DOODY CALLS

                                              DOODY CALLS

I begin every morning with cold coffee. Yum. I have been indulging in my frothy-icy-shaken in a shaker Nescafe since the beginning of time. My day is a little less ugly the minute my milk mustache settles on my upper lip.Yup, I got milk.

After the coffee, comes the bathroom ritual. I am a girl and of course, I never poop, fart,burp, or spit in my sink. I just light scented candles and blow soap bubbles and giggle as they pop. And today morning, as I lathered up in all kinds of pink (more things that girls do), I started to think about bathroom rituals.

The first and most common ritual of them all is  'Reading the newspaper on the potty'.

We prefer to fill our brains with disturbing images and heinous headlines, and stare at over-weight, manly looking female politicians with hideous hair-dos than be alone with our own thoughts. I guess deadlines and 'things-to-do' are enough to send our bowel moments on strike. Other people's problems and sadistic murders are much easier on the stomach.

The next ritual is ' Cigi-on- potty.' I know enough people never go to the loo without a "cigi," "a smoke," "a fag" or a "coupla drags."  Whether they are smokers or just pot(ty) smokers, they need that morning rush to help last nights dinner have a pleasent and uninteruupted journey as it makes its way down the large intestine and land in water with some remains of yesterday's Harpic. Inhale. Exhale. Spalsh.

Another ritual that comes to mind is called 'Cigi and Chai.' This one grosses me out. Anything we put into our body should not be in the same room as the things that come out of our body. But like the non-smoker or smoker who can't do without the morning nicotine rush, caffeine is just as integral for a smooth sailing poop ride. Sometimes just a few sips do the trick. So the cig is put out in the chai with a faint hissing sound. The job is done and the evidence is left behind in the form of pungent stink. 

And today with new technology, new poop rituals are  born. The minute, in true crude Indian fashion " the pressure" builds, an iPad makes its way in the bathroom. With every angry bird that flies across the screen, it is accompanied with a splash.

Oh, but the funniest ritual of all, and I don't know if I mean ha-ha funny, is the one that includes Facebook on the pot. Oh,you know who you are. You lose yourself in status updates, wedding pictures and bad foundation, hot boys and shake your head at girls with white bras under black shirts, beautiful people on exotic holidays and wonder when they hell they work, and almost like magic, even without you knowing, your stomach is flat and last nights shrimp dim-sum is long gone. 

So whatever your ritual may be, it is important that you follow it religiously every morning. Even if it means turning the snooze button off so you don't lose those precious fifteen minutes. Because when you're at work or in a public place and doody calls, it can be a super shitty situation. 

That Time Of The Year

THAT TIME OF THE YEAR

With temperatures reaching unbelievable highs you will without a doubt hear “it feels like an oven or a sauna outside” and then you will also hear people give their two cents, or in this case, two paisa (I’d like to think that’s the equivalent) on global warming, “summers are getting hotter glaciers are melting and we are going to die… etc etc.”

In the summer time, people are angrier, traffic is even more impatient, and no one smiles as beads of sweat form on upper lips and other uncomfortable places. Thanks yous are replaced with snarls and snarls are replaced with growls that belong deep inside the jungle. It is an unhappy time, this Indian summer.

For a few of us lucky folk, we find solace in front of our coolers and ACS while ceiling fans gather dirt and muck. No one wants hot air blown on them in circular motions.

And you might as well forget about cold showers to wash away the heat that has entered each and every one of your pores because your shower will play funny tricks on you in the summer. Warm water will flow out of the hot water tap and boiling hot water will flow out of the one marked with a C for cold.

But while we talk of global warming and Mother Nature, heat waves and have heated arguments, children are out enjoying their summer day.

Scorching temperatures are defeated by water bottles carrying thanda paani or nimbu paani. A still day is tackled by running around in the parks and hosing each other with the maali's pipe. Hide and seek and Oonch neech ka papra don’t discriminate against the summer. In fact, children love the garmi more since it stays light out longer and they don’t need to layer up in multi-coloured hand me downs from the 80’s, pokey new turtle necks or daadi’s latest creation.

The truth is we should be more child-like. Let’s not allow sweaty armpits and BO get the better of us. Let’s try to focus on all the beautiful things that come with summer. The wind meandering through the leaves, the extra hours of sunshine, happy bird (not trying to do a cool Angry Bird reverse) calls, the nimbu paani, the brimming – with- juice mangoes, the sweeter than sweet litchis and perfectly chilled watermelons. (Oh and in case you OD on summer fruit you can always turn to Cola bar and Limchu that are just as refreshing if you can excuse the artificial colouring dripping onto your khaki pants or floral cotton skirt.)

