A-Musing

How To Do Revenge Travel Right During A Raging Pandemic

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 06:19:00 +0000

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!

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

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 12:03:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 06:38:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 05:21:00 +0000

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.

After much deliberation, the shampoo of our desire makes a grand entry in our lives , backed by a seductive ad campaign, lofty promises, great reviews and 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Our heart flutters excitedly like a pigeon in heat when we hold it for the first time in our hands. We give it a gentle squeeze. The image of Dimple Kapadia of the 80s emerging out of the pool like a nymph and washing her gorgeous mane vigorously with Crowning Glory soap is playing in a loop in our heads.

Fuelled by hope of a happily ever after, our under the shower singing shows an exponential improvement interspersed with some heavy Pantene. Even the cockroaches in the shower stall nod approvingly. Sadly, life has other plans for us. After a few hair-raising attempts to get close, ‘what the fuck is wrong with me’ rants, ‘let me try again, maybe it was just a bad day’ reassurances, we give up on each other.

There are phases when we get so desperate we throw all caution to the wind . We engage in a dangerous game of one night stands and flings with unknown brands and end up feeling even worse than a dry day. Chastise ourselves for not being loyal to one brand of shampoo all our lives irrespective of its virility, like our Moms.

Our bunch of loser hair cleansers now form a dejected line of rejects on our bathroom shelves, looking sad and forlorn for having failed to sizzle our senses with their promised chemistry.

But there comes a day when we finally meet someone with a Clean and Clear reputation, who sashays into our lives and turns our bereft of hope, high and dry hair into Sunsilk.

A good hair phase is even better than great sex! Everything looks pretty. Even the dugout roads, mountains of rubble look picturesque and the screechy scooter tailing you sounds like Lata Mangeshkar.

Straight haired people don’t have it this bad. Life's a Breeze for them. Unlike the curly haired ones ones they don’t have to look for argan infused with rare minerals from Chechnya, hibiscus hernia, cider vinegar with a side of Ashwatthama, Bhrihanala and Karela to infuse magic in their stubborn, unruly tresses.

With age we become even more finicky and demanding. But we also become wise enough to accept that just a shampoo will never be enough for us . So we resort to performance enhancers like hair packs, souffles, serums, intensely intense moisture surge conditioners to infuse some excitement in our deadlocks.

Of course a part of us knows, hair today is gone tomorrow. Like everything else in life even lustrous kesh is transient and sometimes elusive. Even when it becomes brittle and grey with time, we pat it reassuringly. Even when we lose all of it to ravages of a debilitating disease. We bid adieu to it and our stash of lovingly collected shampoos with a brave smile and promptly start searching online for colourful bandanas and scarfs.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 13:08:00 +0000

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.

You trim your eyebrows and the cutsie moustache with the epilator you bought online because you don’t want to scare the poor things. For the first time in months you wear ironed clothes, part ways with your messy bun and discover you’ve forgotten eye makeup hacks that you’d picked up from YouTube tutorials.

You haven’t been this excited since you whipped your first ever Dologona! Your heart is singing an aria.

Since no one invites anyone to their homes anymore, you decide on a clean pavement right outside. You start walking gingerly towards them, nervously waving and realise to your dismay you are waving them away. New habits picked up during a pandemic are hard to let go. Now you are praying they don’t hug you. They don’t. Can’t even air kiss because damn the aerosol theory.

You clear your throat and start talking. They can’t hear a thing because the mask has happily absorbed your germs and your words. Hmm..so this is what eating your own words must feel like.

You are now shouting at each other and praying fervently that passerbys do not mistake you for Navika Kumar reporting live for Times Now. One of you even says - am I audible? Can you hear me? Are you sure you haven’t turned mute on? And then sticks her tongue out because this is not a Zoom call.

The video of Arnab screaming ‘mujhe drugs do mujhe drugs do’ starts playing in your head in a loop and you start laughing hysterically. Your friends are now looking at you with a mixture of alarm and tender concern. You reassure them you are perfectly okay and veer the conversation towards ‘25 alarming findings about Covid.’ Everyone has joined in enthusiastically, including the chap doing burpees in the nearby park. He’s of course maintaining a 15 feet distance. You wish you had worn your specs because you can’t see his tattoos properly. You say damn loudly. Your buddies are looking at you again with dismay. You crack a fat joke to ease the tension. One of your friends starts sobbing loudly. She does look 20 pounds heavier than the last time you met her. Must be the banana breads she’s been baking every day.

It’s getting super awkward. Suddenly you are longing for the comforting flicker of the TV as you binge watch another K drama on Netflix. The couch that has two large craters in the shape of your bum that feels like home. The soft feel of your pajamas with its many holes.

Oops, I forgot to feed Kartar Singh, my pet cockroach. I have to rush back. So sorry guys! Let’s meet soonest? My buddies are looking at me quizzically. So I sneeze loudly to make parting easier. Everyone is now running helter skelter in panic, including the burpee guy.

As I am driving back home, I am horrified at how relieved I am feeling. My god, these are my comrades of good times, drunk nights, “ I’m going to puke right now, take me to a nearby bush” sisters!

My heart is now sinking faster than the GDP. Maybe it’s God’s will that I have mutated into a socially awkward creature who’ll hide behind a pillar the moment she senses human presence.

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! Or should I distract myself from my inevitable fall into a sinkhole by watching cat and dog videos and petting random peacocks!

How I wish I knew someone who has lived through a pandemic before and guided me through this mess! Unfortunately all of them are dead. The world has become a place I don’t recognise anymore. Fuck, I don’t recognise myself anymore! Blame the extreme emotions, mental trauma,constant anxiety. Every throat niggle has me convinced I am about to breathe my last in an isolation ward.

I hate that Covid has shrunk my world, my experiences and turned me into a caged animal.

I desperately want to share the optimism of our elected however false it may be. On odd days our recovery is projected as U shaped, on even S, on bad days it’s W and on a good day it’s K. I am fast running out of letters and patience. To maintain my sanity I’m bracing for a transition that'll be slow, a transition that will never get us back to a past we are pining for. So maybe you and I should accept it’s okay to be weird because nothing is normal anymore.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 05:34:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 12:49:00 +0000

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.

My love was far from ordinary, so I would often set sail in quest for even softer yarns. I embraced it in all its forms. Because I often mistake myself as fashion forward and couldn’t possibly fling it on my shoulder, I now have a gamchha dress that I picked off a pavement stall in Colaba. I often notice my husband eyeing its wispy soft beauty with lust and snarl at him. She’s mine and mine alone and no man can have it.

Marie Kondo guilted me into parting ways with a lot of my dresses, jeans and tops, but her sorcery failed on my sizeable stack of gamchas. These are not mere cotton towels. A gamcha is an essential part of religious ceremonies in West Bengal, Assam and Orissa. It is given to family elders as a mark of respect.

Each region has given its own twist to this bath towel, be it weaves, distinctive colours or patterns. The gamcha is a unique symbol of our nation’s diverse tapestry. At a time when the cries for ‘vocal for local’ are becoming shriller and more passionate, the gamcha is waiting to be tied around your waist while you throw yet another made in China appliance from your balcony.

Women leave behind their Banarasis, Kanjeevarams for their daughters. My collection of gamchas will be my daughter’s family heirloom. She’s still naive and prefers towels. But I know she will succumb soon to its charms, just like her Mom.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Thu, 28 May 2020 05:14:00 +0000

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?

Buffets are where you can sit in a quiet corner, study human greed at its finest and smirk while you finish your fifth helping of baked yoghurt with caramel topping. The satisfaction of turning your plate into a bloody battleground, where lasagna colluded with badami chicken Akbari to overthrow boondi parfait will now be gone. And experience dismay when you see half eaten plates on tables and monumental wastage.

