To the ‘big’ aunty wearing tights, here’s a bigger Bravo!

I was preparing for medical entrance exams in Class 12. My chemistry tutor ran batches of 25 which began at 6 am till way past dusk, in his house. He was very good! Till that morning when he looked at me, smirked, looked away at the others and said ‘Those girls who wear tight jeans never clear these exams. I can write it down for you.’ I was 16. Everyone laughed uproariously. I never went to him again. I did get a call from a medical college in Pune. 

He wasn’t that good, after all!

****

A few months back I read about Amy Pence-Brown, a nearly 40-year-old woman, who stripped down to a bikini in the middle of a busy market, blindfolded. She invited strangers to draw hearts on her body in an effort to promote self-love; to promote acceptance of our bodies for what they are. Supportive comments poured in! 

dailymail.co.uk

I quote from John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, a gift from a man and a most valuable one. 

‘According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome, the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. A man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. If the promise is large and credible his presence is striking…suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated…but the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others. 

By contrast, a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself...manifest in her gestures, voice, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste – indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence.

To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. This has been at the cost of women’s self being split in two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself…from earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.

She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life… Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.’

Berger wrote this back in 1977. Such were the times, the expectations from women and thus of women. Appropriate it to today’s situation. Are you too thinking such are the times, still? At least partially?

Let’s go back to Amy who began this piece for us. When she exposed every popularly-defined 'ugly, fat and ungainly' part of her body what all did she do? She erased that split within! The ‘mother’ fought away her own image of herself, through years of conditioning, to free her three children from the burden of dominant beauty discourses. And the ‘fat feminist’ reclaimed her body!

And now come back to where you are sitting and reading this. What are you wearing right now? And why?

I’m inviting you to self-talk because it is something I once used to do standing before a wardrobe which always ‘played safe’ and knocked away any ‘experiment with clothes’ or ‘lust for the latest fashion’ that tried to get in. Because, will it suit me? In school there was little scope. In college the fantasies of wearing the most different dresses materialised in the changing room, and never walked out. Even after I hit 20, maybe especially then, since the world is suddenly visible to your adult eyes, a lot of clothes, accessories, make-up and hair-dos were secretly admired on others and dreamt about later. From two pony-tails in school I had graduated to one pony-tail in college, with the latest rubber band holding it, no more.  

I was very conscious of myself, and not just because of beauty magazines, advertisements, movies and social media feeding me their standards but also those people-to-people comments politely lecturing me on ‘what is okay for you’. So you know what a battle it must have been to wear my first ever halter-neck without worrying that my bust line is a shame! But when I walked out for the first time baring my back to the world, I slowly started arriving at a point of comfort with how I look in what I wear and where. It is then that realization seeped in – all these years of growing up, the ‘will it suit me?’ was more about ‘will it suit others’ idea of me?’ 

I was trying to please, to appeal to another’s sensibility. And it wasn’t even me who was doing that!  

A woman’s self-esteem is constantly crushed. Going back to Berger, girls often grow up in an ‘allotted and confined space’ and even as women face ‘tutelage’ from surprising quarters. The pressures to be dainty, pretty, shapely, combed, graceful, ironed wrap us in layers of self-judging, mummifying what we truly want to be. Colouring our image of ourselves in others’ tinted glasses. Because on our shoulders hang expectations, of others from us and those we women tend to have of ourselves as a result of constant conditioning. 

So the ‘big’ aunty in tights, walking gaily down the chic mall or the neighborhood market, and who still in a very evolved world generates snickers, may have run an obstacle course to get herself to buy her first pair, and climbed a mountain of belief to wear it! Against her family, her husband, her kids, her magazine, her friends’ sense of aesthetics, and who knows what else to reach the finish line of confidence. A true heroine, if you ask me. One who has succeeded in leaving beauty myths behind even if to don the latest fashion (for why should a tank top be the privilege of a few?) One who has accepted her body, as your ‘warts’ but her all! And one who burns the measuring tape you take to her thighs (like that despicable newspaper printing candid bum shots or a Right winger’s view on jeans) with an enviable self-assurance!

A lot is gained when we reclaim our bodies – its bulges, its scars, its pores, its patches - one step at a time. Because what we also reclaim is our Presence; social, emotional and even political presence in the world, in its truest sense. Just like Amy owned hers, in her black bikini. 

Nakedness was created in the mind of the beholder, in the Garden of Eden. And it continues to be today, in all its forms. Says Berger – 

‘She is not naked as she is.

She is naked as the spectator sees her.’

Think about it.

[Entirely my opinion, the importance of which like any other is as much in its rejection as in its acceptance.] 

Older. Greyer. Fartier. Being.

Some thoughts accompanied me to the toilet when I got out of bed and walked towards it for my Birthday morning (hence probably special) dump of the day. As I sat my one-year-older behind on a Parryware commode which had clearly out-lived its pristine white life, philosophy slowly trickled out my mind. 

I am exactly a year older today. Just a teensy-weensy year, no more! What happens when we turn a year older? Inside, outside, upside, South side, all sides. What really happens? What changes? Or petulantly refuses to change? Or dithers between changing and maintaining status quo of the previous donkey years? Have you too wondered? 

