tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47188615320321514432024-03-13T11:42:07.811-07:00The Late BloomerChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-12330037106161358552013-11-25T01:55:00.001-08:002013-11-25T01:57:05.992-08:00About a Girl<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Ours began as a relationship
of convenience. As most – all – childhood friendships are wont to begin. Diana
Penty was my original friend-of-a-friend and I, hers. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.15pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Said common friend was our unspoken navigator in the socio-political
minefield that is fourth grade at an all-girls’ convent school. We regarded
each other with the shy acknowledgement of sidekicks, taking care not to find
ourselves alone in each other’s awkward company. Until Common Friend shipped off
to another school just as we were about to be thrust into the grim world of
secondary education, with its terrifying implications of trigonometry and
training bras. We would need to go this together. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.15pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Neither of us is quite sure precisely when we turned best friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.15pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I may never have said more than the odd word to her before, but how
different she was never escaped me. I now feel Diana always carried a measure
of natural celebrity. One of those people, who, it is not immediately apparent
why, seem to have a stronger force field than others. Diana was always at least
a head taller than everyone in our class, and folded her reedy frame into a
self-conscious stoop throughout school. There were the thick, shiny jets of
blacker-than-black hair locked into a hurried ponytail, big, intelligent almond
eyes behind nerdy glasses, pert nose, mouth full of steel. And <br />
a gentilesse coupled with just the touch of nonchalance (a trait I have tried
to imitate ever since we met) one does not think to expect from a 10-year-old. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.15pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">In contrast, my near-sentient mass of curls, pubescent weight gain and Goan
Catholic intonations (my favourite word, “itsims”, turned out to be the rather
dull “it seems”) felt anxious and ungainly. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.15pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I was self-conscious, and a little proud, of how quickly we became
inseparable. We spent most of those first teenage years in each other’s company
(of which at least one was spent almost exclusively giggling). Every day we
would be dropped to St Agnes High School in her white Maruti 800. We were partners
if we’d lucked out that year and landed in the same class, spent our long and
short breaks together if we hadn’t and walked back together after school,
usually running the last few metres to her house to make it in time for </span><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Italic; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Italic; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Small Wonder</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> (she had cable; there were no
downsides to this friendship).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.15pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">By 13, we were like a single entity – DianaCheryl CherylDiana. Never
expected anywhere without each <br />
other, shuttling between her house for the fluffy Le Patisserie goodies her
refrigerator was invariably stocked with, and mine for the fish curry – my
mother can take full credit for introducing her, a then staunch chickentarian,
to piscine joys that remain with her to this day. She taught me to rollerblade
“along the lines of the floor tile…WATCH OUT!” My brother was our brother and
her dog, Ruff, a derisive Lhasa Apso, was our…no he wasn’t, he was most
definitely </span><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Italic; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Italic; mso-fareast-language: JA;">her</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> dog. “Ruffu, ruffu!” she’d use her baby voice and he’d let go of his
general contempt for the world for several minutes to turn into an adoring, writhing
mass of puppy while she scratched his belly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.15pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">We talked endlessly – no sooner would we part ways after school, than we’d
get right on the phone to each other – about a lot of things: When we would get
our first waxes, what we would do if either of our ailing fathers suddenly
died, who and how our boyfriends would be, should be (“hope he’s not a crier,
eww!”), when our music careers would take off (Mariah Carey’s ‘Hero’ was our
anthem, our by now 15-year-old souls thrumming with lofty emotion each time she
let out one of her high-frequency yodels). We recorded our own talk show too,
being host and guest interchangeably – the latter modelled on whichever
classmate had incurred our wrath that week. Diana was shy even then, with just
two of us and a tape recorder in an empty house; if someone had told her she’d
be doing that on national TV a decade on, or having her face loom up on a movie
theatre screen, she would have giggled and secretly thought them not very
bright. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.15pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">But let me not wend slowly through the chronology of our friendship of 18
years. Or how it is she’s come to be famous and how I’ve come to find myself
with an assignment to write about my best friend for a national magazine. Here
is Diana: The Short Version:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: Wingdings2; font-size: 10.0pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings2; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> She was named after Princess Diana because her
mother was <br />
a great fan of the fey royal. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: Wingdings2; font-size: 10.0pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings2; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> Shovelling spoonfuls of Milkmaid into her mouth
is a guilty pleasure that makes it all the more tragic that she’s now lactose
intolerant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: Wingdings2; font-size: 10.0pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings2; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.1pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The leanness of her frame belies the heft of her
appetite. This girl can destroy a 12-inch pizza and then comfortably manage a
chocolate chip cookie as big as my head. She won’t, though, not often, unlike
those annoying skinny girls who want to make a point – “God, I’m just cursed
with great genes.</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.1pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">”</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: Wingdings2; font-size: 10.0pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings2; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> She’s funny, in a droll, observational way that
doesn’t need to hit you over the head with a punchline. There Diana, I admitted
it. In print. You’re funny. (Just not as funny as me.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: Wingdings2; font-size: 10.0pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings2; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> Diana does not enjoy talking about herself. She
never has. After </span><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Italic; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Italic; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Cocktail</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">’s release, she stole away to the quiet of her uncle’s turtle resort in Goa
to decompress from the show-and-tell. She likes the work, she just doesn’t
enjoy the fame fallout.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: Wingdings2; font-size: 10.0pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings2; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> And my god, can she do patience. Paint-drying,
glacial, moss-lifecycle patience. In relationships, in friendships, in work.
