Chival – whaaaaaaaa?!

When I was leaving for UK the one thing I was being continuously told was – “don’t be shocked by the cultural change”. When I left for UK I was all but 21, had had 1 boy friend and was general purpose very, for the want of a better word, “Indian” about the way people behaved as couples in public.

So when I did go to UK and saw how much more free their society was compared to ours, it had me reeling for 2 weeks. Now I am not exactly dehati about my ways but I guess I still am very wonderfully backward about PDA.

However, once I was back, I realized, all this while, it never was about PDA. The one thing that shocked me was the general rudeness of people. Not in UK, in India. When I was in UK, I was quite used to being treated well in general by men. They held doors open, they paid for drinks and meals and people in UK seemed to follow a “ladies first” approach. I know a lot of women right not are going to feel like I just flung the feminist revolution 100 years back by accepting I like these things but truth be told, everyone does. Who doesn’t like a little respect when standing in the super market queue or in queue for the bus?

Post my shift back, I have had the golden opportunity to work in a MNC in India. It is everything these MNC’s promise - you wear formals every day, loads of busy looking people bustling about the whole day, people sat in cubicles tapping away on their laptops and desktops rapidly and not to forget the ever so essential “calls” that everyone seems to be on. In a place like this, I guess it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that everyone has had a good education. At the very least, at least everyone here is a graduate. However, safe to assume education doesn’t translate to manners. If I had a penny for the number of times I have been standing in a queue for a bag check and some self important person has cut across and gone ahead with the bag check I would be rolling in pennies! Its small things like offering a seat to a woman, holding the door open and letting a woman pass by first seem to catch my eyes here. For a country that is proud of its ‘culture’ and how respectful we are of others, might I say, we aren’t doing a good job of it.

While discussing this issue, I was told by a friend that it’s impossible to be polite on a public transport. His exact words were “if I start being polite, I’m never gonna reach home”. At that point, having travelled in locals and buses during my undergrad days, I had to agree. However, on thinking it through, why can’t you be polite on public transport? I know I have given people my seat in the bus because I thought it was the right thing to do. If only little by little we actually followed the “right way”, I'm sure things wouldn’t be as crazy as they are now. Maybe if we only let people get off at stations before we got onto the train, if only we gave up our seat in the bus for that old man standing next to us and if only we helped that pregnant lady with her grocery bags, maybe being polite wouldn’t be that difficult a thing to do after all.

All that’s past is... Ex?

I reckon I’m one of the few fortunate girls that can say that their last relationship was amazing. We understood each other, our issues with wanting space and we religiously abided by the rules we set out right in the beginning (no hanging up, no name calling, u get the drift). After a year when I shifted to UK, we even tried the whole long distance business. Safe to assume, that didn’t work and we called it quits. However, we stayed on excellent terms and we had the perfect “mutual break up”. However, our break up never quite meant the end of things.

Right from the beginning, our relationship had been about the chase. At no given time in our 1 year together were we ever just us, we chased, teased – our way, possibly, of keeping the boredom away. During my 2 year stint abroad, this behaviour continued. I must’ve come home thrice during which either he was chasing me around or I was. Safe to say the chemistry lingered and somewhere, I guess, so did our feelings. Or maybe it was just that we were so used to each other that it just fit.

The last time I left Bombay for UK, in September, we had already started questioning what remained between us and then I didn’t see him for a year. I returned back in September, next year and obviously, it was amazing seeing him again. But something was amiss. We had dragged ‘us’ out for two years and there was an anticipation, a knot in my stomach I couldn’t deny. No, it wasn’t that for 2 years I had pined after him, we both had our separate lives which included us dating other people but both of us being back in Bombay, for good, presented itself with the inevitable question – what if? Our meetings had been quite normal – we met, we talked, we laughed but there was nothing suggestive about these meets but the realisation didn’t set in until we were left to our own accord and realised we were happy just talking and being idiots – no moves made, nothing tried. The chemistry was gone, all that remained was a familiarity, a comfort and a bond that can only be forged with an understanding of the people we were, are and hopefully will be around each other.

We are obviously still friends, the fact that we broke up doesn’t take away from us that we still understand each other really well and want to spend time with each other talking about the randomest topics. I’m sure in the future, I’m going to have my own little wrestles, moments where there will be a flash of doubt, a stab of regret, a sigh of relief and the heartbreak of finding out that he’s with someone else, but I guess its all a part of growing up, of accepting that now we are nothing but friends. I know, I mentioned we broke up 2 years back, but its only now, when I see him sitting across me, shamelessly asking me to be his wing(wo)man that I realise, its finally over.

Sorry...

