1.30 p.m.: The next change is a black Cavalli dress with a plunging neckline. As I tug it over my head, I realize there is no way I can wear anything inside.
1.40 p.m.: I am now walking to my next location and the only thing keeping my breasts in place is hope!
2.30 p.m.: The shoot has come to an end and I have finally figured out why 90 per cent of women on the red carpet (and in magazines) pose like a teapot, with their hands on their waist—it makes you look a lot thinner.
As I make a mental note to go everywhere with my hands perched on my midsection, I begin to wonder will I truly look wonderfully lean or will I be giving people the idea that I have a bad stomach ache?
7.15 p.m.: I want to do something simple tonight, and when our son suggests that we go to the cinema with the family, I am more than happy.
8.30 p.m.: I walk out of the house having hurriedly thrown on my blue worn-out kurta; am carrying a bright yellow bag (which clashes terribly but I am too lazy to change it) and not a slick of make-up.
8.45 p.m.: Hmm . . . The kids are eating Bavarian chocolate ice cream, and tired of being deprived, I, too, have one. My niece is eating a chicken burger, so I have one, and the man of the house orders some bhel, so I have some too.
This is almost more food than I have consumed in the last two weeks, but I think sometimes you have to eat till you burst, the same way that you need to laugh till tears roll down your face.
10.30 p.m.: The movie is over and all I want to do is fall on my bed and hope I am able to digest a quarter of what I have eaten. The man of the house walks me to the elevator and then suddenly decides that he would rather run down the five floors. I can’t seem to see the rest of the family, so I take the lift down humming some tuneless song. I walk out to the car only to almost fall down as a dozen flashbulbs go off in my face.
For anyone who has ever thought that these encounters with the paparazzi are pre-planned, kindly use some common sense. We have some sort of vanity as well and allowing yourself to be photographed in a state that you would not want to put up on Facebook, let alone be published in national newspapers, would be rather demented.
10.45 p.m.: I reach home only to find the man of the house perched on the sofa, as he had quickly escaped on his bulldozer bodyguard’s bike, leaving me to face the music. I box him on the head, sulk and go to bed.
Sunday
I had promised our son that I would take him to see Lucy, and being a sci-fi fan myself, I am also excited to watch it, though it means a visit to the cinema again, but I have decided that the press is not going to catch me off guard again. I blow-dry my hair, wear a cute top, and a pair of extremely uncomfortable heels. I reach the theatre with my best smile, and wouldn’t you know it, there is not a camera in sight!
Getting rather fed up of not knowing when to be picture-perfect ready or slouch in my trackpants, I have come up with a great plan.
I print out a 12-inch picture of Mr Modi’s face, make two holes on the side, string it, and voila, I am now prepared to go to the cinema. Each time I go to the movies, I will just pull out my homemade Mr Modi mask and simply put it on.
The pros:
1) I do not have to put any make-up on ever again.
2) I will prove that I am a loyal, patriotic Indian citizen.
3) I may become a nationwide trendsetter.
The cons:
1) Terrorists might get confused thinking I am the prime minister and attempt to assassinate me.
2) The government may think it is a great idea and make wearing these masks mandatory.
3) A fairness cream brand may decide to cash in on MY trend and develop an anti-ageing SPF 30 (patent pending) Mr Modi mask that makes your skin lighter with every wear, and not give me a penny.
By the way, if you do go to the movies this week and spot our prime minister, looking remarkably slimmer, casually slipping out of the theatre in a faded blue kurta and a bright yellow bag, don’t get foxed, it’s probably just me.
N: Not Quite a Feminist, So How did I Reach Mars?
Wednesday
7 a.m.: I am in a plane heading to Delhi for an export trade fair. Have you ever been inside a closed space, early in the morning, with people who have apparently eaten chicken makhani and aloo gobi the previous night, have rushed to the airport in the morning and then decided to immerse their fellow passengers in aromatic fumes?
