Couldn't resist ;-p

Breaking News
Bangalore/Delhi and Bureaus, July 17: Mothers of unmarried men across India held special gatherings to celebrate the arrival of a saviour for their sons in the form of Rakhi Sawant. In Bangalore, the event was held at Palace Grounds, the venue for many happy marriages and attended by a hundred strong gathering of misty-eyed moms.
“I no longer need to persuade Manjunath to register himself on Kannadamatrimony.com,” said an elated Gangamma, adding that “as Manjunath had always wanted to be a model, he would require no persuasion to appear on television, making the process easier for us.” As for her son getting through the process, Gangamma was quite confident. “He’s already been watching the program repeatedly on YouTube at office. He already knows what is expected of him.”
Sowbhagya Rajagopalan who came from Chennai to attend the event also applauded the fact that there is an older brother (Ravi Kishen to the uninitiated) to veto any untoward incidents. “You know the process is going to be fair and uphold all traditions under such watchful eyes.” She however added that Rakhi should adjust her style of dressing to also include clothes from the Southern states. “At present, her dressing style is very North Indian.” she said with a slight wrinkling of her nose. Kavitha Muthanna who’d braved the heavy Kodagu rains to attend the event added that Rakhi should also improve her English skills as their sons would want their wife to be proficient in the language.
Mothers at the Kolkata gathering in Maidan seemed to be satisfied with Rakhi’s sartorial splendour, being used to the heavily embellished Marwari style of dressing all around them anyway. However, some of them expressed concern about her academic background. “My son has degrees from IIT, IIM, MIT and a few other places I cannot remember. Although he is looking for a smart, fair and beautiful girl and Rakhi fits the bill perfectly, he would like to know whether she is convented and has done her MA from a well known college, preferably under the Delhi University,” said Debashree Dattachowdhury from Lake Town. Amrita Meghani, mother of Bakul, who owns an electronics repair shop in Barabazar expressed her concern that the organizers of the swayamvar should also allow boys who were not proficient in poetry, painting or Taekwondo. “Bas dil sachcha hona chahiye (the heart has to be pure),” she said.
Echoing her sentiments was the almost 200-strong gathering of mothers at Pragati Maidan, Delhi. “It is a social service this girl is doing and I bless her with all my soul,” said Kanta Gupta, mother of Mohit, who’s doing his MBA before joining the family business. “It is so difficult to persuade today’s youth into an arranged marriage but this is different from everything,” she added.
As for their fears that Rakhi may well be on her way to choose a life partner, mothers across India remained optimistic. “It is a reality show and everybody knows they never finish in one season. And choosing a life partner is a time consuming task, therefore our sons can apply for the next round,” Ashlesha Patil added from Pune.
Finally, if any mother was harbouring a slight qualm about Rakhi’s past as an item girl, they have no reason to worry any more. As Daljit Kaur of Delhi explained, “She has started observing the Karwa Chauth fast already and that too for five men. If that is not the sign of a traditional and pure minded bahu who wants the best for her husband and his family, what is?”

Social Studies

If you are a socially upscale creature in Delhi, or are aspiring to become one, you are instantly recognizable by some of the following traits:
* You have a connection to a farmhouse. You either own one or are on first name/first drink basis with people who own one. If you are yet to achieve these dizzying heights, you probably got married in one and if you are an absolute bottom of the dregs aspirant, you spent your New Year farties...oops...parties getting drunk in one.
* You wear more sequins than clothes.
* You cannot, just cannot even begin to imagine buying a small car. Even if your parking space is matchbox sized.
* You are somebody/know somebody/ know somebody who knows somebody. Bas!

If you are a socially upscale creature in Bangalore or aspiring for the position, you:
* Have a nice red brick house with tiles flown in from Kerala, antique doors and windows and a lotus pond in the courtyard. All these designed in the most contemporary manner possible and with the same hi-tech comfort as your former pad in LA. Inside a gated community of course.
* You are a Cause Champion. You divide your time between gay rights/rainwater harvesting/saving Bangalore’s trees/stopping the Metro/keeping the race course. You also ensure everyone notices your good deed, namely the gullible media.
* You believe in carpooling. Especially when others are doing it.
* You address THE Nilekani as Nandan and casually mention having a personally autographed copy of his book. Bas!

Was quite thrilled to see Zoya Factor author Anuja Chauhan say her current read is Georgette Heyer's Frederica in TOI's supplement last Sunday. And this is not just because my current read is The Talisman Ring by the same author. Thrilled because the moment any celeb type is asked what they read, their answer is never ever Georgette Heyer or John Grisham or even Marian Keyes for that matter. Everyone is either reading Thomas Friedman or Paulo Coelho or even Ayn Rand. Centuries ago in my youth, the newspaper I worked for had a section called Who's Reading What that meant calling up random celeb types and asking them which book they were reading. The starlet types (and their male equivalents, now what should they be called, star lads?) usually mentioned Ayn Rand or Chicken Soup for the Soul. Not having read any of these (yes not even Ayn Rand, will lose all readership now), always wondered if these were regulation reads in Kishore Namit's and all those other acting classes. These days Paulo Coelho seems de rigeur, at least in the starlet/lad/ad model-turned-movie model world. Which is why, I was so happy to see Anuja Chauhan's instant 'Frederica' admission. Because nobody admits to reading anything frivolous, much less romantic, in public these days. Unless it's stuff like Adrian Mole, already stamped and sealed with . Now will all those people who have snuck in a Mary Higgins Clark or even a Mills & Boons as a brainfree late night read please get up and say so when they are asked? Which reminds me, what incidentally is your current read?

