Mrs Funnybones: She's just like You and a lot like Me

by Twinkle Khanna

  6.30 p.m.: I am walking back into my building and am jostled by yet another elderly aunty walking up the stairs. Wondering about this fitness mania that has suddenly gripped my entire building, I spot the hunky movie star who has finally moved into his third-floor apartment in our building, and it all makes sense.

  Holding the baby with one hand, I smile feebly and wave at him, when he walks up to me, punches me hard on the arm, and says, ‘Do you know how many times you have beaten me up when we were kids?’ I have absolutely no recollection of this as I had spent my entire childhood mercilessly beating up various pimpled boys, half of whom grew up to be very famous people.

  Promising to send him my yummy dahi tikkis, I enter my foyer and meet the man of the house. When I tell him about bumping into our new neighbour and finding out that apparently I have beaten him up as well, the man of the house just sighs and says, ‘What is new? You beat me up every day too, maybe you should open a new kind of acting school.’

  I protest that I really can’t act.

  He adds, ‘I know that, but you can claim to be a lucky mascot: A punch from Twinkle will make your stars sparkle!’

  I feebly protest that this slogan doesn’t really rhyme.

  He shushes me and continues, ‘There will be testimonials from all your former students.

  ‘Like Farhan Akhtar: “Every time Ms Khanna beat me, I thought Bhaag Farhan Bhaag. That is why I was so good in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. It was sheer practice.”

  ‘Karan Johar: “I am successful only because of Ms Khanna’s regular thrashings. Every wallop I received, I said Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and that’s how the idea of my first film was born.”

  ‘Hrithik Roshan: “I became the superhero of Krrish only because of Ms Khanna’s punches. It left a deep scar on my mind and I decided to grow up and fight evil.” And of course me, Akshay Kumar: “I would be nothing without Ms Khanna. I learnt karate, taekwondo and parkour only because of her blessings in the form of slaps and boxes.”’

  When I object that everyone knows he was a martial arts expert even before he met me, he snorts, ‘So what? You, anyway, want to take credit for everything, so take credit for this as well.’

  I hit him on the head and pull him out to our porch. Feeling calmer after looking at the beautiful sea, I tell him, ‘The sea looks so gorgeous, and say thank you to me—if I had not fought with the builder to lower the boundary wall, we would be looking at only concrete.’

  The man of the house shakes his head and just walks off. So weird. Behaving like he has his periods or something; men are so strange sometimes, who can understand them!

  G: Good Grief! This Weighing Scale must be Defective

  8 a.m.: The holidays have ended, and after a month of indulging in endless desserts, I dust off my weighing scale and gingerly balance myself on it. The number flashes very dramatically in red. I stagger back almost as if I’d been shot by a sniper’s bullet. I pick up the pieces of my shattered vanity and resolve to start yet another diet.

  Weight is a tricky thing for me. In primary school I was the fattest girl in my class, and though decades have passed and I may no longer look like the fattest girl in the class, I haven’t forgotten her. Just like a house is sometimes haunted by its previous occupants, I am also occasionally haunted by that little fat girl.

  1.30 p.m.: I am meeting some of my close girlfriends for lunch, and invariably before we have even put our handbags down, the topic goes to our weight. One friend is congratulated for losing what seems like 350 grams since we last saw her; I moan about my dreadful extra 5 pounds, another says that she is also again on a diet, while yet another friend chirps in with an entire thirty-minute story about how she lost (wait for this) 1 kilo, and then her aunty died and she was so upset that she ate some ice cream and gained the momentous 1 kilo back (the aunty dying is just mentioned in passing. I still don’t know the aunt’s name or what she died of, but I do know that my friend ate a family pack of chikoo ice cream).

  We quickly scan the menu and order dainty salads, and as we are about to finish, we undo all our good work by ordering cream cookies and cupcakes, and after oohing and ahing over the cute little Easter chocolate bunnies, we proceed to bite their heads off as well.

