Be like a duck, my mother used to tell me. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.
– Michael Caine
God, am I paddling.
Archive for October, 2009
Dont get me wrong. I can drive. Theoretically speaking. I hold a valid license that allows me control of a four wheeler on any Indian road. The fact of the matter is that I dont drive. The only time I dared try to reverse our Noddy yellow Zen out of our narrow compound onto the road, I managed to smash a rear light of said Zen, the front lights of our Ikon which was parked behind the Zen, and completely managed to crumple my driving confidence which has never since recovered from the brutal blow. In a public situation. Given that the husband who was looking on, had gritted his teeth to a fine powder and the male onlookers around were rolling around on the compound tiling in various stages of choke-laughter mirth. I skulked around under the cover of dark for the next few days when I wanted to leave the house. The attempts to teach me to drive have been numerous. The Bangalore SIL, who is a damn persistent and brave driver, took up the challenge one summer vacation while she was here in Bombay. ABC, she told me, are the rudiments to driving. Accelerator, Brake and Clutch. She pointed out said pedals to me. Even marked them with stickers. Informed me about the gears. I know I replied meekly, and wondered how I would deal with a truck racing towards me at the speed of light if I forgot where the damn B of the ABC was. After a few sessions of training where we went through many back roads and lost our way endless times, she declared me a lost cause. “She knows how to drive. But she is scared of God knows what.’ What God knew was that I was terrified of generally being at the wheel. It is an immense responsibility. It would make me the designated driver everytime the husband and I went out and the husband downed one too many for the road. The husband snarled disgustedly, “She doesnt want to make the effort to drive.” He knows me so well. He knows me for 20 years now. Its easier sitting at the back of the car, enjoying the music and chatting on the phone than dodging random cyclists planted by the CIA to suddenly swerve across the road just when you decide to check your lipstick in the rear view mirror.
Now, the news tells me I can drive my car via the Iphone. German Researchers have thought this up. There is even a clip on You Tube I am told. The car can be driven without a driver. I presume this application would be ideal for some of them sturdily built German engineering type cars which curve smoothly on them German Autobahns. I can just see me driving via Iphone on Mumbai’s roads. We need to get our animals and general public off the roads to start with. And maybe the rest of the traffic.
Like James Bond the article says. I kind of like the thought of that. I like it better if they tell me they will put Daniel Craig on the seat next to me and he will drive the car for me. Or whatever. I can do the driving via the phone and be free to concentrate on making interesting er.. conversation with Mr Craig. You know. except for when a cow crosses into my Iphone application path I need to shoo it out of the way, by undignified honking and yelling, for which I am sure the developers will develop some Iphone activated honking and yelling leaving me to be soigne and composed. One is supposed to steer the car by looking at the Iphone screen. Would oncoming traffic show up on said screen? And rabid cockroach like autorickshaws whose mortal duty having being cast onto this earth as road vermin, is to terrify every new driver by overtaking from the left, and then cutting across without warning to take a right turn? Would they show on the screen. And the policeman standing in the shade of that tree just after the signal waiting to pounce on the first cars that roar off before the signal can turn green? Will he show up? Will the Iphone allow me to virtually slip a 50 buck note into his palm? While the programme developers figure that one out, I’m going to find me a car I can remote drive. Preferably of German make. The car would understand the subtext and the hidden isms of the programme better.
Staying in a highrise with three lifts, of which two are perennially out of service, or if in service, two are perpetually being held hostage on floor 11 of our tower, the lift situation does get rather tricky during rush hours, aka morning and evenings.
The morning is when one waits and presses the buzzer going down with the misplaced notion that more frequent pressing of said buzzer will have one lift glide to a miraculous stop at ones floor. But no. Life has other plans, which does not take into account a six year old being dragged unwillingly to school and makes one wait interminably in the lobby, giving said six year old ample escape opportunities to run back into the house and slam the door shut, and climb up and latch the door to prevent fanatical parents from hauling him off to said font of knowledge and education. So one waits. And presses the up and down call buttons now. Frequently. One make desultory comments about how someone has kept the lift on hold for ten minutes on the 18th floor, and yes, that said lift is finally moving down, so maybe it will deign to stop on our floor. We wait with bated breath, as the lift moves down, slowly, slowly, hanging on to the collective offspring of our egg and sperm with a death grip, and it stops. We throw ourselves into said lift, only to leap back in horror as a Hound of Baskerville, with same drop dead red eyes at level with yours truly, jowls all aflutter and two men straining at the leash to restrain said hound from going after the child who has already taken himself out of the lift at a speed which if nurtured by a proper track coach could guarantee him a spot in track and field events of international importance.