All you can eat hedonism taught us invaluable lessons on how to strategize and plan for maximum input. Don’t fill yourself with soup, you fool and insult the gorgeous raan, tossing and turning, awaiting your arrival. Keep a watchful eye on the sushi station and pounce on it with glee when a fresh batch arrives from the kitchen. The attendant arriving with a huge pile of fresh rotis and naans just when I had finished the entire bowl of Mutton Noorjahani with pappad taught me ‘better late than never’ looks better on paper.

Will a mere a la carte meal ever match up to an experience called the buffet which evokes wonderment, child-like excitement, shrewd strategizing and fear of never getting to fit in your jeans again, at the same time? Of course not.

I am painfully aware, post lockdown a joyless world awaits me. A world where someone who’s just sneezed will be treated like a Jihadi. Raw veggies and meats are getting luxurious, detergent baths and food deliveries cause anxiety and not joy. But the breakfast buffet getting guillotined at the altar of the new normal is giving me acidity. And I can’t even run to my favourite dine-in to drown my sorrows in their all you can eat dimsum buffet.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Sun, 17 May 2020 11:46:00 +0000

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!’

These days when I’m not having intense conversations with my plants, giving them pep talks on growth charts and targets, I’m involved in their grooming. A nip here, a tuck there, and they look party ready. Since they are total failures at self defence, you can often see me running like Hima Das and raging like Mamata Banerjee , trying to protect them from incessant pecking by my resident winged rodents. I even tried assisting in the birth of a few potted herbs. I mean who doesn’t love fresh from the patio mint, cherry tomatoes, sweet basil, and fiery chillies! Unfortunately most of them chose an early death over my anxiety ridden caregiving.

I may have finally found my true vocation as a serial plant killer. That’s a talent, right? Damn, let me do some home workout to celebrate! That’s another thing I’m really good at. Duck walks, crab walks, dead bug, burpees challenge, plank hold till paralysis sets in are my favourite way to die first thing in the morning. Also, when the world reopens, I want to fit into all my dresses and stun everyone with my reduced waistline.

I’m still not able to make up my mind, which talent to choose to make me everyone’s heartburn. Should I make a YouTube tutorial on how to make gunpowder out of pigeon potty and earn the adulation of millions of grateful men and women! Or upload a post on how to have curd rice in 15 different ways!

I could always add mop analyst to my growing feathers on my cap. I have done an inordinate amount of research and money in finding that swashbuckling mop that can reach every nook and corner of the house at my bidding. In my new avatar as ponchha guru, I can educate men and women how to not let BJP (Bartan jhadoo ponchha) fuck with their lives during quarantine.

Phew, I can finally sleep without tossing and turning, now that I know I am not letting quarantine pass without disappointing my eagerly waiting fans.

India – URine Trouble

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:41:00 +0000

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.

Pissing on the wall is now considered a corporate social responsibility. Since both men and women are motivated to pee on walls, it has been hailed as a big step towards gender equality. City dwellers are also actively encouraged to go to a nearby farm and pee to their heart’s content to help farmers and are often treated to a breakfast of farm fresh veggies that have a unique salty after-taste. Farmers are no longer agitating but vegetating in their newly found wealth all thanks to Pradhan Mantri Mootra Yojana.

The Nobel Prize for Piss comes soon after Nitin Gadkari was conferred the Muttuswamy award – India’s highest honour. According to WhatsApp forwards, the mayor of Brussels has proposed putting up Gadkari’s statue next to the famous Manneken Pis at the city square. Since it will take up a lot of space they might have to demolish a historical building or two.

Gadkari jee these days is often heard bragging about the magic manure that his plants have fallen love with. Once he reveals the source of his manure, India can stake its claim as the word’s number 1 and number 2 country.

Just the thought of it gave me stomach cramps.

2018, a LOU story

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Sat, 24 Feb 2018 05:13:00 +0000

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.

Their romance that sparked off way back in 2013 had the blessings of the Mota Bhais. The kind that’s notorious for framing stringent rules and laws they have no intention of following. Since there are two sets of mota bhasi who gave this LOU story their blessings, they are now busy blaming each other for the fiasco.

So predictable.

It appears Banke was not the only one of Nimmo’s victims. It is rumoured she had spent loansome nights with as many as 17 of them.

Whore!

But Rumi says once you’ve fooled one man, the rest are waiting to fall like a pack of dominos at your feet.

Miss Nimmo’s peccadilloes have now sparked a #PSUToo movement with many more of her victims crawling out of the woodwork to share their sob stories.

When you kiss a girl and you like it, she will make you pay for it. Got it?

This is not the first time someone from the Banke community has been used as a sugar daddy by a sexy thing to fund her extravagant indulgences. In the past Harsha, Ketana have taken their admirers besotted by their disproportionate assets to the cleaners.

When you are blinded by their riches and bend backwards like Ramdev to please them, expect to be used like a tissue. Use and throw.

Before Swachh Bharat was conceptualised by the Great Leader, Harsha, Ketana and their million dollar girlfriends were busy cleaning these Banke Biharis.

The fact is Nimmo and PNB were simply a case a Deja Woo and then udanchhoo. And Pran Nath was left looking a bloody-fool.

But it’s okay. The bechari middle-class that is treated like a mushroom – kept in the dark and fed bullshit, will pay for the sins of the crooked class yet again.

In a fresh twist, Nimmo has issued a hurt statement from across the seven seas. She has claimed that it’s she’s who’s devastated by PN B’s premature slander of her impeccable reputation. “I took just one mango and you had the LOUdacity to claim I took the entire crate, you ingrate. Now I shall screw you the way you have claimed.”

If only Patel and not Nehru had been our first PM, things would have been so different!

Snacking Is India’s Favourite Pastime Right After Outrage

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 05:34:00 +0000

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.

Office meetings, school functions, Independence day, farewell functions refuse to commence till cold samosas and sticky gulab jamuns are served on paper plates. Samosas are the ‘you complete’ me’ for any public function. Cheap and filling, they are available at any nukkad shop with piping hot sugary tea.

Snacking is India’s favourite pastime right after outrage. Its popularity can be gauged from the fact that nashta-pani is the number one excuse to demand a bribe.

If you see a large gathering, it’s either for the world famous kachori-wala or to watch an accident victim bleed to his death.

Come evening and neighbourhood markets are swarming with people snacking on chowmein, moong-pakodis, dahi papdis with such ferocity that some visiting alien might mistake it for their last supper. Go to Chandni Chowk in Delhi and even the smallest of establishments will have mile long queues outside it before the cows have set out for their morning walk. The grimier the establishment, the more iconic its status is.

Snacking, just like potholes is a great leveller. It can strike anytime, anyone, irrespective of their pet cause, ideologies, poshness of their holidays, and number of hired helps. Mid-morning, mid-night, pre-lunch… And thanks to these food delivery apps, there’s even a genie to make all your cravings come true as long as you have money in your wallet.

While the government is busy slashing GST, why don’t they make Indian snacks GST free and give tax rebates to snack vendors? With just one stroke our mai-baaps will give a massive boost to their make in India program and reduce unemployment at the same time. This will ensure that the outrage brigade with plenty of time on their hands, especially the Rajputs fighting for the honour of a deceased queen are kept busy either snacking or selling snacks.

Once we do away with needless noise over useless issues, we can focus on the ones that really matter – like Deepika’s exercise regimen, Katrina’s pet cat’s diet and Modi jee’s favourite asana.

Now where’s my Nobel for peace for this brilliant idea.

Women not crackers make Diwali special

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 05:09:00 +0000

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.

My dad’s role was mostly restricted outside the house – purchasing crackers, teaching us how to fly the kite, take us shopping for new clothes and be the supportive husband to his turbo-charged wife.

Despite her long hours at work, I don’t think she resented the extra hours she had to put in at home to make these days special for us. I certainly didn’t hear her denouncing rituals and fasting meant to be observed only by women as some patriarchal conspiracy against womankind.

