When Monsters Become Real

Last night, I dreamt I was back in Delhi.

I was taking the metro train at 9pm on a weekday, back from Hauz Khas, a time and direction in which the train is often barely occupied. I was in the women's compartment as usual. It was winter so I was wearing my favourite grey jacket.

I hadn't even got to the blue line yet - there was more than half an hour to get to my station. We slow down to a station and I notice a group of boys get on in the next compartment. They're noisy and chattering, they look like college students, my age. The usual.

I'm staring out the window and watching the buildings rush by. Suddenly I hear someone has been addressing me, snapping me out of my reverie. 'Hey... hey! How are you?' a male voice says to me in Hindi from the next compartment. I turn and it's the typical leering, jeering face of a young man that we females are so used to encountering, at the mall or on the street or in public transport, whether in India or Sri Lanka (I would like the boys reading this to take a moment to consider this reality - to try and imagine a life in which being jeered and leered at by strangers is a 'normal' 'every day' occurrence).

I ignore him as I do every one of these types, brushing it off as we always do, turning back to the window. A moment later he is standing a foot away from me, in my compartment. I suddenly become acutely aware that I am the only person in my compartment. I remember feeling an inexplicable gripping fear.

He was not doing anything. It didn't turn into a 'nightmare' - his face wasn't scowling, he hadn't put his hands on me, the florescent lights above were still brightly lit. Just that I was aware that I was the only person in my compartment, and there was a man my age now standing a foot away from me, and his male friends were standing a few feet behind him, laughing and poking each other, throwing sidelong glances at their pal. My heart was pounding in my chest and I felt a sense of dread filling me up. I remember becoming aware that he was taller and quite obviously stronger than me. 'What happened?' he mumbled in Hindi, a laugh in his voice, as he sensed my tension.

Then just when I was going to move away from him, he raised his hand - in a non-threatening way - as though to put it on my arm. Before he could, I let out a little yelp, and I woke up.

I woke up like you do after a fast-paced nightmare about being chased by rabid zombies, sweaty palms and heart in throat and all. What was so scary about that dream? The whole thing felt like no more than 5 minutes and had virtually no action, featuring only my apprehension at being a few feet away from a group of men in an isolated metro compartment. The realness of the dream also struck me: those feelings of apprehension and anxiety were very real, I would have reacted the same in real life.

The thing about nightmares, is that usually you can wake up and say 'Phew! It was just a dream - rabid zombies aren't real!' I can't say the same for this nightmare. (Click Here). 

Marriage-ophobia

I turn 23 in February, which in Sri Lankan Muslim sp33k is code for 'ah here, it's time to find a partner for this one ah'.

I'm terrified.
Don't get me wrong, my parents are extremely understanding, liberal people, and would never force me into anything. My mother got married only at 29 after medical college, a mad old age for the marriage of a girl by ordinary conservative Muslim standards. They don't care if I find someone myself or if I want them to find somebody, and either way, I'll get to know him before the actual thing.

But it's not even a Muslim thing anymore.
Everywhere I look, people are getting married or having babies. My friends are getting old, man. Blurry Instagram pics of weddings of peers fill up my newsfeed, some married friend says 'hey I'm pregnant!' - and I'm here, like, what the hell? Where did all the time go?

You don't have to get married so, just wait.

This is what I told myself and tried every possible way to argue it out with people. But I don't know, on the other hand I'm far from the dating-around type - it probably makes me retrogade but I don't like the idea of perpetually trying-on-a-new-relationship till you find the mythical 'one'. And honestly for how long can you keep playing that game before it just gets ridiculous especially in an Asian society? I do also appreciate the security and social order that a marriage typically signifies. Also my mother claims at some point you'll be the only single person in your clique and then they won't invite you to their tea parties anymore because they'll be afraid you'll steal their husbands.

Yeah, okay, mother.

So what's the big deal, Shifani? Everyone gets old and everyone gets married, don't be a pussy.

I'll tell you what's the big deal. 

1. I have come to realize that I have really shit taste in men, judging from 90% of the people I've felt affection for so far. They're usually completely aimless principle-less anarchists, and almost always, at the end of the day I go 'what the hell was I thinking?' (the idea of my parents making a saner, more secure choice is actually more comforting, oftentimes.)

2. But then I also have this gripping fear that either way, 1.5 years into the marriage - I'll have this conversation with my husband about, say, kittens - a subject we've never broached before. And he'll say 'kittens are so annoying and stupid, I just wish they'd all die'. And then I'll be like, 'WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY' and I'll realize 'oh no, I am married to a kitten-hater, oh god what has my life become' but then it'll be too late because you're stuck with this fellow forever and ever since you've committed yourself, especially if there are kids involved. My children will be fathered by a kitten hater. (the kittens here may be a metaphor for several sorts of things, or quite literally, may just mean kittens - because seriously, what kind of horrible, horrible person hates kittens?) 

I'm an independent-spirited sort of person, and I've been raised that way. I do my own thing and life changes according to my own decisions, and no one else's. So I think this is all just basically a fear of being stuck to someone forever. Suddenly, you wake up in the morning and you realize, hey I can't book a train ride out of town to that awesome joint for the fun of it, because I have to take the little one to the doctor because of its nappy rash, and I have to work it out first with the ball-and-chain husband's schedule.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just subscribing to the stereotypical Western notion of 'omg marriage is, like, so last century'. Mostly, though, I think I'm just panicking about this growing up stuff, as per usual. Mum says life is short and life is full of challenges and you're going to have problems whether you get married or not, so just face it and deal with it as it comes. Also she said you have to get married because I'd like to have loads of fat, beautiful grandchildren.

Yeah, okay, mother.

Speechless

My trusty notebook of silence

I've lost my voice.

Not in the romantic, poetical sense, but quite literally.

I can't make a sound. I can try and squeeze out some cracked syllable but even that makes my throat feel like there's a fork pressing into it.

Courtesy of the winter flu, thank you very much.

It's been a bit nightmarish. I can't ask the lecturer questions in class, I can't swear when I spill something on the floor, I can't shout out to the rickshaw driver from across the road, I can't call somebody I see down the corridor. I was closing a chest today and the lid fell shut on my fingers - I couldn't even scream!

Lots of flailing your arms around involved when you're forced to be silent. *Flail* when you're angry. *Flail* when you want food. *Flail* hey hey look over here I'm trying to tell you somet- too late, they didn't hear you, they're walking away (likely, fleeing from the strange girl flailing wildly at them).

First world problems.

The perk is that the housemates are treating me like a proper invalid, so they cooked me an amazing dinner and even mixed me up some homely medicine (ginger and honey - ew).

I have to say I'm starting to get used to it, this silence stuff is starting to grow on me. I have a little notebook I carry around, each page has something important that I'm likely to say (the last time this happened, I had cue cards): 'Hey man', 'Have you seen my earphones?', 'I'm studying right now', 'ASSHOLE', 'Is this a clove?', 'HA HA HA', etc. I have emergency messages scribbled on my palms as well. An acquaintance at the canteen exclaimed, 'Hey why is shifani so quiet today?' - so, excited to make use of my new emergency-messages prepared for the occasion, I shot up my right palm at her which was to read I LOST MY VOICE. She read it and frowned at me and abruptly walked off to the library. I looked at my palm; it was a message I'd left for myself: REMEMBER TO BUY ONIONS -- shit, wrong hand. Goddammit, this is going to take some practice. 

Dear Mr President (Remembering All Your Crime)

Mr President is not just one man but a timeless ghost that possesses a new body every Sri Lankan election. 

The Sri Lankan Media is sick of your bullshit - sick is an understatement. We are tired. And we are angry.

The Media is not an exclusive group if you ask me, but it is the People ourselves. If one wants to speak one's mind and be heard, he or she has the freedom of doing so in the papers, on the radio, on TV, of conversing with the entire nation, and eliciting a response. The Media is a powerful, and many say the most powerful, vehicle of modern humanity's expression and democracy.

