Ew…Teasing!

Imagine getting up late on the first day of college in the New Year. And then you realize that the milk at home is over, so you run over to your corner shop in pajamas with a disgruntled look, only to be greeted by a ‘Haaaaai Baaaybeeee!’ at that sleazy shop corner. Ew. What a beginning!

It’s rampant and it is spreading in Bangalore like some epidemic. These are men who have no jobs, no ambition and no life, really. Ew Teasing, I call it. And they target women of all ages, shapes and sizes. The fact that you own one X chromosome more than them enthralls them, I think. Actually, the guys who resort to eve teasing wouldn’t even know the spelling of ‘chromosome’. This is probably why they continue to eve tease countless women even after reprimands.

Sadakchaap, suits them perfectly, down to those fake Nikes. Citizens of different cities react to eve-teasers react differently. If such men came across any woman who grew up drinking lassi and eating makhan parathas, they would be met with a shower of chappals. It is only us, who remain docile. Ignore- we say- it's the best way to stop them. True, ignoring these sidey chaps does help in discouraging them. But when the teasing gets out of hand, then all the anger within each of us will only result in a dastardly implosion.

The worst episode of eve-teasing that I witnessed was in Goa. Our college had gone there for a trip. True, 250 girls in one beach is bait for these hormonally super charged morons. But the fact that they walked around shamelessly holding their camera phones and clicking anyone and everyone they saw irked most of us to no end. We caught several phones and deleted the pictures and threw the phone away and screamed, ‘Catch’ at them! The cheap thrill they got at ogling at badly clicked 1.3 mega pixel cameras was nothing compared to the looks we gave them.

Munnabhai is probably to only ‘tapori’ that intelligent girls can fall for. Wearing clothes that can give even a rainbow an inferiority complex is just plain jatang, not attractive. Begging any and every female to ‘fraaandship them’ is not the best pick up line. When will such men ever understand? It is only in movies that women find rowdy romeos very endearing. And what happens in reel life is a big ‘reelu’. Stay away, please!

Surfing the tide....

It was a Sunday afternoon. No one was at home. And it stood there, looking so inviting. I succumbed to the temptation and quickly drew the curtains. The room became considerably darker now. Aah…perfect. I looked around, half afraid that I’d be caught. But I quickly walked towards it, not wanting to waste any more precious time. It glistened because of a small ray of sunshine coming from a crack in the curtains. Slowly, I picked it up. Giving it a fond look, I committed the ultimate crime. I pressed the red button and switched on the TV. A cacophony of noise immediately took the place of eerie silence and I felt that familiar sense of warmth in me as I sat down with my partner in crime, the remote control; to do what I did best -Channel surf.

Bad habit, I know. It can spoil your eyes and all that. Yes, I’ve been told too. But I’m addicted to channel surfing. And this one Sunday, the remote was all mine. So I started off with the usual channel 8. I’d work my way upto 38 and then start all over again. I’ve tuned all my channels within that frame. On some really boring days, I’d even go all the way upto 99. And then come back to 1. So let’s see what treasure I struck upon today…..

Click Shah Rukh Khan is spending his New Year’s Day in Goa. Good for him. Click Hritik Roshan movie involving aliens and irritatingly bubbly kids. Click The best of Roadies…..all the contestants are sword fighting with some pehelwan kinda dudes. Click Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. Much as I hate to admit that I’ve watched the movie almost 35 times, I decided to bookmark that channel and come back to it later. Click Dawson’s Creek: Some funeral procession going on…not worth mourning for Dawson’s friends on a Sunday. Click High School Musical 2! Oh, but wait…it’s only one of the songs…and it’s in Hindi! Urgh! Click Heroes Nice. I’ll come back to that too Click Q Tv….man is explaining something in Arabic Click Kishore Kumar lookalike contest, I think Click Rerun of some singing competition involving children Click another show involving a children’s singing competition…..really, when I was their age, I’d spend all my free time in the park with other kids…not pleading with the audience to vote Click Oprah’s prime time….oh no….must change the channel quickly…I ran out of all the tissues in the last episode itself Click Some gory movie involving gangsters of some kind. Couldn’t really hear the dialogues…everything was being beeped off Click Tom Hanks….goodie…..but wait…this was only a trailer for the movie that will be aired on Tuesday Click Teleshopping network, I think. Whoa! They’re showing some miracle massaging belt or something Click Another Hritik Roshan Movie…oh wait….this is the sequel to the alien one! The prequel and sequel being shown on rival channels at the same time…doesn’t happen very often Click Click Click All News Channels 19 year old to head a political party. Click Kannada music channel: Kariya, I love you!! Oh dear. Click Discovery: Hmm…sparrows eating lichen with frost on Cacti in the Atacama Desert Click aaah Back to Shah Rukh Khan’s new year plans.

