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Archive for March, 2008
And so it came to pass yesterday that I had to make an appearance at a party celebrating a birthday. And the day had been long and wearisome. Beginning at 6 am, with me shuttling distances that could earn me frequent flier miles to the moon should I put them down on paper and present it to authorities who might consider the same, if they exist. Naturally, by the time one made a grand entrance at said birthday party, one could be found lolling on the wonderful garden wrought iron furniture, glass of beverage in hand, snoring away oblivious to the world. But such bliss was not to be. Will bore the pants off you about the details of the party on the other blog, since that is the kiddy blog. But here, will gasp in awe at the visions of perfection that unravelled themselves before me, making me sink further and further into a corner, until I realised I was on the edge of the roof and couldnt obliterate self any further. This being terrace party.
To start with was the hostess, ferociously fit and toned with not a square centimeter of spare fat anywhere on her body. Perfectly made up face that comes from years of knowing how to do so with professional expertise, and a beautiful face it is to start with. She was impeccable, organised and in complete command of a situation which had over 75 riot act candidate kids in her absolutely impeccably done up home, a situation which would have had me popping Valium by the bucket loads till my eyes rolled.
Summery white casual chic seemed to be the norm, paired with diamonds that were bigger than your irises. Diamonds were everywhere, on armbands, on finger rings, on earrings, rocks that had someone conducted a dacoity on said party would be the GDP of a small nation. Acutely conscious of my store bought ones, with miniscule size and non existent caratage, I consoled myself with the fact that I could be seen with no bling flashing me into the background. Then there were the perfect pedicures and manicures, in matte pink, fire engine red, coral, even orange for one strange soul. Hair streaked violently and gone mad after Holi into a mish mash of wierd colours. Shoes were wedgeheels. Braided wedges, in floral prints, and gold and copper accents. Yes, the summer is truly on us. Florals and whites were the theme du jour. And linen. And some brave ones, who by the sheer power of knowing that they were themselves came in dressed in casual capris and shirts, and flip flops, albeit with the Gucci sling bags, and the Omega watches.
The faces were done to perfection, and these women never sweat. What is the secret, pray tell, are they hiding little pieces of ice in their pant pockets, not likely, everything fits like second skin. Here was I sweating buckets like a fire hydrant exploding, and mopping self up in ungainly manner, knowing that carefully applied powder and base had gone the way of my good intentions. The eyeliner had found its way to corners of my face where nature and my shaky hand never intended it to be. And the stilletoes were dispensed off once I realised that chasing a four year old on a terrace venue requires sterner stuff like ballerinas, and called for the spare pair that always lies in the car.
Surely these visions of perfection had spent the day at the parlour getting hair straightened and styled, make up applied professionally, hair depilated from every surface revealed, face kneaded to flawless perfection, and fingers and toes primped and painted. Surely, they had spent the better part of a couple of days ruminating on which accessories to wear and which bag would go with which shoes, unlike yours truly who slung along everyday workbag, for lack of time and inclination to change bag to chuffed party type clutch.
And they had definitely not applied their makeup in the car, between speedbreakers and signals, resulting in that wierd left lipliner winging out a little more dramatically than intended. Yes, one consoled oneself, one has become wash and wear in more ways than one.
And the husband didnt notice. Here was I, swishing and swashing my newly chopped to my shoulders mane, which was bouncing in that infernally cutesy way it only does when you get back from the parlour, with half a factory of chemicals and product in it, with wonderful things having been done to it, including tongs, and hot irons and two people holding blowdryers at various angles, while the very serious stylist pretends she’s worth every paise of the two grand you’re going to spend on her, and talks gibberish about layers, and unstructured and volume and texture and deconstructed, and bohemian and more importantly, the wash and wear which you keep telling her one zillion times, so she knows you’re not going to be sitting with your hairdryer and iron every morning while the world is falling apart on you. And which, you know, in your heart of hearts will end up being just what the aunty from the neighbourhood beauty parlour would have given you for 250 bucks. The reason you’ve gone so short is because you’re sick to the gills of the platinum highlights which have gone faded copper thanks to your experiments with truth and henna, and making you look like a placid tabby cat. And to get rid of them, you have been told, you need “To do a global, and then do lowlights and highlights. And this will happen post the hair cut.” Which meant that you would be strapped to the chair for the better part of four hours, which you didnt have in the first place, having left offspring in the reluctant care of the paternal grandmother promising to be back within the hour. “Or else, we could just cut off the highlights….and they’re really looking baaaad,” this with a little shiver, meant to express exactly how repugnant the segment of hair was, lifting offending portion and dropping it with disgust,”and you could grow out your virgin hair,” (I kid you not, virgin hair was the phrase, I had visions of nubile nymphs in white grecoroman togas dancing in my hair), “And come back later for fresh highlights.”