There wasn’t much to make conversation with in the loo, though the shampoo bottle waved with eager ears like never before, so the monologue necessarily turned inwards. I dug the grey matter deep and thought … 

If we were to see our naked body in extremely super(duper)-subsonic slow motion over the years of our lifetime, what would we see? We should be able to watch strands of hair gradually turning grey and dropping off with the speed of feathers on a windless day. The wrinkles becoming prominent – deeper, longer, permanent. The eyes becoming puffier and lashes flying away, one tiny strand at a time. The hair on the chin getting coiled. Lips going thinner, arms floppy and a general loosening of the body taking over the face, the neck, the stomach, the bums, the … everything that can surrender to gravity. In slow motion we would see a hunch developing, the knees bending outwards and the white of the teeth, toe nails and eyes changing colour. And some parts just going poof! The ultimate vanishing act – naturally or on hospital beds. Both internal and external. 

And as we’ll see the Life of Our Physicality unfold before our eyes we’ll realize how we all, all, are permanently moving closer to an irreversibility of ... um … what should we call it … an irreversibility of unBeing? Physical unBeing, I mean…

An itch on the red glitter-star on my hand, the one my child drew at 12am last night, and a burp that was midnight's Chocolate truffle cake all the way brought me back to my present location. I looked at the shampoo bottle. It wasn’t waving anymore. All was quiet and I was alone again. So I decided to hang around longer. Clear the system properly, which, strangely, made a mission of itself today. So I continued thinking … 

How much of all of the above changes would we be able to see on our Birthday morning? Like this 13th morning of January for me. Surely some changes come about, loitering irreversibly towards unBeing, one nano-step at a time? See, Evolution seems like an intelligent woman. She must have a way of ticking things in her chart. And to keep her court in order and organized, she would use our dates of birth to draw away from us some keratin, or adipose, or sphincter muscle, or a pinch of enamel in order to make sure we’re right on track to being, well, older, greyer, fartier. 

'Happy Birth Day', the shampoo bottle cried!

I shook my thoughts away and instinctively stared myself down and up and down in the bathroom mirror, not married to the commode at the right angle. I smiled-unsmiled. Cheeeeesed-uncheesed. Nope. The crows at the eyes still have the same feet. Arms up-arms down. Arms up-arms down. Nope. The buddies didn't look any different either (not that they have in many, many years). I ruffled my hair, head hanging in anticipation, and pore deep into the crop. I am sure I didn't see any extra greys. Then I breathed in-breathed out, rubbed my hands, slapped my thighs and felt gleefully young.

I’m still exactly me from exactly the day before. Phew!

Oh sweet Gratitude, fly away both Skywards and Downwards for irreversibility being invisible to the naked eye (which has yet to behold a picture of herself from 5 years back!). And forget bras, just burn that Life of Our Physicality slo-mo movie reel if ever it catches you unawares on your shit pots. Think more celebratory thoughts. Revel. Yes. Yes! I should! I am 33 today and it's no joke! The only time when 3 and 3 doesn’t make a six. 33. Called 'all the 3s' in Tambola. 33. Like two strapless bras standing ready to embrace you. 33. Or a pair of pouty lips naughtily kissing another pair from behind. 33. And when you press the back arrow and shift the cursor to both, they become blinking Bs. B. B. 

Yeah, of course! BE. Just be you. There we go. There's the moral of the story. Now that’s better!

Which reminds me, dear reader. It is a rumour universally acknowledged that just Being (especially biological) starts coming naturally as you grow older. Say, being on a pot waiting for it all to clear up. (There will be time, my friend!) Burping with an embedded ‘om’ just before everyone else has finished their last bite, and smiling the smile of satisfaction right back at their stares. Adjusting the undies to not get them in a bunch in front of the video cameras at the entrance of a party hall. Farting with gay abandon in the Pensioner’s Queue without a challan from the Politeness Brigade. Clearing the phlegm in matchless crescendo. Why, I've even heard that talking to inanimate things like tea cups and shampoo bottles and spectacles and dentures begins unawares. Thus you go about your daily business, all the time getting older, greyer, fartier but then that much closer to just unBeing, more and more. Not to forget getting wiser as you get older (Trump is an alien!). 

Slowly over the years the lightness of Being replaces all clouds of the heaviness of unBeing, like Pudin Hara vapours calming three helpings of Thai Red Curry. And that epiphany can happen anywhere, just anywhere!

The shampoo bottle agreed. It showed me a thumbs up and winked. I whispered a 'thank you' and got up like a Queen from her throne (only one knee groaned an arthritic groan).

Relieved. Relieved of all congestion. How strangely satisfying! 

Time to flush. 

Beard Talk

I will begin this manly post with swearing. Here goes – I swear that any resemblance between the items of this post and your brothers, boyfriends, blogger-throbs, sons, husbands and fathers-in-law is a matter of pure coincidence. I am pinching the skin of my Adam’s Apple and saying this. Swear! No fingers or toes are crossed as I say this and what is, remains none of your business.

I also promise you this post has not been written for a shaving contest with a year’s supply of pretty blue ladies razors up for grabs, even though I need one so badly my son has been mixing up my legs for my husband’s. Like it matters! Horses all kinds are meant to have hair all over. I’m only keeping it very real for my child’s favourite four-legged activity.

This post, macrocosmically, is a confession of the handful of regrets I have. Microcosmically, they are all to do with me commenting virally on the various kinds of beards I see walking-talking around me and how! Just imagine yourself a priest with me in the confession box and read. Also, I have made peace with the ‘Woman, you have sinned’ in my life so keep it to yourself and “listen” in silence. You see, I had to drink half a glass of Horlicks to feel encouraged to do this, especially since I’m not a regrets-on-the-table kind of person even though I am often quite a regrettable companion .

