To Be Or Not To Be..

..that is the question? But pray what is this 'be' that we are wondering about? Or rather what is the object of our attention and desire here? Its none other than Bhains (I have no idea how to spell it so either you get it now or you won't get it at all, if its the latter you can stop reading right now!) So I re-phrase- To be a bhains or not to be a bhains, that is the question.

Let me draw you a picture. Its been 42-44 degrees in Delhi now almost for the past one week, we are being tortured incessantly with loo, there is no respite from the sun anywhere and I have been going to school and teaching in the murderous heat and then, after being driven crazy by the kids, travel back in autos or buses, pushed and pulled, like a rubber band about to reach its breaking point! So today when I was coming back home, I decided to indulge msyelf by not only taking an auto but taking the DND as well. For the non Delhi people, DND is the express flyway which connects South Delhi with East Delhi. Its smooth, has no traffic lights and saves almost 10 minutes of your travel time. So even though you have to pay Rs 20 as toll tax, you don't mind because, hell, that extra 10 minutes on the road, stuck in traffic is an experience that can kill you multiple times over!

Now the DND is supposed to be over the Yamuna river and if you try very very very very hard you might see the Yamuna in its non existential state. Well if not see it you can definately smell it! Anyho, in some patches there is some amount of the river left and there are still some patches which are kind of clean. And today I saw a sight to behold! There was this herd of bhainses, wallowing in Yamuna, water up to their shoulders, chewing cud, looking peaceful, like they had no worries (for instance, how to finish my syllabus or my students are driving me up the wall- HELP- and other such pleasant thoughts), nothing or nobody to prove themselves to, so on and so forth. And at that moment I wished to be a bhains! What more can you want on a hot summer day than that! Water water everywhere, nor any thought to worry! On top of it just chewing, chewing and chewing some more, looking dull and boring and being least concerned about it.
And oh did I mention, the whole world is your bathroom?!

Health Woes

Ma' voice came floating to me through the density of my sub consciousness,"Your room is very hot!". I felt, even in my half dead state, that the statement needed to be acknowldeged as part of being polite, so I grunted. Interestingly, that is how I have been conversing with mum for the past few weeks, grunting or nodding my head because I have been sleeping so much. Though I have got my exams going on I am not really studying for them, if not sleeping I am dreaming or if not that I am watching TV. I have even taken to watching IPL which I didn't do at all last year!

Which brings me to the real issue of concern here. Because of so much inactivity, I am doing something I have never ever done before in my life of giving exams- putting on weight. * So I decided that I needed to work it off. For the past one week I have been going for a jog every evening, well maybe not 'every' evening but hey! four out of seven days is not bad! While I really don't have too much complain otherwise, what is driving me nuts is the growing size of my stomach! Seriously sometimes I think I could just about pass off for some one in the first few months of their pregnancy and I am NOT joking. So I added stomach crunches to my stretching exercises I have been doing for the past three weeks. But no matter what I do my tond refuses to be toned (I just made a funny!) I mean really while I am falling in love with my legs which never looked better (four days of jogging can do wonders you know!) my middle body refuses to budge, literally! I mean Ok so I am a lovable person, but I can do with out so much attachment, again literally! I need to have my own space, you fat! Go find another house or just disintegrate into nothingness!

On top of it all, my body feels ready to fall apart because today me and my friends spent the most deadly part of the day in the market! We are crazy! First we stuffed ourselves with momos, chicken, noodles, fruit beer(s) and what not and then went to shop and all in the Delhi heat**. The result was highly tired and exhausted us and we couldn't even lift our feet to save ourselves! And then, very enthusiastically, I jogged for 45 minutes in the evenings! So I am, basically, ready to crash out!

Good Night!

*Oh yeah did you know that I have been giving exams since the day I entered school? Thats almost 20 years of my life! Talk about dedication to the cause of education!

**Did you know that Delhi is experiencing a heat wave and that yesterday was the hottest day in 50 years? Well we did but still...

Some thoughts

I hate... double standards and hypocrisy
I fear... closeness (emotional and physical)
I love... to be around people, have people around me and the thought that there are people there for me
I get... influenced (in my behaviour) very easily
Ok so I tag Anky and Sangy in this self created tag. You guys better do it, you can add some more if you like.

