More Rants

Dear God,

I know that assholes with their perfect lives, perfect jobs, perfect babies, perfect Saturday night romances, perfect fucking everything were not enough. I know that them blabbering on with their "Life without marriage is so pointless" unsolicitated advice on my precious Saturday night is not enough. I know that living in a fake city with fake people with fake fucking everything is not enough. I know that hating my life as much as I already do is not fucking enough.

But did you have to pile on like this? You could at least have given me a day's notice or something. That IS the protocol, right? I thought I deserved at least the Sunday off.

Sincerely,
Too fucking angry for words.

Sunday Morning Blues

*Rant Alert* Run for your life!

I hate people here, their façades, their I-have-the-upper-hand styles, their attitudes, their fake sympathies, their hidden glee at your misery, their thoughts, their morals, I hate everything about them. With a vengeance. They are so.....so....so.... Aaaaarrgghh!!!!

And I hate myself for letting them affect me.  These fucking hypocritical flaky condescending assholes.They have got nothing but their fake-ness running for them and that will eventually come to an end. So, why should I be bothered or harassed? But God help me, I am.

How the fuck do you have the uncanny ability to take something I said and twist it around to either make it sound like you came up with this brilliant shit just now on the spot or make it sound like you have never heard of anything crappier than that in your entire fucking rosy life? To look me up and down whenever I am wearing something pretty as if it's the worst outfit you have ever seen but then you *obviously* expected it from me? To explain the smallest of the things to me loudly in public as if I am a fucking retard? To advise me about my life as if I am totally and completely incapable of handling it by my own self? To make me look like an idiot in front of my boyfriend? To be have to be the fucking better one every fucking time? To be the bitter fucking medicine coated with fake sugar? Why the fuck can you not get out of my life? Why the fuck can't I kick you out of my life?

That's it. I hereby make a resolution today to not talk to any fucking one for at least the next two weeks. Do my job, sulk in my room, watch fucking TV and stupid films, sleep, read, eat, write. ALONE. Everything alone. No phone, socializing, no fucking thing. I don't want anybody. I don't need anybody. I just want to be left alone. Forever. Especially by some people I hate. Still with a vengeance.

Get out, get out, get the fuck out of my life! I hope I never have to see all these monsters ever in my life again when I come back from my two week isolation stint. 

Leech

Leech

–noun  
 Any bloodsucking or carnivorous aquatic or terrestrial worm of the Hirudinea class; parasite thriving on other's resources without giving anything in return and exhausting them.


*Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/leech

Tantrum

I. WANT. TO. GO. TO. JAIPUR. LITERATURE. FESTIVAL.

My parents are making me go to a pilgrim place in Gujrat with the whole family (40 very religious 50 year olds and about 5 20-somethings) next week, which is why I can't go to Jaipur the week after that. (Argh! times 1000)

And this year Candace Bushnell (for all you ignorant people who don't know who she is, she is the author of Sex and the City) is going to be there as well! It's research, guys!

And my dad used the worst possible arguments ever for this: 1) Lit fests keep happening. You will get another chance for something like this. 2) When will you ever get a chance to go to a pilgrim specially organised by one of my uncles for the whole family? This after he knows that I am not very religious.

I could only stare open-mouthed at him.  So, I won't ever get a chance to go to a pilgrim place in Gujrat with my family but I will somehow get a chance to listen to and interact with a 52-year old American author, who is one of the greatest pioneers of the chick-lit genre in popular culture at a lit fest.

Awesome.

Too idealistic......Do I ask for too much?

My dad told me last night that I shouldn't get married. Sounds like FINALLY my parents have realised that it's ok to not get married and have kids before you can blink, right?!! But no, what he meant was, I shouldn't get married. Ever. Because I'm too idealistic. I ask for too much. A marriage is all about compromise and I won't be able to do that. Thus making both, myself and my partner unhappy. So, I shouldn't get married at all.

Wtf?