Like when I couldn’t resist asking my best friend’s brand new husband why he sports a week-long stubble every time we get together for a formal party. If only I had asked him just that on his house warming do. But no. How could I? ‘When you get your house whitewashed next time you don’t need sandpaper to scrub the floor.’ My husband, oh that clean shaven man God bless him, had choked, coughed, caught my thigh under the table and squeezed it. Our secret signal for when my sense of humour is lance-shaped. We met for my friend’s birthday at a swanky restaurant where he gifted her a pug in pink ribbons. All seemed to be going well with the mike being passed around and barks and blessings being tuned out when ‘Happy birthday, Sheena. Oh, you won’t need a brush to make your dog’s coat shiny and flea-free. You married one!’ said my mouth, half full of apple custard. I wasn’t drunk. Four vodkas with lime make you honest, not drunk (Do try it at home.) Of course I went home soon after, but with the greatest doubt playing aloud – does she wear gloves before doing paari to him? 

Did I ask her boyfriend this the next time we met? Of course!

A very cute boy in college had my full attention, till he started growing hair on his chin. No beard no moustache. It spread like a coir door mat covering what didn’t anyway seem a strong point of his features. Just his chin. In a few weeks, there was a forest there. I always wondered what shape the hair was in – Oval? Circle? Star? – Till he took a proud selfie with his chin raised and I realized it was shaped like algae and looked it too. Anyway, his door mat went wherever he did and I was certain I saw the guitar on his back green with jealousy in Chandni Chowk, wondering how come guitars were no longer the sole cynosures for 20-somethings. 'Did you kiss the ground Anil Kapoor walked on? His assets are stuck on your chin!’ The face he made I thought no human could. But then again, anything is possible with golgappe in the mouth. By Diwali we had made up. His mom sent gajar ka halwa for us poor hostellers. ‘Happy Diwali, Jiggs. You peeled the carrots well. Hope your mum didn’t take those nods as a yes for marriage.’ 

Obviously, I said it after I had eaten up the halwa. It was yum!

The most sinfully fascinating of all is that tiny beard (beard?) middle aged men have taken a liking to. Irrespective of the shape of the face, or any shape at all, so many are seen sporting an inverted triangle right under their lower lip, the most unloved place. An attempt to look kewl dewd? Younger? Nostalgia for college? While I was still trying to solve the mystery, one mister I had to encounter. Had to. Across a meal table. First I thought it was a bit of dal makhni stuck. After much staring in the direction of his lips, I realized it was follicular growth. That’s all it took to make me imagine him shaving in front of his mirror – razor in one hand, magnifying glass in the other, chin out-stretched with the combined efforts of teeth and tongue, and Van Gogh’s artistry. ‘You a fan of Shakespeare, sir?’ I had blurted before stuffing my mouth with biryani and hoping the “imperial” bone didn’t go the wrong way down his throat. It didn’t. The talk veered to the favourite topic between just-met friends – the GoI - and between sips of Coke and high on camaraderie I pointed towards him and said – ‘You could be a mascot for the government's Family Planning Scheme. Just paint the inverted triangle red.’

Needless to say, I blamed it on the caffeine. Needless to mention he will never lunch with me again.

I regret to have said all this and then to have repeated it here. So to whomsoever it is due, here's a heart-felt apology. 

But then, Humanity is bound in the sameness of being. Plato Neitzsche Decartes Anonymous said so. I am sure you too must have had the same beard thoughts. No? Very similar thoughts? Come on! Are you saying you have never noticed how the biggest most well-maintained mooches grow beneath shiny clean pates? The Gods work in crazy ways and the human body in crazier. ‘We can have hair!’ the foot-long monsters seem to be symbolising.  

Wait, let me go write about it in another post. 

And regret it all in yet another!  

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Regrets, I’ve had a few - What’s your biggest regret? How would your life have been different if you’d made another decision?]

Lessons Learnt from my Body

This post was written thanks to Sumeetha Manikandan, who asked me to contribute to her beautiful space 'Lessons Learned from Indians'.  

An excerpt ...

My body has been talking to me.

Once upon a time a body, to me, meant black circles for heads and sticks for hands and legs. As a child, that is, drawing on paper with crayons and sketch pens, picturesque scenes I had never seen before and bodies so far removed from what they actually looked like, yet real in their sameness of being. Short-lived were those days, because when I was taught to a happy tune how chubby cheeks and dimpled chin and blue eyes and curly hair make one the teacher’s pet, the reflection in the mirror told this child’s head I could never be her. I had held the picture of the cherubic girl in the nursery rhyme book in front of the looking glass. Next to my reflection. To look at dark coffee next to peaches and cream. A horse tail next to luscious curls the colour of sun. Eyes with not even a drop of the blue ocean the teacher’s pet mirthfully looked at me with. In the mirror.

And my body sighed! Loud enough for me to hear its echo for a long time to come. It told me as it thought aloud that I could never be loved enough, because I looked different – from the girl in the book. Even from the doll in my bed who I dressed in pretty clothes. So pretty, my best friend. And so different, from me.
In my first school which was an all-girls convent, Monday mornings were ...

[To read the full post, kindly click here.]

Hit me baby one more time!

