Here's Looking At You...People.

Though I have occasional bouts of acute misanthropy; what redeems people in my eyes is that everyone past a certain age is a story.
Some of these living, breathing stories don’t know that’s what they are. Of those who do, 90% don’t know how to tell theirs (urk, don’t even get me started on how resoundingly boring people can be when they tell their life stories… “ Then I was born at 7 am, and I opened my eyes at 7:02 am…” (two hours and several wishes to die a speedy death by the auditor later)…”and then I said “…tubelight. Call the electrician.” …) but bottomline is every life is enough of a story to have a book or a movie made on it.

Of course, the movies are of all kinds -- sepia tinted, pre-independence period costume movies, arty depressing movies where the protagonist just sits in a dark room and cries, action movies, comedy movies, teen ‘coming of age’ dramas, Oscar winning movies, masala movies where the hero and heroine dance around in the rain on a weekday afternoon in Venice, or ‘slice-of-life’ quirky movies about very normal people (read: ugly) doing very, very mundane things. But they’re all still stories.

I look at a lot of people around me and wonder, “I wonder why she only wears red and black. What’s the story behind that?” (I don’t work in a colony of red ants: that was an example.)

I had a physics teacher at my school, who was as vindictive as they came. But on every weekday morning after our school bus picked her up; she would take her usual place right up against the front glass of the bus next to the driver, settle in, and then take out what appeared to be the same tattered letter everyday and read it with lingering and evident pleasure all the way to school. It made me wonder about her, and frankly I itched to know what was in that letter.

I look at extremely domesticated, traditional housewives, busy with their daily work of looking after their husband and kids; and often wonder how they were when the world with all its glorious choices held its doors open for them. Did they have different dreams? What was their story? Had they a crush on the north eastern student on the mini bus to school?* How different would their lives have been if they acted on that impulse?** Had these women thought they would make a good doctor or an actress before they were told to marry someone their parents chose for them?

The paradox of my constant wondering about people’s lives of course, is that I have a horror of acquaintances*** who volunteer a blow-by-blow as I mentioned earlier. I also shy away from asking people about their lives, disgusted as I am by some of the regrettable questions I myself have had to dodge quite often from total strangers.

Sometimes it happens that people vouchsafe interesting confidences about their life to me without any prompting, maybe BECAUSE I’m not always sniffing around for information. Sometimes such exchanges are so profound or startling, indeed, that it renews my faith in how absolutely fascinating human nature is. I live for such conversations -- but they are rare, and more importantly, cannot be forced.

So I am destined to remain eternally wondering about most people; which, if you really look at it, might be best for all concerned.


*Wait…that was me…
**NOT me. He had an acne problem, to be honest.
***note to my friends to pay especial attention to the word ‘acquaintances’. I EXPECT all the gruesome details from you guys.

Lotus Bum.

I occasionally get -- though they’ve been getting fewer and farther between, with the years -- out of body experiences. I won’t call them experiences, because a split second can’t really be an experience. That reminds me of an episode of Frasier. A woman calls into his radio show complaining about sex with her much older husband, and says,“I’ve been inoculated slower!”. (Ha ha.)

That was a total digression, this post isn’t about that, however much my readers cry out for it.

So going back to what I was saying, I very once in a while get a feeling like I’ve just popped out of my body for a wee second, and everything is as clear as day. It’s almost like it’s your body which confuses you. For that one moment you get to slip your skin; and as you hover a few feet away everything makes sense, everything is in its proper perspective, there is no pain, no annoyances; the things around you just ARE, nothing more. And then as though your body realizes it’s mistake, it tucks you back in with a quick imperceptible action, like a lady with an errant bra strap, and it’s all normal again.

There are other times, when I’m not thinking about anything In particular, that I get a different version of it. You know the trance-like state one goes into when you’re a passenger on a car or bus (I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re driving the thing); where you’re just vacantly staring into space until you get to point B. My eye will happen to alight on one of the hundreds of people that I pass on every trip, and I get a quick flash in my mind’s eye of a window or some such. I like to think it’s insight into that person’s life, and feel a little bit like Bruce Willis in ‘Unbreakable’, on the rare occasions it has happened.

So far I haven’t put it to the test, viz, follow these unsuspecting people home and check if the grills on their window match the one in my vision. I’d rather not, because this makes me feel like I have a superpower and I don’t want proof that it’s an eye infection or mental disease. Though totally useless and unreliable; a superpower is still not something you sneeze at.

Do any of you have a superpower? Let me know if you do and we can form a League Of Totally Useless Superpowers for the Betterment (or not) of Undeserving Mankind. (LOTUS BUM).

What's the deal with famous people?

I don’t know what it is about famous people that fascinate us so. Whenever I get some spare time on the computer I hungrily devour everything there is to know about famous people.

They’re not always predictable ones -- I just googled Rani Lakshmi Bai and then Ben Cross in succession, one leading to another through the whole 1857 rebellion-The Far Pavilions- Ashton Pelham Martin (my first love)-Ben Cross progression.