And so, Mr President, when you and your people (yes, your people, who are an exclusive and elite tightly-knit self-serving band who live on the other side of us over here) suppress the Media -- when you killed Lasantha Wickrematunge, when you abducted and set on fire Nadesapillai Vidyarthan, when you abducted and severely assaulted Keith Noyahr, when you imprisoned Jayaprakash Sittampalam, when you hacked to death Paranirupasingham Devakumar, when you shot: Selvarajah Rajivarnam, Relangi Selvarajah and her husband, Dharmeratnam Sivaram, Aiyathurai (Nellai) Nadesan, Rohana Kumara, Richard de Zoysa, K. Navaratnam, Wimal Surendra, Sathasivam Sivashanmugamoorthy -- and this is only a small fraction of the list and not even counting the massive exodus of journalists out of the country -- you are not only assaulting, humiliating, and butchering the Media - you are butchering your People. When you violate the Media, when you confiscate their liberty - you are doing the same to your People. 

Even if you deny everything, against all the fingers pointed at you, because you are the Maharajah of this New Monarchist nation and you can say 'I didn't do it' and get away with it -- even if that is your only defense, why then has your Government not had the decency to even address these murders beyond your standard transparent lie 'my best team is on the case' (I mean you managed to end a 25 year civil war, you would think finding a journalist's murderer would be a cake walk)? Just as though these countless murders of human beings can be swatted away like insignificant bothersome little flies by your mighty hands.

Do you remember those names of the journalists who have 'disappeared' or whose bodies have been left to float in the river? Does it ring a little bell in your head when you see one of their names printed somewhere? Of course I don't expect that you killed or abducted any of them yourself, of course not, such vulgarities are beneath the glory of any true King living in the lap of power and affluence. You have the men of your Court to do all that, the henchman who detect threats to your Autocratic Rule, and 'fix the problem' without you having to deal with any of the nitty gritties. But still, one has to wonder if the King ever spares a moment to think of the hundreds of beheadings that would not have been possible if not for his rule.

I don't know why I am even bothering with these questions, because you are not an idiot, you already know exactly what's what and why. So the point of this is not to scream at you and demand a semblance of humanity from 'Your Honourable Excellency' -- because that would be futile -- but my point is to ask you, do you really, truly believe you can some day overpower the Media by simply going on in this way?

That some day, every one, every single Sri Lankan, will say 'The President is always right, and anyone who thinks he is not, is a traitor'? That one day, not one single Sri Lankan will even mentally contemplate the idea of protest? That you can some day root out all rebellion, all forms of dissent, all modes of individual thought that is opposing to yours? Are you really that deluded?

I just want to tell you that you can kill and kill and kill, and it will be horrible and people will mourn and you may as usual be untouchable on your Red Throne in the White Palace -- but you can never, ever stop the People from dissenting. You can never stop people from speaking their minds. It is never going to happen. You can murder thousands, you can send hundreds fleeing out of the country -- but there will always, always be more, to voice the truth in newspapers, on radios, on television, on the internet - the truth, that will many a time call you out for the things you do, time and time again. So I ask of you to prepare yourself. Your kingdom who is now like a dog that has been beaten for far too long is one day going to turn around and bite, because as with every tyrannical King of the Dark Ages of history, your regime, your oppression against the Media, that is the People, will inevitably come to an end -- either by nature - or by force. 

Insy winsy spider, climbing up the spout...

Look what I found in the sink today. Cool huh?
Click on it to get a better view.

A Memorable Eid: Of Fence-Jumping, Secret-Psychopaths & Russian Dancers

My posse of beloved Sri Lankans-in-India has increased in number this year. In addition to gutterflower, there's now also the pterodactyl and the pterodactyl's roommate (who's actually Mauritian, but let's not be pedantic). We meet up for the occasional festive flail, such as that of Eid, and so we decided on an Eid picnic this year! Yay. 

We had bags full of Lays chips, bottles of soda, Oreos, pasta, chocolate cake and some random Indian pie that the pterodactyl found somewhere. We collected all our picnic-gear and headed to Central Park. Apparently, today - and this we found out only on arriving there - there was going to be a grand show at the Park courtesy of the Moscow Performing Arts group -- and it was free for all. Needless to say, there was a 10-mile queue lined up at the entrance of the park. We walked for a few minutes and still didn't find the end of that line. We had 2 options: 1. Stand in the queue and have our picnic AN HOUR LATER, when the pasta and the biscuits are all cold and pooey. 

And 2. 'Let's jump over the fence'. 

The pterodactyl is a super-cautious creature, who though is utterly eccentric (dressed up as Terry Pratchett's Death for her college costume-party), never does anything on just pure impulse. She looked at me and said NO. WAY. 

Ten minutes later, I was on top of the fence. Once I got on top of it, I realized I hadn't exactly... thought it through beyond that point. So I was standing there, precariously, awkwardly, on this spikey fence of death, my legs dangling around, trying not to get impaled. People were passing by and going like 'dafuq is this?' and the pterodactyl was just... This calls for a Paint illustration.

I finally got to the other side after a few awkward minutes of almost-getting-impaled-in-the-butt. Then I was like, okay now that I'm on this side, you have no choice but to jump too. This is a common technique of persuasion (creative blackmail, if you will) I utilize in situations where the opposition refuses to comply. So ptero and her roommate managed to jump over as well, while we used my bag as a buffer between the fence-jumper's butt and the spikes of death, to prevent aforementioned almost-impaled-in-the-butt scenario. I still can't believe we convinced the pterodactyl to jump over spikes of death. She claims it was because some bald man walking by had laughed at her while she was struggling on top of the fence, pissing her off and making her want to jump over and GET THE LAST LAUGH (yes, someone has issues). 

Naturally, all this was proceeded by much collective 'omg I'm such a badass' fist-pumping and such. We called gutterflower up who was running late and told her but she was like 'god, that's the scary thing that you guys said you did?!' and she did not appreciate our badassery. I was all, you had to be there, man. It was like Vlad the Impaler meets Mission Impossible. 

While picnicking on the lovely grass at sunset, suddenly a stranger appeared to my right. He looked at ptero and said 'May I ask you a question, from a distance?' We were like, wut. 

'May I ask you a question, from a distance?' he repeated. He was Indian, looked about in his mid to late twenties. I'd heard horror stories about flashers, so I looked away just in case. 

We nodded hesitantly. Then he was all, 'Where are you guys from?' Sri Lanka. 'Oh where in Sri Lanka?' Colombo. Then he sat down. He sat down next to us, in our circle on the grass. 

Weird. 

He started talking about how he liked to learn about new and different cultures. Asked about Sri Lankan politics. Asked what ethnicity were we a part of. Etc etc. Then he said 'I saw you guys jump over the fence' (that was 20 minutes ago, has this guy been watching us?! - Ptero was asking me with a stare). I was like 'Are you a cop? You're a witness, we're going to have to kill you'. He laughed because he thought I was joking. The fellow was well spoken and looked decent. But it was 6pm, in Central Park, Delhi (a city reputed for highest number of crimes against women in India), we were three girls - and here was this random dude who came out of nowhere and sat next to us to ask us random questions about our lives. Ptero, as I said, is very cautious, so she kept silent most of the time, casting furtive glances at me and at the pie. Her roommate was just dodging his questions ('Where in the Maldives are you from?' -- 'Oh the Maldives are so tiny, it doesn't matter where.'). I was just munching on my chips and wondering if he was a rapist.

When gutterflower sat down, I was like 'hey man, eid mubarak... this is... a random dude who just sat next to us'. She was all, uh okay. The four of us tried to talk about normal things, trying hard not to feel totally uncomfortable about the random stranger who wouldn't leave. We tried pointing out how weird it was that he had randomly come up to us, we tried creating long awkward silences to give him the hint -- but he just kept sitting there. 

I check my phone. gutterflower has texted me while sitting next to me: 'WHO IS THIS GUY YOU GUYS HAVE PICKED UP.' I reply: 'DO U THINK HE'S A SECRET RAPIST?' She replies, 'HE SEEMS NICE BUT THIS IS SO STRANGE.'

After some more awkward silence, someone finally goes, 'We should probably head off to the Moscow concert over there'. And we nod and I say 'Well it was nice meeting you' to the strange dude, which is code for 'BYE!' And we ran off. Poor guy. Probably just doesn't have any friends. Or he was a secret-psychopath who was going to chloroform us after befriending us. 

The Moscow Performing Arts were awesome to watch. Russian dancers, jugglers, circus people - pure entertainment. They were like those little screw-up-dolls in the music boxes, with almost battery-charged energy and flawless choreography. 'The Butterfly and the Beetle' was the most memorable performance - featuring a woman on 10-foot-tall stilts who looked like a huge butterfly with wings blowing in the wind. 