Good Bahu Strikes Back

An old college pal has shifted cities and since I'm an old Bangalore hand compared to her, I'm helping her settle in by pointing out all the right malls and rivergrass chatai shops. Old pal has an another old pal who is soon to be shifting permanently from US in what they call R2I in NRI and ex-NRI lingo, and as a consequence, all of us have been on Skype and Google Talk a lot. To my utter (inital) dismay and constant amusement, I have discovered the label that these lovely souls have had me stuck with for the last nine years: The Good Bahu.

The reasons behind the label are as follows, however strange.

I had lived alone in Bad Bad Bombay for five long years, worked in offices where we thought nothing about holding edit meets in pubs, mostly came back home around the same time as the milkman on weekends and despite that opted to stay in a joint family in Delhi after I got married. And horror of horrors, it was a vegetarian Jain joint family.

Aur sabse badi baat yeh hai ki, R2I and Old Pal stayed with their parents, never drank anything stronger than Coke (no jokes here, okay?) and had arranged marriages and despite that they couldn't adjust to their joint families or MILs . So I had to be either the yes mummyji type good bahu variety apparently only seen in Ekta Kapoor serials or a complete doormat.

During the illuminating chat where I found out this excellent side to myself, R2I was appalled by my in-laws' ostrich like attitude to non-veg . "But it compromises your freedom," she wrote in bold.

"Well not if you managed to eat everything from Prawn Koliwada to Tangdi Kabab everytime you dined out," I said.

"What if someone spotted you?" asked Old Pal, always the careful planning type.

"We'd decided to deal Ostrich with Ostrich and would've crossed the bridge only when we came to it, thankfully we never did,"I countered.

"Kam se kam you could have asked them to keep anda at home,"they said.

"But why? It was their home. I started keeping enough anda to feed an army the moment I shifted into mine," I replied.

That wasn't enough to control the curiosity of course. "So what do you do now when your in laws come over?"

"Simple. I just eat up all the salami in the fridge and go on a detox diet of ghia and toori for a month."

"And you still get along fairly well with your mother-in-law..." R2I answered her own question in utter wonder, before adding, "You must be doing whatever they tell you to do, yaar."

Frankly, that's the part I never get. That it surprises many people who have known me for a while that I get along with MIL. Well not in a 'let's go shopping together and have lunch afterwards,' manner, that's with my mum. Let's just say if my in-laws, who've been here for the last one and half month, were to extend their stay by another month, I wouldn't exactly be hitting the roof in hysteria. I may just suddenly increase going out for a fish heavy lunch.

When it comes to my relationship with the in-laws, food is the only area that is surrounded in a haze of white lies and unposken assumptions. They're pure vegetarians and I am purely non vegetarian. When I got married, they (or rather MIL) assumed I'd given up non-veg. Why don't ask me, considering her son wasn't exactly a vegetarian out of home. Since in the initial years, we chose to live with them, I went along with the charade because outside the house, I lived exactly the way I had in Bombay. I ate burger-shurger and tikka-shikka, I partied, I worked late and no eyebrows were ever raised if I said I was working late and wouldn't be home before 10. There was the standard Delhi parent concern, yes, but no scorn. Oh, I did feel stifled sometime and I did hate everything sometimes but never enough to rebel because frankly, there was nothing to rebel against, except an overdose of paranthas, ghee and affection.

MIL and mine is a relationship founded successfully on a desire to be nice to each other and those white lies. Nine years down the line, I'm sure everyone can see through the lies but it still remains an unspoken area. Everything else about the relationship is truly the stuff that Hindi film dialogue writers can make a happy family drama out of.
Some of my friends like R2I, Old Pal and few others see it as compromising on my individuality, freedom and abracadabra but sadly, since I do not seem to have a single feminist bone in my deplorable body I fail to see it like that. The way I see it is simple. I'm not missing out on anything in my life. So why jump the gun? Why try and complicate happiness, care and love when you are getting a lot of it in return?

You're fooling them, especially your very trusting MIL, a friend said to me long ago. Really? She knows I'm short tempered, I hate ostentatious Jain weddings, that I would rather wear silver than diamond jewellary and never develop a taste for thande thande jamun with salt. They both know I hate drying clothes out of the machine, can be lost in a book for hours and stay up nights staring into the computer. They also know I can shout at maids and autowalas, that I rarely visit temples and would rather read a magazine than watch Baaghban on TV with them. I wonder if it would still be called fooling.

Like I finally said to a very persistant R2I, who I'm afraid is considering me her pet project in India, what works for someone may not work for another. Somehow, this has worked out for me. And there are other elements at work here than just the fact that I do not eat non veg when they are around. Why is that so hard for someone to fathom?