Most tiresome, this virtue. She makes the rest of us look impulsive, reckless.
Enough is being said about how she’s squandered </span><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Italic; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Italic; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Cocktail</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">’s momentum, not having used
it to lasso her next project. Aside from the occasional doubts, she remains
unruffled as she keeps meeting producers and reading scripts, taking her time
to figure what it is she’ll <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>do next.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.15pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“What on earth are you writing about me?” she WhatsApps me right as I’m
trying find an appropriate note to finish on. Do I go the hysterical “BFFs
4eva!” route or make do with a “but don’t take my word for it” disclaimer?
“Hmmm,” she considers in her singular Diana way when I ask her, as though she’s
turning the question over. “Say ‘She’s awesome and she changed my life
forever?’” she types, and then a jettison of grinning emojis. So then, good
reader, what she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -.05pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: BaskervilleMTStd-Regular; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i>This story appeared in the November 2013 issue of ELLE India. </i></span></span> </div>
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Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-16370188810957229772012-12-27T06:56:00.002-08:002012-12-27T06:58:59.697-08:00Who We Used To Be<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There was a sense that
time had stopped even as I watched it march along in every calculable way. I
kept my forward motion, but inside I remained inert. I had only a vague,
wisplike memory – or maybe a dream – of what it felt like to be fully etched in
reality. Those days when I met people, I thought about them as the children
they might have once been, before they chose their cover-ups. Before the
uniformity of childhood, the uniformity of recklessness slowly left them. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The surly teacher whose
only solace was the range of violences she meted out to the smallest of her
charges – who was she as a little girl? Were her fingers singed with a wooden
cane too, until she wrenched out a shaky tune from an instrument she didn’t
understand? Why was this barrel-chested,
eminent man so easily incensed by the slightest of slights? Can a pipsqueak with wobbly cheeks
really be riven into this kind of inventive malice?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">My own mother. A single
calendar cycle had brought her jowls and taken away her knees. Her horrible
singing, too. Now she sat by the window drowning this new silence in tepid
cups of coffee. When I go back to the village now, they still tell me how the young boys used to follow her around, this mysterious, angular creature formed by the hand
of a doting god. To be spoken to, even reviled by her like they so often were,
was to have a blessed day. Don’t I have any photographs of her on my smartphone
at least, they ask. Why does she never come back here? She keeps very busy, I
say, letting them invent her as they please. They nod approvingly.</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I thought about who we’re
born, who we decide to be and what we ration of our true selves to the world. When does
fact give way to mythology? Had I really always been a mute spectator inhabiting the
fringe world, or was I imprisoned there? Might I be a dancer tomorrow, a jester
the next, simply by willing it? </span></span></div>
Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-51667899524938153202012-12-23T02:49:00.000-08:002012-12-27T07:14:05.359-08:00The New McDonald's<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
This evening my mother returned from church, marched
straight into my room (she doesn’t do knocking) and said “Let’s go to
Mac-dough-gnarled.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A new one has just opened around the corner from my house
and its proximity is exciting. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I was just about to go for a jog,” I say.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She stares at my day-old nightie, then at the paused,
agape expression of President Josiah Bartlet on my computer screen, then at the empty cake
carton on my desk.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’ll be ready in five minutes,” I say.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once we get there, we make a few noises (“so big, looks so
small from the outside, but so big”, “crowded, must be minting money”, “price
of houses in this area will now appreciate”), I order food while she looks on
proudly* and then we try to find a place to sit. She heads straight for the
table by the window.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Why here?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Why not here?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Everyone can see us.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Who everyone?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“People!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No one can see us.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“This is glass, of course they can see us.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She shakes her head and chuckles.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Why so much walking these days,” she asks after biting into
her veg burger, making a face, putting it down and scooping up my chicken one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Just.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“What just? Everything just just all the time.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Exercise.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You’re still walking all the way from your office to the
station?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Yeah.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Legs don’t pain?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Yeah.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You like pain?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I like it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Boy called you?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You called him?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“It’s over?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Yeah.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You are so proud.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Okay.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I stare at her, slurping at the coke, and suddenly I’m
angry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’m proud? How am I proud? I’m not proud enough! If I was
prouder, my life wouldn’t be so crappy.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now she looks amused and I’m getting angrier.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Don’t smile,” I spit at her. “This is your fault!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I see.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I ALSO see! Now I FINALLY see. Everytime anything has ever
happened, what have you said to me – no tell me, what have you always said to
me? ‘Let it be baby. Try to understand baby, you be the bigger person baby!” I
am now talking loudly and in a grating drawl. “I am sick to death of understanding everything. I don’t
want to be the bigger person anymore. I want to be the smaller person. I want
to be the SMALLEST person.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She is not smiling anymore.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I want to kick and scream and throw tantrums,” I keep
going. “I want to not care about how anybody else is feeling. I want to say
anything that comes to my head and then conveniently say sorry for it later. I
want to do that.”