All shaken, we wait for the next lift to meander our way, and after much collective button pressing and praying, during which I swear the child grows a foot, and the spouse gets a five oclock stubble, never mind he’d emerged from the home with Gilette smooth skin, a lift stops at our floor. Only, it is going up. And two irate workmen, complain bitterly about people who randomly press up and down buttons and make the lift stop at every floor, while we immediately adopt collective deafness.
At this point it has been 15 minutes since we stepped out of the house, and we almost think of starting the long trudge down via the stairway, when a lift finally condescends to stop and open for us. And heavens, it also happens to be going down. It also has four very serious residents accumulated from various floors, who have their laptops, briefcases and such accoutrements to a professional life hanging off their persons. The child will attempt to draw them out into random conversation, given that he considers it his godgiven duty to ensure no lull in conversation, any place, any time. Of which, two will respond to him cheerily, and two will not, which will have yours truly shoot dagger looks at said rude people, regardless of whether said rudeness could be ascribed to momentary deafness, immediate due payments of EMIs, or lack of morning bowel movement. Of course, the adults will smile a small tight smile and nod at each other, and make a grand show of moving around to create a space enough for all the folks wanting to get into the lift to do so. By the time the ground floor is reached, I need to be carried out on a stretcher having passed out from the fumes of aftershave and perfume all congealed into an assault of masculine, sensual olfactory overload.
I return home in the afternoon. I generally get a lift to myself. Sometimes, our building complex being home to minor television and film personalities, I find a sudden hush descending the building lobby where the watchmen and assorted drivers are normally engaging in hectic debates peppered with choice amicable expletives being used to add emphasis to whatever points they might be making. I know, by the immediate collective glance that goes past my divine presence and focusses on a spot directly behind me, that a celebrity presence is making an entry. And given the likelihood that I am likely to now share a lift with said celebrity presence, I get a little unnerved. Because it is very difficult. Do you smile politely as a fellow resident? What if they look away or refuse to acknowlegde your smile. Makes you feel like the pigeon poop on a statue. Happened to me one momentous lift trip when I smiled broadly at a 20th floor resident, who is tall, slim, impeccable and supposedly a popular television actress. She, without a momentary change of expression, turned to look intently at the ceiling of said lift. I had a Mother Earth Swallow Me Now moment, and busied myself with my phone. Some television celebrities are considerate enough not to put you in such a spot. They refuse to share a lift. They wait until they get a lift all to themselves, leaving me sniffing my underarms wondering whether its the BO that did it.
And of course, there are some nice ones. Who actually are pretty regular. Like the tall guy from the 11th floor, who always makes it a point to make polite conversation, or India’s ex-best loved bahu who is so simple you could miss her in a flash if you didnt look at her face, and think, hey, she looks familiar and ask her if you’ve met her before.
And there are other residents. Some of whom you do know, so you can carry out a casual conversation while you wait for a lift, and while in said lift. Some whom you dont know, but who are familiar, so you smile at and are excruiatingly polite with. And ask what floor they will go to if you happen to be near the controls rather than have them stretch themselves across your person to reach the buttons. And make neutral conversation about the Mumbai weather which is so wonderfully hot every single day of the year, that it remains a guaranteed conversation starter.
And there are some who regard themselves bubblewrapped with invisi-wrap from contaminants like fellow lift travellers and keep a painstaking five foot distance between yours truly and selves, and give you a truly indepth demonstration of the phrase Personal Space, when entering said lift. And keep a studiedly neutral gaze and pained pinched expression of permanent bad smell under their nose which prompts you to look at them like Prize Exhibit A and wonder how they manage such neutrality, when you are the kind who bounds up like a puppy picking up random conversation with any random lift sharer.
Sharing a lift in the evenings is rather a lesson in the need to carry deodorant in Mumbai’s muggy weather. And then the last point of this article. There are some folk I absolutely refuse to share a lift with. And they know who they are. Purple faces and all.
