How To Do Revenge Travel Right During A Raging Pandemic

If you think the universe is conspiring against your holiday spirit, you’re absolutely right. But does that mean you deprive yourself of the thrill of plotting and planning your travels! Of course not. 

Image courtesy - Google 

Everyone’s ‘dying’ to go on a vacation. Why else would they land in Mussoorie in droves, pack themselves like Kumbh devotees at Kempty falls and harness their stupidity to turn a waterfall into a wave! Before you can choke on your nimboo paani and sputter in horror, the viral video has given anxiety pangs to all. 

This is just a few weeks after your eyes popped out and fell on the ground when you saw frightening visuals of a traffic pileup of holiday makers rushing off to Himachal like diarrhoea within hours of the lockdown being eased. 

There’s this much trauma your anxiety ridden heart can take. The poor thing has just started limping back towards normalcy post a traumatic second wave. Your steadfast notion, that memories of SOS calls for oxygens beds and overflowing cremation grounds will be enough to keep people in rein, has drowned itself in Beas. 

Of course you want to go on a vacation too but minus the dying part. Locking yourself at home to stay alive has been no fun especially when the weeks stretched into months and months stretched into an eternity. Your pre-Covid life from the last century along with the resident lizard that’s trying its best to come under your feet look at you mockingly. You are too bored to snarl at them as you float around aimlessly from one room to another in one of the many kaftans that you’ve bought online. They call it loungewear these days. 

But try as you might, you just can’t muster enough recklessness to head off to the hills to mingle with maskless warriors impatient to usher in the third wave!  

Too bad you are not a locust.  You could have munched your way through continents with swarms of your relatives, friends and boyfriends and laid eggs without a care in the world and a vaccine passport. Instead here you are laying on the bed and staring at the lizard that has now learnt to climb the walls. 

Look, we know you’ve been bookmarking properties in the hills that keep showing up in your Facebook feed. It gets difficult to control your eye twitch when you look at your friends’ vacation pics on Instagram. Just the other day your husband caught you bawling loudly and wiping your nose on your kaftan sleeve. 

Every time you doze off, that lovely property in Landour haunts your dreams. Your eyes glaze over when you fantasise about sitting on the balcony overlooking the misty mountains, sipping adrak chai that the caretaker has made. The bliss of doing nothing in the hills trumps over doing nothing in your apartment anyday.

We get it, things are getting unbearable and you feel like a caged hyena in a zoo. You’ve often mulled over running off to a remote village tucked away in the Himalayas. But didn’t you just read about a friend’s ordeal who got stuck in their quaint cottage for weeks because of a landslide and had to survive on shoots, leaves and insects in their dirty underwear! 

If you think the universe is conspiring against your holiday spirit, you’re absolutely right. But does that mean you deprive yourself of the thrill of plotting and planning your travels! Of course not. 

What if we tell you can still go on a vacation without risking RIP and a wonky WiFi! Sounds too good to be true, right!  Here’s what you can do.  Remember how you pile your shopping cart with expensive AF dresses and then abandon it? You can do the same with booking rentals at exotic locations. 

How about the beautiful cottage on stilts in the middle of the lake...May we suggest the 2 bedroom hammock in the lush forests that has no motorable roads? You can spend a few blissful days making a spreadsheet of dozens of properties. Then you can waste enough time reading reviews, watching vlogs to narrow them down to the final five. Just make sure they all have easy cancellation policies.

If this doesn’t entice you enough, how about inviting yourself to your friend’s apartment on the 52nd floor! When you step out on the balcony after the third bottle of wine, you will feel on top of Nanda Devi and the screeching traffic will sound like chirping of birds. 

Or you could drive down to Delhi in rush hour and pretend you are stuck at a traffic snarl at Parwanoo. While you are at it, you can make calls to an imaginary hotel and tell them to keep soup ready because you won’t be able to make it by lunch. 

Haul your suitcases that have been collecting dust in the loft. Stuff them with your vacation wardrobe. Pack a bigger snack bag. Get into the car with your family and squabble endlessly about which music to play for the long drive. Don’t do laundry for weeks and then whine about the endless wash cycles, the vacation weight, and the plants your maid didn’t water properly while you were away.

Remember the journey is more important than the destination and planning is even more exciting than the vacation itself. 

Think like Nike. Just do it. 

Cancelling Enid Blyton Will not Make Racism Go Away

The Cancel Culture Is Mostly Performative And Brings About No Real Change

Britain, a nation best known for its shameful imperial past and then conveniently forgetting they colonised over 200 nations, stripped them of their wealth, enslaved its people, made them fight their wars, now wants to cancel Enid Blyton to cleanse its heritage. I had to spend a large amount of my time counselling irony from climbing the Tower Of London to jump off it.  Sure, Blyton’s portrayal of black characters was problematic. They were depicted mostly as criminals. Sambo, the Little Black Doll, is hated because of his “ugly black face,” and doesn’t even have SRK and  Fair and Handsome  to come to his rescue! But I still couldn’t stop rolling my eyes at the  ‘cancel culturists’ and wonder about the kind of glasses they are wearing that prevents them from seeing Enid Blyton was a product of her times that valorised Winston Churchill. This is the same man who referred to Indians as beastly people with a beastly religion. Described Palestinians as barbaric hordes who are little but camel dung without a hint of shame. I’m sure Enid Blyton chose to be blissfully unaware that Churchill was no better than Hitler, both having masterminded a carnage as brutal in the name of white supremacy. 

So why just stop at demanding the removal of blue plaques for Enid Blyton and Rudyard Kipling, commemorating their historical significance! Cancel blue plaques for the entire nation that has yet to return Kohinoor to us and  left us with Victorian morals that deems almost all human desires as immoral and a stuffy bureaucracy that prides itself in red tapism. Though I still think their most unforgivable crime is plundering so many nations for their spices and still making shockingly bland food. 

I feel terrible for Ms Blyton. Imagine having to battle the guilt of dying five decades too early and not being able to apologise for being so unkind to black dolls! I am now having to revisit all my childhood memories that’s still stuck in The Enchanted Woods, idolising Nancy Drew and getting cheap thrills from Amelia Jane’s antics and expunge the black parts from it. Though I am not sure if my well meaning aunties who never missed a chance to tcch tcch about my dark skin during my growing up years and then look soulfully at my hopeless future were influenced by Enid Blyton’s evil machinations against the coloured lot.

