Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani

The President of the Happy Club of general layabouts (head office in a coffin shop) is, in true Bollywood tradition started by Salman Khan, a Prem. His girl, in untrue Bollywood tradition, as started by Lakshmi from Julie, is a Jenny. But Jenny is not actually Prem’s girl. He only thinks she is. She is actually in love with a rubber lipped block of wood called, in true Bollywood tradition set by Shah Rukh Khan, Rahul.

To make up for Rubber Lips’ terrible terrible dialogue delivery Prem and Jenny both are stress-stammerers. A nice moment with Sallu-bhai gave the female audience momentary eye candy, given that neither Ranbir Kapoor nor Upen Patel aka Rubber Lips fall into that category. Terribly unfair, given that the male section of the audience was sitting with their tongues hanging to their waists everytime Katrina Kaif waltzed onto screen all perky and bubbly and oh-so-cute. Except for the Tu Jaane Na song, where fire hydrants had to be brought into the theatre to douse overheated brains and other body parts. Which of course, didnt affect me, because I had seized the opportunity to educate the child on the  Grecian pillars and amphitheatres of yore around which the song was picturised on, when all he was interested was the jacket that the Kapoor was wearing.

The film was otherwise set in a nice hillside town which is named after some Wellington one presumes as the sutradhar of the movie, crow shit on back et al, is the statue of a Lord Wellington, who has a real bad attitude after all those years of being a recepient for crow droppings.

Somewhere in the middle of all this confusion is a lot of non veg eating which had me glued to my seat, and mopping the drool off my chin. The scene where the Prem piles his plate with ever carnivorous item available at a buffet almost had me jumping over heads before me and running into the screen. And the sudden appearance of a politician and an out of work don, and a ridiculous final action sequence, which has the bad guys jumping in synchronisation in and out of  a electric pool for no apparent reason, and with no real damage done to them.

And wondering why the Jenny only wore yellow and white through the movie. And why the Peter the Jenny was being forced to marry or bed, looked like an extended version of the yesteryear character actor Lilliput. And how in the most incredible chase sequence, a driver in a Charlie Chaplin get up and a bride in complete wedding gown could manage a complete dress and make up change while still on a motorcycle. And the fact that Jesus, avec lamb et al, driving a pick up, conveniently offers our hero a ride to the nearest church. But these are not questions that are meant to be answered. These are questions that one is not supposed to ask in the first place.

Thankfully, I was saved from voicing these questions aloud to the general theatre going public and marching into the ticket window and demanding my money back, by the fact the child was literally rolling on the floor laughing.

That to me was the paisa vasool value of the movie.

And some newfound respect for Ranbir Kapoor who, despite the awful awful storyline and some truly inane gags, managed to make one actually sit through the entire film, and wait till the end credits roll.

And the next time I want inane comedy, am gonna watch Hot Shots.