The Gods must be crazy, and the goblins running the rumour mill crazier. For the latest on the grape vine, which hangs heavy with sour bunches, is that if you are good looking by some standard you get more readers on your blog. That it is not about writing any more, like it was once (for after all, Shakespeare did manage plenty of hits). That it is all about features which match the ideal assets the fantasies in your reader-head enjoy. Insulting, sad and unbelievable, all at the same time. But who is surprised?

Picture this. 

A stranger who considered himself a brilliant-but-wronged writer asked me to write a post for him and him for me. An experiment that would involve us to publish each other’s works in our own names and exchange the hits number at the end of the day. He wanted to prove that content is not king, but pretty faces are queens, and that under my hat his ink will find kisses while mine will fade in comparison. I politely refused, finding the totally resistible offer slightly offensive for implying my writing unworthy of sustaining a readership and also realizing soon enough that some heads which hate to take no for an answer even fail to spot nonsense planted in their own. His parting words threw ‘you vane woman’ at me. But before I could tell him to make that ‘vain’, he had vanished into thin air. Probably hiding in another’s inbox which acted abettor in his research crime to make me publish, in my name, something written by a dude whose commas and punctuation were like drunk ants doing striptease atop an express train. With full stops flying everywhere, off course, of course! 

To think that someone's else's balderdash flowing from upturned toilet bins can make you think … 

Reminded me of a man asking his wife to pick a gynaecologist who was the least good looking of the lot, for that meant she spent more time studying medicine properly rather than in front of a mirror. Hence, a better doctor! So strange that his wife would believe him; all ten manicured nails and highlighted hair of hers included, to pop her kid out! So strange again that we have reached Mars but our minds sit cosy inside a caveman’s animal skin toga, quivering with inferiority or envy on spotting in others physical features matching brain quotient in their sharpness.
   

And you don’t even need to be blonde any more to take the sh** cake! I talk of only one segment, where Blogging meets Bollywood and apparently proves that if you have the right face you need have nothing more, for then a good number of readers and publishers will follow as night follows day. And good writing, well, who needs that anyway.  Isn’t the dude who sent me the message for a life-changing research sitting without a woman’s bullet lodged in his chest?  

First things first; thank you for the compliment. It is super to know one belongs to a good looking genepool. For such fortunate planetary disposition I thank God first, then my parents, Galileo, some of my favourite teachers, Mendel, my dog Timmy, Darwin and the latest ladybug stuffed toy we got and named Gaston (after Gaston in Ben and Holly, that is).

And now for some serious talk. 

Pray, what is wrong with making oneself look good? Of showing aligned teeth in profile pictures or legs-above-the-knee in party ones? Of knowing the waist-to-shoulder proportion is perfect or that the face turned leftish looks best? Does colour on my lips make me any more fake than the free-flowing compliment on yours? That kohl in my eyes is as much a part of my outdoors as is my phone, and it is me who decides if the blush is pink or not there at all. About berries, I love to eat them and wear them too, sun shine or star light I decide. Only me!

Such misplaced are the times that a pretty picture in ‘About me’ on your site can make not just men but women too to attribute to you feats the very devil on your shoulders would shudder to perform. Of course, the devil may make you pout those lips, all the way from your timelines to theirs. But then you wonder, why bother, why kiss and make up with a dinosaur or use terms like sexist or feminist for brains which think no bigger than a pea.  

And more importantly, how, just how does a blogger's face conforming to conventional ideas of beauty make a reader spend 2 minutes and 30 seconds (average, Alexa says) reading a post about a book review or a short story, leaving behind feedback which proves they were paying attention and not fantasizing sipping coffee with her mascaraed eyes? It is not as if I'm picking my peasant skirt just over my knee to hitch a ride. Even if I were, why did you stop the car? If you expected to see me in my Sunday best lingerie in a post about exactly that, then, delusional reader, it tells everything about you and zilch about me, apart from saying nothing about the others who enjoy reading me. And who, gasp and fume and beat your chest as you may, keep those ‘hits’ coming in! Quite steadily!

I don’t hang around your breed to know enough about it, but I can still advise. How about you experiment on your own the next time around, without trying to rope in a pretty face allegedly unfairly enjoying it all or posting anonymous comments on Blogger Confession pages with the courage of a rat in the deep end of a pool? You don’t even need to doll yourself up. Just make sure the grammar is in place, creativity bribed in and something, anything, unique enough about it to make your readers want to ‘hit’ you again. You need the support of imagination and language, not a wonder bra for sustained readership. You see, you need to turn that gaze in the right direction to get inspired, and that direction is not another’s body. In the mean time, don’t forget to remain polite and pleasant. Sweetness is fashionably under rated, and last I checked it helps you look good too!

PS – You saw the picture on the top, didn't you? How silly and stupid I looked. But you still read me to the end? Hm! That would be another 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Thank you for ‘hitting’ me, baby, one more time! 

[WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Opposite Day - If you normally write non-fiction, post a photo. If you normally post images, write fiction. If you normally write fiction, write a poem. If you normally write poetry, draw a picture - As you can see, I did post a picture, but then I had to write too. I just had to!]

Foot-see and Me

It was my first time. 

Don’t ask how old I was, for by many standards it was late enough to have ushered in at least three babies, if not four. Perhaps, a few dinosaurs too. But so what? Don’t they say there is a right time for everything, and if indecisiveness, ignorance or fear-of-the-unknown has delayed the much needed, blame the lateness on a cocktail of Karma and Kismet with a dash of Zodiac? That is exactly what I was doing as I bathed and perfumed myself, and dressed it all up in Sunday best. Especially the tiny vales between my ten toes, you know, where the dirt unseen rests feeling cosily at home till you discover it one day when it has formed a tiny hill there, much like termites. Or moles. I wore my best flip-flops to walk to the occasion too. 