Good Wifeingtips

Mum is a regular subscriber of the magazine Good Housekeeping. And very month I pick it and leaf through it, not for any other reason except that its just entertaining and quite amusing. My friend, A, once told me that she dislikes these magazines, her logic being, 'How can any body tell me how I should live my life?' I laughed not thinking too much about it.
Strangely a few weeks later, another friend, D, sent me a link on chat, saying,'Oh please read this!' I am not going to go into the details of what it was all about, you can see it for yourself here. The article, dated 13 May 1955, is a Good Wife's guide. Me and D had a laugh, with D sighing comically that she was a horrible wife according to the standards set by the article! Again, I laughed it off.
But this month's issue of Good Housekeeping made me realise (alas, for the first time, dear readers!), that this bloody magazine is actually nothing but a guide for women on how to be good wives, mothers, home makers and 'women'! We might use the term home makers now, but this change does not really reflect or represent a change in attitudes, does it? We still have to be 'good'! It is no longer mandatory to be without a career to be called a good woman! You can work all you want, but as long as your house is funtioning smoothly, you are able to balance out your personal and professional life and keep your family well fed and happy, well you have done it! You are perfect! Every damn woman who is interviewed and finds herself on the cover page of this magazine is presented as an ideal we must look up to, precisely because they are well known celebrities with a solid family life.
What made me so mad about this month's issue was the short story of the month. Its about a woman, sorry a wife, who is an excellent cook. Titled,'The Perfect Wife,' the author describes the protagonist as an accomplished housekeeper, an excellent cook and oh just the 'perfect wife'! She seduces her husband through her cooking, so much so that one day, Mr. Well-Fed- Husband remarks, oh this is almost better than sex! This is when our 'poor' wife realises, that the passion has gone missing from their lives. If that is not enough you have the seductive neighbour, who also happens to be a tarrot card reader, offering her help to the wife-in-distress in the shape of a sachet with a magical love potion guaranteed to bring back the fun! So the wifey takes it and decides to put in some effort herself (dressing up and putting her energies at entertaining hubby dear, not in the kitchen but outside it), and voila! the passion comes running back in! Of course, the sachet was just a sachet, with no powers! I was so revolted reading the story I wanted to be sick all over it!
Is this what we mean when we say that the modern woman is a liberal woman?Has our liberation come in the form of a celebration of our acceptance of what the society wants us to be? An acceptance that we had to fight for? I am strong believer of, To each her own, but really this is too much! And such magazines actually do well for themselves! Thus, there is obiviously a market for these! It seems that what women and men want are those trophy wives, the kind that was in Rock On, to be displayed for all to admire! Oh you can have a career but you'll still be a wife or a mother at the end of the day...