So what did I achieve from 15 minutes of non stop channel surfing? Well, for starters, I know I’m not missing out on anything fabulous while I waste my time watching one channel alone. The feeling of watching everything and yet nothing is so satisfying. Sigh….May god bless the person who invented the remote control!

This Magical Month

Walking home in the mild drizzle
Getting slightly wet, and yet staying quite dry
Singing songs and smiling at everyone around
Watching the trees applaud in the wind
Listening to ghost stories in the dark
amongst friends, sharing a huge quilt
shrieking at the smallest sounds
Running across the campus in the rain
to get that cup of steaming hot elaichi chai
Sneaking rose cookies into psychology class
crunching and eating them stealthily
Looking very interested in the seminars
and yet living in the far-far away world of dreams
eating in the terrace gardens of quaint resteraunts
dancing to goofy hindi item songs
getting all the steps wrong
singing completely out of tune
and yet having the time of my life
passing little notes from secret santa
waiting for letters to be passed to me
writing poems for friends on birthdays
watching their faces light up with joy
giggling at someone's sneeze
pulling monkey faces at one another
singing christmas carols during breaktime
tapping out rhythms with pencils and pens
shivering in the gusts of wind
and yet visiting the terrace at every given chance
eating steaming hot maggi clumsily
and then drinking a freezing chocolate milkshake
waving out to others from across the corridors
colour co-ordinating sweaters and socks
sprinting out of the last class of the day
splashing everyone with puddles around
flying amongst the clouds in the sky
with the feet firmly on the ground


I think I'm drunk on the drizzle of December.

The Pack Rat Syndrome

My mum always tells me that I suffer from the Pack Rat Syndrome. I just can’t throw things away. I always think that I might need them sometime later and stash them away. Anyhow, I decided to prove my mum (and the rest of the family) wrong by turning out my cupboard. I figured I can prove how I'll need all the things I've kept in there. Uh Oh. Dastardly decision!! Here are a couple (actually, much more than that!!) of things I found in my cupboard. Go on.....have a good laugh at my cost!

Well, to begin with I was almost buried by the bundle of clothes that fell out the moment I opened the doors of my wealth. It took me all of 10 minutes to untangle myself from all the stuff that blessed me from above. So as I began sorting out the things, I found:

1) My swimming goggles. I gave up swimming over 7 years ago. And these goggles have my prescribed power so that I could see clearly in the pool. Well, my power has almost doubled since then,but I can’t throw those goggles away! I mean, if I am thrown out of a ship or something, I'll be able to see something...if not a blurred patch of blue....
2) That kimono top thingy my dad bought for my in Singapore. Sure, it resembles a silk table cloth in a posh Chinese restaurant.....but my dad brought it thinking I'll wear it someday.I cant throw that either-I mean, maybe I can go to some fancy dress competition dressed as a Singapore Airlines Airhostess!!
3) My 8th year birthday frock. It is a pool of Orange organza and tissue. With tiny shimmering beads and a huge bow on the skirt part. My dad brought this on one of his trips as well.I cannot possibly throw that. I mean, birthday nostalgia and all.....full senti trip it sent me off to.....it took me 10 minutes to get back and sort out the rest of my stuff...
4) My 10th standard SEEK T-shirt!! This is fairly recent-I even dropped a piece of Pineapple cake on that one!! The stains are off,but the memories of that event will never fade! Okay, so it’s red in colour and I hate red.....but I can’t throw it. Maybe someday I'll start liking red!
5)Four skirts that I've only worn once, never since then...and probably will never wear them. But maybe if my college has something like a skirt day (believe me,we've had days like that before!) then I won’t have anything.....so I should probably keep all of them...
6) A fluorescent orange kurta. God, what was I thinking when I bought that!! But I must've had some logical explanation....I just can’t recollect.....so I think I'll save it until I think of why I bought it.
7)A huge stack of purple clothes-most of them have all either faded out or I've outgrown them....but still, purple is my favorite colour...and I remember the age when I never bought any other colour!! Sigh.....I have to pay tribute to those memories....I can’t throw them all!
8) My smiley faced socks! I have them in three ghastly colours....fluorescent blue, purple and white......and I can still wear them....maybe on a really cold day I can wear it with my sneakers and jeans...no one will ask me to remove my shoes, right? I'll at least pray no one does....why waste such ...ahem.....precious socks??
9) A sundress (I think that's what it’s called). It’s black with bright orange spots and at least 5 times bigger than my actual waist size. Must I throw that? I don’t think so-I mean, I may end up growing old all by myself....then I can run away to the Caribbean and become really fat with all their food-then it will fit me perfectly!
10) My copper coloured Silk Pajamas!! (Another one of dad's contribution to my eclectic wardrobe!) So they have some mandarin script on the shirt and the pants don’t even reach my ankles anymore. But still, if I haven’t thrown the Kimono thing...I can’t possibly throw this, right? That poor kimono will need company!

Oh dear! I just re-read all that I've written above. I guess I do suffer from a Pack Rat Syndrome! :(

An 'Auto'mated Reaction

Urgh. After trying (very very unsuccessfully) for over 3 months, I still haven’t been able to control my horrid temper. And the subject of today is: the auto. Not one, but the whole lot in general. There was a time when I depended on them to take me to and fro college for 2 years. Then I considered them as bright spots of sunshine (read: jarring yellow coloured rooftops). And now, they only look like some jaundiced three wheelers.

My love-hate relationship with the Autos has been going on for quite a while. Back in Delhi, I’d squeal with excitement if I saw an auto whiz past me. Fatfatiyas, I think, they were called. They were oddly shaped and judging by the number of people squashed inside it, they could easily compete with a minibus! But I was never allowed to go on them. They were considered a taboo. (We South Delhi kiddos took great pride in commuting in the boot of Maruti 800s. They were cozy for two 6 year old girls making faces at everyone behind them!)

And so I grew out of the boot and entered the forested streets (yes, some trees did exist in the Garden City). Here, autos became an essential commodity. Especially in my 11th and 12th standards. My friends and I took a ‘rick’ (as we called it) to college everyday. It was only a distance of 3 kms and no buses went in that route. So we had little option but to take autos….or walk amidst open drains and dusty main roads. And each day was an experience for the three of us. Once, we got a driver who sang all the way to college. Once we got autos with rather ghastly images of knife-stabbing-eye stuck on his windscreen. Once we even got an auto with two drivers. And in the middle of a traffic jam, one of the drivers...get this...... gave a rose to the other! We sniggered non-stop at the back and tried to hide our faces in books!

But you know, despite the weird autos we’d always seem to get, the fares were at least reasonable. The meter would be rigged, but we knew how to pay the right fare and manage our travel finances.

That turned upside down when I came to Chennai. Urgh! My dreams of commuting without a hiccup went for a toss. After a week of sun, sand and bargaining in Goa, I landed up in a similar position. Not the sun or the sand, but a Bargain with the drivers.

So they start off at astronomical rates. And then taper it down to twice the amount you’d pay with a fair meter. You feel like you’ve achieved the impossible when he accepts your ‘quotation’. Only to get home and realize you could have always bargained more. I am awful at bargaining. Simply awful. I prefer order and restrictions which people must abide by so I don’t have to bend the rules. Or maybe I’m just too lazy. But the autos here have taken the little sanity I had left and driven over it. Urgh squared.

