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.