Saree stories…

Wearing a saree has not been one of my favourite things to do. For one, it involves draping six yards of fabric around me. Given that the heat and humidity levels in Mumbai are of such infernal levels that hell’s own devils could sit back and feel right at home here, I am normally of the kind of sweatiness that requires a shower bath, after I manage to wrap the said six yards around me. Which, as everyone knows, goes over a petticoat. Which is one more layer of fabric between skin and air. And the little space of waist that is exposed to air is of such horrific spare tyre proportions, that it needs to be wrapped up with the kind of swaddling intensity one reserves for newborns. Seriously though. By the time I am through with draping my saree the first time round I am wrung out with sweat, and the crisp ironing has dissapated into crumpledness. I then look at myself in the mirror and realise that, horrors, I have tied the petticoat with such laxity that a step and the entire contraption could fall to the floor in a public situation of such horrifying embarassment potential that I could never ever recover from it enough to ever make a public appearance beyond my front door. Therefore, the process starts all over again. Undrape, unpin. Tighten petticoat nada. Breathe in. Breathe out. See bare waist in full horror in mirror. Faint. Revive self. Drape saree carefully all over self, carefully avoiding the horrific sight of lumps of flesh hanging over what was once hair pin bends on waistline in reflection. Do the pleats. Stick safety pin into saree. Manage to stick safety pin into finger which begins spouting blood like a geyser. Find blood manages to make its way down the front of the saree which would have come right upfront covering blouse, thereby rendering said saree unwearable until drycleaned, so you scream and do the Rumpelstiltskin hop and jump and stomping dance, until concerned family members outside knock at the door gently and ask if you need help and whether you are alright. You snap at them to leave you alone, and get on with their work, they having already donned pyjama kurtas, of which no pins and draping form part of. You tear off said saree and leave it on the bed in a dejected heap while you rummage through your sadly bare saree collection (five wearable sarees at last count, the rest all given away), and wonder what you could wear which wouldnt need you to change a petticoat. You find one, which is similar in colour to the one you’ve discarded but you cannot find the blouse. You throw out the contents of your entire cupboard and find it hiding behind the winterwear. You then realise that it is in a state of such crumpledness that it could pass for crinkled. And the iron is in the next room. So you pull on a wrap and your dignity, and emerge from the bedroom, blouse in hand to be ironed. Cryptic comments are heard from the living room about how given the time taken to emerge from getting dressed in the same state of deshabille as one had gone in, a bride would beat one in getting ready competitions hands down. One ignores such comments with the disdain they are worthy of, and quickly irons said blouse, and gets back into the bedroom, slamming door shut with appropriate force. One gets back to draping. Drape, drape, drape, pleat, pleat, pleat, pin, pin, pin. Voila, done. One looks at oneself in the mirror and the pleats at the waist have begun somewhere near the right hip bone, and the pleats at the shoulder are of such unequal sizing that random theory comes to mind. You repleat and pin again. The pleats at the pallu defy all theory and form an edge so jagged you tell yourself you will spend the evening holding one end gracefully up so no one notices. The pleats at the waist are now bang at centre, but have decided to stick out in absurd directions like hat hair and you call in the small child to hold them and smoothen them down. Which he does quite effectively, and earnestly. And also yanks off the pin in the process. Creating a bit of a rip down the front.  You yell a bit so that some shelves shake, and the delicate china tumbles over, and repleat and repin the whole shebang, and slip on your shoes. And march out with much lack of grace, when you realise the spouse is staring at your ankles which are on display, like a bad Victorian woman. You look at your reflection in horror. You sit down and bawl, while the child makes consoling noises and the husband places a carefully neutral expression on his face. And you go back into the bedroom and wear a salwar kameez.

What will you be doing tomorrow?

It is 26/11 tomorrow. This time last year Mumbai was under seige. Mumbaikars were living the kind of nightmare that one only imagines happens in action thrillers. But we had no John Rambo, or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis to take on the bad guys. We had police officers. Brave ones, who rushed to tackle the terrorists head on. We had a confused state machinery which did not know what hit them. We waited for the NSG to arrive. We stayed in our homes for three days, not knowing how long the seige would last. Or what would happen to the city. Or worse, if there were more to come. A handful of men held Mumbai hostage for three long days, and all we could do was headcounts and pray.

I began India Helps. All I wanted to do was reach out and help people who needed help. We did manage to do that.

What will I be doing tomorrow? I will be going about my daily routine. I will drop my child at school. I will go into office. I will work like I do everyday. And that to me is the best way I can deal with the anger…I havent broken. Mumbai hasnt broken. We will go on.

Tips, tips, folks have said…

I havent weighed myself in a while and I dont intend to. It is good enough for me that my trousers are hanging off my hips, and the thighs are no long chicken leg on a larger scale. I havent used the measuring tape, for I do know that I havent really whittled down per se, it is good enough for me that I now fit into jeans I had long given up any hopes of getting past my knees. The difference is perceptible. And I say this with absolutely no modesty. I know I have lost weight, and I am not about to preen and pretend to be nonchalant and say, “Really, you think so, No, no, there’s so much fat here still to go.” Yup there is still so much fat still to be whittled off, but I’m liking myself where I am right now. I’m looking slimmer. Fitter. And feeling more energetic and positive. I do need more to go off. But I’m happy with this.