The worst thing is, as we’re all being taken for a ride (pun intended) here, no one seems to be doing anything about it. Sure, everyone complains. But it just stops at that.

Well, if you expect a solution in this post, there certainly isn’t going to be one. I just had to rant. About a day full of auto rides. And it seemed so similar to a business proposition, or an auction. The only couple of solutions I can suggest to myself is:
1) Wait patiently for 5 more days and I’m back to the wonderful city of metered autos and a car waiting to be driven (ahem, by me……if I can get it out of my mum’s clutches)
2) Start going for anger management classes. That has to be a priority. The next time I come here, someone is bound to send me to a lock-up for displaying road rash at a couple of innocent looking autos!

Loony Cartoons

When I was barely 7, my school was a 10 minute walk from home….I would sprint to reach the gate and then pant there for a couple of seconds. And then muster up enough energy to go running up the stairs and inside the house. The first thing that would invite me home was not the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen…..or a Cocker Spaniel bounding towards me. What pulled me homewards like a pin to a magnet was in fact, a loony tune……

“Flintstones! Meet the Flintstones.
They’re the modern stone-age fammaleeeee
From the….Town of bedrock
They’re a page right out of Historreeeee

and as the song went on, I’d have a goofy grin plastered on my face and watch the TV without batting an eyelid. Every time Fred got shut out of the house and banged the front door, I’d laugh. I never got tired of watching Dino jump on Fred incessantly. I guess that was the magic of cartoons!

So I grew up watching The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Dexter’s Lab, The Little Lulu Show, The Adams Family, The Popeye show and of course, the unforgettable Scooby Doo.
And most of these cartoons really influenced my life back then. (‘Back then’, in this context, is the mid 1990s. Not some medieval age as I seem to be implying with this nostalgic report.)

I recently happened to read in a book that cartoons do influence children to a large extent. And mostly, in ways that are against ‘appropriate social behaviour’. Call me ignorant, but I certainly beg to differ from that point. Cartoons influenced me in the most bizarre ways possible –

1. I used to think all families must consist of a father, a mother, a sister, a brother and a dog….or a dinosaur, in Fred’s case. I always wondered where my ‘brother’ and ‘dog’ were!

2. I actually believed that the world of Jetsons existed. And that this world was above the sky. And I always suspected that Santa Claus was actually one of the Jetsons disguised as a mortal being. I figured if I’m a really good girl, Santa will take me to meet the Jetsons!

3. I joined Dexter wholeheartedly in believing that Dee Dee was a pest. In fact, I even began looking tall lanky girls with suspicion!

4. I began to use words like ‘Yikes’ and ‘Jeepers’ when I found something scary. The Scooby jargon sort of became a part of my vocabulary.

5. I tried very very hard to curl my hair like Lulu….that only resulted in a long lecture about how ‘I must like myself for who I am’.

These were some small changes that cartoons succeeded in making in my perspective of life. Now, as I look back on these things, I laugh at my incredulous antics. But back then, I was so engrossed in the world of cartoons that it never occurred to me there might not be a Mystery Machine or a nutty Uncle named Fester. I was happy to believe that they all existed. They were more colourful and were extremely sweet to let me share their lives. And somehow, in this blissful state of ignorance, I passed my early school years.

As I grew older, the word ‘technology’ erased my fantasy. I began to learn how these pictures appeared on the screens and they were entirely fictional. I realized that Zombies don’t take over amusement parks, and even if they do, a talking dog can’t rescue 5 teenagers from there. I guess that gullible nature of mine began to dissolve and I stopped staring at little birds on a tree outside my room. (umm…. I used to stare endlessly, waiting for one of the sparrows to say ‘I tot I taw a puttytat!’).

So I was shaken out of that dream world of cartoons. It was replaced by a new world altogether. Harry Potter! But lets not get into that now. There was always this empty space somewhere inside of me that cartoons previously occupied.

In today’s world, where cartoons play no role in my life whatsoever, I see my cousin watching Pokemon, Dragonball Z and all those animated series…..I wonder if he goes into a state of reverie as I used to. I wonder when he plays his pokemon game in the computer, if he feels he’s part of those super-coloured small creatures. Perhaps he is wiser in the world of internet and playstations. But perhaps, that imagination never really dies down in any child…or adult.