Why does the oxygen mask only come down in emergencies? And if this is not an emergency, then what is?
TO-DO-LIST
1. Get off flight and dry-clean pashmina shawl, yellow T-shirt, J Brand jeans, grey bag, watch, ring and mobile.
2. Shake hair vigorously to loosen out embedded smell before corporate meeting.
3. Write to the government not to waste funds on nuclear warheads, can reroute the same plane to an enemy country. If the government can provide a single matchstick, then the gaseous plane will explode in beautiful flames.
7.15 a.m.: The plane is taxiing and fellow political passenger behind my seat is shouting into his mobile phone, ‘How will the prosperity come in the India? You tell me, yah! Yadav is best in the India and how you put the lime to turn milk into the curd, so we have put him to turn the party.’
7.19 a.m.: The plane has taken off and fellow passenger is still shouting, ‘Arrey, he is not milk-drinking child, wo toh saap hai saap’ (a reptilian mammal—interesting). After a while, silence . . . Either he finally lost signal or someone discreetly stabbed him. Either way, all’s well that ends well.
Thursday
11 a.m.: I am sitting and eating chips at my little candle booth at the trade fair. A working woman’s constant companion is guilt. We are always feeling the burden of periodically neglecting either our children or our work. Today is my son’s parent– teacher meeting and instead of being at school, I have to be here, listening to nonsense like, ‘My real cousin brother is going to foreign,’ ‘What is your good name?’ And ‘I myself Mr Lokesh.’
12.30 p.m.: Three new customers introduce themselves to me, saying, ‘I am Kapil the elder brother’ and ‘I am Sonu the younger brother’, and the third one chirps in, ‘I am Pradeep the medium-sized brother.’ Hmm . . . Nice to know that all good things come in medium size.
I ask them if there are any other brothers, and they sadly say that there was a fourth but in childhood, ‘Wo off ho gaya’ (not quite sure if they were talking about their brother or a light bulb that went off). I commiserate with them and after taking down their orders, I bid them adieu.
During the afternoon lull, I pull out my phone to check my messages. After the parent–teacher meeting yesterday, a whole bunch of moms are having a heated discussion on our class WhatsApp group chat. Suddenly, an irate father comes onto the chat, rants a bit, and then says, ‘Some things may be above the control of the moms, so we should make a father’s group to tackle it.’ There is pindrop silence on the chat. I am sure this poor chap couldn’t possibly mean this the way it sounds. It would be suicidal to say this on a group chat dominated by school moms, because you may find it is totally within these women’s control to wait for you on the school steps, hoist you above their shoulders and throw you in the nearest garbage bin.
3.30 p.m.: Needing a break, I start walking around the trade fair. I pause to look at some goblets and trays displayed at a booth, when the owner comes up to me and says, ‘You also got the same phone, ah? Me too, yaa. Same to same, what’s your sweet name?’
Restraining myself from violently throwing up on him, I smile and say, ‘My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.’
Let him go figure that one out.
4.18 p.m.: Sign on the next booth says, ‘Entry from backside only!’ I think I will just skip this one and return to my candle booth.
Friday
My Noida trip has come to an end, and armed with a few large orders and having learnt new phrases like, ‘If you can do, do, if cannot, then admit yourself’, I decide to get home quickly before I need to admit myself to a mental asylum.
Saturday
My gynaecologist has asked me to attend a conference on women’s empowerment at the Ambani hospital. This is the same man who has pulled two children out of me and can confidently say that he literally knows me inside out. I often make (not very funny) jokes that his idea of foreplay is perhaps tapping his wife on the head, as that is the one bit he must not be seeing the entire day.
My name is called out and I get onto the stage; my heart is beating fast and my legs are a bit shaky, but speak I must, so this is what I say.
‘Our little satellite reached Mars because it was called MOM. If it was called DAD, it would still be circling the Earth, lost, but not willing to ask for directions.