  3.30 p.m.: I am back at the office and my jeans are feeling rather uncomfortable, and as much as I would like to blame the baby for this, practically speaking, if your child can walk and talk, then they have lived outside your body long enough for you to go back to your original size.

  5 p.m.: I get an email from mommy dearest where she states that she has found a few of my baby pictures, and I look so cute. ‘Like a giant ladoo’ are her exact words.

  Hmm . . . Motivation enough for me to leave the office immediately and do some sort of exercise before I become a giant ladoo all over again.

  6.15 p.m.: I put my sneakers on and hit the beach for a brisk walk. I am just getting into the stride of things, listening to some great music on my iPod and enjoying the glorious view, when from the corner of my eye I see three young men creep up and, before I know it, they are passing comments, slowing down when I walk slower, quickening their steps when I try to hurry; in short, annoying the hell out of me.

  This is a peculiarly Indian habit, see a woman alone anywhere and our men must harass her even if she has a moustache thicker than theirs, is eighty-three years old or has a massive mole on her nose with three strands of hair sprouting through; basically, they will revel in hounding any creature that vaguely has two X chromosomes lurking anywhere inside.

  6.25 p.m.: I am now getting rather irritated with these three morons, and decide to harass them back. I make a quick U-turn and we end up face-to-face. My three true idiots also quickly turn around, so now I am following them.

  I spot a large, empty coconut, pick it up and decide to throw it at their heads. They see me and start running. I am now running behind them at breakneck speed to throw my organic missile. They are running faster and faster. I am panting heavily and sweat is pouring off me as I try to chase them. Finally, one of them trips. The other two pull him up and drag him away. When I finally catch up with them, I throw the coconut, miss, and am now completely out of breath, with a stitch on my side. I cannot chase them further.

  I am very frustrated as I haven’t been able to finish my walk, and my whole routine has gone down the drain when I glance at my watch and see that it’s shockingly 6.55 p.m. I have been chasing these morons for close to eighteen minutes. This is the longest and fastest I have been able to run since I was twenty-three.

  I quickly calculate the calories burnt while running behind my three idiots as compared to my walk, and realize that I have burnt triple the calories. Even if I had a trainer urging me to run, I would not have been able to run at that pace for that long and not even realize the time.

  We always give our best when our back is against the wall. We will write a superlative essay when pushing hard against a deadline, make the most innovative presentation when our job is in jeopardy, and study the hardest when the exam is the next day.

  I wonder why most of us can only perform to our utmost when circumstances drive us, and then I realize that the few who push themselves are the ones who succeed.

  The driven, passionate ones give their best on ordinary days and that is why they are extraordinary. As for me, I start walking back home, hoping that tomorrow I find yet another minor criminal to chase and decimate with my coconut.

  H: Hurricanes Hit My Household

  People inherit a lot of things from their parents. These can range from facial features to diamonds and emeralds; I have, instead, inherited a splendid member of my mother’s trusted staff. His uncle works for my mother, his brother works for my grandmother, and he used to work for my aunt, but is now all mine.

  Let me make it clear right at the beginning that he is the most honest, loyal person I know. I am just not sure if he is Robin to my Batman, or if he is Mogambo to my Mr India.

  INCIDENT 1: It is a Sunday evening, the deadline for my
weekly column is looming, and as I am sitting in front of my computer and frantically typing away, he tiptoes around me and then calls out, ‘Didi! Didi!’ I look up, my chain of thought all broken, and ask him what has happened. He replies, ‘Do you want your shoes?’

  Grr . . . For God’s sake, why would I want my shoes? Does he think I can simultaneously jog on the spot while typing? I take a deep breath and ask him to lend his invaluable assistance to some other member of the family.

  INCIDENT 2: I am at my neighbour’s for tea when my domestic wonder calls me to say that some gentleman has entered the house and is asking for my passport, and wants to know where my computer is as well.

  Rather worried, I ask my desi Jeeves if he recognizes the man, to which he replies, ‘Didi, I don’t think so. Looks villain type of person, come fast.’