The whole discussion began from where, you know? From my PhD topic. Can you believe it?!! I was telling them about how I want to do post-feminism and popular fiction etc. And my dad said that he thinks all the feminist type people are a bit too much. I totally lost it and of course, I retaliated. *rant alert* Of course they are a bit too much. They have to be. Because of people like you. And people who think like you. If and when I marry someone, I intend to always be treated as an equal. Does that mean I'm asking for too much from my partner?

I will not dissolve my entire personality and go to live in his house, with his parents and adapt to their way of life. He doesn't have to do that. Why should I? I want to set up my own household, where both of us will together make new rules. [To my dad: Us making new rules WILL involve making compromises for me as well as him. So, I'm not scared of compromising or adjusting. I just have a problem with it if I'll be the only one doing it or I'll be the one changing 75-80% of my way of life while he only has to make some extra room in his drawers. That is what I mean by equality.]  I will expect my partner to share the household responsibilities. And mind you, I don't mean that he'll "help" me in household work. Because you help someone in THEIR work. If he lives in the house, it's his house as well. So, it's his duty as well to cook and clean. So, it's not "helping" me. It's doing his own fucking duty. If both of us work. If both of us earn money and stay out of the house to work, why would it be only me who cooks and cleans? My dad said: Relationships are not contracts. No, but they come quite close to being like contracts. I'm not going to make my partner sign an agreement about how he should cook on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and clean on the rest of the days or anything. But, if he expects me to do all the things all the time, he'll probably stop getting food until he realises I'm not the type. (Though, of course, these things will be pretty clear even before that stage comes. So, there'd be no question of that.) My dad totally told me off for thinking this way because things are not like that anymore. Doesn't he work and "help" mum in her household work? Of course he does. He makes tea for all of us and puts away the utensils and stuff. But, there are many times when we have a lot of relatives over at our place. And almost everyone knows how Indian system works. Guests are treated like royalty. So, they won't do anything. But, in out family, ALWAYS, all my aunts and female cousins will gather in the kitchen and start doing stuff along with my mum while the men all sit out and chat. So, the women will make food, serve the men first, then eat and then, clean the whole fucking thing up. While men sit, chat and eat. Why? What have the men done so much that they need to be treated like that? Have they just come back from ploughing 15 acres of farmland? Or from cutting down logs and logs of wood? Or have they all just had some kind of an accident? No. That's just how things work. And, my dad will never touch a thing in such situations. Because then, his (and my mum's) "reputation" will be ruined in front of all the family members and they'll gossip for years and years to come, all implicating that my mum is a bad, bad influence on my dad and she has totally wrapped him around her little finger. Coz you know, that's what women can do. Either be Virgin Marys or be the evil Komolikas. No grey shades allowed for them at all. And, believe it or not, this is 21st century Mumbai!

How can the "feminist types" not be too much? They have to be if they want to assert their individuality! But the moment they want to do that, they are told that they are too inflexible. They can't compromise and so, shouldn't get married at all! How about this father? I like my romance and sex. So, if I don't get married, I'll not just get it like I do now, but also flaunt it (because I don't like having a secret life that I have to hide from you to save your emotions and your precious "reputation"). Suits me. You tell me if it's alright with you.

When you watch THE worst play ever, you torture your blog-readers with its details

I watched the world's worst play EVER yesterday. A Gujarati play called "Ek Aham ni Rani" (An Arrogant Queen.) I often watch Gujarati plays with my family on Sundays. Gujarati theatre is a very good place to be, actually. It's doing really great, with good actors, directors and ideas generally. But, then, once in a while, you get such shit, you want to stop watching Gujarati theatre altogether!

Anyway, Ek Aham ni Rani is directed by Latesh Shah and the lead character is a very famous Gujarati actress, Sujata Mehta. Yesterday was actually it's premier show. Now,  Latesh Shah is actually this person who has built a whole company based on various spiritual things. He has taken teachings and precepts from all sorts of things, like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Osho, Yoga, Meditation, Hindu philosophy, Jainism etc and built his own "positive thinking" and "power of love" kind of spiritual khichdi. And this play can be best described as an advertisement of his stuff. Yea, I know!!

