Chez Moi

After years of dodging the issue, I am accepting it. What has prompted this revelation, you ask. Yet another blowout with S, after yet another crowded desi gathering and I’m throwing in the towel. Why am I so? Well, for starters, I do not get along with everybody. Who does, you ask. Good q. Nobody but they mask it better. I don’t. I always thought I will not be a hypocrite and be false to someone when I think they are crap. By that, I do not mean I am generally rude to people or anything silly like that. I just remain a bit aloof - well I do that till I become comfortable around a person, before I let my guard down. And if it turns out that the person cannot be trusted, then I don’t ever let my guard around them. Is that wrong? Well, I thought not but S thinks I intimidate people. How, when I try my best to mask that I am intimidated by most people out there?

To explain my case, let me tell you the story of this Telugu family we know. The child’s dad works with S and we’ve been to their house a couple of times for lunch and they have been to ours once and though I wouldn’t say we became bosom pals, I thought I was still quite nice and pleasant to her. S says I intimidate the female half of the sketch by speaking in English all the time. Give me a break here: I am a Tamilian while they are Telugu. They have lived in Madras for couple of years and though the girl’s picked up some Tamil, it is way different from mine and I speak Tamil very fast anyways. As I don’t speak any Telugu at all, I thought ‘let’s stick to English’. Well, hey, we live in England and all that. But no - apparently not. By speaking in English to desi folks, I intimidate them.

S also claims that I am socially inept. Why? Coz we do not have a major social life and a big group of mates. This sort of links to the point I made above and he says it is all a part of the social fabric. Being a hypocrite, I ask. Being friendly without trying to be a soul mate, he says. But I do not act nice and friendly to someone to their face and then bitch about them behind their backs now, do I? That’s besides the point, apparently.

Some people also go off me mysteriously. Don’t know why. Let me give an example - there’s this fellow mum at P’s school who was also in my dressmaking lesson with me. We used to get along fine then and used to stop now and then at the school gates to exchange pleasantries. Couple of months back, she told me she was thinking of looking for a job and I suggested my place of work. She said she will ring my mobile so I’ll have her number to give her more details. She never did. When I asked her the next time I bumped into her, she made some excuse, said she can’t go back to work just then and hurried off. We have been a strictly ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ duo since then.

I thought I at least belonged in my safe, cyberworld. But no. My social ineptitude followed me there too - when I met up with two of my fellow writers at DC, I thought things went swimmingly. But further emails have been unanswered and plans to meet up at a later date politely ignored. See, I told you it was me.

I always thought I was sort of like Howard Roarke, the rebel who refused to conform to norms and let society dictate terms. I will be a person by my own rights - not a fake smiling and back biting one; just a genuine one, in a WYSIWYG format. But nah, apparently not. I am wierd.

TIme was, when Pratik used to be really interested in my lippy - well not that way! The colours were so bright and sparkly and he always wanted to see how I put it on. Then there was this period when he wanted me to kiss him once I’ve put some lipstick on. Even when I kissed him goodnight, I used to get this question: ‘have you got lipstick on, mummy?’

But in the last week, he’s changed. Yesterday, I kissed him bye bye at school and he was frantically wiping his cheeks! Now, he makes sure I DON’T have any lipstick on, before I kiss him!
*sigh*

I was flat out on my back in a dark pink, plasticky chair, powerless to move. Bright light shone down my face, making it impossible for me to make out the others in the room. I could vaguely make out two forms and whilst I was trying to slowly slide away from the chair, one of them came near me. I could just make out a white mask that covered its features.

‘Would you like to move over here, love?’ it queried in a disembodied tone.

I was too scared to act.

‘Now, bite down on this and stay put’, it continued. Something blue and hard was thrust into my mouth and the next minute, a huge white machine, sort of like the Scream Extractor from Monsters, Inc was placed next to my face. Before I realised what was happening, the two figures ran out of the room and there was this high pitched ‘bzzzz’, while the lights flickered out and came back again.

This happened one more time and this time, I noticed the radiation light come on. I was being subjected to radiation! ARGH!

While I was still trying to digest that fact, my two tormentors came back and this time, they closed the doors.

