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

by Twinkle Khanna

  7 p.m.: The doorbell rings and the man of the house walks in, carrying a huge bunch of red roses. Wondering if men are both colour-blind and deaf, I give him a sullen look and wait for my gift.

  There is no gift. Apparently, he was slightly preoccupied with hanging upside down from the thirteenth floor of a building for the last six hours at the shoot and couldn’t get to an Archies in time to get me a hideous, allergy-inducing furry teddy bear.

  I try telling him that since I am not an eight-year-old, I was hoping for diamonds and not stuffed animals, but he interrupts and says, ‘Why are you still in your dressing gown? Hurry up, or we will miss our dinner reservation!’

  I sigh and say, ‘I don’t want to go!’

  ‘But why?’ he asks. ‘Is it this teddy bear thing? I will get you one right now. The red flowers? I know, I always get you white hydrangeas but my assistant forgot and I couldn’t even yell at her. She left early today saying she had some “women’s troubles” or something . . . Listen, stop sulking! Get ready and let’s go.’

  I screech, ‘It’s not the flowers . . . yes it is, or maybe, I don’t know, and I hate teddy bears, and I don’t want to celebrate this bloody Valentine’s Day nonsense, and nothing fits, my stomach is all bloated, it hurts, and I have lost my appetite.’

  He smirks, ‘You are not pregnant again, are you?’

  ‘No!’ I mumble. ‘I just got my period and it sucks.’

  J: Just Leave Me Alone in June

  7th June: Every summer we pack up our house and throw everything we can find in massive suitcases and head off on our annual vacation.

  This year we have three extra bags that carry all the essential requirements of a very tiny person: The baby. How can an 11-kilo baby need 85 kilos of things is a calculation that would involve equations of relativity that I can’t solve. All I can do is make lists and go on packing.

  I desperately call my mother, asking for her help. She arrives in half an hour, and instead of assisting me with the mundane task of organizing diapers and matching hairbands, decides that all the paintings in my house have to be rearranged at this very moment.

  I am standing helplessly in the midst of six suitcases and she has badgered my staff to drop everything they were doing, including last-minute washing and ironing, and they are now all busy drilling holes in my walls.

  8th June: We are at the airport and what was supposed to be a smooth journey has now descended into utter pandemonium. The man of the house has decided that he wants to fly in a particular airline only—so a trip that should have taken us around five hours has become a mammoth ten-hour journey.

  I decide not to grumble about the delay that this will cause us and quietly board the flight.

  An hour later, as I am about to fall asleep, I spot a fellow passenger who is also from showbiz and who happens to be mommy dearest’s colleague. He guzzles down (what is probably) his fifth whisky and then gets up to go to the galley to scrounge around for his next drink. Having accomplished his mission, he comes back and sits down, only to have the stewardess run towards him and pull him off his seat violently.

  Our friend was so inebriated that he could barely see and had actually perched himself ON TOP of a frail old woman asleep in her own seat. Blimey!

  We have reached Dubai where we have a three-hour halt. Our son is an excellent mimic but performing little acts like pretending to be a British old lady looking for cinnamon buns or a teenage Chinese pop star, in the middle of Dubai’s international airport can cause him to be deported; as I am desperately looking for a burka to gag him with, the baby decides she must go to the bathroom right then, but will not sit without her pink Hello Kitty potty seat.

  We are aimlessly sitting at the lounge. The man of the house is looking at his iPad, our son is dozing off on the couch and the baby is on my shoulder. I am singing a song to her which has something to do with the moon, but since it is made up by me and not Gulzar, it consists of only two words: Chanda and aaja.

  I am finally at peace and she is giving me a tight hug. This is what makes it all worthwhile, this tiny moment of joy when suddenly I yelp—the little beast has nipped me hard on my arm and is grinning, saying, ‘I doing biting.’

  Why did I have these children? If I merely wanted to be tortured, I could have just gotten weekly tattoos rather than have voluntarily reproduced these tiny ‘mini-mes’ albeit with martial-art skills.

