Ahh...simple pleasures of life, putting your pen to paper or fingers to your keyboard and writing a new post! It takes a trip to India to make you miss things you take for granted here. Few other...what I call..."small freedoms" like eating when you want to eat, dressing in crumpled pajamas during the day, ordering your fiance (now husband) to do some work around the house - all a big no-no in India, irrespective of whether you stay at your place or your in-law's place (I can't wait to post about this particular experience!).
Am kind of bursting to write about a whole new range of hitherto un-approached topics, maybe I should just sit down and write a novel that I will force my close friends and k to read once a month. Anyway, here goes some crazy list of thoughts, observations and anecdotes -
*** It's not fun to make phulka rotis in your in-law's place when your husband is guffawing away to glory at a hardly funny joke on the Great Indian Laughter Challenge on TV. It does not matter that I am just making the small round thingies while my mom-in-law is actually making the phulkas. Life's just unfair. For instance, why couldn't my dad ask k to make idlis when he was at Madras?
*** Relatives try to feed the bride and the groom approximately 3.5 times more than they can digest. Maybe they can't stand the fact that the bride and the groom are slim and fit and they want 'em to be really round and fat? Also, it doesn't matter even if it's basundhi - there's only so much of it that you can eat!
*** Speaking even smatterings of the spoken tongue in a land earns you brownie points that you cannot earn with a well-written five-page essay in English!
*** I had a most interesting conversation with an uncle for a couple of hours without realising that his son was considered a prospective match for me a few years back. His son is now married to a Romanian. He said, "Now, I know what I missed". That made me quite happy for some reason.
*** No matter how many times you have sworn to yourself that you will not let the makeup lady dab, douse and drown you in makeup like in your cousin Sheetal's marriage, she will manage to make you look like a white terror with red lipstick. The consolation is that k had so much makeup on, we made quite a ghostly pair in the reception!
*** It's cool to have a movie star like Crazy Mohan turn up at your wedding and having people whisper and point excitedly at him. I mean someone else just stole my thunder for a few moments, but still...it's just cool :)
*** One of my many realizations after this trip - I cannot live in Bombay (except if we can afford a flat at Nariman point and have a cook, chauffeur and a maid (you can stop laughing now. Thank you.)
*** Although every young couple fears that wily vaguely related uncle with a caustic tongue and a sarcastic tone to match, these are the people who add color to a wedding. They are the ones that create memorable impressions worth recounting! Oh boy, I can't wait to post about the villain of our wedding - our very own local Pran. Somehow, these characters gain more distinct expressions, gestures, mannerisms and the story gets more punch as we repeat it for yet another awed audience!
Many more posts to come and a few tags to be answered, until then, this is your finally no-longer-single lady signing off :)
September 30, 2005
September 02, 2005
World, Women, PMJs and related issues of vital nonsense.
So, I've been doing a lot of deep thinking lately, actually, not really. I have been doing very little thinking of significance lately and those few thoughts have contributed to this eclectic post.
Firstly, what is the world coming to really (I mean for the female kind just in case you have lost context)? Yesterday P~ and I had a nice dinner at S~ and K~'s place and we were on our way up to see their new stereo system when I turned back towards the dining table on a sudden impulse. I noticed two dishes with tasty curd rice and grapes in one and paav bhaji in another and they were left open (uncovered) and I asked, "Shouldn't we first cover these dishes and put it in?"
That, in itself is bad. I don't want to become one of those dainty, preppy ladies with color coordinated dresses to match their home decor! You know the kind that say, "Ahem, Can you please leave your slippers out before you step in?"
(- Sure, they have mud cakes and assorted gooey mess sticking to the bottom, So, I will do just that. Also, should I also have a quick shower and then step into your heavenly abode?)
I don't mind being dainty but the rest is just not me :) Anyway, as soon as the words left my mouth, P~ moved involuntarily towards the dishes to cover them up. That's twice as bad. What has happened to the women of today? Modern, career women like P~ and I should not be moving involuntarily towards the kitchen at a guest's house to cover dishes, clean them, dry them with small, white hand towels with teddy bears on them :( To our credit, we both did drop a bit of icecream on to the carpet there (by mistake!) and did not really care much about it.
