For many years now, my husband has pointed out my love for drama or theatrics. Not that I act on stage…I just catastrophize every thing, right from my maid being late upto my daughter not putting on weight to her school teachers not knowing fractions properly, everything is a catastrophe requiring proper lamenting.
Exaggeration has always been my friend. My husband feels it is the woman in me.
I disagree!
It is the writer in me!
My love for exaggeration comes from my hyperactive mind looking for stories in everyday life. My lizards have a life and mosquitoes too. Unlike his boring world where these ‘things’ just exist, in my world, they have a life–they go on adventures, fall in love, fight epic wars…and face catastrophe. Because what is a story without a challenge?
People tell me that I always had a way of saying things and telling tales about the regular and the absurd…it is my skewed perspective! And I love it!
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P was the most popular girl in the class. Boys were often falling over themselves to impress her while she basked in the light of their attention. Face shining, open laughter, plucked eyebrows at 15, I was awestruck by how she carried herself confidently among our classmates. When she sat on the desk to talk to me between classes, she looked like the queen of hearts, while I was a Knave, complete with a light dusting of a mustache.
Not that minded it. (I mean, I didn’t mind her being the queen. I did mind the mustache and removed it later that year.)
Inspite of being popular, she was pretty nice and happy to help. Her grades weren’t impressive, but she managed to scrape through High School somehow. In fact, she got her Bachelor of Arts degree too later.
She was one of my closest friends at that time and my mother often worried that her influence might derail me.
I wouldn’t say so. I had quite a few other things derailing me those days. Maths had never been my best friend. But ever since Algebra was introduced, I was struggling. Once I joined this school mid-semester, Trigonometry joined the ranks, and I gave up completely. History I could trudge through but, with an ever-absent teacher, Civics, Geography and Economics were quickly turning into mystery. Biology I understood but Physics and Chemistry were beyond comprehension. So, I solely concentrated on languages that did not give me hives. It meant that while I would pass English, Hindi and Sanskrit with merit and an A in Drawing, I would probably fail in all the other subjects, ending any future ambitions that I might have.
But, as I said, it wasn’t P’s fault. She had similar worries herself about studies, but she wasn’t a worrywart like me.
In fact, nothing seemed to worry her at all…except once, when she told me that one of our male classmates now had a caller ID on their home phone. I wondered why it should worry her. Later, she told me that his mother has explicitly told her not to try calling him again. I wondered why his mother would say that.
But as I said, generally, nothing really seemed to worry her.
Honestly, I liked her for what she was. While she wasn’t particularly attentive in studies, she was a well of information on some topics that seemed to miss my attention.
P had introduced me to blank calls. A couple of years into our friendship, she made a blank call to my brother (on whom she had a mighty crush) right in front of me. I was completely in awe now. Honestly, I would never blank-call my brother–he had learnt Marshall Arts and could break a brick with a single flick of hand. I had held that brick he broke, so I knew not to annoy him while living in the same house. So, I warned P, considering she visited my house pretty often. But she assured me that she has been making those blank calls for an year now, and my brother had always been polite.
As I said, nothing seemed to faze her.
From her, I found out about an infamous park where willing boys and girls went to make-out, as she rebuked one of our other friends for going there with her boyfriend and kissing him on first date. “What else would you expect if you go meeting someone in such a place? First, you should have gone for a lunch at—” Apparently, the park was also notorious for Police raids because of obscenity in public areas. Though I never visited it due to want of company, it was a good-to-know information as places to avoid in future.
A well of information, as I said earlier.
P also had a better aerial connectivity than me and seemed to know when boys were interested in her. She once told me how some boys seemed to follow her everywhere she went. I wondered if she was delusional until I saw it with my own eyes.
This particular incident stands out to me. One day, the two of us had gone to watch a movie. The plan was that two more female classmates would join us there directly and we would all leave together for home in evening. But they ditched us, and we arrived alone. It wasn’t much of a worry because it was a day show. Also, in small-town India, the cinema hall (and everything else) was within city limits on rather crowded streets.
We left the hall around six in the evening. It was still light outside. We took a rickshaw home. Soon, she told me, “Don’t look back but a bike is following us.”
Being the worrywart, I wanted to look back but I couldn’t now since I have been expressly forbidden. It could be someone I know but I was scared that it wasn’t. Suddenly, I saw a PCO (A public phone booth that survived solely by feeding on the fears of anxious females and new lovers; declared extinct due to the invasive species of mobile phones).
“Let’s call my brother.”
Checking her hair in her hand-held mirror, “Naah! Don’t worry. They are harmless.”
