Pee-Pal Bonding

Being a man, there are so many traits in women that I fail to understand. One of these is the socializing that goes in any restroom amongst Indian women. There are so many dynamics and complexities involved in a process as simple and as fundamental as peeing. A restroom in a multiplex in India, has swarms of women hanging out there. Sorry to disappoint you curious men who are reading frantically to know what exactly happens in a ladies restroom. I ain’t telling you that. But if you know what I mean, I don’t see why for something as quick and as uncomplicated as peeing, women have to drag the entire group of friends into cramped restrooms.


My friend and I used to hang out a lot. Invariably after a movie she would have to go seek a restroom and drag me there. In college, when you suddenly saw the entire group of girls leaving the class laughing and talking in a hushed hushed way, much to the curiosity of the other guys and to the consternation of me, you should know that the group leader needs to empty her bladder. I wonder if the entire group follows her to cheer the group. It’s like paying a visit to someone’s home, where you accompany a leader when she needs to pee, and I’ll accompany you when you need to pee. On a funny as well as a scary note, I wonder if women holding pompoms cheer the peer (all puns intended) with a “yo-yo-yo-pee-pee-pee-we-are-here-to-accompany-thee” song. My friend told me that even if she had nothing to do in the restroom, she could hang around (hang around in a restroom?), look at herself in the mirror and wait till she is done. What more, she feels I am an imbecile who cannot get the pee-reflex myself at the beck and call of her reflexes.


I’d stay back, I don’t wanna pee now- is what I made the mistake of telling her once, to which she rolled her eyes and told me that I could hold her paraphernalia, refresh my make up, and converse with her over the cubicle.

I fail to understand the restroom dynamics, and why women feel so comfortable dragging their friends and relatives and sisters and mothers to the restroom. Perhaps one reason could be the safety factor involved, just to make sure that you aren’t locked up in the restroom with no one to find you, stranded unable to undo the tight knot in the churidar rope, or not confronted by some pervert rapist lurking in the dark alleys who attacked innocent young girls wanting to empty their bladders. But this factor aside, I fail to understand why every time women go to a restroom, I would be lost in a carnival going inside, with slim fashionable women refreshing their lipsticks and looking bitchily at other women through the mirror, voluptuous aunties with ill-fitting churidars holding the hands of the cranky, troublemaking little monsters while they noisily chatted with their bhabis and nanads (sister-in-laws). If this is a way of female bonding, I wonder if there aren’t other ways of bonding. I mean I have seen men who take sutta breaks (breaks to go out for a fag) and perhaps discuss everything from the status of the stock markets to the vital stats of their girlfriends (note: I have a feeling that when girlfriends become wives, men discuss the vital stats of other women, but then, correct me if I am wrong). But at least in a fag break, you are not obliged to hear the gurgling sounds of water (never mind the other associated noises) while you embarrassedly stand amongst a group of women animatedly conversing. And I would do anything to know if similar animated conversations and bonding sessions prevail in the men’s restrooms too. I do not know if this is a shortcoming of mine, but I could never pee in peace if there is a crowd standing outside, and that too, a crowd of known people of all things. Years back, I had read to my utter disgust in this book that the husband used to get aroused looking at his wife pee. Frankly, a husband like this would make sure he never ever entered the restroom again.


Perhaps there are certain dynamics in bonding, certain brewing chemistry that I am missing out on, something the specialists of sociology, psychology, and women studies can throw light on. Interestingly, I have never seen such gregarious behavior amongst the girls here (unless they are the desi girls once again). Girls here mean business, and no hi-hi-ha-ha or post-pee socializing while soaping hands. Anyway, enough about this, for I am already beginning to feel uncomfortable as my kidneys are reprimanding me. But if you are reading this and if you know me personally please stop asking me to accompany you every time you need to go to the restroom. I need no loo-cializing anymore.

Ctrl-C Ctrl-V

What do I do when I'm tired? I blog. And what do I do when I'm tired of writing? I make pictures.


Ever since I discovered the amazing things in life like Picassa and MS paint, I have gone crazy discovering the numerous possibilities and probabilities of creating pics with two simple keys- Ctrl C and Ctrl V. What more, on public demand, I & my wife have been making collages of marriages, anniversaries, years of togetherness and the other important events in life. I wish I could show you something more than the unanimated stuff here, especially after the wedding collage I created of a friend, I went gaga praising myself of capturing all the important events and emotions like the vermillion ceremony, the shyness in the eyes of the blushing bride, the red bindi and the red saree, and the agni (fire). Anyway, enough praises for the self, I’ll leave you guys alone to browse through some of the stuffs I made recently, and get back to my copy-paste mode. For more, you can look below.