This from the recent birthday party. 
I am now the mom of a six year old….
Picked this up from Sue. This is the kind of post I have been thinking about for a while now and mulling over in my mind. I’ve been through many opinion shifts, through my twenties and now my thirties. And a lot of the opinions I held earlier are now completely reversed. For instance, sleeping in late. No longer do I need to snore till its time for lunch on a weekend. I’m up with the lark and ruining everyone else’s sleep with it. Let me list out the various opinions I’ve held and have now changed, and then dig me into a hole and pull it in over me. Growing older does make you realise your mother was always right, but dont tell her I said so. And yes, I am so wearing clean undies everyday.
1] Sarees are for aunties. Since I am now officially well into aunty territory, I’m making my peace with sarees. I wore a saree thrice in this year, which by itself is a world record deserving of band bajaa and Guiness Book representatives interviewing me. I think by the time I reach Daadi stage I should get used to wearing them, without pinning my skin to my shoulder pleats.
2] Fitted tops are it. That was when I was pre baby and with hairpin curves. And a stomach so flat you could spin a coin on it. Not anymore. Said coin will get enveloped in folds of jelly like flab. Now all the fittedness does is emphasise every spare mm of flab hanging around aimlessly, and making you look like the Michelin man. I now look for strategic concealment and enhancement. I dress sensibly.
3] Chipped nail polish is the end of the world. As is a pimple. Now I know it is not. Terrorists could come via a fishing boat and walk into your life, and shoot you or your loved ones dead. Your entire life as you know it could get completely changed in a second. Chipped nail polish? Is totally irrelevant.
4] Mamma is such a know it all. Well, I am now a mamma, and I know it all. Someone please tell my son that.
5] Bad Boys on Bikes are cool. Give me my safe, stolid spouse anyday. I need the comfort of knowing that no matter what, I can depend on my man, and I wont be the one signing bail bonds to get him out when he injures innocent folk overspeeding on that cool bike. And Bikes are so not cool anymore. I need the airconditioned comfort of a chauffeur driven car, the bike seat is too tiny to accommodate my lard.
6] Alcohol. I needed a drink or two to get happy and in a party mood. Now I dont party. I stay as happy as I can without alcohol. Been four years now, am off the intoxicants and I think my body thanks me for it. I have seen enough women at parties drunk out of their senses, making total spectacles of themselves, swaying like ships in a storm, mammaries falling out of low cut tops, retching randomly on dance floors. I’m better not being the life of the party.
7] Anti wrinkle creams are for old ladies. The dressing table drawer is crammed with said creams. And I am so not an old lady yet.
8] Older women who ogle younger men are so pathetic. Err. I’m pathetic. I call it appreciating beauty.
9] A great evening out is dancing the night away at a packed loud discotheque. Err. My knees just gave way the other day. My eardrums dont take well to high decibel levels. I’d rather just stay at home with the spouse and the child and order in takeaway.
10] And finally, 40 is waaaay old. Its two years away from where I stand right now, and I am no way old.
Seriously though, serious things I have changed my opinion about.
1] Education: It is alright if you dont have great degrees to back you up. If you are literate and enterprising, the world is your oyster. And even if it isnt, enjoy the ride.
2]Junk food: It is not okay to overdose on processed food, snacks and junk food. Keep your system clean. Eat healthy. And your body will thank you for it.
3] Being nice to people no matter what: Sometimes you just have to be nasty. And it is okay if you get tagged a bitch. Its better than having feet wiped all over you.
4] Getting things done my way: It isnt important. What is important is getting things done any which way.
5] Saying sorry: It doesnt make me less of a person. I’m sad it took me so long to realise it.
6] The world doesnt revolve around me: Though I might try hard to convince you it does. It now actually revolves around my son.
7] Fat melts itself: I know now that fat hangs on for dear life and needs commando tactics to be employed in order to get it to let go from your skin layers.
8]Jewellery: I hated wearing jewellery. Now I’m a walking jewellery shop. Ageing does strange things to you. You need add ons to make yourself look better.
9] Being truthful: Sometimes you need to say a white lie to keep people sane.
