Trash Lit.

.
There is a big trash can across the road from my office. I suspect most domestic garbage finds its way there daily. I have a phenomenal view of the trash can’s insides from my seventh floor office terrace, where, like a self-respecting employee, I spend a lot of time.

Close to the trash can lives a family of dogs. Mamma and her four precious (and precocious) darlings. They live on the edge of a busy road, and I count the pups every evening when I head home to reassure myself that they have survived their foolhardy trips across the road. The scrawny things chase me till I turn and glare at them, at which point they run equally fast in the opposite direction, their floppy ears dancing to the tune of their frightened yelps. I am determined not to get emotionally involved with them, but I stand and watch this scene nonetheless.

Every afternoon, a snowy white mule appears from nowhere and makes his way to the trash can. The mule has a bushy tail, which some aspiring hairdresser has trimmed to resemble a series of tiny hair pyramids, one above the other. So PunkTail comes by for lunch, stays for high tea, and lingers on for dinner at his favourite junk food joint.

My lunch break is not complete till I see PunkTail beginning to dine. Every evening, I walk past that Ceaseless Feeder and marvel at some people’s ability to stay so slim after eating so much! I envy PunkTail his hairstyle and metabolism!

I had smiled and said nothing when a friend of mine had told me that when one lives alone, one creates an artificial family for oneself. Now my comfort depends on seeing a mule, a bitch, and four pups everyday!

Vexation

Granny. Prude. Call me whatever.
I have major problems with the line in the song from “Murder” that says
“Kabhi mere saath, koi raat guzaar”
It’s a lovely song. Very good lyrics set to great music and rendered by a phenomenal voice. But this line rankles me to the very core of my narrow-minded being.
“Aur ji, kabhi chai shai peena aa jao,” is how many Punjabi conversations end. I sense the same casualness in Monsieur Hashmi’s proposal to Madame Sherawat.
Mutual consent is not good enough a reason for me to tolerate this line, which strips a relationship of all its emotional baggage and leaves behind a skeleton that I cannot deal with.
I have a problem with the bachcha log who sing this song, because they subscribe to the ideology without analyzing it.
Whether it is because of my warped notions of decency, or my priggish upbringing (I hate both those words), I wish this line had not passed the Censors.
I also realize that I am the only one who thinks this way about the song.

And Happy Birthday Papun dada.
I’m not calling you up because I am really ashamed of the fact that I forgot.
To think I was talking to you last midnight.
I can either dig a grave and bury myself alive, or make you dinner sometime.
Your call.

My Playlist Today

.
Koi sab jeete sab koi haar de
Apni to haar hai, yaar mere
Meri zindagi mein aaye ho aur aise aaye ho tum
Jo ghul gaya hai saanson mein who geet laaye ho tum
Dostaana naya naya…naya
Raahein wahi puraani
Nazron mein ho guzarta hua
Khwabon ka koi silsila
Nazron ke teer mein basaa hai pyaar
Jab bhi chala hai yeh dil ke paar
Kaisi hai yeh rut ke jisme
Phool ban ke dil khile
Ek baar tujhko jab baraste paaniyon ke paar dekha tha
Yun laga tha gungunaata ek aab-o-shaar dekha tha
Kabhi kahin lag jaye dil to
Kahin phir dil na lage
Khushiyan aur gham sehti hai
Phir bhi yeh chup rehti hai
Koyi fariyaad tere dil mein dabi ho jaise
Tune aankhon se koi baat kahi jo jaise
Banjar hai sab banjar hai
Hum dhoondne jab firdaus chale
Tu hai aasmaan mein
Teri yeh zameen hai

Hiding

.
When I remember what I have done
I block my thoughts
And shut my eyes tight
And cover my eyelids with my palms
And my palms with my knees
And the whole with a blanket

But the blanket is covered
With a sticky sense of guilt
Which oozes through the layers
Reminding me it is useless
To try and shut out
Something that is within

Webcam

.
This weekend, I was at a cyber café with a webcam, and my mom was online at home. The result: Me tying away furiously and mom not responding. She was busy gazing fondly at her daughter who’s been away for a month. Karan Johar music playing in the background completed the family reunion.