Since political correctness demands I cancel her as an author of any merit, I am now trying my best to be pissed off with her. I am so mad at her for instilling a deep desire in me to look for kind old men who looked like Mr Pink Whistle, whose only mission in life was to help children in distress but not before plying them with lemonade and other goodies.  How dare she give us Moonface in The Magic Faraway tree who stuffed his mouth with big chunky toffees and was then unable to say anything but ‘ooble ooble ooble! My molars still haven’t forgiven me  for plying them with half a dozen toffees and then trying to have an intelligent conversation with my creaky ceiling fan!!

She really had no business giving wings to our imagination and making us look forward to the library period in school so that we could borrow some more books of hers  and take flight from our dreary middle class upbringing. 

Image courtesy- Google 

As a children’ writer who primarily wrote for white kids, had she educated them on racism and xenophobia along with English values, we wouldn’t have to put up with generations of racists who think it's perfectly okay to turn brown skinned people away from their restaurants. We wouldn’t have to wonder if the museum staff was especially rude to us because of our skin colour or bad manners. But be perfectly okay addressing men and women from the North East as chinkis! And laugh loudly at Sardar jee jokes. 

Maybe it’s time we all accepted that oppressed can be oppressors. The victim can also be a perpetrator. 

Many of the former colonies of the British empire like the white settlers in New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, America slaughtered the indigenous to take over their lands. Indian society still thrives on oppression of its marginalised. 

Yes, change is how we evolve as a society. Adulting is about discovering your favourite kaku is an insufferable sexist and that your childhood idols were flawed. But this growing culture of cancelling anyone who doesn’t ascribe to your worldviews and pouncing on them in droves and shaming them is doing more harm than good. People have forgotten how to be authentic and are now focussed more on saying the right things. And when their true personas emerge, their actions seldom match with their politically correct bytes.  

Some of the greatest minds of this century were flawed. Their contradictions were shocking and difficult to come to terms with. But does that mean we negate the influence they’ve had on shaping our present and popular culture? Of course not! 

Cancelling Enid Blyton and her likes is mostly performative - a modern version of Gladiator games.  It pretends a few blue plaques revoked can make racism go away, though in reality it is still thriving. It manifests in news headlines, rich countries refusing to share vaccine technology with poor brown nations. It exists in the white savior complex, a popular trope. Focus on that instead. Recognise you are no better and leave the dead alone.

A RATIONED CHILDHOOD

Now that frugality is back courtesy a pandemic,

it's time to acknowledge that our middle class upbringing was our saviour.

 

My childhood resided in the pre-liberalisation era when everything from television hours to material pleasures was rationed. Romantic intimacy on screen was left to the imagination of the audience while flowers were made to violently collide with each other. Kwality had yet to merge with Walls and was served in paper cups and plastic balls with a lid. Eating out was reserved for special occasions. For us it was always at the same restaurant and we ordered the same dishes every single time - chicken sweetcorn soup and tandoori chicken that came on a sizzler tray. My brother and I would leave the restaurant with fistfuls of mishri and saunf and savour one mishri at a time on our drive back home.

Image courtesy Google

With both my parents working we were blessed to have never faced any financial hardship. Yet my parents, especially my Mom, were terrified that I’d immediately transform into a wastrel with a future as dark as our neighbourhood during load-shedding if she allowed me to go on a school-arranged overnight excursion with my classmates. 

I kind of understood where she was coming from after having heard countless stories of their austere childhood where new clothes were handed over like good news in 2020. Her growing up years were devoid of colours like the movies of her time. It was every vamp’s moral duty to smoke, drink and wear western clothes. I doubt if she had ever set foot inside a movie theatre. Maybe my Dadu thought exposure to censorious content would turn her into a rebel and she’ll throw her chappals in the air screaming ‘down with tyranny!’

Compared to that, I had a Disney-world like childhood. I had the joy of looking forward to annual family vacations even though it was a painful exercise in how to save money. I was exposed to stellar cinema-making  of Basu Chatterjee, Sai Paranjpye, Satyajit Ray and Basu Bhattacharya, but an ice-cream coupled with a movie day was frowned upon vehemently. 

Sometimes I end up blaming this forced austerity as a child for my penchant for overindulgence as an adult. Buying that flowy ensemble in teal that I absolutely don’t need with a pair of heels that will be impossible to fit in my shoe closet. The elation is as short-lived as clean air in Delhi NCR though. My middle class upbringing makes sure I always test guilt positive till I feel I have done enough to earn my moments of short-lived highs. Worked myself to a frenzy, sprouted brand new stress lines on the forehead and shed half my hair. It also makes me stop, think, evaluate and then discard the idea of buying that insanely expensive watch as wasteful.

For many of us the first few weeks of the lockdown was the toughest. While we were bursting our capillaries scrubbing the house clean, cooking meals and washing stacks of dishes, there were no rewards or self-pampering in sight. It was a constant emotional yo-yo of patting our own backs for living like saints, our credit cards lying forgotten in some dark corner and bracing ourselves for an unhappily ever after in our frayed pyjamas and having aloo gobhi for lunch. 

The uncertainty brought many of us at the precipice but also taught us the importance of savings and living within our means. Over optimistic businesses surviving on over-borrowings collapsed. YOLO died a quiet death.

Interestingly our parents were cool as cucumbers through this forced imprisonment in their nightie and pyjamas, treating it as just another weekday. Unlike us they were not fancy meal addicts, didn’t take off for a vacation every few months, didn’t land up at a pub every weekend! Their frugality was their children’s saviour as well. Many went rushing back to their parents at the first hint of financial and emotional distress. 

It'a not as if the older generation was spared of anxious moments. They had to deal with agony of being told again and again they were the most vulnerable to Covid... That it will be really long till they get to see us again.... What if there’s a medical emergency and then feeling terribly lonely....

Maybe our obsession with indulgence goes back to our childhood when every good job done was rewarded with a gift. It felt hard-earned and well-deserved. Though I made sure I denied my parents the opportunity by being lazy and unyielding by choice.

We carried this tradition to our adulthood and made sure we rewarded ourselves amply for even the most minimal of efforts. Couple it with constantly seeking the thrill of new and voila - we have created a culture of excess. Your favourite pret brands get this. Which is why they come up with a new collection every few weeks and we end up buying more and more even though we know fast fashion is killing our planet.

An all you can eat buffet with 65 mains, 120 varieties of starters, and a separate hall for desserts, where diners waste more than they eat. Weddings with 15 ceremonies, a guest list bigger than the population of Helsinki because this is how weddings are meant to be celebrated- like public events!

We’ll cry for the dry, depleted, stressed ecosystem we are leaving for our kids but will do zilch to change our lifestyles. And when we are forced to thanks to a pandemic, we grieve endlessly.

