The Perils of too much (choice)

“I just can’t seem to find the right man for me”, moaned my sister. This was one of her finding ‘Mr. Right’ phases and she was hell-bent on finding a good husband by the year end.

“I liked V but he turned out to be psychotic, D is extremely sweet but a total loser, A makes my hormones go haywire but can’t seem to decide even one single thing and I feel no fizz when I kiss D.  He practically acts like a monk. Why does it have to happen to just me”, she continued, glumly looking into her cup of coffee, maybe for an answer.

“D is not a soda to give you fizz and for all you know D's err... quipment is faulty”. I smirked at my own PJ. I didn’t want to burst her bubble that Mr. Right doesn’t exist. It has always been Mr. Right at that moment of time. “Why don’t you try dating all four of them together?”

“Very funny! You never give me sound advice. I always feel as if I am the elder sister! Maybe I will just go abroad and get a guy there! How come you never have men problems in your life?”

“They are not so important. I am just having a good time with them,” I replied faking a nonchalance. 

“What! Really?” She almost spilled her coffee. “Wait till I tell Ma and Y. I never knew you thought like that!”

Are all younger sisters such pests?

P.S. For all those who wondered if I was gone for good... well I guess life is (ahem!) interesting enough to write about again!

when will I know that I know?

B and I jostled through the crowd at the Esplanade station on Saturday and made our way walking through the pavement towards new market. She had come for a holiday last week and was going today. We had to collect bandle cheese and a tea pot for us before meeting one of her friends – A for lunch. Newmarket in Calcutta (I still like Calcutta much more than Kolkata or Kolkatta) is also one of the few places where you get bandle cheese – a dried smoky flavoured cheese in a shape of ball that need to be immersed in water ten hours prior to eating. It tastes really good though.

The sun and humidity touching 90% was driving me crazy. I could feel a steady trickle of sweat running like a canal from my neck to my back.

“I think if it doesn’t rain today, I will die”, I exclaimed, wiping my dripping forehead with the back of my hand. “Oh! Why doesn’t it rain?”

“Don’t worry. You can sit under the AC once we reach Marco Polo (that’s where we were supposed to meet her friend A for lunch).”

Two hours later, we entered Marco Polo, wet with sweat and almost faint in the heat. A was sitting there at the reserved table. I ignored a twinge of disappointment. I was kind of hoping to meet a handsome, dashing guy who would provide me with ‘eye tonic’ after such a ‘hot-as –hell’ shopping trip! He was more of a next door uncle type that too with a moustache! There went my hopes of a flirty afternoon.

From what I had learned from the background was that A was like a ‘chaddi-buddy’ (can be read as very close friend) of B’s ex and he went on and on about him, oblivious to B’s discomfort. I guess from his talks I could make out that he still thought she was ‘the one’ for his friend. That made me wonder – how do know you know? ‘The one’ that is? If you would have asked me 8-9 years ago, I would have said you know because it’s like a lightening and thunder strike. You just know. I would have also said it was the result of reading soppy romance novels on the sly. But is their really lightening? Or is it more like the rain? You feel it gradually and when it comes, you may or may not be prepared. You may even take the pain of opening your umbrella and avoiding it altogether. And what if you even recognize it, and even get together - will it bring happiness? Or a new set of problems altogether?

When you have a serious crush on someone, you automatically think getting him will solve your problems. Just his kiss on lips on yours or his hug after a long day or waking up beside him makes you forget everything and seems like the solution to the big bad lonely world outside. Who would think that after a while this may not seem enough? The insecurity will creep in, the emotional roller coaster ride will make you go up with giddy pleasure and love and equally low with an inky blue blob of depression. And then when you would want him to take you in his arms and profess maybe undying love and for some marriage, babies- the whole jing bang – its time to give it a second thought baby.

Thinking all this while playing with the rice on my plate, watching B clearly squirm, not wanting to remember her ex, I thought when will I know that I know? Sighing I looked outside the window. It had started raining.

Please don't disturb (and don't be?)

I would want him to wake me up with a kiss and hug me and look into my eyes. I would want to start the day with he making love to me and whispering in my ear ‘I love you’. But this is what I want, and as ‘wants’ go, this is usually not I have.

 

In reality I was sitting across him eating my breakfast at Mondegar having a discussion on being ‘disturbed’. (The reality before that was, well yes, he did make love to me and then told me later I am stinking (well what more do you expect living in Mumbai in a muggy weather and first thing in the morning… smelling of strawberries?). It did make me sprint and take a shower though, and we came down to eat breakfast at Mondys as people of Mumbai call it.