After all, I was going for my virginal pedicure. 

A lot of firsts happen after your marriage. Ouch! But many in the days just before it too. Somewhere in my 20s I was off to a salon which promised me the most freebies (read pint-sized bottle of Bisleri, a mug of coffee, an umbrella stand to hang my coat/dupatta). Freebies, for the palatial fortune I was to exchange for just getting my dear nails clipped. Moral of the story till now being, I like freebies, and that then I had no idea about pedicures.

A separate section called ‘Foot-see’ opened into a pink and black room lined with chairs which would put the PM’s gaddi to shame - with their grandeur, their gadgetry and the chest-size of the gentlemen standing behind them. Men? Suddenly my nervous lips licked the lip gloss away and my toes twisted into such strange positions of awkwardness that they could just have been possessed with the spirit of an ashamed exorcist himself. I cushioned myself into one which seemed three sizes too big for me, and dipped my feet into a tub of water I swear I wanted to put my head in. And drown. Why? Here I was, ready to risk a pedicure just to escape that-talk-which-forms-the-about-to-be-married-day-at-home, and all I got was a brain on an over-drive, trying to think of ways to keep the legs together enough to please the nuns and fathers who moulded me in school but apart still so the young man with the lovely cheek bones could reach all corners of my feet once they were soft. And supple. And ready to be peeled. 

I peeked at my two innocent feet somewhere down there and blessed the bubbles in the water which were, truth be told, quite relaxing. What wasn’t relaxing was the man with cucumbers on his eyes sitting next to me, getting a head massage, a facial and a pedicure done, even as he spoke on the phone sealing a property deal. Because now, as my eyes held him while his the cucumber slices, I felt it rising up my gut, twirling in my belly and knocking on my teeth to open up my mouth, for Laughter Express was on its way. With its brakes failed! 

Past tense.

To not laugh is impossible for me. Ever since I remember I have had uncanny urges to laugh at just the socially wrong times. For instance, as a little girl in stranger aunties’ and uncles’ arms I would laugh with glee, sometimes because their nostrils looked like obstacle courses and often because the hair on the chin would be singing to me in the breeze. Of course, I escaped censure then, for because of my laughter they gave themselves certificates of merit for being good with kids. Later, I started getting caught. In standard 7, after chopping the hard ink-erasing dirty green rubber into tiny pieces and putting them on the head of the girl just before me, I started laughing. Mrs. Abraham did not find humour in the concept of pulleys and fulcrum that she was teaching and I was standing outside my class the next moment. Still giggling, by the way. And braces on teeth played traitor too, for my mouth would barely close. In standard 12 it did not help to have a Hindi teacher who kept repeating to us ‘Bharat krishi pradan desh hai’ after every full stop, and tautology I do find amusing. What to do! Also, if you think no one gets sent out of class on laughing out-of-context (but in-context with what’s inside the head, imagined or in full view of) you are wrong!

Present, in Foot-see now.   

Testosterone had done its deed on that man next to me, and in patches it had left hair-free there was cream. If he was Greek, I could have passed him off as a chocolate frost cake with a cherry on top. But he wasn’t, and there was nothing on top. With jeans folded up to his knees his feet were getting massaged, as mine would be soon. I watched out of curiosity, I swear, for it was my first time and clearly he was a veteran. And then, the right pressure points started getting activated on his sole by a man in black who seemed responsible for his feet by the day, and his drunken safety as a bouncer at night. And how they touched his soul! ‘Why don’t you talk to Golden Foresssttt … ten, he will give ten … its two bighaaaa … aah … so what if the approach road it narrow … oooh … 20 flats? Hmm … mmm … no man, just getting paddy done ... nnnn...’ and it went on. Property dealing and orgasmic foot healing, as the pedi-curer did his job as if nothing was wrong with the world. 

My belly was distended with the whole 9 months of laughter, as if an army of feathers was tickling it on the inside. I had to get it out, oh, I just had to laugh. Should I fake a phone call and release it? Bathroom, no, I won’t reach in time. Shame shame! Marriageable woman and still doesn’t know how to hold it in. Little did I know the solution lay in the problem itself, for as my good looking worked my now-soft feet, the tickle buds all over them got provoked beyond all Edens. Forget awkward toes and legs apart moments and all monster men frothing next door. Forget even that I was all grown up. It started showing its teeth, from the feet upwards, and with all things in the head acting the very fuel for it.

First, a little giggle. Then two, together. And then, like floodgates of a whole generation repressed from expressing, I laughed. The mouth-wide-open, head-thrown-back variety of laughter. Louder than ever. The dumbstruck staff stared, first at my funny feet and then at my face contorted like a monkey, as I jerked my right foot alternatively away and towards my attendant to make them clean. Almost as if I was cycling! This had to stop. And stop it I did. I just told myself then that maybe this could wait too for after marriage, among other things. Ouch!   

Of course, I paid the full amount. My overly tickly feet were not their problem. Thankfully, neither was my tickly tummy for the man who was now in stage four. Of his paddy, of course. 

P.S. - I continue a virgin in this department. True story, this. 

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - From the gut - Tell us about the last time you had a real, deep, crying-from laughing belly laugh]

Shreeman Baniyan

5… 4… 3… 2…1 … and it’s time to talk about Shreeman's Baniyan!