Ok, I need bullet marks from here onwards.

• The show was supposed to start at 8:30 pm and started at 9:45 pm. The excuse: Obama and traffic in the city. Answer: organisation and good planning.
• Since they were late, they tried to do things quickly coz the hall has to be emptied by midnight. And, they said dialogues so fast that I could only understand half of them.
• Also, since they were running late, they left a few loose ends without tying them up and I don't think they were supposed to be left that way.
• There was one dialogue in there, for which I hate the play with all my heart and soul: "Of course a woman should aim high and fulfil all her aspirations. But she should never forget that she is also a house wife. The home and all its relationships have to be held together by the woman of the house." If thoughts could kill, the dialogue writer and the director would have been dead about 138 times by now. 
• Latesh Shah probably tried to experiment with the character of Sutradhar (narrator) but it was one of the worst sutradhars I've ever seen. He himself played that character and kept saying things like, "If you think positive, everything positive will happen. You can't decide in your head what is going to happen. You have to take that risk." or "You should praise people. You know, if you praise people, they will be pleased and they will work harder for you. Show appreciation and you will lead a peaceful life, both at work and at home." Thank you very much, Mr. Shah but if I wanted to know this kind of stuff, I'll go and buy a Robin Sharma type self-help book. When I come to watch a play, I want entertainment. 
• There is a teenage daughter, who started "drinking, smoking, doing drugs and finally, tried to commit suicide" to escape the realities at home because her mother was so busy with all the work, she could never give her any time. May I point out that the father was a real estate broker who used to work from home? Is he not equally guilty of the girl feeling the need to resort to intoxication because the atmosphere at home is so volatile? 
• The acting was mediocre at best. The lead character often messed up the pronunciation of words while trying to say things. And the English of the characters! "Make sure that both of them doesn't get away with cheating on my company." "What a confidence!" 

I will stop now. I don't want to think about it more and give myself a headache. Or lose my readers. I hate self-help books and I would have gladly read one instead of watching this play. That, I think, speaks volumes about it. If this play ever comes to your city or if you ever think of watching it, be warned, it's going to make you want to throw up. I want my ruined Sunday and my money's worth back. hmph.

The Devil wears a Gujrati Sari

Ufff, all the things you have to do for money! Why is it that money really does make the world go around, however much some people might want to argue with that?? :( I have started working at this restaurant since a month. And I've actually worked only 4 days there. The woman who owns the restaurant never tells me when to come. I call her about 3 times before she tells me when to come next. Moreover, it pays like shit and the working conditions are worse than the pay. But still, I'll work there. Because it pays me SOMETHING. I'll put up with work I'm not particularly fond of, put up with people I'm not particularly fond of and accept money that definitely does NOT do justice to the amount of work there is. Because something is better than nothing.

Besides, NOWHERE else in this country did I get a job, not even in restaurants or department stores, because I do not have any "UK experience." I mean, come on, it's there on my CV. I came to this country less than a year ago! How do you expect me to get experience if you don't give me a job to begin with?!! Besides, I used to be a teacher for THREE years in Mumbai. Mumbai, which I think is even better than London. (I know some people might not agree on that one. But well, I think we should agree to disagree. I don't deny that I'm biased towards Mumbai because it is, after all, my birthplace and the place where I lived the first 20 years of my life.) Anyhow. Surely it's not like we teach savage lingo there. And if they are worried about my language, that's on my CV too. I speak 6 languages and am an English Literature Graduate who got through a very reputed English university for her Masters. I mean, doesn't all this say SOMETHING for me? Plus, I was even ready to volunteer because obviously I'd have to get used to the National Curriculum and other systems in place here. But noooooooooooo. So, I had to apply for restaurants, bars and department stores kind of jobs. There, I was too qualified and totally experience-less. Again, it's not common in India for students to have part-time jobs like this. But, I'm a smart person and learning this would not be difficult at all. But they have too many people who apparently have learnt how to use a till when they were in their mother's wombs. So, who the fuck would care about training us international student types? But this would be a whole different post - how this country is so UNwelcoming, with many other examples apart from unavailability of jobs (because that is something not just international students but everybody is facing in general.) :/