‘In order to empower women, we need three things: education, employment and a change in the way men perceive women.
‘How do we change this deeply ingrained perception? We are mothers. We are the ones raising an entire new generation. We shape their values and attitudes. We need to teach them right from the beginning that both genders are different, but our value is the same. If we want to empower women, we need to be empowered mothers so that we can lead the next generation of men and women into a life of true equality.’
That evening, I ask the man of the house, ‘So do you think we are equals or am I weaker in any way?’ He laughs, ‘Of course, you are weaker!’ And trying to imitate me, in a ridiculous falsetto voice, continues, ‘Baby, push this coffee table, na, I can’t move it.’
I mutter under my breath that I wasn’t talking about physical strength, punch him on the arm and go off to see what’s made for dinner, check on our son’s homework and send two emails, while the man of the house keeps circling around the television and the couch.
O: Oh No! I am Under Arrest!
The man of the house is the showstopper at a fashion show for a denim brand and is also the star of their advertising campaign called Unbutton.
I go along to see the show and am sitting in the front row. The show starts and in the bright glare of a single spotlight the Mister walks down the ramp, stands in front of me and tells me to open the top button of his jeans—all this as part of the advertising gimmick.
I am horrified and keep shaking my head, but he takes my hands up to his waist and I quickly open a single top button in the manner of a harried mother opening her toddler’s pants.
The next morning my husband is getting awarded the Padma Shri, one of the highest awards given to civilians in India. We are at the award ceremony and I am grinning, posing in a group picture with the President of India when my phone pings, and I see a message from my mom: ‘The police are looking for you, some crazy activist has filed a case and now they want to arrest you for indecent behaviour.’ Arghh! How can this happen to me? If nothing else, can’t they wait till I finish taking a selfie with the President?
Two days later, I am sitting at the police station where they are taking my fingerprints and asking me if I have any identifying scars. Yes, identifying scars! Like I get into regular knife fights and get grazed by bullets.
They won’t arrest scores of men who publicly unbutton, unzip, pull out their dangly bits and proceed to urinate on a wall right outside the police station, but for reasons still unknown to me, opening a single top button has become the crime of the century.
In order to finally come home to my kids, I pay a bail amount of Rs 500 and have my mug shot framed on the wall of Juhu police station right beside other notorious people like Moti Munni (who runs an escort service) and Mallika Sherawat who does not.
Final tally of this little adventure?
The man of the house has a big fat cheque from the denim company and he also has the Padma Shri, while I have the privilege of carving out my place in the history books by taking part in an obscene crime. Blimey!
P: Please don’t Let Go
10 a.m.: I’m enjoying Sunday breakfast with the whole family. My in-laws always put enough food on the table to feed half of Amritsar. We’re digging into aloo parathas with home-made ghee, and as I am despairing at the horrific number of calories being consumed, the phone rings and we get some terrible news. A family friend has lost her young son. The young man, in his early twenties, went to America to attend a friend’s wedding, left a suicide note on Facebook and killed himself before anyone could reach him.
I cannot even begin to imagine what his mother is going through. There is no pain greater than losing a child. From the time they are in your stomach; from hearing their heartbeats on the sonogram and counting kicks in your last trimester—you begin your journey of worry. You worry about their health, their education, their career, their spouses, their children. Worrying, but not really believing that one unlucky day your greatest fear may actually come true.
You lose a child to an accident or an illness, and with a broken heart, you console yourself that you did your best, it’s perhaps God’s will, he has gone to a better place; but when your child decides that the life he has been given, the life where everything he knows is what you have taught him, is not worth living, how do you live with that? How do you stop blaming yourself? How do you go on?
JODHPUR: A girl studying in the ninth grade hanged herself from a fan after being regularly teased by a boy at school.
BANGALORE: Two teenagers committed suicide by jumping into a water tank after being fired by their teacher for their poor academic performance.