10] Status Symbols: I thought they were hollow, pretentious and wannabe. I scoffed at them. I wore my export surplus with pride. I marched down fashion street in search of bargains. But I now shamelessly hanker after a LV monogramme Alma. I put my diamonds on. I wear labels. Yeah, well okay. I’ve become a hollow, pretentious, wannabe.
…is that weight moves off top to bottom. Therefore, while all the fat has run off to the land where dissolved fat goes, from my cheeks, the fat on the butt is still to get the memorandum from the brain that their transfer orders have arrived, and theyve to pack their holdalls and get a move on it. Therefore I am walking around looking like the living dead, half tempted to do a Marlon Brando and stick some socks into my jowls. Maybe I could patent the mumbling too.
Also, the lung area dissolves. Mind you, the word is dissolves. You feel the fat deposits melt away and drain out of your body, and voila. Where you had mammaries before, there you have fried eggs on nails. Therefore, the bras which needed you to breathe in deep before hooking now feel like you’ve put in Cotton Balls into socks. All your bravado about having accessories unto themselves dissolves as well and you realise the need to make up your face prettily because now folks will actually be looking at you eye to eye.
Clothes which you patted yourself into are now easily slide into-able. Which cuts out around five minutes of your morning routine which consisted of take out outfit, struggle to get into it, fail miserably, or get into and figure out the number of lumps and bumps sticking out at odd angles could get you arrested for being a public eyesore, then rinse repeat the dress up process with three to four different tops, until you give up and wear a guaranteed super duper triple loose fit top which was originally conceived as a circus tent, which also would allow me to roam around unhindered in Taliban infested areas, being in such vibrant and noticeable colours like Black, Black and Black. Getting into clothes at first shot is so not on. I miss my hopping tantrums of ‘Nothing fits me, I need to shop’, which had the hubby raise sardonic eyebrow and say, “Maybe you need to exercise.” He is a very brave man. Yes, I agree. He is the kind of man you would trust to come between you and a raging bull and have said raging bull back down and turn tail and run. He is a man who pulls no punches when asked “Does this make me look fat?” The guaranteed answer was always,”If you are fat, you will look fat.” Tell me, does that not by itself guarantee him an Ashoka Chakra for bravery kind of award. Now of course, when the clothes slide on with relative ease, he says nothing. Nothing at all when I ask him the blighted question. A little reinforcement would be nice, I say. He thinks it will give me a fat head.
Then there is the issue of expecting not to fit into tight spaces and turn oneself sideways to sidle in, much to the amusement of onlookers. And then realising there was enough leeway for the hips to pass through without getting embarassingly stuck, and need help in being extricated aka, a heave ho from a kind onlooker or a push from behind from an unkind one.
The best problem I really am looking forward to is the one that makes me lose the invisibility cloak that draped me with the weight. Anyone have that too? Folks stop noticing you when you have a little extra kilos on your corpus collossus. In queues, at shop counters, in crowded situations. You get pushed back, you get ignored, you get delayed service. You get very very angry. You have to yell and yell to make yourself heard. And then you become the angry, fat old person, constantly muttering to herself, and swinging her shopping bag at unsuspecting passersby. Getting back in shape gets you out of invisibility zone. And that, I could definitely do with.
Thirtysixandcounting was not the original. The original was thirtysomething on a hosting platform called blogsource. Blogsource, of course, decided to give up its virtual ghost and directed me to something called Live Digital. Where I promptly transferred the entire thirtysomething blog, which then sucked up the entire archives of thirtysomething and converted it into something I didnt want to be part of. I mourned. God I mourned. I cried copious tears mourning all the posts that had disappeared into the world of junk emails and deleted trash. And then I squared my shoulders and began another blog. Thirtysixandcounting I called it, because thirtysomething had already been taken at wordpress. And I was thirtysix now. Not the thirtythree I was when I began thirtysomething. I had more candles on my cake. More lines on my face. And more inches on my waist. More shopping related angst to whine about.