Now when I think back I realise it was she who made festivals festive. Without her enthusiasm they would have been just another soulless day with us as passive observers.

So excuse me while I choke on my coffee while I try to comprehend the outrage on social media surrounding the ban on crackers in Delhi and NCR during Diwali. It was baffling to see social media crusaders lament on behalf of kids who’ll be deprived of the joy of bursting crackers.

They should know, SC was delivering a verdict in a petition filed to reinstate the ban ordered in November last year. The symbolism of three infants (Arjun, Aarav and Zoya) filing the petition should not be lost on us.

I felt like an ignorant fool for not realising that coughing all night on Diwali and waking up to smoke laden air in the morning was a much cherished Hindu tradition. And foolish me was under the impression that it was women and not crackers that make Diwali so special.

Agree that unlike our Moms, most of us may not be a stickler for rituals and have shortened them to suit our I-have-better-things-to-do lifestyle. But as a self-assigned imparter of spiritual values to our offspring, we do make the extra effort to be a gold medal worthy Mom. Festivals are a good way to familiarise children with our cultural traditions. Each tradition we follow has history, an interesting background story and a smattering of scientific backing. It makes us value our heritage.

Bursting noisy crackers and fouling up the air, disregarding the discomfort we cause to those with medical conditions, is certainly not part of our heritage. And landing up on Diwali night in the emergency section of the hospital because the fancy bomb you bought for 3k burst on your face is certainly not a much cherished custom.

Diwali, like any other festival, is an occasion to bond with family, make joyful memories and feel thankful for what we have. Soon these instants will become memories and proceed to pin themselves on the roll of honour in the hallowed corridors of nostalgia.

Take out the woman of the house from festivities and it becomes like a cold, empty house waiting to be filled with happy laughter, warm moments and frenzied conversations around the dining table. But take out crackers from Diwali and by god it’ll be like ghar-wapasi of a glorious Diwali!

Go out, admire how beautiful your building, neighbourhood and city is looking all decked up in lights. Make intricate rangolis, tuck in an extra kaju barfi and feel thankful that you can breathe a little more freely and hear each other talk.

Let’s not forget that Deepavali is a festival of lights and not noise. And if you’re still craving noisy crackers, here’s a smoke-free and yummy version for you.

Image from Google.com

Enjoy Diwali and let others enjoy it in peace as well.

Have We Let Our Children Down?

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 06:35:00 +0000

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?

We can’t possibly keep an eye on them all time. If we do, we will end up being that overbearing tree that prevents the small plants under its shade to reach their fullest potential. We can warn them to be wary of friendly uncles who offer toffees in parks. Stay away from suspicious looking adults. But then we will end up creating an adult deeply distrustful of the world.

Sadly, fears have an uncanny ability of becoming a looming shadow over our lives, blocking it off from sunshine and cheer.

There’s no disputing the fact that we all want our children to grow into adults capable of loving, caring and nurturing. So why not make them aware that your love is not dependant on the expectations they meet. Trust them so that they have the confidence to trust their instincts and be able to differentiate between good and creepy vibes from others. Talk to them rather than talking down to them. Instead of discouraging them from arguing with adults, reason with them.

A kid who obeys blindly will never be able to stand up for himself and fight back.

Also, let us accept that we are as responsible for our children as the school we send them to, the government we vote to power and the police force that is supposed to maintain law and order. Besides telling your child about the good and bad touch, insist the school has CCTV coverage, especially around secluded spots. A school cannot cut corners when it comes to safety of students.

Do not leave them alone with an adult. A majority of sexual abuse cases are perpetrated by people known to them. Teach them to say no if a physical contact makes them uncomfortable. Most predators are encouraged by the child’s puzzled silence.

Never forget to make them feel love and cherished. Take out time every day to just hear them talk about their day, their little joys and fears.

And enrol them for martial arts. Nobody will dare mess with a child who can defend himself with a firm kick in the groin of the attacker.

So while we are busy saving rivers, trees, our great culture, cows, morality, shouldn’t we also protect our kids from lust, rage, unreasonable expectations and abuse?

After all it is for them we are working towards a clean, breathable, liveable world where each morning in its pristine serenity makes us joyful to be alive.

How To Be An Asshole and still be Mistaken as God

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 04:58:00 +0000

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.

Also, India is teeming with the wronged classes. Wronged and exploited for centuries by a hierarchy that places some humans over others by virtue of their birth and wealth they accumulated, they are a miserable lot. They feel let down by the system, ignored by God and rightfully feel that life is unfair to them.

Since they have been convinced by Rahul Gandhi they need Jupiter’s escape velocity to free themselves from their sorry circumstances, the oppressed ones are now simply waiting for a charitable messiah to rescue them.

Now that we have earmarked your target audience who you can fool, let’s start with creating a past that’s purely fictional. It should be humble, spartan, full of hardships. If you have a family, RENOUNCE THEM NOW. No, no, not your Mom! Everyone loves a single man ready to devote his life for their welfare but the Mom is always useful to get awws from your followers.

Secondly you will need to rid them of the 330 million goddesses and gods that reside in their conscience. Remember, they are all your competition. You will have to discourage your devotees from worshiping anyone but you.

Sounds impossible, right? Especially in a country where fear of God is the opiate for the masses. Don’t worry. I will guide you through that as well. After all, I am your self-appointed goddess who has made it her mission to kickstart you to fakeness.

Before you embark on this ambitious mission, you will need a lot of rich followers who will readily donate money and land for your ashram. Finding rich followers is easy peasy. Once they know you are capable of murder, money laundering, shady deals, tantric practises, they will flock to you like flies to cowdung.

Remember the corrupt attracts the corrupt.

Your ashram will be a sanctuary where everyone who seeks your divine blessings will find succour. It will be an idyllic world not governed by rules framed by the society but you. Remember the depressed classes you rescued from Rahul Gandhi? Make them toil hard at your ashram. Make them believe they are serving God and you will get away by paying them peanuts. Make them toil hard at your farms and factories. While they are making batches of atta noodles with no atta for your millions of disciples turned customers and squeezing aloe vera juice in plastic bottles, drill into their heads that their messiah has rescued from a lifetime of oppression. Once they start believing it, they will quietly let themselves be exploited by you.

Later you can extract payment for the largesse of your heart by raping a dozen or two women disciples. It will add to your rakish appeal. For variety you can also prey on your rich female disciples. Don’t forget to shampoo your hair. Employing a darzi who will dress you like a toffee wrapper will give you a Godly appeal.

You will have to float some weird ass stories about yourself. Like how you fell into a well and it threw you like lava from volcano. How roses turn into daisies when you touch them. That you never touch meat, alcohol, cigarettes and rape only occasionally.

It will look damn good on your CV.

Before they surrender their souls to you, ensure they leave their brains outside your gated complex. To find out if you’ve actually turned your disciples into brainless zombies, make them drink your piss as charanamrit, submit to castration while in the prime of life, bathe you in milk and later make kheer with it. Soon your followers will make you the sun of your lives, while they revolve around you ceaselessly.

Congratulations. You are now Night King with an army of zombies ready to kill or be killed for you.

Now would they need to kill on your behalf?

It’s simple. After decades of being worshipped by your disciples and the rich and powerful, you have conveniently thrown your guilt and conscience in the nearest drain. It is beneath your stature to be concerned about your ungodly actions and the havoc it creates. When you are the law, you are the first one to break the laws. While you preach about a life lived in "reasonable restraint", you will live opulently, drive flashy cars and move around with an army of commandos.

Since you are now being courted by politicians because of the influence you wield on masses, you become a megalomaniac. Once you share a mutual lick-ass relationship, both will look the other way when either is gleefully stealing, exploiting and getting their critics murdered.

