Thoughts

It was raining real hard outside; the husband was just sitting there doing nothing (as always) and I thought to myself, “Damn, there’d be too much traffic tomorrow morning. I should leave earlier to office than usual. Maybe I should make Aalu bajji or something. Vengaaya bajji would be awesome too. Or use both aalu and onion and make bonda. Yum! Thinking about which, a cup of hot chocolate or coffee would be a perfect match.”

The thought about hot chocolate led to the memories of weekend afternoons when my husband and I would walk over to the nearest Café Coffee Day and spend our time talking away about technology or business ventures that never took off.

The thought about weekend afternoons led to memories of umpteen bike rides to the airport just to have a cup of coffee from Maiyas and enjoy the view. Those were the times when Sidhu was not there and we could just decide and head out in a matter of minutes without having to worry about carrying diapers and bottles and rubber sheets and what not.

The thought about Sidhu reminded me to check on him – had he woken up? Perhaps he had crawled over to the edge of the bed? Damn, the bed is too high. I should probably order a play pen or a wooden crib for him right away. Thinking of wooden furniture, I should ask Sabal to take the car and drive us to Channapatna and get for Sidhu a walker.

Thinking about Channapatna, I should also buy some wooden toys for Navaratri next year. Even though it is a whole year away, I don’t know if I would be able to go all the way to Channapatna before that.

Thinking about Navaratri, how nice it would be if Sidhu were a girl baby! I would have dressed her up in pattu pavada chattai and decorated her hair with flowers and took her to see Golu to all my relatives’ and neighbours’ houses and after a few years, maybe teach her to sing songs and all.

Sigh… I looked at my husband. I asked him what he was thinking. He said, “Nothing.” NOTHING? How can anyone not think of anything? Somebody answer me before my next train of thoughts begin. 

The Villi

With the mothership living with us to help us take care of Sidhu, lot of time in the evening is spent with the idiot box switched on and equally idiotic serials. The astonishing thing is that within 5 minutes of any episode of serial, you can identify who the good party is and who the villain (in most cases, it is what we call in Tamil “villi”).

Now how exactly is this identification of the megaserial villi done?

Good Party	THE VILLI
If there is a renowned yesteryear Kollywood heroine in the serial, she belongs to the good party. She is mostly seen smiling (ONLY) during the title credits.	N/A
You see any women crying? Yes? They belong to the good party.	You see a woman going all ‘Hahahahaha’ and challenging to destroy someone? She is the one. THE VILLI.
You see women who wear little or no make-up? Good people, yo!	You see the one wearing the heaviest of make-up and the heaviest of jewellery? THE VILLI.
You see one man who looks like he sells Paan Parag? He is Yudishtir. Meendum Mahabharatam.	The one who doesn’t have salt in his toothpaste is Shakuni.

Takes less than 5 minutes to adjudge who is who. And these serials run for years together. 

There is an exception to this though – men are difficult to categorize mainly due to lack of make-up mostly. Also both good and bad men are allowed to have more than one wife. It makes it even more difficult to identify who is what. 

Amma is a lot better compared to Paati who watches “Sasural Simar Ka” in Tamil. After about a couple of hours I noticed she was watching the same shit in Hindi. And she can’t even hear properly. She generally makes out what we are speaking by reading our lips. Then how the hell she understands Hindi/Dubbed form Hindi serials is beyond logic.

Anyway, I have to go. “Vamsam” is about to start. Have to go and see what happens to Sankari and the other kids. 

We have feelings too :-|

I was born on a day when there was thunder and lightning; the wind was blowing hard and the windows were rattling their butts off. It was a large room with plenty of lights, there were many people in the room – they took turns handling me. I straight away understood that they all knew the purpose of my birth for they had a sad, disgusted look when they held me in their hands.

I was soon wrapped even though I was not feeling cold. I was put in a room with many others just like me. So many others just like me. So many that it was starting to feel suffocating and sweaty and claustrophobic and smelly. But we all knew our lives were going to get much worse than this. There was gloom filling what little air we had inside the awful room.