How did this happen? Was it a miracle? Was it a Stomach belt and exerciser? Was it diet? Was it concerted gymming? Was it stapling of the lips? Was it cooking for one’s self? Nope. It all started with a photograph of me clicked during Independence Day. A group photograph. I’m standing with a few friends. And I looked at it. And looked again to find myself in the photograph. I couldnt spot me. Naturally, I couldnt. I was looking for a mental image of a curvaceous moi. And suddenly, whomp, it hit me. I was the fat one in the middle. The curves had gone to pure fat, and no matter which angle I tried to explain it out (unshapely kurta, wearing white, churidar making legs look skinny in comparison to torso), I was just plain overweight. No two ways about it. And all the kidding of self that I had been doing (its PMS, its constipation, its water retention) when it came to struggling into my denims was just that, kidding of the self. It was heartbreaking. I was the invisible fat woman now. No wonder shopkeepers didnt notice me. And salepeople smirked when I picked up stuff that seemed sort of trendy.

How had the fat crept on? Laziness, sheer laziness. And gluttony. I was doing buffet lunches. Eating like it was going out of fashion. Zero housework. Zero exercise. And concealing it all by wearing tops that were progressively becoming like tents. And wearing the loosest trousers in my wardrobe. Of course, I was kidding no one but myself. Everyone around me could see me blimp out, except me. It also didnt help that I have a sweetheart of a husband who values his life, and will never make any incriminatory comments about weight when asked but just dodge sticky questions by non committal grunts or dig nose deep into the Day Trading tips tomes that he devours like some folk devour Playboy.

I had to lose weight. I weighed myself. I was at 62 kgs. For my height, my optimum is 55 to 58 kgs. I had a minor crying attack when I realised my weight at full term when carrying the child was 63. I had been 54 when I conceived. I was not greedy. I didnt want to get to 54 again. That would be expecting a bit too much from a person who loves food, and hates to exercise. But a couple of kilos off would be good. It wasnt just the vanity. It was also the health angle. I do have PCOD. The weight keeps piling on, despite all my attempts to keep it off, and it becomes a vicious cycle. Being overweight also leads to high BP, and cholesterol, and diabetes and heart attacks. All of which is there, ready and waiting to pounce on my, from family history.

I needed a plan. Thankfully, I soon found one. Rujuta Diwekar. Didnt read the book that got Kareena to size zero, and of course, I thought she looked her worst when she hit size zero, but I did chance upon her tips on a website and they all sounded pretty sensible and do-able. Starting with the dont start your day with tea or coffee. So I went through the tips and picked out the ones that suited me. Which were more likely to be tips I stuck with. Not for me the GM and South Beach diets, or Atkins or all the stuff that has worked for so many people, because I couldnt be damned to regulate my food intake according to categories. So here is what I did do:

Start my morning with milk (with two heaped spoons of Bournvita to allow it to get down the gullet)

Completely cut out tea and coffee.  I’ve already cut out alcohol. I dont smoke. I dont drink carbonated beverages.

I rarely eat chocolates or sweets. Maybe occasionally. I just dont get them home. Fried food? That would be another no. 

I’ve also cut down on eating out, and takeaways. Being broke has also helped. I’m less likely to suggest meeting up for lunch to friends. Stuff like pizzas and burgers have given way to frankies and chicken wraps. And are very occasional.

I try to snack every 2 hours on something. Not much. Just a little to keep the hunger pangs from turning me into a feeding machine when I hit proper food. Peanuts. Chana. A fruit.

I eat a very hearty breakfast with two parathas. It keeps me full for a good part of the morning.  I eat a proper lunch and a proper dinner. But lunch is sharp at 1 pm, and dinner by 8pm.

I serve myself only enough to be cupped in the palm of two hands for lunch and one hand for dinner.

I drink a lot of water and liquids like fresh juices, nimbu sharbat, lassi, chaas.  It does make it a bit of a sticky situation when one is stuck in traffic with no restroom in sight, but one rides it out by crossing and uncrossing ones legs till one can hobble into the nearest available rest room.

I dont have junk food. No snacks. No 4 pm grazing on bhujia, mixture and such like. And frankly, I dont have the urge to do so anymore. If I’m really desperate, I will grab a handful of dry fruits.