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“So do it,” she says quietly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“NO!” Shouting whispers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I can’t. I’m stuck with who I am. I am fucking stuck.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Talk properly.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We’ve both abandoned our burgers. The remaining
fries have gone limp. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Do what you want, baba. It’s your life now. I have taught
you what I knew, rest is your choice.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, suddenly fighting tears. The bright
lights, the grotesque newness of the place, the insipid filth on our tray –
it’s all too much.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She looks away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Do you want ice-cream,” I ask her. She has developed a real
sweet tooth in recent years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No,” she says. “I’ve had enough. Let’s go home.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We walk back, but not in silence. Our hurts we inflict on
each other, are left inside the door of the new McDonald’s around the corner
from my house. Now we are discussing Mrs Sarkar from the fourth floor who is
very “<i>ghamandi</i>” and never says hello to my mother, even when they’re in the
same lift.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Do you say hello to her?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Why should I?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“She must be thinking the same thing no?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Let her bloody think.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You are so proud.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We look sidelong at each other, grinning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Shut up,” she says.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*<span style="font-size: x-small;">Does this happen to you? Do your parents appear to glow
with pride while watching you order food at a restaurant? I’m guessing it’s
either to do with some middleclass notion of “Look at us, ordering another less
financially successful human being to bring us our meal” or a parental notion
of “My offspring, who is paying for this meal, can form articulate sentences!” I couldn't say for sure.</span></div>
</div>
Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-35099711349495767782012-06-03T12:46:00.001-07:002012-06-03T12:55:04.092-07:00Eyes Ahead<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOtejrkgxcQon6pdfhY_LBypjhhRDv3qhPrCdY79xSKypLPekJHSgVvGvA_idsJY1aNyLpMS5JaRfhXSTNMTWtRuAvwPOvLpEsqCPc_vD1qP51VfySSFSIu4C0F9FjoauvoA7xshwbxA/s640/Fiji.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="480" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Malolo Lailai, Mamanuca Islands, Fiji; Feb '11</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOtejrkgxcQon6pdfhY_LBypjhhRDv3qhPrCdY79xSKypLPekJHSgVvGvA_idsJY1aNyLpMS5JaRfhXSTNMTWtRuAvwPOvLpEsqCPc_vD1qP51VfySSFSIu4C0F9FjoauvoA7xshwbxA/s1600/Fiji.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I try not to concern myself with endings too much. They come swiftly and inevitably, often not needing one to even be awake for the occasion. But beginnings, real beginnings, are a matter of curiosity and courage, belief and forgiveness, tenacity and hope. They're a matter of design. And they take a certain kind.</div>
</div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-1558914035359937002012-05-23T00:18:00.002-07:002012-05-23T00:18:56.223-07:00Figment<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="text-align: left;">
It is uncanny how
you are every protagonist I've encountered in the books I read before I
go to sleep. The grave English schoolboy with a club foot, the slobby old
islander of many upsetting fetishes, a six-foot dwarf unequipped for
irony, a swarthy South American alpha male who cries at the drop of a hat. Sometimes
you're even the women in my books. </div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="text-align: left;">
For years I wondered how you could be
all of these people; was I desperately in love with you and just didn't
know it yet? Or did I know you so well, I could seek out these kernels
of your astronomical personality as unapparent as they were to everybody
else? </div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="text-align: left;">
<br />
But it isn't either. Quite the opposite, actually. Your face is a
blank mask that doesn't twitch, not even when I'm in pain. You are
these protagonists in one way and one way alone: you are all creatures
cobbled together from imagination, meant to be romanced and then let go
of. And when I shut my books, you crumple in a lifeless heap.<br />
<br />
Reality is
no place for your kind.</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="text-align: left;">
<i>Republished from a previous blog, written in '11</i></div>
</div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-63382140877254798672012-05-11T14:07:00.001-07:002012-06-29T01:42:36.434-07:00Angela Fernandes, 26<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">When she
stares out the window, Angela Fernandes feels deflated. This is not the scenery
one expects if one is to write a brilliant novel that will sweep many small
literary prizes (the big ones belong only to people with exciting names like
Patricia Singh and Faghira La Foofie, Angela is not totally unrealistic). The
sky is a flat blue, the trees look like they could use a good washing and it
appears the squatting labourers have been pissing floral patterns all across
the compound wall. The big brown clump of shanties built for them last August
is getting more permanent and populous by the day, yet nothing quite like the
landscaped extravaganzas the brochures promised has materialised. Angela is
secretly relieved. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">“The idea of
landscape gardens in a middle-income building complex like ours reeks of the
bald self-consciousness one associates with new money,” she writes - this could
be the pondering, poignant start to her short story; she’s quite pleased with
‘bald self-consciousness.’ “Except, we’re not new money. Or old money. Or any
money. And it will be twenty years before we properly own even just the bare
walls of our flats.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Mother is
still walking to most places and buying half-rate from the semi-rotten lots at
the fruit market. And father has been forced to resume patronizing
correspondence with his vile uncle Garth who has both, third stage lung cancer
and a third floor apartment in Bandra minus any heirs. Neither has taken a
vacation in their lives; they insist their prayer and healing retreats are
enough. But having accompanied them to one in a fit of heavily regretted
whimsy, one has come away willing to take one’s chances with the eternal fires
of hell. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">We are simply
not landscape-garden people; perambulating of any kind is not in our nature. A
small, regular garden might be nice. Some trees and potted plants and such.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Angela sighs.