But you are shrewd. You know you are nothing more than a glorified criminal and the mafia you run to control and subvert for your gains will eventually land you in trouble. Even though you have politicians ready to save your ample posterior in case you land in trouble, you build up your own army ready to take on the law.

And one day while you are busy humming your newest bhajan ‘love charger,’ shit will hit the ceiling and will fall all over you and your diamond juttis. After all there exists a real God who has been watching you in silence.

Your powerful bhakts will make sure you are flown in a VVIP chopper to jail. Your zombie army will wreak havoc just as you had instructed them to filling the rest of the country with loathing for you and your teachings that instigates your followers to burn and pillage.

While you are writing your memoir cooling your heels in jail, make sure you acknowledge my contribution in turning you into a power-hungry, greedy, sex fiend of an asshole. Do say hi to Assaram. He was always one of my favourite disciples. Tell him not to claim he is impotent, thus forcing poor constables to give him a massage only to see him rise like Phoenix from ashes. They are government employees, not his devotees.

Now keep chanting ‘I am a victim of a larger conspiracy.’ You will have to start believing it first before you brainwash your lakhs of disciples into believing this.

Toss well on your prison bed,

Cheerio,

Maa Purba

Dear Magazine, I am not sorry we broke up

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 06:12:00 +0000

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.

During its achhe dins they were the stars of the educated class whose only source of entertainment was Doordarshan. A proud heap under the centre table of the living room, ‘The National Geographic’ placed strategically on the top. In fact, my favourite family friends were the ones with an enviable collection of magazines. Every time we would visit the family, I would pick up a bunch, look for an empty room and spend a blissful hour or two in their company. If not magazines, there were always comics.

A train journey would be incomplete without the customary stash of film magazines - stories created from nothing, making us believe we were getting a sneak peek into the dark lives of messed up superstars. Yet we lapped it all up. I remember how excited I would be when Baba would come home with those mags and how much will-power I had to exercise not to read them all before we got on the train.

These days when I go the salon and see the familiar bunch of glossies that made my heart beat faster lying on a table next to me, I don’t feel a thing! Nope, not even the customary curiosity how my ex is doing without me.

When did the disenchantment start? Was it boredom or predictability that killed the relationship? And it seems I am not alone. People at large have stopped buying magazines. With social media WhatsApp groups and Netflix eating into our leisure time, nobody has time for magazines anymore. Serious readers prefer a long time commitment and would rather cosy up with a book.

Who wants to wait a fortnight to read an in-depth analysis of yet another political move when it has already been done to death by several newspaper columns, panel discussions and lengthy Facebook posts! And nobody cares which film star slept with whom.

Plus there’s no dearth of quality writing from all over the world you get to read online without having to pay a dime. For tips on Rapunzel hair, how to make daal that doesn’t look like custard there’s always WhatsApp and Facebook groups.

I recently joined a group dedicated to curly haired women, and all they talk about is how many hours and money they spend on haircare for perfectly natural curls. And just like my Cosmo days, I roll my eyes, giggle and forget all the tips I read the moment I logout.

The medium may have changed, but the feeling hasn’t.

Dear magazine, it was good while it lasted but now I don't miss you at all.

Period leave – Yay or Nay for Empowerment

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 05:15:00 +0000

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?

Let’s not fool ourselves into believing that we are more than just a good investment for our organisation. In my last stint as a high-school teacher, my employee, a woman herself made sure the school did not renew employment agreement of teachers who had joined on probation, the moment she found out they were pregnant.

It was as if they were being punished for being productive. Pardon the pun.

But this is how the world functions. How much a company values its employee depends as much on their merit as their reliability. When we are expected to deliver, meet deadlines, we do not let cramps, mood swings, relationship mess-ups come in our way.

There’s no disputing the fact that an average woman does a lot more than her male counterpart. Besides office, her schedule is expected to make time for Rohan’s soccer practice, Tina’s rashes, Kantabai playing hooky, MIL sick days. Add to it the struggle at office space dominated by men who refuse to take women and their work seriously.

If organisations are intent on making workspaces more women-friendly, they should go beyond tokenisms. Take women who complain of sexual harassment more seriously, give equal pay to their female employees and stop assuming men know more than women. And finally, ensure you hire more women.

The larger the number, more the voices that cannot be muted.

But if PL becomes the norm, this is exactly why corporates will hesitate from employing more women.

So let’s not get riled if certain women refuse to share your excitement for PLs. They are definitely not against feminism, they just happen to have ideas that are different from yours. They are baffled how empowerment has been taken over by things that were once considered trivial pursuits. These days, everything a woman does from getting her head shaved, to wearing anti-fit clothes, to buying shoes she cannot afford, is hailed as some sort of triumph for womankind. It is not. It is simply self-indulgence. This trivialises feminism and what it aspires for. (1)

Is special treatment what we aspire for? Nay.

Just because our foremothers were treated unfairly, doesn’t mean we start demanding special privileges as some sort of penance. We know how that works. It only leads to resentment.

What we need is to be treated as equals, with dignity, respect and empathy. Is that asking for too much?

Extra leave? Sure. Just don’t call it Period Leave. We could do without yet another urban legend that surrounds a condition that is still celebrated as a young girl’s coming of age in certain parts of the country. (2)

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/19/from-shopping-to-naked-selfies-how-empowerment-lost-its-meaning-feminism

(2) https://www.thequint.com/health/2017/07/11/why-period-leave-is-a-bad-idea

Open the door, the Goddess is right outside

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 05:21:00 +0000

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.

An Idiots Guide to How to Compliment a Woman Without Offending Her

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 05:14:00 +0000

Courtesy Google images

Certain men seem to be under the impression that they are in charge of a woman’s self-worth, and not without reason. Since the time they sprouted facial hair, they have been told a woman squeezes herself in asthma inducing dresses, totters in high-heels and spends hours prettying herself only for his attention. As a true gentleman it is his duty to reward her for all her efforts by looking intently at her cleavage and mumble ‘you are hot’, while scratching his scrotum.

What puzzles him is, instead of rolling over with gratitude and bounding towards him with her tongue hanging out, she has the temerity to walk in the opposite direction.

Ungrateful bitch!

Seriously, do these creatures even know what they want? He can recount countless instances where he tried to appreciate her legs in those teeny-weeny shorts and dresses she wears by leering at them. Once he even dropped a few drops of drool on her thighs. The confused muddle-head shrieked in horror and slapped him hard instead!

Of course he was butt hurt. He immediately put on Attaullah Khan's classic, achha silaa diya tune mere pyaar ka and asked himself again and again, tears rolling down his cheeks - isn’t this the sole purpose of wearing cleavage revealing, thigh baring and curve flaunting dresses?

He ran to the nearest temple, hung from the bell and demanded to know from God in his most pain-stricken voice, why are women like this? God as usual gave him the silent treatment.

Do you think even God is a woman? Hey Bhagwan!

Not the one to give up so easily and also because his virginity depended on it, he tried to take the sophisticated path. It was a busy weekend when he spotted a very shapely posterior at the pub. He walked up to it and said – Girl, are you polio? Coz you’re making my legs weak. She laughed like a hyena and rolled her eyes like windshield wipers. Goddammit! He then went to the dance floor and stared soulfully at the women dancing. He almost dropped his pitcher of beer when he saw a mature type lady smile at him. He immediately ran up to her and started doing his Dharmendra type moves. To show his thoughtful side, he even offered to drop her home, even though she was in no mood to go back. When she refused, he asked all the other ladies at the pub if he could drop them safely at home, because zamana is so kharab, I tell you!

Shaandaar is 28, still a virgin. And has very little time left to lose it. His Mom is busy looking for a girl who doesn’t go to malls to be his bride.