It’s been 8 months since I have traveled with my family. We don’t eat out as much. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t in extreme distress especially in peak summer when memories of my past vacations would appear unannounced on my Instagram feed. Reluctantly I learnt to adapt.  I discovered new interests like looking at other’s travel pics with lust, making travel plans and then cancelling them. Explored the beauty of Aravalis, the city we tend to take for granted, looked for monuments to visit during weekends - just like my parents did when we were young. It also made me wonder why our cities had so many malls and pubs and so few parks, botanical gardens, running and cycling tracks! 

Perhaps it’s time we rationed our many wants. What if we try an intermittent fasting of our indulgences? The first few days will be awful, angsty, restless. We may end up with fewer hair on our scalp but eventually we’ll calm down. Soon it’ll start feeling perfectly normal (not the bald part). Wheee, I survived 2 weeks without trawling the net for yet another useless thing to acquire! And when the cravings gradually dissipate, it’ll feel as special as vanquishing the invincible Ravana. It will also help us figure out what is really important and what is unnecessary. Most of them are manufactured anyway by our favourite social media platforms.

I just hope my mum doesn't read this because when she does I know exactly what she’ll say - See, I was right all along! 

Baal baal dekho, hazar baar dekho

When hair is everything, can shampoo be far behind?

I have scant memories and feelings for my first boyfriend but turn into mushy over-cooked porridge when I think of my first ever shampoo from the US. This was the first time someone had made me feel like a Mills and Boon heroine - sighing and perpetually weak at her knees.  After years of an arranged match with sanskari Halo Green Apple that smelt nothing like green apples, White Linen was like a breath of fresh hair. My knight in a bottle was tall, smelt so posh and big. Of course size matters! 

During my college years it was my most prized possession. Once when I got a whiff of its perfume from my brother’s crown I promptly sniffed out his stash of chocolates from their hiding place in Tora Bora and finished them all in one sitting.

Revenge had never tasted this sweet. 

How dare he contaminate my beloved with his touch! It is not often that a girl is blessed with a presence that repairs, rejuvenates,  restores her tresses to its browning glory. And when it does happen, she wants it all for herself and clutch it so tightly that it asphyxiates.

Tell me, is there a better feeling than your hair smelling like a French perfume while it feels like Dove! You want to stroke it like it were your pet. Toss it over your Head and Shoulders.  Sway it like a cow’s tail.  Wind it around your neck like a silk scarf. Twirl it seductively. I still can’t get women who have embraced reetha, amla, shikakai and other herbal wonders and are okay with their hair smelling like a compost!

How can you subject yourself to so much cruelty? I would like to escalate this to the higher ups. Why can’t jasmine, rose, sandalwood be as good for the hair as they are for the body! How dare you delegate onions, eggs, fenugreek, amla instead as elixir and make our follicles smell like a man’s armpit! 

One of the cardinal rules of femininity is that hair is meant to look WOW in its glossy glory and smell even better. Sadly, the journey to her sweetheart shampoo who is 7 times hydrating, uplifting and nourishing than anyone we’ve worked up a lather with is way tougher than a trek to Nanda Devi. It is paved with frustration, hairfall, dandruff, split-ends and frizz. 

Each time it’s the same story. Our curiosity is piqued when we hear so many friends rave about this hot new thing in the market and its stellar performance. Soon we start craving and fantasising about it’s velvety touch on our scalp. 

Help! I have no idea what to do with my hard-earned Unlockdown

Has prolonged isolation robbed me of my ability to have a normal conversation again?  Should I move to a cottage in the hills and prepare for a rest of life in solitude! 

After all these months of keeping in touch with friends and family through WhatsApp forwards and emojis I have forgotten how to have an intelligent conversation. 

The much fantasised unlockdown has been set into motion. We are finally free to do what the government wants us to do - watch Arnab burst his capillaries on Republic TV as he brainwashes the masses.  But left to our own devices, we have no idea what to do outside of our homes anymore.

The thing with captivity is, after a while you get so comfortable with it, you start calling it the new normal. The initial few weeks of confinement are choppy though and bring out your inner Mamata Banerjee. You bang your dirty pots and pans, attack dirty floors with the mop, believe every conspiracy theory you read and oscillate between bouts of anger and fear. Then you get so used to spending your days like that lizard stuck to the wall in stupefied silence, it becomes your comfort zone.

One day after much deliberation and long winded  arguments with your inner-self, you step out armed with sanitizers, masks, and a fluttering heart to a world that isn’t the same anymore.

The dining precincts, pubs which would give you a happy headache with loud laughter, louder music as you waded through a sea of city dwellers desperate to have a good time, now resemble abandoned cities and civilisations. You can almost hear sad violin tunes playing in the background as tears run down your eyes and season your cheeks.

Perplexingly, local markets thronging with daredevils dressed like bank robbers in their masks on their chins and sunglasses don’t make you happy either. They make you nervous, fidgety and almost angry. 

Most of your friends are still revelling in the euphoria of saving the world by vegetating at home, not shackled by their bras. They mulishly refuse to pay heed to your pleas to meet. Luckily for you there are a few odd ones as desperate as you who you manage to coax out of their caves with the promise of a rainbow and reviving forgotten chemistry.

How to make most of the monsoons - hint, do it the Bengali way

Monsoon in India is anything but mundane. It is chaotic, disruptive and joyous at the same time. As the skies open up after months of relentless heat and drenches the parched earth making it fragrant and green, emotions run high and the mood becomes festive. Each spell of rain becomes a momentous occasion that must be celebrated the only way we desis can celebrate - through gluttony.

At the first sign of thunderstorm, the kitchen comes alive with the sound of pakodas being fried crisp in sizzling oil. Served with piping hot chai, the heart sings loudly like a peacock in heat while the stomach prepares itself for acidity.

But if you are a Bengali, you curl your lips with disdain at the sight of your Panjabi neighbour gobbling pakodas with glee. You are the self-anointed human version of L’Oreal shampoo. Since you’re 5 times more enlightened, cultured, opinionated and intellectually evolved than the boddo-average Indian. even your monsoon celebration is meant to be five times more elaborate and painful.

You're loath to spend a piddly half an hour to rustle up crispies to celebrate the drumming of rains against your windows. You put the book you’ve been reading aside, and announce to no one in particular - aami aajke khichuri khabo.

I can already hear a chorus of ‘who the fuck has runny khichri meant to soothe an agitated tummy on a rainy day?’ Let me assure you all, the Bengali version is nowhere near the sloppy mess you have on diarrheal days.