It’s terrible, too World According to Angela Fernandes. Then immediately she’s
irritable. Why can’t she be luminescently confident like pointy-boobs Laura, the
‘official’ writer in the family, who has recently taken to describing the
schmaltzy trite she produces at her weekend writing class as “very, like, Gee
Gee Marquez-y?’. The nerve. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Maybe some
pathos, some tragedy, will punch up the story. Because really, is there
anything quite as reassuring as somebody else’s horrible luck? She could get a
good car crash going – screeching tyres, car erupting in flames, infant in the
backseat, that sort of thing. Or wait, wait - she shuts her eyes tight and taps
rapidly at the cold floor with her big toe, as if the motion will shake loose
the trapped idea – an abortion clinic. The waiting room. Lots of pale girls
with old faces scratching their palms nervously, the smell of disinfectant
clawing at their dry nostrils; a reedy receptionist covered in piercings, and
desperately feisty pro-choice slogans on the wall like ‘I love you, baby, but I
love me more!’ and ‘When all you can see is the foe in foetus…’ Angela
chuckles. Something is seriously wrong with me, she considers with some
satisfaction. The cat in her lap peels open its eyes long enough to glower its
agreement before rearranging itself into a tighter ball, only to go slack a
moment later. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Truth is she
has no earthly idea what an abortion clinic looks like. She doesn’t even know
anybody who’s been to one. Merril and Shalu both had ‘scares’ last year but
both times it turned out to be nothing. The only scare Angela’s had in recent
times was running into kindly old Prashant-from-HR, and his giant erection, in the
passage between the loos. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">To have
‘scares’ you have to have sex, she thinks bitterly. She’d come so close too.
That night after choir practice, Perry Colaco had very nearly had her against
the lumpy stone wall of the grotto. She slumps back heavily in her chair
jerking the cat awake. It’s had quite enough and leaps off, feather-light with
contempt. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">The whole
thing feels like a badly remembered dream, the details bleed. One day she’s
telling Merril how Our Lady of Perpetual Succour’s star alto's quivering,
salivating lady-vocals are revolting, the next she’s wondering what he’s like
under those ridiculous Chinese collars. The ‘sms’ months are beyond recognition
now. The night itself takes more and more concentration to hold on to. Where
had the rest of the choir disappeared to? How is it they had been alone at the
grotto? What, what, oh, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what,</i> had he
whispered as he dipped his fingers between her lips, still sweet from Varsha’s
birthday cake, as he kneaded the soft center of her taut abdomen before unbuttoning
her jeans. She’d been paralyzed with panic and desire; had she even managed to
touch him at all? His oddly tapered earlobes, that block-like chest, his arm at
least? Was it her cell phone Varsha had come back for, or her hymnal, when she
nearly walked into them? She aches at the thought of his mouth, thin and wide,
engulfing hers, chewing at her tongue as if it were a tough piece of chicken.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Angela’s
getting quite used to her new church. The ceilings are nice and tall and the
priests do more than just scold the congregation. Father and mother have begun
to make pithy conversation at the table – how is work, the pigeons are still
regularly flying into the exhaust fan, His Holiness is looking so old. Merril
phoned to say Perry has shifted to his wife’s parents’ house in Bhusaval and
does she think he’ll start his own gospel-rock choir there? Exactly where is
Bhusaval anyway… nevermind actually, she doesn’t really care, listen to this,
Angela will never guess who… Merril is like that. Everybody should have a
friend like Merril.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
She leans
forward once more, smooths the page, reads it over and then rips it out.