What baffles Shaandaar is these girls who treat him like he’s some sort of infection, do khi khi with other boys. They are not even half as good-looking as he is. What do they have that he doesn’t? He has biceps, triceps, fair and handsome looks, his Dad gifted Audi, couple of kothis in Gurgaon and Ma kaa andha pyaar.

So S decides to observe these strange dudes who can make a woman laugh and bring a twinkle to their eyes.

After days of hovering around them like body odour, Shaandaar makes a shocking discovery. These gents actually treat women like humans and not some conquest. Horrors of horror, they actually like these ladies for their wit, intellect and not their cup size. He saw one of them look deep into her eyes and tell her how beautifully the shade of lipstick she was wearing complemented her skin tone. How her hair shone under the dim lights. Not a single reference to her body parts, BC and she was actually blushing!

Is it possible these mythical males(Mm) are actually fonder of these women than they are of themselves? Because Maa kasam, he has actually seen these Mms listen with rapt attention to what their companion has to say. Mm couldn’t stop asking her what made her happy and her pet peeved. The books she reads, the causes she was passionate about. He could see the look of pleasure in Mm’s eyes when he made her laugh. It was not even a sexist WhatsApp joke.

S learnt a valuable lesson that day. It is possible to compliment a woman without coming off as patronizing jerk, insincere or down right creepy. It is also possible that all women are not dying to be told how gorgeous they are. She knows exactly how she looks and feels uncomfortable when someone can’t stop commenting on her physical features. She is more than a great face and perky pair of boobs, you know.

It helps immensely if you are approaching her not with the sole purpose of bedding her but because you are genuinely interested to know more about her. Respect her boundaries, instead of dismissing it off as yet one of her paranoias. And please don’t put her on a pedestal and then later bemoan about her feet of clay. As such the ruling party has made it clear the only thing meant to be worshipped is the cow wagging her tail at the traffic intersection.

If this is so difficult to comprehend, dear Shaandaar, you are better off leading a life bereft of love and affection. When it becomes too much too bear, you can always join an anti-Romeo squad to vent your frustration on happily in love couples.

If You Believe You Are A Supermom, You are a Victim not a Victor

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 08 May 2017 05:20:00 +0000

I avoid socializing with women who cannot talk beyond their kids. No, it has nothing to do with them making me feel like a useless Mom. An alien who can’t even recall the name of the papers her daughter is appearing for in her final exams next week among a sea of women who know each chapter of the course-book by heart. Rather I am filled with dread as I hear them discuss their sons and daughters’ goals they have set and make plans for a future that’ll have them at the steering wheel.

Like any mother holding her baby for the first time in her arms, I too was overcome with a resolution of being the best Mom in this universe to my only child. The one I had birthed after 12 hours of excruciating pain. I read up all the books that were ever written on childcare in the history of humanity. I constantly exchanged notes with other Mommies on diets, regimens, early habits that should be inculcated to bring up a superkid. I slogged, stressed and worried incessantly. But somewhere along the line I realised no matter what I did, there were always tots who were brighter, better, chubbier than my baby.

Our neighbour’s toddler was a sterling example of everything my daughter wasn’t. All I had to do was step out on the balcony and our neighbour’s 2 and a few months old kid would start reciting the alphabet song with sickening accuracy. Two taps on the kid’s back he would start quoting from Shakespeare and three taps was when he’d launch into his take on quantum theory. It was as if his Mom had made it her sole mission to dazzle me with her son’s brilliance. My 3 year old daughter unmindful of her mother’s crippling feeling of inadequacy would continue caressing the utensils that she’d dragged from the kitchen with the broom.

It got worse when Tee started school. This is where I had my first taste of supermoms. This specimen was always found hovering near the teachers, could be spotted at all school events volunteering and never missed a PTM in its life. Its offspring was half a dozen chapters ahead of the class and usually had a super-achieving elder sibling in the same school. After school these alpha kids were carted to their theatre, dancing, piano, painting, gymnastics and math-for-genius classes.

These kids stood out from the rest of the class. They believed they were better than the rest and had this vicious need to assert themselves by ganging up their friends against students who couldn’t care less about their supremacy. It was as if they had internalized their parents’ aggression and anxiety to excel.

As a mother I understand this need of working ceaselessly towards making your ward outshine others. Then there’s maternal instinct that makes you do everything possible to protect her from despair, failure and hurt. But when this extends to micro-managing her life - treating her school projects, assessments, exams, even disagreements with friends as your own, you encourage the apple of your eyes to absolve herself of responsibility and accountably. You end up raising kids incapable of handling stress, failure on their own. And this extends to their adulthood when you are no longer available to fret and fuss around them.

It’s not as is if being a supermom is a cakewalk. You end up devoting all your time, your pursuits to orchestrate and fine tune your offspring’s life. So even when you take some time off to meet up friends, all you can talk about is curriculum, exams and results. Also, when you sacrifice so much, hoping your efforts will translate into success and happiness, you also expect your child to reciprocate as enthusiastically. But that doesn’t always happen, does it? Especially when they grow up and realise there’s a world beyond their Ma’s protective embrace. The obedient ones continue toeing the line. Some are unable to tackle the guilt being unable to live up to their parents’ expectations and others rebel.

So if you are busy congratulating yourself for being a multi-tasking diva, let me tell you, you are but a victim to the biggest con in this world. First of all there’s something inherently wrong with this title. It assumes that working yourself to exhaustion, donning multiple roles as a caregiver, decision maker, and crisis manager is normal. It is not. Also, parenting is not just a mother’s job. It is meant to be shared by both the parents.

So stop fancying yourself as a superwoman who can set the world right with a cape slung on her shoulder as she whizzes from one task to another. When you strive for this level of perfection and set unrealistic expectations, you end up being super-stressed. You put yourself last in the list of your priorities and pretty soon your family starts taking your superpowers to do everything right for granted, while they put their legs on the table and relax.

In fact it’s you that needs to relax and take it easy. Believe me, your child can manage better without you hovering over her like an anxious bee. It stresses her as much as it stresses you. And I have noticed, the more instructions, diktats and advice you give them, the less they listen to you. You become just an annoying noise that needs to be blocked.

Try being just a Mom. Be her friend. Let her know you will love her and support her no matter what. Listen to her.

The path to becoming just a Mom is simple. You need to accept the more you protect her from vagaries of life, the more you cushion her fall, the less you allow her to mature and reach her full potential. You wouldn’t want to become like that tall leafy tree that dwarfs the little plants growing under its shade, would you?

Don’t be afraid to let her fall. Let her know, mistakes are normal and failure is not shameful. As a mother there’s no greater satisfaction in seeing your child make her own decisions and take responsibility for it. Help her choose her goals, let her chart her own path to happiness. The more you loosen the strings, the higher she will soar with confidence.

And always remember, just because you think you know her best doesn’t mean you’ll live her life for her.

No One Knows Us Better Than Our Bed

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 05:15:00 +0000

A Bed Is Not Just a Bed, Its Much More

Image courtesy - Google Images

When I was growing up, the bed in our house was not just a place where we retired to at the end of a long day. It was something that became what you wanted it to be – an easy chair, a couch, a coffee table, a study table or an oasis you needed to revive your soul. It hosts all the stages of the theatre of your life – as a baby in your mother’s lap, as a child seeking refuge from reality, as a lover discovering intimacy, as a couple going through the highs and lows together, as a person well-lived on his last journey.

During my growing up years, it would turn into a bat cave on hot summery afternoons. All I had to do was crawl under it and into my world of make-believe. Behind the spider-web curtain was my kingdom that no one could invade. When I would get bored of conjuring up my own fantasies, I would turn into a dead log on the bed. The book in my hand would transport me to a world where a kind old man helped kids in trouble, but not before he served them lemonade and cakes.