Anyhow, going back to this place where I "work." Everything is so disorganised! I must also mention at this point that I worked in this same restaurant for 2 days before. But, after 2 days, the owner told me that she has too many people on her staff and can't really afford one more. Wow, wonder how she didn't know that less than a week ago when she hired me! I went back there because it's the only place where I'm earning something. But, it still doesn't make it any better! Last time I worked was last Monday. I kept calling her and she was never available. A few days ago, one of my colleagues informed me that my name is on the rota for working on Friday. So, I dressed up in the formal trousers and formal shoes that I hate and basically dressed up as a plastic doll to look all professional and pretty for the customers and went in to work. The owner, as usual, was not there. She is mostly away on trips or chilling at home. Only to be told that I was actually a standby and so, wasn't needed. I should go back home. I will be called if needed. WTF?

Now, I don't have a problem with being a stand-by and not working for 2 weeks at a stretch (well, I have less problem with that than I have with spending money on bus fares to get there and coming back without having earned anything at all.) But doing that was TOTALLY unacceptable. Also, another BIG (literally BIG) problem that I have with this place is an OLD, FAT, Gujrati lady, whom we call maasi and who is the head chef of the restaurant. Now this is the woman I talk about when I say "The Devil wears a Gujrati Sari." She is such a power-tripper! She likes exercising her fake authority over all of us when the owner of the Restaurant (let's call her Thin) is not there. Which, like I told you, is most of the times. Like today, when she said, "It's our system. Even if your name is on the rota, you should come only when we call you." WHAT BULLSHIT! So, you are the one who opens the restaurant and then, make phone calls to everyone saying you have to come in for work? And everyone else is sitting at the edge of their chairs, waiting for you to call, not making any plans for their evenings just in case you call? Do I look like an idiot to you? What makes you think I'll buy that load of crap?

Apart from just plain bullshitting, she also screams at everyone. A LOT. It's her way of showing that she is greater than you. I'm sure she's never heard of the concept that you have to give respect to earn respect. I may be less than half her age. But it doesn't in any way give her the right to scream her lungs out at me. And for no reason too, except that I am new and might get easily scared. Well, too bad for her that I am so thick skinned that I totally don't care about her. And I think I can afford to not care about her because I don't really care that much about the job or the money. I'm just doing it for the experience and so that I don't feel totally useless and like a loser, having spent lakhs of rupees (no wait, lakhs of education loan rupees) on coming here for a year. However, THAT is my choice and I don't regret it one single bit. Like I've told before, England is like a close, close friend. A few unpleasant experiences *so* don't define how I feel about it. If only it had better weather though! ;)

Which reminds me, it was raining cats, dogs, horses and zebras when I was coming back from work and so, decided to stop for a drink. Anyway, I was upset about the whole work thing and needed a drink. ;) So, I went in a bar and ordered a cocktail. Then, I just sat there, feeling the warmth of my drink curling around in my stomach and watching the rain. Even though I was right in the middle of the city and this would have been waaaaay more romantic if I was in the countryside, it was still quite nice. :)

Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off!

Cool song, btw! Check it out! :)


But, I want to write this post on a more serious note. No, no, please don't go away!!! Come on, I promise I won't bore you. (in a small voice: too much) Ok, so, if all of you have abandoned me, then I'll just go ahead and talk to myself! ::pouts::


According to an article in Forbes, lying is good for you. "Hell, yeah!!" is what I say. Here's what they say:

If I told you lying was good for you, you probably wouldn’t believe me. But trust me--I’m not lying.