For Bengalis, khichuri is not merely a dish, it is an emotion. It is the culmination of utter joy we experience when we see dark, angry clouds gather and rumble with displeasure, the air heavy with promise of rains. As the parched earth, greying trees, dusty buildings greedily soak up the rains, the house starts filling with the aroma of moong dal being roasted for the khichuri. 

Pic courtesy Cosmopolitan Currymore

Unlike the khichri a hastily thrown mix of daal and rice thrown in the pressure cooker and served as a watery, tasteless gruel that you want to throw up, the Bengali version is a mix of rice, lentils, cauliflower, potatoes, peas, seasoned with spices, chillies and served with a dollop of ghee. If you dare dump all the ingredients together and make it a lumpy mess, you will be haunted by a Robindro Sangeet humming ghost for the rest of your life! Each one of them must wait for its turn before it is added to this desi risotto and stirred till your arm falls off. While the potato adds silkiness to the texture, the cauliflower and lentils breathe in their unique flavours, and the peas add a sweet note to the khichuri.

Since ek poder ranna(one course meal) is considered a cruel joke in Bengali households, we coolly pick up the exhausted arm from the kitchen floor, stick it back and proceed to slog a few more hours to prepare the side dishes, bhajaas and chutneys for the khichuri.

The rains have long stopped. The locality kids who were splashing around in newly formed puddles are now back home. The Panjabi neighbours are now prepping for their dinner of rajmah chawal when their ears prick up to the sounds of ssssss. No worries. It is their Bengali neighbours who have let go of their table manners. They are scooping up the hot khichuri with their fingers and going ssss in a futile attempt to cool it. It will be followed by loud slurping and crackling noises as they take a bite of the begoon bhaja, fried Illeesh, deem bhaja, break a crisp papad into pieces, take a noisy lick of the sweet, sour tomato chutney, pause to mix the labda( a runny mish mash of veggies) with the khichuri, interspersed with loud sighs. The K drama climaxes with obeisance being paid to the creator of this feast. Boddo bhalo baniyechho eibaar!

The Bengali neighbours are finally on their balcony, rubbing their tummy gently with satisfaction of a feast partaken. One of them is going through her Instagram feed and rolling her eyes at the million rain drenched pics that her friends have shared. Losers, she mumbles to herself. They are now singing Jhoro Jhoro Borishe even though the rains have long retreated. The bottle of Gelusil in the medicine cabinet is getting ready to play its knight in shining armour role later in the evening.

The night is still young. One of them chimes - kalke luchi aloor dom? The weather forecast says it’ll rain tomorrow as well.

Vocal for the local Gamchha

If you are a Bengali kid whose childhood resides somewhere in the 70’s and 80’s, you were probably scarred by the memory of a grandparent prancing around the house in a mere gamcha. Since they were no Zeenat Aman, you probably had difficulty sleeping for the next few weeks, haunted by the image of their shrivelled frames and flappy skin. But then this was a generation that had yet to be introduced to the miracles of skin tightening formulas and gave ‘zero fucks’ to the outside gaze.

Image courtesy- Google 

 Perhaps this jaunty confidence stemmed from their cape with superpowers, the limp gamcha. To the uninitiated, gamchha is the country cousin of the fluffy bath towel. This deceptively flimsy piece of cloth resembles a dusting cloth that has seen better days. Usually check patterned, it is as soft as it is absorbent and dries as quickly as a Twitter outrage.

The gamcha was the OG of multitasking. Either flung casually on the shoulder, or tied carelessly around the waist, this versatile piece of cloth flitted from one role to another with little effort. To ward off the pesky fly disturbing the much cherished afternoon nap on the armchair. Gently wipe off beads of sweat while surveying the storeroom for pilferage by the staff. As a hand wiper, table wiper, God, I need another bath wipe, wrap-around bathrobe to scar your grandkids for life….. It was everyone’s favourite silent companion.

Ms G was loved so much, it was embraced across all communities and castes with equal vigour, making it one of the greatest equalizers. On a hot day it would transform itself as a farmer’s turban as he toiled in the sun. On a lonely evening it was the homely housewife’s cheek caresser. The adolescent’s dhoti because why waste a proper garment on a growing child. As an all purpose scarf for the male on the move it was also his fashion statement.

It wasn’t until my 30’s that I let myself be introduced to the wonders of the ubiquitous gamcha. And when I did, it was love at first wipe. As I gently rubbed myself dry with the gamcha, I could hear my forefathers and foremothers sigh with contentment. Its texture reminded me of my favourite pyjamas with half a dozen holes that I had held on for years despite its sorry state. It felt as soft, airy and comforting - just like an ideal relationship that exists only in our dreams.

I shed silent tears for all those years I had wasted on alpha towels. I chastised myself for being led astray by bulky towels wrapped around glamorous divas beckoning sultrily on billboards. My heart was simmering with rage thinking of the unfair treatment given to gamchas, ignored, taken for granted, dismissed as too unsophisticated. Even in movies, Ms G was relegated to cranky old men who wouldn’t stop talking about their daily ablutions! 

No my dear gamchha, not anymore! I will not let you be subjected to anymore humiliation. I held it close to my cheeks, whispering sweet nothings and pledging my undying love to it.

Dammit Covid - Did you have to cancel Gluttony as well?

The beloved breakfast buffet, the sole reason why many of us went for vacations, is about to be relegated to the dustbins of history. I mean I get it. These are unusual times. Thanks to bat borne virus, the greatest threat to humanity is now humankind. We are supposed to jump into the nearest hedge every time we sense human presence to save ourselves from their length and breath.

Hotel buffets is where guests converge to exchange pleasantries, germs and viruses. Ask the ladle, the chafing dish that has been touched so many times by so many. It’s the favoured playground of the gluttons because dammit I paid 20k a night for a deluxe room with ‘all you can eat breakfast’ package. Diets die a swift death and without any regrets. And why not? How many times in our lives do we get the opportunity to eat our weight in aloo bondas, meatballs and egg Benedict, and follow it up with a mountain of croissants, muffins and danish pastry taller than Everest! And then wait for a pot of green tea to erase our guilt.

Agreed, Mrs Mehra’s chutney smeared hands on the sambar ladle will now be a health hazard and Samikshaputrika sneezing near the bagels will give us seizure. But hey, that doesn’t mean you can deprive me of the dilemma of having to choose between crab legs and poached prawns while downing wheat-germ shots! Buffet breakfasts taught me the art of balancing my plate delicately on one hand while trying to open the lid of the chafing dish with the other with the other and then dropping it with a loud clang on the floor.