When I was young, my mum said to me there are 3 words that I must always remember – Sorry, Thank You and Please. You can never go wrong with these, she said. I have followed her advice to the t. I have ‘please-d’ and ‘thank you-d’ my way through tough situations and have gotten out of major trouble by ‘sorry-ing’. However, I realised recently, these 3 words are great - they teach you to take into consideration other people’s feelings and be polite but they are also the most manipulative (for the want of a better word... ruthless maybe?) 3 words in the English language. How easily we walk away from unpleasant situations, a situation where we know we have probably hurt the other person a lot, with a shrug of the shoulder, nod of the head and a simple sorry. I’m not the one to talk. I’ve done it too. Somehow, we seem to equate the number of times we say sorry to the amount of guilt we harbour about the situation. I don’t know if it’s just me but I know for a fact I dislike being reminded of the situation. Most of the situations when I’m at fault, I say sorry and back off, give the other person enough time to process what’s happened and hope once they feel up to it they will talk to me and I guess I expect the same sort of behaviour from others as well. Hence, it’s no surprise when I say if I was being inundated with apologies through phone calls, texts and various other forms of communication, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I need my time to be able to deal with the situation - on my own. Somehow I don’t think forcing sorry down my throat would solve the problem. Neither would justifying yourself a million times because I think people justify themselves only to feel better about the situation. What you have done and said is over and you can only assuage your guilt by explaining. Time is more powerful than we give it credit for, definitely more powerful than empty words, meaningless sorry and unneeded explanations. Let time work its course, it might be exactly what you and the other person needs.

Confession of a Commitment Phobe

When I came from Bombay to Manchester a lot of things changed... I changed as a person – my habits, my expectations, my take on life... it was as if I had rediscovered myself... not all for the best... but what the hell I enjoy being this way. Most times. One of the most major changes I went through was that I became progressively commitment phobic. More time I spent here, more the idea of a commitment became difficult to fathom for me. I met men – interesting ones, not so interesting ones, clingy ones, bad boys – think I’ve covered all types and they only reinforced my belief in the fact that I was better off without a commitment. In Manchester, I’ve made a few friends and there happens to be one specific friend who I’ve come to be really close to and the one thing that brings us this close is the fact that both of us are quintessential commitment phobic people. Last year we have bonded over numerous chats at random hours discussing men and our like/ dislike for them. It worked wonders for us. Misery loves company and there are a few things that work as well as bitching about men. But now this wonderful friend of mine is officially off the market. Yes recently my friend got a boy friend. For a while I had difficulties wrapping my head around it. No don’t get me wrong I was well happy for my friend... I think it’s wonderful but what really confused me was why this friend had abandoned ship and for whom? So on a random weekend I trudged up to this friend’s house to meet the boyfriend. It was wonderful. I absolutely loved him. And what I loved most was how visibly happy my friend was with him. It was amazing – my friend was laughing, glowing and in the last 1 and half year that’s the happiest I’ve seen this friend. As a girl its my business to notice small things – the comfort level between them, the fact that they knew each other’s fav singers, fav movie – yea those maddening small things that make you go awwww. And believe me when I say I was completely awwww-ed up by the time I got home that night. So for the 1st time in my one and half years here as a frolicking commitment phobic single I thought the words that seemed almost unreal to me – they almost make me want to NOT be commitment phobic. Its funny I even thought so. I chided myself almost immediately! I know myself... I’ll run in the opposite direction as soon as there even seems an opportunity! But I guess I just missed what could be – nothing like having stuff like this rubbed in your face. But for what its worth, this post is for that friend of mine, who reminded me of those small things in life that used to make me happy. And no this post isn’t some sort of an announcement about me returning to my old ways. I’m still very much a commitment phobic single, not giving that up in this life! ;) :P

Shoes and Stability

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I am now the proud owner of a tshirt that says – “Cinderella is proof that a pair of shoes can change lives”. Brilliant isn’t it? Would have to thank lovely people I call family in Manchester for that one! For all those, who know me but don’t know this yet, I *love* shoes... I have them all – black, red, silver, brown, golden, beige, copper... I could go on. It’s simple... I’m not a very jewellery person... can't be bothered to try and match off jewellery to clothes, bags and shoes (loops are the way to go) and hence I pay attention to details such as bags and shoes – the rules are simple (simpler than accessorising) and unless you are blatantly stupid you will never wear a red dress, black shoes and carry a pink bag (saw 1 mango dolly wearing the exact outfit - the nightmares don’t stop!). So anyway after years of going from dorky bandanas to weird earrings, from mismatched colour combinations to mismatched jewellery and from oversized clothes to oversized bracelets I have found my calling – Shoes. All those who know me know that I take my calling seriously. I think I own about 20 pairs of shoes as of now in UK and I’m not even going to count the ones lying in my cupboard in Bombay! I love shoes. I do. You just can’t go wrong with them can you?? At about the age of 12 my shoe size was about a 37 and I was a size 6/8... I’m now 22 and I’m a size 14. Shoe size? Still 37! See the beauty of it? For the last 10 years I have constantly fought my weight –sometimes I’ve been successful, even though I’ve never scaled back to an 8... but the sizes always pile up... my shoe size however has managed to be constant at 37. Perfect. No matter how many years go by and how many sizes I change I have some sort of stability in my shoes. And I love it. I love knowing that no matter how much I eat or how much I don’t exercise when I put on my gorgeous black pair of stilettos... they’ll fit and look equally gorgeous as they did when I 1^st bought them! So who cares abt the Little Black Dress or the Sexy Red Lingerie? I rather put on my Gorgeous Black Heels or my Scintillating Red Shoes and believe it or not I’m sure I can hear Katrina and the Waves singing “I’m Walking on Sunshine” in the background for me.