And no, I havent given up white rice. I am a rice eater and will be one till my dying day. Still eat rice twice a day. Even at night. Post 7 pm. Blasphemy. But I limit my quantity. I’ve cut out white bread completely though.

I try to keep myself busy through the day, and not just veg out with Google or a book. I try to maximise trips into the kitchen and to the bedroom just to add up steps through my day.

And finally, and the most important.  I try to walk for an hour every single day. Not a fast walk that puts me out of breath, but a relaxed gentle pace, gossiping with friends, and enjoying the evening breeze. It destresses me and releases a lot of feel good hormones.

This is all I do. No gymming. No diet foods. No exercise machines. It has worked for me. Now all I have to do is stick to the routine. I dont think it is a diet I’m on. It’s plain simple commonsense. Eat less than you expend. Eat healthy. Cut out junk food. And be active.

Tell me what you do to keep your weight in control.

 

How can you raise your hand on a woman?

Happened close enough to me to disturb me. A regular fight got ugly and the man in question started pushing the woman around. She screams. He threatens to throw her off the balcony. I get to know of this the next morning. My stomach turns. My first words to her are dont you take the first slap, because thats when the hitting will never stop. I dont know their relationship. I dont know the issues behind the fight. But I do know that I have zero respect for the man in question. I wouldnt put it past him. I do also know that a woman has to stand up for herself. A woman has to be strong enough to not let a man get such total control over her that he assumes she is okay with being a punching bag. A woman has to be intimidating enough that he never ever has the courage to raise a hand. A woman should shout for help and not cower in her room, and let the abuse continue behind closed doors.

If a man hits you once, he is going to do it again. And again. And again. And it will only get worse. I have no first hand experience of this. The spouse is a gentleman. He will yell, scream, shake the earth, but not raise his hand. Ever. Not even in jest. It sometimes is amazing how the same genetic pool can create such disparate personalities.

Then I read about Rihanna’s album and her song written after her boyfriend Chris Brown assaulted her, and my stomach turns some more. If a woman like Rihanna, who is the epitome of gorgeous and successful can get assaulted, how safe is the average woman from the average guy she is in a relationship with. As safe as Aishwarya was when she was in a relationship with Salman Khan, I guess. But thats old history. I would like to think the man has changed. I havent read of any assaults with the newly recent ex-girlfriend.

My earliest lesson on how to deal with domestic violence came at home. My parents were in a gruesome argument. My dad, tall, broadshouldered, handsome and genial at the best of times had become a stranger. And in the midst of the fight, he smacked my mother hard on the face. The next moment is something that has stayed with me all my life. My tiny, wren like mother, stood on her toes, eyes blazing, and smacked my father right back across his face. Needless to say, he never, ever dared lift his hand again. No matter how terrible the fight.

Dont take the first slap. Dont stay back in the relationship. A man who hits is not a man to be trusted. Dont expect him to change. Dont explain away his behaviour by drink, or depression or a mood swing. Just get away. And save yourself. You need to respect yourself before expecting him to respect you.

Lists. And the making of.

A confession at the outset. I am a very very scattered and disorganised person. I am the kind of person when managerial teams are picked, who is deputed to be the ideator and left at that. And a team of efficient micro managing types need to be rolled in to iron out all the details of my extravagant ideating. I am the queen of ideating, I need my worker bees to do the implementation. Unfortunately, God forgot to assign me some when he sent me down, and I end up doing all my own implementation. Which is not a good thing for the task at hand. It always gets done slipshod or incomplete, or I manage to goof up big time.

For those who believe in the maxim God Lies in the Details, well, I’m on the ungodly side of the divide.

Which is why I turned to list making in the vain fervent hope that I would be able to get through my day without needing to be shot in the head by the end of it by forgetting essential tasks, i.e,  Brush, rinse repeat, before stepping out of the house, and then wondering why folks roll their eyes, keel over and pass out when I try to make scintillating conversation in confined spaces.  Let me not digress. I end my day with my list book. Currently, I have nicked a Hulk pocket book from the child’s stash. It is pretty reassuring to know the Hulk, grim, green and with torn pants and an elastic waist that doesnt split as he morphs from Edward Norton into Hulk is the repository of all my tasks for the day.  Dare anyone peep inside and check how much I actually manage to cross off by the end of the day?