God forbid if hotels go a la carte, my vacations will become as bland as the daal I had on my last trip to London. Imagine having to start your day without half a dozen sausages, smoked salmon cartwheeling with bircher muesli, coffee, orange juice inside your stomach, and not being able to complain about indigestion for the rest of the day! And now I am getting the sinking feeling that lunch and dinner buffets are on their way out too. Oh no! My life will become pointless if I won’t get to spend nearly an hour at the buffet table meditating in front of the 16 varieties of orange gravies that look exactly the same but claim to be different. I’ll miss giving exasperated looks to the lady who’ll appear out of nowhere to ask me if this dish is gluten free, fat and taste free! Is this prawn or fish? Is this dish vegetarian?

Quarantine- when you discover everyone has hidden talents and you have none

The last 50 plus days of quarantine have been extremely distressing for me. I had to experience the ignominy of discovering that every single one of my friends and acquaintances, including the ones I had long dismissed as useless, have hidden talents. While everyone I knew and did not care to know was busy channeling their inner Jamini Roy, Lady Gaga. Behen halwai, Nigella minus the decolletage, handstand diva, I discovered I had none.

Maybe their huge reserves of talent was a shy thing, bit of an introvert, waiting for an epidemic to be coaxed out of the closet? Perhaps the anxiety pangs of dying from a mere virus had made everyone desperate to seek refuge in creative pursuits and discover to their horror they were damn good! I would stay up all night desperately seeking answers to these questions. I even tried passing off insomnia as a talent but realised it was too commonplace.

Initially it wasn’ t this bad. I was too busy feeling euphoric and was determined to make the most of this unexpected break from the outside world. One could actually open windows without being assaulted by cacophonous sounds of screechy traffic. The air had become so clean, I could actually see my neighbour weeping on her balcony. Rivers were detoxing with relief. I would often stand near our windows for hours hoping to spot a leopard.

Nature was healing, you know!

As an act of self preservation I pretended not to care at all. I had even mastered the dead fish look while I faked astonishment and awe with panache. But pretty soon it became impossible to be the ostrich and ignore the sudden influx of talent parades. Inside me was a raging dust-storm. My heart was breaking into tiny pieces. I tried assuring myself my heart would emulate the Japanese art of Kintsugi. The broken pieces would magically rejoin themselves with lacquer dusted gold and become so beautiful that I’d be tempted to take it out and flaunt it for envious glances.

Even as I was busy dismissing these divas as wenches suffering from performance anxiety, constantly seeking validation from strangers who they will never meet, a part of me was dying to wear the crown. I wanted to do back flips and splits in my living room, without crashing into the furniture and breaking a limb or two! I wanted my breads to rise and shine and sing an aria too while they were at it! I was finding it impossible to accept I was a lazy oaf who lacked the willpower to pick up a new skill, or master a language I may never use.

My impatience and addiction for a drug called Netflix was the biggest impediment between me and imminent greatness. Obviously I have many hidden talents. I just don’t have the time to rake them out!

Eventually I did find my refuge, not in french bread braids, overripe bananas or my vocal chords, but in my rows and rows of potted plants. If I could clean pigeon potty all day and feel like their long lost Mom without wings, surely I could adopt my plants and smother them with tender care! Plus they needed protection from these winged assholes who were treating my helpless plants like their ‘all you can eat buffet!’

India – URine Trouble

Gadkari Jee has asked for storage of urine at airports and intends to make urea out of it. India, you are in trouble~

10 December 2022 – Nitin Gadkari is the first Indian to be awarded the Nobel prize for Piss and India can’t stop bursting their bladders with joy. This is the first time any Indian minister has been awarded for doing something productive. Another first is the category that was especially created to honour Mr Gadkari for leaking his novel idea in making India the number one country in pee sufficiency.

What started off as a simple idea of harnessing every Indian’s inner piss to make urea has now boomeranged into a Yellow revolution that has not only made us the global hub for fertilizer, but also bio-fuel sufficient and manufacturer of world’s brand-new favourite miracle drug that can cure diarrhoea, viral, bacterial infections, cancer and its aunt with just one swig. Patanjali’s Pissleri is now being exported to 195 countries and has replaced Green tea as the undisputed king of unverified claims that everyone loves to believe. With the emergence of Tea, Coffee or Pee as the millennial’s favourite café to hangout, Starbucks has closed shop and is planning to try their hand in bhajiya business.

Since no one uses petrol anymore, Saudi Arabia is now a mecca for dates and is the favourite hunting ground for Shiv Saina and Hindu Mahasabha.

To the bitter disappointment of sickulars, pseudo-leftist-jhola-loving-JNU-going doomsayers, India is finally seeing acche din and proud Indians can’t stop patting their full bladders for its invaluable contribution to the economy. Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas is no a longer mann ki baat but reality.

India’s journey from Pee negative to a Pee positive country was far from easy. Like any brilliant mind, when Gadkari first floated his out of pot proposal of harnessing urine to make our own urea, everyone including the writer of this piece missed the moot pint and chose to ridicule him instead. Like any visionary he chose not to get pissed off by mockery and remained steadfast in his vision of sucking out the last drop of urine from us to make our future golden.

Thanks to his unshakable belief that all his ideas are fantastic, airports all over the country now have giant stills that store every flyer’s urine. Unlike the rest of the country it makes no distinction between Savarna, Avarna or minority pee and is the modern day Prayag where all hues of urine mingle freely. Though sources claim the ‘always outraged Hindu’ pee fetches the highest price for its bright orange colour.

Nitin Gadkari’s garden at his official bungalow in Delhi has long reaped the benefits of his golden bounty and his rows and rows of pissed-off plants have shown better growth than India’s GDPee. Thanks to Gadkari’s revelation, women who were previously condemned as vindictive for pissing in their guests’ and MIL’s tea are now being hailed as ‘peelanthropists’. They are now being urged to mix pee in their family’s tea as well.

2018, a LOU story

Heartless Nimmo ran away with all of Pran Nath Banke’s money leaving him with egg on his face. The neighbourhood is abuzz with it. 

Technically it was not his money but we’ll come to that later.

Many of his men friends turned up at his place with ‘we told you so’ condolences. He was yet another casualty of the nefarious schemes hatched by women out to squeeze helpless men dry of their juice.  

Too bad this was not Love Jihad otherwise they could’ve hacked Nimmo into boti sized pieces.