I gently asked for costs. And then having heard the kings ransom I would have paid to do the four hour strapped to the chair version, I opted for the chop chop to the shoulders. And patted myself on the back for a decision, sensibly taken, helped by the public poll conducted on previous post. “Chop it all off, Kiran,” shouted all ye little voices in my head. “You can always grow it back if you dont like the cut.” And it is summer after all. What better reason if you wanted any. And there are always hairbands, and gels and scrunchies and butterfly clips to tie it all back if it is a disaster. Which it isnt. Given the hair I have, I can wash it and leave home without running a comb through it and no one would know the difference. Except the mother. She always knows.
Anyway, you’re taken in by the glib talk and the very effective pr, and the fact that the client roster has celebs who have great hair cuts. Not to mention, they also have a retinue of stylists and hairdressers on 24 hour call, and they probably look great at every public appearance after three hairs of being strapped into chairs, at the mercy of hairstylists.
Coming back to the husband. After around two hours of sashaying with locks left open (I am the sort who always has butterfly clips holding everything off my face at home), and putting my face in his face as often as I could without getting strange looks while he watched his beloved CNBC TV 18, I finally upped the courage and asked him if he liked it, in the strange pet dog pleading way I end up when I feel uncertain about something I have done. Lets say, the tight afro perm was the last time I remember using the same tone of voice. And this was after I had run away to my moms place for two days post the perm, ashamed to show myself in public after the impulse to be permed had been given into, and reality and the mass of frizz had confronted me.
Anyway, I digress. The point being, the man hadnt noticed I had got a good six to eight inches loped off my hair. “You had a haircut?” he asked, quizzically, as he switched off the lights, taking his quilt and stretching himself out with his eyes closed. Like that would be the ideal situation by which to view said haircut.
Of course, this did wonderful things for my morale and self esteem and self image and chuffed at self feeling, and I promptly ran into the bathroom to be calm and zen, and howl my lungs out with the expedient muffler of stuffing the washbasin towel in my mouth. I emerged a wiser and calmer woman. Albeit a red eyed and red nosed one. A woman who expressed her displeasure by maintaining a stony silence and a resolutely turned back through the night.
The moral of the story: The age when the man noticed when I even had my eyebrows done has passed. I can now do what I please with myself, the man will never notice. Do you think tattoos and piercings will get past him?
Having realised that my head is either divesting itself of all its foliage, or turning the said foliage into varying shades of silver and grey, am now debating whether a sleek elfin crop might be just what I need. Anything to cut down periodic maintenance (involving dye brush and chemicals) and not need a comb run through it at regular intervals through the day. And anything that reduces shampooing and conditioning time to two seconds on the morning mayhem run. Yup, I’m a Porsche. I can go from zero to 100 in ten seconds. Two of which should include shampooing and conditioning the mane everyday. Makeup and combing happens in the car. Of course. The driver knows by now that he needs to warn me when approaching a speedbreaker or bear the consequences of eyeliner gone awry.
And since, as usual, I will debate this point with all friends and aquaintances in the real world until they take off their shoes and sprint the minute mile as they see me approaching, will put the proposal to my blogging pals. What say you, shall I visit a scissor happy stylist right now and get shorn?
The husband feels if I need to rid myself of the excess weight, it should be from the rest of the torso, and I am inclined to agree. But then, it is summer. And so damn humid. I wouldnt mind doing a Persis Khambatta had I been sure the scalp was a perfect round, with no ugly indentations.
For the moment, the thought new look is a Meg Ryan, When Harry Met Sally look with heavy duty highlighting in platinum. Radical from the existent superlong layers.
Kindly do vote on this issue. Your vote counts. This is a just and worthy cause.
