30

Ok, first off, let me say you guys rock. How would I know? Because I happen to be a reader. That's right, boys, I read GQ for the articles. The Indian one (when I can pry it from the unwilling hands of MagicPants) as well as back issues of the firang ones wherever I can find them.

Why? Well, what can I say, sometimes a girl needs more than 501 new tricks to please your man in bed. Sometimes, knowing how purple is the new black just isn't enough, you know? And it's just so damned refreshing how irreverent you guys can be, on such a lot of subjects. It's like having a really good guy friend - not boyfriend, because those have to be handled with microwave mitts and the kind of tongs they use to poke uranium with - no, a really interesting, really good guy friend, who you can talk to, maybe even flirt with, without things getting creepy and weird.

What? Those exist.

Anyway.

What I really wanted to talk to you guys about, was your fashion stories.

Don't get me wrong - Indian men NEED someone to tell them what to wear. DESPERATELY. And if you're going to take up the job of doing it, well, that just saves me and the girls a whole lot of drama. We may even send you a nice little fruit basket to show our appreciation. Because let's face it, men aren't big fans of The Wardrobe Discussion. They hate it even more than The Where Is This Going Talk. So yeah, if you want to take the heat on this one, maybe throw an arm around our men, take them out for a beer and gently break it to them that their wardrobe could use a little something, like maybe a blowtorch, then yeah man, be our guest.

But please, please for the love of God, remember that this is men you're talking to.

Let me illustrate my point with an example. There was this Cathy strip I had seen in which this skinny young girl wearing a swimsuit, looks at herself in the mirror and sees this fat, ugly, old woman and her thought blurb says "God, I look horrible." In the next panel is a fat, balding guy in a Speedo looking at himself in the mirror thinking, "Man, I'm such a stud."

Both men and women are delusional, you see? But we women tend to judge ourselves way too harshly. You could say that every woman is her own inner Simon Cowell. Men, on the other hand, look at themselves far too kindly, giving their appearance the same general rating their mothers would. So your average bony, sunlight-deprived IT engineer thinks he has the same level of sex appeal as Batman and your garden variety chubby investment banker thinks he can give Indiana Jones a serious run for his money in the hello-ladies department.

And you're not helping. Because when you say that tapered jeans are in vogue for men, they think you're talking about them. They take one look at the fresh-faced, hot off the ovens, delicious men you feature wearing them with effortless sexiness and see no difference between those guys and themselves. "I could pull those off," they think, carelessly disregarding trivial details like the size or existence of their waists. The result is an apparition with skinny jeans hugging spindly legs over which hangs a paunch the size of Mauritius. Which, and this is the truly horrible part - we have to watch with our very own eyes, while in our heads quickly forming diplomatic but firmly negative answers to the inevitable "Are these cool or what?"

So please, GQ, guys, when you're putting out those nuggets of sartorial advice, do us girls a favour. Put in a little something that suggests the sentiment my advertising brethren have so breathtakingly condensed into two simple words: Conditions apply.

Me First

2010-11-17T11:32:00.000+05:30

I'm pretty selfish. There, it's been said. I do make exceptions once in a while for people I care about, and then I go all out for them. But for most part, I think of myself first. Mostly because I've gone from being selfish, to being totally unselfish, to realising that being a doormat isn't quite the fun and games I'd hoped it was and so coming back to being one hundred per cent self-centred. And I don't think I'm a terrible person for being that way. In fact, I blame evolution.

Because it's really tough to imagine how the human race could've survived without at least two of our prehistoric ancestors saying, "Look you guys, we love ya, we really do, but those sabre-toothed tigers don't seem to be full yet, so before they catch a clue, we're going to leave you guys behind and RUN!"

Okay, so maybe they just said the last word in that sentence, possibly even that in a sequence of grunts, but had English been developed as a language back then, I'm pretty sure that's what would've been said.

Yes, we've come a long way since the Neanderthal Age. We have USB drives and condoms and strapless bras. It's true, we have evolved and every situation isn't life threatening. Some merely test the limits of your sanity and as such may not demand that you be all self-centred. But nevertheless, as a bonafide selfish person, I understand people who put themselves before others. I don't like them, but I understand them. And for those who stand up proudly and accept that they are self-seeking bastards, I have only the deepest respect. Because they have the balls to admit it. Try it sometime, it's not easy.

The people I don't get are the fakers. Those who promise to "be there for you" and then go around and do what suits them best, without really giving half a hoot about you and then act all surprised if you call them selfish. I've seen a lot of them over the years, still have a collection of them in my social circle - people I go out of my way to help out when they need me, and who happily leave me floundering when I need them the most. To those people I'd like to point out the glaringly obvious: just once in a while, my friend, IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. It's not about what you want, what's convenient for you, about whether you can make time for it in your busy schedule. Not all the time.

But if you're going to continue pretending that's not true, then don't be surprised the next time you call me for a favour and I can't help you. Because, well, you know, it's going to be just a little inconvenient for me at the time.

Notice period. Sniff.

2010-10-28T12:59:00.000+05:30

The first time I quit a job, my then-boss warned me about the new place I was going to join. About the politics, the people, the pettiness and contradictorily, the bigness size-wise of this mammoth organisation. He made it sound like Evil Inc. and John Grisham's The Firm all rolled into one.

It wasn't.

Yes, the office was thrice the size I was used to. There were roughly five hundred more people than my last office (and I don't till date know most of their names). There was a coffee machine. And I was sitting alone in a cabin with seven boys.

But my boss wasn't a hound from hell. Agreed, he talked faster than the average hyperactive human, to the extent that my art partner spent the entire first month asking me to repeat everything my boss said, only slower please, so he could actually understand it this time. But the boss, he was nice and generous with deadlines, in that he pushed them to the other side of the week with barely a thought. His boss was surprisingly down-to-earth for someone that ridiculously high up the pecking order, with a fervent love for the dance floor and a tendency to treat the rest of us unwashed masses as his family. The brands were good, the work was great and the office was close to home.

I sort of felt like a Jew breaking out of a concentration camp, who suddenly finds herself in modern-day Hollywood.

The effect was heightened by my meeting a bunch of other new recruits, with whom I went on to have some famously fun adventures. Famously because you've read about the exploits of Mini-Me, Smiley, Magic Pants, the Queen of Mean and others here. It was, in the modest opinion of the Queen of Mean (who's in fact a large, green-eyed, exceptionally mean and slightly funny boy) the golden era of this agency. But then, he says demented things ALL the time so...

Anyway, the reason I'm getting all reminiscent is that after four years of shuffling around uncomfortably till I made a cosy little nook here for myself, I'm packing my bags and dragging my ass to a new place. Filled with strangers and friends, none of whom feel stranger or friendlier than the ones I'm leaving behind.

It's not really sunk in yet - I'm meeting all the gasps and sighs of "Oh no, you didn't!" with a dry little smirk as if this was all actually an episode on A*G*E*N*C*Y* and not as it is in fact, my life. But one day it will. One day I'm going to snap out of the new job buzz, look around my new desk and go, "Wait a minute, THIS isn't my office."

But till I do, to all the brave and bizarre men and women I've had the joy of calling colleagues so far: So long, people, it's been quite a ride.

Aditya Thackeray, You Little Boy, You

2010-10-18T18:17:00.004+05:30

Hi Aditya,

Kasa kai? You know, at first I thought, shit, I'm writing to a fellow Maharashtrian, not in Marathi - that most sacred of languages used to pour poetic sentiment into Dhagala Lagli Kala - but in English, the language that reeks of our shameful colonial past. I had mentally prepared myself to see your boys storming the offices of Blogger ready to burn down anything flammable they see. But then I thought, hey, the dude's great-grand-dad actually CHANGED HIS LAST NAME just because he thought William Makepeace Thackeray was cool, and this post isn't even going to be the utter drivel that Vanity Fair was, so I'm sure his great-grand-kid will overlook this little offence.

So anyway, to the subject of this little letter. I've been reading about your shenanighans with Such A Long Journey. I won't even bring up the whole what-did-Rohinton-Mistry-ever-do-to-you bit, because it's pointless. I mean, come on. The man's a Parsi. In Canada. That makes him about as threatening as a geriatric rabbit. So clearly, it's not about the author.

It can't be about the book either, since you cleverly told the media that you hadn't actually read it. So what basically happened was that someone came up to you and told you that there's this book that a lot of Lit students are studying (or at least reading through without understanding any of it) that says objectionable stuff about something your granddad once said. Or did.

And instead of ignoring them like a normal boy, you get all Peter Pan about it and put a blowtorch to good use. No, really, think about it. The only people who're actually reading Such A Long Journey right now are English Lit students, their professors and some four invigilators employed by Bombay (whoops, Bombay) University. Your little book-burning party is going to make a lot more than these thirty-five people buy a copy. Ask Salman Rushdie, nothing helped the book sales of The Moor's Last Sigh more than your grand-dad calling for a ban on it.

So the only possible motivation for this could've been that little Aditya wants to play with the big boys. Fancy ourselves a youth leader, do we? See, that's the trouble with you Thackerays. You think the only way to be a leader is to lead people into doing things of mind-numbing stupidity. Hitler had followers, you know. So did Stalin and Mussolini and Mao, possibly even Marie Antoinette. Having followers doesn't make you a good leader. It's what they follow you into.

Your great-grand-dad got Brahmins beaten up. Your grand-dad did the same with South Indians. Your uncle's picking on North Indians and your poor, poor dad is desperately trying to prove that he is genetically a Thackeray, but what to do, there aren't many people left to beat up.

And you, you just beat the shit out of some words. Very macho. Treating the Chancellor of the University like your bitch must've been a real power trip. You must think it's fun to get someone to do things you want, na? Well, sixteen year old princesses get their darling daddies to do it ALL THE TIME. Doesn't make them leaders. It just makes them sixteen year old spoilt brats. And cuteness comes with a shelf-life, something you'll never know by virtue of not being even remotely cute.

But, I digress.

You want to be a youth leader in Maharashtra? Get your gang to go educate the illiterates of this state. Get them to study medicine and become doctors and take that medicine into the remotest parts of the state, yes, even to places where you won't find voters, only people drowning in despair and illness who think hospitals are just another cruel rumour like electricity and safe drinking water.

And by all means, get the media to cover it all so that you come out like a hero, if Salman Khan can do it, you can too. But lead people into good, kid, into good, not mindless, senseless, pointless acts of illiteracy.

Do that and maybe you'll deserve to be called a youth leader. Till then, Aditya, you're just a little boy with a borrowed last name. And once you get someone to translate this post for you, I hope you don't forget that.

Okay, let's not make a big deal out of this...

2010-10-11T17:46:00.000+05:30

I'm getting married. For real. Stop laughing or rubbing your eyes or letting your mouth hang open in rabid disbelief. I'm guessing you're doing one of these things because that's what most people who heard the news for the first time did. Including, I might add, me.

Now, you've read this blog, you know me. You know I'm not the kind of girl who writes about happy things much. I don't go all goo-goo gushy about Rook or talk about kittens and puppies and rainbow-coloured ice-creams with marshmallows on top. I don't sigh and sing little Disney ditties about how love conquers all and how it's the bestest thing ever, yes, even better than a double scoop mint chocolate chip Baskin & Robbins waffle cone.

I. Am. Not. That. Person.

Given half a choice I'd happily just scribble a little "oh, by the way, I'm tying the knot, now get on with your life" kind of post.

But apparently it's impossible to get married without going a little insane. I mean on most days I'm a little bonkers anyway but throw in a wedding in the equation that you're packing a whole lot of crazy into one already pretty messed up person. No, I'm not turning into bridezilla or anything. In fact, the whole getting hitched thing just registers now and then. And on those occasions, once I finish crouching in the corner whimpering in terror for a few minutes, I'm pretty much good to go.

Why the drama, you ask? Well, it's like this. As R (giver of Gaiman and Coetzee and merciless Delhite with a Londoner-than-thou attitude) put it, I've been screwed over by Love quite often. In crazy, horrible, scandalous great-idea-for-a-reality-show-on-Bindass-TV kind of ways.

And Rook, bless him, while being perversely into Splitsvilla and Roadies, seems surprisingly unwilling to make my life a slow burning journey into Purgatory. So naturally, I can only assume that once Dame Destiny sees me all married to him and stuff, she's going to roll back her sleeves and send our life to hell on a Rajdhani.