Perhaps a classic whodunit.</div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span>
</div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-81734107550830981672012-04-24T22:10:00.004-07:002012-05-14T05:23:16.721-07:00The Familiar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9bwuM_mrqSkIum-DjUcnuyMkadEXdhvdDu_wxIypSVX2SIbOrdx3lLLYR0nwpqh_rv5GhZFbkWGphXeO234oRM9LWYQ0ZfXeDRTjY6aimH54QcFWI7ddIFZ41Rt4xtl3N_EsoI_GYZg/s1600/Window.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9bwuM_mrqSkIum-DjUcnuyMkadEXdhvdDu_wxIypSVX2SIbOrdx3lLLYR0nwpqh_rv5GhZFbkWGphXeO234oRM9LWYQ0ZfXeDRTjY6aimH54QcFWI7ddIFZ41Rt4xtl3N_EsoI_GYZg/s400/Window.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kashid '11</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
When I am happy, it feels like indulging in a fun activity for a while -<br />
novel and heady and quite exhausting.<br />
By the end of it, I'm ready to scurry back to my soundproof melancholy.<br />
<br />
Happiness is like that wonderful old friend who knew you when you were a child - predominantly in petticoats, terrorising pigeons -<br />
who, for even five raps of the cane across her palm, wouldn't tell on you.<br />
Long lapses of time are spent working up to her visit.<br />
You will show her the sights, spare no expense,<br />
lavish her with that gratitude you've safe-kept in some shadowy recess of the heart all these years.<br />
<br />
But she arrives and soon it is time for her to go<br />
and you haven't even left your living room.<br />
Crumbly photo albums have been brought forth, wine spilled<br />
and batter devoured before it had the chance to become cookies.<br />
"Do you remember the nut job who'd follow you to the egg shop each day?!" you'll chortle.<br />
"My god, I cannot forget," she'll laugh. "Do you remember the way we were?"<br />
"I do," you'll say. "I do."<br />
Right then you are that child once more; incorrigible and vulnerable,<br />
your instincts crackling, possibility thundering in your ears, gossamer clouds of hope everywhere.<br />
Disiloo... jene... menent sounds like something best left to the adults.<br />
<br />
Once you've waved her off and her bus has turned a lane and out of sight,<br />
you walk back down the street, so pregnant with quietness, it's like a silent scream.<br />
Your thumping heart once more slips into its familiar, dopey cadence.<br />
You're back to your tea-and-toast evenings, pegging away at that mountain of bills,<br />
the brain no longer an implosion of noise and colour.<br />
Edges and shadows roll back into focus.<br />
Your empty house seems to regard you kindly,<br />
willing to let the last few hours (was it days?) slide without mention.<br />
You stumble upstairs to bed and lie there, dead centre,<br />
until sleep tip-toes in and your eyes no longer brook protest.<br />
You forgot the locks, but then you never have interlopers.<br />
<br />
<i>Republished from an older blog, written in '11.</i> </div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-3193084267109247632012-04-22T12:45:00.001-07:002012-05-12T02:03:37.796-07:00If Now Is All We Have<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfyQ3smxdp2QF645wXQQDQA6pegGZ5ldpdh4EpTRUoKBi6xs3UoW3hkVLFOaW2kVwHoDrsbbVJwuPkMyMHKvuSCybdnwFwYYB4E1u6FeX01G-2wJJ2Wruf30iP1Cwy_WQXLqfmbDuZvA/s1600/41kt0PYhF6L._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfyQ3smxdp2QF645wXQQDQA6pegGZ5ldpdh4EpTRUoKBi6xs3UoW3hkVLFOaW2kVwHoDrsbbVJwuPkMyMHKvuSCybdnwFwYYB4E1u6FeX01G-2wJJ2Wruf30iP1Cwy_WQXLqfmbDuZvA/s320/41kt0PYhF6L._SL500_AA300_.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Easily my favourite present this year. Thanks M!</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
"... the main thing in life isn't so much what happens to us as what we think happens to us." - John Lanchester, Early Retirement<br />
<br />
I was lucky enough to be gifted a yellowed copy of Granta's '95 edition, Loved Ones, by a friend who has the unrealistic knack for helping written stories find the people who will read them to the bone. It is a collection of 13 short stories where writers "consider their relationships with those who were, or should have been, close to them." Itchily personal and wincingly frank, the stories are as much about great writing as the ability to extricate difficult and transformative truths from the things that happen to us. <br />
<br />
So far, my favourite is John Lanchester's Early Retirement, about his banker father who led a fairly happy life but whose ghost of What Might Have Been never did leave him, until he woke up one day, still new to retirement, and promptly died. For the large part, Lanchester seems to commiserate with his father's evaluation that his life has been one of squandered promise, yet at times, like in the pull-quote above, he quietly alludes to his doubts about whether his father's mute discontent wasn't just a figment of his imagination. <br />
<br />
It's an interesting question, isn't it? One I have pondered endlessly myself; torn between wondering if I'm skirting a martyr complex or whether life is really that needlingly shitty sometimes. Whether probable happiness is better than definite safety and whether What Might Have Been, Never Was, because We Never Let It.<br />
<br />
<br />
Ps: The new header is courtesy my alien friend <a href="http://justonerant.blogspot.in/" target="_blank">G</a>. Thank you, fatso.</div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-84793866964639217792012-04-12T13:30:00.001-07:002012-04-12T13:37:58.099-07:0028 Years<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
He saw her, he saw she was sublime.<br />
She saw him, she liked his shoes.<br />
"She made me want to start over," he'd later say,<br />
"They were *really* nice shoes," she'd shrug.<br />
The other men stood beneath their windows<br />
wooing her friends with spangly trinkets.<br />
He came for her twice a month.<br />
Five chikus were his offering.<br />
