Woah-men's Day

2011-03-08



I open my eyes and check my phone to see if the Pulitzer prize committee found my fictional piece of fiction.

They haven’t.



But what a lot of people have found is the cheek to update their Blackberry and Facebook status to ‘happy women’s day’. I inwardly make a list of people who wish everybody on everything and are the reason why freedom of expression has become a drug around.



Just then, the cleaning lady enters my room, making sure to tell me how glad she is to find me awake. Jesus, I think to myself, can’t I enjoy my days of freedom and tea without the bitter taste of guilt? It’s international women’s day, I tell her, to celebrate the liberation of women. Just then she lifts her hand up, the very one she uses to clean 5 more houses is heavily bandaged. I don’t need to ask her what happened.



After continuously denying help being offered to her, she then tells me a story of how a woman, who had just moved into her area, was beaten to death by her husband. He loved her too much, she says while my eyes pop out of my head, couldn’t see her talking to anybody, not even working. Has this been reported I say? To which she smiles and says yes, the police came.



Just then she hears a cry from the cucine…it’s time for her to indulge tea and tête-à-tête.



I find Google all set in fourth gear, using bright colours we see at too-much-money weddings… they obviously won’t use the morbid hues of blues and greys and black- from PMS meets gothika, they would have heard it all. With artwork that you see on top of t-shirts adorned by phoreners in Paharganj or the hands of a bride-to-be, why would they think of putting someone close to… Bandit Queen?!



When I talk like this people me if I went to a girls’ college to study feminism. Right… as if the ancient forefathers and didn’t-want-to-be mothers had not had enough. So feminists became equivalent to cotton fibred women holding placards who haven’t had an orgasm in years-and the phenomenon of feminism was raped and what was left were stereotypes and bra burning.



To answer them, I did go to a girls’ college, I studied feminism amongst other things and still managed to wax my legs. Which brings us to the flipside of a “feminist” is a woman cashes in on the punani power. A friend of a friend, much like Barney from How I met your mother told me his philosophy.



According to him, it doesn’t matter if you have an MBA or a degree in Greek literature, as long as you know how to use the power of the vagina.



Here are two scenarios. Enter work like a scared and tamed damsel who doesn’t know how to use mascara and you’d probably end up wagging your pony along with the scut work you’re assigned.



And when you do manage to have the time to powder your face along with a skill set you already had, out come the sharks who think everything you do right, is a fluke.



Thus, the punani power a perfect blend of those women who have enough brains to wear red lipstick while presenting points that needed strategic relationship building. Use wisely, he says, and you shall conquer, coz it’s a world with messed up standards.



I can of one woman who might agree. No, not the minister who wanted to curb the broadcast of FTV in the 1990’s due to its evil effects on an eleven year old wanker. She makes the small percentage of women who went to parliament and questioned reservation for women in Parliament.



The one who would agree with me was the one who used her wits and promised men that it’ll all be okay- that when women become a part of the legislature, they wouldn’t bite their heads off for passing each bill. After all, many of the important positions, including the PM’s string pulling is vehemently done by a woman.



At 5’o clock my friend realises the whole day has gone by without wishing me ‘Happy Women’s Day.’ This somehow brings her how she hasn’t been promoted- she went from being an office hottie to the potty when she got hitched. And then she was considered to have ‘other’ priorities than work because she recently popped a baby.



Imagine the cheek of a good looking and capable software engineer to be thin, get married, get fat, have a baby, lose baby weight and think she had proved herself enough.



It’s almost as ironic who’d remember to follow John Galliano’s controversial career and still know what the repo rate is.



Just when I think of how I get to have a career and a choice not to marry at 22, I get a call from a friend saying he needs a help in sales. ‘You’re very persuasive’ he says and then adds ‘but also the fact that you have a sexy voice would do half the job.’



Humph.

One last time

Claimer: Any resemblance to any person, incident, feelings etc is NOT co-incidental. This is dedicated to all of us, who are held in fancy by their love for caffeine, heroin, shopping, love, lust, sex and the worst…people.


Just one last time I tell myself…I stand there after telling everybody who cared about me, or worse who couldn’t see me going down the same road, my eyes looked hollow- the very same did my words sound to my own self.



So what was the reason that got me hooked? Peer pressure? Bad company? Emerging trend? The wannabe syndrome? Nope.I wish I had a sad story which I could remember every time I felt an overwhelming need running through my veins to justify it… but I don’t have one.



I wanted to try it- the good stuff, escape the little niceties others refer to as trials and tribulations of life. My stepdad didn’t beat me up, my mother didn’t have a boyfriend, and my sister didn’t get knocked up. In short, unlike clichés that dominate celluloid, no violence or disease made me this way.Just like the rest of us; I carry the regular amount of heartache as my unclaimed baggage- along with my cell phone and wallet.



I thought I knew who I was or what I was getting into but I was mistaken to think I know all sides of me. Instead of my day being about work, fun and people, the day spent away was the time spent in a silent frenzy waiting to gain momentum.



Just like those who wait for the right time to hang by cliffs, life became only about an ecstasy only I knew.