But do I have the luxury of sitting back and freaking out about ridiculous what-if scenarios like a normal person? No. Because between shopping for wedding stuff, juggling schedules, meeting innumerable relatives and coddling the supernova-sized ego of a very miffed father, I just about have two seconds to myself a week. Which I spend frantically waving at Rook so he knows I'm still alive and willing to marry him.

So yes, I need a place to vent and you, lucky readers, are going to be subject to it.

Be patient. Be kind. And pray for Rook. I don't think he knows what he's signing up for.

Pre-30

2010-09-20T16:17:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I turned 29. I didn't feel scared or apprehensive of depressed about inching closer to 30. I didn't worry or obsess or panic about anything. I just wore something pretty and spent time with the people I love. They say your birthday sets the tone for the rest of the year. In that case I can look forward to simplicity and joy, a dearth of great expectations, yet the coming true of wishes I didn't know I had.

Judging from the past all I can say is, well, I've had a lot worse.

Why, Abhay Deol, Why?

2010-09-17T12:03:00.000+05:30

Hi Abhay,

How's it going? Before I get into the real meat of this post, let me first say, I'm a huge fan. And I've been one since before you emerged as the poster boy of new cinema in India. That's right, I am one of the eight people who actually watched Socha Na Tha. And I absolutely lurrrrved it. And you in it. That's how I knew who Imtiaz Ali was before I saw the poster for Jab We Met. And that's how I knew who you were before the media made your grand introduction as Sunny Deol's un-burly cousin.

You underplayed a detective, a con artist, a late-night train traveller, and that absolutely despicable love-lorn drunkard of a Devdas, all with a dazzling sincerity. And we loved you for it. It was getting to a point where you were turning into an Aamir Khan for the not-at-all-masses. I mean, there was emerging this select audience that would go to the theatre just because it was an Abhay Deol movie. Granted, it was an extremely elitist, world cinema-watching, Stanislavski-spouting, spoilt, unashamedly urban and possibly Juhu or Malabar Hill-residing audience, but hey, at least you had loyalists. Who went to the movies saying dude, if Abhay Deol's in it, it's got to be something interesting.

And then you went and threw Sonam Kapoor at them.

I didn't go watch the movie when it released in the theatre - partly the reason why this post is coming months after bloggers have torn Aisha to pieces. See, I knew what kind of film Aisha would be when I read in the tabloids that your entire paycheck for the movie was lesser than Sonam Kapoor's clothes bill. I did not fall for the slick posters, the hummable soundtrack or the fact that you were in it. And I didn't need to. Because those who did came back and told us about it. About the ridiculously stunted dialogue, the desperate attempt at giving some depth to one-dimensional characters, about how you were practically wallpaper in the background and about how Sonam Kapoor has the acting capability of a piece of chalk.

(Now, to be fair, if any of these people went to watch the movie expecting Sonam to suddenly give an evocative performance then frankly, they had it coming. It's like the critics at Toronto Film Festival getting all shocked when Frieda Pinto gave serious competition to a blackboard in Miral. I mean, it's Frieda Pinto. What did you expect? And in this case we were talking about Sonam, who can't emote in a 30-second L'Oreal commercial. Seriously? You expected her to move you? Get real.)

But you, Abhay. How could you do this film? I know, I know, everybody has EMIs, but come on. You HAD to know this one was a stinker. I mean, editing aside, didn't you read the script? Didn't you feel an urgent need for mind-altering substances after you read the dialogue? Or were you on mind-altering substances when you signed up for it?

Whatever it was, I hope you know that we're all very, very, disappointed in you. We might even think twice before going for your next flick. So unless you want us shun you, go sit in a corner and think about what you've done. Then pick up the phone and call Anurag Kashyap. Or Navdeep Singh. Or Dibakar Banerjee. Do that and in time, we'll think about forgiving you for this.

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

2010-08-26T12:22:00.001+05:30

The thing with siblings is, certain things are taken for granted.

Thou shalt be subject to cruel teasing about physical and/or mental traits.
Embarrassing anecdotes starring thy stupid-ass self shall be told to all and sundry at every possible opportunity.
Thou shalt be mocked for thy taste in clothes, music, friends and pretty much everything else.

There are a whole lot of those but once you hit puberty, the one, golden, cardinal rule of siblinghood is this:
Thou shalt keep the parents out of it.

Any naughty behaviour involving alcohol and other mind-altering substances, including the opposite sex, will be kept from the parents. It will remain "our little secret" to be milked for its blackmail potential at a later date. Usually in exchange for similar silence from all siblings involved.

My brother didn't need to be told this. Neither did I. When we aren't at each other's throats, we watch each other's backs. And for the past twenty-five years, I've grown so used to this that I didn't realise that not everyone instinctively understands that ratting out a brother or a sister is a sure-shot sign of being a complete and utter asshole.

I didn't realise this when years ago I was in a club in Pune. I was with my friends, dancing and drinking and doing what most normal twenty-somethings do in a club. Including, sitting on my then boyfriend's* lap. No, I didn't have my arms around his neck, we weren't staring soulfully into each other's eyes sharing a moment of furious, wordless passion. I was sitting on his lap because there were no goddamed chairs free and we'd just finished dancing for two hours straight. Also, I'd seen couples do a lot worse in clubs by then and since I wasn't grinding obscenely or making out on the dance floor, I thought I was on safe ground.

So I didn't think it was a big deal when I ran into a cousin of mine at that time. We had the mandatory two minutes of polite conversation and then I got back to my friends and he got back to his life. I don't think we met again after that.

So imagine my disgust when I recently got to know that the boy had run back to his mommy and told her every glorious detail of the shocking, nay, scandalously inappropriate things her niece was up to. Gasp! She was in a bar! With a boy! Dancing! There was even physical contact! Oh, the horror!

Needless to say, this delicious piece of gossip about the erstwhile bespectacled and quite frankly, unacceptably sarcastic young woman was circulated all over via the 'ol family grapevine. How they must've tutted and sighed, shaken their heads with heartfelt holier-than-thouness. My late grandmum must've been accused of rolling in her grave, or maybe, since we're Hindus, of looking down on me with a pained expression. How my parents must've been pitied, how my marital prospects declared dead before arrival, how much effort must've gone into keeping the gloating enthusiasm in their voices at bay before they hung up the phones on each other, not-so-secretly relieved that none of their children would EVER do any such bad-bad things.

The thing about being the black sheep of the family is this though: you don't give a rat's ass what people think. Their petty judgments, their opinions, their verdicts, their pity, their sympathy, their disgust - nothing matters to you. Or in this case, me.

But for one thing I'll remain profoundly thankful. That these aunts and uncles of mine, in the midst of their salacious gossiping, remembered to follow the golden rule: they kept my parents out of it.

*In previous posts known as Archer and in more recent posts known as the Assholy Ex.

Sometimes You're The Hydrant

2010-08-16T17:30:00.000+05:30

When people ask me what they need to enter advertising, I ask them a simple question in return. "Have you ever asked someone out? On a date or to spend the rest of your life with? And have you been cruelly, abruptly, casually rejected by said person? If you survived that, then you probably have what it takes to be in advertising."

It's true too. Of the twenty headlines you write (or ideas you have), your boss usually shoots down ten, his boss five of the remaining ten and if you're really, really lucky, then the client rejects only four of the ones that have made it through the chopping board. If you're not very lucky, then life goes on as usual, with you writing a batch of twenty more lines to lather, rinse and repeat the above process with. So dealing with rejection is sort of a survival trait in this job.

If you're the type who'll cradle a beloved yet rejected idea, convincing yourself that your boss knows nothing, his boss knows even less and that you're secretly holding the legendary Big Idea Whose Time Hasn't Come and that nobody truly appreciates this except you because they're all a bunch of vision-less morons anyway, then well, tough luck. You and your darling idea will simply be asked to find a new home. Preferably with the word 'mental' somewhere in the title.

No, the best way is to 'kill your darlings' as one legendary adman put it. Believe in your idea but don't be too attached to it. That way, when your bosses or client servicing or clients themselves reject it or worse, suggest 'a few changes', which is advertising jargon for 'brutal sodomy', you won't feel so bad. Because you'll have learned to accept that it's simply the way things go.

And then one day, you'll find that the film script you wrote in a sudden flash of inspiration, which has been approved by the bosses and wonder of wonders, by the client too, isn't going to be made anymore. Not because the budget was insufficient, not because it offended communal sentiments, not because the deadline was unmeetable. Nope. But because the Government of India, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the product shouldn't be advertised. Ever again.

I wonder if in the grand dog-and-hydrant game of the Universe I'll ever actually get to do the pissing bit.

So Far So Good

2010-08-13T17:45:00.000+05:30

Some people know exactly what they want to do in life. When they're kids and busybody uncles and aunts ask "Beta, what do you want to be when you grow up?", instead of saying "None of your business, bitch", they solemnly say "Doctor" or "Zookeeper" or in my brother's case "Mechanic". ("You mean 'engineer'?" they'd ask him hopefully and he'd just shake his head and say, "No, mechanic." Very sorted, my brother.)

I am not one of those people.

When I was a kid and random strangers asked me what I wanted to be, I would've said "Not picked on" or "Someone without spectacles" or even "Left alone for now, thank you very much." Of course, I never actually said any of those things. I just stared at them dumbly till they felt uncomfortable and went away. At least that's the only explanation I have for not remembering any childhood ambitions as of now.

My dad wanted me to be a singer. I'm guessing he didn't want me wear a schoolgirl skirt, furry pink ribbons and pout at the camera crooning "Oops I dididagain". No, he shoved a tanpura under my arm and told me to learn classical singing or else. I went at it till my teacher mysteriously stopped coming over to teach me. Less than a couple of months, in other words. My dad tried valiantly to steer me towards the harmonium but when the harmonium instructor too stopped coming over, he gave up. And with a huge sigh of relief, so did I.

My grandmom had been told by some seer that I'd become a doctor. I only remember thinking at the time that I'd rather be a nurse, because they get to wear stockings and look nice, while doctors just end up looking like busy people with a lot of work on their hands and minds.

If my mother had any ambitions for me, she never mentioned them, god bless her.

I acted in amateur theatre, loving every minute before the arc lights and thought for a while about being an actress. But the bad part about being a Virgo is you're very deeply aware of not being fantastic at something. I'm not saying my performances inspired projectile vomiting from the first rows of the audience, but I just wasn't... phenomenal at it. Just like I wasn't great at painting - something that had triggered the idea of becoming a commercial artist. If that had gone through, I'd still have ended up in advertising, but as an art director. Probably with a tendency of reading - and criticizing - what my copy partner had written.

But in junior college, I met someone who made journalism look cool. So I tried my hand at it - freelancing for youth magazines and writing deeply philosophical features on types of boyfriends. It was fun, but it wasn't IT. Then someone gave me a book on careers and up popped this thing called advertising.

I want to say there was a flash of lightning. I want to believe that something hidden deep inside me rose to embrace this novel concept.

No such thing happened. I believe my exact reaction was "Oh." My parents' exact reaction was "Oh. Shit."

Cut to five years later, I'm churning out headlines and TV scripts and ideas for ways to seriously disturb people as they watch Baalika Vadhu or even take a harmless stroll in the mall. It's been fun so far, in the same way that throwing up nine consecutive times after drinking half the bar and eating half the buffet can be fun.

I don't hate it. I don't know if it is IT. But for now, I'm here. I'm a copywriter.

As for what I will be when I grow up...

Let's pretend I'm staring at you dumbly at this point. You know what to do.

Common Cold, My Arse

2010-08-11T17:09:00.000+05:30

One winter morning six years ago in Pune, I walked out of my bathroom after having washed my hair. While towelling them dry, I felt a huge sneeze coming. So, I did what anyone else would do - let 'er rip. It was a nice big, unladylike achoo, which had me doubling up at the waist.

A second later I realised something: I couldn't straighten up. Not without experiencing the kind of pain women bitch about during childbirth. Only, you know, in my lower back. I spent the next three days horizontal, in the company of painkillers, muscle relaxants and deeply devout prayer. Oh, and with the fond jokes of my well-wishers and friends to keep me warm. It took me a week to be able to walk without pain, and a long time to sit, stand, bend and do other normal things without anticipating a shot in the back.

I thought it was all behind me.

But then, today in office I felt a cough coming on and coughed my throat off. Only to experience the old, familiar pain shooting down my spine into that special little muscle that had me doubling up with pain the first time. And I'm back to walking in slow motion, looking forward to the horse tranquilizers in my cupboard at home and wondering what I could've possibly done to the powers above that they all decided to come together and stick a giant 'Kick Me' sign on my head.