Here I am, 300 posts down and wondering if I should quit while I still havent recycled all my material. I must celebrate this milestone the best way I can. This calls for a full out shopping spree, which includes the running into stores on discount and diving headfirst into cartons with the discount stuff piled in emerging only for air or when I finally find the right size. Yup, its my kind of festive season right now with the shops on full festive sales blaze, and infinite mirchi lights twinkling around fascia and disconcertening me with the halo effect (yup, all ye considering LASIK, bewarned that lights in the night will be halo like and god help you if you plan to drive), leading me to rush in and pick up stuff which is far far from the size I need, which will then lead to a return trip to exchange said item of clothing, and because I happen to spot a something that is just so very cute (Yes, I find plain round necked full sleeved black tees cute, and cannot resist them, at last count had 12 of them), pick up said cute item too. I will contribute to the booming economy and hope that the booming economy contributes to me too.
It is Dhanteras today, and by norms I should be out there buying metal. Of the precious kind. But the mater has been very generous this year and I have enough precious metal to last me a couple of lifetimes and absolutely no urge for any more. I’m more a rock and ice kind of gal. You know, those compressed carbon variety that has the spouse develop nervous tics and selective deafness whenever the TVC about perpetual love and such like stone being forever comes on. The only time I received the stones which are forever was when the stomach was all bloated out with nine month old foetus kicking hard at the distended walls of the uterus and all I could think of was when o when would I be able to last a couple of hours without the bladder bursting. Of course, a few days later, the foetus was out breathing air and screaming bleddy murder, and ensuring that I would long for the days when I could sleep for an eight hour stretch without being woken up by sharp shrill cries signaling hunger, discomfort due to potty/su su or general angst at seeing me finally drift into REM sleep, sleep I signed off all rights too since the august stomach cutting day. I did suggest to the husband that a small piece of pressurised carbon be picked up in honour of said Dhanteras and threw in the 300 posts milestone with it. I dont think he quite saw the point. I think I’ll settle for the spoons I decided on yesterday. And ensure these are inscribed with my full name. Initials included.
The SIL has a Very Good Plan. Let me add here, that she is a Very Sensible Person. She picks up a gold coin every Akshaya Tritiya and Dhanteras. By the time her daughter is of marriageable age, she will have the equivalent of Fort Knox worth of gold coins to be melted down and converted into the current in vogue designs for the daughter. All ye mothers who buy the jewellery you like, please be warned that your daughters are solemnly sworn to hate your collection. Therefore you will need to melt it all down and remake them into designs which are incredibly impractical, and therefore tis makes sense not to buy finished jewellery but instead gold coins which can later be made into designs approved by said daughters, which is if, going by current stage in fashion preferences, they dont decide to have a goth black wedding, with silver multiple piercings in unmentionable body parts. In which case silver is currently at Rs 28,000 for a kg. So they can stock up the silver bars.
Mothers of daughters are supposed to be practical about jewellery. Unlike me. Who is more likely to take the amount of money which would buy me a gold coin and run into shops to buy shoes and bags. I am Not A Sensible Person. I dont even have the wardrobe space necessary for any more bags and shoes and am rapidly encroaching the spouse and the child’s wardrobes for dumping space. Maybe I need to become a Very Sensible Person, and first create more wardrobe space.
I have a son. Thankfully. Men arent supposed to be fond of gold jewellery. And no, I’m hoping the child doesnt take Bappi Lahiri as a role model. Coming back to gold, the current rate is Rs 16,000 for 10 grams. I rather pick up a good bag. It could be a gold bag. Would get more use out of it. And it would be eye blindingly bling enough too. Ah well, given the current state of the wallet and bank account, I’m so sticking to my spoons.
Thanks for reading me through these 300 posts.
My lights have still to be put up. My curtains still have to be changed. My raddi still to be given to the raddi wallah. My Diwali clothes still to be bought. I know, I know. I am the queen of lists and planning. And the chambermaid of execution.
Yes, yes, it is so not feeling like Diwali this year. It is Dhanteras tomorrow. The day one usually sashayed to the goldsmith and picked up some random bauble for shagun. You know. You HAD to buy gold or utensils on Dhanteras. This year I think I’m buying a spoon set. I need spoons. Really do. Cross my heart. I have spoons of such odd sizes and shapes that when company comes across I need to pray that I find tableware of matching design and proportions in quantities appropriate to the company numbers. Or put out illmatched spoons and forks and pray they mate in happily eccentric fashion and create babies who do. It is a mystery, as to where pairs of flatware disappear. Probably to the same land single socks in a spin cycle get teleported to. Somewhere in the ethers is a land made of forks separated from the spoons they were meant to comport with, and dinner knives which never knew the joys of cutting into edible items being used as they were for more urgent pressing tasks like prising lids of jam tins off, and then being pushed into dark recesses of drawers never to be found again when required for table setting purposes. Therefore I will buy cutlery. Spoons and forks and table knives. And soup spoons. Though, frankly, we never use them. We just guzzle our soup from huge soup mugs that give the casual onlooker the impression of a family sitting down to a convival downing of beer before a quick bite.