I was reminded of a scene I had witnessed at a neighborhood cyber café last year. It was Holi, which meant it was also exam time. Exams for me meant running away from home to catch up with my old friends online every afternoon. Sharing the tiny café was a family - parents and two daughters – crowded around a PC where they were chatting with their son/brother in the US. Sonny boy had a webcam.

“Dekh raha hai! Hans raha hai!” Daddy was gushing in running commentary fashion.

“Hai mera Munna! Kitni door chala gaya!” Mom was chanting, all the while dabbing her eyes with her pallu.

“Mom is crying”, the daughter typed. “Kyun bata rahi hai use?” Daddy chided. “Dad is scolding”, the faithful scribe reported.

“Kitna dubla ho gaya hai Munna”, mom remarked. Scribe informed her brother about his weight loss.

Munna refused to admit he had lost weight. He stood up and twirled in front of the webcam to prove his tubby point (Ok. By this time I was slightly craning my neck above the partition. Do you blame me?)

“Hai ram baith jaa! Nazar lag jayegi” Mom exclaimed.

“Yeh kaun si shirt pehni hai bhaiya ne?” the other sis demanded to know. Color Plus, Munna responded.

Mayhem ensued. “Holi pe Color Plus! Nayi shirt! Kya karta hai munna?”

Scribe was torn between typing out the message and reminding Mom that there was no Holi in the US in the middle of the night.

“Aadhi raat ko office mein kya kar raha hai Munna?” the weight of time-conciousness unloaded itself upon Mom. “Khaana khaaya?”

“Pizza khaaya” Munna said.
Brainless Munna. Whoever tells one’s parents that one had pizza for dinner?

“Hai Ram!” Mom’s heart cursed Italy. “Hum yahan paratha khaa rahe the aur tu pizza kha raha tha?”
High five Munna, man! You’ve done it!

“Kitna kaam kar raha hai Munna. Ghar jaa ab,” Mom advised. Badmaash Munna is not working, just chatting Aunty ji, I felt like reminding her.

“Chalo ab hum bhi ghar jaate hain.” Dad had had enough. “Gas waala cylinder lekar aata hoga.” If there is anything mothers worry more about than their children, it is LPG supply. Mom promptly got up, scribe logged off and the family departed, Mom still wiping the corner of her eye.
“Kitna dubla ho gaya hai Munna.”

Bismillah

.
Beginning in my trademark pessimistic style, and invoking my personal God of all emotion for the purpose:

Chhod aaye hum, woh galiyan
Jahan tere pairon ke kanval gira karte the
Hanse to do gaalon mein bhanwar pada karte the
Teri kamar ke bal se nadi muda karti thi
Hansi teri sun sun ke, fasal paka karti thi
Chhod aaye hum, woh galiyan


This place will get much happier soon. I promise!

The Most Evil Invention of Man

No, it’s not the nuclear bomb. It’s not the differential calculus. It’s not even remix albums. This is the evil-est-most-estmost thing that man has invented. It’s the Spartek tile. I say man instead of humankind on purpose: no woman can have invented it.

Anyone who knows what I am talking about will instantly know why. All those who don’t will not understand till Spartek flooring invades their lives.

It invaded mine the day I opened the door to my rented apartment. The bright pearl-coloured floor cheerfully reflected the sunlight and welcomed me to my room (pronounced doom). I was sold. I agreed to pay exorbitant rent for the magic hat house with the Spartek flooring.

Some rub-a-dub-a-scrubbing later, all traces of cement, dust, and other closed-house deposits were eliminated. I smiled at the floor and it smiled back at me. (I am not clinically insane. I smiled at the floor because I was happy and the floor is the only available thing to smile at in an empty house.)

Then my cupboard arrived. As two very exhausted (six floors up by the staircase) guys dragged it in, the floor registered indelible records of the cupboard’s progress down the hall into the bedroom. Black streaks across the pearly tiles. The bed arrived. The fridge arrived. The table arrived. Scratch scratch scratch. The pearly tiles did not miss a single detail. They furiously took notes.

It was not too bad, though. At the end of the day, they were still mostly pearly despite the scratches, like wounded soldiers returning to happy homes.

The next morning, the floor turned tyrant with a vengeance.

Scene One: A strand of hair falls off your head. The pearly floor takes note. Calls in reporters for a press conference. The next morning, a picture of the strand of hair appears in all leading dailies (English and Marathi).