Whatever it was, guys, I'M FRIGGIN' SORRY, ALRIGHT?

The Boy Who Cried 'Butt'

2010-08-10T14:46:00.001+05:30

From the time he was a little baby, my brother has been compared to this cousin of ours. He's a few months younger than Brother and the two are about as similar as green peas are to The Black Eyed Peas.

My brother was born dusky, my cousin pale as untrod upon snow. My brother worked hard at his studies, my cousin can remember anything he's read once. My brother was a quiet child, my cousin was the life of the gathering (often, disturbingly so). My brother would resign to daily baths with a martyr-like air, my cousin, with the same enthusiasm as a rabid Labrador.

And there were other things.

My aunt wanted a daughter so she'd dress my cousin up in her niece's frocks. With his rosy complexion and curly mop of hair, you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. Thankfully, my mum already had me so my brother was spared this particular embarassment. But then, our cousin had enough of a talent to stir up embarassment entirely on his own. I remember one particular family gathering where he, seven years old to the day, stripped to his birthday suit and ran around the house laughing hysterically and yelling "Butt! Butt!" on the top of his voice.

Academic achievements, extracurricular feats, tuition scores, playground activities - they grew up being constantly compared to each other. And for a long while it seemed like my cousin was winning. Then my uncle and aunt moved out of Bombay and took him along.

We didn't think things would change. They did.

Today, my brother listens to rock and metal, is an avid gamer, a voracious reader and waiting to become an engineer. And while it's true that the female of our species has so far given him a wide berth (his "Fuck you, mothafucka" expression might have something to do with that), he is on the whole not an entirely abnormal twenty-four-year-old.

My cousin, on the other hand, my almost-genius, full of potential cousin, is a chartered accountant, who now looks older than even me, who till last year hadn't heard of Victoria's Secret, who three years ago declared to his parents that he'd found the girl he wanted to marry in a few years and who recently greeted my brother with the ridiculously formal, grown-up Maharashtrian greeting "Namaskar".

My brother is still getting over the shock. Me, I have only this to ask: Dude. What the FUCK happened to you?

You Wily 'Ol Jinx

2010-08-08T00:31:00.001+05:30

Yes, I haven't been writing. Because I've been thinking. It's a nasty habit I've picked up from Rook, who I'm sorry to say is something of a thought-slut, a person who flirts with more ideas per minute than Yuvraj Singh would with women at an IPL party.

I, of course, being perversely introspective, do not use valuable grey matter to ponder over the origins of The God Particle or the architectural aesthetic of the Empire State Building (he's going to say he doesn't do this, but he really, really does).

No. I spend my time thinking about matters past and present, how they connect and therein lies one hell of a problem.

You see, when I was growing up, my grandmum told me that I have a tendency to be jinxed real quick. Something nice would happen to me and then smackbamkapow, something utterly disproportionately bad would have to happen to balance things out. She told me it was because I was such a pretty, intelligent child. But then she was my grandmum and I think it says so in the contracts of all grandmums that they're supposed to say such things to their grandchildren. That and embarrass them in front of potential boyfriends by calling them by their secret pet name.

Anyway, jinxes.

I pooh-poohed her theory at the time. Couldn't help it. It was the kind of age where you think anyone who hasn't heard of Boyzone is like, totally lame. And wrong. About everything. I mean if you have no opinion on whether Ronan's cuter than Stephen, then well... laaaame.

But I've observed a pattern since. All this jinx stuff - ill-luck, buree nazar, whatchamacalit - it actually happens to me.

Top of the mind example? When I got my first job offer - I was the only one from my advertising creative batch to get it in that round of interviews - I was on top of the world. Not in the least because it was from one of my favourite agencies, but because it had been the first job interview I'd given and the first time someone from the industry told me my work was good. I was happy, after a long time.

Then, that same week, my bike went nuts on what was apparently a completely clear stretch of road. I lost control completely, the brakes felt like jelly in my hands as my bike fell to its side and skidded downwards, dragging me along with it for a good 50 metres. The impact was so much my sneaker came out, my shirt tore, my lip was cut and I severely hurt my jawbone. Later, the mechanic was unable to tell me what the fuck had happened. I know this for sure - looking and feeling like a domestic abuse victim sure wipes the smile off your face.

And it's been happening on a greater or lesser scale ever since. Mini-Me thinks it's a silly superstition and maybe so do you and maybe it is a superstition, but I don't think it's silly.

It's hard to disregard coincidences when they happen repeatedly, you see. You can attribute them to oh, lots and lots of scientific and logical phenomena, but that doesn't change the fact that as Corny Cliche Coming Up as it sounds, now I'm scared to be happy. Because I know it's going to blow up in my face. Maybe not today, or next week, or next month. But soon enough. Just when I'm feeling secure, it'll happen. One fine day I'll be grinning about winning half a dozen local and international advertising awards or about getting promoted or about finally meeting a boy who wants to stick around till the end, and the next moment smackbamkapow I'll be down the second time in a month with a temperature of three-and-a-half, going dizzy, falling to the floor, having to crawl on all fours to reach my bed in the darkness of the pre-dawn hour.

Oh wait, but that already happened, didn't it?

Don't Tell Anyone But I May Be An 'Ol Softie Really

2010-06-05T23:50:00.000+05:30

So we have that version of Windows that lets you choose your own MS Office Assistant. You know, instead of the manic animated paper clip that haunts the nightmares of children who have to study Microsoft Word and answer questions about it. My brother, for some unfathomable reason has chosen Rocky, the little puppy.

I feel sorry for him.

The dog, not my brother.

Well, yes, also my brother for being... him, mostly, apart from a wide variety of entertaining reasons that I'll post about some other day.

But yes, I feel sorry for the dog.

Every time I do a search for files or folders, after searching for them the dog gets this little speech balloon which says things like "There were 4 files found. Did you find what you wanted?" There are two options for this question: the first is 'Yes, finished searching.'

The second is 'Yes, but make future searches faster'.

When I see that, in my head I imagine the little puppy, all happy with a job well-done, wagging its tail excitedly and asking you if you're happy with its work, if it has earned a treat. If you're going to pat his head and tickle its ears and tell it what a good boy it's been.

Now what kind of a sick bastard would want to look that puppy in the eye and say, "Yes, but make future searches faster?"

Urban Legends

2010-06-02T19:17:00.000+05:30

They tell you these stories when you're a kid. Stories and fables that have morals.

They tell you that good triumphs over evil. That only good things happen to good people. That you reap as you sow. That evil never prospers.

And then you grow up and all around you, you find evidence that makes you feel... cheated.

You see evil kick good in the nuts ten times over. You see good people battle horrors on a daily basis. You see people getting away with inhuman atrocities. You see evil not only prosper, but buy three houses and land in the suburbs, drive a friggin' Skoda Octavia and get fat and happy till it retires with an obscene pension.

That's when you realise the obvious. That there's a reason stories are called stories. And that while they may have morals, quite often, people don't. And like everything else in life, if you can't be bothered to get off your ass to grab Justice by the collar and make it your bitch, then well, you just have to live with it.

Pros and Cons

2010-05-27T17:42:00.000+05:30

I was asked to present two side of a debate. This is what I came up with, on a lark. FYI, my personal views are not as extreme as either of these. But that's another post...

A: Marriage is necessary for the furtherance of the species.
B: No, sex is necessary for the furtherance of the species. Marriage is just the most inconvenient way to do it.
A: You need to get married because you need someone to share your life with.
B: I already have people I share my life with. I call them friends.
A: So you're not afraid of dying alone?
B: Who says marriage will prevent that? Haven't you heard of divorce? Death of the spouse? Abduction of spouse by aliens?
A: But, it's a life goal, isn't it? You fall in love, get married, have children, build a family.
B: It's not my life goal. Besides, you got the order wrong. You fall in love, get married, put on weight, get a home loan, get a car loan, get a personal loan, have children, get an educational loan. And FYI, you can do ALL those things without getting married.
A: How about sex?
B: What, now? With you? Probably not.
A: I meant if you're married you get to have regular sex, right? There are no dry spells. Ever.
B: Are you familiar with the phrase "Not tonight honey, I have a headache?"
A: Haven't ever had to hear it. You seem to be quite familiar with it though...
B: Very funny. I'm saying, marriage doesn't guarantee sex. Or commitment. Or loyalty. Or security.
A: It's not supposed to! If you want security, get a lock.
B: Look, admit it, the only reason people in this country marry is so that they can avoid the "When are you getting married?" question.
A: And so they can have sex without being labelled immoral.
B: You're assuming that all post-marital sex happens with the spouse.
A: So basically you hate marriage then?
B: Not really. Wedding food rocks.

Be a frood. Grab a Towel.

2010-05-25T16:40:00.000+05:30

Years ago, I found myself in a family friend's house in Faridabad, sweltering in the Delhi heat and bored out of my skull. Thankfully, the children of said family friend were a few years older than me and had a nice little collection of books, all littered around the room, almost as if the wall with the built-in bookcase was overflowing on to the floor.

At random, I picked one from the bookcase. It had a royal blue cover and apparently was a set of four books bound in one volume. I did my usual back cover scan and finding the contents intriguing, proceeded to read it.

An hour later, there was a power failure. But my mind, was alight with what I was reading. A world had opened up inside it. A world outside of Earth, with starships and galaxies and neurotic aliens and robots in urgent need of Prozac. I had never read anything like it. I had never thought about anything like it. It was like someone had reached inside my head and flipped the switch marked Extreme Psychedelic Imagination - DO NOT TOUCH.

I continued reading, by the light of a gigantic candle.

We were returning to Bombay the same night so I couldn't finish even half of the first book. But I never forgot it. Months later, when I had finally saved enough pocket money, I trudged to the street book vendors at Churchgate and bought my very own copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's had a place of honour in my bookcase ever since.

So, today, on World Towel Day, where Hitchhiker's fans around the world pay tribute to the genius who wrote that masterpiece, I'm going to give you a piece of advice. If you haven't already, pick up Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He blows up the Earth in chapter three and things only get better from there.

PS: Don't go by the movie. The movie is to the book what boiled sugar sweets are to rich dark Swiss truffles. What Rakhi Sawant is to Monica Bellucci. What 'Tum Toh Thehre Pardesi' is to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. In other words, incomparable.

Geography, you ruthless bitch, you win again

2010-05-14T15:26:00.000+05:30

Imagine.

Imagine Wednesday Addams smack bang in the middle of the Happy Forest. Imagine Mowgli in Manhattan. Imagine Batman surrounded by Care Bears. No? Not fitting? Well, I'm glad you think so because come next week and I will be Wednesday. I will be Mowgli. I will be Batman.

Because, children, come next week, I will leave behind the comfort, the old world charm and the sanity of South Bombay and move. To the suburb of a suburb called Malad.

It's not gonna be pretty.

After all, all my life I've boisterously made fun of burbies, for the ugliness of their architecture, the absolute lack of greenery in their viccinity, for the crushing traffic jams that are a part and parcel of their life. I've mocked the nouveau-riche mentality of their neighbours, the Balaji-Telefilms invasion of their culture, the inexcusable existence of Lokhandwala. I've even made fun of them for Andheri, a place that strikes my heart with a sickening combination of fear and nausea.

And me, I've lived in town all my life, bar the plague that was two years in Pune. I've lived in this house for the past six years, this very colony for the past twenty-eight. Everything I know and love is here. And I can't wrap my head around the fact that next week, it's not going to be there.

No more station at walking-distance. No more doctor downstairs. No more opposite direction traffic. And most of all, no more taking off to watch movies in Regal or Eros or New Empire or Metro. No more Crawford Market for the beauty products and the booze. No more Lamington Road for the cheap electronic shit. No more familiar smiles from tailors, beauty parlour women, bankers, dentists and doctors who've known you for years. No more faloodas at Badshah, ice-cream at K.Rustom and book-buying at Strand.

It's all going and there isn't a thing anyone can do about it.

I know what you're thinking: hundreds of people move everyday, thousands of people live in the suburbs, millions of people deal with change and they all do it in quite undramatic, uncomplaining ways. She's making too big a deal out of it.

You're right, of course.

But I'm leaving the only place I've called home all my life. And no matter how pretty the suburban house is, I'm going to be just a refugee in it. No matter how awesome Malad is, I'm not going to belong to it. No matter how perfect everything is, it's not going to be this perfect.

And no amount of new furniture or bathroom fittings or fancy Fabindia curtains is going to change that.

Snobs R Us

2010-05-11T16:10:00.000+05:30

I was chatting with Mini-Me yesterday when she mentioned that she's a professional snob.