Then one day, the room was opened. Light. There was so much light and so much air to breathe. There was laughter. There was pink. There were cartoons. We had never known happiness and now we knew how it felt. All of a sudden I was pulled out of the room and laid down beside a baby. The baby was pretty rude as it started attacking me.

Before I knew it, I was stuck to the bottom of the baby. There is no need to say that it was smelly. It became worse when the baby pooped. When I say worse, it is in the vicinity of watching a Sajid Khan movie while getting your legs waxed and listening to the baby scream because it had gas. Oh that reminds of the smell of its gas, of which I know so much more than you ever will.

I am a diaper. We have feelings too, you know.

Disclaimer: The author of this post was in an emotionally vulnerable state after changing a particularly stinking diaper while writing this. 

P.S: Sorry for not putting the disclaimer at the beginning of the post. :-D

Friends!

The most underrated relationship in the world is the one between two girl friends. While male bonding has always been worshiped, the friendship between girls has always been made to sound too contrived and negative, or worse, silly. Really, boys are NOT all we talk about! Our media and pop culture too, hype up the relationship between two male friends about the longevity and depth of their friendship (yeh dosti hum nahi thodenge types) while it is always shown that friendship between girls get destroyed by their ego/jealousy/greed/boyfriends, etc. Our movies too, re-emphasize how brittle our friendship is, while the truth cannot be any farther. I really cannot think about a movie where the friendship between two girls has been the plot, around which the story revolves, can you?

Girl friends are the best because:

We can discuss anything with our friends that our male partners or even mothers won’t be able to understand. This includes work issues, problems with colleagues, health issues, relationship issues, or anything really.

We can still crack insensitive inside jokes about silly things that might or might not have any importance in the real world whatsoever. Try going on a long drive with your bestie and you will know what I mean!

Girlfriends make amazing babysitters. They are the best ones to trust your baby with if you and your better half want to escape away for a romantic dinner. Imagine how it would be if you were to leave your baby with a friend of your husband’s!

There is never a dull moment when you are with your girlfriend. There are always other people to gossip about. *wink wink*

Trouble in your paradise with your spouse/boyfriend? A good talk with your bestie is the best medicine. You could talk about it with her, get her ideas/solutions, or simply just vent it out of your system with a good long boo-hoo session and lots of wine.

I will save the best for the last. Girls are the best to shop with. Sorry guys, you don’t even stand a chance; you just cannot compete with girls in this one.

Social Issues Much?

There are certain social issues that I feel very strongly about – no, not the big-ass ones like women empowerment or LGBT rights or caste-ism. There are much better qualified people to do that. 

I am the small one – I worry about social issues like, “What happened to the vada-bonda shop akka? Why hasn’t she set shop for the last 10 days? The bhel puri anna who has his shop next to hers didn’t know either.” Or like, “The neighbourhood stray dog with the mean looking scar on his face hasn’t been eating the leftover bread. Hope he is alright. Maybe his stomach is upset?” You get the drift.

That said, social issues that have been protested against / the ones that have attracted the media’s eyes have not altogether been abolished. Transgenders are still being looked down upon, marital rape still hasn’t been declared a crime, Bellandur lake is still frothing (hey, detergent companies, here is a good idea for your next ad – “Secret to Bellandur lake’s extraordinary frothing - ”).

We live in a country where people are fighting for basic rights – right to good food, right to clean drinking water, right to practice any religion, right to be accepted with alternate sexuality, right to education, etc. I have problems too, da! I am also fighting, ok? – “Oh my God, the wi-fi is so frikkin’ slow!”, or “My Candy Crush lives are over!”, or “My sedan is too big in most parking spaces!” 

Most of Westerners think of India as a third-world country. But there are three different countries within India – the filthy rich, the good old middle class and the poorest of the poor. I really feel bad about our country, man. I wish I could do something to improve… hey, Ice Age is playing on TV. Let me go watch!