"Did you know they're also called sapota?"<br />
She stared at him, then shook her head slowly.<br />
<br />
They went through the motions<br />
Got married.<br />
She for a roof, he for a second chance.<br />
Had children.<br />
She for companionship,<br />
he to prove he could.<br />
Left.<br />
She from despair, he from indifference.<br />
Returned.<br />
Because they both keep promises.<br />
<br />
The worst has passed,<br />
for the first time they notice each other.<br />
His mangled hands,<br />
her maddening pronunciations.<br />
His emotional stutter,<br />
her unbelievable strength.<br />
The story is told that<br />
for the five days she wasn't home once,<br />
he went hungry.<br />
"She didn't make it, it wasn't worth eating."<br />
<br />
The beautiful bits always stop short<br />
so you never forget just how good it got.<br />
She awoke one afternoon with the deafening silence,<br />
his breath had stilled for the last time.<br />
For as long as she lives,<br />
she will never forget his slumped head<br />
or that feeling of being well and truly alone.<br />
<br />
The years fan out.<br />
Some worth remembering,<br />
some just disappear into others.<br />
There are no smiling portraits on the wall.<br />
No gracefully yellowed black and white photographs.<br />
And the mind's moths continue uninterrupted.<br />
<br />
The hallmarks of true love<br />
have changed since 1981 too.<br />
"Of course he loves me, but he listens to bhangra-pop!"<br />
"She's perfect except for her beer belly."<br />
"I think I love him. Or do I?<br />
No, I do, I do. But what if I don't?"<br />
Thank God she's hard of hearing.<br />
These <span style="font-style: italic;">eedyets</span> wouldn't know love<br />
if it smacked them full in the face.<br />
She'd tell them her story<br />
but devotion isn't part of their vocabulary.<br />
<br />
<i>Republished from an older blog, written in '09.</i></div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-60428896722297632382012-04-07T13:32:00.000-07:002012-04-22T22:25:07.748-07:00Romance Isn't Dead, It's In The Obituaries<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've always been drawn to the obituary section of the newspaper, possibly for the same reason I stare into people's homes who live close to flyovers - it's as much fuel for my imagination as it is straight up voyeurism. These strangers intrigue me so; beloved mothers, sons, grandfathers and wives, feted in death with pixelated pictures and painfully earnest poetry of unfortunate rhyme schemes. Nowadays it's the young ones I look out for, and find with too much frequency. 'Born 1979'; she would've been in the 4th standard when I was born, I think, probably had just begun writing with a fountain pen. Had this serious boy with the caterpillar brows, 'God's newest angel', seen the news three days ago and like me also sighed about people dying too young? Usually I'll come away somewhat sobered, or chuckling inappropriately.<br />
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Not today though. Today the obituary section made me smile stickily, made me fuzzy with romance. Take a look.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEignd_-Rd9N5OigH2_7QVp359d6Yinl-kmvLXEU1slb66xCP2KV7A399PYYbyc4APk0jI6RZzZXhoN2_QzASIg_5eKnVMfM0TNjCm-m-vOAX5TMdlBKCvX0Hjr14ptw9cOdSFU_m-0fLQ/s1600/obit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEignd_-Rd9N5OigH2_7QVp359d6Yinl-kmvLXEU1slb66xCP2KV7A399PYYbyc4APk0jI6RZzZXhoN2_QzASIg_5eKnVMfM0TNjCm-m-vOAX5TMdlBKCvX0Hjr14ptw9cOdSFU_m-0fLQ/s320/obit.jpg" width="312" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A love note if I ever saw it.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<br /></div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-7214097761080332602012-04-04T12:41:00.000-07:002012-04-12T13:30:38.796-07:00The Importance of Girlfriends<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I consider my natural disposition about as friendly as a doberman’s. I have this unique superpower which lets me, by the sheer act of showing up to a social gathering, cause comfort and conversation to shrivel up and die. Then I proceed to fill this new cavernous void with deep and resonating awkwardness, which I will exponentially worsen by clearing my throat about twenty thousand times. I have literally, without even using my hands, awkwarded people’s relatives into sudden hospitalization and unforeseen doughnut emergencies on the other side of town. I tell you this not because I take some twisted pride in it – even though I kind of do – but to illustrate how I’m really not very skilled at interacting with other humans.<br />
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You will understand why then, every couple of days, when I’m going about my business writing a story, tormenting the dog or trying to lick the floor of a Nutella jar, I’ll suddenly stop and think, “I have friends. I have friends? I HAVE FRIENDS.” It has the very same effect as when I eat that first French fry after a long hiatus – tremulous happiness mixed with terrible foreboding. But I digress. The real epiphany here is that when I think this happy thought, I only think of it in terms of my handful of girl friends.<br />
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This goes back to my all-girl, convent education perhaps, or maybe it’s just that from a ridiculously early age I was very aware that boys were boys and girls were girls for reasons that are only for my future therapist’s ears. I have often thought of this as one of the many great tragedies of my life (WHY did they cancel Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip?!), but what it meant was I never ended up developing any unselfconscious friendships with boys, while simultaneously forging a number of relationships with women that, if they were romantic, would easily qualify as epic love stories. Actually, you know what, they are epic love stories.<br />