This is what I realized when I was flipping channels the other day…I came across an old episode of Tom and Jerry…. I was hooked on to it…and I was watching it with the exact same goofy grin plastered on my face. As Jerry did the cleverest things to escape from Tom, I laughed out loud…without thinking about the fact that cats don’t really survive after a cannonball hits them. See? The magic of cartoons worked again! I was able to ignore all the ‘facts of life’ and engross myself in a completely asinine, loony cartoon.

So in a way, cartoons will always play a rather precious role in my childhood. They got me into believing that Spinach is really strong enough to destroy my ‘enemies’! Well, I know that its true, but I’d like to keep that bit of reality in my fantasmatic world!

Oh! So you’re doing a Beeyay?

Yesterday, I attended a family function. It was one of those rare occasions when I resurfaced from my pre-historic cave to peep out in the civilized world. Naturally, all my relatives (mostly the ones who qualify for senior citizen concessions) flocked over me and started off with the ‘Aiyo! She’s become soooo tall. And soo thin. The last time I saw you, you were this tiny’ (and they showed how tiny I apparently was by moving their hands a foot apart.)

Most of this is probably like a deja vu for others like me. If politeness didn’t come in my way, I’d have probably retorted by saying: ‘I am not tall. I’m only 5 feet 2 inches and I can barely reach the top latch of my bedroom door. I’ve become thin? well….ahem….thanks! and I thank the dear lord I have grown since the last time you saw me. I don’t imagine you would be very pleased if I were to defy the laws of growth and evolution and remain a foot long 19 year old anyway.”

See? That’s what always goes on in my mind everytime I have to face the same dialogues thrown at me. But offlate I’ve been receiving other kinds of remarks. The most repetitive ones being comments on the choice of my career. I’m doing a BA. Also known as Bachelor of Arts. Also known as a Beeyay by my relatives.

Beeyay is a new career option. It is different from a BA. A beeyay is a low-down career option you would be glad to consider if your report cards contained only Yeff or Dee. In other words, if you averaged a 41% in your bored exams. BA, however, is only understood by people who average over 85% and yet choose an arts subject out of a passion and interest for it.

But the Beeyay has gained so much popularity over generations, that I wont even begin to defend a BA. Instead, I shall go on to describe what exactly happened in that family function.

I was beginning to resemble a giraffe by straining my neck towards the dining room when I was attacked by a couple of aunties. They all kept smiling politely and made the same remarks I’ve mentioned above. Then one of them asked me:
Aunt no.1: So child, what are you doing now?
Me: I’m in my second year degree aunty.
Aunt no.2: Oh……you are doing yengineering or Yembeebeeyes? (MBBS)
Me: Umm….actually, I’m doing Psychology and Journalism.
Aunty no.1: eh? Psychology? Why child? You want to read our minds or something?
Aunty no.2: No no. she wants to become like Barkha Dutt.
Aunty no.1: Haha!! Yes yes. Very good. So you are doing BSc in Psychology and Journalism?
Me: No. I’m doing a BA.

(What followed later was a portrait of shocked expressions. Almost as if I had confessed to a murder or I had injected their children with poisoned darts.)

Perhaps even poisoned darts or murder doesn’t do the justice to that expression they had when they heard me utter the two alphabets: BA.

This is how Beeyay is still treated in most places. On one hand, people come up to me and say that I’m doing something very brave by getting out of the rat race. My friends sometimes envy me and think I go gallivanting to mental hospitals for case studies. I don’t agree with either. I am not out of any rat race. I’m in a different rat race altogether. One that runs on a different track. But parallel to engineering or medical. And as much as I would love gallivanting to mental hospitals, I don’t. because I also study theory, statistics, practicals and write exams with the same amount of tension as anybody else. So why must I be ashamed of my Beeyay anyway?
The next time around if someone does ask me what I’m doing, I’m probably going to raise my nose a tad higher (in a rather futile attempt to look condescending) and reply proudly, “I’m doing a Beeyay. So, what?”