When my cousins would visit us during the summer break, it would turn into our adda corner. All of us stuck to each other like glue, talking about god-knows-what till our Moms’ voices calling out for us would break our non-stop chatter. It was where I spent hours coochie-cooing to my crush as he gazed at me dumb-struck by my beauty ; the tall dark handsome hero who smiled once every fortnight gave me asthmatic attacks as he swooped me into his arms. Sadly I’d have to shoo him away when my Mom caught my glazed eyes and silly grin look.

Clutching my cramped with anxiety stomach just the day before the exam, the heart sinking deeper because my syllabus was far from finished. Hugging the pillow as I listened to numbers requested by lovelorn boys for their crush on the radio and hoping someday someone would also dedicate a song to me. Sleepless nights, silent cries, dreamy sighs – my bed had seen it all. For me it was a place where I found and lost myself again and again.

I found out much later in life that it was not just me with an umbilical connection to my bed. Rather, laying on bed at awkward angles with legs propped up on the wall while philosophising about the purpose of your life is a national passion. RayMan’s favourite anecdote from his hostel days is when one of the parents came looking for their son and found instead a heap of skinny boys in their bare necessities (or not) stacked on each other.

When I visit my parents and my Maa suggests we have tea on the dining table, we all let out a horrified gasp. Why sit ramrod straight on a boring chair when you can stretch your legs and touch your toes to get second helping of the salted cashews. This is the same bed where my Mashi and I would slide our feet under as we sat on the floor listening to older aunts gossip, in rapt attention. Occasionally we’d pinch the annoying baby cousin, make him bawl and break into silent giggles. Of course our startled bodo Mashi (his Mom) had no idea it was us.

That baby cousin is now a well-regarded financial analyst and a Dad to a pretty little girl. Thankfully she’s not half as annoying as him.

So what is it about this ubiquitous piece of furniture that makes us helpless to its cosy charms and draws us to it like a magnet?

I think it has a lot to do with our propensity to keep our living rooms well-preserved like museums for the occasional guests. So lolling all day on the couch, cushions thrown around in disarray invites stern looks, and sometimes a firm kick on the posterior from the lady of the house. Also, unlike a sofa, the bed, like a doting partner gives you space to stretch yourself beyond your limits. When you get tired of laying on your back, you can always roll over on your stomach and perch your chin in your hands and stare dolefully at nothing in particular. If you are the adventurous type, you can tuck in one leg under the pillow and raise the other towards the ceiling, while uploading pics on Instagram, claim you invented a new asana and congratulate yourself. If like me, you prefer having your many snacks on the bed itself, you’ll often find bits and pieces of nuts, peels, a stray puffed rice colliding with your mouth and other parts of your body. For a midnight snack, all you’ll have to do is crawl on the bed with a torch in hand.

So, it’s like your home within home, where you can be yourself – the one you’re reluctant to show the world. You can sport the homeless look with élan, disappear behind piles of books, have long conversations on the phone propped up on the pillow – all this without even moving your ass. Little wonder after a long gruelling day, we rush to it like an eager child into her mothers’ waiting arms.

Maybe, knowing that the bed will keep you away from your long-list of must-do’s, make you conjure up excuses to spend a little more time on it that makes it so irresistible to us. Later as you fret how you spent the entire Sunday doing absolutely nothing, you also let out a satisfied sigh.

For most, the bedstead is like that complete relationship that has eluded you all your life. On a boring day at office, you invariably end up fantasising about it. It comforts you, soothes your tired bones, embraces you with its softness and makes you want to spend a little more time with it.

And sometimes it makes me wish RayMan would look at me as longingly as he looks at the bed after an exhausting day at office.

Too bad I am but a two legged creature made of flesh and blood.

Finding Me in Us

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 04:58:00 +0000

We have both found the ‘I’ in us and are not letting go of it.

Every couple has their favourite chapter of their life they love regaling their friends with. Over the years their story-telling skills reach legendary proportions. They constantly scold each other for having missed the punchlines, laugh the loudest at their own jokes and pat themselves on their backs for having mesmerised their guests with their scintillating stories unmindful of their glazed eyes and loud yawns.

When they run out of friends, they wait for their kids to get married. Ask any daughter-in-law and she’ll agree, when-we-were-young-and-fabulous stories repeat themselves more often than history.

We have ours too and our favourite one goes back to our just married days. At that time we were two individuals with likes and dislikes as mismatched as Pahlaj Nihlani and rest of India’s views on censorship. The tea fanatic in him was appalled that his brand new mate for life couldn’t stand the sight of tea and preferred a glass of milk instead. The poor guy had envisioned both of us sipping tea and exchanging life’s philosophies with the setting sun. I was the Rajmah, bharta girl and he was the potoler-dalna, machher jhol guy.

Since we were in no mood to push our tastebuds out of their comfort zones, we’d cook our own meals. It didn’t help that we fell in love with each at different points of time. I mean when you are in love, don’t you partly surrender your ego and partly embrace his while he tch thchs at your temper tantrums?

He the rice eater would fix a 3 course meal in our dingy kitchen of our barsati half-submerged in his sweat-pool. Me, the roti girl would wonder if married life was about rolling amoeba shaped chappatis after a long day at work.

I think it was me who caved in first because I still remember how long and loud my Maa laughed when I told her I’d just had roti with aloo-posto. [To the uninformed, this is close to sacrilege]

As time progressed, our love matured from the tumultuous river gushing down the hills to its serene and deep version meandering through the plains. We embraced each other’s passions and peeves (most of them) while discovering new ones together. While we still stuck to our rice and roti ways, he learnt to appreciate chanaa masala with a hint of tanginess and I started cooking machh, chochoris and sukto during the weekend that we both ate with relish.

We’d cherish our us-time even if it meant watching a Hindi movie with me he didn’t quite fancy.

Not anymore.

For someone whose life revolved around her family and work suddenly decided she was missing the woman shorn of the roles of a mother, wife, daughter and sister. So I started thinking of things that made just me happy. It helped that I had just left my job with a fair bit of coercion from RayMan. With leisure time on hand I was now actively pursuing interests that I never had the time for.

I became selfish. This selfish pursuit of happiness led to a lot of discoveries – some pleasant, some not so pleasant. I discovered the writer in me. I learnt to dance like no one’s watching. It helped me let go of a lot of inhibitions or was it the other way round? I was always into fitness but these days I push myself beyond my comfort zone as I grunt embarrassingly. My many injury marks, sore muscles are testament to it.

I guard our us-time as zealously as my me-time with my friends. Friends that found me through my writing, friends that I found at unexpected places and moments.

It’s not as if this search for individuality hit me only after I hit my 40’s. It would rear its head from time to time but eventually go back to its hiding place.

I have become quieter and louder at the same time. With zero fucks to give, I wear what I want, disregarding sanctimonious advise on how women of a certain age should dress, peddled by beauty magazines from time to time.

My vocab has become as bold as the colours in my wardrobe. I have learnt to pick my own battles rather than engage in tiresome arguments with everyone that annoys me with their moth-balled opinions.

We are still the couple that completes each other’s sentences and are amazed how we thought of the same thing at the same time. I replay all my bad puns, jokes for him that I have unleashed them on the unsuspecting world. We laugh at each other, with each other, even louder when a minister from Rajasthan says with pride, cow is the only animal to inhale and exhale oxygen. When a motorist overtakes us from the wrong side I cuss louder than him. Our favourite part of the day is the morning when we sip tea together as we pore over the newspapers, smiling occasionally to the call of the koel or a peacock.

But I have also reclaimed my individuality. Interestingly it’s no way similar to the girl who stubbornly stuck to her rajmah and butter paneer, wore beige and greens, lost her temper easily but could never say no even though it made her unhappy.

From the two vastly different personalities who fell in love with each other, became us, we have become the couple that has gone back to square one. Only these days I have my matta rice while he has his basmati. I have to make two different versions of porridge – one with sugar and one sweetened with dates. He refuses to share my new found love for raagi idlis. In fact my changing tastes dictated by health gurus leaves him cold. And sometimes I dig into a big slice of cake just to make him happy.