And yeah, feel free to give me more ideas on what to cut and paste. It better be with a theme. Like right now I am working on putting together the best places of Pondicherry.


Someone rightly said, a picture is worth a thousand words. And I proudly say, a collage is worth a hundred pics.

Flowers of Spring (personally photographed/pp)-




Flowers of Spring (pp)-




Space needle (pp)



 
More flowers (pp)


Tulip festival



A collage made from collage (pp)




Rose plant (pp)




The Puppet shop



This food, that food (amen !!!) (pp)



So which one is your fav?

Wrong Pic On The Right Page

The book had the right picture. The people got the wrong picture. For there are certain ill-conceived and malformed ideas and notions people have of us, as Indians. Not that I blame them, but I hope that someday, someway, this notion changes.


This realization started with the few courses I took recently. Whenever there had to be pictures of a famine, a natural disaster, or some health related issues, the text book was filled with the “bhookhe-nange log” (hungry, poor people) back from Africa and India. There was a chapter on the malaria prevalence and there were these tiny, diseased kids in the text books. And then there was this chapter on wood smoke, indoor air pollution, and related health issues, and there was this picture of this sick, old lady bent with age fanning the chulha, with subsequent statistics on how many women and children died of wood smoke alone in India.



And then we were having a class discussion on air pollution, and my friends, who seemed to have visited India for a couple of months, pointed at me- So they could give you a better idea about the traffic snarls and the associated air pollution problems in India. And do also enlighten us on the sulfur haze and acid rain too.


I wish I had been asked to tell the class about out rich cultural heritage, how Indians have bagged the Nobel prizes and the beauty contests at the international level. Sigh.

The class looked at me with anticipation.

Uncomfortably, I did start with the acid rain, the oil refinery issue and how it was corroding the marble in the Taj Mahal. I just needed to get to Taj Mahal. And then my speech went like this-

And as you must all know, Taj Mahal is considered one of the seven wonders of the world that attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world. It is a symbol of love. If you happen to be in Agra, you should also visit the capital city Delhi, the Red Fort and the Qutub Minar. And the food in India is awesome. And India is famous for its handicrafts.

Quite a far cry from the air pollution issue I was supposed to discuss.

But then, when I think of Africa, all I can think of are diseased children, fleas, mosquitoes, plague, the tsetse fly, suffering and death, while I am sure Africa is one of the most beautiful places with pristine and virgin forests, birds, and animals. I certainly do not blame these people.


People here have an idea that everyone in India cooks in the chulhas in the sweltering heat, coughing blood and dying of lung cancer. No wonder I was asked if my mom too cooks in a similar chulha, crouched amongst a pile of wood and cow dung. What more, I was asked by a friend,  how the people in India keep the doors and the windows open, since the place must be swarming with bugs and reptiles. The poor thing imagines our homes to be in the midst of some Amazon forest perhaps where we wear clothes made of palm tree leaves and live in huts built of bamboo shoots.

Like some of us were explaining the occurrence of tuberculosis-

“Hundreds of years ago, the Caucasians lived with cows and goats and cattle and thus tuberculosis became widespread. The strain became more violent and started to develop in humans too. No wonder almost every Indian harbors TB germs in their lungs- latent or virulent”

Sheesh…

This doc was working in India for some time, and of all places he could choose, he chose Bihar. No wonder he thinks that every place in India is like Bihar. Arre bhaiya, I as an Indian will hesitate thrice to go and work in Bihar (the extra hesitation because that is perhaps not what I should feel about the place). Similarly another friend here wanted to do some work on arsenic in drinking water, and of all the places and months he could choose to travel in India, he chose to go to Kolkata in the month of June. The sweltering heat and the humidity is something even we as Indians cannot tolerate. When he came back, his face was as red and brinjal-violet as a monkey’s, nicely baked and caked. No wonder when another friend's niece wanted to make a world tour on her own, she was strongly discouraged to go to India for personal safety reasons.


“India? No way. Girls get raped and molested there.”

Yes they do, I agree. But not all girls get molested, right? And this happens in the US too. Some of the US text books here claimed that Hindus in India practice sati and johar. Well, we did, a lifetime ago, but we do not anymore, right? The members of the Hindu students’ association had a tough time challenging the notion and finally establishing the fact that this is history and it no longer happens.

My department thinks that I come from a “privileged family”. By this, they mean something akin to the lifestyle any IAS officer would be accustomed to in India, with servants and drivers and cooks and all kinds of help one could imagine. I once told them that we have a maid (am sure most people do). Comparing to the way manual labor is expensive and unavailable there and contrasting to the pic they have of India, my department has inferred that I belong to one of the richest families who can afford a maid. A privileged family is what they say.