I am to be blamed for this state of the cutlery drawer. I am not one to go chasing around folks demanding they replace the good forks and spoons and use the regular ones on a daily basis. I donot even look at the formal stuff, except when guests are expected which is when I begin mentally counting heads and then deciding on a casual buffet system because no way I can pull off the sit down placed dinner with sets of cutlery with key items gone to the land of single socks.
Therefore the Dhanteras shopping list. A 32 piece set of table flatware, with appropriate design that is neither too avant garde nor too fuddy duddy. And I’m getting a lock fitted into the cutlery sideboard. Anyone who touches and subsequently loses said flatware will do so on pain of finding the exact same piece and replace it if said piece goes missing. And that includes dinner guests.
Yes, it is that time of the year again where good housewives all over the country throw their backs out scrubbing and washing and cleaning and ensuring every forlorn dustballed neglected corner of their homes sparkle from spit polish scrubbing and cleaning. Yours truly included. Actually, yours truly is not so much a fan of throwing her back out, but since the elderly relative is borderline OCD on this, she has no choice but to fall in line. Therefore most days running upto Diwali, at any point you ring the bell of the Manral house in the morning or evening, you are bound to find either the elderly relative clambered onto a ladder yelling at all the assorted minions underfoot to hand her duster, soap, broom or whatever essential is requisite to ensure that every speck of imaginary dirt gets chased into the netherworld where dirt chased out by millions of homes doing their Diwali cleaning gets sucked into. Ever read Jerome K Jerome’s Uncle Podger Hangs a Picture? Do so, and you will get my drift.
I imagine an entire cosmos being created of the dirt and junk cleared from homes in the pre Diwali clean up frenzy, somewhere in this nebulous world unwanted lid less jars are mating with single socks to spawn horrific blasphemies which will come back to take over our planet and tie us all up in lycra and stuff us into monster exhibit jars. Arrrrgggghhh.
I hate Diwali cleaning with a passion that only rivals being starved and being forced to wear uncoordinated clothes with totally unsuitable shoes, and not being allowed to put lipstick on. Have I mentioned how the lips look cadaverous without a smidgeon of artificial colouring? I hate any cleaning that requires me to throw buckets of soapy water on floors, risk slipping frantically and landing in undignified star fish belly flop in said soapy water, and then finally at the end of it all find that the damn floors arent look any cleaner than they looked when you started approximately 3 hours and ten kilos heavier before. Which brings me to the moot point of why I participate in the cleaning madness, apart from the mandatory reason of being a good little hausfrau. (Well, nor am I good, nor am I little, but lets keep that our secret, shall we?). The exercise. The exercise. And the sheer exhaustion post the cleaning. Which has every bone in your body beg for forgiveness and promise to show through the skin, rather than be complacent and hide beneath layers of fat and cellulite.
And then there is a positive fallout of Diwali cleaning I am told. Getting rid of the clutter. I am manic about clearing clutter. The elderly relative is equally manic about hoarding. Through the year she has her way. During Diwali cleaning I get mine. Assorted appliance parts which have long been divorced from the rest of the appliance they came as attachments to, old rolls of wires, dented plates and bits and pieces of things not immediately useful but with the potential to be of use in the future. Maybe when we settle in colonies on the moon.
It is interesting how Diwali cleaning has religious sanction which makes it mandatory for a family to clean their house inside out in order to attract, Laxmi, the Goddess of Weath. My house is spit polish clean most days, and Laxmi is a reluctant visitor, even so. None the less, we continue the ritual of cleaning out every corner in the hope that perhaps this might turn out to be Lami’s favoured corner and she just might decide to take up residence there from the many houses all over the country she must visit on Diwali day. We could do with Laxmi taking up long term residency in the Manral house for sure. Its been a bad year Laxmi wise. A bad couple of years.