Vest stolen from Google

If I could make a movie one day, I would make it on men’s baniyans. (Oops, will this post be banned by BMC for referring to men’s ander (wear) ki baat? Oh, that’s excluded from censorship? Praise be the lord!) Perhaps my movie will be a period drama called ‘The Unsung Hero’ or an action flick which ... Arrey, why do you smile? Okay, let me explain. 

Sitting under the Baniyan Tree of Knowledge one day, I was musing about this and that when enlightenment in the form of the following flashed down from heavens above. It dawned upon my philosophical mind The Truth about this piece of men’s inner wear. And the conviction immediately translated into a letter to the PMO requesting them to declare the Baniyan the National Dress of India. Let’s see why!   

Good character certificate

Do a thing first! Go to your balcony and peep at the neighbour’s clothes line, or observe your own. Is there 

another piece of nearly-washed clothing hanging with so much humility as a man’s vest? So much humility and simplicity as is seen in a white (often blueish) baniyan is unmatched in any other piece of clothing. Absolutely no frills attached, and just a tiny little tag with a number statistic no one cares about. Even with grand canyons for arm holes and plunging necklines, they continue modest. One size can surely fit all, and some can even accommodate two and a half men, nearly. These low-key beings ask for no limelight, no prime time, no good quality washing powder and not even a passing reference in the crorepati fashion industry. They just quietly promote equality – since all baniyans look the same, feel the same, show the same and hide the same (almost). They are secular in nature – everyone wears one, and usually not in the colours of their flags. The Baniyan Brotherhood’s sense of fraternity can make any two strangers from different castes look like twins when wearing them. If this is not Constitution friendly, what is?     

The name is enough

Look at the names they carry. While a sense of gender levelling and homeliness is kept in mind by calling some 'Rupa', most others can make you feel like studs if not look it. Amul Macho, Boss, VIP Supreme and even Dollar for that matter, considering its namesake currency continues so strong. I would surely name my 4th child after a baniyan I tell you, and perhaps encourage him/her to become a Jockey too. No, I am not jokey-ing around. I mean it! Why, even a mall in West Delhi is called ‘Vest-Gate’, as it should be, looking at the tattoos donning shimmery vests walking in with gota-zari women for formal lounges. It was sheer providence and the many hands of the many divine which made exactly one half of the ‘W’ of ‘West’ break to reveal the real ‘V’ for Victory Vest inside, yo! 

The versatility 

Such freedom of expression impression the baniyan offers, you can spot them anywhere, on any occasion. Log into Facebook and see. You can combine it with a dhoti, with shorts, pants or even your favourite RSS-ish chaddi with drawstrings. Mamaji is wearing one and standing under the waterfall, even as mamiji’s three-piece suit tries to keep the dupatta in place. Retired uncle ji from one house away wears it all night all day, even when welcoming in the RWA executive for a crucial meeting. And chachaji flaunts a few holes, other than the ones for arms and neck, even as he lounges on the bed for a picture with his suited-booted bhateeja. Reminds me of an armour actually, with scars from war and wounds of battleground dotting it all over- be it rust, mite holes and even good old mera wala neel. Like they say - when you have earned them, you flaunt them. The newer-modern ones are worn to malls and other’s mansions for shopping or football-beer party, respectively.  The older ones are worn everywhere else. Multi-faceted!

All this, even when Shreeman Baniyan asks for nothing in return. Completely selfless in service these daid-do meters of cloth. No ironing, no high maintenance and certainly no glitter-stone work and high-fashion cut. Why, it does not even care where it ends up one day when wounds of war far exceed counting ability. It becomes anything from a mop to chopped up dusters. Such good cotton, why throw, no? Or maybe it’s pure love for this humble inner wear (and not global warming) that makes men cling on to it, more and more. 

As I type in Baniyan on Google’s 15th birthday doodle to look for a heroic image for this ode, I recoil in shame. It throws up ‘banyan bonsai’ in its result. We need more voices to join in the cause of promoting The Aam Baniyan. Giving it it’s rightfully earned pedestal. Justice needs to be done and fast. Start a sign campaign for making it the national dress of India at least. 

In the meantime, any script-writer for my 'MIB - Men in Baniyans'?

[This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda]

In the 'Theek' of Health

Once upon a pretty time, I wrote about colour on my face here. 

Rant alert, again, but no face attached this time. Just a few size tags. Why?

People are obsessed with weight. But why they remain more obsessed with another’s weight, especially if the other scores lower on the weighing machine, continues a mystery. To some, you have to be in that perfect theek of health - which means a certain circumference of arms, legs, waistline and ahem, which suits the diameter of their heads. If not, then according to their expert fatty acids you are too thin, too weak, too skinny and too irresponsibly used anorexic. My dimensions get me a lot of attention from some women folk around (Mister says he’s certain men folk too are attentive but he does not like to think about it). Now, getting attention is good, and must be enjoyed at all costs, all 360 degrees and 50 shades of it. Here is my way of doing just that.

From school to marriage, I was petite. On the rajgaddi of the wedding day, some joked I would fly away with the hail storm that graced the occasion. Others wondered if I was 18 yet. And a few worried that I will starve the head-geared boy sitting next to me, consuming him with my passion for “dieting” habits - habits which my sweet tooth had not the courage to acquire, or the need to form! Never understood the ‘Oh! Figure conscious?’ thrown at me every time I refused a second helping of what tasted like burnt onions, by belles who seem happily full – with food and snide remarks, both. 