“How do you know?”
“The guy who is driving has been following me around quite frequently. Always on his bike. Never does anything!”
I didn’t understand. If a stranger had been following me on bike quite frequently, I would have called the Police. P was merely amused.
“But what if he means to hurt you?”
“You don’t know their kind. He is just trying to get my attention.”
Now I was curious, “But if he is behind you, how will he get your attention unless he calls your name, which he isn’t doing? Does he even know your name anyway? Shouldn’t he probably try coming in front and talking?”
P rolled her eyes. As if answering my question, the bike revved and shot from our left and overtook us like a bullet in the narrow street. And then, suddenly, it became very slow, almost idling. The riders let our rickshaw overtake them at a snail’s pace.
“See, attention-seeking behaviour…”
I was unused to such stupidity, never having encountered such a species before (or maybe I just missed it due to aerial issues). I wondered if they knew normal speech like us lesser humans. “Are you sure they won’t crash in our rickshaw at some point? This is quite a narrow road. If their bike so much as touches our rickshaw on that speed, it will overturn.”
“You are hilarious, you know!”
The bike revved again and overtook us. Some people on the road in the direct hitting range jumped to the sides to take cover. It happened two more times and I wondered why no one was calling the Police.
We almost reached the corner where we would take the turn. It looked pretty wide from where we were, but I had been on the road on bicycle before and knew what lay ahead. The engine revved again. “They aren’t planning to overtake us here?”
“Of course, that’s their grand finale before they make their exit.”
“Are they foreigners? Don’t they know what’s around the corner?”
“Are you worried about them now?”
I took a second to decide, “Yes. But I will not carry them to hospital. I have homework.”
We had almost reached the corner now.
The engine revved again, and it was too late to stop them anyway. The bike overtook us at the highest speed it could muster. It took a wider cut to avoid our rickshaw, which was now turning the corner too.
I could see the bike drivers’ eyes go wide as it entered the huge nullah (a large open drain) with a resounding splash!
For a second, I was worried they had died. But then, two black, lumpy, smelly ghosts were rising out of the nullah, staggering with the weight of muck and impact on their bones, helping each other stand.
I could hear peals of laughter and realised they were coming from the both of us. Both P and I laughed all the way home.
Henceforth, this particular pair never followed P again and this event marked the end of this tale of unrequited love, cut short severely due to the local Municiple Committee’s failure of cover the nullah. Since the drain remained open for several coming years, I wonder how many other boys without the skill of human speech lost potential opportunities at love.
I also wonder whether these boys forever resorted to the language of engine revving or if they ever learnt human speech, like, “Hi, my name is XYZ. Would you like to come on a date with me?”
But what would I, who never had a boyfriend, know about the matters of heart?
A month back, I and my 8-year-old daughter had a drawing competition. The challenge was paint a dog without looking at it. I asked her to allow me to look at a picture since I am not good at animal drawing.
At first, she was unwilling to bend rules since the whole point was painting by memory.
But after some negotiation (“I will not play with you anymore!”), I was allowed a brief look (“Okay, fine! But only 10 seconds!”).
I quickly pulled out a doggy pic from Google and concentrated at it for 10 second. My daughter counted seconds in the background, declining the offer to look at it herself (“I don’t cheat like you!”). Then the picture was closed.
It took me 10 minutes to draw the picture directly with sketch colours (since I was too busy to use pencil first. Here it is.
If you think it was cheap of me to force an 8-year-old girl to allow me to cheat during a competition, you should look at what she drew using just her memory.
There was no competition–She is a pro, I am still learning!
Author’s note: Urdu poetry is usually a bit obscure, often containing meaning that isn’t on the surface. Here, the piece dwells on the concept of how everyone sees one’s outer-shell in front of the mirror, but behind the mirror, the true-self is trying to break out.
So, when a true-self manages to show herself, the world doesn’t believe her to be real, telling her that she must control herself as before. And now that she wishes to go back behind the mirror, the mirror doesn’t trust her to allow her to return.
As discussed in the previous Matters of Heart post, my close friend X was having difficulty in decoding the language of Indian love. Of course, you need to learn Morse code to understand the language that relies completely on reading body language and crooked pick-up lines. (“What a wonderful weather for a long drive!” means “Will you join me for a long drive and go to places unknown so your family can’t catch us snuggling?”)
So, even after I happily supplied the explanation (a rare accomplishment), she remained incredulous. She was sure that if Y has wanted to take her out on a date, he would have said so. He didn’t need to resort to this round-about way of showing interest in me first.