While I watch Riverdale, he watches Stephen Colbert make mincemeat of Donald Trump yet again. I don’t mind when I have to hunt for cinema mates for a Hindi movie but sometimes I do manage to drag him with me.

We have both found the ‘I’ in us and are not letting go of it.

We are at that stage of life when we are comfortable with the silence between us. The furious tapping of the keyboard, rustling of his favourite magazine, loud exclamations as I read some article interrupting our reverie. Occasionally we will seek each other out to share something moving. Otherwise just to know he’s somewhere there, just within my arm’s reach is all I need.

Behind Every Successful woman are a Dozen Men Admiring Her Behind

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 04:47:00 +0000

Helpful tips on how to deal with sexual predators at office without having to kick his balls

Image courtesy - Google images

Hello Beti,

Congrats on landing your dream job. You must be soaring in the sky like an out of control kite. Allow me to fill you with dread and some unsolicited advice. Before I begin my monologue, let’s make it very clear - relinquishing your sanskaari position at home (the silent, supporting daughter-wife-mother behind a “man”) was a BAD IDEA. What made you think could step out of the house and become successful in your own right! Must have been those silly quotes that pop up like zits every Women’s Day.

Cool that you slogged your ass off to ace all your exams, made the company reject scores of candidates to hire you and are finally who and what you want to be. You also may have convinced yourself that you are capable, smart, intelligent and determined to achieve any goal you have set for yourself. But that guy in the corner cubicle giving you that creepy smile would rather have lauki ki sabzi every day of his life than accept this fact. For him you are just a piece of meat regardless of what you do and how many obstacles you scale to reach for that glass ceiling.

Don’t blame him. He has been on a diet of sexist WhatsApp forwards themed around shaadi-is-every-man’s-barbadi for so long, he has convinced himself of his bechara status. Never mind the clean house and warm meals that await him every evening. He’s too much of a decent guy to let go of his oppressive marriage and deprive his Missus of her many back-breaking duties and a listless life. Office is his only chance of fun on the side – yet another gyaan he has got from boss-secretary jokes where the secretary’s sole duty is to pleasure her boss.

So, it’s hardly a surprise that he is a firm believer of equality and harasses all women equally.

Correction. He fancies himself as a hopeless admirer of comely charms. When he finds a woman irresistible, he makes her aware of his sincere feelings through many thoughtful gestures like pinching her butt, sharing porn clips and suggesting they do a quickie to ease the unbearable tension between his legs.

As a true upholder of government-approved morals, it’s your duty to try and understand this poor man’s point of view. If he walks up to your desk to discuss targets for the next quarter while staring intensely at your boobs, please discard any feeling of discomfort like a used tampon and roll over in gratitude.

It will not stop here. After all, he’s a hetrosexual male, single or otherwise. His affection will continue to grow like post-demonetisation GDP and his advances will keep getting bolder. But girl, you gotta keep that feeling of revulsion under control. If you don’t, all hell will break loose.

You might be tempted to file a complaint against his unwanted overtures to put an end to it, once and for all. Let me roll on the floor with laughter before I proceed. Remember you are in an age where filing a complaint against sexual harassment is still considered a graver crime than sexual assault itself. And, if you still fancy yourself in a Utopian world where the bad guys get punished, go ahead and fight for justice. But please brace yourself for the shit to hit the ceiling and soil you instead.

A woman raising her voice against unwanted advances will go through the same grind every single time. First they will ignore her, then laugh at her, then shame her, and then try to silence her.

You are but an inconvenient glitch in the status quo where men get to set the rules. And men like these will do everything in their power to wear you down in your fight for justice.

But here’s the thing. You are a survivor. Once you accept that you have to be fearless Nadia with nothing to lose but your hair, peace of mind and sanity in your fight against harassment, you learn to avoid conflict in the first place.

So how do you go about it? You start by shedding all traces of your femininity. If you don’t look like a woman, half your problems will solve themselves on their own. Chop off that mane of yours, save those pretty dresses and knick-knacks for special occasions and wear a permanent scowl. For a crystal clear picture, think Mayawati.

Dress preferably in a shroud. Remember, even a hint of a bra strap is conclusive evidence you have breasts. And once it’s open knowledge, you have no control over the outcome. If your admirer doesn’t get deterred by this, you can always tell him you have a boyfriend. For double security, add a husband as well. If you want to erect an invincible firewall, tell him you have a brother who works as a bouncer at a pub in Gurgaon.

You also have the option of following the advice of the great Assaram jee and can start calling all your colleagues including the female ones bhaiyya. In this age of gay love, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

But you never know. After all Senorita, bade bade companies mein aisi chhoti moti batein hoti hee rehti hai. Keep a camera handy to record assault, preferably stuck in between your cleavage. Don’t forget to keep a vaginal swab inside your purse. Nobody will believe you were assaulted till you present them with conclusive proof or are found dead.

Have I made you angry enough? Good.

Now listen up. Women who know who and what they want terrify a certain section of men AND women. Why? Because they cannot be controlled by diktats, threats, fear of shame and lectures on morality. So when we go ahead and voice our dislikes, discomfort and fight for our self-worth, it is taken as a sign of rebellion.

Oh my god, you’re a feminist. Hahahaha. You must be so lonely, ugly and desperate to get laid.

So, it’s up to you. Do you want to continue being free to do what others want or do you want to live life on your own terms?

Nobody but you gets to decide that for you.

Love,

Your always concerned Aunty

A woman confident in her own skin is the beauty industry’s biggest nightmare

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 05:35:00 +0000

Courtesy - Google images

The beauty industry capitalizes on our insecurities because we let them.

My monthly visit to the salon plays like a typical saas-bahu saga that blares on telly every evening. The pedicure guy takes one look at my feet and starts weeping. With sad strains of violin playing in the background he looks up at me with sorrowful eyes and croaks – yeh kyaa haal banaya hai? I look shamefully at my calloused feet and croak back – that’s why I have come to you, you dickhead! If I am in a mood to severely disappoint many more, I get a hair-spa and sometimes a facial. The hair-spa guy runs his fingers through my hair, shakes his head in slow motion and before he can open his mouth I say no, I will not go for the ‘schizophrenia soaked in rare oils mined from Russia and then ground to fine paste with hibiscus and tiger testicles’ package. He looks heartbroken but I keep shaking my head like an autowallah who says no before you even say ‘bhaiyya?’ A lot depends on my no. If I let the facial lady have her way, she’ll will pull off the outer layer of my facial skin to reveal baby soft bleeding skin. She looks appalled when I tell her with a smug smile, I’m perfectly happy with my tanned skin and won’t do a thing to change it. Yet she tries to change my mind, every single time.

It’s a bit of a dilemma for me. On one hand I am constantly being told by my Facebook friends who I haven’t met about my gorgeousness. Then there are Twitter majnus who insist I’m the hottest thing to have happened since global-warming. And I believe every single one of them. So, you can imagine my consternation when I am told everything about me is sub-standard.

What, are you kidding me!

I get it, it is the salon’s job to make me feel miserable about myself. But it is my right to ask them to fuck off. Especially when I’m told they only way to beauty nirvana is a treatment that costs a king’s ransom.

The beauty industry, has built its fortune equating youth with beauty, slimness with desirability and dark skin tone that banishes you to a future as hopeless as Abhishekh Bachchan’s career. We are told, ageing is the gravest crime we can commit. Though Mr Pahlaj Nihalani who is dead against ladies indulging in unlady like fantasies may disagree. Therefore we must spend hours staring at the mirror, searching for fine lines, crow’s feet, dark spots and then arrest them immediately by mummifying ourselves with anti-ageing lotions, potions and serums. It works mostly, the guilt I mean. Many of us start believing in the magical powers of fairness in a tube, eternal youth in a pretty little jar and salon perfect hair in a plastic bottle.