She didn't mean, like I assumed she did, that she charges people money to mock them for their low socio-economic class. She simply meant that she wouldn't be able to date someone from certain professions. Again, these do not include the obvious choices: pimps, gigolos, India TV reporters and advertising account planners. No, she was referring to call centre people. You know, the guys who like to call themselves 'Customer Care Executives' when they secretly mean Irritating Incompetent Nincompoop With The IQ Of An Anesthetized Toad.

"But what if he's cute?" I asked, "What if he's great to talk to and you get along amazingly well?" She thought for about one-eight of a second before saying no.

I can't point fingers at her, I'm a name snob. I'd never be able to find someone with a prosaic name attractive. This makes no sense to some of my friends who think someone called Dayashankar can be a really cool guy. It all depends on the person, they think. If the person is cool, they make their name cool.

I disagree. Based on the simple deductive logic that I've never come across anyone cool called Kanhaiyya, Bankebihari, Banwarilal, Sitaram, Dattatray or for that matter, Ravi. And on the basis of the fact that I have yet to meet a Chunky Pandey fan.

So yeah, they may be India's answer to Brad Pitt with the IQ of Stephen Hawking, the wit of Conan O'Brien and the sex appeal of that guy who played Cupid in Xena the Warrior Princess, but for me it all goes down the toilet if they're called Shyamsunder.*

And don't you go tut-tutting me either. You're just as bad. It may not be professions or names, but deep down inside, you're a snob just like the rest of us. Maybe you refuse to associate with Justin Timberlake fans. Perhaps you look the other way when encountered with people who haven't heard of Sabyasachi. Or maybe you just snicker quietly when people mispronounce 'opportunity'.

Make no mistake, my friend, you're a snob. Welcome to the club.

* Rook, you go right now and thank your folks for not naming you 'Bunty'.

Don't Say I Don't Have Life Goals

2010-05-06T16:13:00.000+05:30

I want to go around the world taking incredible, breath-taking pictures of cityscapes and nature.
I want to do a flea-market shopping marathon without monetary limits or guilt.
I want to sit in a quaint cafe all day and write, write, write away in a Macbook.
I want to read a book in a park, feet toeing wet grass, coffee and Rook at hand.
I want to watch the Godfather trilogy, back to back, with nothing but buttered popcorn to see me through.
I want to. I really do.

The Talented Mr. Asshole

2010-05-04T14:39:00.002+05:30

Last week, I was in Bangkok for a shoot (yes, I know exactly how big-headed that sounds) with my adorable client servicing girl and my SuperBoss. While we were doing thrilling-to-bits things like waiting for the shot to be set up and lit, SuperBoss was regaling us with sordid media tales. About producers and directors, agency big-wigs and models. About embezzlement and cover-ups, about office affairs and extra-marital pawing. And every possible unholy combination of these.

At one point in the conversation, he was talking about an adfilm director with fantastic credentials and a mercurial temper, who also happens to be a sleazebag of the first order. As I heard about the man's seniority in the business and his wayward hands, I wondered: How much can talent excuse?

Take actors, models, directors, producers, newsmen and women, admen and women, divas and whatnot - the best ones seem to all have flaws that their sheer talent overshadows. Uncontrollable rage, kleptomania, eating disorders, substance abuse problems, a complete lack of courtesy, the manners of a pimp, the vocabulary of a whore or the general intelligence of a head of cabbage. These qualities that would have made normal people social outcasts or the targets of a widespread hate campaign, are casually shoved in the background behind the shining beacon of their talent.

So what if s/he's an asshole, everybody says, look at the work s/he does. Look how brilliant s/he is!

But I think we're missing the point here. The fundamental truth, as it were. You see, a talented asshole is still an asshole. Ask Elin Nordegren.

Up

2010-04-28T17:17:00.001+05:30

It's summer again, that time of the year when us Bombayiites (yes, screw you, MNS) bitch relentlessly about the heat. As we wade through labyrinthine traffic-jams and risk monoxide poisoning, as we hang from delayed local trains that force us into unreasonable familiarity with our polyester-wearing fellow passengers, as we go about our day while the sweat streams down in rivulets, we bitch.

So imagine my surprise the other day, when I didn't.

That's right. I was outdoors in the blistering noon heat and I wasn't bitching.

Location played an important role here, of course. I was sitting in the side-car of my dad's old scooter*, driving through South Bombay and getting all the benefits of a convertible at a ridiculous fraction of the cost. I had the wind in my hair, the sun on my face and stretched all above me, the blue, blue summer sky. With trees lining the roads we passed. Trees that had shed their autumn colours in favour of every imaginable shade of green. From sap to moss, from grass to neon - it was all there. Dotting the landscape in an effusion of colour.

It would be gross exaggeration to say it took my breath away. It did distract me from bitching out summer though. And that, like anyone who has faced the sticky, humid Bombay summer knows, is saying a lot. That's when it struck me - when we stay cooped up inside little vehicles, AC or otherwise, when we look out from behind the bars of trains or windows, when we stay close to the ground for too long, we don't notice the sky. Or the trees. Or any of the wonderfulness nature is throwing at us while we choke on the smoke of our own inventions.

So do yourself a favour next time. While you're alternating curses against global warming and silently thanking the inventors of the air-conditioners, take a small break. And look up at the sky.

*Ah the side-car scooter! A relic of simpler times, when the Nano was a gleam in Tata's eye, rather than a nightmare. Purchased by the family man, driven by no self-respecting teen wanting a ride of his own and immortalised by Sholay. Okay, remniscence over, back to the post now.

Wheeeeeeeee!

2010-04-15T12:30:00.001+05:30

Q. What's the difference between walking a tightrope and skydiving?

A. Skydiving is more liberating.

When you're walking on a tightrope, there is a chance you might fall. There is a safety-net below, but even if there wasn't, when you're on a tightrope, falling is failing. With skydiving, you don't fall. You jump. Falling is just something that happens along the way. It simply aids you on your journey to where you want to go. You're not at anybody's mercy and you're out of everyone's control. Including your own.

It's pretty much the same way with life decisions. There are those that let you preserve the status quo at great cost to mind, heart, health and wallet. And there are those that change everything - all your dreams, your ambitions, your little five-year-plans.

Which is why taking life-changing decisions is tough and easy all at the same time. All you have to do is remember to carry a parachute and hope like hell that when the time comes, it'll work.

And if it doesn't, 'Skydiving accident' sounds like a way more exciting cause of death than 'food poisoning", right? RIGHT?

Of course, all this is just talk. In the end, like any rational person, and all the times I've done it before, I'll fight inevitable change with tooth, nail, claw, fang and sundry weapons of mass destruction. But this time, I'm keeping a parachute ready. You know, just in case.

1 Bronze, 2 Silvers and a Gold

2010-04-12T21:33:00.000+05:30

It's too intelligent. Nobody's gonna get it. I liked the first campaign better. It's tooooo intelligent. The execution has been done before. The idea has been done before. It'll never go through with the client. It'll never work with the target audience. It'll never win.

Dear Everyone Who Bitched About The Economist Campaign:

Bahahahahahahahahaha*.

* Also known in some circles as 'TG'.

Fuel Stop

2010-04-08T19:40:00.000+05:30

After spending 2 and a half days in Pune, 1 day in Bombay, 2 days shuttling between Khandala, Khopoli and Karjat and less than 24 hours back in Bombay, I am now going to Goa. Reportedly. Allegedly. According to sources. If my all important train tickets get confirmed in the next couple of hours. If that does happen, I will be gallivanting in Goa for the next three days, return at an obscene hour on Monday morning to Bombay before running for dear life to Pune. If that doesn't happen, I will be held for manslaughter after I murder my ticket agent.

Whatever does happen, the next few days are bound to be interesting. Pleasant perhaps, but definitely interesting.

Never Say Neeta Again

2010-04-05T14:44:00.000+05:30

If you're a frequent traveller to Poona*, chances are you'll take an AC bus there. And why not? They're comfortable, cost-efficient and fast. The MSRTC ones definitely are. 240 bucks and 210 minutes later you're there.

Not so much the Neeta ones. You know, Neeta, Neeta Volvo. Half-named after a famous politician's wife and half after an auto manufacturer. Famed for their in-transit entertainment featuring the Best of Bollywood from 'Wanted' to 'Kya Kool Hai Hum' and from 'Welcome' to 'Lucky - No Time For Love'.

On our way back this time, the classic playing was 'De Dana Dan', a movie where, as Rook rightly pointed out, any actor could've replaced any other actor with pretty much the same asinine result.

But it wasn't the movie that frustrated seven kinds of crap out of me. It was Neeta Volvo.

See, we wanted to be in Bombay for lunch, so like any other rational beings, we thought we'd take the 11 o'clock bus out of Poona. Having plenty of time and a tendency to be careful about these things, we went ahead and booked the tickets in advance. A day earlier.

The next day, we were at the pick-up point, way before time. 25 minutes before time, actually. And then, things started going in what I will now forever refer to as 'the Neeta Volvo way'.

The bus arrived at 11.15.

The 'bus' was a mini-bus, a carrier service to transport us to the place where the actual bus would be arriving.

It made half a dozen stops on the way before taking us to a place on the other end of town.

It dropped us there at 11.45, where the driver promised us the actual bus would leave at noon before driving home.

When the actual bus did arrive, the attendant refused to let us on board, saying he'd have to figure a few things out first.

At that point I called the ticket office and let them have a good, solid piece of aggressive blabbering in the choicest Marathi I could muster. The guy in turn threatened the attendant to let us in, before promising that we'd be out of Poona by 12.15. When I asked him in what world does a noon bus add up to the same thing as an 11:00 bus, he had the gall to tell me that the ticket was for an 11:00 bus from the pick-up point. It was apparently my fault that I had assumed that there wouldn't be any more stops before the bus left Poona.

Basically, for the same price as an MSRTC, we took a bus journey that lasted five hours, caused immeasurable frustration and gave us the added bonus of watching Akshay Kumar tell Katrina Kaif that he'll shower her with money if she agrees to become his. Set to music.

Neeta Volvo, ladies and gentlemen. Take the damn train, the next time.

* I have become one, thanks to Rook the Puneiite.

2010-03-29T16:52:00.000+05:30

A couple of weeks ago I had to go to Chennai, as a stopover on my way to a place called Kanchipuram, where I had to attend a consumer research.

To the uninitiated, this means sitting in a room all day, while assorted women of the correct target audience sit in the next room answering questions like "What does this ad mean?", "Do you like this ad?", "Do you think this ad is believable?", "Would you buy the product this ad is selling?" and so on. Before that, they answer more personal questions that scare the beejesus outta you, because you find out that the middle-aged aunty sitting in the corner is secretly a 23-year-old housewife with two children and a travelling salesman for a husband.

It is not pretty, it is not pleasant, but someone's gotta do it and every once in awhile, I am that someone. It is I, who has to wake up at an unearthly hour, catch a ridiculously early morning flight, resolutely refuse to fall asleep in the plane because the Jet in-flight entertainment kicks ass, eat the comparatively edible Jet food and be frustrated at the inevitable Jet delay, to land as fresh as a five-year-old daisy in some part of India that has only remotely heard of cable TV*.

On this trip though, I was looking forward to meeting SwatCat (yes, you, with the lovely home in Chennai). We used to be classmates in Pune and when I told her I was coming to her city, she insisted I stay the night so that we could catch up.

It was a loooong night, but, as the Queen of Mean would say, "in a good way."

She told me how she met her husband (sweet chap, just about as insane as her I'd say) and what she'd been up to since Pune. I told her my part of the story and in the course of the conversation I realised something odd.

Your relationships don't always end up the way you think.

The people who stay your friends, the people who stab you in the back, the people who become romantic interests and those who fade away from your life without a whisper - you don't always know they're going to do that. Invariably so in my case.

If five years ago you'd have told me that I'd spend one entire night chatting and coming clean and reminiscing with SwatCat, I'd have smiled politely and said something sarcastic about your mental state. Don't get me wrong, she was always nice to me and it was fun hanging out with her, but that's all that was. To me, she was the roommate of the girlfriend of the boy who broke my heart. I couldn't have imagined this scenario in a million years. I doubt she could have either.

And it's funny, because at any given point in time, if you look at your best friend, your boyfriend, your sibling, your neighbour, your... anyone, you see them in your life in the next five years.

And maybe they will be too. Whether in the same capacity, that I'm not so sure of.

* Kanchipuram has in fact heard of cable TV, being about a 2 and a half hours drive from Chennai.

