…talking to Ruskin Bond.
In this fortnight’s People (India) magazine.
Good people of the blog, my life’s journey is d.o.n.e.
Okay, so you get the drift.
Wait!
And oh,
There.
So if this is true, I have five days left to enjoy the peak of my beauty.
Oh well. Good thing I’m not vain, remember?
Ladies, at what age did you feel most attractive?
Time has done nothing to heal this wound. I still come perilously close to tears each time I pick at the scab that has barely formed. What did help, though, was putting myself to use. And it was only as I spoke about it at a couple of media interviews this past week that I realized how blessed I am to have found this route to sanity. With me in this journey have been 39 wonderful people in 5 countries around the world. For our stories, head to the India Helps blog where some of us will write about the year that was, beginning today all the way up to the India Helps anniversary on December 3. Wish us luck in the times ahead. Join us, because we need you. Tell your friends to spread word of our movement. And before you go, answer this: Whom Have You Helped Today?
a.k.a. The One in Which Isabgol is a Silent Sponsor
***
Yes, yes, it’s all my fault. A violent downpour and rush hour traffic delayed our cello concert plans and we ended up at Inox with an evening ahead of us. Our choices were New York and Kambakkht (that’s all it deserves to be called, nothing remotely lovable about it) and voicing my concerns at already having lived through 9/11 America, I whined my way into getting tickets for the latter. (It also helped that the Boy had forgotten his wallet at home, so I maturely used the opportunity to wave my meagre money in his face.)
Now there’s garish, no-excuses, Jeetendra-Sridevi-and-pots-on-the-beach ‘80s Hindi cinema and then there’s Kambakkht Ishq. A script, as the Boy mentioned, scribbled on a shred of toilet paper, gyrating numbers that blasted out of seemingly nowhere, an absence of Govinda to justify the mindlessness, squirm-inducing attempts at slapstick, ugly as sin non-actors, wince-worthy sidekicks and the whoring of two wrinkly, past-their-prime Hollywood stars made this flick that passed off Cannes as Los Angeles the Convention of Extreme Designer Exhibitionism and nothing more.
Not even the usually watchable Kirron Kher, completely wasted in this celluloid tsunami, could save it from stinking like rotten eggs. Akshay Kumar hammed through the torturous two hours and thirty seven minutes like a beast on a leash, something I’d throw a couple doggy biscuits at before getting safely out of the way. That the Kapoor girl left a watch inside his belly and not one of her fake lashes or acrylic nails is a minor miracle in itself. (The major one, of course, being that she lives to make another movie.) Kahkashan Whatsherface Patel’s saving grace was that she sports a nose more bulbous than mine, and somebody rescue Javed Jaffrey from himself, please. Repeated exposure to his schizophrenic behavior makes us gloss over the fact that this man needs help. Really and truly. I don’t have degrees in Psychology for nothing. [An aside: I have a theory that someone made off with the original script, where all the characters were to be herded into a hospital room and gassed into lifelong coma. Now that would be off-the-charts reality filmmaking with a happy ending.]
Watching through fingers fanned across a mortified face, pinned against my seat by roaring sound waves, bleating apologies every third minute to the grim, angry man to my left, and almost making history as the first woman to be divorced before she was married did not make for fun viewing. I want my money and Thursday evening back. And told-you-sayers can just take a long hike. In those 8-foot heels ripped off the matchstick draped in Dior. Now cross your fingers that the Boy doesn’t read this post. The tiniest of reminders may just hurtle me toward history.
Done.
Not quite. We’ve only just begun.
It was particularly exciting for me because this was my first time voting for a Lok Sabha election. I’d always been either out of the country or underage so far. (The polling booth ladies got their laughs when I unthinkingly said, “Mera bhai chaar sau bees hai”, but really, I was just referring to his voter registration number.)
Now to await the results and a government that we may need to flog into appropriate action.
And wait, I’m still not done. Today, I doff my hat to a gentleman who stood under the noonday sun, quietly, patiently, his body drained after 4 hours of being dialysed, just so he could do the very least as a citizen of this country. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my Daddy strongest.
An excerpt from an email I wrote to my friend Anu about the forthcoming polls:
I will be completely honest: gender was not a consideration for me when I picked my candidate, although I did feel glad to see two well-heeled candidates from corporate India joining the fray. If I do vote for either of them, though, it will be on the basis of what they can do for my constituency, not because they’re women.
I am disappointed that nobody has expressly addressed any gender concerns*, but again, in my South Bombay constituency with relatively high levels of education and income, the focus is on infrastructure and safety from terrorism, so I’m not entirely surprised.