Headed home then, listening to my new playlist of The Black Seeds, getting my reggae on in the subway train and making old Indian aunties give me the stink-eye. All in all, another great Eid. Eid mubarak, everybody! 

The [Anti]Social Butterfly

Tools used: watercolours, Faber Castell size 0

Liam Neeson vs. The Big Bad Muslims

I love Liam Neeson. Ever since Taken, he has become Hollywood's Rajinikanth.

A still from Taken 2 and totally not a picture of Rajinikanth edited using Paint

And personally, I enjoyed Taken. It was no artistic masterpiece, but it was undoubtedly entertaining. The horror of a teenage girl getting kidnapped and sold to a brothel was just right, and no one can say they don't enjoy watching Liam beat up a bunch of bad guys, Chuck Norris style.

So, Taken 2 - Remember all those bad guys Liam killed in Taken to save his daughter? Well, in Taken 2, the families of these dead bad guys are super pissed off at Liam, and are going to kill him and his family as payback.

We're first introduced to the families of the dead bad guys, standing over the dead bad guys' graves in Albania -- and they're reciting, and they say 'Aameen' -- before totally going 'omg i kill u liam neeson!!11111111' in strong Middle Eastern accents. Sigh. Yes. The bad guys who want to kill Liam Neeson and his family, are Muslims. Brace yourselves.

The movie shifts between the nation of baddies, Istanbul, and land of the free and just, Los Angeles, America. Liam and his family are holidaying in Istanbul, and the Big Bad Muslims go there too, to kill them all. They kidnap Liam and his ex-wife while the daughter hides in the closet. Liam calls his daughter up on his tiny secret phone while imprisoned at a 'secret location', and tells her to get his grenades from his closet and throw it all over Istanbul -- Liam listens to the sounds of the bombs going off and estimates how far away she is from him. Meanwhile, the audience giggles at the comical irony because this teenage white girl is bombing a Muslim country willy-nilly.

Then, because Liam Neeson is Liam Neeson, he manages to direct his daughter to him, using only the sound of grenades and a map of Istanbul that his daughter is looking at. Liam then kicks the gas-vent in his prison cell causing it to smoke up - and he's like, 'My vent is sending out white smoke - do you see it?' The daughter turns around and she's like, 'yep'. Finding secret locations is easy as pie. She runs to the vent and drops a gun down the shaft for her dad. Although Istanbul is full of vents that are known for venting smoke, at this moment in time, Liam's is the only one doing so in the whole city, thus making it possible for his daughter to locate him by merely prancing around outside for a few minutes.

Anyway, Liam has a gun. Shit's gonna get real. He goes around shooting all the baddies, blah blah. Meanwhile, the bad guys are meeting up and going 'Assalamalaikum' and carrying out their plans to kill the American family like the Big Bad Muslims they are. Although they are aware that in Taken Liam managed to locate the jillion baddies in a country of 12 million people, and then kill them all -- these silly Muslims still fail at basic Security precautions, and Liam once again, just waltzes into all their secret hideouts and annihilates them. Like a hundred baddies will shoot at Liam, repeatedly, from all sides, but he never gets hit. He shoots once, with his revolver, and they drop like flies. Rajinikanth could not have done it better.

Lots of camera shots of mosques in Istanbul, the Azaan being recited, Burka-clad women walking around and giving Liam's daughter the stink-eye (because although in reality barely 20% of Turkish women even wear the headscarf today much less the burka, reality is too mainstream for this director). Anyway, long story short, Liam kills all the baddies, and saves his ex-wife (the teary-eyed reunion is classic Tamil movie stuff, more so than the fight scenes), and safely leaves his daughter at the US Embassy in Istanbul -- the safe haven from the evils of the nation of Big Bad Muslims.

Finally he is in a showdown with the Biggest Baddest Muslim, this crazy old guy whose son used to kidnap and sell foreign girls like Liam's daughter (before Liam totally kicked his butt). Liam is like, man, because I'm awesome and also believe in all-American freedom, I'll give you a chance to live if you agree to leave me and my family alone. And this guy is like, k. Then Liam turns around and the bad guy's like HAHA I LIEDDD and is about to kill Liam, but Liam's like, STFU and grabs the bad guy's face. The bad guy dies. I'm not sure what that was about. Face-grip of death or something. Mad skillz.

The scene shifts back to LA, lalala jazzy music, sunny skies, happy people - heaven compared to the dirty yellowed streets, ominous Burka ladies and unshaven gunmen of Istanbul. They all sit around and have ice cream. The end. You know, as a Muslim maybe I should have taken a moment to be offended by all the ridiculously obvious anti-Muslim imagery in Taken 2, but honestly, I was too busy laughing. 

Lesson #22

I like to think that we grow a little every year (not up in my case, cuz who am I kidding?), that we learn things we didn't know the previous year. And I think this year I've learnt that - getting what you want? You know, the whole go-after-what-you-want-if-you-wanna-be-happy thing? - is overrated. Sometimes you just don't get what you want. And that's okay. Because most of the time, you don't need what you think you want, to be happy. Sometimes seeing other people happy instead can be enough. And healthier even. 

In other news, winter is coming (cue Game of Thrones theme track). I laid down on the terrace this evening and I could feel it. This means cold morning breeze, white mist ghosts in the street, fancy jackets. Icy tap water. Warm plate of Maggi noodles on a freezing afternoon. Boots. Never getting out from under the quilt. Fuzzy sweaters. Yeah. It's going to be nice.

Yay for winter gloves.

 

In Japan: Pay 1000 Yen To Hug A Strange Girl

Yep. Hugs aren't always for free anymore. And I didn't just make that up to make you read my blogpost. This shit is for reals.

Now, Japan is known for some weird stuff. Hentai being one of them. I am not even going to go there. But when I saw this story in the Sunday Times of India, it pretty much won the competition for weirdass.

A new shop has opened up in Japan's Akihera district. 'Soineya' which literally means 'sleep together' calls itself a 'co-sleeping specialty shop' and it lets customers sleep chastely in the arms of a beautiful girl of their choice. It also offers a variety of other services such as foot massages and an affectionate pat on the back - all for a fee of course. Its target audience is the otaku - someone who prefers imaginary worlds to reality, the Japanese equivalent of a nerd.

'Maids' in a maid-cafe depicted in an anime (Japanese cartoon)

In the 1980s, Hostess Clubs were popular in Japan - where women were paid to sit with men, listen to them, fill their glasses and light their cigarettes. The 'hostesses' were 'mature women trained to talk with equal felicity about politics and sex'. Then came Maid Cafes in the 1990s that featured more two-dimensional hostesses, who offered different services to customers but they wouldn't get physically engaged. Apparently the 'co-sleeping specialty shop' is a 'new evolution' of these maid cafes. There are now a variety of types of cafes - with no shortage of customers - one of which is the 'tsundere', where the customers are first treated rudely by staff but as they leave, the staff turn sweet and loving, begging the customer not to leave them.

One can't help but imagine. You walk in, and the waitress spills tea on your shirt and calls you a dumbass. Then when you get mad and get up to leave, she's like 'Nooo, don't go, come back! I'll hug you for 1000 yen!' And then I guess the customer is turned on by these symptoms of split personality.

These are Soineya's 'cuddle charges', according to the newspaper article.
Duration - 3 minutes.
Customer sleeps in girl's arms - 1000 Yen
Girl pats customer on the back - 1000 Yen
Customer pets girl on the head - 1000 Yen
Customer and girl stare at each other - 1000 Yen
Girl changes into new clothes - 1000 Yen
Girl gives customer foot massage - 1000 Yen
Customer gives girl foot massage - 2000 Yen
Customer sleeps with head on girl's lap - 1000 Yen
Girl sleeps with head on customer's lap - 2000 Yen

Spending four hours cuddling a strange woman would cost around 33,750 Sri Lankan rupees while twenty minutes will cost you around 5000 Sri Lankan rupees (damn that's an expensive cuddle!)

Glorified prostitution? Or just weird Japanese folks being weird? I don't know. All I know is Japan is beginning to sound like a strange, strange little place. With very strange little men, if these cafes (and Hentai) are any evidence. I don't mind visiting one of these joints some day, just to interview somebody who would actually pay 1000 yen for a staring contest with a stranger. And mostly for the lols, when some sad little man goes 'here's 1000 yen, now stfu and pat me on the back'.