I sit in my armchair at the end of each day and tick off what I actually manage to achieve through the day from my list of things to do. Then I carry over the incomplete items into the list for the next day. Thankfully, having a bath and brushing one’s teeth rarely make it into the carryforward list. Eating, of course, never does. What does make it to the carryforward list is generally the stuff marked Immediate and Urgent. Like deadlined yesterday features that need to be submitted before commissioning editors have hyperventilation attacks and need to be calmed by the immediate strapping on of oxygen marks and hypodermic bearing health care personnel. Like bills which have to be paid immediately or we will be reduced to having dinner by candlelight. I’m super efficient. The mails that need to replied to pronto, form the third category of the must do carry overs.

Seriously though, I am a great fan of making lists. I make lists for everything. Lists of groceries to be bought. Lists of clothes and stuff to be packed when I am going out of town. Lists of phone calls to be made while travelling in the course of my day. Lists of books to be bought. Lists of cosmetics to be bought. Wish lists of clothes to be bought. I measure my life out in lists. It gives me the false sense of being in control, when the truth, as you and I know, is that lists have very little to do with reality. Take for instance, a grocery list in your hand and you hitting the hypermarket. The grocery list talks of wildly interesting items of necessary consumption like cooking oil, pulses, detergent and such like. The heart draws me to the creams and lotions and shampoos and conditioners. Which quickly fill the trolly, before I finally manage to tear myself away from their enticing alluring beckoning Succubus like charms and make my way, shaken and drained, to the the provisions and pulses, where I spend half my time squinting to check the price on each item and scouring the shelves desperately to find discount offers to justify the off list items I’ve chucked into said trolley. As you can surmise, my priorities and my lists have still to meet. Having said that, I do reach a happy compromise by chucking out whatever essential groceries dont fit within my budget after having allowed for the non list shopping. So I still have my list intact for the next day, the next round of shopping.

I’m also the queen of making lists of stuff to pack when going for a trip out of town. The list generally looks like this. Pack lots of clothes and shoes. And handbags to match. Its a simple list. I also am very particular. One column is also devoted to cosmetics and skin and hair care requirements. This often necessitates a last minute run to the store because all the very essentials have to be bought in small sizes.And of course, the city I am going to will never have a decent drug store in its city limits for me to be able to pick anything worth using when I land. Never mind if even the stretch of Baga beach gives me much better cosmetic and skin care options than a hypermarket in Mumbai does. I dont really feel confident about travelling if I havent got my Liss control shampoo and conditioner. In travel packs. Or my foaming Neutrogena face wash. And such like. This is a very important list. I’ve packed according to a list, and then spent an agonised evening trying to get to a drugstore from a South Goa Five Star Resort, because I forgot to put in sanitary napkins in the danged list. Im very optimistic that way.

Why this random post on lists? Because, I’ve realised, in the making of all these random lists in the course of my life, I’ve forgotten to make the most important list. The list of the things I really want to do before I die. And thats a list I need to start working on right now.

Of Yoga, and classes to teach one how to live artfully…

Yesterday I meandered down to the society park in the evening for my daily constitutional when I came across a throng of women filling out forms in triplicate and fighting through the above mentioned throng, handing back filled forms, and all flushed with the excitement that led me to believe that diamond jewellery was being handed out in exchange for the filling out of said forms. Naturally, being a best friend of said stones, I rushed to gather and fill mine own form. “Join quick,” said a lady of my acquaintance, all flushed and happy, in a strange and elated manner which had me sniff her breath suspiciously, “There are a few seats.” Anything that required me to join, and offered few seats has me immediately backing off pronto. I held my hands above my head and backed away gently from the scene.