So, now go find the shadiest spot in your garden or balcony, tune into the laughter coming from the parks near by, fill your bowl with Mother Dairy's vanilla ice-cream. And then then in between mouthfuls I guarantee that you’ll stop bitching about Mother Nature’s time of the year.

Well, Mama, here I am, home again

I finally made the Big Move back to the Motherland. From the Big A, that is. I had made the decision secretly a long time ago. When, finally, I mustered the courage to tell my family and friends that I want to leave the beautiful apple and move back to Delhi, I became the butt of many versions of "are-you- seriously-stooopid?"

I left home four years ago on my journey of self- discovery. It's hard to do when you're enclosed by protective parents and chauffer driven cars. I wanted to taste absolute freedom. I packed my life in two large suitcases and said goodbye to my sheltered life.

After graduating from college, I had an itch that persisted: Home began calling. But admitting that I wanted to leave New York and all the great opportunities it has hiding in every nook, corner and crevice, was exceptionally difficult.

Nobody could understand my compulsion. Why come all this way, if you want to turn around and go back before you've accomplished something BIG? I had no answer. They were possibly right both in terms of reasons both professional as well as financial. I have been groaning under student loans—loans that I had initially intended to pay back in dollars while working in the US, preferably in New York. I battled these questions and judgments silently and not so noiselessly. I listened, rolled my eyes, shed colossal tears. But I had made up my mind. I was going home. I was going to do big things in my own country.

So once again, I packed two large suitcases and much cooler wardrobe, heading back to my sheltered life.

It took a while for me to feel at home, at home. The sky was a different shade of blue. The people seemed louder and unfriendly. And my freedom was suddenly yanked from me. My own rules no longer apply. I live at home with Mom and Dad again, and even if I'd been to the moon and back, in their eyes I'd always be their lanky, irresponsible baby. Oh, and of course the this-house-is-not-a-hotel spiel is something I can lip read even before my parents open their mouths to remind me of their rules. Haven't you all heard it? It's a good, sound verbal legacy that I'm sure I will drill into my own kids some day.

There are days when I crave New York. But I've shoved the feeling in a recess deep within me and I don't allow it to surface very often. Besides, I'm too busy falling in love with my country all over again while discovering how to balance the person I was four years ago and the me I am today.

I took the plunge. So, am I truly happy? Yes. Have I done great things with my life, yet? Eh... Sorta.

Any more self- discovering journeys? Probably.

But for now I'm content and it seems that there's no place like home, especially if home is India. I probably love it more than I did when I left notwithstanding every ear-shattering honk, its crowded, chaotic, overflowing urban life, the compulsive familial mollycoddling and lecturing and the shamelessly ogling strangers with their brutal eye-contact.

A family miracle?!!

My dad writes to his baby sister

Hi sis,

Ayesha just showed me the Sai Baba picture from ma's puja room. What do you make of it? Do you think Pam played a prank --- or Lalit did it to freak out Nita and then pretended to believe in it as a way of accomplishing something soul-edifying for mummy? Or was it the work of one of the servants or the old panditji who goes to the pooja room every morning. This sounds too much like the milk drinking ganesha. Or the Virgin Mary weeping tears of blood that as exposed ultimately as a brilliant fraud. But if it makes mom happy, who am I to raise questions?! If word has gotten around, the place must already have become a shrine for Ujahni folks and Saii believers.

Ino

The baby sister responds
AHHHH...my brother the skeptic! Who is actually dying to believe that it really happened - or why the eff would you have written to me:)?

Nah, I don't think Lalit or Pam were behind it - not the servants either, they wouldn't have the intellect - the pandit??? Maybe - but the other thing that makes me want to believe this is the fact that I have actually seen honey and vibhuti drip from Sai Baba's photo in Swaran Bhabi's home as also in Satya and Omi's - long distance miracles of mind over matter perhaps - but still a miracle.

So maybe, just maybe... it's old Sai Baba's way of accomplishing something soul-edifying for mom. Remember how roundly she'd cursed him last year and promised she would never believe in him again or indeed, even pray to him again, for he had let her down by making her suffer the way she had - maybe God simply redeeming himself in the eyes of a woman who believed so implicitly and yet felt so let down - as you say - who are we to question if it makes mom happy and restores her faith!

Love you bro.

Sis:)

Ohhhh boy(s)

This whole falling in love thing was supposed to be easy. I was supposed to lock eyes with someone sitting across from me in a train. A bar. A lecture about global warming. I'd feel a spark and my lips would part magically, revealing a slightly crooked smile and coffee stained teeth. Then candlelight dinner, a first kiss while trying to eat the same piece of spaghetti. He’d profess his undying love for me, get down on one knee, maybe both and ..sigggh.. propose.