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Forget about the big boorish clichés like going to the bathroom in groups, discussing in-growths in unhappy places and how all men are alternately awesome and awful. I’m talking about the ones that don’t make it to sitcoms – the rise in a girlfriend’s voice when she’s viscerally feeling outrage on your behalf. The way she can tell your happy silence from your awkward silence from the silence that is barely holding back your guttural sobs. The way we have defended one another’s honour and indeed, dishonour. The way it’s ‘Us against the World/ Whoever’s Pissing You Off At The Moment’ season all year between me and my girlfriends. The code of ethics we have constructed piecemeal over time, whose nuances we intuitively understand, but can’t explain, especially not to the uncommonly daft boys we like. The way our relationships essay every other kind of relationship at different points in time – I’ve caught myself telling a friend that she is not to do a certain something-something in the very voice my mother used to use to make me drink milk of magnesia. I’ve also exchanged I Love Yous with these women, with the kind of intensity and truth I hitherto thought belonged only between a couple. We have been confident enough in our friendships so that we’ve spat virulent, unedited accusations at one another and then begged forgiveness without the slightest cost to our egos. Like I said - I was aware of my ostensible girlness - not girlieness - very early on, but only truly became aware of its gravitas in the enduring company of these women.<br />
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At 26, I have managed to accrue a nice lot of meaningful male friendships as well, and I can confess that often I like to escape the girlfriends for their relative simplicity and linearity. I cannot even begin to tell you what an unqualified jock/jerk I’m capable of being around these guys. Until of course one of them offends some ladylike sensibility neither they, nor I, knew I had. Then it’s race-dialing the bestie with “GUESS WHAT HE JUST SAID TO ME…,” fervently hoping she’ll be able to tell me why I’m this mad. And you had better believe she will. <br />
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<i>Republished from an older blog.</i></div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-52444109566129784062012-04-02T07:10:00.007-07:002012-05-04T03:02:58.814-07:00A Suburban Nightmare<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For a while now (six years to be exact), I’ve observed that my having moved to and living in the suburbs tends to elicit certain kinds of reactions.<br />
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Commonly, there’s hilarity. A mandatory ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gaon</i>’(village) joke, which is usually as artful as “HAHAHA YOUR <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">GAON</i> (name of my <i>gaon</i>)!” Other comedic gems include “I’d like to do a little ‘load shedding’ of my own” accompanied by a wagging-eyebrow-glinting-incisor combo that would make <a href="http://area512.htmlplanet.com/gifs/pepewall.jpg" target="_blank">Pepé Le Pew</a> feel violated. And lest I forget that old classic, “we want to visit you, passport on arrival? LOLOL.” <br />
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After I am done disposing off the bodies in our communal tank, I’m immediately overcome by remorse - should I have tried the abandoned truck stop just before the toll <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">naka</i> instead? Stick the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>city, always enunciating its separateness from mine, with its own abhorrences<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">? </i>Then I remember I’m not five, or <a href="http://www.livemint.com/articles/2012/03/29200444/Why-is-it-better-to-live-in-th.html" target="_blank">Aakar Patel</a>. And no city deserves to be judged by its twats. Because if we know the nature of twats, it’s that they’re a tenacious lot who will always find a way to be insufferable, no matter their geography. <br />
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That said, I’ll still take the jocular ones over the Overcompensators. This set has no geographical prejudice, they want to make perfectly clear. And if it weren’t for their lazy drivers and overprotective mothers, I couldn’t stop them from coming over every weekend even if I wanted to! Apparently my suburb is THE BEST (it’s not), SO CLOSE (it’s not), PRETTY HAPPENING (far from), NO POLLUTION (HEH) and what’s the cost of realty here - maybe they should think about investing. In the six years I’ve been here, I’ve had personal visitors of a grand total of seven.<br />
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Then there are the wider social implications. Almost anytime I’m attending a gathering of some sort in town and the question of where I live comes up, one of two things happens: Either my answer is met with surprise quickly followed by the sympathetic head-cock, eyes radiating ‘oh, the travails of the poor’ compassion. Or it’s met with surprise and followed by praise for my countryside grit - God only knows what horrors I’ve had to endure on my voyage here, for who knows what lurks in the hearts of men on the Central Line beyond Sion. And would I like to be served dinner right away so I can gather my strength to begin my return journey at the earliest? Perhaps even have my wineskin replenished?<br />
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Dating is a different minefield altogether. Over the years, my dates have thoughtfully suggested we meet early in the day so I’ll make it in time to catch the late train - “Public transport is so much safer than taking a cab <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">alone</i> at some ungodly night hour.” The braver ones venture an “I could drop you… if you want”, eyes imploring my mercy.<br />