  I vaguely remember travelling with my parents when I was a little girl. Did my mom also run behind us like this? Did she not want to be free sometimes, just to breathe, with no one tugging her shirt, no one asking her what’s for dinner? Free to fly wherever she wanted, do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Life is full of contradictions. We crave security and independence in equal measures.

  As I am in the midst of my random musings, my reverie is interrupted by the man of the house saying, ‘I am hungry, let’s get some food!’

  Sometimes I am glad I am not a philosopher— how would I ever complete a single chain of thought when someone is constantly asking me to do something? I don’t think Plato would have been able to write his dialogues if he had a wife who kept bugging him to pass the pita bread.

  9th June: Our holiday has officially begun and I am relishing the prospect of idling away my days. This is the time I switch off, work on my tan, and leave carpenters, cement dust and wax fumes behind.

  An hour later, I am still sitting on my bed, sipping coffee and enjoying the idea of doing absolutely nothing, when my son barges in and declares that I have to go ‘zip lining’ with him.

  Technically, ‘zip lining’ is riding a wire that is tied between two distant points very high up in the air. You get into a harness, send a prayer up to whatever God you believe in, let go, and hope that you will reach the other end in one piece.

  I put away all thoughts of lazing on the beach, reading a new book about spaceships and aliens on my iPad, and decide to give Mother India some stiff competition in sacrificing my needs before the needs of my offspring.

  Sweating in the blistering heat and sitting in a boat for forty minutes, we finally reach the island where we are supposed to participate in this strange sport. I am ready in my harness and, as I start, I realize that this is not just plain zip lining that I have been cornered into doing—it’s zip lining with an aerial obstacle course.

  The next hour passes with me crawling through nets, trying to walk on a balance beam and doing splits to go from one moving step to another; all the while trying not to look down because I am 40 feet above the ground.

  Every muscle in my body is sore. I hurt my wrist last week and all this climbing and crawling is really causing it to flare up. All I want to do is give up, when my son, who is merrily crossing each hurdle, calls out, ‘Mom, why are you moving so slowly? Are you already tired?’

  I want to yell at him for putting me through this; yell at him for not realizing that I am not eleven like him, or twenty-one or even thirty-one any more.

  I don’t say a word because children are always learning from us. They don’t pay attention to most of the stuff we say, but are always watching what we do. Do I really want him to see that when life gets even remotely challenging, one must complain, crib and quit? I strengthen my resolve, plaster a cheerful smile and finish the obstacle course.

  The ordeal is over and when I am finally climbing down the exit ladder, I realize that I am exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. I feel truly alive because I have been living in the moment, hurdle to hurdle, with no time or energy to think about anything else.

  We grown-ups always try to take the easy way out, the laziest way. We seem to have a great fear of getting tired, as if any energy depleted is lost forever. We want to plan our fatigue the same way we plan everything else. Most of us barely move till we have that one hour in the gym that we have decided we should expend physical energy on. And there, too, we time ourselves, count the precise repetitions we need to do, adjust our speed to what the heart-rate monitor indicates we sh
ould move at and go on practising our robotic routines day in and day out.

  I wish we lived like children. Run till you are out of breath, flop on the grass, stare at clouds, jump up again, chase a squirrel around every tree in the park, walk on your hands because the world looks different upside down, climb little hills and roll down the other side, do somersaults . . . just because you can.

  What do we do instead? We surround ourselves with all these big and small blinking screens, while our bodies and minds slowly forget how to tumble, how to wonder, how to live.

  K: Karan Johar Celebrates Karva Chauth

  6 p.m.: Am I curled up on my couch reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? Am I getting ready for an infamous Bollywood party or am I sitting in a salwar kameez getting henna applied on my palms in preparation for tomorrow’s torturous fast? No prizes for guessing this one. I am one of the many fortunate women who get to stay hungry and thirsty all day in order to magically lengthen my other half’s life.