Of course there are certain things people here love about India. They love the cuisine, the biryani, the paranthas (they call it nan bread there). Every side dish is a curry for them. They love the colorfulness of our national costume- the sari, and still wonder how one piece of clothing can be wrapped round and round. They know about Diwali (Dheewyaali) and Durga Puja (Dhurgha Poojas). But in all, they have the wrong pic of India. Not all homes cook in chulhas. Not all homes are infested by snakes and venomous spiders. Not all people suffer from TB. Not all girls are molested on the streets everywhere. Not all places are polluted and sweltering hot.


They just need to have the right pic on the right page of their minds. And I have a feeling that it’s high time we did that.

How do I do it? Ask me.

In Catherine’s Shoes

I put down the novel Wuthering Heights after I finished reading it for the umpteenth number of time now. I first read it when I was in high school. Ever since I know not how many times I have read it again and again. Perhaps I could quote many a lines and paragraphs verbatim from there. The book is one of the few prized possessions I have carried with me back from time immemorial. The smell of the crumpled yellow pages still reminded me of the first time I read it. And every time I re-read it, there are always old memories and newer things to ruminate on.


For those who haven’t read this novel by Emily Bronte, this is, in a nutshell, the story of two people who grew up together and fell in love with each other in the process. Heathcliff was an orphan who grew up in the house of the Earnshaws with the love of Catherine Earnshaw and the hatred of her brother Hindley Earnshaw. Poverty and Cathy’s disapproval forces Heathcliff to go away, only to make a fortune and to return after years to discover Cathy being married to the rich Edgar Linton smitten by Cathy. To avenge him, Heathcliff marries Edgar’s sister Isabella, amidst the emotionally charged episodes of Cathy’s illness and Heathcliff’s allegations to Cathy for betraying him and marrying someone else for his wealth. Cathy dies amidst the pangs of unrequited love, delirious and never really regaining her senses, only to haunt Heathcliff. Heathcliff goes a step further and avenges the entire family by getting hold of the family possessions and the next generation children, not even sparing his own son Linton. The novel ends with the death of the tyrant Heathcliff, thereby unifying himself with the spirit of his beloved Cathy.


Every time I read it, it makes me wonder about certain idiosyncrasies in women, certain shades of their personality, certain prowess to wreak havoc that is so very characteristic of not just Catherine, but so many other women. Why is it that the ways of love meander and get lost amidst the greater dimensions of wealth and recognition? Why is it that women may fall in love with the less affluent, but always end up marrying the rich? Why do the poor go away, only to return even richer than the rich, only to plant regret-seeds and remind women of their shameless whimsicality? And why is it that no matter how rich the husband is, women never really forget their love, old flames, and the good old days of penurious existence with the lover? Why do the embers never die, and are rekindled merely with a glance, certain words spoken, or even in silence? Why is it that they punish love only to regret it later? And why is it that old flames have a certain way of making a second-hand entrance into their lives, only to hurt a lot many innocent lives in the process? Why is the loyalty and integrity of women always being tested? Why do women always find themselves on the crossroads, forced to make seemingly cogent but impossible choices? Why?


“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods; time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind, not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own.”
Mark Catherine’s words. If she loved Heathcliff as much as she did, why did she make him ashamed of his penuriousness and let him go away only to marry someone richer and more affluent? Why did she seek greener pastures if this is what she felt- " . . . he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."? And if this is what she wanted, why did hidden passions surface the moment they met again?

Heathcliff’s words to Cathy on her deathbed are so gut-wrenching, yet so very true.

“You teach me how cruel you've been, cruel and false. Why do you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry, and wring out my kisses and tears; they'll blight you- they'll damn you. You loved me, then what right had you to leave me? What right, answer me, for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart--you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine”.


“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”

I wonder if it merely reflects a woman’s constant need to make better choices in life, or a very flippant and sadist side of her personality to hurt and abandon what she loves, only to live with the loss for the rest of her life? Or do they do it because at the end of the day, they are certain about the roles they play in the life of men, that does not deviate a great deal from the role of the progeny bearer? Perhaps they realize with time that it doesn’t really make a difference as to who they are married to, because they must perform the same roles for any man. Or perhaps it is the need to seek security and recognition, and to be associated with the rich and the powerful.


Infallible. Unfailing. Irrevocable. And a many more adjectives to be associated with us. Then why the euphemisms like incentive-seekers that boils down to nothing more than the word S-C-H-E-M-I-N-G?