Sach, you're in Japan aren't you? Paid for a hug recently? :p

The Time Traveler by ~xetobyte

I feel a tad wonky lately. Because I want to go home. I've drawn up a chart - you know shit is serious when I draw up a chart - on my little white board: a little calendar-countdown to the day I'll get on a plane and fly away. Exactly 46 days to go.

I called up G, a fellow Sri Lankan stranded among Indians, and we talked for more than an hour about the beautiful people back home and the katta sambol and the kiribath. And we heaved perfectly synchronized sighs.

When there's only about a month till you get to unforeign yourself and go back to where you come from, everything around you changes instantly. The Indians are all annoying now and the places I was crazy about here have suddenly taken on a mediocre tinge. I'm irritable and withdrawn, because my body and mind have noticed there's barely a month to go and so 'it's time' now to leave, and they're really pissed off at me for not hurrying up. And I'm really pissed off at Time for the same. So you see it's all a very mad, sordid affair. Last night I dreamt of pol sambol. Waking up was painful.

My cousin studying in Pakistan gets to fly back home tomorrow. Why? Because of a brain-eating amoeba epidemic. I kid you not. Pakistan is just across the border from Delhi. So maybe if I help one of the victims of the zombie-amoebae-attack smuggle themselves over here, we could have an epidemic here as well, and I could go home early too! Naturally, I presume victims of these zombie-amoebae turn into brain-eating zombies, so all I need to do is find a brain, and lure the infected Pakistanis over the border.

I have exams in a few weeks, you know. And instead of studying I'm drawing up strategical charts for the smuggling of zombie Pakistanis. Wonky was an understatement.

Ready, Set, Go!

Hello I'm a rat, in the proverbial race. And so are you. 

I wasn't always like this though, I used to be on the sidelines, stretched out on a lawn chair, watching the other rats pass me by, sipping on my juice box. I remember seventh grade. I came 14th in a class of 30. Bah, the rat race is too mainstream! And so I'd chill in that lawn chair, non-committal, not particularly interested in the lifecycle of the tape worm we were studying, or the equations in my Physics book - I did enjoy the chemical experiments in the laboratory though, ah I remember the stench of Ammonia staining someone's uniform like it was just yesterday! - wandering the school grounds with my friends, drinking Milo, sitting on the rooftop, etcetera. I didn't think I was being cool or anything by it, getting Average marks wasn't cool in my school. I just failed to give a shit. 

Mother was not pleased. Shameela was the girl who always came first in class, since the beginning of time. She was a friendly skinny girl with glasses, very studious, whose parents trained her well in regular revision, and who cried when she got 8 out of 10 instead of 9 - while I was just relieved I got a 5.5 out of 10 which meant I didn't fail. So my mother would use that line that Sri Lankan children dread to hear but hear too often: If Shameela can do it, why can't you? 

Needless to say, I was not a fan of the educational rat race. Why is everyone clamouring to get higher marks for the Bio test? How does it matter? Who cares? How does your knowledge of all the functions of the dung beetle matter in any way? This ennui only got more severe when I was introduced to Literature in eleventh grade and I met the emo existential/suicidal/homicidal prince Hamlet. Sometimes I think I got my 50 and 60 percents - just to spite the race, as a refusal to conform to its expectations of me, just to be like, I forfeit! Fuck you very much! Mostly though, I was just lazy and apathetic. 

But then everything suddenly turned upside down in university. Suddenly, I wanted to be the best in my course and took it personally if it was ever suggested I wasn't, as though my sense of worth depended on my exam results. I have become Shameela. I wonder if it's because writing and literature are more a part of who I am than the lifecycle of the tape worm ever was? 

I'm a rat in the front row now, cautious and crafty. Sure I help everyone out with their work and even give my roommates personal tuition time before exams. But then I remember when a student I considered a 'threat' to my top rank position said 'oh I think I screwed up this question at the exam' and I told her 'don't worry, I'm sure you didn't do too badly' - but on the inside I was like 'YAY! She screwed up her paper!' like a crazyass competitive little bitch. I get nervous when I see other people studying-up, and I'm like 'oh shit, I better run faster'. Then there's all the pumping my fist in the air and dancing around when I do pass the finish line first. 

Have I turned into a horrible person? A bit, I think. The chilling-on-the-lawnchair part of me still believes competition is just petty and is ashamed of my newly acquired ratliness. Because deep down I still believe the examiner's red numbers marked on your paper mean nothing. And that people need to do what they do well - but doing it better than someone else doesn't do much besides stroke the ego and give your parents a faux-high. Also it could turn you into a self serving asshole. I'm not there yet, don't worry, I still have a conscience. But hey, rats aren't supposed to. 

I have some friends I like to hang out with on the weekends. They live on the pavement outside my apartment in 5x3 plastic-and-tin houses. They're the friendliest people I've ever met. They're more accepting and more open minded than anyone I know, and some of them more intelligent and wittier than any friends I've made before. And I don't even speak the same first language as they do. 

Talking about this kind of thing is always an awkward affair, because people look at poor people as 'the other', 'them', 'the ones who are not us'. And there's a haa-hoo about 'inter-class mingling', it's charity, it's something great, it's something only Mother Teresa and NGOs do, hey let's cue some heartrending slow piano music -- all this, if you ask me, is bullshit, and just sustains classisim alongside other demons like racism and casteism. They are just people. The only difference between these kids and me is that when it comes to money - because life is random - they got the bad end of the stick.

It did start out as charity. It was a winter evening and a friend and I thought why don't we go and share some coffee from the canteen with these kids who lived across the street. So it became a ritual, and a bunch of us went there and started teaching them what little we knew. Some of us went home feeling better about ourselves, because we'd 'done a good deed', we'd 'given to the needy'. 

But it's been almost a year since then and it's gotten a lot more personal than that. Now it's just about spending time with some people I love to spend time with. On my bad days, when I feel like punching someone in the face, and I really want to go back home - Meenu and Bandhana jump up and down from across the road and scream at me when I'm walking to university, they're grinning and laughing and waving and shouting 'Dhidhi!' (big sister). And that helps. 

There's free hugs and huge grins. There's the occasional tantrum as with any kid. There's the 'are you hungry? I'll share my lunch with you's and the 'how is your leg today?' when they see my friend's bandage. There is always unconditional love, the kind I have never seen before. And for what? All we do is teach them to draw triangles and cats, and add 4 plus 8, and how to sing about a star that twinkle twinkles. If there's any charity going on here, the teachers are on the receiving end. 

The policeman on behalf of the oh so glorious Indian government came along today on his bike, looking for a bribe, telling them it's illegal to set up homes on the side of the road. Where else are they supposed to go? I asked him angrily. The government was asking them to leave, but not giving them a place to leave to. In short, it was the government's way of reminding them that it did not give a shit. As another teacher and friend reasoned things out with the policeman, I was thinking, what are we doing? I don't know anything about politics or economics or land-ownership or governance. We're university undergraduates in an Arts faculty. It's probably not our job to interfere in this kind of stuff. But then, I wondered, if it's not our job, whose is it? 

The whole six yards

R is getting married in December this year and in lieu of the epicness of the impending wedding, the gang's decided to go all out and wear sarees for the occasion! I was up for the idea mostly in the name of comedy, because we aren't usually fancy-saree girls, we're more the baggy-tshirts-and-play-mortal-kombat type. So it's going to be pretty hilarious when we all turn up looking fabulous in spiffy sarees. My sense of humour is warped, I know.

An Indian friend taught me to drape one today. And I don't know about you guys, but I think the saree is the sexiest, most beautiful thing a woman can wear. It's gorgeous, the pleats, the draping, the elegance. It's a shocker to me that girls pick their skinny jeans and short skirts over this one. 

But then again, donning six yards every morning isn't exactly a walk in the park. 

*cue superhero music*

Ladies and gents, I stand here before you today to gloat about the best thing that I have ever accomplished in my life.

(This may be the endorphins talking.)

Yes, this.

I would like to say to all my nay-sayers out there who often scoffed at my attempts to conquer the kitchen (including my mother and my grandmother): HA! HA, I SAY! IN. YOUR. FACE. 