Theirs was an unlikely LOU story. Nimmo and Banke were as different as wine and lassi. She, pish -posh, born with a diamond ring in her mouth, soft spoken and petite, who wore nothing but couture. He, a hard-working simpleton, unpretentious to the point of shabby. A quintessential nice guy he was every aspiring mother-in-law’s dream come true. Since he only spoke Punjabi and she really bad Gujarati in a firang accent, they communicated by poking each other. Nimmo had even given him a cute nick-name - Pokemon. 

Nobody expected Nimmo to be the runaway bride. Leaving on a jet plane, with not even a note when she’ll be back again.  Didn’t even wake him up to say goodbye. 

She was after all from a rich khandan and from the looks of it definitely not in need of his money. Ok, not his money but given by others for safeguarding it. 

Idiot. Couldn’t even do one job right! 

It’s not as if Pran Nath Banke was short of suitors. But they were mostly middle-class and needy. For the uninitiated this is the breed that has to earn their own money instead of inheriting it from their family and then pays most of it as taxes to a government that doesn’t do its job well. Our dear Banke loved to make them sweat like they were in a Mumbai local. One of the commandments of the holy grail of dating is act like a government servant. Keep mum, make them run, and always look disinterested, just like a dead fish. It is rumoured he even made one them dance on broken shards of glass like Basanti in Sholay. 

The poorer they were the nastier he was with them. 

Nimmo was subjected to none of this. All she had to do was shimmy in a skimpy tight dress that could have gotten her raped but didn’t and pout seductively. Then she faked some interest. And before she could croon ‘are you loansome tonight’, he was hopelessly in LOU with her.

Unfortunately, his inner voice that was screaming Banke, you fool, you are giving her too much credit, was put on mute.

Maybe he was not so nice after all. Maybe he was asking for it. 

Snacking Is India’s Favourite Pastime Right After Outrage

Courtesy - Google Images

Hunger is one of our most primal needs, because it’s food that sustains and comforts us, and gives us joy. Sometimes we get into such an intense relationship with food that it borders on obsession. This kind of relationship usually ends up in heartbreak. I mean what can be more sorrowful than seeing the needle on your weighing scale cross unchartered territories! Which is why the most dangerous type of hunger is the one that has more to do with your state of mind and very little to do with the rumblings inside your stomach. It starts as a little voice inside your head, soft at first, coaxing you to reach for that pack of crisps that you’ve hidden inside a 60-feet pit you dug a few hours back. The one that you were not supposed to buy but still bought it. The one whose existence you were supposed to forget like the promises politicians make just before elections. But damn, it’s stuck inside your head like a fly in a pot of jam! The more you try to ignore that bloody voice, the louder it becomes. It has now installed monster sized amplifiers inside your head. Your hands are now feeling clammy and you can hardly breathe. And that voice is now sounding like a chorus of crazy cricket fans chanting – just eat it, dammit!

You start clawing at the mud with your fingers, sweating with desperation, eager to reach to the bottom of the pit to that green and orange pack that you bought from Kalu ki dukan. You tear open the pack and gobble its contents in 10 seconds flat. Your face is now smeared with the orange spice that’s making your nose gush like sewage during monsoons.

Crispy roundels of heaven, packed with absolutely no nutrients, hollow claims, lots of guilt and 100% guaranteed satisfaction. These devious things cast a hypnotic spell on you. You know it’s bad for your waistline, yet you keep digging in for more and more like a greedy politician.

Eyes half closed in ecstasy, your breathing is now slow and languorous and then you take a deep sigh of regret.

It’s not as if Karni Sena will come running after me to behead me if I choose to snack on carrot sticks and a handful of chia seeds instead. But having a healthy snack is against Indian culture, no? Especially when you are born in a country that takes its munchies as seriously as not a doing a thing about toxic air that the capital is forced to breathe.

A mind-boggling variety of farsans, chop, jhal-muri, bhelpuri, phuchka, dahi bhalla, momos to choose from. Uff! It’s like you are Vishwamitra and these apsaras are out to wreak havoc on your carefully laid out diet plans.

Sweet, savoury, crunchy, chewy, there’s something to suit everyone’s palate.

We love our snacks so much that we even invent occasions to give us an excuse to indulge ourselves.

When we were kids, winters would mean picnics and picnics would mean taking breaks between munching on peanuts, puri-aloo, gajaar halwa, pakora and chai to play the mandatory game of badminton and losing yet another Frisbee. If you are a Bengali you’d have the added bonanza of having cold boiled egg sandwich with banana. If you crinkled your nose in refusal, you’d be rewarded with the sight of Bhutoo kakima rolling her eyes like a windshield wiper on a rainy day. And rainy days mean that veggies have no option but to dip themselves in a batter of gram-flour and jump in a karhai of hot oil. God made winters so that we could get fat and content consuming kilos of gajjaks, revdis and chikkis.

Women not crackers make Diwali special

Take out the woman of the house from festivities and it becomes a cold, empty house waiting to be filled with happy laughter. 

A major cluster of our cherished childhood memories hover lovingly around festivals. And it was our parents, their extra efforts that made these celebrations so special for us. Add to it the innocence that didn’t count calories, fret about the logistics and then complain about the stress, these occasions were the most looked-forward-to. 

Festivals for most of us were not just limited to the day of celebration. Like any well scripted story it built up over time, kept us on tenterhooks, made us impatient with excitement before reaching its crescendo.

It would start with anticipation of goodies which would give an extra spring to the steps we took. Unlike the hedonism of the present that eats out twice a week and shops till it drops, our past had few excesses. Our parents belonged to the era that believed in rationing material pleasures. So eating-out, a new dress and shoes were would wait for special occasions. If we had just watched a movie, stopping for ice-cream on our way back was a sure shot way of corrupting our souls beyond repair.

It was during festive occasions that our parents loosened up a bit. We were allowed second and third helpings of sweet treats and a few more when Mom was not looking. Almost all of them were homemade and invariably made by her. She’d spend long hours in the kitchen while we danced around her like excited puppies.

Is there anything in this world that tastes better than fresh off the griddle malpua dunked in a degchi of sticky sugar syrup?

When she was not busy in the kitchen, she was engrossed in making alpona on the floor with ground rice paste while I’d squat beside her and watch her in mesmerised silence. Each festival we celebrated had her distinctive stamp –from the 14 diyas she lit on chhoti Diwali, to the bhog she made during Lakshmi Puja, to the paste of turmeric and mustard oil she’d keep for us in the bathroom to slather ourselves with in honour of the beauteous and talented Saraswati. Durga Puja meant weeks of preparation for the many competitions that were held at the pandal during the Pujas.