  In ancient times, I can appreciate why one would enthusiastically undertake such a task—if you know that as soon as your other half pops it, someone is going to make you jump into a large, blazing fire and commit sati. I can completely understand the motivation to try any means to prolong your husband’s lifespan, but today, when the unfortunate circumstance of your spouse’s demise merely frees you up to place ads in the matrimonial column, go on online dating sites and feverishly attend bar nights, the zeal for such taxing endeavours seems a bit extreme . . .

  5 a.m.: If there is a God, He hates me. I can’t think of any other reason why I am stumbling around the house at this unearthly hour normally reserved for owls, bats and the man of the house.

  5.30 a.m.: My mother-in-law has sent me a big basket of fruits and sweets which I must eat before sunrise so that I can starve the entire day, thereby triggering a mystical spell (known only to Indians and NRI fans of Karan Johar movies) that will enable her beloved son to live a long life. I have tried to protest that the newspaper states sunrise is at 6.31 a.m., so I could technically wake up at 6.15 a.m. and gulp some food before the crucial moment the above-mentioned spell loses power, but to no avail.

  When I further point out that the pet tortoise in our garden is definitely going to outlive all of us and I don’t see anyone fasting for him, I get a withering look from her and a sharp nudge in the ribs from the man of the house.

  10 a.m.: I gulp my saliva since that is the only liquid I am allowed to consume, and call a fellow member of the Karva Chauth Torture Club who goes on to tell me how lucky I am because she has to follow stricter rules than me. She is not allowed to wash her hair on Karva Chauth. She chuckles that even if a crow shits on her head today, she will still have to walk around with it because all her mother-in-law will tell her is that it is inauspicious to wet her hair today, but will not find it inauspicious to have a daughter-in-law who smells of crap.

  11 a.m.: I need water . . .

  1 p.m.: I need coffee . . .

  3 p.m.: I need water, coffee and a large Scotch on the rocks . . .

  4 p.m.: I know that all our Indian customs are based on scientific research by ancient minds where they spent decades examining and experimenting before they came up with specific rituals to ensure our well-being; so I do my own scientific research (which takes me a little less than five minutes, via Google) and the results are unmistakable. The United Nations research states that men with the longest life expectancy are from Japan, followed by Switzerland. I am rather surprised at this result as since time immemorial we have been doing the Karva Chauth fast to make sure our men have long lives, and the results should have definitely shown by now.

  I scan the list, confident that in this chart of life expectancy, the Indian man must definitely be in the top 5. Nope! There are 146 countries above us where the men have longer lifespans, and the biggest blow is that even with four wives who don’t fast for them, the Arab men outlive our good old Indian dudes.

  6 p.m.: We Indians are a strange race; we send MOM to Mars, but listen to mom-in-law and look for the moon. One of the better qualities we possess is that most of us will follow traditions and rituals as long as they do not demean or harm us, or cause us to do the same to another, while making our elders happy. We simply do it rather than prove a point as to how liberated and independent we truly are. Perhaps, this is how we harmoniously hold our large families together as we celebrate different aspects of our lives.

  9 p.m.: Dressed in our finery, we gather on a friend’s terrace to look for the moon. As banal as I find most rituals, I am still swept away by the moment. A dark night, five good friends, sparkling with our bindis, zardozi and red outfits. We are giggling and taking pictures. Suddenly, someone spots the hazy orange outline of the moon, and we are now dragging out our men, laughing as we borrow things from each other’s plates, a strainer, a coconut barfi, a flower, laughing as we borrow things from our past . . .

  L: Love is Imperfectly Perfect

  6.30 a.m.: I am trying to wake our son up and he moans that he isn’t feeling well, and doesn’t want to go to school. I yank his blanket off and then realize that he is shivering.

  I need to take his temperature, and after rummaging through various first-aid kits that we keep in the house, I find three thermometers. One doesn’t beep even if you keep it in your mouth for twenty minutes, the second has so many buttons that you may need to get in touch with the call centre for technical help, and the third one shows the temperature, but only in Celsius. My capacity for mentally converting this into our good old Indian Fahrenheit is severely limited. Hmm . . . Internet to the rescue.