Then, 3 trimesters later, I heard ‘You are not putting on enough weight. You only have a belly. Your child will be too weak’, even as I ate right, exercised right, felt sexy and enjoyed my baby bump thoroughly. Out came the baby and in went the mummy tummy – both jacha bacha weighing fit-and-fine. But who could stop them? 'Girls these days' and 'At least think of the suckling baby' snugly fit in one very long sentence said in ear shot every time I refused to drink a glass of ghee (I liked the ‘girls’ bit). 

Most recently I heard, with eyes stuck on my thighs – ‘You had become theek in the middle, but now …’ and I had a hearty laugh before I let her complete. I had got my affirmation from a different shape that I had finally reached the exact shape that I wanted to enjoy for all times to come. Perhaps, my college time skinny jeans, which welcomed my legs with full arms, were spreading indigestion in her tummy? Or maybe, it was just the burnt onions.

But do I care, especially when I make no remarks about other’s girth, not even in times of drunken mirth? 

I am a size somewhere between 8 and 10. It suits me and those I love. If you are not my size, that suits me too, because your waist-line is none of my business, just like my hip size isn’t yours. Of course, the size of the brain is independent of it all, with a proclivity for wardrobe malfunction when rudely picking on other people’s sizes. Thanks to my political connections with Mendel – the Father of genetics, along with a little discipline thrown in, I plan to remain a size 8. But would the Mothers of Jean-etics understand? Maybe, if they stop eating the grapes which the fox could not reach. The last I heard they were sour enough to be very unhealthy - both for the body and the mind.

Remember the word GIGO from school-time computers? Garbage in Garbage out! Thank God for 2 ears, and a pen to write it all down.

My face is attached, for your kind perusal

It’s a bad day. I just realized the mole on my nose is not perfectly centered. A case of Left-from-Centre mole! Can anything be worse than that? I’m finished, no not the glossy or matt variety. Finished as in ruined in a world that is spinning around prepositions and propositions to help us get beautiful – anywhere and everywhere, seriously (except in the head, which they say is what karma makes of it, and alcohol). Pure machinery work – elevation and suction, under, over and in between, tucking and lifting, plucking and squeezing, increasing more than decreasing. And then the ‘anti-‘ words that will help you defy the forces of nature and gravity alike, like ageing, sagging and some other '-ings'.  

WWW should read Women Wanting Wonders, the pretty kind. From advert banners on FB to blog posts on Indi, everything is reminding me of my age and stage and how I am ignoring my tomorrow. A schoolmarm with golden eye shadow and cherry lips (or vice versa was it) in my dreams imposingly telling me how I will wake up with the hidden pigmentation under my skin no longer hidden, how the skin around my eyes will form estuaries, how birds will make nests in my frizzy hair-in-humidity and how I am the sore thumb neem in an orchard of Christmas trees. I did click on a few links which were begging me to, only to find things like bigger the better, brighter the better, the more unrecognisable the person in the mirror the better! I imagined my lashes getting thick as the rainforests, got scared and did not click again!  

Truth be told. I did go for a facial once. Pre-bridal variety! With scrub in my eyes, nostrils blocked close with a fruity cream in semi-nude state of affairs, with dimmed lights and elevator music, and some kind of mechanical arm spraying rose water on my face, I was trying to “relax ma’am, for best face shine-up results”. Apart from having a hundred to-dos gnawing my insides, I could barely breathe or see, let alone keep sane enough to count down the 20 minutes of this beauteous relaxation to get over. And the free pedicure that ensued (it was a package deal, which means your wallet is still theirs!) told me forever that I have more tickle sensors on my feet than any primate alive, and hence the foot massage-n-more ended before it’s time. If I were to get ‘Survivor’ tattooed on my forehead, now you will know why.  

He had told me straight – I hope I won’t see a stranger walk up to the rajgaddis the night of our marriage. Since he had seen me from school, there wasn’t much I could hide or nip, paint or pout. We got married, the whole 7 merry-go-rounds, so I guess that went off fine. Until today, when a fellow blogger tagged me in a Beauty-ful post that began ‘How to …’! And that’s when my mole started screaming at me that it’s falling on to one side. And to top it all, Humpty Dumpty on You Tube suddenly made way for a certain brand of cosmetic clad women singing ‘Kiss kiss baby lips for lucky kiss…’ Divine intervention to make me pull up my socks and lift my face in time? Oh well, at least my son was jiving to the peppy tune and blowing kisses to the multi-coloured lips singing. Honestly, when Humpty Dumpty came back, he suddenly seemed a tad under-dressed for the sing-along sequence. Talk about the power of advertising!   

I am in awe of all those who write about the nitty-gritty to make us pretty-pretty. If I were asked to write on or advertise a beauty product, chances are, I would not be able to. The brand on the kohl pencil I use faded away a year back. The lip-sticks I have are bottomless cylinders of shades that shine on choice occasions. And I still don’t know how to pink-en my cheeks the right way, and always fear looking like a bag punched. Please, someone start a foundation course for foundations too, for more often than not the world is looking grey instead of the pearly peachy creamy white the expensive elixirs promise.  

Here’s me, when I last tried colour on my face. I do think I look quite pleased with the results. But what would I know? Perhaps a copy of ‘Beauty for Dummies’ will help. Till I get hold of one, my face is attached for your perusal. Now, bring in those ‘How to Wash Face the Beautiful Way' tags. I'm waiting!