 

He claimed that for being a good writer you have to be disturbed. If you see all good ones, most of them were/are disturbed. He further claimed that he was pretty disturbed too. I simply shrugged as I think some of it is simply fear of facing the facts that stare at him on his face. We fell silent after that, he sipping his coffee, I enjoying the warmth of my tea cup in my palms…

 

Does being disturbed make him a good writer? I guess, after all he does write well, but I wondered whether the corollary is also true? I don’t think so. Besides how disturbed is disturbed?

 

This was two weeks back. Now lying on my bed during a power cut (this is slowly becoming a regular feature- nothing better to do in this heat) and staring at my glow stars I have stuck on my ceiling, I realized that ‘disturbed’ may make for good writers but bad lovers. May be because being ‘disturbed’ sometimes means drowning in your spiral of depression and self pity. When two people entangle (I won’t use ‘fall’ as maybe between us it was/is never intentional) in relationship, how does the gray area of understanding work? And if everything has to be ‘understood’, then why do people talk, write and think about affection, the great stress on spending time together, the golden rule of communication- being in touch? As D says the foundation or the love or hate in any relationship is just like a prime piece of land in the middle of the city. What it finally turns to – a mall, high-rise or slums, is in the hand of the land owner.

 

I also wondered whether this is really the end and are we drifting apart? When one feels something for the first time, the impact is much more. And if not, why does the heart ache so much? (And it really doesn’t do one bit for my ego).

 

It’s almost funny that the man I started calling jokingly X, is slowly drifting away from me -  maybe becoming an ‘ex’

 

Smoke

“I like the way the smoke rings rise and expand, and finally disappears into a blue spiral. I think I can go on watching them forever” I said to Y. He was smoking and blowing smoke rings towards the ceiling.

It was dark – power cut- and we were lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. It was too hot and humid to do anything else. I could see the cigarette smoke as a blue haze hanging below the ceiling. It suffocated me a little but I didn’t want to him to go.

“How do you make them?” I prodded him again on receiving no reply to my earlier statement.

“It’s not difficult. Takes a little practice, that’s all. I learnt how to do it when I was twenty years old”

“I want to learn too. Give me a cigarette; I want to see if I can make some too”

“You smoke? I didn’t know that. You never told me.” He said, his voice skirting on accusation. Not because he thought I have started smoking, but perhaps because I didn’t tell him.

“No I don’t smoke. But I want to try”

“Hmmm. Don’t”

I could hear a mosquito buzzing nearby. I hate the Kolkata heat in summers. It zaps the energy out of you and the mosquitoes make it worse. Even though I am the one of the few lucky ones to have an AC, but a power cut makes you realize the futility of owning sophisticated appliances that need the electricity to feed them.

I turned to look at him, my eyes adjusting to the darkness to make out his profile. I resisted the temptation to trace the outline of his face with my finger. Y is handsome, what they call, ‘conventional handsome’. Straight nose, fair skin, big eyes, strong jaw, the works.

“How did you know we will be together?” I whispered, in the darkness, afraid to break the rare current of cozy company I was feeling.

“I knew. I always thought so even when we were not together. I am sure of what I want.”

“How can you be so sure? Love is never constant, isn’t it?” I asked.

“I don’t want to argue but I just know. I am happy with today and so I know it won’t change tomorrow.”

I can’t follow his logic sometimes, but then it felt good to be needed. I guess however we deny and claim to be unaffected; the demonstration of being loved and needed is one of the most basic needs of a human being. It satisfies one of our deepest desires, more than any expression of physical love or amassed wealth, it is the simple declaration by someone that they love us and need us, which makes a difference.

Naturally, I thought about X and the stark contrast between the two people in my life. I wondered how it will end. I realized somewhere I didn’t want it to end. As Y said, even though it's not perfect, I am happy with today so until it doesn’t changes tomorrow, I will count my blessings.

Love on the dark side

“I found it weird. Can’t understand these characters at all. Weird”, said S today when chatting over the papers. We were discussing our weekends. I just smiled. I saw DevD on Friday, then again on Saturday and planning to see it today too. Can’t say I share her view.

 

“Did you ever have an affair that you were not supposed to have?” I asked keeping my paper down.

“No” she replied

“Do you have a boyfriend?” (I know she does and they are what you call a “coochie coo couple”. Gives me diabetes, and no, I am not saying it because I am envious.)