The women in charge chased me waving a form wildly in my face. “Its a yoga class, and a class to teach you the art of how to live *.” I backed away even more determined not to have any truck with this. Yoga, I tried, for exactly three months and then I gave it up cold turkey. I am extremely proud of myself for being able to quit good and bad habits with equal impunity. I gave up tea and coffee and alcohol in the same cold turkey, no looking back manner.  I also gave up eating fruits and salads in much the same manner. I am a woman who makes no distinctions. I am a woman who knows her mind. And sticks to it for as long as it takes not to get bored and need a change of palate or scenery or whatever it is I was missing out on. (Having said that, I’ve stuck to the no alcohol for around four years now, and the no tea and coffee and colas for four months now. Never felt better. Let me get that halo out and scrub it clean and bung it on now.) I did try to give up animal protein, that lasted all of two months before I went screaming into a restaurant and downed butter chicken with naan singlehandedly without a pause or a burp to break the proceedings. It was either that, or being certified and institutionalised thanks to the visions of tandoori chickens doing the chorus line in front of my hallucinating eyeballs.

Therefore, I knew that no way was I going to stick long and hard to yoga classes at six am, in the garden, on winter mornings. I set the alarm for 5.30 am every night with a shaky hand. At five thirty when the alarm goes off I open one eye, shut it and sleep on till six, then I bound up and run down and having reached, realise it is with unwashed face, and slept in PJs and stare goggle eyed at the rest of the class all sleek in coordinated yoga ensembles and colour matched yoga mats, and slink to the back of the class, where I wait for shavaasana. Sometimes my snores reach the head of the class, and the instructors ears and she is compelled to make a trip to the back to gently bring me back to the land of the wakeful, where I jump up, sputtering, “Wha…wha…what…”

I am a girl who needs her eight hours of deep undisturbed sleep. I have been known to bite little heads off when woken up in the middle of the night for serious discussions on whether ghouls are holding a party in our balcony. The offspring has decided that it is safer to watch the ghouls in the balcony than awake the sleeping mother.

Therefore, I resisted valiantly, all the concerted attempts to enrol me into yet another early morning yoga class. “No, no, ” I staved off the form with the same kind of pluckiness that early gladiators used to keep out of biting distance of the lions. “I’m not going to join up. I’m sticking to my walks. Theyre working for me and I like walking.” The determined ladies were not going to take no for an answer. “Walking doesnt work out the entire body. And we teach you a lot more than just yoga, we also give spiritual talks on how to cope with life and how to deal with people….”  If this was a sales pitch, she just lost a potential customer right there. Spiritual talks at six am will surely send me into deep REM. And as for coping with life and dealing with people, I think I do okay without needing to attend a class on it. I havent killed anyone yet. Nor has anyone killed me. I have a simple formula that has worked for me thus far. Be polite. Be honest. And say no. And so I did. I said no. Firmly. And politely. I was honest. But the lady taking the class was not able to cope with my politeness and honesty and spent the next fifteen minutes pinning me to the bonnet of a car while she expounded the higher glories my soul would reach through concerted yoga training and mind control. I took it as a sign from God that I was not meant to reach such lofty realms when the driver of said car honked, wanting to get out of the parking lot.

I am sticking to my daily evening walks. There is something soothing about the evening, with the sun setting gently on the horizon, the sky turning from orange to red and then a deep royal purply black. The birdsong gradually fading out (though it is a sharp ear that can catch any birdsong in our potted plant landscape), and the squeals of excited children drawing blood in sandpit wars. My early mornings are meant to be clutching a mug of hot chocolate grimly, while sitting in the balcony, watching the sky change colour, and willing the eyes to open to their fullest. I take time to thaw out.

Ask for directions, dammit!!!

It is a well-documented fact that guys will not ask for directions. This is a biological thing. This is why it takes several million sperm cells… to locate a female egg, despite the fact that the egg is, relative to them, the size of Wisconsin.
Dave Barry

The man has no sense of direction. He rather compensates by being a good driver, so he is forgiven the total lack of navigational skills. He also compensates by his stamina to drive, which allows him to do a single driver Mumbai to Bangalore in a single day. And be up at the crack of dawn the next morning to do Bangalore to Chennai. Of course, these were days when we were young and reckless and didnt have the child to pack for or cart along, when all we had to do was to chuck a duffel bag of a week’s clothes into the boot, and trust our stomachs to handle highway dhaba food without going projectile in protest.

