Random Rant Part I

It’s funny how some people can just piss you off. Not because they spoke to you or even did something to you. No sir! It’s because they exist. Most times I have something to say to these people which I don’t end up saying out loud lest people should think I am rude! So here are the general categories of people who piss me off and finally my reply to them-

The couple that has a kissing picture on FB as their profile picture – Awwww! That’s you and your boyfriend! I can see the appeal of displaying yourself swabbing his tonsils on a public forum. I’m sure this is exactly what people had in mind while they sang and danced to ‘Khullam khulla pyaar karenge hum dono’. Kissing on camera is so “hawt”! (yes I hate it when ppl spell hot as hawt or god as gawd! Fuctards!)

The people who see me after years and say, oh, you’ve gained weight – Really?!?!!? No shit man!!! Thanks for bringing it to my notice. You’d think I’d notice considering I’m the one having to fit into my clothes yea?

People with pictures from Kala Ghoda Festival as their profile pictures – you went to KGF because it was free and big news. Not like you understood any of the pictures or installations so stop being a pretentious fuck and take it off. You look fat anyway.

People in office with weird phone habits – Ok so I get it, Falguni Pathak makes your world come alive with colours, snacks and every other gujju stereotype there is, but having her croon every time your phone rings – LAME. In fact anyone with their ring tone as songs and ad jingles is lame. This is your office, your work place, show a little professionalism and at least for these 8 hours let it ring, like a normal phone and not some hand held disco dandiya stall. And I get that it’s an important call but who is stopping you from stepping out to take the call? Next time you scream around my cubicle (especially in your mother tongue) I’m hurling my choicest abuses at you. In hindi.

People who don’t seem to understand the difference between you’re and your and they’re, there and their – Buy a rapidex if you need to but next time you confuse their usage I’m going to start typing offensive innuendos with these words. Also, English nahi aati toh hindi mein baat karo.

The old uncle/ aunty in bldg who suddenly sees me and says, my my, someone needs the gym – my my, someone needs botox!

The people who leave lift doors open – oh no, don’t worry about it. I just added the trudge up 4 floors to my workout today. I totally understand why you missed it, not like our lift door has a recording of a nasal bitch screaming “please close the door” every minute. Oh no wait, it does.

People who seem so affected/ concerned/ surprised by the fact that I’m still single – if I wanted, I could get more action in a day than u get, in a week!

Sleazy old uncles staring in public places – yes, those are my boobs and I’m a girl. I am also probably as old as your daughter/ granddaughter you sick fuck.

And last but not the least,

People whose only purpose in life seems to be nudging me during weddings saying, you are next – yes I may well be, but unless you have tonnes of boys lined up for me, STFU.

Yes, this blog was utterly pointless, probably just a platform to rant on. But it’s my blog and I can, so I will. You can STFU as well.

To a very special someone. not.

They say you don’t miss your water till it’s gone. Reckon truer words were never spoken. Over the last 1 week in office, I have noticed very peculiar behaviour from a man who sits across my cubicle. If I may be immodest enough to say, I think I have just managed to acquire for myself, a creep! This man I talk about has a routine that I am fast becoming aware of. Every time I read the newspaper, he comes and asks me what’s “new”. Well, it is the newspaper, and it is supposed to report new stuff everyday but I render it prudent to reply with a constant smile and head shake “same old, same old”. He has also been exceptionally quick at adding me on IM and talking to me about his personal life. In 2 days that he has spoke to me about his sad pathetic life, he must’ve told me how “lonely” he is at least once every hour and that he has “no company” to explore Bombay at least every two hours. Smooth. Not.

This man, as he has been kind enough to tell me, has a wife and 2 kids. Now because I am such an amazing person and like to see the positive in everyone, I would like to believe he just wants to make frandship with me. However, the nagging bitch in my mind still asks why he isn’t out there making frandships with mards his age as opposed to ladki log! Anyway, sitting through his life and family history, I came into office today prepared to nip the conversation in its bud. No bhaiyya, I don’t want to know about your life, your food choices or how lonely you are. No. But dash it!! He wasn’t there today! Now initially, my heart soared at the possibility of not having to sit through his “BOARing” sermons (yes, that’s how he spells bore) about himself but as the hours passed I realized I was feeling boared! Very very boared! I think I didn’t even realize but he became an important part of my daily routine and now he was gone and I had no one to creep me out. You know how heart wrenching it is when you are sitting and reading the paper and someone doesn’t crawl up to you to ask you what’s new?? Sigh. Every time I saw his empty chair from across the cubicle my heart was saddened by how lonely I felt!

So this goes out to the creep in office, come back. Who knew, life without having you to give me fodder to bitch about would be so boring.

What should have been my Season's Greetings

There are a very few things am proud of, one of them being the fact that I have owned up to probably everything I have done in my life. Somehow, in my second year in Manchester, I realized nothing good could possibly come of pretending to be someone I was not. It was simple, I wasn’t a wild child but I loved my vices and I loved the scandals these vices brought with them.

I think one of the reasons why accepting these events was easy was that I had the most amazingly understanding friends. They all realized this was who I was and accepted and (some even) adored me for the way I lived life. It stopped being about my mere existence from one day to the other but about what more had life to offer (In no way should this statement be taken to imply encouragement of risqué lifestyle. That call is yours and yours alone). I had decided when I left Manchester I should be able to say ‘been there, done that’ without regrets.

Sadly, some regrets I cannot control. Apparently living your life the way you want brings with it difficult choices to be made. Have I been selfish? I would say yes! But then if I had to live my life the way someone else saw it, I wouldn’t be living my life now, would I? However, after living it up for two years I have come to the conclusion that at 23, my life as I know it had to undergo some changes.

The good thing about UK was that no one cared. Somehow, my business was just that, my business. In India however, that is never the case. Never before have I seen so much interest sparked in others by what I was doing. Being under scrutiny the whole day would send anyone into overdrive and I’m no different. It made me look at my life with a fresh perspective and I realized that I had now amassed more scandals in my life than “Rakhi ka Insaaf”. Probably now is a good time to start getting rid of the skeletons in my closet and to accept that my life in UK is a life I left behind a long time ago.

So this 31st when I begin my new year, my new year’s resolution is to remain scandal free in 2011. Anyone who witnessed my nye last time knows that when I say “begin my new year scandal free”, I mean the end of any and every complications. To all those who have been a part of my life and its exciting times, I guess this is the end of the road for us. It’s a new year, a new me and a spanking new clutter free life for me. Your stay in my life (in most cases) was appreciated but as of now I want you to leave,kthxbai! And to all my friends I love nonetheless, wish you a Merry X’mas and a Scandal – Free New Year, much love xx

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