Gotta admit, I've come a long way since my french-toasting days back in '09. 

Two housemates and I whipped up this batch of awesomeness today, reminiscent of Sri Lankan Devilled Chicken. We looked up the recipe online, made it our own, and had it with a dish of my recipe for mixed rice. 

I'm not just bragging when I say it was the most delicious thing I've had since landing in India since the summer holidays. And it was like tasting my aunty's amazing homemade food again. 

Surprisingly, it was really simple to make too. So for all you kitchen enthusiasts or students abroad who want a bite of home:

Serving - for 3 people

Instructions: 

1. Don't wear an apron. Aprons are for sissies.

2. First of all walk into the kitchen and point a spatula at the wall and say, 'I am here to conquer you, kitchen. And conquer, I shall!' and then point the spatula at the ceiling and cackle maniacally. Wear a metal pot on your head for additional dramatic effect. 

3. Then while 'Eye of the Tiger' plays through your earphones, arrange your utensils on the pantry table and say a prayer to the kitchen gods. 'May this dish turn out awesome, and may no frying oil fly out and hit me in the face. Amen.' 

4. Remove the metal pot from your head and get down to bizniz, nigga. 

Mixed rice

1. 2 cups of rice, 3 cups of water - put it in the cooker. 

2. After the rice is done (my small cooker takes 10 minutes) - don't take the rice out yet. Add 1 tsp Chilli Paste (gotta smuggle this from back home of course) and almost 1 tsp salt. Mix.

3. Add fresh raw chopped up capsicums and onions (2 peppers, 2 onions). Mix it like a boss and keep that pot closed for a while.

Devilled chicken

1. Make a yummy paste - of 5 red chillies, 3 peppercorns, 2 cloves, bit of turmuric, bit of cumin, small piece of cinnamon, 1/2 cardomom. Grind it up with a bit of water till it's really red and pastey. 

2. Cut the chicken (1/2 kg) into sizes of your liking, clean it, sprinkle a bit of salt and keep aside.

3. Fry some sliced onions. Add 1 tsp garlic and ginger paste. Add the RED PASTE you just made and fry for a few minutes.

4. Add the chicken to this mix, stir well and cook for about 5 minutes. Add tamarind juice and vinegar and cook for another 5-10 minutes, till you see a thin dynamite curry, and the chicken turns golden brown, tender and smells like heaven. 

Serve devilled chicken with the rice and try not to jizz from the ecstasy. 

Attack of the Ninja Rat

There's a rat in my apartment. There are also nine females in it. Behold the formula for chaos.

There was a scream that broke the silence at 3am. People ran to the room from which the scream had come, with deadly broomsticks and rolled-up-newspaper bats in hand. Apparently the evil spawn of satan had been seated in a hole in the wall (the bulb had been recently removed from it), and had been giving the death-stare to its potential victim, who naturally, had screamed for her mummy.

Next, seeking to viciously maul the girl, it climbed out of the hole and down the wirey-pipey stuff that was hanging on the walls, and got itself tangled in the wires. MORE CONFUSION. A brave housemate armed with a broomstick started poking it around, trying to get it to leave. It just scrambled around, and there was a lot of panic and madness as it scurried about. Ultimately, the rat disappeared, but no one knew how. Whether it was lurking inside some nook or cranny, waiting to attack like the spawn of satan it is, or it had run away to get calavry and increase its army of death, no one was certain.

The poor girl asked the broomstick-girl to share the room with her for safety measures. Then in the middle of the night, allegedly she felt a furry thing on her back and there was chaos yet again and the lights were switched on - but the rat was nowhere to be seen. Either she imagined it, or more likely, we had in our midst a creature deadlier than a mere household pest: a ninja rat. They all moved to another room and relative peace was restored.

I had been blissfully oblivious to all this kalabala, fast asleep in my bed, because I have this amazing ability to sleep through an earthquake. So I've never even seen this ninja rat of doom. I've been told it's ugly as the bowels of hell itself, and the size of a grown man's hand, with eyes that stare into the pit of your soul. We've bought rat poison and are going to strategically place it near the doors we suspect it has creeped under.

Personally I feel like this will do nothing, for it is a ninja rat who will leap over these mere mortal obstacles and attack its enemies with the rat karate skills that it has honed for centuries. So I'm expecting to wake up to a blood bath tomorrow. I'm going to sleep with a knife under my pillow and a helmet so it doesn't try to climb into my ears. I could only find a butter knife and a bucket for a helmet, but still.

That writing schmiting stuff

So, there's this fiction magazine. Of short stories and poems, by Indian writers and writers from other parts of the world too, like Ireland and the UK. You submit your stuff and if the staff votes for it, it gets in the next issue. I think my poetry is bad. So I had to write a short story.

I did. And I sent it in. And then I saw all the epic stuff all these epic writers had sent in and thought, nah I don't stand a chance. But hey at least it made me sit down and write for five hours and churn out nine pages of a complete story: something I've never had the focus to do before.

Anyway.
I get this email.
And it's the Editor and he says I'm getting published.

It's an international e-magazine that'll be available on Amazon among other places, and they're attempting to get it sold physically too. I'm not gonna say anymore, I don't wanna jinx it! Maybe I sound silly. But it's a really big deal to me. It's not like seeing my work in newspapers or ordinary magazines, it's an actual compilation of stories distributed to the public, like the real thing. It's one of those things that makes fools like me hold on to that pipe dream of turning into a successful novelist some day.

Here are some extracts from my short story. It's called Finding Peace.

Nala wasn’t like the other girls in her village. While at the age of thirteen, they started wearing long skirts and tied their hair up in long braids and learnt to smile demurely like a proper young girl should – Nala cut her hair like a boy and wore elephant-pants and sneakers and laughed as loud as she wanted. Once the naïve farmer’s son Yudish pointed at Nala’s head and laughed - ‘well look at her hair, it’s like a boy’s!’ he exclaimed – Nala simply responded with a ‘so what!’, her defiant dark eyes flaring out at him, before she gave him a hard clouting on the shoulder. ‘What a strange girl that Nala is,’ would be the often-heard remark made at the village square – a remark tinged by that distinct tone of disapproval closely associated with the elderly among us – in a conversation between old women who had gathered to discuss the day’s affairs. ‘Don’t know how her poor mother is going to find her a husband!’ -someone else would throw into the gossip, before the women would burst into good-natured laughter. [...] 

Nala grew up with an avid appetite for stories, poetry and all kinds of things from books [...] – and she was very clever – too clever than is proper for a proper young girl, some might add. [...] 

The older Nala got, the deeper her fears and doubts seemed to provoke her, and it was in her eighteenth year that she found herself seated pensively below the avocado tree next to the window – listening to her mother and aunt inside, talking about her marriage. ‘He is a very nice boy, from a good family – very well to do! He has a farm on the North side of the village, a large paddy farm, it has been in his good family’s name for almost a hundred years now – just imagine!’ her aunt was saying. ‘He is also a good age for Nala – he is 32, so mature and serious and grounded, I think he will know just how to control those wild childish ways that she has not yet grown out of…’ Nala’s mother did not say much as her sister went on, except to offer a murmur of agreement every now and then, as she sipped her tea quietly. ‘It is a perfect match! I have talked to your husband already,’ Nala’s aunt continued. Nala’s father had, indeed, been spoken to about this proposal made to the daughter he doted upon – and since then, he had begun to make himself scarce at home, meeting Nala’s enthusiastic ramblings and occasional queries with an air of awkwardness where previously he had responded with equal zeal, as though he were now ashamed of something – and he would then rush out of the room to ‘attend to some work’. [...]

He gave his daughter a wide smile, and kissed her on the forehead. ‘You will be happy,’ he said, before looking at her one last time and leaving the room – whether he said these words to assure his daughter of the nature of her future, or in fact, to assure himself of it, one cannot be certain.

Nala stood in the middle of the study, looking at the shelves of bound books rising around her. How she wished, she prayed, that the ground would open up its jaws right now and swallow her whole, like the Earth had swallowed Sita. She heard the trumpets sounding from outside – the band for the wedding was practicing for the pleasure of the crowd. There were cheers, and drums and a loud, joyful, upbeat tune – sounds that now encircled Nala in her solitude, as though to say to her triumphantly, ‘Ha ha! You are sad? It doesn’t matter, the show will go on!’ [...]