Summer Time

I still remember those summer days, young and carefree us, staying out late, getting screamed at by mum everyday, running wild, exploring the colony and beyond both on foot and on cycles, playing pranks on 'surly-people-we-didn't-like' to 'surly-shopkeepers-who-were-mean-to-kids.'
We used to look forward to summers, like it was the best thing God had created for us. I don't know where we got the energy to do all that we did. It was amazing, the exhilirating energy we were infused with, we never tired! We used to run up and down the streets, buildings, rooftops (that we were not allowed on) to climbing trees and under construction sites.
And I distinctly remember that one summer we got addicted to NICE. It was an orange drink that came out in plastic bags. Of course parents had forbidden us from drinking it, which is precisely why we drank it without fail everyday! We pronounced it Niceee, with an emphasis on 'e'. Now there was this shopkeeper, who hated us for some reason. I couldn't figure out why, after all we were such cute innocent kiddies. One day, we needed a plastic bag to put some sand we were collecting for some person we didn't like. What we were planning to do with the sand is another story. So very politely we asked Mr. Surly-Shopkeeper (SS) for a plastic bag, which he refused point blank. We were shocked! We said, but why Mr SS? He said, pay me 50 p and I'll give you one. And, then, he cackled, you know the kind you heard those witches in cartoons when young.
We were very upset, because it put our plans on a halt! But we were also kind hearted kids, so we decided that maybe the reason why he was charging money was because he didn't have any plastic bags. So we decided to do our good deed of the day and went and bought all the NICE we could with the money we had. Between five of us, I think we managed around 10, two each you see. Drinking them all, we decided to give the empty bags to him. But when he saw us he shooed us like pigeons. Well we were not to be deterred in our plans of social service. So two of us surreptiously went and put some of the bags bang on top of the crate of colas he had. Mind you this was not the crate with empty bottles but the fresh ones. Well, the rest of us were posted in the oppposite building from where we had a birds eye view of the little garage his shop was in. We saw all that was happening down there. We had to wait only a few minutes, when a girl and a guy walked into the little shop. We giggled, because we were at the age where we found girl boy holding hands very funny for some reason! Let me describe the shop a little. As I said it was in a garage, not meant for a car, a scooter garage. Anyone who has ever lived in DDA flats will know the kind I mean. Well, Mr. SS used to sit on the left side, half inside and half outside. On the left side were boxes which had bread, rusks and eggs, standing on top og each other. The right side had cold drinks crates. Now, the way Mr SS sat, he didn't have a very clear view of the right side, which is the side we targetted.
The girl-guy pair entered and asked for drinks, SS took the money and told them to help themselves to the ones they wanted. The girl fluttered (in a way only a young teenage girl in love can) to the crates and screeched. Chee, yahan toh kachra pada hai! The macho boy friend gritted his teeth, took back the money and muttered something about going to a cleaner place. SS, visibly surprised walked up to the crate and looked thunderously angry. We wondered why!
The rest of the summer went with us trying to do our bit to help him, we added empty milk bags to chips packet to even chewing gum (hmmmmm...) and any thing we found lying on the ground. When SS shifted his chiar to the right side, we started piling things on the left side. But, alas, one day he caught one of ur gang members and threatened her with dire consequences. And, anyways, we were bored of our social service. So we decided to use our energies elsewhere. At the end of it, at least our colony had become cleaner!

What I want to be when I grow up...

We've all written something along these lines, if not as a borring essay in primary school, then, in our diaries where we used to write our 'personal' thoughts and emotion, before going and telling them to our various best friends, as the friends kept changing through time. Anwhow, I don't think I ever wrote, "I want to get into school life", even wonderingly. I was too busy thinking of unique 'professions' for my self. I have listed some of my aspirations below, hoping maybe someday I will be abel to fulfill some of them...

• Doctor- something along the lines of Linus's version of an extremely rich, city dwelling, humble doctor, who zooms in her sports car everyday to the country side to make people better
• An NGO worker, who achieves so much goodness in so little time.
• A xeroxwali- yes, yes, when I was in college and right upto my masters, I was convinced that one profession which will definately bring in loads of mullah is to have a photocopy shop near a college.
• Bhelpuri wali, in univeristy- this happened when I fell for the bhelpuri sold outside Hindu
• Writer
• Photographer
• Actress- Oh yes this happened everytime I saw people receiving awards at those functions, where they delivered the most horrendous 'thank you' speeches, convincing me I could have done a much better job then them!
• Lights wali in theatre- I don't know why, but I have this fascination of being a stage hand, and doing all the running around and being indispensable back stage
• Telling stories through puppetry

I am sure I must have more entertaining avenues to direct my life towards. But right now, life seems to sailing towards only one....and I am happy about it!

Shelved

In Udaipur, while running up and down a slanted road
S: (panting) I think I've had enough. Guys, we should stop, this running around too much will kill us!
M: Oh maybe its too much for people of your age.HAHAHAHAHA!!!
S: (wryly) Very funny
...
Running around various colleges in the university area, inviting HODS for a talk
S: Yaar, lets take a rikshaw back to college
D: (hiding a giggling face) Kyun, tumhare buddhape ne jawab de diya kya...HAHAHAHAHA
...
In the metro
SH: Yaar S, I think you need to get a boy friend!
S: Hmmm....
SH: Whats your sun sign?
S: Capri...
SH: Oh in that case its Ok.
S: Eh??!