TO DELHI GIRLS AND DELHI AUNTIES

Dear Dehi Girls and Delhi Aunties,

Even if my pores are the size of craters on the moon and my pimples the size of ostrich eggs or If my hair looks like straw that reminds you of your horse riding days or if my ass is a sagging bag of cellulite and I cause a bigger splash than Moby Dick when I jump off my diving board or If I look like I spent a summer locked in a jail cell with nothing to eat but salt and bread or If my skin around my eyes have "early signs" of crows eagles and pigeons feet or if my teeth stick out and my breath reeks of whiskey and peanuts or If I have stretch marks under my phelwan arms or if my underarms aren’t perfectly waxed or if my shoes aren’t designer and my nails are acrylic and if I am sprouting hair from my chin or my eyebrows aren’t arched enough or if I am 35 and he still hasn’t “put a ring on it” or I am having triplets out of wedlock or If I wear the same dress 11 times and I have a bulge that isn’t  a baby bump or if I have a jay leno chin and cock-eyed breasts or if I am sleeping with the entire cricket team or a guy who weighs as much as the entire team or if the color I’m wearing brings out my squint or the mole on my upper lip looks a little less Cindy Crawford-ish and a little more like the animal or If my panty line is showing or my padded bra seems “ a little too padded” or If I grunt while I laugh or curse like a sailor or ten or If my toes aren’t manicured and my nail polish too red or if my dark circles remind you of the last solar eclipse.... Please for the love of Bhagwan, mind your own business. Your Beeswax. Your beejnes, jee.

Just keep your ugly thoughts in your well groomed- in- a- parlour head, and stop bitching, commenting, cackling, looking up and down and all around.

Maaaan you women, give the rest of us a much needed break.

Sincerely,

A miffed and disillusioned Delhi Woman.

Bollywood Grew Up

In the eighties and nineties, Hindi movies had one formula that lasted for three hours. One hour was dedicated to the dhishum-dhishum, another to song and dance that included running around trees and getting soaked in the rain that magically appeared on a cloudless day. And one hour was for cliché dialogue and dramatic long pauses. But we still managed to leave the theatre feeling happier and lighter. We’d escaped the real world for three whole hours and entered a world built on fantasy, strange humour and too much make up.

But in the last decade, the typical Bollywood masala Philum has had a complete Michael Jackson-ish make over. Now the song and dance routine actually fits into the story, the hero and heroine don’t have to wear matching clothes and pelvic thrusts that look like PT gone psychotically wild have been replaced by less vulgar goddesses like Munni and Sheila.

Our heroes no longer beat the shit out of an army of bad guys to prove that they are indeed hero worthy nor are they angry men with a miserable pasts. Nope. It doesn’t matter if they have to cry with snort oozing out of one nostril or both. They don’t mind sharing equal space with a heroine, going bald or trading in their six pack for a jiggling stomach with a protruding belly button. As long as they can do “good cinema” or bag a role like a Saif in Omkara or an Abhishekh in Guru, the heroes will surrender their title for a more prestigious one. They want to be actors who can act.

Our leading ladies are not far behind for they too have metamorphosed into better actors. They can carry movies on their pretty little shoulders and don’t need a muscular hero or a stammering buffoon to make their movie a ‘super hit.’ In the past, even though actresses like Nargis, Nutan, Madhuballa, Rekha and even a Sridevi and a Madhuri  were able captivate audiences with or without their thumkas and beautifully kohled almond shaped eyes, they could never be bigger than their male co-stars. But today our Bollywood princesses have  finally come into their own and soon real actresses like Kalki and the girl from Ishaqzaade are going to deflate Katrina’s  ego and overly plumped lips. Well, I certainly hope so.

It’s amazing how the Bollywood formula just stopped working and experimental cinema and brilliant films Dev D, LSD and Gangs of Wasseypur  have started to truly resonate with every movie watching, pop corn eating aunty, uncle, teenager, BTM, ishtud, and even rickshaw vaala.. We no longer care much for Salman’s biceps and perfectly waxed chest. We want to discuss very scene and analyse every emotion. The movie doesn’t end when the lights come back on because we take it with us for coffee or dinner or on a long drive home.

To sum it up plain and simple, we now yearn for gratifying cinema. Even if it means that we don’t leave the theatre feeling happier and lighter because our movies are now telling our stories. So I guess somewhere along the way, we grew up and Bollywood just had to follow.