Yesterday I looked up Igor Stravinsky and George Harrison, and that led to Don Henley…I go where my thoughts take me. Long live Google and Wikipedia, I say.
I anxiously read through facts about their childhoods. Facts which, if a boring acquaintance were to share about his or her own life, I would condemn as the most boring thing I’d heard all day, and pretend to fall asleep immediately after. There’s just something else about famous people; darned if I know what it is.

And look at this whole Shiney Ahuja thing. (‘Shiney’… did his parents think he’ll turn out normal with a name like that? He must’ve been beaten up routinely in school.). Shiney and his wife ‘Anupam’. A marriage made in heaven ... the groom is called ‘Shiney’ and the woman has a dude’s name. (what’s up with that?)

What you all know and are groaning that you have to read about here as well is this: He has raped his possibly underage maid. No he hasn’t touched her, this is preposterous. OK I might have had a little consensual sex with her… Of course he hasn’t, my husband is a good husband and a great father… Ok I might have had more than a little sex with her… No the medical reports make it clear it’s rape, does he think he can get away with this because he’s a famous actor, etc etc.

Kudos to the victim for stepping forward and I hope he is castrated and rots in jail.

But wait! The media won’t leave it at that…over and over and over goes the looped tape of Mister Shiney in a tight t-shirt being bundled into a police van. We all watch agog at the same footage over and over and ‘tsk tsk’ disapprovingly. All the while there are women out there being raped in our country every minute. Raped and then raped again. But hey the media’s not interested, neither are we, because is your rapist’s name ‘Shiney’, madam? Not even Goldy? Then get over it. Such things happen.

I am not making the pompous point that the News should just be a long list of all the nameless victims of rape across the country to the exclusion of all else, because that’s not possible and people would stop watching the news. What I’m trying to say is, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing we would’ve given this young girl a passing thought if a famous actor hadn’t been involved. In fact, even now, we’re interested in what his wife is saying more than what the victim’s name is.

It’s just bizarre about celebrities. However stupid or boring or ugly they are as people, they’re as irresistible to us as a Shiney (ha ha) trinket to a magpie.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to google why Jeffrey Archer went to jail.

Obviously!!!

Shall I tell you what ELSE annoys me? The word ‘obvious’. It looks innocuous in itself, but hides a wealth of smug, know-all, if-I- get-more-full-of-myself-I’ll-burst patronization I am yet to encounter in any other word.

Why are you angry with me?
I think it should be obvious.

(If I’m asking you it’s not obvious. And there’s no need to torture me further, because really I care enough to ask you and you should be happy about that.)

What does the word ‘equity’ mean?
I can’t believe you asked such an obvious question.

(I’m sorry, were you born with that knowledge or did someone tell you, you pompous git??? Now quit wasting my time being snotty, and just tell me.)

Is the earth flat and does the sun go ‘round it?
Zounds! Thy asketh the most obvious queries!

(I rest my case.)

Bucket List

Now, with the big 3 O looming ahead of me, I have got to thinking about life experiences. There’s no doubt that it’s better to burn out than fade away. Use up the breath allotted to you doing stuff, experiencing the things which comprise life; rather than just blamelessly, joylessly doing what keeps your heart beating (eating, sleeping, working) and then be washed away from the earth as easily as a speck of dust.

I’m not talking about fame, that’s a very narrow gauge of a life lived. (I don’t know of any famous Eskimos, does that mean no Eskimos lived life to the fullest?)

I admire people who go out and DO. Of course the moment you’re a do-er, there are things which you do wrong, people you upset. You change the course of some events, which in retrospect, might have been better left undisturbed. But that’s a small price to pay for making every breath count I think.

I’m ashamed to admit I fall into the blamelessly eating, sleeping, working category of person. But I could try to change perhaps. Say I did change (…say), what would my bucket list be to make up for nearly 3 decades of inertness?

Bucket List
1) Look like I did when I was 21. (Maybe I could aim to be a little better dressed than I did in university. Tutoring brats doesn’t get you a great wardrobe.)
2) Travel !
3) Publish my novel.
4) Er…write it first.
5) Quit soul-killing life sucking job.
6) Find alternate source of income. (preferably not soul killing or life sucking)
7) Smile more at people.
8) Not care if they don’t smile back.
9) Buy little, thoughtful gifts for friends and family (especially husband who’s always getting me thoughtful things). Make sure they get it, i.e, doesn’t go the way of some of the gifts I’ve bought in the past…given away to other people, used by self, lost or thrown away on deciding its hideous.
10) Buy little but well-appointed hut by the sea: (my friend Hillary has promised to visit) and live bohemian life. (9 and 10 hinges on point 6)
11) Be happy! (hinges on 1, 2, 3, 5 most definitely, 8 and 10)

Will let you know in 40 years how many of those I managed to cross off.