I’ve normally overlooked the evident unease the man has about asking for directions. As long as we get from Point A to Point B, I dont kick up a fuss. Unless, of course, we happen to go so far off course, that we land up in a wildlife sanctuary, instead of hitting the beaches of Goa. As is evident from the metaphorical sneer in the tone that this last sentence was written with, this is a true incident. Involving a missed turn off from the expressway, the reluctance to stop and ask for directions, and driving through mountain and jungle and the Ponda forest sanctuary, in a car with petrol on blink blink empty, one very car sick person, two boys under five going ape shit with boredom and hunger, and a steaming at the ears mad as hell yours truly. The joy with which we greeted the pump attendant at the first petrol pump we encountered when we emerged from the untarred winding forest roads would have convinced anyone we had been lost for days in the wilderness and had survived on tree roots and bugs. It was a scary prospect. Darkness falling. Petrol on zilch. No mobile network signal. And two small children and one sick adult with us. And around 165kms off route. I was already trying to think up what of our luggage we could use to burn up to send smoke signals up into the air for help.

Considering we have done a lot of cross country drives (and India is a big country), I have enough anecdotes about going off track on deserted highways to fill a book. Whenever I get down to writing it. And it always, always boils down to me saying, “Are we on the right route? Should we stop and ask?” and the man grunting something unintelligible which translates into “Stopping and asking for directions is for wusses. I am a macho man. I have Google earth scanned into my brain. I do not ask for directions.” This coinciding with the road in front of us morphing into a dirt track like a Stephen King horror movie. And some minutes later, the trees getting alive and slowly crawling onto the dirt track and eating us up with the car. Arrrggggh. Anyway. You get my point. This would inevitably be the point where the man will look slightly puzzled and say in great surprise, “Look how bad the highway is on this stretch.” At which point I will be frothing at the mouth and unable to give a coherent answer except for occasional shrieks as tree branches slapped at the windshield. A second later, he would look at me with wisdom having dawned, “Do you think we left the highway somewhere behind?” “Turn, turn quick,” I would yell, before the trees morph into the Tree from The Evil Dead and attack us with vile intentions. And so we turn around and flee, with the forest laughing eeriely behind us, and with me mouthing the Hanuman Chalisa, the little I remember of it. This one took us 180 kms off course. This happened on NH4 once. During the days when Veerapan roamed at large, smuggling wood and killing random folk and had three states set their police forces behind him. My eyes shut on their own and I took a little nap. We were on our way from Mumbai to Bangalore. We had crossed Hubli and were still with plenty of time to make it to Bangalore before nightfall. I woke from the nap to find us  off the highway, in dense forest land, with the sun setting with unseemly haste somewhere beyond the canopy of trees, with evil noises emerging from the forest cover designed precisely to cause involuntary bowel movements. Lets just say, we got the hell out there by just driving on and on and on, and not knowing if we were ever going to see our loved ones again, and wondering when they would discover our bodies, and whether it would be a good idea to write a good bye note the mother could hang onto for solace while there was still some light. And no, the thought of falling into the hands of Sandalwood smugglers was not helping the rumbling in the intestines at all. The husband is cool and soigne through it all, almost as though he designed this diversion into the jungles to point out wildlife to me. “The road will be somewhere ahead,” he says calmly, while I’m hopping around in my seat as much as a seat belt will allow me to, while my head rotates on a 360 degree axis in a frantic bid to notice road signs and milestones in the fading light.  When we finally hit the highway, after going some 180 kms off route, I stepped out and kissed the asphalt.

On most long drives, I am now the officially designated navigator. I take my job very very seriously. I google maps and routes and take printouts before we leave. I then pack them maps and routes and directions in some bag so I can never remember which one has them and rely on what every navigator down from the time early man wandered around checking out the scenery from the caves has used to mark directions, namely the position of the sun and the moon. Are we supposed to be going north or south, I ask myself. And start the route from that very valid benchmark. We’ve normally reached in one piece when I’ve done my job as a navigator, aka yell at the man to stop and ask for directions. Even then, the man will squirm in his driving seat, put the window on my side of the car down, and ask me to do the asking. Its a man thing. I ask with the complete lack of shame and embarassment that comes from being a non driver. And insist on stopping every five minutes once I have the initial directions to ensure we are on the right track. Which also involves a bit of a debate, with much macho hotheadedness happening, because, stopping and checking is for wusses.