Simply put, we lie because it works. When we do it well, we get what we want.

We lie to avoid awkwardness or punishment. We lie to maintain relationships and please others. And, of course, most of all we lie to please ourselves. Whether we’re embellishing our credentials or strengthening our stories, we often tell untruths to make ourselves appear and feel better.

You know where I lie the most? To my parents. They think I'm their goody two-shoes daughter, who even though a bit rebellious, is essentially chaste. No alcohol, no nicotine, no grass, no sex. And I lie. To keep those beliefs intact. I used to lie because I was scared of them, scared of punishment. Now, I lie because I'm afraid of hurting them. They are just very conservative Indian parents scared for me. (Hell, they don't even let me wear sleeveless T-shirts or Bermuda shorts!) And since I'm an only child, and a girl to top that, they are naturally a bit too protective of me. I completely understand them. But, honestly, I can't stop BEING the way I am because they don't approve. Does that make me a horrible, horrible person? Actually, no it does not. But, the conditioning that we receive ever since we are 3 seconds old always plants that guilt in me. Just the other day, my parents were trying to video-chat with me and I had a massive hangover. So, I lied and told them that I was busy. Small deception compared to the fact that they don't even know I drink. But, I felt lousy about lying to them. I guess we all feel lousy when we lie to parents. But, do you have another option that will not break my parents' hearts AND let me live my life?

Besides, it's not like I have any addictions. Social drinker. And I've smoked and smoked up about twice in my life. Don't plan on changing that statistic for a long time anyway. You know, all in the right company, people I trust. And never in a place or to the extent that I wouldn't know or wouldn't be able to go back home safely. I agree mishaps can still happen. But mishaps can happen even when I'm perfectly sane and sober. I don't see the harm in a little bit of fun. Especially, if it happens less than once a month. So, I don't think I should be judged for that. Not that I care if anyone else judges me. The only people I care about are my parents. The problem is that my parents care if others judge me (because, ultimately, they'll be judging them by judging my upbringing.) So, since a=b and b=c, a=c and I have to take utmost care that nobody who knows my parents would know about my life. And oh, this is so tiring! (That is also the reason why blogging helps me a lot! Sigh, catharsis!)

Damn it, why is life so complicated! It'd be *SO* much easier if I didn't have this alternative life hidden away from my parents! But nooooooooooooooo! All that sanskar mumbojumbo and all! It won't matter then that I have had brilliant scores all throughout my education, won't matter that I respect people, won't matter that I still have enough humanity in me to want to help lesser-privileged people, won't matter that I mind my own buisness and don't judge people for being who they are, won't matter that I am a good human being. All that will matter is that I let them down by not following every single thing that they ever said to me.

Again, damn it. I sound like my parents chain me down to traditions or something. They don't! They are wonderful parents and more liberal than a lot of people's parents I know! But, I guess my personality clashes with a LOT of their values! It's like I live on the north pole and they live on the equator. We just don't get each other's concerns. Impossible to wrap our heads around something so other-worldly! Sigh, what does one do?

Oh, and see, I got so carried away! This was supposed to be a post on lying, not a justification of my relationship with my parents! Well, anyway, I hate the situation. But, for the time being at least, I can't even imagine telling them the truth. Maybe sometime in the future, when they trust my judgements more... Until then, lying and dishonesty are my friends.

PS: Incidentally, if you happen to know my parents (or worse, fall in the category of people who are not supposed to know this part of my life but somehow have not only found my blog but also figured out who I am,) I'd appreciate if a) you don't judge my parents for umm, what I've turned out to be and b) not mention this particular part of my life to them.

Ok, peace out!

*Pictures courtsey Google.

Oh Torture, thy name is Hangover!!!

Aaaaaargghhhhhh!!!