Memento Mori.

How does one get to know a person after he’s gone? I recently lost a close relative by marriage whom I’d never had the occasion to get to know.

I’d seen him in various hospitals over the last two years. And a few weeks ago, I was there when his son brought him home for the last time to a dignified yet deeply mourning family. I stood on the sidelines, secretly thanking my stars that I needn’t share in the sorrow, but trying in every way I could to comfort those who weren’t as lucky.

But during the swaran shobha, when all his family spoke about him, I realized I wasn’t that lucky after all. I started to wish I’d known him, because he sounded like someone it would’ve been fun to encounter. I felt like I was the unlucky one, for not having seen him at his jokey, resourceful , leg-pulling best, and I said as much when I was asked to speak.

Apart from the memorial service, and all the stories told by relatives and friends who poured into the house on the days succeeding his death; it struck me that I knew him quite well in another way…through his son.

People made many references to certain qualities his son had inherited, and it fascinated me to think how one can leave little pieces of oneself embedded in the next generation; who then pass it on in turn; over and over. A quality I had always thought was exclusively my husband’s would turn out to be, from an anecdote someone would tell, actually his father’s.

I felt better, and a little less of an anomaly as one of the principal mourners, once I realized that.
He lived, by today’s standards, a short life; but it sounds like he lived it fully. When I go, I’d like to be remembered similarly -- with smiles and laughter and affection.
I’d say it would be a life well lived then.

The Art of Fine Conversation

The more malicious among you who know me, have just finished rolling their eyes and saying to themselves, “What does SHE know about conversation. She takes an hour just to finish a sentence, and it’s STILL not the best thought-out sentence.” To them I will only say, “You should hear the brilliant conversations that go on inside my head. So there!”
Now that I’ve furnished my credentials to write this post, I shall plunge straight in.
If you hope to impress and amaze all with your sparkling conversation do NOT:

1) Chatter away like a psychotic monkey when you’re with other people. For one, if you’re talking THAT much, chances are you’re thinking aloud -- gibbering on about shopping lists, train timings, and the same anecdote for the 20th consecutive afternoon because the smell of coffee always triggers that memory. For another, though the thought has never crossed your mind because you’re too busy trying to eat and talk at the same time, other people might want to talk too.

2) When you’re telling an anecdote which took place in the evening don’t start with what you did in the morning “You’ll never guess what happened to me last night! …In the morning I got up, then I brushed my teeth, then I switched on the geyser, then I read the paper, then I took a bath...” Everyone is burdened with their own banalities, they really don’t want to have to experience yours second hand.

3) I don’t know about other people, but I find self-congratulatory speeches annoying (even if delivered in a self deprecatory way). The auditor in the conversation feels harangued somehow, like it is being implied that she’s a piece of shit. And the ‘self-deprecation’ doesn’t fool ANYBODY. “ I wish I could be more like you…I’m such a workaholic, I can’t read a book if I know there are chores to do.” This of course invariably follows some confession by the other person that she spent the weekend with her feet propped up on a pile of unfolded laundry, reading a book.

4) This next point is a tricky one, it works both ways: your conversation shouldn’t exclusively be an indiscriminate outpouring of venom about other people. Contrary to popular belief, it can be dreadfully dull after the first flush of excitement that gossip brings. On the OTHER hand, it’s also disquieting when you complain to a friend about someone else and they remain non committal. One invariably makes a mental note later on not to share anything more with such a person.

5) Do not go ON about people unknown to your listeners. “And then Rachna said, boy is Rachna a HOOT!...she said that Richa is the biggest slut EVER, though in my opinion that prize goes Varsha, if you know what I mean” (much waggling of eyebrows). No I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU mean, who are these people, why are you telling me about them, why don’t you just shut up?

6) Also, if the conversation has taken a different turn (once you stopped to draw breath and lost your monopoly) do not keep breaking in with a continuation of your story. It can get pretty hairy if there are several people in the dialogue.
A: I went to watch a movie yesterday, it was…
B: That reminds me I was driving down MG Road yesterday and this man just dashed in front of me.
C: How does A watching a movie remind you of that?
D: That reminds me of an aunt I had who was totally deaf…
A: the movie wasn’t great… the hero looked like Raju from the next building.
B: …so he runs in front of me, and I veer to the left and hit the lamppost.
C: Which aunt are you talking about? The one with the moustache?
D: She had a moustache and an ear trumpet. She wasn’t much of a catch my poor aunt. My uncle developed incurable depression towards the end.
A: the person in the movie had an aunt too. She was normal though…a little on the chubby side maybe…
B:…So I was, like..”Dude…do you have to dart across the road like that?”


Of course after all these don’ts some of my readers with nervous temperaments might be tempted never to indulge in conversation again.
That might actually constitute my Dos list. Communicate only if someone’s standing on your foot or such like. I’m telling ya, after having all these types inflicted on them, people will call you to every party and hail you as the greatest speaker EVER.