I could only sigh!
One day, she came to college in a really foul mood. Apparently, Y had told Z (another male friend) that she was engaged. He had been very detailed about the ceremony and Z was sold on the idea. Z had then told his aunt who knew X and she called on her family phone to congratulate her.
Since family phone offers no privacy, she was having a difficult time in keeping it from her parents. If they found about this prank, they will obviously ask the most obvious question: Who are Y and Z and how come she is friends with them and their relatives without telling her parents?
You see, in small-town India of early 2000, no girl spoke to a boy without parental supervision. X had just struck a friendship during extra-classes in a co-ed institute and kept it under wraps to avoid any parental obstruction. It was a regular practice in those days. No girl in her right senses would talk to her parents of all the boys she was acquainted with.
Boys, however, could boast about all the girls they had befriended (or claimed to befriend). No pointed questions were asked from the male counterparts. Girls, however, were usually grounded.
Now that the conversation had happened on the family phone (no mobile phone in those days), she had to lay it very thick to avoid detection. Pointed questions were asked. Her standard answer–“a friend (obviously female) called”–was not sufficient. She had to go through the details of the call ensuring that all her facial reactions on the call matched the explanation without revealing the truth. Not satisfied because the conversation was whispered but finding no reason for open hostility, the parents had dropped the matter. Obviously, the next few days would involve close scrutiny.
While it was uncomfortable, X was mainly upset because of the loss of trust. She was clueless why Y would lie about her. She wanted to confront him. But she had to play the good girl and go home on time after college to avoid any further issues.
I offered an insight yet again based on my previous assessment–“Y was deleting competition. Once Z heard of the engagement, (having no way to contact X to confirm the news because he would obviously not call X on home phone), he would have bowed out. But, Y had not counted on relatives being involved.”
X was not satisfied with my assessment because it now implicated two male friends–Y and Z– and suggested that they “liked” her.
But she had run out of all possible excuses for Y’s odd behaviour. Unfortunately for Y, no matter what his reasons were, X now wanted revenge. She was angry enough to take my advice and I let my inner vamp take over.
A couple of weeks later, X came to college wearing a heavy gold ring on her ring finger that belonged to her mother. Two of us went to meet Y after college hours. She was still unsure how it would act as revenge (engagements were usually happy events) but I insisted her to try. There were no relatives involved at Y’s front so there was nothing to lose.
Once there, she declared she was engaged–that her parents had found her the most amazing husband and marriage is due in three months. (To learn how the process of finding a husband for a daughter works, please look at I do: The Indian Way series.)
To make the charade more believable, we carried a box of chocolates as a “gift from her fiance’ ” and offered him a piece as celebratory sweets. We discussed a whole lot of believable lies coming from my experience from my cousin’s recent engagement–the families being in touch discussing the matter for a long time, the sudden visit of boy’s family, quick arrangements and engagement on spot.
We also gave him the details of the amazing ‘boy’–looks based on my brother and education, job, family and other details of my cousin…
For a Home run, I thanked him for the joke from earlier, and assured him that his words had acted as a prayer and have landed X with a such a wonderful future.
As expected, Y congratulated X and we took his leave to “further spread the news”. I am usually not a sadist. But as I sat in the auto for home, I laughed all the way eating the “celebratory chocolates”.
Later that day Z, who was already in on the plan, informed X that the news had hit home and Y had called him to tell him about the “real” engagement; that he had consoled him with the standard “it was bound to happen someday” statement; and that Y had assured him that “he was usually quite happy these days” with a tone akin of a funeral.
Z didn’t tell him the truth for a month. Considering they were best friends and spoke every day, I would say, it was needlessly cruel…
But what would I, who never had boyfriend, know about the matters of heart?
Earlier this year, I was complaining about how it rains all year in India, except the rainy season. Apparently, Nature has taken upon itself to prove the likes of me wrong.
This year, we have had relentless rains during the rainy seasons leading to many landslides across the country. The result was massive destruction and loss of countless lives. Those who survived have lost homes and livelihood.
The entire state of Punjab has been flooded since it receives water from five rivers. And it is not the only one. Thousands of hectares of crops have perished, including those right outside my city. From my third storey rooftop, I can see river Yamuna swelling to the point that I can’t see the other shore, drowning all the crops of the local farmers.
Considering that farming is the primary vocation in India, the loss can lead to starvation of farmers. We are all heading towards a time when cost of food, and hence cost of living, would shoot up tremendously and would be beyond the means of millions of those people who lost everything except their lives.
My prayers go with these people and we are all trying to see what we can do to help them.