Did you just call me old?

The most intimate relationship a woman shares is with her age - a certain number which secretly increases with every birthday cake, but is never to exceed 25 or go below 18 (give or take a few days). It is extremely bad manners to ask a woman her age, and not just an older one, mind you! It is even worse to tell a single friend she is the same age as you - that girlfriend of hers who just became a mother of 3. (Who are you calling old? Talk about yourself, I'm still young. But yes, you do look old though! Haven't you tried Olay and it's 200 siblings?)     

No matter how subjective the idea of "Age" or "Old" may be, there is always a number attached to it. And alas and alack, it never seems to count backwards. No matter how infantile the mind and flawless the soul, the body clock goes tick-tock-tick-tock - sans permission, sans No Objection Certificates, sans attested approval from notaries. It's a bad bad world, isn't it? While the ticking gets louder, as does cribbing and cringing, the helplessness strengthens with every older heart beat. And ka-boom, we hit a specific number which maybe begins with a 3. That's when we wake up fully, to the possibility of keeping the ticking from showing on our faces and bodies, at least. (Phew! Breathe in, breathe out, give a loud shout, head bang a little and say 'Wanna look 18 till I die' and get yourself an appointment!) 

There's enough to make you look younger. Even more to make you feel as much. Nothing wrong with it if it makes you feel better, unless you choose to discard growing up with growing old, that is. Defying age is a full-time preoccupation for some men and women - from colouring, concealing, "cushioning", creaming to wonder drugs, wonder diets, wonder bras and wonderful wonderful botox. A pinch here, a nip there, a tuck here, a prick there, a few uplifts here and there and eureka ... the 8th Wonders! (Look! The others look even older. Wow! I must call up Dr. Who's-Who and thank him again. Um, am I smiling wide enough? Sorry, can't feel my face so had to ask!)

And then there are some others like me, sitting on their haunches at the other older end of the rainbow. So happy with her 3 strands of grey, and waiting for the others to sprout. Happy with those crows feet coming around the eyes with every passing smile. Very happy with stretch marks, moles, lines and spots the adverts call dark - sign of age and signs of stage. The skin colour I was born with, the hair colour I've always had. The face in the mirror I proudly call mine - 30 years and 2 months old, to be exact!          

I do wonder to myself though, when I look at my friends getting visibly and apparently feeling very visibly younger. We fantastic feminist women talk of inhibitory glass ceilings all the time - how to reach, how to break, how to breach, the limitations set by others. Is it possible that at a personal level we are also creating those ceilings for ourselves - for another's gaze or maybe just to follow the craze? Is it possible we are living in those tiny glass vials full of age-defying stage-defying miracles, and forgetting to live altogether, or to smile?

You want to know what ageless beauty means?

Or the meaning of "ageing gracefully"?

Turn that gaze away from your mirror. 

Go look at your grandmother, or maybe just her picture. 

That is what Timelessness looks like, 

The wrinkles, the patches, the whites and the wisdom in the lines.    

        

   

Shabnam Beauty Parlour

For latest hair-cutting styles, fruit and vegetable facials, chocolate waxing, fancy threading, manicure to pedicure and much much more. Welcome to ladies only, please. Discount on pre-bridal packages (and head massages for post-marital headache!). Thus announce all those tiny beauty parlours tucked away at the end of every lane in every colony of every town, and opened by our neighbour's sister-in-law's sister's maternal aunt's neighbour. Each with it's own 20 mirrors, walls painted orange, colourful combs displayed, fancy-but-empty Revlon bottles shelved and plastic flowers galore. 

Each also with it's own train of 'trained' service providers - young girls and old ever-ready to make you feel relaxed and beautiful and everything in between! Simply dressed, plaited hair, chipped nail paint, cracked heels and dusty sandals notwithstanding, these girls work hard, all day long, to make us glow to show, to pamper us, to take us away from a stressful home and make us look conventionally beauty-ful - a beauty they care not to find in the mirrors for themselves. Their most unscientific explanation for warts, black-heads, pimples, split-ends, dark circles surprisingly never challenged, and only well-believed and followed. With no one to notice, hence not question, the problems on the girls themselves. Absolutely heart-warming, them trying to make you look and feel special, knowing fully well that no one will massage their tired feet in return, dress their hair or even throw a spare compliment at them. A good day after a long day full of lotions and creams and shampoos is the lady leaving the parlour not screaming dissatisfied and no piercing frown from Mr. Parlor Manager meaning the day's salary gone!  

Now, times have become 'professional' and stylish! Beauty salons and spas named after Greek goddesses are fast replacing Shabnam and Sweety, in every corner of every city. They offer technology - laser, geyser, freezer - what not! They offer pretty girls (and boys) to clean your feet for you and hang your coats too. Even thread your husband's eyebrows and do his nails too. They offer a cup of coffee with sexy Vogue, free, as they empty your purse of hard-earned money! Of course, all communication in English language, please. And no, you can't discuss Mrs. Khanna's nose or Mrs. Mehta's kitty party. No time! Who cares! Quick! Make me look like a Queen. 

Where is the warmth and where those selfless ears and hands which heard you out as they pampered you, took your stress away, made you look good and feel good to the core - the human way. No shared communal feeling of warmth and sameness any more. No known names to discuss. No common colony concerns. Just foreign names, pretty girls, fancy chairs, expensive shampoos and mechanical hands. 

Adieu dear Shabnam and Sweety - we will miss you!