The digital camera killed my magic box

                                                        
I used to love birthday parties. But what I loved even more than the parties was reliving the rounds of musical chairs, pass the parcel and creamy black forest cakes with magic candles that refused to die, through photographs from my camera. 
 Before digital cameras, instagram and hipstamatic took over our very existence, I used to spend my pocket money on rolls of Kodak film. After the party was over, I would wait two or sometimes three days until the roll was developed. I would pay my hundred something and a hundred something more if I’d asked for duplicates. The duplicates would  find a place on my pin board and the smiling faces of my friends and I were stabbed with colorful tacks.
But I loved the wait. Unlike today, I never knew what the pictures would look like. Not the faintest idea. Back then photographs were innocent. They were just pure and simple happy memories caught in a magic box with a bright light.
Today pictures have lost that innocence. They are posed, artificial and are ogled at by thousands of judging eyes. Not all of those eyes know you. Some of them don’t even like you, but they still stare at you. You and your coffee stained teeth. You with your bad, bad hair day and “duck faced” pout. Or you with heavy eye-lids after your sixth tequila shot. You are no longer just a memory, you are on display in a museum called Facebook and you will remain there forever.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook. I spend more time romancing pictures and status updates than I spend romancing my boyfriend. I am guilty of changing my profile pictures even before I brush my teeth. It doesn’t matter if bacteria and gingivitis are making their way into my gums and little cavities, my profile picture should be new and improved.
Off late, my security settings have been made a little more secure but there was a time when I would parade every happy, sad, insecure, drunken, and proud moment. I was the star of my own little Facebook movie. Sometimes I’d get rave reviews in the form of many likes and sometimes rude comments that would be deleted at the click of the delete button. But it was already too late because every homefeed had already seen the” oh, Sam cellulite much” remark. 
Another act I am guilty of is the Oh- emm –geee- let –me- see- that –picture- right- after -it –has- been -clicked act. Today we don’t wait half a second to see the outcome of our friends picture taking skills because we know that with a click of yet another button, we can be dissected and torn into tiny pieces.
So we snatch cameras, redo the shot just like the previous shot, smile a little brighter, wipe off that extra concealer, pat dry our sweaty noses and suck in our bellies. So the world will see a more beautiful and perfected version of us. It doesn’t matter if our friend standing posing next to us looks like a tranny that just escaped a train wreck. As long as we look good then the picture is “Soooo gooodd…. Really really nice.. totally gonna frame this shit.” 
It all really is very silly. We spend so much time extracting information. creating stories. building emotions. spreading gossip. feeling ugly. All because of a picture taken by a digital camera. We’re diluting the very reason pictures are taken. Pictures aren’t supposed to be picture perfect in fact the uglier the picture, the more beautiful the story.
 So someone bring me back my magic box.

The Little Things

We’re so focused on the bigger things in life that we lose sight of the little things, when in
fact, real happiness lies in the littlest and simplest moments that we have to ourselves. 

1. Curl up in bed with an old book you haven’t read in years. There’s something special
about revisiting a book at a later time in your life. It’s like catching up with an old friend
you haven’t met in a while.

2. Go for a walk with your best friend.Talk about everything under the sun, moon and stars or absolutely nothing. But bonding outside, in the midst of nature (even if nature is artificial grass and perfectly manicured hedges) makes the moment all the more special.
 
3. Write. Take good old fashioned pen and paper and write about whatever you’d like to write about. It could be a story, a journal entry or even a poem. It will help you connect with your emotional side or just an emotion which sometimes remains bottled up and more importantly, it's a way to learn way to learn something new about yourself.


4. Pick your favorite song and belt it out loud. You might feel like you belong in an 80's video but a hairbrush really does  make a good mic, especially the rounded kinds. The applause in your head will be deafening.

5. Draw. Color pencils or even a sharpie will do .Remember when you were a child and you would disappear into your own fantasy world the minute your pencil or crayon touched the white slightly rough art paper? Well, it might be a few years later, but you'll notice that your fantasy land hasn't changed all that much.

6. Spend some time in a doggy shelter. If you’re ever feeling low or  feeling something you can’t
identify, then puppies with lots of licks and love bites will be able to erase each and every one of your worry lines.

7. Choose a shady spot, preferably under a tree, and people watch. It beats watching TV and it definitely helps you unwind. Little bits of juicy conversation might float past you along with a chorus of happy buzzing.

8 .Do something you’ve never done before. For example, treat yourself to dinner. Go to a  restaurant you've been dying to try, take  a book with you or even an ipod. Yes, people might stare, but so what? You can feel like a celebrity, wave, wink or better yet, stare back at them. The weapon against all staring people is staring back.

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.