  10 a.m.: I finally get hold of the doctor on the phone and he says that it is probably some viral bug, and prescribes a few medicines.

  10.30 a.m.: We are now tucked into my bed and the son decides he doesn’t ‘do’ medicines and will let his body heal naturally. I can sense the influence of a certain well-built gentleman who drinks yucky vegetable juices and also doesn’t ‘do’ medicines.

  11 a.m.: I have decided to stay home today so that I can keep an eye on our son, cuddle up with him and watch horror movies. We start with The Ring.

  11.03 a.m.: The first scary bit comes on and our son screams. Movie frantically paused. My horror movie plan has been declared a big flop, and the man of the house has fired me (after our self-righteous son called him up and gleefully informed him of the above proceedings), saying I am frying our son’s brains further by showing him ghosts and blood.

  3 p.m.: I have now bought a Vicks thermometer (no, I am not their brand ambassador or any such thing). It is the fastest, most amazing device, and thankfully gives the temperature in useful Fahrenheit. I love it so much that I feel like carrying it in my bag and randomly taking people’s temperatures with it. Well, for now, I make myself happy by just taking mine.

  8 p.m.: The man of the house is home and is very grumpy because he feels there isn’t enough food (enough food for whom? An army? Ludhiana? Thirty-eight hungry boy scouts?). Punjabis are very fussy about their food. If there are only four dishes on the table, then they either feel: a) Very humiliated or b) Miss their mother. I am not yet sure which one is worse.

  1.30 a.m.: Our son wakes up saying he is feeling very cold and can I turn the AC down. As I am fumbling in my sleep with the remote, the man of the house shouts that our son is burning up.

  Temperature quickly checked with the amazing thermometer and it shows 104 degrees. I throw Calpol down his throat, and the man of the house decides to sponge him with cold water.

  I keep insisting that he leave it to me as he has an early shoot tomorrow, but he doesn’t stop, tells me to go to sleep, and continues the cold compress.

  As my eyes are shutting, I think about the word ‘love’. It is multilayered, convoluted and as imperfect as all human emotions. It is not your heart beating fast when you look at him (I even knew a girl who would throw up each time she saw her beloved) or constantly wanting to be with the other person. Love in any relationship,
family or an intimate friendship, is only about putting the other person’s needs ahead of your own, and that, my friend, is just as simple and as complex as you make it.

  M: Masked Bandit on the Prowl

  Saturday

  4 a.m.: I am wide awake and it’s not because of the sonorous snores of the man of the house, but because I am in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. In precisely three hours, I have to magically transform from a middle-aged, vaguely stylish woman, to an ageless goddess.

  6.15 a.m.: Standing in front of our hallway mirror, I am practising a few poses, one leg artfully bent, the opposite shoulder up, when the man of the house strides in and decides to share: a) I look like I have dislocated my shoulder; and b) Has anyone ever told me I strongly resemble Tom Cruise? I am not sure at this point if he is trying to say that I look like a short man or just stating that I have major movie-star-like charisma, so I silently let it pass.

  10 a.m.: I am ready with make-up and not a hair out of place at the photo shoot for a fashion magazine in a shiny pink dress with massive pearls all around the hem. It’s a stunning outfit, but every time I want to sit, these pearls dig into my bottom. I resolve to remain standing till the next outfit change . . . before these pearls have a chance to follow the famous Star Trek slogan ‘to boldly go where no man has gone before’. Yikes!

  11 a.m.: My baby is here. I rush to hug her before I go for my next shot where I am leaning on a fairy-tale dwarf, and this particular dwarf is insisting on talking to me in Marathi, which I really can’t understand. I wonder if Snow White had similar communication problems with her bunch of men. 11.45 a.m.: Glittering in an all-gold Pucci dress and boiling in Maharashtra’s scorching sun, I am perched on a carriage. My body, of its own accord, dredges up some rusty skills, and soon I am pouting and preening like this is my daily job.