The one party I would absolutely not vote for is the BJP because I believe their Hindutva ideology is regressive to the point of slotting women in historically repressive domestic roles and they’ve taken the country back to the dark ages, with their heinous crimes and divisive rhetoric.
Maybe it’s the community I belong to (Parsi) or the ideology I grew up with (secularism and tolerance for minorities), but I’m usually a Congress loyalist. Not because they’re fabulous, but because they were, until recently, the least evil of the lot. Now with more independent candidates joining the fray, I can’t believe our good fortune that we have, for probably the first time, a choice between 3 halfway-decent non-criminal candidates. Now if only one of them would get elected, I’d die happy.
*It may very well be that South Bombay files the maximum number of rape cases, given overall higher levels of education and awareness. Numbers may be telling only half a story in this case.
Updated to add: In case you were wondering about the liberal sprinkling of ‘I’s above, I was expressly asked to give my perspective on several election-related issues. But now that I’ve noticed, I’m cringing anyway.
I haven’t mentioned 26/11 on this page for several months now. Not because the event and its aftermath have faded from memory. Far from it. But because I have intentionally wanted this blog to remain silent so this one could speak on my behalf.
In the months since those unforgettable nights, the India Helps team has been working silently, doggedly and unwaveringly on causes and projects it has adopted. But unless you’re a regular follower of the blog or a marathon reader who prefers to read 4 months’ posts at a go, chances are you’ll prefer our other page.
As an IH team member who does little other than be voluble and stuff her face at every meeting, I am so proud to present our website:
Do pop over and see what we’re about. Acquaint yourself with our causes. Offer support if you will. Or just tell us how drop dead gorgeous we all are. But hop over, dammit. I do the loudspeakering for the team and I’ll be fired if you don’t head there right NOW.
Are you there yet?
Good girl/boy.
What?! One can’t have too many day jobs in these recessionary times.
Credits: OJ and her new Panasonic Lumix LS 80. Taken in completely natural lighting.
She pressed crimson lips to an inner page, scribbled a message that held much meaning, smiled mysteriously and then it was mine.
To assert that Witchcraft weaves a spell is to state the obvious. But to denude oneself to the obvious, offer one’s vulnerability on a platter as the words tunnel through your onetime resilient spirit, to let them screech into the cubby holes of your gut and torch craters the size of coffee mugs takes a brave reader, one who is amply rewarded by Sharanya Manivannan’s book of magical verbal imagery.
Maybe it was the time, maybe it was the place, maybe it was the situation I chose to be in: a lone woman seeking anonymity and solitude in a seaside town by the blue Bengal bay. Watching waves and people and bougainvillea nuzzling whitewashed villas, happy to be the outsider in a world content without her. It was a day of soul-searching, of excruciating subtleties, of the drama of frothing, unstoppable words. Of walks and self-hugs and avoiding curious passer-by eyes. Of honesty, wildness and liberation. Of knowing it would end and that madness has its price, but trading in sanity for freedom for just one precious day is sometimes infinitely worth it.
Witchcraft is devourable. It may hollow out your heart and hold up a mirror to the real you, but if you survive its brutally enchanting onslaught, you may perhaps have really lived.
A spot-on e-poster from the Pink Chaddi Campaign. And you thought they were done?
Spread the word, put it up on your web space, get more posters here. It’s a crying shame we need to fight for tolerance, but if that’s how we get to live lives of our choosing, individually and collectively, then so be it.
a.k.a. In New Mexico, They Call It A Quickie With A Chickie
…after it’s gracious gesture, how can I not respond with a humble gift of words?
Happy Valentine’s Day, good people of the blog. Spread the luuhhvin’.
********
She took great pains to choose the skirt. Artsy, with careless strokes of sunflowers right above the knee. She ironed it crisply, laid it out on the bed with attentive care, and held her breath as she slipped it on straight. Sitting primly in the car, she didn’t budge an inch for fear of a lone crinkle. It worked. The sunflowers arrived at their destination as fresh as daisies.
“Boy, that was good, wasn’t it?” he said afterward, as they lay on their backs, reclaiming their breath. With damp, crushed, yellow petals strewn around her thighs, she nodded ever so imperceptibly.
*******
(Link via Piper.)
Also, check out (1) Anindita Sengupta’s response to Sagarika Ghose’s HT editorial , (2) Ammu Joseph in the Bangalore Mirror.
Ultra Violet
Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas 
Vox populi