Our Diwali cleaning normally revolves around the kitchen and the lofts and the balconies. Areas which get sorely neglected in the course of the year. The upper reaches of the kitchen shelves stocked with more utensils in steel that could serve a baraat, sees all them utensils brought down, scrubbed, wipes and stacked right back up to moulder in zen contemplation about the purpose of their lives until theyre disturbed again and rudely dragged down next Diwali. The balconies see some hot action which includes throwing buckets of water at the walls, balancing on step ladders in precariously risky angles, risking life and limb to get at cobwebs where little spiders are going ‘nyah nyah nyah nyah’ at us. Inevitably a couple of falls from ladder do occur leading to much loud cussing and yelling at the brat to not get underfoot even though he might be in the next room peaceful chewing on his Kurkure and watching television and totally unperturbed about his mother yelling at him for things he is not responsible for. (Yes, yes, anything to keep him in one place, and this is not the blog to discuss parenting issues). The walls will be scrubbed. This tones biceps and triceps. And is therefore highly recommended, I can already see perceptible loss of jiggle batwing arms in the one week I’ve been upto Diwali cleaning for a couple of hours everyday. The climbing up and down is good for the calf muscles. The clearing of clutter and junk from the house allows you to be charitable and donate the useful stuff to folks who might need it (do this, dont just throw out stuff into skips or to the kachrawalla),and allows you the space to generate a whole load of new clutter in time for next Diwali so you can do the entire thing once over and continue feeling immensely chuffed with yourself for your philanthropy. And what’s more, it gets you a sparkly clean house you can happily have people over and not cringe when they run a caustic eye over the dustballs playing catch in corners.
And then, come Diwali, you light up the house with all the lights you can lay your hands on. Bring the diyas out, draw rangolis at the door and Laxmi’s feet running into every room of your home, and right to where the safe in the house is, in optimistic hope that she decides to follow the directions laid out for her. And change the soft furnishings. And see your house sparkle and shine and look so very beautiful. And you will feel your heart swell up with pride and you will immediately resolve to keep it sparkling clean with a monthly clean up involving buckets of soapy water, brooms and step ladders. A resolution you will keep the following month and then promptly break. Until next Diwali. Rinse, repeat.
And yes, you can do some blog cleaning too for Diwali. Like this blogger did. What are your Diwali plans?
…you get bold and take out from long years of storage jeans you havent been able to get past your knee since the child was a zygote and try to haul yourself into them, little realising that they were meant for a body that had not see the travails of pregnancy and childbirth and total lack of diligent diet and exercise.
And then, when you realise they have now actually reached a level when they can be pulled up to thigh level from the earlier roadblock which had them at the knees, you pack them away ruefully. You know they are classic and timeless and will never go out of fashion, or so you hope and pray thinking of the kings ransom plus your teeth fillings you forked out to the cashier to buy said pair because it had an Italian couturier duo’s initials on the butt, never mind if the duo have now separated professionally but still make amazing collections and perfumes.
You think hard about how you could probably make yourself fit into said pair, short of slicing off layers of fat from your hips and thighs and come to the very sensible and practical conclusion that the jeans have shrunk in storage and need to be kept hanging on a hanger in the wardrobe and periodically when the cupboard opens to swell to wearable proportions. So you do that. And you decide you will try again the very next day, on a whim, to check whether the pair has expanded sufficiently in order to contain your thunder thighs comfortably and realise that no, air molecules havent entered the warp and the weft of said garment in order to render it wearable. You are convinced this is a conspiracy to deprive you of the pleasure of wearing said pair of denims and try yet again to twist self, aka Sridevi of Nagina, in snake woman like fashion into pair. One manages by sheer dint of will to get the pair up to the waist level but cannot still get the buttons and the zip to come together. But one knows that there is absolutely no danger of said pair falling off one’s hips, and one needs to run out on an errand almost immediately and is too exhausted to contemplate wriggling out the very instant one has got into pair. Therefore one pulls on a long dark thick top. One that ends at mid thigh level. And sashays out of the house. Pretty chuffed with self and praying that the wind doesnt get into a fury.
Am seriously thinking inserts would do the trick here. And tunic tops.
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