Looking Fat vs Looking Thin

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had to go shopping – a lot! And all those who know me know that I mean it when I say “had to”. I do quite dislike shopping. It bothers me. I don’t see the point of going from shop to shop just looking at stuff which I either don’t like, don’t fit into or cant afford. And then it's supposed to be retail therapy! Whats so therapeutic about it? I refuse to understand how it helps make anyone’s mood better? Anyhow, not digressing from the topic, I’ve had to shop a lot. Shopping a lot has obviously meant visiting the changing / fitting rooms. And having visited about 4-5 different fitting rooms about 3-4 times each in the past 2 weeks or so has brought to my notice something very very weird. Apart from all that you usually hear in a fitting room – gossip, rants, abuses for an ungrateful man, or monologues about those few grateful ones, I realised something that I had never before. I was stood in the changing room trying on my shirt, looking in the mirror and asking myself – does this make me look thin!? And then I heard it for the 1^st time – “Does this make me look fat?” and since I'm such a rubbish curious person I looked out of my booth to see a skinny girl standing in a body hugging dress critically assessing herself in the mirror, talking to her friend stood behind. When I say skinny, she wasn’t a size 8-10 skinny but like a size 4 skinny. It was hard not to scowl. “No it doesn’t make u look fat, far from it” said her friend... my scowl only got worse! Over the weeks and different changing rooms I noticed a general trend – if the woman was chubby she was asking the question - Does this make me look thin!? And if she was skinny she was asking – Does this make me look fat!? On my bus ride home I pondered and pressured my brain about it. Why? And then the answer came to me like a bolt of lightening. A skinny woman will never ask ‘does this make me look thin’, why would she!? She’s thin anyway and I think somewhere they know that the answer to their question will be negative and im sure its a good feeling. On the other hand, if a chubby woman asked if it made her look fat... she would be causing some major discomfort to the person with her! I mean theres not much to do but nod, stare at your shoes and shift uncomfortably from one side to the other. But its weird isn’t it? Its surprising how we all know the answer but none of us want to hear it... and what we wouldn’t do to get around the question that might throw the truth in our faces!

Mr. Nice Guy vs the Bad Boy

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Back in my undergrad, when I read Pride and Prejudice, I knew what I wanted. I wanted a Mr. Darcy. And why did I want him? No it wasn’t the money! It was because he was such a tease. I mean I’m a total sucker for men who make me work for them. Its funny how that works. I know I want to be properly wooed but I get restless as soon as I think I “have” a person. I will never make the 1^st move but if a person tries too hard, I run in the opposite direction! And yes I know I’m screaming out the emotions of 10 000 other women in the world. I think we all have at some point in time talked about how we would like to now cut the drama out of our lives and get with a “nice” boy (whatever that means). But I think somewhere we all know, give us a “nice” guy and we’d be beating a hasty retreat. I think for me it's because I'm scared of the constancy. I love the uncertainty that comes along with not knowing where what’s going. And never underestimate the power of banter. If you cant understand my sarcasm, you wont understand my words (I know, horrible rephrasing). Lately I have had the opportunity of being an object of attention of a rather nice person. To clarify, we are just friends at this point in time but he’s the exact opposite of drama – calls, texts, heck he even facebooks! But somewhere I can feel a little devil in me get restless wanting to quickly get out of it before there are any bitter feelings. At the same time there is a rather Mr. Elusive who has managed to have me in the weirdest head spin – he literally has me singing you spin my head right round! He triggers the kind of reaction in me that most bad boys through literature and movies have – the rush, the blush and definitely the lust, but he is exactly what I call him – Mr. Elusive! He has been by far the toughest guy to pin down. Not like we don’t know each other, we do but that somehow in no way means I “know” him. So while I sit around and wonder what Mr. E intends to do, if he even intends to, Mr. Nice Guy continues being Mr. No - Drama - Hence - No - Excitement. Quintessential Confused 12 Year Old I am!