Scene Two: One fleck of chilli powder decides not to be cooked and escapes from the spoon. The CBI knocks at your door. Satellites have picked up pictures of a red speck on the pearly tiles and beamed them to Interpol.

Scene Three: You step out of the bath onto a footmat. You proceed to place your bare, squeaky-clean foot on the floor. Suddenly sirens are blaring in all directions. The floor is screaming above the siren sounds. You look horrified. The footmat has not been washed for a whole day. So it is dirty. So you have left a brown footprint. So the floor will kill you now.

So you tie up your hair forever and stop cooking and throw out the footmat. And you lie crouched in bed all day, youre guts churning in fear as you look at the agarbatti on the table, which threatens to catch the breeze and deposit its ash on the edge of the table…

Nuclear bombs, differential calculus, and remix albums I can understand. Why anyone would unleash Spartek tiles on the world baffles me.

Ups and Downs

I’ve used elevators at an average of twelve times a day in the last couple of weeks: which makes more elevator rides in fifteen days than in the rest of my life. Back home, the only time I took an elevator was at a mall or a fancy hotel. The staircase is just fine for daily purposes. But here I work and live on the sixth floor, and twelve trips up and down the staircase would spark off an internal race between weight loss and respiratory failure.

So I use the lift. The lifts have iron doors that keep on yelling and screaming like something out of Harry Potter until you close them. And the time difference between the door closing and the lift jolting into action most rudely is about 2 nanoseconds. You have to take a deep breath and close your eyes and be prepared to die as you close the door.

Elevator activity begins at 5:30 in the morning and ends at 12 in the night. All this while, the creaking and groaning of the poor elevator echoes in my unfurnished living room. The office elevator sings out its woes loudly, so that no meeting, phone conversation or any kind of work distracts staff from listening to its complaints.

In my head, I need to put up a warning sign: “Do not open the door to the elevator shaft if the elevator is not on your floor. “ When I am preoccupied, I get out of my house and try to open that door, and would probably plummet down the shaft if the door opened easily. I rarely check to see if the elevator is at my floor. I’m living dangerously.

Anita and her Harsh Tourists have to abdicate in favour of this one. The sign outside my building’s elevator says: “Sterling Elevators. Mr. Hate”. Inside the elevator is a warning message: “Do not stick your hand. You could loose it.” Someone call up Mr Hate to find out where I should not stick my hand. I do not want to loooooose it.

In Hot Water

My love for hot showers is well documented on the blog. I am a bucket-hater and cannot conceive of dipping my soapy fingers and a suspect mug into a suspect bucket for a bath. I want a shower. And a hot shower. Even if it is summertime. I like coming out of a bath transformed into a boiled egg.

Showers are your personal rain, and better because they are hot, and even better because they are at your beck and call. They are good for crying in, because to your tears, they look like company. The catch is the plumbing.

There are two kinds of plumbing. Simple plumbing is when you clap your hands in glee if water comes out of a tap. That is enough to make this world an earthly paradise for you. Complex plumbing is when you can adjust exactly how hot your hot shower is. Tingling, Tepid, Lukewarm, Warm, Hot, Milind Soman, Scalding, Furnace.

It is as different as vada pav and caviar.

Whenever I leave home, I am afraid of losing my hot shower privelege. When I got my new flat, one thing was clear. Running water was to be available only for four hours a day. There were no taps, let alone showers, in the bathrooms.

Taps were installed. Instant geyser and fancy water mixer was installed, while I inwardly wept hot showers of tears at the stupidity of complex plumbing in a waterless house. The plumber said that if I opened the tap a teeny weeny bit, I could get a trickle of tepid water. I wanted to throw the plumber out of the sixth floor balcony.

It was raining when I got up this morning. I shivered at the thought of a cold shower. I recoiled at the thought of the bucket and mug. I decided to play with the instant geyser.

Ok. I can’t control it anymore. It worked after some manipulation and I got my hot shower. I am so happy that I don’t care that the bathroom is flooded and I need to find the plumber to repair it tonight. I got my hot shower. I’m missing home a lot less today!

Buying Curtains

Me: Cotton ka curtain material hai?

Curtain Guy: Hai na madam.(I look at the variety the shop is offering. Big, small, and medium checks ONLY)

Me: Stripes mein nahin hai?