MUMBAI: A fourteen-year-old girl hanged herself because she was harassed by her neighbour.
CHANDIGARH: A twenty-one-year-old student jumped to her death from the sixth floor of her hostel, leaving a note that included wishing her sisters success in every field.
KOLKATA: Two teenage girls committed suicide in a village near Kolkata, disillusioned about their future as a same-sex couple.
We teach our children to study hard, to strive to succeed, but do we teach them that it’s okay to fail? That life is about accepting yourself? That there is no stigma in seeking help? Our Indian culture is based on worshipping our parents. We grow up listening to words like ‘respect’, ‘obedience’ and ‘tradition’. Can we not add the words ‘communication’, ‘unconditional love’ and ‘support’ to this list?
I look at the WHO research. The highest rate of suicide in India is among the age group of fifteen to twenty-nine. Do we even talk to our teens about this?
2 p.m.: We normally spend our Sundays by the poolside or going to the cinema, but today we just get a few groceries and spend time quietly in our kitchen, putting a small meal together.
6.30 p.m.: I am standing in the balcony, sipping some coffee and looking at the sunset. The children have taken the dogs and gone down to play on the beach. I spot my son. He is standing on the sand, right at the edge of the ocean, flying a blue kite.
The kite goes high and then swings low till it almost seems to fall into the water, and all I want to say to him is that soon he will see that life is just like flying a kite. Sometimes you have to leave it loose, sometimes you have to hold on tight, sometimes your kite will fly effortlessly, sometimes you will not be able to control it, but even when you are struggling to keep it afloat and the string is cutting into your fingers, don’t let go.
The wind will change in your favour once again, my son. Just don’t let go . . .
Q: Quarter of a Century Ago
1990
8.30 a.m.: Goa. The minute you land, you feel free. It’s the wonderful bracing air, and with all the leftover wafts of weed in circulation, a sense of well-being is pretty much guaranteed I reckon.
1 p.m.: We are at this little café called Orange Boom. I am stuffing my mouth with avocado– mushroom toast, and sprawled beside me are my dear friend (who we shall call Miss D) and the four boys that form our group.
Isn’t it strange that there will always be one moment you will recall when someone asks you when were you the happiest? For me, it has always been this day. Somewhere this tiny, seemingly unimportant day wedged itself so firmly into my heart that decades later, I will find mys
elf bringing the man of the house and my children to this café again and again.
I will buy a blue house just around the corner and I will get a yellow scooter of my own, almost identical to the one I am just about learning to ride now.
But at this point, I don’t know any of this and the only thing on my mind is learning to ride this bloody scooter. Relying on the boys for rides to parties is a risky proposition. We always want to leave early and they sometimes want to stay back till the sun comes up and sets all over again.
2.30 p.m.: The boys have gone ahead and we have taken a tiny detour to pick up our beach essentials before joining them. Zipping along on my yellow scooter with Miss D sitting behind me, I suddenly realize that my silver ring is slipping out of my finger. I look down to quickly push it back on and my scooty hits a pothole, and Miss D and me are now flying through the air, only to land in a straw-filled ditch on the side of the road.
2.35 p.m.: We are hanging out in a ditch at the side of the road, strangely in the same position as we were sitting on the scooter, though the bike is bent in a weird way. We enlist the help of passing ravers and druggies (very kind people when they are not going through any manic withdrawal symptoms) to get us out of our shallow hole and set us on our way.
3.35 p.m.: We have finally reached the beach shack. Our friends are looking suspiciously at us and the first question is, ‘Did you fall somewhere?’ We firmly deny such outrageous accusations; then they say, ‘Why is there straw in your hair? And the scooter also looks crooked.’ They finally buy all our denials and leave us alone. We are now surreptitiously putting cold beer cans on our bruises and only limping when the boys are preoccupied with the volleyball-playing bikini-clad bombshells on the beach.
Mrs Funnybones: She's just like You and a lot like Me Page 5