  I frantically rush home only to discover that

  A: The gentleman in question is Mansukh bhai, my Internet fellow.

  B: He has been asking for my laptop password, and not my passport.

  I ask my domestic wonder how he can possibly not recognize Mansukh bhai who has been to the house a couple of times. He shakes his head and says, ‘Mansukh bhai has a beard and this man doesn’t have, also he has a big black mole on his chin. All bad people have big moles, that’s why I called you.’

  Wondering if it doesn’t occur to him that people can perhaps shave off their beard once in a while, but not being able to wrap my brain around this evil mole bit, I have no recourse but to go to the kitchen and eat four cups of strawberry ice cream in despair.

  INCIDENT 3: The bank has sent me an email saying that they have hand-delivered important papers to the house which require my signature, and need to be returned this evening.

  On my arrival, I ask my Jeeves if the papers have come. He nods in the affirmative, before adding that he has kept them very safely. I ask him to fetch the papers, and go to my room to change into my trackpants. Twenty minutes later, my domestic wonder is nowhere to be seen. I search the whole house and finally spot him sitting in the staffroom, sobbing. I gently ask him what the matter is and he tells me that he had kept my papers very safely, so safely, that even he can’t find them now.

  I am beginning to think that he is an agent planted by L’Oréal in my house to ensure that my hair turns white overnight and thus I have to spend all my money on hair dye.

  INCIDENT 4: It has been an exhausting day and all I want to do is eat some good food, and crash. I change into my pretty, pink kaftan and sit at the dining table. I have made chicken tikka, salad and mutton seekh kebab. I ask my domestic wonder to put some kebab on my plate, and he very enthusiastically scoops up two. I turn my head to see what the man of the house is trying to show me on his iPad, and plonk! I feel something on my lap. With mounting horror, I look down only to see the inevitable. There, on my lap, on my pretty, pink kaftan are two enormous pieces of kebab, two phallic-shaped massive bits of meat. I proceed to bang my head on the chair repeatedly till I calm down before asking him to lend his invaluable assistance to some other member of the family.

  He will set off our alarm system repeatedly while doing mundane chores; he will knock me on the head with a cup of tea when I am sitting on my swing; he will ask me seven questions when one would be sufficient. So at the end of six months when he asks for a three-week holiday to go to his village, I am rather happy to give it to him.

  Three weeks pass and he doesn’t come back. The man of the house starts asking about him and accuses me of driving him away. He gives me a big lecture about how having a person with a good heart in our household is more important than having someone who will iron shirts immaculately but can never be trusted.

  The man of the house is right and I am also beginning to miss my man Friday’s bumbling presence in our home. I sit down to think if I have said anything to him that has made him want to leave, and feeling decidedly guilty, I call him.

  He picks up and says, ‘Namaste, Didi, I got on the train four days late, but now I am at Sholapur.’ When I ask him why he is in Sholapur and not in Mumbai, he replies, ‘Didi, I wanted to buy shenga chutney for you at Sholapur station, but the train was only stopping for one minute, so I pulled the alarm chain. Didi, the train people tore my shirt and made me get down, but don’t worry I am reaching Mumbai very soon.’

  I put the phone down, take a deep breath and immediately start doing my pranayam as I will need all the patience in the world when he finally arrives to once again lend me his invaluable assistance.

  I: I Refuse to Celebrate This Bloody Valentine’s Day Nonsense

  10 a.m.: It is Valentine’s Day and I have informed the man of the house that it would be rather nice if he came home in the evening with a substantial gift and a bunch of white flowers. I also enlighten him with the fact that I have made a reservation at our favourite restaurant, Wasabi, for dinner at 8 p.m.

  After fourteen years of matrimony, I have discovered that hoping your other half telepathically reads your mind only leads to someone wanting to punch the other one in the face.