Curtain Guy: Stripes?? (I live in a village)

Me: Lambi dhaari hoti hai na, yeh to sab chaukor dabbe hain…

Curtain Guy: Cotton mein to sex hi milta hai madam.

Me: Kya?

Curtain Guy: Cotton mein sab sex pasand karte hain.

Me: (Choking on laughter) Achcha.Curtain guy: Kitne saare type ke sex hain…aapko kaisa mangta hai?

Me: (To meself: Mujhe oxygen cylinder mangta hai)

Somehow, I manage to choose the material.

Me: Ab yeh seedhe line mein sil ke dena… dono curtain ke checks line mein hone chahiye.

Curtain Guy: Sex se Sex milaa ke denge madam.

My living room and bedroom are quite “sexy” now. Sadly, curtain guy did not match sex to sex.

Bedlam-Ho!

There’s this thing. I need to know if it happens to everyone, or if I am a freakshow.
The thing is that sometimes, quite often actually, something makes me start crying. Silent tears fall against my cheeks like the rupee against the dollar. There is no perceptible sound, but the tip tap top of the teardrop as it leaps off the tip of my chin into the rest of the world. Slowly my eyes turn red. And my eyelids become swollen. My nose feels uncomfortable and hot, and wonders whether it should join in mourning the unknown corpse.
This is not the strange bit (if even this is strange, please don’t tell me, I have a weak heart). The strange bit is that people around me do a fantabulous job of pretending not to notice. They ask me questions and I turn my face towards them to answer. I can hear the tremble in my voice, and they can see the dampness of my chubby cheeks. But they keep talking like everything is ok. I don’t know if I could do that…
When I am done crying, salt deposit on my cheeks acts like starch. I can hear cracking sounds if I try to stretch my mouth into a smile. I hate to think Ma will misunderstand why I was crying today. I hate even more to think she’ll understand exactly why.

Tehelka!

They sent me back loaded with gifts, and did not let me pay. AGAIN. Anita, Rash, Bips and Exile are nice people in their own way, but the truth is that they do not have EARS. You can protest but they don’t LISTEN. You can threaten them, but they don’t CARE. They probably thought I would be too scared of carrying out my threat, but I am NOT. Here are all their real identities EXPOSED.
Anita: Someone called “Rodricks” never mentions a church? Hold you breath while I tell you that “she” is actually Harsh Tokas! A Haryanvi Jat who’s spent his whole life in Rewari. He’s a senior reported for “the paper”: Punjab Kesari. “Anita” has never been to Mumbai or Calcutta! Some fragile female called Priya Shah and portly babu moshai called Anup Chatterjee do the ghostwriting for the Mumbai and Calcutta entries respectively. Anita/Harsh has five traffic inspectors in the family, so do not buy the stories about getting lost in Delhi. He never lets the rest of the gang meet alone, or we’d have figured out why we still hang out with him. Most noticeable because of his bright nylon shirts and love of Dal Makhani, Harsh can be contacted at 9810576435.
Rash: After successfully managing a vada pav chain with husband P (Short for Prajapati)in Mumbai, this lady now runs the worst restaurant in CP: Rush Hour (If these words ring a bell, refer to her old blog). The magazine is a cover-up for serving the worst food in human history. Five criminal cases are pending against her and P (short for Padmanabhan) for food poisoining. Three puja pandals in Gurgaon reported goonda activities by her and P (short for Parmeshwar). With their multiple identities and underhand dealings, this couple can be contacted at 100 (unless Harsh bails them out).
Bips: Her real name is Ekta Kapoor. Need I say more? Yes. Ektaaaa Kapooooor had lunch with us today. Except she called it kunch. She’s too busy to meet us, but apparently it’s good for her image to hang out with our type. Call her for a role at 98110KKKKK.
Exile: Fifth and last Jew of Delhi. Reported to stalk women and ask them if they are Jewish and would they marry him to propagate the race? Tourist guide specializing in the Himalayas. Arranges for booze and hash and suchlike at a minute’s notice. Listed under “useful but dangerous” in police records. Call 98112AS_IFSo there you have it! These vengeful people will now splash my beer and cigar pics all over the Internet. But I had to do this. It’s for the general good. And oh, thank you all and I’ll miss you.