Another quirky incident was at a Thai place that we had gone to for lunch. The lady there knows us well (this is not to say that I do not cook at home - I do and I maintain that even if you do point out that she knows my first name (almost), city of birth, my fiance, the Company I work for...and such trivia about me). Anyway, a friend blurted out to her that I was going to India and all that and she immediately pointed to my pregnant colleague standing with me and then at me and said, "Ohhh, lamya (she has a problem with the r), next your turn, next year you come with baby girl to eat here, no?"
Now, that's a nice embarassing little conversation there. I grinned widely and pretended to have a mouth full of fortune cookie bits and then attempted a quick feminine giggle (that was a disaster but that's a whole new story there). So, anyway, since the lady at the Thai place has already started thinking of a baby girl in my family, I thought I should too.
So, I pinged k (on chat) and here's a quick transcript:
me: So, have you thought of a name yet?
k: uh huh (means he doesn't really care, normally).
me: I don't like the name Kamal much
k: yeah, me too (I doubted that was a sincere answer but he probably did not want to make me jittery before marriage and that folks is PMJ (pre-marital jitters.)
me: L~ says Kamalan sounds better, rounder (is that a word?)...
k: uh huh.
me: That'll be a nice knock knock joke!
-Knock, Knock
-Who's there?
-Kamalan
-Kamal and who?
k: Bye (Quite frigidly, now that I think about it!)
Sagnik's headlines seems to be having a really adverse effect on my joke telling ability - many apologies, Sagnik! Anyway, around now, am supposed to be affected by the PMJ syndrome, so, kindly excuse me while I jitter about a bit for a day before I fly home :)
Firstly, what is the world coming to really (I mean for the female kind just in case you have lost context)? Yesterday P~ and I had a nice dinner at S~ and K~'s place and we were on our way up to see their new stereo system when I turned back towards the dining table on a sudden impulse. I noticed two dishes with tasty curd rice and grapes in one and paav bhaji in another and they were left open (uncovered) and I asked, "Shouldn't we first cover these dishes and put it in?"
That, in itself is bad. I don't want to become one of those dainty, preppy ladies with color coordinated dresses to match their home decor! You know the kind that say, "Ahem, Can you please leave your slippers out before you step in?"
(- Sure, they have mud cakes and assorted gooey mess sticking to the bottom, So, I will do just that. Also, should I also have a quick shower and then step into your heavenly abode?)
I don't mind being dainty but the rest is just not me :) Anyway, as soon as the words left my mouth, P~ moved involuntarily towards the dishes to cover them up. That's twice as bad. What has happened to the women of today? Modern, career women like P~ and I should not be moving involuntarily towards the kitchen at a guest's house to cover dishes, clean them, dry them with small, white hand towels with teddy bears on them :( To our credit, we both did drop a bit of icecream on to the carpet there (by mistake!) and did not really care much about it.
Another quirky incident was at a Thai place that we had gone to for lunch. The lady there knows us well (this is not to say that I do not cook at home - I do and I maintain that even if you do point out that she knows my first name (almost), city of birth, my fiance, the Company I work for...and such trivia about me). Anyway, a friend blurted out to her that I was going to India and all that and she immediately pointed to my pregnant colleague standing with me and then at me and said, "Ohhh, lamya (she has a problem with the r), next your turn, next year you come with baby girl to eat here, no?"
Now, that's a nice embarassing little conversation there. I grinned widely and pretended to have a mouth full of fortune cookie bits and then attempted a quick feminine giggle (that was a disaster but that's a whole new story there). So, anyway, since the lady at the Thai place has already started thinking of a baby girl in my family, I thought I should too.
So, I pinged k (on chat) and here's a quick transcript:
me: So, have you thought of a name yet?
k: uh huh (means he doesn't really care, normally).
me: I don't like the name Kamal much
k: yeah, me too (I doubted that was a sincere answer but he probably did not want to make me jittery before marriage and that folks is PMJ (pre-marital jitters.)
me: L~ says Kamalan sounds better, rounder (is that a word?)...
k: uh huh.
me: That'll be a nice knock knock joke!
-Knock, Knock
-Who's there?
-Kamalan
-Kamal and who?
k: Bye (Quite frigidly, now that I think about it!)
Sagnik's headlines seems to be having a really adverse effect on my joke telling ability - many apologies, Sagnik! Anyway, around now, am supposed to be affected by the PMJ syndrome, so, kindly excuse me while I jitter about a bit for a day before I fly home :)
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