No, no, you dirty mind you, its not what you’re thinking. Its the face. Every square centimetre of which seems to have suddenly decided to erupt huge white tipped pustules, much like the Himalayan range of snow capped peaks. No, not a nice analogy. The Himalayan peaks are cool and pleasant to the eye. These make me want to get into purdah. And strangely enough, it is only the left side of the face that is so afflicted. And painful. Ever felt the throbbing pain of a humungous pimple gathering up pus and bad things under the dermal layer, and becoming invincible to meagre weapons of assault like Acnil and Clearasil and Retino A and all that I might dare apply to quell its intensity. The left side of the face feels like it is on fire. The child looked at me in the night and screamed in horror, seeing the dotted landscape. The anti pimple daubs are working better than any birth control could ever hope to. The husband is keeping an arm and a leg’s length away from me. Maybe this is the solution of all population problems in our country. Ask all the women of fertile reproductive age to put on pimple cream in spots all over their face.
After all this dotting and daubing of remedies and application of multani mutti face packs exotically called koalin earth and rose water combines in green jars from a company that has made a dame of an environmentally conscious beautician, and peel off enzyme masks from humbler companies with no environment consciousness, just a lot of bottomline consciousness, which is also a very relevant consciousness from the point of view of those employed there, the situation doesnt seem to have got much better. This morning I awoke to find two mounds grinning cheekily at me near the temple, and the biting pain that makes me wonder if the entire face is just falling apart.
I now have visual evidence that not only is my mind still stuck at age 16, my face is too. Never mind the body. Maybe, this is a regression that goes downwards and the body will follow suit. Ofcourse, would kill to get back to the sixteen year old self, which in retrospect was divine, compared with the triple stomached, diagonally challenged hipline and gravity inclined bustline one has been reduced to now.
What could be the explanation for such a furious spate of acne encrustations suddenly afflicting my hitherto clear skin? Them polycystic ovaries could be going haywire on some hormonal overload. That could be one. Am not even going to get myself back to the gynaec, have had enough of three holes being poked into self to drill and cauterise them, only to have them sprout right back again. The second explanation could be the very sad situation of being compelled to travel by public transport, in this muggy weather where sweat is pouring by the gallon down from the forehead and congealing in pools in the sockets under the eyes. But then that begs the question, why this preference for the left half of the face. A simpler explanation might be the side I sleep on. But I sleep on my back, and if I am called into put your arm out and hold me (for the offspring not his progenitor, wouldnt have an arm left in the first place, should it have to carry the weight of his head through the night), I turn to my right.
Anyway, having beaten myself to a pulp trying to find explanations and remedies for this strange affliction that seems to be striking me in my middle years, I have given up. And just trying to find a cure for it. So here I am, sitting in the office with daubs of Lacto Calamine dotted all over the left half of my face. I am nothing, if not shameless. And ultra vain. And yes, the stray dogs were yelping in fear and leaping out of my way as I made my way up here.
If all this fails, might just have to veil that face, and become mysterious and alluring and exotic. And very very scary. Miss Havisham, you think?
Tis been decided. I am off to Bangalore for the summer vacations with the brat to darling sis in law’s home. I get a chance to unwind, the husband gets a much needed break from me and can dig out his tattered and neglected little black book. The brat gets to be with his darling mother hen cousin who takes better care of him than I do. Which means I can hand him over to cousin and snore shamelessly whenever the urge strikes. Keep him in safe custody and sashay off shopping whenever the urge strikes. Which it will undoubtedly strike often.
All ye from Bangalore please do write in on the best places to shop, the must visit spots and the usual touristy stuff I must do. December 2006 was barely there for a few days which passed in a blur of shivering (one hadnt witnessed the Mumbai winter back then and 15 degrees was the Antartic ). This is a big thing for me. An actual out of town trip. Never mind if its without the husband. We need a mini break from each other anyway. We’re getting to toxic closeness levels of make or break.
Which also means I could just about meet up with blogging pals from Bangalore….any takers?
It was a balmy Saturday afternoon. A long lazy lunch had been ingested, digested and the deep afternoon sleep that comes on with the ingestion of too much glutinous stuff in the heat of the day done with. Then the question arose, like it always does. At this point on a weekend. The eternal debate about whether to catch some art and culture at the nearest multiplex or to go out and do what seems to be fast becoming every Indian family’s national weekend recreation, namely go shopping.