“Yes”

“Have you ever wanted a man bad enough inspite of having a boyfriend?”  

(She really gave me a dirty look this time)

“No!”

“Ok, just one last question, have you ever in your life felt what it is to love someone who doesn’t love you back. Atleast, not so much?”

“No way, why will I fall in love with a man who doesn’t love me back?”

I smiled.

“Then you won’t get it baby. You don’t qualify.”

 

Yes it’s true. I think I can safely say if you say even yes to any one of these question, chances are you will love the movie. I had qualms on watching it with X. “We both know who we can identify with, so I don’t want to feel worse (read not loved enough, sucker for sad men and ego in a million pieces)”

“It’s just a movie. We will watch” he had quipped.

Ha! Coming out of the theatre, we knew why we love it so much. In addition to being wacky, darkly witty, it captures the essence of dysfunctional love that exists in so many quasi couples…and between us.

 

Looking at the bright side, all you ‘Chandas’ out there (me being one?), there is still hope. It feels good to see that even if Devdas may never stop loving Paro, he loves Chanda too (“such a slut”) and can’t survive without her too.

 

Go enjoy the trip on the dark side. I will too again today evening. 

Rain on my window

I woke up to the sound of water. It was raining. At first I thought it was the terrace water tank overflowing again. My landlady has this habit of putting on the water pump at oddest hours, sometimes in the middle of night and suddenly you are jolted awake to the sound of falling water. I yawned and looked at the watch 11:45 pm. Well, not that late. The sound was much softer than gushing water and pulling the curtain, sitting on the elevated verandah next to my bed, I saw minute droplets of water spraying on the glass window…

I love rains. They make me nostalgic, happy, pensive and romantic in equal measures. My earliest memory of rains is jumping deliberately into water puddles in an oversized raincoat (to save my school bag as well from getting wet) and splashing the brown muddy water all over the white uniform. I used to love the fact that we were allowed to remove our wet and queasy shoes and socks at school on rainy days. The rough school floor always had a strange comfortable feel to it. The phone beeped, breaking my thoughts.

X had messaged asking if I was sleeping…

“I am a one man woman, I can’t even think of breaking someone’s trust”, I retorted to D. We were lying on the bed, too full after lunch at my place. The stillness gave some time for the food to settle into the inter-molecular spaces and allowed us to move again. “Hmmm… it is hard to remain in one state, be it for a human, or a feeling. You never know…”
That was four years back.

Now I surprise myself into wondering how can one person love two people at the same time? And if it’s wrong why doesn’t it feel wrong to be with X, why does his touch feels so good, or why when he kisses me, my knees give a funny feeling? I feel the same way about Y. Sometimes I wonder is this what it feels like…bittersweet… when you have tiny cracks in your glass wall.

“No, I am awake. Looking at the rain.”
“I miss you”
“Me too”
I wish I could kiss you X, feel your lips over mine, feel your skin, the way you smell immediately after you shave, the mixture of aftershave and soap, I wish I could hold you tight. I also wish I could go back in time and have my perfect glass wall again.

I sighed and went back to bed… Y was snoring softly. I spooned into him and snuggled into a deep comforting sleep.

My lovesong

Sing me no songs of daylight,
for the sun is the enemy of lovers.
Sing instead of shadows and darkness,
and memories of midnight - sappho
(Now who was sappho? google :) )

Tale of two cities

I was looking out of the small window and saw rain striking the glass obliquely, making slant watery lines as they got washed away due to high speed. It was shaky and I clutched the handles of my seat inspite of going through the drill innumerous times. I always get butterflies when a plane takes off. It is the mild version of the giant wheel for me. (It is also a scarier version, since have seen enough programmes on Discovery Channel on airplane crashes). I was flying from Mumbai to Kolkata. Nowadays I try to live a double life in its truest form. Shuttling between Kolkata and Mumbai. Work is divided, friends are divided, love is divided and even lovers are divided between these two cities…

“God I missed you”
“Well… doesn’t feel like it. You hardly call.”
“I always reply to your messages”
“Should I say thank you?”
X kissed me on my forehead as a reply.
“You know I am a married woman”
Kiss on the cheeks
“You also know that I have a low opinion of men”
Kiss on the eyes
“I have decided, I am going become a nun”
He silenced me with a kiss on the lips.
“You can’t become a nun dear when you kiss like that”
“Hmmm”
“Feeling guilty?”
“Hmmm. Lets go out; sitting with you here can only lead to one place.”