The rampant increase in phone calls should have been a clue, but I was too busy to see them as anything but foreplay. A single meeting had left me wanting for more…with one whiff of his smell, I had struck gold.



Just like the hangers risked their lives, I risked my sanity… every time I did it, every time I met him. In sometime, I was hooked –everything else dissolved into the smog that engulfs the city, conversations became foreplay and meetings turned into happy endings.



The time spent apart from him seemed like an entrapment, on me, on those around me since my restlessness and erratic change in behaviour didn’t go unnoticed by the few who cared.



One day I couldn’t get find him and the day was spent thinking…wondering…calling up the one person who could possibly understand my obsession-my dealer aka the link. He had laughed at my misery, telling me he hadn’t seen this coming. He said he’ll get back to me. I hung up, staring into space and rapped my fingers on my keyboard till he showed up at my door.



One deep inhale and I was happy.



That was also the day I was sure of one thing. He was my drug I needed a snort of, everyday.



Yet he was the one to end whatever this was. He wanted to be away from me saying we had taken a rash, unhealthy toll. I breathed in, blocking his words out, sniffing my dash and not listening to a word.



And so I cut off, like I had so many times before, from so many more.



I made sure I had company till I slept yet I was completely alone. There were days I smiled…smiled when I thought about those moments I shared, following strangers whose scent became a reminder of what I had once experienced.



Remaining sober made me scream in my sleep; land me in a room with medical equipment and a feeling I couldn’t strip off.



That had been months ago.



I now stand at a door that separated me from something I had never wanted so badly in life. Now I remember what I had heard but never listened. He had said- if you come back, I wouldn’t resist.



The door opened and a gust of fumes unleashed into the air around me. I don’t know what prompted him to turn around but that he did, as I stepped inside with my eyes half shut.



As I opened my eyes to confirm him standing there, looking at me, I said to myself…one last time….

Goodbye Blackberry. Hello Moto.

I could tell you his name, what he did, what he smelled like or the glint in his eyes but the truth is I can’t possibly write even a fraction of what you actually feel in that moment of attraction- you know it, I know it, Stephanie Meyer knows it, Gregory David Roberts almost believes in it.



Just because some jackasses thought about changing ‘impossible’ to ‘I’m possible’ and shrug away cribbers by saying -shit happens, I am going to try to describe that moment. Just how you silently sigh every time someone prods you to talk about your exes or addictions, I do too as I tell you about the time I saw him the very first time.



Tall, sleek, suave, dressed in black- he was in the arms of a girl, seducing her with all the tricks he had and didn’t need to use. Day in and day out, I saw him wrapped duly in someone’s soft caress.



I thought it was my mind again- playing the same it always does- knowing I always have to obsess over something I don’t have. But this wasn’t the usual itch I normally didn’t need to scratch for someone I’d despise in the next 30 days. Sleepless nights, bad work days, and wrinkles even make up couldn’t hide- this was real. I rushed to the place I had seen him earlier, where there was faint possibility of him sitting, possibly with someone as crazy as me.



I remember putting all my energy in opening the door, when I saw the attendant who could let me to him. It was finally time, to own up and try to have something I had no idea I could ever have. And to him I said –



“Could I have the Moto Razr please?”



That was four years ago… till I was temporarily starry eyed by someone else and just like light dissolves in dark, he decided to go away.



Two years later, I know this- many have come and gone- some used, repaired or severely damaged. I am with someone, who’s probably the stereotypical version of SUITED UP, whose behaviour modifications compel me to write status updates. I now have become a part of those mechanical blokes who carry on with their lives and overindulge on the concept of a Smartphone.



The iconic difference in the one who I write about is that I never felt the need to use emoticons. And while we all have turned into cynics and lovers and cynics again-there is a reason why millions yearn to have what is written in mythical legends or urban series.



You stole my heart like a kleptomaniac. And I am going to get you back.



Goodbye Blackberry. Hello Moto.

Guilty? ME?

It’s 8.10 am and my head is buzzing with last night’s Blue Label. I don’t get hangovers but after untimely meals and two serious liver infections my alter ego (who’s my quasi mother, part sister and my imaginary gay best friend, Joe) – says I should know better.



In an attempt to tune her out I turn to System of a Down’s Chopsuey when I tell myself that working for 12 hours, I don’t need an explanation to nobody, not even me.



I mutter something about how Rihanna’s S&M is also about how’ being bad is so good’ when the other side of me blares like the horn on a Ashok Leyland tempo cornering a Nano ‘Oh now you’re following rock stars at 25? ‘Coz you didn’t do so when you were 16?’



An hour later, I stand there in my towel; I browse through my cupboard promising to re-arrange it the coming weekend. If the cupboard could snort to retort, it would.



There stands an outfit I remember taking 20 minutes for, in the changing room of a namelessly pricey showroom .I remembered checking me adorning the dress in question from so many angles that only a photographer indulges in when paid a filthy amount. If that wasn’t enough, I needed my friends to say “Work it girl”, when I asked “Are you sure?” but also my Joe to snap his fingers and say “Girlfriend, if you got it, you got to show it”.