Shot in the Dark

2010-03-17T15:09:00.000+05:30

We live in sick times. Not just the mentally sick kind either. No, I'm not talking about the thousands of necrophiliacs, pedophiliacs, bestial fetishists and advertising people out there. I'm just saying there are a lot of diseases in the world we live in. From cervical cancer to restless leg syndrome, we face it all, and thanks to modern science, we have the weapons to overcome them too. Be it psychosomatic or psychopathic, all it takes is a pill, a capsule, a syrup or an uncomfortable hour on a shrink's couch to bring us back to physical health and frightening sanity in easy one-dose installments.

My question is this: if medical science has progressed so much, HOW IS IT THAT WE DON'T HAVE MATURITY SHOTS?

It's a need gap waiting to be filled. Whenever a husband struck by mid-life crisis has insisted on a nipple piercing, whenever a sibling on the brink of metrosexuality has tried on a tiger print shirt, whenever parents have threatened to commit suicide unless his daughter marries that nice boy from Thane, the world has cried out for maturity. In dolby stereo sound.

Think about it.

One shot in the arm is all it'll take for a soul in need to realise in a sparkling moment of clarity, that nipple piercing HURTS LIKE A BITCH and makes you look less bad, more ass, that tiger prints are for aging B-grade starlets with a Mrs. Robinson complex and that dying in the cause of preventing your offspring's happiness is about 312 on a stupidity scale of one to ten.

The market for maturity, ladies and gentlemen, is infinite. Every apology unuttered out of single-minded egoism, every mistake committed in the spirit of 'I know better than you', every request phrased like a command, every need ignored, every want exaggerated - they all hint at a severe maturity deficiency, regardless of age, sex and sexual preference.

And it's the duty of a civilized race to help its members overcome their natural deficiencies. It's practically social service. And in fact, some of us have even taken oaths to help humanity at large.

So, dear boys and girls who made the rest of us look bad by scoring 98% in your SSC exams, you who donated your brains and social lives to medical science, you who get the most hits on matrimonial sites and the highest bid on dowry just because of the snooty little 'Dr' before your names... you, yes YOU, are you listening?

What I Wish I Knew Seven Years Ago

2010-03-09T13:47:00.005+05:30

I know, I've been AWOL for the longest time. Stop with the foot-tapping already.

Anyway, some time ago, I got asked some questions by a journalist for some feature she was doing on careers in the media. I had written down something in the hurry, which it strikes me now, could have come in handy when I was getting into advertising. So, for the benefit of all the poor suckers who're trying to enter my not-so-esteemed-at-all profession, here it is, good luck, and change your mind now.

How did English literature (at both BA and MA level) help you as a copywriter?

Firstly, I’m actually just a BA in English Literature. I did only my MA Part 1 and then enrolled directly for a Post Graduate Diploma in Communication Management, which is a fancy phrase for media studies.

Over the past few years, this is what I have learned:

A copywriter, according to the traditional definition, writes ads. But that’s not strictly true anymore. Today, a copywriter thinks of ideas for everything from press ads, TV commercials and radio spots to leaflets, booklets, annual reports, fliers and an essay for his/her boss’s kid’s 2nd standard history class. Writing is part of the job – but it’s not the entire job.

That being said, a degree in English Literature usually means that you have a fairly good knowledge of English language, grammar and sentence construction. This is usually helpful when you’re putting pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, if you will. And naturally, since your course would have demanded that you wade through tomes of the printed word, you will be fairly comfortable with the language and hence somewhat if not entirely qualified in its manipulation – which, by the way, forms a large part of all advertising.

So yes, I’d say English Literature has helped me quite a bit in my job as a copywriter. If nothing else, it gives me a nicely snooty, overeducated air that’s quite handy when I want to irk my colleagues. Nothing irritates people more than someone who can quote a dead writer.

Can you comment on how jobs in the media and communications field depend more on skill than on degrees?

Absolutely. A career in the media means that you learn everything about the job when you’re on the job. Education has diddly-squat to do with it. One of my colleagues is a trained investment banker, another has a B.Sc degree in agricultural science and a third hasn’t even cleared his graduation. None of these things have anything to do with advertising, but they’re all doing exceedingly well in their jobs, thanks to the skills they’ve picked up along the way. So basically, what or how much you’ve studied doesn’t matter if you want a job in the media. It’s the difference between reading Flying For Dummies and actually getting strapped in the pilot’s seat. Some things will seem familiar, but mostly it’ll just be gut-wrenching fear till you take off.

As far as English Literature in particular is concerned, I’d love to say that knowing your Kafka from your Karnad is a huge career requirement, but it’s really not. Most people who read your CV will think Italo Calvino is a kind of pasta. All you really need is an average knowledge of the English language, a way with words, the desire to learn and a little bit of a mental imbalance. The mental imbalance isn’t really compulsory, but with the media you’re heading that way anyway and let’s face it - it’ll make life much more interesting.

THIS is how screwed our education system is.

2010-02-18T19:54:00.000+05:30

There is this woman I know, who till recently used to live with her husband, four-year-old daughter and in-laws in a chawl. Her daughter is a precocious, bright kid, in kindergarten, used to go to school then come back home and do her homework and then go play with the other chawl kids. I say chawl kids, I mean chawl kids, teenagers, whoever. She was the first kid in the family to go to an English medium school and her mother was immensely proud of that.

One day, she came home complaining of a pain between her legs. Turns out, a fifteen-year-old whose house she used to go frequently to play had fingered her.

And her mother, instead of going to the kid's house and castrating him with a blunt instrument, gave him a stern warning and let it go.

Why?

"It's his SSC year. If I'd made a big deal out of the matter, it would've screwed up his entire life."

By The Way

2010-02-09T14:07:00.004+05:30

If he puts up with an extra week of surly-by-day-silent-by-night PMS, if he hears you blow your nose loudly, noisily, disgustingly for two days straight, if he runs out in the middle of the night to get you tissue paper, if he runs his fingers through your hair while you sweat out a fever, if he's okay with you suddenly sneezing in the middle of a kiss and still agrees to stand at the steps of the Gateway of India with you on a cold morning, despite you refusing to have breakfast with him after, just because you think it's a cool idea to catch a sunrise through smog, and if at the end of it all he assures you he had a fantastic time, then yes, babe, he's a keeper.

That Week, This Year

2010-02-07T17:15:00.003+05:30

The thing with Goa is this: it has something for you, no matter what.

If you're single, it has hot firangs in tiny beachwear.
If you're coupled, it has isolated, romantic beaches.
If you're recently single, it has beach shacks with buy-1-get-1-free happy hour cocktails.
If you're a shopaholic it has night bazaars and flea markets.
If you're spiritual it has a church or a chapel around every corner.
If you're into architecture, it has facades and arches to die for.
If you're into adventure sports, it has parasailing and water-scootering and whatnot.
If you're a foodie it has cuisine that flirts outrageously with your taste-buds.
And if you seek simple decadence, it has cheap booze and easily available erm... herbs.

I wanted a nice, long vacation with Rook.

In the process I got a head-butt from a cow, a sprained neck, a strained back, fever and PMS. I also got strawberry margaritas, copious amounts of beer and seafood, the sixth book in The Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy, a lovely pair of onyx earrings courtesy Rook, and oh yes, the opportunity to wear a bikini.

Like I said, Goa has something for you, no matter what.

In other words, I'm back, children.

My People - Mini-Me

2010-01-29T17:51:00.003+05:30

Apparently all it takes to consider two people twins / sisters / karmically related is if both have roughly the same kind of hair.

At least that's the way it seems to Mini-Me and me. We've been asked whether we're sisters about twenty million times. Never mind that we look NOTHING like each other and have precious little in common.

Okay, so we're both Virgos, sarcastic, obsessed with cleanliness and neatness, like reading, are copywriters and a few other things, but hey, that means NOTHING. Okay?

Because the key difference between her and me is that she has her sainthood coming in any day now.

Honestly.

For one, she's had more surgeries than any two people I know put together,. Something that has made her tolerance to painkillers so high, she once woke up in the middle of a surgery despite having been given general anesthesia. So while the rest of us take chamomile tea to soothe our jangled nerves, Mini-Me prefers to kick back with some nice, comforting horse tranquilizers. An event that makes her, in her own words, "incapaca"*.

When she is capacitated, as it were, she juggles a sixteen-hour advertising job with a long-distance relationship. She had the immense good fortune of falling in love with the very first guy she dated and they've been together these last three years, in sickness, health, crushing mobile phone bills and jobs that on a whim, take people away to random Middle-Eastern or African countries for long periods of time. That he's a conservative, hatta-katta Dilli da munda and she is a liberated Catholic-Saraswat Bombay girl with ultra-liberal parents and a tendency to say "Fuck you, bastard", just adds to the romance I presume.

There are times when she is stubborn as hell but she's a saint, make no mistake.

I mean, the girl has been part of an all-boys team for the past three and a half years, listening to an endless barrage of the vulgar, obscene, violent, abusive, nonsensical and retarded comments that are the hallmark of most of her team-mates, especially Magic Pants. And she's done that without filing a single sexual harassment case too.

Our Lady of Perpetual Sucker indeed.

Apart from being my shopping-buddy, boytalk partner, gossip girl and fellow-booklover that is.

You know what? We might as well have been sisters.

*'Incapacitated' as pronounced by an incapacitated person.

Resume-Writing for Dummies

2010-01-27T14:02:00.003+05:30

Me: What's this?

Brother: My CV.

Me: It's two pages long, what are you Donald Trump?

Brother: It's a rough CV.

Me: Let's make it 'fair', shall we? (after studying it for about 4 seconds) Ok, I think I've got it. Take notes:

a) You do NOT need to give THREE email addresses. Especially if one of them has a reference to an obscure Greek god whose name you think has something to do with your name (it doesn't).

b) You DO need to give a mobile number.

c) You do NOT need to write Secondary School Certificate, EVERYBODY knows what SSC is.

d) The same rule applies for HSC too.

e) You do NOT need to write St. Teresa's High School, *Girgaon*, Mumbai. The only other St. Teresa's in Bombay is a girl's school and despite your circumstantial weirdness NOBODY is going to mistake you for a girl.

f) And for the love of God, DO NOT put SOCIAL FRIGGIN' NETWORKING as an interest!*

*He later told me that going for student meets and being part of cultural activities also qualifies as "social networking". I laughed in his face for five full minutes and told him it doesn't.

Born To Be Wild-ish

2010-01-18T11:33:00.005+05:30

You know how you have this idea of what something's supposed to be / feel like? When I was in college, I thought being in college was all about hanging out with friends, doing fun things like watching movies, lazing around in the canteen, drinking at house parties, bunking lectures and giving proxy attendance to those who managed to do the above things when I didn't.

Yes, I was quite vanilla that way I suppose. Also mobile phones weren't common then and the "internets" had just entered our lives. (I'm going to stop now because I feel about 90.)

A decade later, I realise that college would've, could've, should've been much, much more than that.

It could've been about wearing short skirts and dating inappropriate boys. It should've been about sitting behind said boys fearlessly, as they zoomed their bikes at irresponsible speeds through the city, the wind in your hair as you texted your friends that you were on your way to the crazy-assed party they were throwing. It could've been about smoky night-clubs and loud music and alcohol in disproportionate amounts.

I did do some of those things in Poona, I admit, but somehow, it wasn't... perfect. I was too scared of the speeding after my multiple accidents riding as pillion behind the Assholy Ex. I was too scared of drinking because I'd been convinced by him that there was a creep around the corner waiting to take advantage of me. I was too scared of staying out late because my parents would call and scold me for being irresponsible. I was too scared of having what could've been the best time of my life.

I realised this on Friday while sitting behind my colleague on his Enfield Bullet as we speeded from Goregaon to Mahalaxmi. I was gripping his jacket tightly, shutting my eyes to the wind and the speed, praying we wouldn't crash. He deftly maneuvered the bike through traffic, taking no unnecessary risks and when I told him I was shit scared he turned and said, "Don't worry, I won't let you fall."

That's when it hit me: this guy was not that guy. This time wouldn't be like last time. Because this me isn't the me from ten years ago.

This me was wearing a miniskirt (admittedly with leggings, it IS winter you know), drinking wonderfully cheap booze and headbanging slightly to Guns n' Roses. This me was standing on a chair to much cheering and adding to the graffitti on the ceiling of The Ghetto. This me had tried both responsible and irresponsible, had enjoyed both and grown up. And while this me wasn't in college anymore, that was okay. You know why? Well, for starters, this me didn't have acne or braces to deal with...