When you are ten, all you want to do is make your Maa happy. So you recite poetry with emotions you don’t comprehend, participate in dance-dramas with your face caked with ghastly make-up, play musical chairs even though you hate it, all in an attempt dazzle her friends and relatives with your unimaginable talent.

Have We Let Our Children Down?

Photo courtesy - Google images

You don't realise how deeply you are capable of loving till you have your own child. As an adult who’s seen the world that can be kind and cruel, soft and harsh, cheerful and sinister, you want to shelter them from the worst and experience the best humanity has to offer. You want their childhood to be a cherished memory and not a nightmare.

So, when you read about a boy, all of 7, killed brutally for resisting sexual advances of a crazed man inside the safe confines of his school, your heart bleeds. You are filled with rage at the school for taking safety of your most precious so casually. You grieve for the parents who will be left with a gaping hole in their heart for the rest of their lives.

But the first thought that engulfs any parent is – what if it were my own child! I was living in Brisbane, and my daughter in Delhi when the Nirbhaya incident sent chills down our spine. It also brought out my worst fears. As much as I hated myself for doing it, I would ask her to be home by evening, carry a Swiss Knife with her at all times and my insides would turn into a gnawing jelly of anxiety, every time she wouldn’t pick up the phone.

Every time a child gets sexually assaulted or worse killed, we are overcome with helpless rage. It was appalling to find out that Ryan International has toilet facilities shared by students and the non-teaching staff including drivers and conductors. Children are easy targets for deviants. Also it's a known fact that paedophiles seek employment/engagement in organisations where they are in close proximity with children. It’s baffling that the school didn’t bother with background checks before hiring the non-teaching staff.

It is a colossal tragedy of our times that sexual abuse of children is not given the importance it deserves. It is either shrouded in complicit silence or the perpetrator is let off with a reprimand. The bus conductor who murdered Pradyuman allegedly had a history of sexual misdemeanours. Yet the school that dismissed him just a few months back didn’t think it was important to file a police complaint.

As a nation whose track record of safety for its citizens is far from exemplary, we still do not have a national database of sexual offenders. It’s not as if demands for one have not been raised before but our outrage that follows reports of sexual abuse in schools has the attention span of an amoeba.

The Delhi Police has chalked out a plan of action to look into the issue of security of children in schools following the Ryan incident. I am sure the Haryana government will also come up with their own list of rules and regulations for schools to follow. But simply drafting hurriedly made rules for children’s safety is not enough. If new laws and rules could keep us safe, no woman would be afraid to step out in the dark, no man would think twice before stopping to a take a bleeding accident victim to the hospital, no rapist will have the audacity to rape again and again.

Police background checks become just a useless piece paper when you know that the police chowki will simply sign the form without any physical verification for a mere 500 Rs. Regulations are of no use if the school lacks the sincerity to implement them.

One single lapse is all a predator needs to slip through the safety net.

So how do we keep our children safe?

How To Be An Asshole and still be Mistaken as God

Hello, my lovely disciples

Let me start by congratulating you for being a lucky bastard. Now now, don’t start fancying yourself as John Snow. Your case is different. You are blessed to be born in India and a time where despite free flowing spirits, spirits are at an all-time low and outrage at an all-time high. With the breakup of Suraj Barjatiya type of familial connections where even the dog is happy, families have become nuclear, happiness an elusive entity, satisfaction comes with no guarantee and everything you cherished is being relegated to history. You are often consumed with the fear of being part of the rootless and faceless herd, leading a life of perpetual consequence. And boy, you are so right!

Now that I have acquainted you with reality, don’t try to kill yourself or others by sharing your soppy poetry about your shitty life. If you follow my guidelines carefully, you can become the most powerful and wealthy asshole, with a following of millions ready to lap-up any bullshit you spew including achhe din. You don’t need degrees from elite institutions or be particularly gifted. All you need is a gift of the gab and a proclivity of making promises you have no intention of fulfilling. You have to master the art of making a fool of millions. Once you’ve achieved that, anything you do or don’t will be hailed as the best thing to have happened to mankind since chhole bhature.

Across the world religion is becoming the fastest growing business venture. Since there’s never a shortage of the gullible masses waiting to believe that their very existence is under threat from evil forces, all you need to do is prey on their fears and make them believe you are their saviour. If they don’t have it, create it. Mine on their ignorance and you will yield a rich harvest of unfounded fears and hostility towards one and all. Make them feel wronged, alienated. Then you can slowly take control of their lives by becoming their spiritual guide, psychologist, family confidante, semen donor and money launderer.

Remember, this is the age of instant noodles, news, outrage, opinion, love, breakups, fame and satisfaction. So why should salvation be left behind! If all it takes is two minutes to commit a grievous sin and make Maggi, it is unreasonable to wait a lifetime for moksha. And since God is like homeopathy, more faith than reality, it makes sense to look for the real deal in flesh and blood.

So here lies your opportunity for becoming their God. The one that can be seen, touched, heard, and is a one stop shop of redressal for all their grievances.

Dear Magazine, I am not sorry we broke up

The newspaper is dying a slow death, but not in India. For many households it’s still the perfect accompaniment with morning tea even though the many reports of horrific rapes and killings fill you with sorrow and disgust at the same time. Every member of the family has a favourite page. During my teen-angsty days ‘the middle’ mostly witty accounts of personal anecdotes, was my favourite. My Dad stuck to the sports page and Mom would devour very inch of the paper. When the ‘middle’ was removed, I shed lonely tears on its demise. Unfortunately, there was no social media where I could call for a candlelight vigil.

These days I spend most time on the editorial page. In this age of constant explosion of news that’s breaking the Internet every few minutes, you need a learned and well-informed pen to help you make sense of the chaos and cacophony that passes off as news.

As in any middle class home where a household item has nine lives before its expiry, the newspaper too enacts many roles with ease. After it has fulfilled its purpose of informing and sending ripples of outrage down our spine, it quietly takes on the humble job of lining shelves in cupboards and cleaning windows. The ones that escape this ordeal hand meekly surrender themselves to the local raddiwala who defies inflation and offers lesser and lesser money for the same pile.

As I hand over the stack of rustling newspapers to its new custodian, I can’t help but notice the few odd magazines cutting a lonely picture. I carefully avert my eyes from their accusing glances. They believe I have forsaken them for a new lover and they are right.

Damn you, online distractions!

The fact is, we did have a passionate love affair for decades. They were my besties after a long, tiring day, my before bed companion, the secret behind my know-all attitude. I remember how excited RayMan was when I trundled home with Cosmopolitan and 110 ways to make your man sigh in bed. I read them all, giggled, rolled my eyes and then promptly forgot all the tips. And my man let out a loud sigh.