For someone who went shopping for a new pair of shoes when the last one refused to be held in place with any amount of self inflicted cellotape, fevicol and emergency ICU services from the local mochi, shopping just because is still a strange concept. To go shopping, when you have enough clothes to last you through size variations ranging from grossly pregnant to skinny as a matchstick (no, of course, I never fitted into any of these, I just bought them on a hope and a prayer and the fact that they were on 50 per cent sale and therefore irresistable.) Therefore, we powdered and went. The place, where else, but Inorbit. It being sneezing distance from the house, and the husband averse to driving on the weekends. And me averse to driving even if a gun were held to my head.
The brat, who by now knows the layout of the entire mall, much better than he knows his alphabet, reached the toy section of megastore and knelt before the shelves in sheer worship of …. rattles…..baby bouncers….prams. And bassinets. Something tells me this child has still to mentally grow out of his diapers.
The husband was furiously trying out tshirts which through a strange fact of the company name being initialised has become an iconic almost obscenely named brand, with strange and stranger slogans scribbled across his chest, which made me wonder what he was advertising for when I was right there next to him, and whether this was a clear message being sent out which I needed to get antennae up about.
Between rounds of chasing the brat through food courts, toy shelves and random aisles, I realised that I had got almost a week’s worth of cardio done, unmindful of the horrific sight I must have definitely inflicted on onlookers with all fat ajiggle. This with them stilletoes on. No, I lie, not stilletoes, with sharp jabbing heels, but nice round toe, box heeled number which allowed me to run at warp speed behind child prone to disappearing behind shelves and display counters, which in context of weekend rush could be quite horrific.
I did the pinch test when I returned home, but the fat seemed quite firmly attached to muscle and no sign of it having dissolved with the unseemly sweat which had spread all over my tshirt. What is it about the weather these days? Sometimes I swear I am dissolving into a pool of lard right in my seat and am amazed to find a solid self when I decide to get up. One doesnt need a sauna in Mumbai these days. Just find yourself a room with windows you can close, and do so. If you dont run out shrieking and steamed to the gills after five minutes, I’ll refund you any money we bet on it. I caught glimpses of perfectly made up, manicured, pedicured and coordinated women also managing angel like children who held onto hands and followed the adults they belonged too like one of my most fervent dreams. With no sweat. Yes, am shamed to admit was sweating like a hydrant in an airconditioned mall. Huge sweat patterns making a design that was a style statement all its own on the back of the Tshirt. Under the armpits, the cloth stuck to skin in a most disgustingly farmhand manner. And the neck and face was dripping sweat that no amount of tissues were mopping up quick enough. I switched hastily to triple absorbent face napkin which then mopped up the melted make up along with the sweat, and tried to kid myself into believing I was looking barefaced and naturally glowing. Until someone tried to sell me oil control foundation as I ran past them.
Almost went into nearest women’s wear store to change out of sweat drenched tshirt into clean and dry clothes, which didnt raise a stink upto the heavens. Perfume and sweat are not an olfactorily potent combination for seduction, I assure you. I swear there were people reeling and collapsing when I entered the confined space of the capsule elevator. The sales people at the sadly bereft perfume counters somersaulted in glee as I passed, certain that here was a candidate who really needed all the stock they had on their counters, but before I could even sniff the white strips they waved enticingly under my nose, I needed to get to the sunglasses section where a three foot nothing little person was happily trying out Armani sunglasses. If nothing, the son inherits his parents’ love for the needless good things in life. He was calmed down only by the purchase of a Lilliput pair of sunglasses which is now a constant fixture on his face.
Which reminds me, its been high time since I bought a pair of new sunglasses. The retro oversized bumble bee style Ford I have sporting is now two years old, and I have another Cavalli aviator lying neglected and spurned in a drawer which I get a reaction from to the metal on my nosebridge, and therefore never wear. What should I buy next? Maybe next weekend… along with some deo, or maybe those sweat gland removal procedures need to be done before any return trip to mall like situations in summer. Before I get hauled up for being an olfactory menace to the surroundings.
It is that time of the year when you have the looming prospect of the summer large before you, and absolutely no immediate plans of possible fruition involving you, the hubby and the child, aboard an aircraft, a train or even damn it, in the car on a long road trip to exotic places, where you can wash the grime accumulated by the year’s stress off. Havent been on a holiday for five years. Since the brat was a foetus. Ever since, we’ve been on holidays which normally involve an entire jamboree of family and two to three carloads of people, which is great fun, but sometimes you yearn not to be woken up at six am because bright and sparkly people in the group want to hotfoot it around dead and ruined forts. One would like to down one’s Breezers without the disapproving gaze and clacking tongue of the one who must not be named. One would like to chill in a pair of shorts and a vest on the beach, without needing to be labelled a crimson, scarlet and purple woman just because one has dared to expose an ankle. In simple language, one would want to be on a holiday with only husband and child for company.