What doesn’t work is this - the tall claims. In fact they are as false as the nationalism being used as a stick to rein in dissent. If the claims did work, we’d end up in a world comprising of assembly line beauties with smooth skin and glossy hair that swishes around like a horse’s tail. It’s my crooked teeth, frown lines, greys at my temples that make me who I am. Also, imagine the confusion for the men if we all looked the same. They wouldn’t know who to love, lust or hurt?

Somewhere down the line we seem to have forgotten that creams, potions and scrubs are just convenience stored in jars that can bought off the shelf. Even though it’s nice reading about DIY masks, conditioners, scrubs and soaps, not many of us are inclined towards pureeing, grinding our way to beauty. Especially at a time when women have discovered careers, a vibrant social life outside of their homes.

Also, what exactly is beauty? How does one really define it? As far as my limited intelligence goes, beauty has less to do with how you look and more to do with how you make others feel. It reflects through kindness, a cheerful smile and eyes that sparkle with life. No shampoo in the world can change your hair type from curly to silky straight. No lotion can change your skin tone and make you radiate like a 40W bulb. It’s more to do with what you were born with, what you eat and how you live.

Damn, I’m sounding like my own Mom!

By all means, splurge, indulge yourself in that skin brightener infused with patchouli and 4546 rare herbs. But keep in mind, this industry’s biggest nightmare is a woman content with her looks and who flaunts her daag, dhabbey, sagging skin like a badge of honour. Don’t let the beauty industry dictate how to feel about yourself!

It’s perfectly okay to look your age. Being called an aunty is not an insult even though the nincompoop who called you that may have meant it as one. Frizz is not something that you need to drown in gallons of conditioner. Freckles are cute. For God’s sake, don’t go on a punishing diet to get that perfect bikini body in just 15 days, because the miraculous tips are as fictitious as the photshopped beauties your favourite magazine promotes.

If you have money and time are on your side, explore the world, discover new interests, make new friends instead. Believe me, nothing makes you feel more beautiful than a happy and content heart.

And till you start believing in the power of you, you have no idea what you are capable of.

Ready for some hard-core pounding and grunting in public?

noreply@blogger.com (Purba) — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 13:09:00 +0000

Story of a woman on a quest for that special one who can make her heart race faster

Let’s take a hypothetical character – a woman, plumpish of appearance, she spends a lot of time sharing and staring at her once upon a time slim pics. Even though she’d rather believe her Facebook friends who insist she’s gorgeous right after she calls them smoking hot, she doesn’t like what she sees in the mirror. Her state of mind is like a pendulum – swinging between proud to be me and dissatisfaction with her extra-large curves. But her pesky little inner voice keeps telling her she’s lazy and too mortified to take the big step. Till one day she can’t bear the burden of her procrastinations anymore. After much self- loathing and soul-searching deliberations, she walks into a commitment that she thinks will change her life.

She approaches him gingerly because she knows it’s she who has to make the first move. She notices he’s bulky, his muscles rippling, his eyes red from whatever he’s been taking. She really doesn’t care. With a lot of good, comes a little bad and she’s ready to embrace it all. She takes a deep breath before she croaks – main badi ass leke aaee hoon apke pass. He turns around, sizes her up and replies with a smile – don’t worry, madam. Together will make it smaller.

Thus begins their journey of turning her bhains into tight-ass. He is now her dartboard because she has pinned all her hopes on him. She’s convinced that her knight with his shining dumbbells will rescue her from her large sized jeans and squeeze her into size small. She has already dreamt of the looks of envy her friends will give her once she sashays in her skinnies that cling to her like fungus.

It’s not as rosy as she’s imagined it to be although she always ends up looking like an over-heated tomato, her hair in disarray once he’s done with her. The first few days she can’t even walk straight.

Sick bastard, she mutters to herself.

It’s a love hate relationship. He’s so brutal with her! Makes her carry weights, swing kettle-bells, run for her life, jump up and down while he sits like a lord and master ordering her around.

Some days when she’s grunting, screaming obscenities because it’s so painful, sweat trickling into her eyes from her eyebrows, and the brute who has promised to transform her screams WATER BREAK, she’s afraid she’ll actually pop out a baby.

Dammit, this is worse than labour. At least the original one had the good sense to stop after 12 hours. But this one keeps getting even more painful with each passing day and what’s more, I keep coming back for more!

What’s wrong with me! Is this my fifty shades of grey? She can’t help looking for saws hidden in the corners and velvety handcuffs tucked under the bench while stifling her giggles.

Her reverie is broken by Jags rough voice commanding her to do three sets of burpees followed by jump squats.

As she wipes sweat from all her crevices in the changing room, she can’t help notice how her once snug track-pants now hang loose like pyjamas. She stares at herself a little longer at the mirror, her eyes caressing her newly discovered curves.

Initially, she’d be a little embarrassed by the dudes pumping iron all day at the gym, who’d look at her lovingly, a slight smile playing on their lips. Then she realized they were simply looking at their reflection in the mirror.

So this is what self-love feels like. Hmm.

These days as she strides in confidently, her gym bag slung over her shoulder, her badi ass chiselled to perfection, she can actually smell the testosterone. She looks around at the hall filled with men and women grunting together, breathing heavily, their eyes closed in ecstasy as their flip monster tyres, their muscles knotted as they do push-ups– she’s struck by an epiphany.

Whoa, working out is like sex! We warm up to the act with a foreplay of stretches, the act takes the wind out of our lungs and once we are done, we are filled with euphoria even though exhausted like hell. No wonder all of us keep coming again and again like addicts, despite the sweat and pain.

Oh, wait a minute. I think it’s EVEN BETTER THAN SEX!

I can do it any time I want, unlike sex that requires a willing partner and favourable planetary alignment. And with as many men or women and still not be called a whore, but just a fitness addict. The handstand definitely feels better than a one night stand even though my blood vessels threaten to erupt any moment. Why, I don’t even have to take my clothes off!

Now this is where hypothetical character number 2 steps in – me, dying to give gyaan because I feel she’s running out of reasons.

Darling, I whisper in her ears – it’s even better when you’re single. You don’t even need a partner to do it, unlike ordinary mortals who need to go through a series of bad Tinder dates to settle for the least obnoxious. And for those incapable of finding any, this is the most huffy-puffy you can get. What’s more, unlike the real deal, this can last for hours. Why do you think marathoners get up at 4 even on a Sunday morning to just do it?

Look around you, girl. This place is jammed with tinders – Satinder, Jatinder, Ravinder….

The only protection you’ll ever need is a blocked nose to prevent you from swooning from their body odour. Your performance is rated by a machine with no emotions and the result is definitely not a wailing baby that poops and pees all the time. Damn, you can even watch an exercise video to get new ideas to make your workout more exciting and not have to delete history. Why, you don’t have to be in a monogamous relation with your regime – in fact the more the merrier.

At this point, both of us, plant our behinds delicately on the Swiss ball, start doing crunches and orgasm together.

In between panting hard and trying not to choke on my spit, I do manage to tell her – look, sex is a great workout too. According to urban legend, a good session burns up to 1800 calories but I have sinking feeling you have to be an Olympic level athlete to achieve it.

You think, I should take to celibacy, she pants back? Of course not, I say, while more sex may not motivate you to pump harder but gymming hard will definitely make you the insatiable sexy siren that your man has often dreamt of. Thanks to all the gruelling sessions, you can now twist and turn, stand on one leg and give him such a complex, he’ll have no option but to start working as hard to keep up with your moves. Pretty soon, he will read my article again. And instead of feeling like killing me, he will nod his head in agreement, just like a Kathakali dancer.

Do you think those characters on the walls of the Khajuraho temple were all avid gymmers?

Pic courtesy - Google.com