True, there have been Jane Eyres too. There have been women who gave their youths and lives for the cause they believed in, the men they loved, rich or poor, mute or blind. But not always. Women are constantly evaluating the incentives and investments for love. Is it the euphemistic word for a sense of security at every level in life? Is it like flaunting to the best bidder? And while the best bidder gets you, you always harbor dark secrets in the inner chambers of the heart, pains of unrequited love, mysteries of unfulfilled passions and fantasies? An inherited trait to keep the inscrutability tag intact perhaps.

“If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day.”


That is what he told her in the final moments of her death, seeing life ebbing away. I wonder if she never regretted trading a man’s love for another man’s wealth. I wonder if she ever regretted not knowing how it felt to wake up next to the man she loved all her life, instead of feigning love in a relationship of convenience. I wonder if she never regretted not making babies with the Heathcliff, the man who possessed her mind and soul and loved her back with everything he had. But then, she had to throw away everything, everything she had that any other woman would trade her life for, to lead a life of calmness and predictability sans the tumults. She has my sympathies, if not my empathies.

But then, there are such Catherines everywhere, and a tiny bit of Catherine in every woman, that bit that can get a man crazy enough and send him away, only to settle for something that might seem a better alternative, but has lost the flavor of life in the process. Like the prelude to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” I wonder what a single woman in possession of youth must be in want of.


Security indeed. I wonder what kind though. And at what cost.

Ugly fodder for thought.

Blog-Bitching

1. Hey you saw the recipe of chicken stew she posted last week? It looked like it tastes yuck !!!

2. Hey you saw the way she was wearing these tank tops in the pics she posted? With her huge frame and her lack of dressing sense, she looked horrible!!!

3. Hey you know they went to Hawaii for their anniversary. I read it in her blog.

4. These days she is writing a tad too much on the women’s rights and liberations issues. You think her boyfriend dumped her?

5. Hey you saw she put the pics of her pets on her blog, and goes gaga writing about them. How funny and jobless.

6. Man, you should have seen her in the tiny shorts that she was wearing. Uumm… err…. Uhh… she looked hot !! No wonder men don’t look at us.

7. Suna hai aajkal janaab PWC mein kaam kar rahe hain?

8. Shaadi ke baad America to aa gayi, but the poor thing couldn’t learn how to dress properly. Paise aa gaye par taste na aaya.

9. Can you believe it? I met her. I FINALLY MET HER IN PERSON !!!

10. It seems she is planning to visit India next month. Lucky her.

11. These girls went to San Juan Island for the long weekend? How come they never told me about it?

12. Don’t you think these guys are a lot into these daaru party these days? I wonder what their livers are made of.

13. Baatein to itni badi badi karti hai blog pe, I know how narrow minded and prejudiced she is. But no, no, don’t ask me how I know. Arre kahaa na baba, I can’t tell you. Arrey na na. (Pause….) Achcha listen about what happened….but don't tell anyone, okay?

14. See how she rants about the disadvantages of being in a relationship, the encroachment on personal space and stuffs. Who knows, she must have been unable to patao any decent guy so far. Wait wait, is she lesbian?

15. Man, they eat beef curry for dinner, and then proudly write and post pics about it? Shame on them. Ram Ram !!!

16. Why do you think every horrible looking girl ends up with a handsome looking guy? Read her post? (Silence)… Kuch karr yaar !!!!

17. Lagta hai uske in-laws aaye hain for the delivery. Free mein nana nan(n)y aa gaye, aur kya?

18. Yaar in logon ka kutta ghar mein fart bhi maarega to yeh uske oopar blog likhenge. (These people can blog even about their pets farting). And there would be some 80 comments to it… like… oh, kitna achcha fart rahaa hoga. Yaar apne yahaan to kisi tarah se comment numbers reach a two digit. I tell you, only very few have an appreciation for quality writing.

(Reply)- Arre no worries yaar. Her blogs are Govinda/David Dhawan movies. Koi class hi nahi hai. No wonder she gets so many comments. Your posts are like… like…. haan Satyajit Ray movies. Very classy. Sachhi.

19. Ek handsome boyfriend kya mil gaya, bas usi ke bare mein chapar chapar chapar likhti rehti hai. I wonder what the man saw in a woman 5 years his senior.

(Reply) Arre banda andha hoga, aur kya.

20. Chal chal ab bahut ho gaya. Phone rakh aur kaam pe lag (Enough of bitching now. Let’s keep down the phone and get back to work).

We do it all the time. Trust me, it’s therapeutic.