But then the negatives of such a holiday are manifold. For one, there will be no other children around. Which means one will be sole caretaker and entertainment provider to the brat. Which means additionally, that one will actually not be able to down any of them Breezers given that at least one of the party needs to be sober and sane to run around in the circles that is the lot of the person assigned to watch over the mini man. That also means one will be dead to the world and snoring with exhaustion before the husband is done with his rounds of drinks, and therefore in no state of being for any romancing. Which also means that the brat will be sleeping in with us again in the hotel room, and thus prone to wakening at the most inconvenient moments when the bedsheets have been discarded along with the clothes in the hope that gentle snores signal deep sleep. Which also means that, if god forbid, a fever or a bout of food poisoning strikes, I am the only whole and soul left to do the mopping up of vomit from every available surface, while the husband sulks at the prospect of a ruined holiday at the bar. No, no, he’s not the lush this post is making him out to be.
Therefore one is in a right quandary. Dare one suggest an escapade just with the three of us, or do the right honourable thing and invite the legion to join in? Or should one just sulk at home while friends insist on filling you in with the infuriarating details of how they had such a wonderful time on their trip with their infuriatingly well behaved children who sleep on dot, and dont throw tantrums and dont need a second by second supervision.
Ugggghhhh. I need a holiday right now from everyone. Including me.
“People will stare. Make it worth their while.”
Harry Winston.
If this was applied to me, would be checking if the zip on the jeans was undone.
Hurrah. It is official. I am now senile old person to be handed my cane and my senior citizen’s card with much aplomb. This happened when I realised that the world had entered into a conspiracy to write everything, as the Priest of all things funny, Dave Barry, puts it, in Bacteria height letters. Therefore, there I am at supermarket trying to figure out the cost savings on taking big packet of blah blah item from well advertised brand versus big packet of store packed produce, non advertised, and hopefully cheaper, when I realise that I cannot read them damn prices. So I do what any sensible person does in the situation. No, not ask the salesperson for the prices, that would be too easy. I spend half an hour squinting at the labels, holding it at various distances from the eye, if I have my contact lenses in, and taking out the spectacles and bringing them labels right to touching the cornea levels, and then placing them back on the store shelves to find I can read them perfectly when held up by another similarly tried and tested buyer. Therefore, I suggest that companies should now put the price of the damn things in the same height of the font they use to brand the product. Therefore, BINGO is at Rs 10/-. As part of the title graphics. It would save me hours shopping. Have been reduced to sneaking in a magnifying glass which sneakily attaches itself to my wrist as a charm on a bracelet, which I then surreptiously use to check prices when no one is looking. The downside is that store detectives come and stand next to me for the entire time I spend in the store on the alert to pounce on me and haul me into the bin for strange and wierd behaviour.
No, I havent got myself to the opthamologists yet. Give a girl a break. He is bound to cluck cluck and then tell me I need to get a separate pair of reading glasses, which I then need to put on on top of them contact lenses in order to tell the time of the day on my watch. And then I will be truly an old person, peering over the top of my reading glasses, suspiciously at the world, and look at them young uns, living it up, without being bogged down by the pain of having to carry around two pairs of glasses in a handbag already weighed down by spectacle cases, and contact lens case and solution. I suspect a box for them dentures will add to the free floating junk in the bag soon.
The good part is the health warnings that come on all medications and junk food. I cant read them. What I dont know doesnt harm me. Sometimes ignorance of labels doesnt help of course, when I guess read labels and down an emetic instead of the multivitamin. Maybe I really should go to that opthalmologist and stop this vain pretence of being a young girl with no need for a line running through here spectacles. Yes, yes, I have heard of progressive, but am trying to make a point here.
I am now officially old. I can wag my head sagely and say, “When I was young…” without fear. I can say rude things in public and get away with it. I can make bodily sounds and look unmoved and unconcerned about the people passing out in the vicinity. I can be crabbity and crusty and whine shamelessly to the walls.
And I can then sit with the newspaper, also written in bacteria sized letters, and mourn about what is happening to the world today. In my days….
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