‘Ok, now close your eyes and pretend you are somewhere far away’, crooned the Voice. I was trying to do that anyway when I turned my head a fraction and espied the masked figure advancing towards me with a huge syringe filled with a clear liquid. Oh dear God! First they subjected me to harmful rays and now they are drugging me. Even while my slow brain was computing this, the syringe full of bone numbing medicine was pushed into my delicate skin. I couldn’t feel. I was paralysed!

Even whilst my eyes were darting in terror, I was thinking what else they are going to do to me. That query was answered straightaway when I heard another strange noise - a high powered whirring sound, sort of like a power drill. Are they going to burrow holes in me now? Let me get out! Oh no! Too late.

Whilst one of them held on to my hands, the other one drilled away, chipping parts of me. She then poked me with another sharp instrument. Time and again, she brought out another instrument that made a whooshing sound, which made me bones turn into water.

Thus the torture went on for 15 minutes.

The masked voice looked up and suddenly went ‘go and clean up’. I slowly got up to my feet. I was feeling a bit woozy from the blood loss and the shock. I freshened up as much as I could in the tiny sink. But before I was done, I was dragged back to my chair and part two of the torture began in earnest.

I closed my eyes and imagined myself far away from the drills and other scary noises. In my mind, I was lying down on a beach, playing with little P in the sand. Even as I was starting on a sand castle, a hand touched my shoulder.

I came to with a start.

‘That’s it, I’m done. You can go now. We’ll see you real soon’, said the Voice.

I grabbed my things and ran away from the room as fast as my wobbly legs could carry. The ’see you soon’ kept echoing in my head. Not if I can help it, mate.

I am never going to my dentist again.

You cannot browse the desi cyberspace these days without tripping over Abhishek B and Ash R related articles. If it isn’t one thing, it is ten other gooey things. If I thought I had seen all sorts of rubbish related to these two, then I had another think coming double quick.

Two things caught my eye that made me realise that this nonsense has just started and the closer we get to their actual wedding day, more number of inanities will crop up. So, it is time we all developed a healthy dose of immunity to this ‘Abhiwarya’ phenomenon lest we get whacked senseless by it. And to get our grey cells to start their work of insulating our brains against further doses of this rubbish, here’s two tidbits guaranteed to kick start the production of immunity granting matter.

I didn’t actually travel far to get the two news items that grabbed my throat. Just a short walk upto sify.com did it. First one proved to me that something has happened to the happy Oirish lot across the pond. Why? They have just gone and issued an invitation to Ash & Abhi to make the lovely island their choice of destination for their honeymoon. They could travel to Ireland for free, thanks to the lovely Irish taxpayers and stay at Ashford Castle, where the likes of George V, Ronald Reagan, Fred Astaire have stayed. Impressive!

Oh, I lie - the Irish proved to be au fait with desi sanskriti and sent the invitation to the Big B, as it should be done.

Next up is that Gurinder Chaddha (of Bend It Like Beckham fame) is pregnant with twins, who are expected to put in an appearance in July. Now that isn’t the news - she is planning to name her babies after Ash & Abhi, if she ends up having a boy and a girl.

Good grief! Does this mean that from now on, we can expect mums-to-be to go a little loco and name their kids after these two as well? Whatever next?

My biggest question is: why? Why are we getting so hysterical, so caught up in this romance? Who gives a shit if Ash is going to become the Bachchan bahu? Don’t we all have other important things to do?

The next one that decides to name her twins after this way too famous couple will get beaned on the head with Maneka Gandhi’s Book of Hindu Names.

Was on a random web trawling sesh, yet again, when I came across this bit in Sify.com:

Sibling rivalry: Saif & Akshaye Khanna

The prolific Abbas-Mustan admit their new film entitled Race has the biggest star-cast they’ve ever worked with. “It has Saif and Akshaye Khanna as brothers who are trying to out do each other.”And Saif is thrilled to have finally signed a film that gives him a chance to dance with a new co-star. “I’m absolutely looking forward to working with Akshaye Khanna. A new co-star is always fun. Akshaye and I , and Abbas-Mustan and I seem to come different worlds. It would be an interesting mix of different sensibilities.I’m sure the results will be rewarding.”

Abbas admits he signed them together because they’ve never worked together. “Saif has never been seen in a role like the one he’ll play in Race. And Akshaye Khanna too has been cast like never before. But what interests us as filmmakers is how the combination will excite the audience.”

Forgive me if I am mistaken, but didn’t Saif and Akshaye act together in ‘Dil Chahta Hai’? *puzzled*