Under my fairy tales are stupid exterior, I long for my prince charming and a happily ever after. I want be wooed, oooed and aaaad. Today, a first date is a drink at a noisy bar, after which we eagerly await a text message. And if it comes, we read it over a couple hundred times, interpreting the hundreds of different meanings. Friendly? Flirtatious? It's hard to decipher a tone over a text. Stupid technology.

But the absolute worst part about dating is the fear of "freaking him out." I have to chew on my lower lip every time I feel the gooey words about to escape. A simple" I like you" could be read as, "I want to have your babies right this instant!"

And after dating for a while, we let our guard down and think it's finally safe to use words like munchkin and muffinhead. And while some of us change our relationship status on facebook, they plan their escape.

I've analyzed and dissected them(boys.. men.. men who are still boys ) like an eager Biology student. But I just can’t figure them out.

Weren’t we supposed to be the complicated sex?

My New York

I still get lost in New York. But I now embrace my lack of or no direction sense.
Besides, walking that extra avenue is good for my sagging ass. Yup, A friend of mine recently pointed that out to me. I blame gravity and not the late night pizza binges with extra cheese and oil that will make King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud rub his hands in delight.

I love the subway. I entertain myself by concocting stories about the people riding with me.Yesterday I met Jo. Jo works on Wall Street but secretly wants to star on Broadway.His favorite movie is The Sound of Music. He is a bachelor but he is searching for his dream woman, Martha Stewart with a dash of Hilary Clinton.

I want to take a homeless person home and give him/ her a makeover. Imagining the 'before and after 'pictures give me serious goose bumps.

I spend a lot of time on Christopher street.I once went to a bar filled with beautiful men,knowing that we weren't going to get any attention by fluttering our eyelashes and adjusting our well padded bras, my best friend and I pretended to be gay. They welcomed us with arms wide open, I have never felt more accepted in my life. Everyone should be gay.

I don't know where all the single boys in New York are hiding. I was told that I'm looking in the wrong places. So I guess I do spend too much time on Christoper street.

I did attempt to fall in love. I succeeded but he decided to trample on my heart like an enraged circus elephant.My heart still aches and the butterflies that once made me feel giddy, have now turned evil.

I know New York is like the cosmopolitan capital of the world but I happily surround myself with my desi gang. I can be loud,make obnoxiously crude jokes and talk as fast as I want.

giddily unemployed in new york city

When I grow up I want to be a dancer….. a veterinarian…. an actress…

I’ve grown up to be a 25 year-old copywriter who plays at words and weaves dreams bigger than the words. I live in Upper Manhattan. The city beats inside my heart. My pulse quickens, it races every time I walk out of my apartment and onto the street. Its power recharges my inventive soul. Even though I’m unemployed after recently finishing a grueling two-year diploma from the Miami Ad School, and there are nights where I lie awake with my eyes wider than a person on crack, and the stress makes my stomach churn, I wouldn’t want to be jobless or “financially challenged” anywhere else in the world.

Every day is a test. When I walk past a store, clothes smile at me. Welcome, Samira. I enter, select a couple of dresses and goose step into the dressing room. I try them on making ohh aaah sounds to myself and then bid them a bawling goodbye. I must be patient until Geithner’s recovery kicks in; until then I’ve got to save those pennies to buy recession-proof protein like canned spam.

But sometimes the sight of a girl with an armful of dresses mountained all the way to her to her nose shoots me full of shopping adrenaline. The adrenaline wears off and I’m left with the guilt and a slightly larger wardrobe. Besides shopping, my weekends are my second biggest battle. A night after taking cabs, ordering shots, and projectile puking, I wake up not only with a hangover but also my irksome conscience nagging me in a voice similar to George Costanza’s mother from Seinfield, “ Now did you really have order that apple Martini?.... Couldn’t you have just walked home...?”

I am successful in shutting her up during the week since my days are mostly spent job hunting and consuming insane amounts of coffee. My evenings are spent watching Millionaire Matchmaker, some downtime with my friends or with my sister and two-year-old nephew who has the ability to erase each and every one of my worry lines.

I sit on my roommate’s beige -brown- something couch writing this. I am distracted by a sound of a siren an unusually loud laugh and episodic honking, I can’t help but smile. The city can be so loud sometimes that I can’t hear my own thoughts, which to me is a good thing. I need a break from my own head and constant thoughts that cause me to worry and take me far, far away from the moment.

With my current financial situation, I don’t know how long I can revel in my city of joy. Eventually I will need to wake up, but for right now I’ll keep hitting the snooze button.