She lifted her heavy choli, and climbed over the gate in her backyard – the one that led to the private road behind her house. She had to make sure nobody saw her. The road was empty – everyone was at her house, celebrating the change that her life had been decreed to take. Everyone is happy about the wedding, but the bride herself - she thought, smirking at the irony. She lifted the choli and made a run for it. She was not sure where she was going – all she knew was, she had to get away from it all. No, they would not - could not - take her, not without a fight. [...]

AND SO IT GOES. Cool no? It's my first short story. Philip Sidney once said being a writer is like "being with child", labour pains, the pressure, oh the agony. But it's so worth it when the thing finally comes out, all fresh and new-born. 

So you're a housewife?

Women today can work if they want to, there's plenty job opportunities and much more options out there in the world for us than our foremothers ever even dreamed of, thank god. The 21st century Ideal Woman, therefore, is in heels and suit, a CEO maybe, for whom marriage and children are no more pressing concerns, who if she wants, can tackle nurturing babies and looking beautiful and still get back to that board meeting at 9am.

The housewife is a thing of the previous world - she stays at home and looks after the kids, while the husband goes out hunting and brings home the bacon. And I don't know about you, but where I come from, housewives are looked on as exactly that - as remnants of some outdated trend, and they are often even viewed as uneducated, unmotivated, ambitionless and not deserving the same respect a working woman gets. I mean, what do they do? someone would say. Just sit around at home ironing shirts and meaninglessly whiling away the time.

I, however, think housewives are awesome.
They're not glorified maids - they do a lot more than just cook and clean, they're caretakers. 

Now, I'd never be one. Firstly, my ironing is average at best, I'm too much of a sloth to cook for anyone, and when I see used diapers dramatic horror music in the style of violins plays in my head. I have trouble properly taking care of myself much less anyone else. Plus I can imagine the reaction from the family if I stated housewivery as the whole of my ambition - I KNEW I SMELLED SOMETHING FUNNY IN YOUR ROOM, YOU'RE DOING DRUGS AREN'T YOU?!

Secondly, I'm obviously not for the idea of forcing a woman to get married and stay at home. But when a woman chooses a housewife's lifestyle of her own accord, I think it's admirable.

Being a housewife is not easy. It's not meaningless either. I don't know how it works in all households, but I've seen a few housewives in my time and their lives are full of hard work, dedication and patience - sometimes even more so than any working woman I've met.

Let's follow this fictional account of the life of the typical efficient housewife, who wakes up at 6 in the morning on a weekday. She cooks for the family, she gets ready their clothes, she kisses them each before they leave home. She then proceeds to clean the house from one end to the next, sweep the floors, mop the kitchen, wipe down the tables and mirrors. She checks the mail, gets the bills in order, makes phone calls about things that need fixing, has a quick lunch. She has to prepare dinner for visitors, she drives to the supermarket to get the groceries, she drops the clothes in the washing machine while the chicken boils, she reads the papers while the clothes dry. She checks on the baby, feeds it, changes it, straps it in the back of the car. She drives to school to pick up the kid, she goes to see the other one play his first tournament, then she stops at the supermarket to recharge her teenager's phone. She guides the gardener to re-do the backyard, she gets the plumber to fix the leak, she rearranges the library in the study. She collects the dried clothes in a basket, she makes tea for the evening, checks her emails, rocks the crying baby to sleep. Quickly takes a shower and gets ready for dinner, she manages to look nice for her family, and manages to churn out an excellent meal. She entertains the guests, she puts the dishes in the washer, she checks on the children, pep talks and homework help, she's a disciplinarian and a teacher, gets them to wash up for bed, tucks them in. Joins the husband in bed, who's spent 9 to 5 in a leather chair in an air-conditioned room, talks to him about his day, helps him with his project concept. She falls asleep at only 2am, has four hours of sleep before it all starts again.

So what you might have noticed about this housewife, and probably the reason why her kind is a dying species, is that she serves. All through the day, she is giving, to her children, her husband, her house, to people who visit her home. Although she is in control of the household, she is doing less for herself and more for others - it's sacrifice. And women everywhere have now realized that they no longer have to sacrifice anything for anyone, that they don't need to serve, that they can be as self-serving as men have the opportunity to be.

While it's great that women don't have to be so self sacrificing anymore, I find women (or men for that matter) who choose to make a lifestyle sacrifice, out of love, in order to provide happiness for others - extremely admirable. In a world that has increasingly put such a great value on notions of self-interest, self-serving and every-man-for-himself in this rat-race, I think it's beautiful that someone would choose to be at home to watch over their child all day, not wanting to miss a moment of his life, or spend time and energy and creativity in producing amazing meals for the people she loves, or making the house perfect just so her family can enjoy it - it's beautiful that some people want to dedicate their lives to the happiness of the people they love. In the 21st century especially, you don't always need a degree or go to an office to be an educated person and to experience a full, passionate life of contentment.

Housewives are unsung heroes, who slave away all day (I have an aunt whose life is almost identical to the one I've narrated above - she's one of the most intelligent, strongest and happiest women I know, and has accomplished nurturing her kids into amazingly disciplined trophy-winning all-rounders - I thought she'd have time on her hands and I said 'read this book' and she's like 'when? I never have any time!') receiving barely any appreciation, as their roles are so often taken for granted, and viewed in such reduced terms by most of modern society. So here's to yall. I wish I could be as selfless and hard-working as you. 

When In Rome...

I brought my palms together and said namaste, aunty to the landlady - she and her husband were taking me and the housemates out to dinner.

The neon sign said 'Sethi's Restaurant', it blinked in bright pink and green. It was an outdoor eatery, and we were seated under the sky in white plastic chairs. On my left was a black metal fence, with a sign that said SMOKING STRICKLY PROHIBITED. On my right was a mishmash of colourful signs from different shops and joints. In front of our table were some bushes, randomly planted in the middle of the eatery.

Next door, Gaurav was being wed to Gunjan - or so the big sign had said on the main road. A huge colourful tent had been erected, a facade that gave the impression of a gold and red palace, and the wedding music was on fullblast, involuntarily providing us over here with a soundtrack to our dinner. By wedding music I mean every popular song from the latest Bollywood movies, remixed to a sickening disco beat.

They placed a tray of onions on each of our plastic tables first, appetizers I think. One bowl had some dip for the onions, the other had thin slices of onions, and the other had small, round, full purple onions. My housemate picked up a whole onion and put it in her mouth. So I tried it too. I've never put a whole onion  in my mouth, it was weird.

We were in the semi-dark, with only the lights from the road and the outdoor kitchen (of mostly child cooks) to illuminate the evening, and barely. They switched on the white light bulb that hung far up above our heads from a lamppost so we could look at the menu. Then the landlord was saying to the waiter in Hindi 'switch it off! switch off the light!' and we were plunged into semi-darkness again. This puzzled me for a while till I discovered that the light bulb apparently attracted the flying bugs, which would buzz about before passing out and falling into things on the tables below, so you see, people preferred the bulbs be kept off. But, well, they still kept those bulbs up there, just in case anyone took the bugs-falling-in-my-food option.

However this didn't keep one determined tiny insect from falling into my roommate's glass of water. She pointed it out to us and everyone shrugged it off. Insects from bulbs fall into drinking glasses all the time, so what?

Next, they brought us fish sticks and chicken kebabs and a white sauce. After this was the main course: naan and butter chicken and such, while I enjoyed a dish of vegetable fried rice. Everything was delicious - the best food that I have had in ages. I dug into the food and water and Pepsi, completely putting aside any concern for insects or the open air kitchen or the fact that I could hardly see what I was eating or the crazy Bollywood music or the firecrackers booming behind me.

Yes, firecrackers. Trumpets, trombones, big white lanterns in a procession, white horses, men in red uniforms and big turbans playing drums, people's hands emerging from the jubilant crowd and poking the air to the beat of a song -- all for Gaurav and Gunjan's wedding. To top it all off, the firecrackers were going off in the sky, on the road, all over the place, explosions and smoke and the whole works.

Everyone here was least bothered. Please pass the fish sticks.

After a hearty dinner we had something they called 'sof' - lots of tiny little colourful beads that left a minty fresh taste in the mouth. 'Don't drink milk now,' warned the landlady, 'you shouldn't drink milk after eating non-vegetarian food.. it'll give you white spots on your neck!'