Cut!

Once a year, people pay taxes. Once a year, birds take up holiday packages and migrate. Once a year, I get my hair cut.
Today is that day of the year. I oiled my hair with industrial lubricant (oiling also happens once a year), and marched off to one of the “beauty parlours” near my place. One wash and cut, please.
There was some coconut-breaking and flower-sprinkling as my divine footprints graced the place I rarely deign to visit.
First up, the wash. Conducted in a chair that I will call the spondilytis-inducing torture-contraption. Three shampoo and rinse routines later, I was pretty sure I had little hair and no spinal cord left.
Then the cut. The owner of the parlour cut my hair herself. Four of her assistants stood in a silently reverential semicircle around us. Two minutes into the cutting, I felt like a patient on the operating table with a master surgeon taking a lesson in all vital organs-removalectomy. I begged for the radio to be switched on.
“You or We”, she asked. I wondered if I had dozed off and she had asked me to edit a sentence in the meantime. “Eh?” was my lucid reply. “U-cut or V-cut????” she asked. “You cut”, I said. Why should “we” cut? I am the one paying!
My hair has not been pulled, twisted, and pinned with such sadistic force in a year. My eyes popped out when the parlour lady asked why my hair was falling. “Because you are determined to yank it all out with your vice-grip and don’t tell me you were NOT grinding your teeth when you pulled the last time, you horrid freak”, my heart said. “Because of the weather”, my tongue mumbled.
In the history of haircutting, it is a noteworthy fact that the electricity goes off five minutes before my hair is due for blow-drying. I then walk out with wet hair, and a promise from the parlour that they owe me a drying. Last year’s is still due. I’ll have to grow another head to encash them both this time.The electricity is back. I am off to get my hair curled bimbo-style. If you hear someone singing “I’m a Barbie girl” maliciously, you know it’s me.

Ush-Tummy

Today people are celebrating ashtami and navami (thanks to the warped lunar calendar, some people are celebrating Holi also). For years, ashtami and navami have stood for the sacred ritual that raises the festival from its temporal confines to cosmic heights: the kanjak.
If there is anyone who is not drooling already, kanjak involved aunties and uncles inviting nine little ladies to their home, washing their eighteen feet, serving pooris, chana, and halwa, tying a sacred thread around nine wrists, and giving the nine eager beavers a coin each. So as long as you are a little girl (exceptions are made for boys if they are godawfully cute) and people around you are the festival-observing types, it is heaven on earth.
I remember when Sis and I used to dress in our pretty clothes and join our friends to visit the aunties who had invited us over. We would take out plates along, so that we could carry back the goodies that would not fit into our tummy. (Mummies of little girls love kanjak too. It means there is no need to cook breakfast for anyone!) We would get our feet washed, giggling at the sight of portly uncles bending to perform this weird ritual. The number of sacred threads around the wrist was a status symbol. We would merely nibble at the food they lovingly served, making sure we have space in our tummy for the next house visit. Shiny coins were handed out, and we would mentally calculate how much more loot was needed for a bottle of Campa Cola and an icecream. We would thank our hosts profusely for furthering our noble cause of hedonism.
Six or seven such visits would exhaust us, not to mention the portly bending uncles and poori-frying aunties.
My folks were too radical for hosting a conventional kanjak. All the gang knew that when all the poori-chana-halwa hogging was over, it was time to go to Hek’s house, where auntie would hand out chocolates. No thread, foot washing, or coin-bribing. Straight-to-the-point chocolates.
Today, bunches of raggedy children are roaming around my locality. Daughters, and sons, of maidservants, labourers, watchmen etc are ringing doorbells very persistently and demanding to be fed. After getting the goodies, they vanish without a thank you. They are throwing plates and wrappers all over the staircase, despite being asked not to. Food served as prasad is lying half eaten on the floor. It’s a regular Halloween, but with a lot of litter. I am missing my kanjak.

Sair

Raat gyarah baje
Amma ke saath sair pe nikli

“Koi jo tumhein samjhega
Wahi tumse shaadi karega
Bachpana chhod do ab”

Haarsingaar ka phoo
lHaath mein kuchalte hue
Maine kuchh nahin kaha

Ghar aake dekha
Haath peeley ho gaye hain