I just looked at him while sipping my tea. I think we both realized how much we missed each other. I was leaving in an hour – to Kolkata. I said, “So, till we meet again. Miss me”.

Is there a way I can have my cake and keep it too?

SexyKnees.com

This is not a link to kinky site (all you perverted oldies out there you), not a fashion site, not even a site dedicated to arthritis where they give tips on how to relieve knee pain and make them look sexy again. This is just an account of a girl who has just realized that she is really low on all the moral values ma taught (sorry ma, but I really was never made out of sati savitri material) and has just discovered the best function of knees—how they turn into jelly when you are being kissed. There are guilty pleasures everyone has, some secretly enjoy all those bitchy and regressive saans bahu serials, some enjoy kinky sex, some like reading M&B novels on the sly (mostly men who sneak with one from their wives enroute the loo). Mine is being kissed, by X. It gives me goosebumps, prickles my skin, gets my hormones racing and most important gives me jelly knees. He may be a bad lover but he is a good kisser.

I missed it so much with you Y, why the hell don’t you just take me in your arms and give me sexy knees again?

Wondering...

I woke up to rains. Rains always have extreme reaction on me. Either it completely peps me up or it throws me deep into an inky blob of blues. Latter happened today. It is my holiday but have to go to office, client work. It is like God has taken my request of obliterating Mr. X from my life too seriously. He is swamping me with work (upto my eyeballs I think).

All those who wondered (I suspect none though) where I was all these days… well I was doing what I usually do best – procrastinate, ruminate… one I know my brain will turn into a mushroom … rotting the way it does (eeeew… gross thought!). Anyways, giving myself a mental shake I pulled myself out of my bed and started getting ready for office. Work has come back with a vengeance. It is like Dilbert Principle… spot the sucker (me), encourage him/her with crap (me) and then download all the work to her (me), only consolation being my boss has left so I am alone in my pond… good way to show my ‘boss ka boss’ how much I work (doubtful).

Coming to X and Y… I was determined that I should now make up my mind and stick to one (Y ofcourse). Too much of see-sawing happening… but I guess my destiny has other ideas or rather my boredom… after a gap of 2 successful weeks of trying to avoid X like a plague, I gave in to the temptation of meeting him. I thought meeting him will be like you know “who cares?” Surprise, surprise I do… a little. Ok, more than a little… a little more. There are times when you want your man to tickle you physically, but there are times when you want more mental play than a physical one. Contrary to popular opinion, seeing two people at the same time is not always about lust. It is something else. I love talking to X and was symbolically patting my own back that here I am, sitting with him like a nice, good, platonic friend and not even …errr… digressing to other areas. Ofcourse, we both know what comes next but it is like we are gambling … pushing our luck and time till either one runs out.

Sometimes I envy Y. Does he ever go through this? Looking at him I doubt… I mean he is more of a ‘doer’ than a ‘thinker’. I can give my eye and tooth to take a sneak peak into his mind… does he ever drown in the spiral of thoughts the moment he sits idle? Sometimes, I wonder whether all of us live more in ‘ifs’ ‘buts’ and ‘maybe’. It reminds me of what Douglas Adams said in The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy’ – “He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it”.

Yes, that’s exactly how I feel. I just hope if it is dream, I am playing the lead character ;).

Taxi

It was raining heavily. I could see the driver wiping the foggy windscreen of the taxi frequently… his wiper was not working. Inspite of the dirt and filth lying around in Mumbai, rains always manage to give the city a clean look. It looks as if the city is taking a bath after a long and dusty playtime outside. Contrary to the soothing feeling I get by the sound of falling raindrops, today it hardly made a difference. My heart felt as if it was going to jump out of my chest.

He called me yesterday night, asking me to receive him at the station. It was the first time he had gone ahead of his deliberate casual attitude towards everything… towards me. I would be lying if I say it didn’t please me. I looked at the rearview mirror and did a mental check – Kajal, check. Lipstick, check. A little of cleavage was showing… I didn’t care. I was wearing blue and smiled when I realized it was his favourite colour (God! I was acting like a funny teenager). I was sure he wouldn’t even notice it. A loud screech of brakes and sound of the taxi splashing through a huge puddle jerked me out of my reverie.