We drove around then looking for 'paan' - which I found out only later was betel leaf. There are all kinds of variations of paan, though the most popular one has areca nut and tobacco in it -- ours were sweet so no tobacco (I think). I looked at it hesitantly, it was almost three inches long and a neatly wrapped triangle of betel leaf - what was in it I was not sure, and was not sure I wanted to know. It was the 'meeta' variation however, which means sweet. 'Just put the whole thing in your mouth,' said a housemate, 'and chew'. It didn't look very chew-friendly, I thought. I mean, it was wrapped in a leaf.

But I managed to bite off 3/4th of it and, I don't know how to describe it to you. At first it was like.. putting a sugar-cane tree in your mouth. Wikipedia says the stuff in it is 'an addictive and euphoria-inducing formulation with adverse health effects'. An excess of sugary water gushed out of it, it was basically like gulping down a bucket of diluted syrup, it did give a rush but not a particularly 'euphoric' one. It was weird and interesting, and even kind of gross. Instead of spitting this stuff out like I've seen ordinary betel chewers do, however, they said I was supposed to swallow it all. So I had to actually eat this leaf full of weird. Unpleasant. Parts of it tasted like detergent, and parts like cinnamon, and parts like, well, LEAF. I am definitely not cut out to be a herbivore.

They played loud Punjabi music in the car on the way back and I got my Punjabi on, poking the air with my fingers with as much zeal as I could muster. We wound up in the park in a circle where I was made to sing the only Hindi song I learnt the lyrics to and I sang it off-key too.

Could those firecrackers have exploded in my face as we crossed over from Sethi's? Possibly. Did I unknowingly drink Pepsi á la bugs in that semi-darkness? It's very probable. Am I going to have digestion problems? I don't know but I never say never.
But hey, when in Rome... 

Religion & Gays: The Awkward Dispute

I'm not gay, and I'm a Muslim, so obviously like all orthodox religions mine forbids homosexuality. But if you ask me what I think about the situation of the universal gay community today, I will tell you that I won't stand against them nor will I stand for anyone bullying or ostracizing gay people. Please remind yourself that this is a personal blog - I am not speaking on behalf of any religion or group, I'm only speaking for myself. I may be wrong according to you, but so what?

This seems like a big contradiction - your religion says gays go to Hell and you support them? - first of all, I don't think it's that simple. I don't believe Islam or any religion in fact, at its core, is so simplistic and reductive to say 'you do A - and you go to Heaven, you do B - and you go to Hell' -- even though a lot of religious people are so fond of being just that simplistic and reductive about their faith. Let's look at the basics. I'm not clear about other religions, but at the very core of Islam is love and peace - the very word 'Assalamalaikum', a greeting on the lips of every Muslim person as commonly used as 'Hello', means 'Peace be upon you'. It also explicitly says in the Qur'aan not to bother people because their faith or lifestyle is different from yours, to leave them be as long as they treat you with the same respect. I am also a strong believer of the notion that genuine religion is not a matter of blindly following rituals and heeding rights-and-wrongs from a rule-book - it is an extremely internal thing, and at the end of the day, your fate is between you and your god -- not between you and the society around you. 

There's a story narrated by the Prophet Muhammed, about the prostitute, who saw a dog dying of thirst and filled her shoe with water for it to save it, and God loved her completely for her goodness. So you can judge all you want about who's doing it right or wrong, but ultimately you don't have the right, because you can't possibly see what's really going on on the inside, where it matters. 

So then we already know the arguments made by homophobes, and the arguments made by gay people, and all that jazz. And we can hypothesize all we want and be proud of our convictions - but what really happens outside our heads, in practise, in the real world? Too often, people who feel they are gay (regardless of whether they are born with the feeling or decide to be gay) are bullied. They are ostracized, they are hated, they are ridiculed and hassled and are forced to struggle between the person they feel they are and the person society wants them to be. I've heard of enough real life stories about gay people who have tried to 'un-gay' themselves - for the sake of their friends, their families, their 'reputations' - only to be forced to live an empty meaningless life, plunged in despair and loneliness, only to seek escape in drugs or crime or even suicide. 

For a while, I thought I could stand on the fence about gay people, because it's confusing - when you meet nice, wholesome, kind gay people, and then your religion says their lifestyle is wrong. I thought I could say 'I won't stand in their way but I won't join them in their rallies either' and I was going to be in that weird neutral grey area, avoiding the responsibility attached to forming a strong opinion. 

But I realized that whatever my uncertainties, I am 100% certain of one thing: that cruelty against a human being is cruelty - there is no justifying it, not by my religion, not by me. Whether you believe that gay people are wrong, or that religion is wrong, or whatever -- it doesn't really matter what you believe. What matters is that you don't use your beliefs to perpetrate criminal acts on other human beings, that you don't use your opinions to cruelly attack people. Look into the essence of any doctrine and tell me truly if any of the prophets or gods or whoever would stand -- for making a young boy contemplate suicide, because the world around him hates him for who he feels he is, for making a person cry and feel alone and depressed, for making all these people feel like criminals for being a certain way that feels natural to them? Even if you feel like the lifestyle of a gay person is wrong by your standards - hating and hurting him or her is not going to make anything better, for anyone. Think of a humane way to convey your thoughts. 

So stop the violence against gay people. If you can't support them in their parades, that's fine - just don't support cruelty against them, because people are more than their sexualities, they are still flesh and blood and mind. Whatever your convictions about homosexuality - ask yourself, will you allow bullying to become justifiable? Are you the type of person to support cruelty against people in the name of beliefs? Would Jesus or Muhammed stand by and smile and nod, as you knock down someone who says he is gay and tell him that he is now somehow sub-human and does not deserve any respect or happiness? 

The man without eyes

I realized today, that I have a crapload of work to do. But I painted the man without eyes instead of doing any of it. Sometimes I wonder how the hell I got through first year in university with such a penchant for indulging in bullshit that has nothing to do with the important stuff (what they say is the important stuff, anyway). 

Once I met a man without eyes. I stuck my finger where his eye should have been. He said, that's not very polite. I said, I'm sorry... How did you lose your eyes? He looked at me - well he would have looked if he could have - and he said, I never had any to begin with. I went close and I peeped in, through where-his-eyes-should-have-been. 'Looking for me?' said a little man sitting inside his head. 'Who the hell are you?' I asked. 'I'm the man without eyes', said the little man sitting inside the head of the man without eyes. 'No you're not! You're a little man sitting inside his head!' I argued. 'What's the difference between the man and the man inside the man's head?' said the little man, and went back to his knitting. The man without eyes said, have you been talking to the little man in my head? I said, yes. Don't listen to him, he replied, he's mad. Okay, I said, but why is he knitting? The man without eyes said, why wouldn't he be? This is weird, I said, you're a man without eyes, and there's a man sitting inside your head, and he's knitting. This is very weird! And very random! And doesn't make any sense at all! The man without eyes said, yes, but so is life! Then suddenly the little man poked his head out through where-the-eye-should-have-been and said, 'Aha! There's the punchline!' 

Arty farty it's all a party!

I don't even know what I was thinking with this blogpost title.

I went to Mandi House today with H and M, two of the very few people in my batch who give a crap about culturally refining themselves. I am such an arty farty elitist bastard

Mandi House is da bomb. Let me elaborate on that since people besides me have stopped using 'da bomb' in sentences since the 70s.

It isn't really a House so much as it is a section of the city. It is the art hub of Delhi. Well, I haven't explored Delhi enough to call it the art hub, but it definitely felt like it. A lot of auditoriums line up the streets, promising all kinds of theatrical productions, posters and billboards of arty events everywhere, men with funny earrings and accents, some silly hipsters, and quaint cafes scattered about.

Wait, I know what you're thinking, oh god Shifani is turning into a pretentious art fag.

WELL I still hate those hipster glasses and I'm not wearing a beret, so YOU'RE WRONG, OKAY?

Sure the place, like anything to do with art, is bound to have its share of annoying pretentious pseudo-intellectuals, but overall - on the contrary - it seemed really, really nice. Mostly because it's a place that celebrates unique Indian art, in distinctly Indian style, form and languages, and it's not trying hard to be anything else than that. It's full of variety, and I found it so stimulating how as you stood at the top of the main street, you had your choice of stories to choose from - each auditorium promised a different one, in the form of artists and lights and drama.