  11.15 a.m.: Trying to work from home today, I find myself sipping coffee and wasting time on Twitter, where two minutes magically stretch to twenty minutes in a second. Interstellar, beat that!

  1.30 p.m.: My desi Jeeves walks in carrying a brown plastic bag with a few parcels neatly wrapped up in newspaper, and leaves them on my desk. I guess the man of the house has really outdone himself this year and sent presents even before his arrival.

  I hastily open the packages only to find two packets of sanitary napkins and a bill for Rs 620. Apparently, the local baniya has delivered all the monthly staples today, and this is my share of the loot.

  Point to be noted, milord: Why are sanitary napkins treated like radioactive isotopes? They are wrapped in layers of plastic and newspaper, then someone ties a string over this mysterious package and then it’s put in a bag of its own— separate from any vegetables or cereal boxes that it may contaminate by its very presence.

  Is it the fact that men will see a corner of this packet that says ‘Whisper with wings’, and collapse with empathy at the thought of the agony we go through every month? Or is this biological function which, in fact, enables us to give birth to specimens like them, still considered sort of unclean by mankind?

  I remember a few of my school friends from conservative backgrounds telling me stories about being made to stay in isolated rooms with plates of food being left outside their door during ‘that time of the month’, as they were considered impure for that duration.

  2 p.m.: The deadline for my Sunday Times column is fast approaching and since I have spent the last half hour just staring at these ‘double protection, long wearing’ wonders, I decide to simply write about sanitary napkins and the dreaded monthly curse, which turns out to be a bit like this:

  Myths about menstruation have always been part of society and not just in India. In ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder wrote in Natural History that dogs who tasted menstrual blood turned rabid, mares miscarried, and corn in the fields withered when menstruating women were around. In Europe, it was believed that menstruating women could spoil jam and turn wine to vinegar with their touch.

  The last nail in our coffin was provided in 1919 by Professor Schick, who cooked up the concept of ‘menotoxin’. He propounded a preposterous theory that a woman’s menstrual flow contains a poison, ‘menotoxin’, that was responsible for everything—from roses wilting to bread not rising.

  Even today, menstruation is seen as dirty or unholy. My cousin once told me about having to go to a Mata ki Chowki on the same day that she got what she calls ‘the monthly curse’.

  Her mother protested but my cousin insisted on going along. When they reached the venue, the dupatta on the idol suddenly fell on the diya and burst into flames. My aunt caught her daughter by the ear and dragged her back home, screaming all the way that defying the period taboo had led to this calamity. My cousin’s protests that a gust of wind that blew in through the open window
was more likely to be the culprit was countered with another bout of religious jargon.

  Well, if God disapproves of this fluid, then He should disapprove of all body fluids. So when pundits are doing yagnas and sweating copiously in front of the holy fire, shouldn’t they also occasionally get burnt to a crisp by the divine cosmic forces?

  Menstruating doesn’t cause pickles to spoil, temples to collapse or food to rot, nor is it contagious, though it would be rather nice to infect the male population with this so-called ‘curse’ for a month or two, just to sit back and view what I am sure would be a highly entertaining spectacle.

  At the very worst, menstruating is slightly uncomfortable, sometimes painful, and one of the most natural functions of the human body.

  But we ourselves stash our sanitary napkins in secret places, are embarrassed when one falls out of our purse by accident, and sort of tiptoe around the whole issue instead of being proud of our miraculous bodies that go on optimistically churning out eggs, month after month, for decades.

  Er . . . some of you that carry the XY chromosomes in your gene code may have found this theme rather disturbing. Could you please tuck your tail between your legs and go back to watching thirteen men running around with a bat and a ball while we decide to stop ‘whispering with wings’ or whispering at all, and yell and scream about this being a vital part of our biology, which, in fact, just happens to save our entire species from extinction?

  5.30 p.m.: I email the piece to my editor and clamber onto my stationary bike, where I spend the next fifty minutes pedalling to nowhere, watching MTV and humming along to terrible songs about Pussy Dolls and Baby Dolls.