Step Away From That Exclamation Mark, Sir

2010-01-06T15:55:00.006+05:30

I hate it. It's a simple case of loathing something that's utterly unnecessary and yet irritatingly overexposed. Like Rakhi Sawant.

It's the typographical equivalent of the super-eager and hence super-annoying distant cousin who comes along on a family vacation and wakes you up at 6 in the morning to go sight-seeing. With a big, bright, happy smile on their face.

And as someone who works in advertising, it is my lot in life to be associated with this overly enthusiastic punctuation mark. It can't be helped. Apparently it's an unwritten rule that if there's going to be a verb before the word 'now', then that particular sentence better bloody end with a bloody exclamation mark. Call now! Buy now! Subscribe now! And if you're on a crushing word limit then "Hurry!".

(I'm told it creates a sense of urgency in the reader's mind. To bludgeon the writer to death, yes, but otherwise too. And who am I to argue? It's not like I go out and buy things like normal people. Oh wait...)

Anyway, the point being that it amazes me that so many people insist on using it so very much outside of advertising.

What is it? What can you absolutely NOT say without putting the vertical line-and-dot monstrosity at the end of it?

I love you. I hate you. I miss you. It's so nice to see you again. You've lost a lot of weight. That looks really great. We haven't gone out in ages. Happy Birthday. Happy New Year. Happy friggin' Hanukkah.

See? You can say ALL those things WITHOUT sounding like your doctor upped your daily dose of Prozac.

But. Yet. However. Even so. There are people out there who use it with careless abandon. And, horror of horrors, they use MULTIPLE exclamation marks. As in, more than one. Many. Plural of.

Why? What exactly is so endearing about "Hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"? Do they really think that sounding like someone surgically lessened their IQ score is appealing to others? Are they under the impression that appearing to be jumping up and down manically while saying a particular sentence makes the other person feel special? Or do they just want to suggest that they find the Shift+1 command so utterly fascinating that they absolutely, positively HAVE to have their fingers on it for more than fifteen seconds?

Whatever it is, people, this must stop. Rein in the virtual endorphins. Keep the happy hormones out of my face. And if you don't know what that means, let me rephrase: Stop!!!!!

Resolution

2010-01-01T17:49:00.001+05:30

To create more and consume less
To live more and wish less
To face the unknown with a smirk and a hatchet
To find joy regardless.

Oh, Nine

2009-12-31T00:47:00.001+05:30

Firsts. That's what this year has been about. You know the Bucket List type of list you make? Of things to do before you turn 20/30/40/ or get attached/married/divorced/dead. Yeah, for me, post-March 2009 became a year for doing things you've not even put on the list yet. I packed away my inhibitions, checked out of my comfort zone, left my common sense at a nice little kennel and cancelled the milk and newspapers on my way out. Okay, maybe the last part was pushing the metaphor too far, but still. You get the idea.

The results were... interesting. Partly in a I'm-your-cardiac-surgeon-and-your-recent-test-results-are-interesting kinda way.

I travelled abroad for the first time. And had the experience completely fucked for me on return.

I got interviewed for a newspaper and had my mug pasted alongside the likes of Adhuna Akhtar and Shilpa Shetty.

I got fucked over for a second time by a particularly assholy ex. And finally got closure. Ooh, and made friends with four of his exes in the process.

I let go of my fond wish to visit London, Paris and Edinburgh.

I took a trip with a friend, with minimum fuss and planning and ended up having a smashing time.

I met matrimonially-inclined boys and decided for once and for all that arranged marriage and me can only be mentioned in a sentence that's on top of the list of Impossible Things To Do Voluntarily.

I got set up on a blind-ish date. It really was nothing to bitch about.

I asked a guy out. Went out on dates, even.

I got plagiarised from, financially compensated and apologised to by a leading newspaper.

And I went out with someone I met on the internet.

So, following this trend of firsts, I'm going to bring in the New Year in a way I've never done before. In the company of a special (not in a retarded kind of way, well, actually... ok no, not really) someone. Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Rook, my plus one. He thinks I'm fun and with deranged opinions like that, I'm sure you'll see more mentions of him in this space in the months to come.

Till then I wish you, with all sincerity, a very Happy 2010.

My People - 32cats

2009-12-24T18:30:00.001+05:30

The first time I saw him, I felt sorry for him.

I had gone for an interview for a summer internship with the youth supplement of a leading magazine. It was a sign of things to come that this interview was taking place in the canteen. My boss-to-be was a large woman, who was sitting across my friend and me, carelessly smoking a cigarette and intimidating us with no extra effort. At one point she turned around and yelled "You motherfucker! Where is everyone else?" The person she was yelling at was a tall, lanky, fair boy who looked about 16 and used to this kind of easy affection. Apart from the age, not much has changed since.

Truth be told, I became friends with him for two simple reasons - we used to take the same bus home from the office and he happened to be dating my best friend at the time. We stayed friends for a whole lot of other reasons, including a shared love for coffee and cats (at one point he and his cat-crazy family had 32, hence the moniker) and a shared hate for many things I won't mention on such a public forum. Oh, also, for once I was in the company of someone whose name is hands-down, no-arguments weirder than mine...

He's a year younger than me, which is why it does wonders for my self-esteem that while my designation has the phrase 'supervisor', his has the term 'vice president'. And while I schlep to work in a local train, he travels in a chauffeur-driven car. (Of course, I do go to bed a little happy in the knowledge that despite all this, as Bombay goes, I live in the South and he lives in the New parts...)

But all that's just details. All said and done, I owe 32cats a large part of my sanity. He was the most frequently dialed number on my phone when the shit hit the fan in fair Poona. At various points, he was my bitching buddy, my designated shoulder for crying and the one person I could and still can be unashamedly mean with. And when I say mean, I mean mean (wasn't that a fun line? Moving on...) And the biggest thing of all - he was the person who introduced me to Terry Pratchett... AND gave me the entire Discworld series in ebook format. I can never thank him enough for that.

But don't let all this sweetness fool you one bit. 32cats is not all sugar and candyfloss. He reads some five newspapers every day and if that doesn't make him a freak I don't know what does. He once offered to make the boy I liked look like a terrorist on the internet so that he wouldn't be able to leave the country. He and I also once jointly wrote a piece called "How To Spread Plague in 10 Easy Steps", step one being to get a rat, step two being to call him Moe. Oh, and his spastic child imitation can churn the stomach of any passing advocates of political correctness (his extremely Parsi looks only aid the illusion, believe me). But then as political correctness goes, this is a man who when shown a random woman said to his then-girlfriend, "No, she's definitely uglier than you..."

Be it his long and illustrious love-life, his unsurprisingly impressive career or his love for bad puns, this is a boy I've known and been alternately surprised and entertained by for the past 10 years. He's sharp and smart, has an abysmal sense of humour and an enviable knowledge of most things computer-related or otherwise. We don't meet nearly as often as I'd like, but when we do it's all very warm and Hallmark card-like with him disparaging my profession and me telling him what a dumbass he is.

32cats, my friend, I'll end this piece by saying something I can never say enough:
Let's meet so you can give me that damn Pratchett book you've been promising me, you retard.

The Big Bullshit

2009-12-08T12:19:00.006+05:30

The stereotype is dangerously close to the truth. As women, we're our own worst enemy.

We want to love and be loved in return and that's nothing to be ashamed about. But forgetting everything else, all that's right and wrong (I won't say good or bad because I don't want to sound all morally superior here) just because you're in love... it's a habit we're going to have to learn to break.

Some of us flirt with men who're taken - someone's boyfriend or fiance or husband. Some of us take it a step further, making it about the conquest, the I-can-have-any-man-I-want kick. And then there are those of us who fall for The Big Bullshit.

My girlfriend doesn't understand me. I'm only marrying my fiance because my parents want me to. My wife doesn't love me anymore. She's manipulative, she's frigid, she's a bitch, we've not had sex in months.

The Big Bullshit, ladies and gentlemen. The single lie we get told by the men we love about the women they love. The single lie that we keep telling ourselves over and over again to justify dating / seeing / sleeping with / being in love with a man we have no business being with. It has a shelf life longer than wax and the after-effects of a tank full of tequila, minus the lemon and salt.

Because we'll do anything to keep The Big Bullshit alive. We'll keep the affair a secret, we won't go out in public, we'll tell everyone we're just friends, we won't tell our friends, our family, we'll do anything they ask us to, we'll be anyone they ask us to, because don't you know, he loves me, he loves me.

And the single reason we continue down this part of self-delusion is this: we don't think for half a second about the other woman in the equation. Sure, we think of her in a trying-hard-not-to-feel-self-satisfied kinda way: Aw, poor thing, I feel so sad for her, but he loves me, don't you know, he loves me.

You sure of that, babe? Here's the acid test. Try saying these words the next time and see how it goes:

Your girlfriend doesn't understand you? Break up with her and I'll be understanding.
You're parents are forcing you to marry your fiance? Call it off and we'll talk.
Your wife doesn't love you? Get a divorce and I'll make up for lost time.

Maybe she's a cold, calculating, frigid, emotionally unavailable, psychopathic bitch. Doesn't make it alright. Maybe they've been having problems. Doesn't make it alright. Maybe they're wrong for each other and the two of you just... fit, you know? Doesn't make it alright. NOTHING makes it alright.

Why this, you ask? Why now?

Well. There's this girl, you see. She's been in love with a boy for the past ten-eleven years. They've been together and apart, she's believed his lies, forgiven his philandering, ignored all the loopholes in all the stories. She's even taken care of his mother the whole time he was out screwing half the female population of a small town.She's bought into The Big Bullshit. And now, they're getting married this weekend.

Perhaps she knows exactly how much of an asshole he is. Maybe she has no real clue. Either way, doesn't make it alright.

My People - Smiley

2009-11-30T14:30:00.007+05:30

It's a weird thing about friendship. Too often you don't actually become friends with people the moment you meet them.

Take Smiley and me, for instance. We worked for three months in the same place and rarely exchanged more than a hi or a bye. Then my summer internship got over and I returned back to the horrors of student life in Pune.

Cut to two years later. I'm counting my last days at my first job when I run into her again. She had come for an interview and I remember thinking, poor thing, she seems nice, should I warn her and tell her what a shithole this place is? I didn't need to, apparently, because two months into my new job, there she was.

It would be nice to say that we hit it off instantly.

We didn't. We worked well together though, became partners first and friends along the way. I think it helped that we're the same age, - but she's a few levels higher up the pecking order, thanks to the years she spent working instead of chilling out in college like a normal person.

But then, as I realised soon enough, Smiley isn't exactly a normal person.

She throws plastic bottles at people for no apparent reason. She threatens to bite people. She talks in a baby language that even babies can't quite understand. And her loyal bedfellow is an old comfort blanket that she lugs around everywhere and has a name for!

Yes, she's quite a schizophrenic that way.

Because while she behaves in a manner that suggests a mental age of three, Smiley is also quite grown up. In the same way Queen Elizabeth II and Pratibha Patil are. Why? Well, it's a close tie between her allergies (milk and dairy products, eggs, dust, non Bisleri water, dogs, cats, almonds, walnuts, oranges and probably even air) and her various grown-up social engagements (birthday parties of assorted nieces and nephews, social dos with in-laws, poojas, weddings, sit down dinners and probably even a debutante ball somewhere).

On the upside, it makes her a great advice-giver, an absolutely fantastic hostess (whose husband is very generous with his alcohol and who I hope remembers his promise of adopting me) and someone you can talk to about pretty much everything. She's also got a great, if sometimes warped, eye for beautiful things, which I guess is what being an art director is about (apart from ignoring copy and copywriters that is).

I was going to end this post with something cool about her. Like how she dances like a maniac when she's drunk. Or her all-encompassing love for dogs that conquers all, including her asthma which gets triggered when she hangs around pooches. Or how her liver is a bottomless pit for alcohol, giving me inspiration for the team title 'Tanki Aur Nautanki' (me naturally being the nautanki part). Or how this office isn't going to be the same now that she has quit and moved on to greener, richer pastures.

But I just got told that a plate of paani-puri Smiley had with us before she quit gave her a sore throat, which caused a viral infection, which has blown up into reactive arthritis. She's currently lying in hospital with swollen joints and enough steroids to get an Olympic athlete disqualified. Apparently the doctors told her that there is just a one-in-a-million chance of someone getting arthritis like this. Knowing Smiley as I do, I guess it figures...