On long drives now, the elderly relative insists I sit up front with the man, because I know routes in a subliminal way and I never forget a road. I call it reading up on the route before hand (thank you Google baba) and memorising the names of places enroute, and keeping a sharp eye out for landmarks. Its saves us time and petrol. Not to mention stress. I’m so getting the man one of those navigational GPS devices the next time we decide to go on our long cross country drives. I’d so like to take the occasional nap.

Do you buy your man’s undies?

According to a Reuters news report, a poll conducted by UK retailer Debenhams, men only buy their underwear if they are still trying to entice new partners into a relationship. Most men leave underwear buying to their mothers until their are 19 and then buy for themselves until they get into a stable relationship, and then on expect the women in their lives to buy their underwear. The report says if your man leaves his underwear buying to you, it is a clear signal that you are the one.

I agree. But I did not get into underwear buying territory until post marriage. I think I was already The One for a few years before I got married. But those were the days of my youth, and more innocent times, and if it was even suggested I go underwear shopping for the man, I was quite capable of getting an attack of the vapours. I am ashamed to say I was quite the typical vapid innocent. Time has sure changed a lot of things. Including vapidity.

I was also informed by the elderly relative once I was married, that along with the metaphoric ‘tijori ki chavi’ I was also handed over the honorable task of underwear buying for the man, because, quote, “left to him, he will never buy himself a pair and wear torn and tattered undies, that are an embarassment to hang out on the clothesline.”

What does this say about men?

Off the bat, they’re lazy. They will spend hours investigating various mobile phone models and comparing features but not spend a couple of minutes in the underwear section of the same departmental store to pick up a pack of four.

Secondly, they couldnt care less if the pairs they have in their drawers are peppered with cheeseholes, with the elastic falling off, or are some indeterminate hue after years of being washed with the colours.

And yes, I think, we wives can safely add socks and handkerchiefs to underwear in the list of things to be bought for the male which indicate you are the one. Ever wonder at the mystery of the disappearing socks and handkerchiefs? It is a mystery that requires the services of Fox and Mulder for sure. One day the drawer will be overflowing with socks and handkerchiefs and underwear and the next morning, the man will be standing in front of same said open drawer and hopping on both feet because he cannot find a single matching pair of socks, and all the handkerchiefs are not ones that can be taken out in a public situation, all my handkerchiefs having invaded his space, and his handkerchiefs having fled in horror to the land where they cannot be compelled by embroidered female kerchiefs to mate and produce embroidered offspring. It is a male thing. The same thing happens to the child’s socks and handkerchiefs. One morning the drawer is overflowing with enough socks to create a mini football league. The next, I’m scrounging around in the deep dark recesses of the cupboard to find any which might have fallen out of said drawer and reached unreachable places to ensure they can never be found without the entire contents of the wardrobe being dumped on the bed, with five minutes to eight on the clock, eight am being the run out as you are time needed if said spawn of womb is to make it into the school gates before the bell.  

The next time I do my duty shopping to validate my status as ‘The One’ I am so buying yellow and black argyle socks and cherry printed undies.

Edited to add: Let me sign off with this very very valid quote from the feature. 

“This is the one issue that feminism has never addressed,” Faucherand (Debenhams Head of Men’s Accessories Buying, Rob Faucherand) said. “It’s not who wears the pants in each household – it’s who has to buy them that counts.”

Post the weekend

I’m back at work, I should say happy for the chance to get out of the home. The weekend has been the kind of horror that makes me want to throw some clothes into a duffel bag and run towards the Himalayas, grabbing my squawking reluctant son by his collar, and compelling him to adopt a life of retirement in the mountains. But, lets talk about more cheerful things.

Like this news report. It tells me that eating dark chocolate can help my skin fight sundamage and ageing. I could turn cartwheels. I now have a legitimate reason to scarf down at least a bar of dark chocolate every single day of my life. It is for my skin. Anti-ageing therapy. Prevents sundamage. I need to check the flavanol on said dark chocolates before I injest it. What more could a girl need to make her life complete? Maybe doctors prescribing shopping excursions to help her cope with stress and psychosomatic ailments? Yes?