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But my absolute favourite domicile-related experience went down just a few weeks ago. It was a clockwork progression of all the reactions I’ve mentioned so far. A friend had carefully (really blatantly) orchestrated a social run-in where I found myself sitting beside the guy she thought was perfect for me. He’s wasn’t. But he was not intolerable either – nice bum. Conversation meandered from vintage showcases to his business prospects to my camera’s features, with him issuing a torrent of witticisms and guffawing loudly while I waited. And then it happened.<br />
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“Where’re you coming from today?” he asks. I tell him and we’re off!<br />
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Eyes widen. Check.<br />
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Head cocks. Check.<br />
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“How did you get here?” Mildly comforted when I say by car – at least I’m operating over the poverty line.<br />
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“Do you even have electricity in your gaon?! (GUFFAW GUFFAW)” Check.<br />
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“But jokes apart, I’ve heard it’s the new ‘town’.” Sigh.<br />
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Reader, I don’t think I'll marry him.</div>
</div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-73534238775064298462012-03-28T04:22:00.005-07:002012-04-03T01:06:21.726-07:00Easy There, Tiger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="color: #888888;">I once didn’t date this guy who was smart, funny, had nice eyes - kind of like an Indian Paul Rudd but unquestionably straight - and who appreciated women of all shapes and sizes – Padma Lakshmi, Nigella Lawson, Lisa Ray, this girl on Twitter, the Zara sales attendant, my best friend. <br />
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At first, being the emotionally evolved, 21st century girl that I most definitely, without fail, am, I flattered myself I’d made it comfortable for him to discuss other women with me. It was natural, after all, wasn’t it? I too feel certain stirrings every time I see Daniel Craig in high def, emerging from the sea like Poseidon in a wee bathing suit. And according to the roughly ten thousand gender theses out there, acknowledging freely that you both will likely find other people hot at one time or another is the hallmark of a successful postmodern relationship. Capital, I thought, and didn’t date him some more.<br />
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A coterie of my girlfriends, assembled over mint juleps, roundly decreed that I had dodged a bullet with that particular one. However, what the precise rules were for this sort of situation elicited less of a consensus. “It would depend on just how many cute bums he was noticing, and whose,” said one. “And exactly where does my bum figure in all of this” said another. “All this healthy expression stuff gets on my nerves,” a third one said, violently up-ending her glass. “Write it in a bloody diary and shut up about it.” We all nodded.<br />
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A mother of a hangover later, a few thoughts still niggled. Had I been too sensitive? All he’d really done was been honest, too honest even. Wait a minute, I thought, suddenly cross, should I be grateful that he had ‘liked’ my friend’s rather saucy picture on Facebook, in plain view of me and everybody on our collective<br />
lists? This time I called up the boy brigade for some answers.</span><br />
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</span><span style="color: #888888;">“</span><span style="color: #888888;">Why are all of you such pigs?</span><span style="color: #888888;">”</span><span style="color: #888888;"> I asked conversationally. And wasn’t Indian Paul Rudd’s behaviour inexcusable? No sweeping wave of sympathy or cries of 'down with him!'’ here. “It depends,” said one carefully. “Truth is we’re noticing hot women all the time, whether we tell you about it or not. Women do it too, we’re not stupid. Total disclosure is not necessary, but it’s nice to be able to say it out loud once in a way.</span><span style="color: #888888;">”</span><span style="color: #888888;"> “Equal opportunity leering,” another said. “If I can ogle, she can too. And vice versa.” “And anyone we both know and are likely to meet often is off limits, so no complimenting her cousin’s décolletage,” he added. “I don’t care for Paul Rudd,” finally said the one who’d been silent all this while. "Night at the Museum was awful.”</span><br />
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I thought about this (ate fries) - the men and women were more or less agreed on how a situation like this should play out. Rapport was important, but tact more so. And 100 percent disclosure was more often than not, bloody stupi… my eyes swung back a line. Did I just say men and women had agreed on something? They had arrived at the same conclusion all on their own? Had I just orchestrated a rare moment of harmony in the otherwise knotty fabric that is interplay of the sexes? Would Harper Collins see it that way? I said a silent prayer to Paul Rudd. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #888888;"><i>A version of this piece appeared in Grazia India.</i></span><i> </i></div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4718861532032151443.post-82417764150293982062012-03-22T12:23:00.004-07:002012-03-28T04:48:54.089-07:00Another Surprise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">They never tell you you might have your life's most profound thoughts on the pot right after an ill-advised breakfast of goat marrow (<i>nalli</i>) and unleavened bread (<i>naan</i>), do they?</div>Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17610507047603325315noreply@blogger.com0