Something else that was stimulating was the LASSI. Do they have lassi in Colombo? I don't know, maybe they do, by another name, and I've just been a noob. It's basically just yoghurt, water and sugar, whipped to a thick delicious cream. I held my glass and said to it lovingly, you make life worthwhile, lassi, while H and M advised me to stop talking to inanimate objects (it's only gotten worse since the scandalous chair incident).

We went to the cafe attached to one of the auditoriums -- and for 50 Sri Lankan rupees, I got a very tall glass of awesome lassi. For about 80 Sri Lankan bucks each, we got a whole plate of spring rolls, and a giant bowl of chillied potatoes. Things taste so much better when they're not ripping up a hole in your wallet. We then went to the National School of Drama in the evening, stood in queue and watched the people lying on the green lawn and the dragonflies like helicopters filling the summer air, before sitting down for a satirical play by Vijay Tendulkar. The ticket was 100 SL rupees. Next week I'll get to watch a classical Hindustani dance performance by renowned artists, for free.

The point of my babbling about le adventures at Mandi House is that I want to see this shit in Sri Lanka. I don't mean to sound unpatriotic but really, what does Colombo have in terms of drama and art? We have Lionel Wendt, the Harold Pieris Gallery above, Park Street Mews, the National Art Gallery, Punchi Theater, and a few school auditoriums. People who go to these places are very, very rarely the common masses. They're usually an exclusive crowd of the privileged, the upper and upper middle class, the English speakers. We are still too busy glorifying Shakespeare in our heads and acting out his 16th century plays-for-England, to come up with any solid dramatic literature ourselves. Art and drama in Colombo, if you ask me, is selfishly boxed up for a hi-fi minority - art has become, like in the Victorian era of England, a thing associated with only a small posh class. Some, like the lovely artists on the pavement of the Viharamahadevi stretch, create art too, but because they are not part of this special class they must sell their stuff at 1/100th the price of some awful crap that's being sold inside a Gallery.

What is the art and theatre scene like outside Colombo? Is there one?

But anyway, yes. I know, as a Sri Lankan, I'm supposed to be like, 'OMG INDIA SUX SO BAD!1111' (where does the patriotic animosity stem from anyway? cricket?) but we can sure learn a lot from the art scene here. I want to see a Colombo that has theatres and exhibitions and plays overcrowded with The Average Somapalas and Somalathas! -just because it's an important thing to propagate cultural refinement and intellectual evolution in our masses, and not just that - but to use art as a tool to churn out issues important to our national society. Where we don't cut out whole classes of people from the chance of flourishing at art. Where the tickets don't cost a fortune, and the food costs even less. Where funding is arranged to give students everywhere a chance at enjoying theatre and art, for free, just because that stuff is that important. Where Sinhala and Tamil plays are just as numerous and popular, if not more, than the English ones. And we need to put lassi in all the shops goddammit.

Overheard in college corridors

16th Century girls were so stupid. 

That's because they were subjugated by men who kept them from using their heads!

Why? 

Dunno.. probably scared that if the women started using their brains they'd notice just how dumb the men were! 

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do?

I've realized, recently, after having spent a lot of time with my species (aka females... I live with eight of them) - that girls do some ridiculous things to themselves, all in the name of looking nice. For the benefit of the rest of you who get to enjoy the fruits of their endeavors, particularly the male population (because let's face it, a lot of the time they're the reason women bother with such things), I'm going to list out some of them so that you take a moment to stop and appreciate. Or just marvel at the madness. Whichever comes first.

Removing 'Unwanted Hair'
YES. Your daily dose of gross-too-much-information provided by the Shifani blog. Boys, I am going to tell you something that may shock you: the women in your life have hair above their lips, sometimes on their chin, on their arms, under their arms, on their legs, and in other places too. Asian women are hairy. Some less than others, but still. Hair occurs. And women take great pains to make sure no one discovers this dirty little secret. Why? Because ONLY MEN ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE HAIR IN PLACES BESIDES ONE'S HEAD. Women must be hairless! Such is the decree of society. So women all over the world go to parlours, once every month, or week even, and pay some girl money - to paste waxy strips on their arms and legs and rip the hair out of their roots. Yes, rip. And don't even get me started on the Brazilian Wax - damn. Then they use a length of cotton thread to rip the hair out from between their eyebrows, from above their lips and wherever else. It's brutal, militant stuff. If you want to know what it's like, just ask someone to grab the hair on your head and PULL. Parlours everywhere resonate with the cries of women in pain! Martyrs for the name of beauty - who must do what it takes to look pretty in a sleeveless blouse at Aunty Monica's wedding.

The Painting Of Faces
Guys don't understand what goes into make-up. To the uninitiated, make-up is rubbing lipstick on and using a brush on your cheek. Today, that shit is way more complex, bro. I don't wear make-up but I had to review a salon one day (yes, my Editor must have been drunk when he decided to send me of all people), and it was like... a whole new world (cue the song!). Except, like, without the magic carpets. Women paint their faces. I say, paint, because it's a process: the face becomes a canvas and all these brushes and tools are pulled out to make their faces look like something they're normally not. I saw a girl spend twenty minutes on a woman's eyelid. I am not even kidding. She was trying to "give the eyelid the right tinge of golden brown". Then there's Foundation and Lip-shading and all levels of Eye Make-up - and I don't even know what - to make the woman's face look thinner, fairer, curvier, shinier - you name it. It's the art of creating a beautiful illusion, and it's extremely convincing - so if you see a beautiful woman at a party, wash her face, it's like witnessing freaking Cinderella's chariot turn into a pumpkin.

Painful Clothes
Women wear a lot of things that their bodies feel uncomfortable in, because it looks nice. Sometimes it's jeans, sometimes it's a tight dress, sometimes it's a hairdo, sometimes it's a pair of shoes. If it was a world in which looking pretty wasn't such a super duper accomplishment - and women could really have their way - they'd walk around in loose tshirts, unflattering pajama pants, Bata slippers and a ponytail. However, it is not such a world, and women must - simply must! - try to look hot and sexy for parties and weddings and office and college and wherever the boy she's trying to attract happens to be. If you have got it - the body or the face, apparently - then you simply must flaunt it. If it's not being done for the sake of a compliment from the boyfriend, it's being done for compliments nonetheless. The jeans are too tight for easy walking, or the skirt is too short for comfort, or the shoes are on heels too high, but all is endured in the holy name of looking pretty! I had a recent unsavoury experience wearing my roommate's heels ('cause my shoes tore) one fine evening. It was painful, in my toes, my soles and my thighs. And man, I am telling you, it is some kind of mad skill to wear those things on a regular basis. You have to understand (I am speaking to the noobs aka men and wearers of sneakers such as myself), the unnatural position that the body takes when it climbs into high-heeled shoes, because I don't think anyone notices and appreciates this sacrificial act. This calls for a Paint illustration!

Sigh. The things girls do to look pretty. Is it worth it in the end? The discomfort and the shoe cuts? Maybe it is. Some wise guy once said that the world is just a bunch of people trying to get laid. And looking pretty is just part of all that. It's biology.

Then again, I don't see any boys painting their eyelids and torturing their feet. 

I was at a pawn shop

p-a-w-n

not p-o-r-n

and I said

Mudhalali, what do I owe you

For a kilo of unrequited love?

The answer-

Madam,

Just a bucket of self respect

will do. 

A 20-Minute Vacation

I had a lucid dream this morning. It's when you know you're inside a dream, and you control what happens, and though you know your dream is a dream, you feel everything like it's real. 

I was in my garden back home. Tall wild cool green, everywhere. I was barefoot. Knowing I couldn't stay asleep for long, I hastened to go to the place I miss most when I'm awake. 

I opened the gate and ran to the beach. 

The smell of salt hit me. It was like seeing your best friend after years. The sand was cool and damp as I gathered a handful in my palms. I dived into the waves. It was a dream but the water pulled me into an embrace that might as well have been real. 

The sun set on the horizon and the sky went through its motions: bright yellow, purple, crimson. And the sea changed colours too. And there I sat with the skirt of the breeze brushing my cheek and the sand cooling the back of my feet, watching the water and the light share an intimate dance. 

Then I woke up in Delhi. 

Who is to say that reality is exclusive to those who are awake?