Straight out of Scrubs, its Joe’s sequence to tell me stuff I know only my mom agrees with. “Girls would kill to have a body like that- and you don’t even work out- but please join a yoga class, this is about your health.” Oh jeez, I say to myself when I take a deep breath, look at the clock, swear and bravely grab the hangar like it’s the shield of Achilles.



So there it is- I have always been thin, without personal trainers or green tea- I knew about suryanamaskars when Kareena Kapoor was eating potato balls and didn’t know how to use a computer. And as I step into my car and Eminem’s raps Recovery I talk without saying a word.



I never used it to lose weight, look radiant or to have an ass trainers’ rant about-maybe some ex-boyfriends but I’d never go back to ask. As per my worldly knowledge, it’s not just the opposite sex (who doesn’t need an excuse to get their early morning wood up and burning whenever they see a girl) but overworked, undersexed and never paid women with a potential of killing a real basilisk with a fleeting look.



“Screw them” Joe duly says. “Did you get your bitch on or not?” Course I did.



Progressing towards destination bitchland I decide to wear my shady sunglasses combined with a look I have been trained in, thanks to work.



Strut, strut, defence mode: on Auto mode and I arrive at my work station. 3 hours pass- new deadlines, to-do lists and neon green post it’s dominate my mind while other half of me and defence mode are on snooze.



It’s 1 pm and Ms. Fake-it-all decides to order cheesy and meaty from The Big Chill Café. While the crease on my forehead hinted at “nobody asked me” I have never been eager to eat at work, on time. Mom would be so happy.



As I am a quarter past my meal, the not-so- secret society of fuglies have graced the table with their presence and enquire the reason behind this tête-à-tête- something they must have done 30 minutes ago.



“It looks like they have emptied half a pint of olive oil in our order” Oh now it comes, I think to myself “but it wouldn’t really bother you, would it?”



“Give it back to her now” is a chorus in my head from the cast of Glee.

“No, it wouldn’t but then not all of us are lucky are they? Why don’t you try the caesarean salad?”



Even though I receive a standing ovation in my head, I decide to stay away from the only thing that makes me moan like a man- a slice of New York decadent cake.

Pleasure Fuckers

I won't do this on my blog- coz I haven't read my own blog in a year...or two.And my sister/co-blogger tends to write about is incredibly inappropriate, enough to get us sued and then defends herself in the garb of a post pregnancy hangover.



First of all, screw you pleasure fuckers for writing self help status updates thinking it will spread positives vibes on your friends' list- please leave that to Buddha. I added you 'coz I thought we both agreed that we needed help. But if you think writing about "light at the end of the tunnel" will help my day better- I"ll shove you right into it. The tunnel I mean.



I would like to thank my best mate, you know who you are, apart from sarcasm( my alter ego) for a plethora of emotions that made me reach beyond what I thought was my limit of drinking- at any time of the day, any drink available with an appetite that made people double my size telling me to go slow. Pleasure fuckers.



Special thanks to Imran Amplifier Khan for making me sing songs in Punjabi and blush when a cheesy guy played it while I was shopping, a million others like Muse, Flo Rida, Kesha for singing about puking in Paris Hilton's closet and Black Eyed Peas who make me move wherever I am.



My undying love for Chuck Bass, Don Draper, James Sawyer Ford and Voldemort. No matter how big assholes they are, there assholery keeps you going, wanting for more. Pleasure Fuckers :)



The ones who keep me on my toes, my fingers busy on my Blackberry (sadly) and give me a new game to play everyday. Special ones to the glorious bastards who almost make me believe that it's all wires and switches beneath their suave jackets for their robotic moves. For putting all that pleasure to an end, you're da fucker.



Also- don't call whoever you care about by their initials..."I call her K, J, Q" Don't be a random fucker. What happened to the good old Bittoo, Pammi, Gugu and Sonu? Personalise. It's less than 140 characters.





Since I am keeping the emotionsaaal away from this note, here are a few people I'd like to mention. Geetali Gupta- my other alter ego who reminds me of me so much that it was freakish. Also for taking me to Bombay with strangers and having a blast. Tarini Kumar- we don't talk much but Vinod....cut your hair. Sandhya Sinha who's now become Sandhya dear to her errr very nice husband( Oh Salman bagged a hottie of a wife by the way), Kuber Sharma- for coming back with a bang and reciting all my funny lines to impress chicks, that and a ridiculously expensive gift. Neha Bose- for keeping the funny going, Avi- for letting me talk, Bharath Kp who's uncool enough to not be on FB and finally Pankaj Johar which I can't say here so I"ll probably whisper into your ears. They keep the pleasure going with the fuckin'.





Lastly, the pleasure sucker Headlines Today where so many ppl continue to go that they deserve a fuck, or a therapist's number- the place which is so deeply ingrained in me that I don't even need a tattoo for it, that it has turned me into a fucker.





And to Maroon 5, who came out with a song called "Pleasure Fuckers" but I haven't heard it yet.



And since I don't have a coin slot on Facebook account( I"ll tell Zuckerberg that one)to charge you for this, do what you do. Comment.