Nice

2009-11-19T20:13:00.003+05:30

When I open up my chest, ripping out the old stitches, when I hold it open so you can see what I'm like inside, soft and squishy and easy-to-hurt, when I lay it all bare like that, airing the old, already-healed wounds, when you peer over me and blow a soft, whispery breath over what used to pain and bleed but doesn't anymore, I want you to know that it feels really... nice.

My People - PurpleJeans

2009-11-15T23:12:00.006+05:30

Alicia Silverstone, if she was goofy, didn't care much what she wore and was likely to cause small accidents in the course of a conversation.

The Dancing Shrink, because with a degree in psychology, a job as a consulting counsellor and a passion for dance, that's exactly what she is.

PurpleJeans.

So-called because through 5 years of undergraduate college that's what she wore. A pair of floral printed purple jeans that she claims to still have lying somewhere. That, neon-coloured T-shirts, mildly Gandhian spectacles and a confused expression. Which completely disguised (or at least gave a passable cover for) the fact that we're talking about a person with alabaster skin, sharp hazel eyes, soft brown hair and the latent sex appeal of a Greta Garbo. No, seriously.

She's pole-danced in a club once. And had considered taking up a not-great-paying job in Kashmir to help people. Which tells you of her hidden depths and courage. Oh, and she once told me to my face that I was superficial as hell, which tells you that in terms of frankness at least, like certainly recognizes like...

The point is, she's the sort of friend who never judges you. About anything. She's there, a ready ear, shoulder or comfort blanket when you want to whine, cry, bitch about the cruel world in general and in my case, men in particular. Which of course, must've come in handy in her shrink avataar. That the shrink avataar intimidated the crap out of most men was an occupational hazard, I suppose.

She's one of the few women I can talk about sex with without having her blush and go all awkward and uncomfortable on me. She's the voice of reason, and sometimes of madness that has made me take second chances when I was in two minds. She's hope and optimism in the never-say-shoo, Labrador puppy kinda way, that makes you sort of believe that things can, against the face of all available evidence, work out.

And in sharp contrast, when the rest of us were oohing-aahing-sighing over the latest rom-com, she would go nuts over disaster movies. Armageddon, Con Air, Twister, you get the drift. "Look! Cute men", she'd coo. "...who die!", I'd say. And then she'd nod her head sagely and say, "Exactly."

But one look at her and you'd never ever guess any of this. Because on the surface of it, PurpleJeans is cursed with being one of the guys. Actually, more like the little sister of one of the guys. The kind men want to throw an arm around and protect from all the mean sons-of-bitches out there. The kind they want to look out for, kid around with, laugh with and drop home with the most honorably platonic intentions ever.

The result being that this 28-year-old girl, who happens to be one of the most beautiful, intelligent, crazy-funny and warm women I know, has never had a boyfriend.

All I can say is this: Boys, you don't know what you're missing.

My People - Tibet

2009-11-12T12:37:00.003+05:30

As I said when I first mentioned her on this blog, my friend Tibet has nothing to do with the country or its politics. If she did though, she'd probably forget all about it. Because the thing about Tibet, apart from the fact that she's hands down the most instantly lovable person I've met, is that her memory is legendary. And I mean this in a very Barney legend-waitforit-ary kinda way.

There are a dozen Tibet stories that defy common human imagination.

Like the time she got off at Churchgate station and tried to take a cab to Eros cinema (for non-Bombayiites, it's right across the station).

Or the time she stood in the door of the train at Dadar and forgot to get off at Matunga Road (the station that comes right after Dadar).

Then there's the time she told a famously squint-eyed classmate to "Look at me when I'm talking to you, dammit!"

I've known her for the past 11 years and she's still more likely to forget my birthday than remember it. She has great comic timing with no comic intention and her idea of cheering me up is telling me about the penile worms her Labrador has or about the dead rat they found on her fridge the other day.

I remember her in my mind's eye the way I first saw her in college: a jolly, plump girl in tight jeans and a tucked in man's shirt, shoulder-length hair and the biggest, happiest, most genuine laugh I've ever seen or heard.

I remember her telling me that the only thing she wanted in her guy was a sense of humour. That was it. The gods gave her a man who fit the bill and today she's the mother of a precocious 4-year-old, with a job she doesn't hate and a life in the suburbs with husband, daughter, in-laws and dog - the Indian Dream, so to speak.

Talking to her makes me feel like I'm 17 again. Telling her my problems makes them seem funny. Hearing about her life takes me away from mine and sometimes that's what's really needed. I feel protective about her and she's the only person with whom my phone conversations end on an 'I love you'.

I'd once offered to kidnap her when her life got too tough to handle. Tibet, babe, I know you're reading this because you have shitloads of time on your hands. So before your boss notices that you're faffing around, I just want you to know this - the offer still stands. And always will.

My People

2009-11-12T12:07:00.003+05:30

All of us have them. People who've come to be important to us. Friends, lovers, siblings, parents, and those whose relationship with you goes beyond such labels. People who defy the season-reason-lifetime rule and pretty much just stick around in your life, for better or for worse. Whether they'll be around in the future, who knows? But life without them would be nothing like it is now. So the next few posts (unless events of world-shattering importance occur) will be dedicated to some of these people, some of whom have already been mentioned on this blog over the years. My people. And I'm going to start this series with Tibet, because the idea for these posts came during a phone conversation with her last night.

Watch this space.

Blast To The Past

2009-11-10T11:44:00.003+05:30

The other day, we were reminiscing about old TV shows that we liked as kids. Shows that had captured our minds and TV sets around the time 'Happy Divaully from Starrr Plus' came to be replaced by the storm that was Zee TV.

Banegi Apni Baat, for instance.

It was sort of like an Indian Beverley Hills 90210. It was cool, about college kids, their problems, relationships, blah, blah, blah. And gasp! It showed people kissing! Like real-real kissing. Not the stupid peck-on-the-cheek type. Not the come-so-close-it-looks-like-you're-kissing-when-you're-secretly-not type. Full on kissing, boss. Dillagi, another show, also did this, but since the people involved were old (when you're 12, 25 seems ancient) and not that nice looking, it didn't count. BAB, on the other hand, had college kids kissing, no, wait, COLLEGE, as in place I'll be at in four years, which has BOYS in it, who apparently KISS you!

And it handled subjects like teenage pregnancy, drug use, dysfunctional families, single parenthood and a whole lot of other shit that was mindblowing, shocking, controversial.

Let's face it, it was COOL. Not to mention, in the 1990s, progressive to the point of being almost alientating.

Cut to the year 2009.

You switch on the TV and see - Utaran, Balika Vadhu, Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Keejo, Chittod Ki Rani Padmini Ka Johur and any number of soaps that are clones of each other in their plots, characters, costumes, values and pretty much everything. Especially in the wonderfully unifying element of being completely, totally regressive.

Seriously. Watch any of these shows for more than 5 seconds and you get pelted with ideological gunfire from the 1800s that tells you to forgive a cheating husband, mutely tolerate abuse at the hands of your in-laws, accept ill-treatment as part of your destiny as a girl, stay steeped in self-esteem issues because you're dusky and be ok with dowry, child-marriage, sati, the caste system and pretty much every social evil that has plagued India since the time the East India Trading Company was just a gleam in Victoria's eye.

All in the name of Indian values and the importance of family.

My question is this:

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH US?

Did we embrace BAB and its ilk because they represented a modernity and similarity with Western culture that we dreamed of but didn't have? And by that logic, are we lapping up the Zee-and-Star Plus shitfest because we secretly ache for the past, where women were women and men were men and patriarchy ruled common sense?

What is it? Someone needs to find out. Because every pair of eyeballs glued to these little kaleidoscopic (and hence warped) windows to the Utopian past is dragging us back to the dark ages.

And I thought it was just our politicians...

You Know It's Going To Be A Weird Day When...

2009-11-08T12:42:00.000+05:30

... you're watching Gilmore Girls (which is extremely underrated, given the witty writing) and your brother asks you to change the channel so that he can watch not Die Hard, not the India-Australia match, but Desperate friggin' Housewives.

Bombay, Meri Jaan

2009-11-04T11:33:00.002+05:30

If you've grown up in Bombay in the '80s, especially South Bombay, there are some things that you simply would have seen, been, done and loved. This brought back those for me.

And that explains why my morning train ride has happened to the background music of the miscellaneous '80s tracks on my Walkman phone.

Oh come, all ye stupid.

2009-10-29T17:18:00.008+05:30

Matrimonial sites make me mean.

I know what you're thinking - Veda, seriously dude, you ARE mean, it doesn't take a catalyst, it's pretty much there.

And I agree. But that meanness is sort of dormant most of the time. It's like a pet dog that lazes about in the sun till some jackass throws a pebble at it to provoke it.

Matrimonial sites are that jackass. They seriously bring out the mean, bitchy, elitist, English snob in me. The one who likes to point and laugh at people when they fuck up grammar, social etiquette or general rules of common sense.

And these gentlemen are the reason why:

"I am down to earth person. I am looking for beautiful and well educated life partner who is well educated and mature."

"I dont like travelling much. But would always wish for a partner who likes travelling and persuades me towards it."

"Being the only child of my parents, people are likely to assume that I am a brazen and loud character. But quite contrary to their expectation, I am pretty much docile."

"I like to stay in shape. When in Pune I climb Parvati 15-20 times as a workout!"

And my personal favourite:

"I am searching a girl I don't care how she looks what aver the others think she must have to understand me and I will do the same. I feel this for my self I am eligible bachelor never married and aspect a girl with non irritating behavior little bit stupid and funny"

Must... not... give... in... to... dark side.

Oh my.

2009-10-27T14:30:00.003+05:30

So if you've been following this blog, you pretty much know that I bitch a lot about life, the universe and everything. Sometimes because I have reason to, but mostly just for the fun of it. However, the thing that almost always goes unmentioned is that Alanis Morissette had it right. Life has a fine sense of the ironic and sometimes even tends to spring pleasant surprises on you when you least expect it.

And sometimes it takes someone else to put it evocatively enough for it to really hit you. So today I quote my friend Chalky, who in his own unique style made a comment that captures my life right now. "Every now and then," he said, "the Universe turns around and says, aww, you look a little low. Here."

Mars and Venus

2009-10-24T00:10:00.001+05:30

This is how a girl sets up her girl pal with a guy friend.

Girl 1:
So there's this guy I know - I met him at Shilpa's birthday some three years ago, or, wait, was it at Abhi's anniversary? - whatever, so anyway, he's really sweet, his name is Ravi. He's a software engineer originally from Hyderabad, loves Italian food like you do, he's into house music and a little bit of trance and he loves old Hindi movies. Oh and he's pretty okay looking too. So... what say?

Girl 2:
Um, does he smoke?

Girl 1:
I don't think so, but I could find out.

Girl 2:
He sounds interesting. We have a few things in common and stuff, so if he doesn't smoke then yeah, I guess it could be fun.

This is how a guy sets his buddy up with a girl he knows.

Guy 1:
Dude, you want to go out with this girl I know?

Guy 2:
Hot?

Guy 1:
Yeah.

Guy 2:
Cool.

Of Friends and Frenemies

2009-10-10T00:23:00.003+05:30

Of the many things for which I'm jealous of guys (lack of cellulite, capacity for alcohol, ability to travel anywhere anyhow, guaranteed orgasms, license for immaturity and more) the one that gets my goat is the way they handle their friendships.

It doesn't take much for two guys to be friends. A beer, a shared passion for a game or loyalty to a team, similar music tastes, whatever. For men, a friend could be a guy they drink with, smoke with, bitch about women with, watch a game with, play a game with, do lame-ass shit with, even borrow shit from.

A friend had once told me that while returning from I-Rock one evening, her guy friend had stopped a random stranger smoking a joint and asked for a drag. And got one. With directions on where he could score the good stuff.

That would never happen with women.

For women, a friend is someone you have bonded with. Someone with whom you've shared your life's secrets and who has shared her life's secrets with you. This is true of everyone from her shopping buddy to the woman she calls in the middle of the night to ask about pregnancy tests. For a woman, a friend is serious shit. And literally so, because sometimes a woman's best friend and worst enemy are the same person.

When a guy screws his friend over, they get into a good old-fashioned fistfight, beat the crap out of each other till someone says it's over and then, they shake hands and go back to being friends.

This can't happen with women either.