Hey everyone, I found this post on WP about a small school for under-privileged children that needs funding to revamp its infrastructure. See if you wish to support the cause.
Author’s note: My Matters of Heart series is about Indian dating culture and my failsafe ways of dealing with it. This is the sixth part. To look for the rest, just search for Matters of Heart in the Search box.
India may be the land of many languages but regarding the matters of heart, it is pretty much the same–vague! At least, small town India in my teens was like that. You needed to learn Morse code to be able to receive a signal.
That could be because if a guy didn’t hit the mark with 100% accuracy at the correct time and in the correct place and correct company, he might spend the rest of the month in a hospital ward with both hands and legs, and skull in bandages–if he was lucky!
If he was unlucky, he might land up in jail for eve-teasing, harrassment and obscene behaviour in public, or even end up starting a full-scales riot spread across several Indian states–especially if it was a Hindu-Muslim union he was looking for.
As I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts, until the age of 20, I never got a proposal. But honestly, I probably never recognised an attempt to propose. Many of such incidents were due to the vague language signals, which relied solely on reading body language and breaking code words (such as, “I am going for a movie alone.” means “Do you want to come for a movie with me?”).
Considering that I am rather thick in that department, it took me several years of quiet contemplation to understand the full meaning of a lot of these conversations.
Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one. My friends were equally befuddled. Most being bookish-nerdy-artist variety girls, they all had similar unyielding conversations. Surprisingly enough, I was sometimes able to break the code for them (but never for myself). Unfortunately, my decoding style used to put their hackles up and they would start avoiding the guy making the moves.
So I had a close friend (let’s call her X). Once one of her close friends (let’s call him Y to rhyme with a “guy”) told her that he “liked” me. Now, in those days, “liking” in India was the code word for “kind of crazy about and wish to take on a date”. Note that I had met him only once for 15 minutes in an office setting. When X expressed her surprise, he added, “Yeah, there should be somebody to drive around on my new bike!” And then, when she offered to pass the message to me, he said, “No! No! Promise me you won’t tell her I said that.”
So obviously, X told me. It is the girl’s code to share everything that is expressly forbidden.
Technically, this was the first non-proposal I had received, or I should say the first time a guy had clearly shown any interest in me. It didn’t get me interested. It got me curious. I had to dissect this conversation to see where it came from and where it was going.
Because the three statements together did not make sense: while it is natural to “like” someone and want company on a new bike, you need to tell the concerned person to get that company. Why expressly forbid?
Also if I was a guy, I would never want someone like me just to drive around on a new bike. Men LOVE bikes. They are their equivalent of a lover. (I have a colleague who has the name of his bike tattooed on his arm.) So, if they want a girl for a new bike, that girl will have to be a new-bike equivalent: shiny and polished-to-hilt girl with red glossy lips, eyelashes that are thick enough to be braided, plucked eyebrows, manicured fingers and pedicured feet, and fitted in a dress that shows it all.
A girl who new knew make-up and is a walking ad for “Just Books” wouldn’t fit into the image of the “bike” girl. Besides, I owned a new scooter and would never ask a lift from anyone anyway. So, the statements were not making sense.
Naturally, I wanted to ask Y directly to save me the decoding effort. But X told me that it would look like a breach of confidence to him. And I would move mountains for X. So, I had to solve this mystery on my own, trying to join the dots but always coming back in circles.
What did Y mean by…
Could he seriously consider sharing his new bike with me? I mean, I could take it for a drive…not with him in the back though…
What if he didn’t mean it and was just saying for the sake of conversation…a very dangerous conversation with a potential of public beating?
And why would he bluff to X?
Then inspiration hit–Dil Toh Pagal Hai (One of Shahrukh Khan’s movie–the god of Romance in India)!
Y was testing waters. He was checking X’s reaction to see if she would be jealous, like Anjali in Dil Toh Pagal Hai when she saw her best friend show interest in another girl?
If he was actually meaning to ask her out, he would draw her attention to his intention of getting a girl (and to the fact he had acquired a new bike). Since she was a close friend, it would switch on her jealous-friend track and (considering she wore her heart on her sleeve) it would show on her face.
But the plan backfired because X was truly disinterested. She offered to pass on the message, leaving him scared that I might walk in with my brother and he would have to be admitted in a hospital for broken bones (if he was lucky!).
I offered this explanation to X, telling her that she had a secret admirer who was wondering if he should ask her out. But she was as thick as me, “Naah, if that’s the case, he could have simply asked me.”
Short Stories | Fish-eye Perspective 