It was through Illustrated Weekly I discovered great artists and their work. My Maa’s Bangla magazine with its agony aunt column where youngsters would share incestuous, forbidden and supremely weird but exciting tales of love and longing stoked my desire to learn the language. Magazines were a one stop shop for stories, opinion pieces, satire and how to use onion juice to rejuvenate your hair.

Period leave – Yay or Nay for Empowerment

I will conquer the world but only after I am done with my periods

A Mumbai based firm in their attempt to be more women friendly has granted first day period leave to all its women employees. Yay! This should start making men wish they had periods too - the mythical condition that makes perfectly normal women turn into raging monsters. This monthly ritual of shedding eggs is much like the short skirt – the most popular defence for rapists and their many sympathisers. Every time a woman creates a scene, screams her lungs out, gets into an argument because she’s tired of taking shit, it is promptly attributed to the big P or her sis PMS. Either this, or she is menopausal, or may not be getting enough sex.

So deep is this rot in the mindset, a Trump voter went on to say the reason why she’ll never vote for Hillary is because a woman should never be the President. Her hormones that play hide and seek make her so volatile that she can start wars, totally ignoring the fact that both the world wars were started by leaders who were men.

That the future of world peace depends on the mental health of our vagina is a huge responsibility to shoulder. Phew!

Despite menstruation taking the blame for all the ills that befall mankind, it’s funny to note how little men know about it. Or rather choose not to know about it. Never mind the fact that they had taken the same path as period blood to slide out into the world.

Ah, well!

Thankfully we have come a long way from the time when menstruation was thought to make women periodically dangerous. The reason why we were kept in isolation, away from public space and temples, lest we desecrate its holiness.

Period is no longer the condition that renders us bechaari and immobile. We can choose what we want to do – run, swim, scale mountains, barge our way into temples or even go to office, Hell, I can go to my neighbourhood chemist and walk out with a pack of sanitary napkins without its soulmate, the brown paper bag!

No one but us gets to tell us what we can or cannot do. So a Serena Williams wins the Australian Open when she was 8 weeks pregnant. A well into her fifth month Gal Gadot plays the warrior princess in Wonder Woman and slays.

We are no longer shy from talking about what we go through when we are menstruating. Something that was unthinkable for generations before us.

So forgive me if I feel confused when a period leave is hailed as a giant leap for womankind.

Yes, I get it. It is an acknowledgment of what we go through, the uneasiness, the cramps that come and go like electricity in Gurgaon. For some women it’s worse – fainting spells, vomiting, debilitating pain that brings life to a grinding halt. But the lack of a period leave has never stopped us from staying home when it was too much to bear, right?

If we are okay with taking a holiday earmarked as ‘period leave’, what’s stopping us from going to our boss from telling, look, I am about to get my periods, the pain is unbearable. I need to go back home. And if PL is the new normal, why not make provisions for pre-menstrual syndrome as well? Bar women from being part of key decision making, meeting high-value clients, closing business deals, because hey, it’s that time of the month when her mood swings faster than a movie star’s sexual orientation.

I will conquer the world but only after I am done with my periods?

Open the door, the Goddess is right outside

If you are a woman of reasonable means living in India, chances are you have seen God regardless of your caste, belief and pet prejudices.

For those of you unfortunate enough to be deprived of this divine viewing let me describe to you in detail what it feels like.

Like all good things in life this too doesn't come easily. In fact it is a lengthy process that entails a lot of suffering, uncertainty, anxiety that gnaws at your insides. It's a lot like when you have the misfortune of going to a government office to get a job done. By the end of the ordeal and no solution in sight, you wish you were born a lizard with no responsibilities other than flicking your tongue around for your next meal.

Tragically the longer the suffering is, the higher the probability is of the sighting. Your mood swings like a pendulum on testosterone. You alternate between anger at being betrayed and extreme melancholy. Women experience dehydration from frequent bouts of crying. It is likely to occur when you are on all your fours with a mop in hand, your hair greasy from sweat.

Wherever you go, whatever you do, all you will hear is sad strains of the violin. Nothing feels right anymore, not even your favourite TV series. Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape of You’ playing for the zillionth time at club near you doesn’t annoy you anymore. You feel exhausted all the time mentally and physically and often end up reminiscing about achhe din which was your reality just a week back.

But no, the unevolved type you are, you refused to appreciate the gloriousness of the present when everything worked with clockwork precision and you actually had time to post photos of flowers, cute kittens and your dinner. Instead you chose to find faults with it. You cribbed about cups with tea-stains, the carpet that looked it hasn't been brushed for weeks.

You refused to appreciate your achhe din while you were living it.

Maybe you deserved this living hell. Perhaps you were asking for it by behaving inappropriately.

But with great distress comes greater introspection. As you are crouched over the sink cleaning the pile of dishes, you chide yourself for being ungrateful for comforts you took for granted.

You are often spotted near the window scanning the horizon for missing achhe din.

Mind you, there will come a time when you might feel tempted to cheat. Especially when the one you trusted so deeply has gone silent. Won't even pick up your calls, reply to your drunk texts, refuse to LOL on all the WA jokes you forward.

Perhaps it is time to move on. Should I start looking for a new acche din?

You give yourself a tight slap for being so impatient. Shutup, Purba, you tell yourself. You have invested so much in this relationship. Don’t give up. Not yet.

Thankfully you manage to assure yourself it is meant to last forever.

So you wait with Zen like patience. You meditate to keep your equilibrium intact. Soon you start experiencing detachment from discomforts you experience but only in spurts. The rest of the time you continue wallowing in misery and trying to unknot your stomach.

And then one day when you are on the cusp of attaining Nirvana and losing your sanity, the bell rings. You drag yourself to the door and open it and lo behold, you are greeted with the most beautiful sight. There she is glowing like a goddess, looking a little shamefaced for putting you through hard labour. Your body is trembling with unsaid emotions and your eyes well up with tears. It takes immense willpower from collapsing at her feet with relief. Before she can say, Didi, you close her mouth with your hands and whisper – bass kar pagli, rulayegee kya?

It’s been two days. Your eyes can’t stop following her like a puppy as she sweeps the floor. Once or twice when she has caught you staring, you immediately start looking intently at your phone and post a few lame jokes on Twitter. You are now making a mental note of buying her a new sari from Amazon.

Maybe I’ll give her something in peacock blue this time. It’ll suit her dusky complexion.

Better still, I’ll build a shrine for her in my heart. After all behind every carefree and footloose woman is her kamwali bai.