When a woman screws her friend over, there begins a complex game of Revenge and Consequences, where seemingly just desserts are served back and forth, sometimes for years, all under a cultivated veneer of everything-is-fine. A woman, like an elephant, never forgets and hardly ever forgives. We expect men to screw us over at the first opportunity - at least the realists among us do - so when it happens, we shrug, maybe cry a little and move on. But to be screwed over by someone with a uterus? Dude, if you think hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, you obviously haven't met one who's been crapped all over by her girlfriend.

The simple reason for this that men don't get and women don't admit is that for us, every other woman is competition. Any woman who's prettier, smarter, thinner, more accomplished, a better cook (in my case, a cook), more looked at, more listened to, stronger, faster, taller, higher up on the social ladder, a superior in any respect whatsoever, is just that. Competition. And like any good little cutthroat MBA will tell you, you don't make friends with the rival.

Which is how there came to be born that unique mutant species of female friend - the frenemy. A woman you have fun hanging out with, but with whom you're unconsciously competing against. You love shopping with her, you hate her living guts. You love getting drunk with her, you wish she'd throw up all over her dress. It's psychotic, unbelievably perverse and a perfectly normal kind of friendship for most women.

A woman will laugh for hours with her frenemy, then go home and decide what to wear the next time they meet so that she looks hotter, thinner and richer than the other woman.

This will never happen to guys.

You bastards.

Rationalisation or How To Be Fearless

2009-10-04T00:07:00.006+05:30

In the middle of one of the most entertaining conversations of my life, a very drunk 32cats told me something very interesting. Each one of us, he slurred, has one thing in life that we're meant to do. And everything that happens to us before that is just experience we need to make that one thing happen.

So every bad job teaches us what we need to know to be brilliant at our dream job. Every failed relationship is a lesson we need to learn before we can settle down in the perfect one. Every dead dream needs to have died for that one big dream to come alive.

My point is this: we all fuck up. In small ways and big. We do things that are truly heinous and things that are unforgivable. We act in ways that will haunt us for years to come. Sometimes we know perfectly well what we're doing and at other times we don't have a friggin' clue till it's too bloody late. And then, we let the fear of fucking up hold us back. We cling on to our regrets and tell ourselves to never, ever do it again, so help us god.

"Why do we fall, sir?" Alfred says in Batman Begins, "So we may learn to pick ourselves up."

I can't believe I'm quoting from a Batman movie at this hour, but the man's got a point. Perhaps it's time we stopped beating ourselves over the head with our mistakes. Perhaps we make them for a reason bigger than the fact that we were stupid, young, heartbroken or drunk.

Perhaps we need to take a deep breath and do what comes naturally to us.

Fuck up.

And Justice For All... Or Something

2009-10-01T11:19:00.005+05:30

They apologised, children. Said sorry in print and everything. Quoted a paragraph from the snarky yet vitriolic email I had sent and followed it with their reply. I really should say more, something about justice and better late than never and... stuff, and I will, I promise. Just as soon as I can tear my eyes away from the delicious mug of Gerhard Butler.

PS: There will be money too.

You Know You've Grown Up When...

2009-09-28T23:05:00.002+05:30

... your dad tells you his drinking stories, compares notes on watering-holes and gives you the recipe for the world's best rum cocktail.

"Jake, your sis is hot, dude."

2009-09-25T16:30:00.005+05:30

What is the deal with Maggie Gyllenhal?

I must know this.

She's not conventionally good-looking. She's not about to give Jessica Alba a run for her money in the Hottest Body of the Millennium contest. But, even so, men seem to find her attractive.

I'm not saying I don't like her. She does ballsy roles and is a decent performer. But hot? And here you can imagine me imitating any given cast member of Grey's Anatomy when I ask, "Seriously?"

The example I've been given is of Heath Ledger. But that doesn't apply, because Heath Ledger was, let's face it, hot. Even when he was drawing parallels between madness and gravity with an evil, evil smile. Even when he was asking a teenybopper "You don't think I'm pretty?" with a straight face. Even when he was jousting to the strains of Queen. He. Was. Hot.

Maggie Gyllenhal, on the other hand...

Nope, I don't get it.

The Peter Pan Complex

2009-09-23T13:05:00.005+05:30

The other day, over whiskey and screwdrivers, my friend and fellow-lefthander, whom I shall call Dilbert, told me a basic truth about men. "We're all commitment-phobes", he said casually, "Unless the girl pushes us, we'd be perfectly happy not getting married the rest of our lives."

See, I knew this as one of those things women know but pretend is not true. Like the fact that OD-ing on chocolate will lead to evil things happening in the hip region. Or that the reason we're offered seats on buses and trains often has less to do with chivalry and more with the depth of our necklines. But still, to hear it said out loud in those many words, got me thinking.

Men, it seems are brought up to love singlehood. Batman, Robin Hood, Peter Pan - their heroes are all single men who do cool things ALONE. Without silly girls to disturb them while they do it. They hang out with the boys, make a lot of noise and there's NOBODY calling them to ask what time they'll come home and can they please pick up some paneer on the way?

In fact, the way I see it, men must view marriage like purchasing real estate. You're a guy, you've been living in a rented house for a few years, you like it, it's comfortable and nice. Then, one day your landlord puts the damn thing on the market and now you have to choose between buying it or letting someone else take it away from you. You can afford it, but buying it would mean you're tied down, committed to one place for who knows how long. Is it worth it? You don't know. And that's ok. It's fine that you refuse to grow up and act all mature. It's cool that you want to go drinking every night of the week with your friends, it's acceptable that you think it's cool to throw up and do stupid-ass things when you're drunk, even if you're pushing 30. It's all ok. Because you're a guy - it's what you do.

With women, it's different. The moment we become "of marriageable age" (which, depending on your community ranges from 18 to 25), we're expected to grow up, screw any romantic ideals we might have and somehow be okay with the concept of marriage. Even if the notion of spending a lifetime with a potentially sexist, good old-fashioned Neanderthal scares seven kinds of hell out of us. Even if we believe that domestic life is a special kind of disease created to kill its victims slowly and boringly. Even if the concept of changing, adapting, accommodating and compromising one's life and likes to complement that of another person's, makes us want to reach for the nearest sharp object and commit instant harakiri.

No, having two X chromosomes somehow automatically means that you're frothing at the mouth to settle down in a marriage. And babies, let's not forget those.

If you're a woman, apparently, your life's quest is to hunt for the elusive eligible bachelor. You must force the guy you're seeing to have "a talk about us" and ask him interestingly uncomfortable (for him) questions like "Where is this going?". You must view every man you meet as a potential husband. You must, you must, you must, get married before your shelf life is over, because after a point darling, who's going to be interested in you really? When there are new apartments coming up every day, who'd want to buy an old one?

So I guess my question is this: If of the two people marrying each other, one has been conditioned to believe that this is the ultimate point of her entire existence and the other one has been conditioned to believe that this is the cruelest socially acceptable form of torture, are we REALLY surprised that they're not living happily ever after?

Or have we just taken it in our stride like, you know, grown-ups?

All The Pretty Girls

2009-09-22T12:27:00.004+05:30

There are two things I've figured out about beautiful women. I don't know which disturbs me more. And here, I'm not talking about models, actresses, top 10 pin-up girls or anyone whose professional life and self-image depend on Adobe Photoshop 7.0. No, I'm talking about women you meet in everyday life and go, "Wow, she looks nice" or if you're guy, "Holy shit, she's hot."

The first thing is these women also get dumped. It's not just us. And the shitty part is, they get dumped for plain-looking women too. I think on some level, most women can understand if the love of their life leaves them for someone who'd look comfortable on the centrespread of Maxim. We won't like it, we'll cry into our supersized chocolate sundaes about it, but we'd understand it. She's hot, I'm not, it figures. But to get dumped for a plain-ass Jane... no, see, that just hurts. It's happened to more than one gorgeous woman I know and I still don't get it. Yes, I know what you're thinking - maybe it's personality or personal habits or chemistry or whatever. I thought so too, till one of them told me her ex categorically told her that she was being Ctrl-Alt-Deleted because she wasn't pretty enough. Incidentally, this happens to be a woman men shove, jostle and generally degrade themselves to get introduced to. So yes, there is hope for beauty pageant rejects and absolutely no security for the prom queens.

Which brings us to the second thing. Beautiful women are friggin' insecure about their looks, man. And again, no, not in a does-my-ass-look-big-in-this kind of way. They obsess over the tiniest stretch-mark, the smallest hint of a pimple, the teeniest stray eyebrow hair and the eensiest sign of cellulite. In other words, the million little things that make regular women go "Ugh" and move on, haunt their nightmares and stunt them as people. They don't wear short skirts, they wear their hair strategically and they gasp at the thought of wearing a bikini to the beach. God, I know some who refuse to get busy with the lights on. Because they're afraid that people (mostly men) will see, judge and not like what they see.

Me, I'd like to give the male of the species a little more credit than that. I'd like to believe that our imperfections are more evident to us than them. I'd like to think that when faced with a semi-clad woman, most men have other things on their mind than whether her legs are perfectly waxed or not. And I'd like to pray that while we may get dumped for not being pretty enough, may we never be dumped for not being perfect. Amen?

28

2009-09-18T20:19:00.004+05:30

So the past two days have been spent wallowing in an endless pit of self-pity. And as if that wasn't bad enough, I was telling people why I was feeling blue and low and down. Online and offline, whether they cared a little or not at all, I was subjecting people to my endless whining about... well, of all things, turning 28 tomorow.

Yes, I had become that person. I was just short of falling on my knees, clutching at my collar and tearing at my hair howling, "Why God, WHYYYYYYY?"

I was making the mistake all of us make at some point in our lives, which I, of course, happen to make at regular intervals. I was comparing my life to a set standard of what's acceptable and what isn't. I was remembering all the people who were 28 when I was 6, remembering how grown-up, settled down and sorted they seemed to me. I was thinking of all the people I know in their 30s, how they used to be in their 20s. And I was thinking of all the people I know now, who're in their 20s, who seem so very accomplished and successful and all of whom seem to know where they're headed.

I don't know where I'm headed. I don't know if I'll ever do anything worthwhile. I don't when or if I'll get married. I don't know where I'll be living this time next year, if I'll be in the same job or even the same profession. I don't know if I'll be a resounding success or a colossal failure. And that's scary - this feeling of being unmoored and free on the proverbial sea of possibilities is a terrifying prospect for someone who prefers the stability of land.

And then, I remembered something my dad had told me: that none of us know what's going to happen in life and that's a good thing. What would be the point, he'd said, if we knew every single accident, incident and trifle that would happen to us? No, the joy of living lies in its unexpectedness, in that glorious ignorance of what's waiting around the corner - the love of your life or a stranger with a knife.

None of us know what will happen and more importantly for how long it will happen to us. Unlike the plastic capped medicine bottles that have become our solace against the world, we don't know our exact expiry dates. Which makes it all the more important that we stop wasting moments of boredom on 'oh-how-I-wish' and 'if-I-had-only' and 'what's-going-to-happen-to-me?'

Which is what I'm going to do. Come midnight and I will have a drink in my hand, a smile on my face and a life. I think I could do much worse.

Imitation. Flattery. Lawsuit.

2009-09-14T10:55:00.000+05:30

"Vimes smiled. Someone was trying to kill him, and that made him feel more alive than he had done for days."

- Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms

Ok, so it's not quite that dramatic. Nobody's trying to kill me. As such.

But last weekend was a shitfilledcrapholefullofdeathgas. All of last week I was down with fever that the doctor assured me could be malaria. I had to go get jabbed in the arm twice - first to see if it's malaria, then to make sure it's not malaria. In the course of lying in bed, sweating and thinking delusional, manic-depressive thoughts, I declined chocolate cake, tandoori chicken and free alcohol. Yes, they're ice skating down in Hell right now.

Despite all this wonderfulness, the reason I'm full of cheer is this:

This proves that all is indeed right with the world.

Sumana B. Jayanth, whoever you are, wherever you are, thank you. You have brought a ray of sunshine to my otherwise purposeless, bland, advertising life. Hamare khayal kitne milte-julte hain na? It's like we're soul sisters... or even the same person. The person who wrote this two years ago, in fact. But you already knew that, dintcha, you big fancy journalist you? What you don't know is that as of today morning I've mailed your editor, a Mr. Ramakrishna. You might be hearing from him soon. God knows, both of you will be hearing from me. Or my legal counsel. Whoever is first able to tear their eyes away from 'your' fantastic piece of work...

Hmpf.

2009-09-06T17:23:00.001+05:30

Today was the kind of day you would want to spend curled up in bed with a good book and / or a good man.

I have spent it curled up in bed with a fever.

So it's official. Life has no sense of fair play whatsoever.