He had met me a year before… can’t even remember what attracted me towards him in the first place. Doesn’t have the looks or the disposition. He says he doesn’t love me, neither do I. But I did miss him a lot when he was away. Should I tell this to him or not? The rain had stopped and I jumped over the pools of muddy water that had formed everywhere to reach the platform and do what I could … wait.

I spotted him struggling with his 2 bags and walking towards me; we searched for a taxi and just bundled up…luggage and all in the back seat towards his home. Sometimes I think if he never lived alone, we would definitely not be meeting like this. Not a time for self reflection I thought and turned towards him. The first thing I noticed was he had mosquito bites on his neck

“Well, I thought there were fewer mosquitoes at home than here in Mumbai?”
“Well, since you were not there to leave any marks, the mosquitoes did”
“Very funny!”
“Do you want me stay?” I asked
“Upto you. It is always your choice”
“Ok”

I decided not to. Stay that is. Even when he kissed me and asked me to stay.
“Station chalo”, I told the cabbie to catch the nearest local to my home.

If it was just a passing thing, why did it hurt so much to hear those words? Was I going back on my own resolve? That I wouldn’t take this seriously, I wouldn’t take him seriously. Where does that leave me? Was I being true to myself? Is the emotion I see flickering in his eyes for it vanishes just as quickly – love? If not then what? Why are we still together? It was not suppose to last for more than a month and yet here we are, not able to break away. I am going insane? Too many questions and no answers I thought as I left one train of thought to catch a real one.

Somethings to hate

I hate it when you shout at me, for all the small small things
I hate it, in my eyes, the tears you bring
I hate when you at times you just want to play alone, in your own dreamland alone
I hate it when you don’t want to talk and ask what’s been happening with me, even though when we are in the same house
I hate it when I know that I am equally at fault
I hate it when I realize that, in practice, I have forgotten all about men that my ma taught, or may be I don’t want to practice after all
But what I hate the most is all these years I loved you still
I hate it that in somewhere inside me I always will.

what we want

Yesterday, while reading a report on what makes a man attractive to a woman and vice versa in America, I began to think about how this would work in India. Do the laws of attraction differ from country to country? Or there are some common trends that are universal with the “Roving Eye”?

I thought the best way to find out would be to ask the men and women around… The exercise turned out to be most interesting and enlightening! I did find some commonalities among both genders such as a decrease in emphasis on looks and more attention on personality once the 2 people involved got talking. But the question still remained… Is the sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander as well? Do both men and women find similar things attractive in each other? Apparently not.

Everyone has his or her own list of priorities about what characteristics the other sex must have to be attractive to them. But statistics reveal ……….

What a man initially looks in women ranged from err… physical attributes, including eyes, hair even her voice. What is interesting is they may genuinely be interested only for a short span (sorry ladies) as their genetic nature (that’s the most genuine and convincing excuse I can come up with) inclines them to look around, unless looking for a stable partner.

On the other hand, women lay more emphasis on how a man dresses and even smells! Aftershave scored high on the attract meter. She may not be very particular about his looks, but prefers someone who is intelligent and well groomed. Even early on, women seek intrinsic qualities like courtesy and honesty.

If a relationship does manage to win the initial hurdle race, some views between genders still repell more than attract. One major differentiating factor turned out to be the discussion on the “girlfriend” and “wife” material. What I found most interesting was that men, in general, associate fun and good times more with girlfriends and stability more with wives (although deeper digging revealed that they wanted both, and their dream girlfriend is Preity Zinta while their dream wife is Rani Mukherjee!). Women, on the other hand, assume marriage to be the natural progession of a relationship and tend to look for similar qualities both before and after marriage.

Post marriage, the most common problems turned out to be that the husband and wife often became lax in their appearances and may lose out a little on the ‘fun’ part on account of stability. In the long term however as one of my male friend put it ‘Girlfriend is like a medicine with an expiry date, but as soon as she becomes my wife, she becomes like wine’.

There were ofcourse, some very fascinating exceptions that I came across. One woman I came across said she felt women stressed heavily on physical fidelity in a relationship, but did develop deep emotional bonds with men other than their partners, possibly without realizing it. The more I think about it, the more it seems true. Many women may not even conscious that they are getting to close to someone other than their partners on an emotional level. They may not consider it straying just because they are not physically intimate with the person.

Another interesting observation a male colleague shared while discussing the subject was that men may be finding it increasingly difficult to understand the modern, independent woman. This idea may have a lot of truth to it. Even The Week discussed the issue in a recent edition.

In the end, you may agree to disagree, but then I wish I could do the same….