In Steve Martin's book Shopgirl, Mirabelle has to keep fighting 'the immobilizing depression that would otherwise surround her and seep into her body like a poisonous fog.' I loved the book just for that one sentence. Though there's certainly more to like in it. There are days when depression really is like a fog, whether it reaches a level where you need medication or not. Nothing you can think or make yourself believe can lift it. It starts by clouding your morning with gloom and self doubt and goes on to blank out every other positive flicker throughout the day. Mostly without any reason. Most days we are lucky to call it PMS. But today, it's not even that.

Two thoughts for the day

Thought No. 1

When Mr Murphy was making his law he certainly wasn't thinking moms. The thing is, when you are at home with a bored 3 year old, chances are you'll spend the rest of the day trying to keep him occupied, reasonably entertained and trying to dodge Murphy's law. Because if anything can go wrong it will. For instance the glass of milk kept unescorted (by me, who else) on the table will spill. The TV, sometimes a much needed babysitter, will go blank. Frantic calls to cable guy will yield nothing but a busy ringtone. Child will reject every DVD in his possession and want to watch Oswald and only Oswald. Who for those not living in cartoonland is an Octopus that looks like a big blue balloon and speaks and sings in the voice of Fred Savage of The Wonder Years.

The mother, who could have easily abandoned everything else and played the nth round of bowling or jenga with the monkey, will have her nicest editor asking (on a Sunday that too) if she could help with just one input for a story and fast.

Poor freelancer mommy who must keep good editors happy in these times of need will say yes and try to multitask. This will involve switching on computer in the other room (the hand-me-down laptop has expired) and rushing back to continue with bowling in the hall then rushing back to comp to look up required numbers and making required phone calls and then rushing to kitchen as usually non-demanding child will suddenly have pasta craving. Mother will scan shelves and even look under the kitchen sink but fail to find new pasta packet. Will call the home delivery who will cheerfully inform her that it's Sunday, they are short staffed and therefore cannot deliver. Child will insist on pasta and nothing else. Mother will morph from wannabe freelance writer to wannabe marketing girl and try to sell child other edible stuff like french toast, parantha, idli etc etc. The doorbell will ring during all this commotion and it will be the maid's daughter, come to inform that her mother will not be coming today. It is a Sunday after all.

Thought Number 2


When you have one flash card too many thanks to the happy birthdays, this is a good way to keep the child occupied. There can be another point of view of course, as my friend who visited with her child when the project was in progress added.

Friend said she wouldn't do this as three year olds are too young to figure out when it's okay to safely keep toys/books or gifts and when it's ok to do something else with them. Phew. I'd never given it so much thought, though it is a point worth pondering over.

Me? I think it's okay if you drill into the child's head that not everything is meant to be torn or toyed around. I keep doing this 50,000 times a day with the simple use of that all in one expression NO*, although I'm not sure if Dr Spock or Dr Anand and those nice ladies who wrote the What to Expect series advised this. Tricky, this Mataji business. Or is my overly well read generation making it trickier?

* Nowadays NO comes automatically out of my mouth, due to sheer habit, just as words like Look! Aeroplane! and Look!Camel! tend to do. Even if child isn't around.

What are you doing?

Twitter is asking me.

Facebook is even more concerned. What's on your mind?

"Trying to edit really boring copy," mind replies instantly. But hey, do I write that? Of course not. It's so everyday and insipid. Instead I think a bit and and ask myself what I am really doing. "Nothing!" replies my most uncooperative mind with glee. Disgusted, I log out of FB/Twitter. What's the point of being on it when I can't even bring myself up to say something witty and observant?

The eighties had incongruities like Mithun Chakraborty and Michael Jackson. We have the status message. Do you ever see a status message on Facebook that goes, X has just got up and switched on the computer and hasn't brushed his teeth? Nope. You're more likely to see something on the lines of X has justed landed in Goa and is on route to his first lobster. If it's Twitter, X will probably be having a bite of that lobster instead of being on his way to it.

Then of course there are the er...status pictures. In fact, given the lack of activity in my life, I'm slowly convincing myself that people probably travel frequently because they need to post pictures on FB and update their cool status messages. I'm probably getting the signals all wrong but you can't blame me. They may not have been anywhere but Manali in the thousand years that I've known them but give them three months on FB and suddenly there will be albums crawling with pictures from Andalusia to Andamans.

Ditto with gTalk. I'm always here and there on it because I feel compelled to tell the world that I am not always around the computer. And not always fully there mentally either. Whether the world wants to know or not.

Long ago, in the sad days of Orkut where everyone could see anyone, I spotted (ok spied/sneaked/couldn't resist) one of those ex-crushes from school who posted pictures of himself in front of prominent monuments across the world. Needless to add, my century old crush vanished in seconds. Makes me envious about how lucky today's girls are. All they need to do is spy upon their object of desire on FB/Twitter or even Orkut to see if the guy is a smarmy showoff or a subtle sikandar. Sigh.

Going now. Need to update FB, Twitter and maybe even gTalk.