That's my headache, which has been threatening to kill me ALL day long today!! Isn't hangover just supposed to last for some time and then go away when you take measures like drink lime juice, eat greasy food, take an aspirin and sleep well? Well, apparently, not all hangovers go away so easily. How else would I learn my lesson? Never again will I drink because I'm angry or upset. I was fine with just being a social drinker. I won't turn into Devdas' female colleague.

But honestly, why did I get the world's worst hangover after just 3 glasses of wine, I will never understand! Maybe, like Sun told me, it is because I might have had the "special vintage wine from the region of Migrainia." Now, if only they wrote out warnings on the labels, "Beware! Migraine Wine ahead" at least naive people like me would know what NOT to buy. Hmph. So, basically, I just wasted my whole day today, sleeping off my hangover and not even getting much better.

The only "work" I did in the whole day today was publish recipes for the cake and the brownies that I had baked yesterday on my other blog. (Oooh, they were yummy! Recipes can be found here and here. But, unfortunately, I wasn't sober enough to appreciate them well enough yesterday. And, today, I find out that my house mates had finished ALL of both yesterday!!) Well, I'll look at the positive side and think what a big compliment that is, instead of cribbing about not even having a chance to properly enjoy my own baked goods. I guess, this is a part of the "lesson" I needed to learn. Oh Providence, lesson learnt! I'll never again drink to drown my sorrows (that sounds so dramatic!! Hehe, I should be renamed as Drama Queen! :P) and I'll never again be so drunk that I can't appreciate food! There. Now, please take away this horrible headache!

My Singleton Laments

I spent my last weekend with 3 couples and one other single guy at a friend's boyfriend's party house. Now, before everyone jumps to conclusions, I must say, it wasn't a set-up though it sure did look like one. Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of set-ups or even set-up look-alikes! Though, what I am a big fan of, is chick lit and chick flicks. At several levels, I am quite the Sex and the City meets Bridget Jones who has already met Gurinder Chadda's Gujju version. Ok, no, I exaggerate. I am none of the above because all of them had jobs that not just paid their bills but also bought them MANY pairs of Manolos. 


But I digress. So, anyway, between the party nausea and my love for chick lit, here I am, writing this blog-post instead of reading the postcolonial theories (yep yep, pun intended) that I should be reading for my dissertation. So, can anyone tell me what is the deal with these smugly-coupled sort of people? (RANT ALERT, RANT ALERT!!) I mean, they are fine when you know them and then, boom! One day they find someone and they jump the ships and act like they have always been sailing in that other ship and are professionals at it now! Why do they forget that a third person is hanging out with them while they are doing their couple thing everywhere from a supermarket to a bedroom? How do they forget that they won’t die if they keep their hands off each other for a few hours? More importantly, forget the other guy but, why does your single-until-3 months-ago friend forget that? Why does she forget that she was the one who didn't like public displays of affection until 3 months ago? At the very least, how come it's so easy for them to forget that they had other friends with whom they used to share everything, even something as small (or maybe as magnificient) as the smell of flowers announcing the arrival of spring while walking through the garden? How do they so easily justify their friend's behaviour as jealousy and unfairness and their own behaviour as just a change in the situations? How do they forget that they have an individual identity (well, at least used to)? How do they forget that sometimes, other people might want to talk to just one of them, not the whole package? And how do they even possibly assume that this someone else (of course it's me! I'm the one ranting, aren't I?) might be okay with talking to them only while their smugly coupled significant other has gone for a bathroom break? (Unless of course I gag him and lock him there for a few hours. I would if I didn't know that my friend would go looking for him as soon as 3 minutes are over.)


Alright, now that I've taken a deep breath. So, ok, these are not exactly my "singleton laments." I'm just raving at the loss of a close friend.. But what the hell, I did lose her to the sea of the smugly coupleds. And of course, I am always going to have the problem of how to adapt my super unromantic self to the increasing number of smugly coupleds around me! Even if and when I am one of them myself. Food for thought: Maybe going to Mars will help.