My Prayer for my daughter

Fuck pathetic fallacy
(unless you want to count the city's raining spree
That has rendered the subway outside my office into a dark soul-less gutter)
But I have been praying for my child too
A child that will only come into existence after I am 42
Or maybe I will go to a third world country and adopt one
Just like Angelina Jolie and Madonna have done
But I have been praying HARD for my oven's future bun

Lord please make her like black-and-white still photography
And have a capacity that exceeds more than two glasses of whiskey
So she may go and make her mother proud
Let her like that band called Tool
For if she listens to Taylor Swift like me, she'll be labeled a fool
And may she be a pretentious bitch
Watch French cinema and read Russian lit
And have piercings and tattoos like the "Dragon tattoo" chick

Oh and I wish she dates a French artist and croissants are what he'll feed her
Or what 'she'll feed her' coz you know I am chill with either
I really don't want her crying for hours on the bathroom floor
Wondering why that ass didn't call
No way, she's the one who will make them beg and crawl
May she never consider "Sex And The City" to be her gospel
Because Manolo Blahnik and martinis be damned to hell
Or for that matter Gucci, and Prada and Chanel

May she be seriously successful and rolls in wads of money
Because in a rich woman's world it is always sunny
But before that part-time as a sexy bartender or a DJ
She could be a marine biologist, a poet, a stand up comedienne, pianist
Be opinionated, be bad-ass and a bra burning feminist
May she avoid all the cliche careers
I'd rather she be a talk show host like Oprah or pop star like Britney Spears
Than a doctor or an engineer

May she have self-control when faced with situations involving carbohydrates
Or better still may she be allergic to carbs to ensure a better fate
For once you enter the soft white-breaded paradise it is hard to return
Because soon those clothes will not fit you anymore
And you'll crumble when berated everyday by skinny whores
If these prayers of mine are never answered (God forbid)
And he still grants her my sucky genes instead
May she handle plumpness more gracefully than her mom did

Bell Jar revisited

I love bell jar. In fact I love reading anything written by crazy fantastic women. I just devoured Emma Forrest's Your Voice In My Head in one night and just when I thought I was going to go slightly insane - I picked up Plath's novel. And I realised that if I were to ever write my own Bell Jar, it would in all probabilities be called Hamster Cage since it would involve a lot of eating and then running round and round in the park later, and also on a deeper level - there is the cage I am trapped in - because sure, I can be deep too.

Europe

I was fifteen when I went to Europe with my mom and dad. Like any fifteen-year-old, I would sit at the backseat of the coach listening to songs of angst and woe. But my parents were delirious about being in Eu-whoop-a-doo-dee-rope and more than that they were insanely enthusiastic about "EXPOSING" me to culture. I italicised and capslocked that word - because that is exactly what my mother sounded like when saying it. "Bubbles we are EXPOSING you to the culture," she'd say, grabbing at my earplugs and pointing out of the window. Look snow-capped mountains. Look dense forests. LOOK paintings. KEEP LOOKING. God forbid you ever stop looking!!!!!

My parents were like two kids let loose in Disneyland. They wanted to eat everything, and try everything and (shudder) take pictures of every single thing. I tagged along like a brat, saying "Mooooooom" - and screaming "Stop you're embarraasssiiinnnggg me" to my dad every time he tried to get me to say something on his video camera. (My dad loves videotaping holidays. And my mom loves talking on camera. Like, trust me, the whole of Europe - After the tour guide was done explaining the monument's history and geography, my mother would quote it verbatim on tape, while posing next to the site. I still don't know how she memorised everything he said so quickly.)


So, while thinking about this trip today, I wondered if they did what they did on purpose? I mean, why else would any parent do that to their fifteen-year-old daughter?

They took me to Hooters.

It wasn't the fact that they took me to Hooters. Although sitting with your parents watching women walking around in their underwear is really really disconcerting. It was the fact that they sat their acting like fifteen-year-olds (Note The Irony) - giggling and nudging each other while stealing glances at the waitresses. When one of them came to ask for our order my dad said, "A coffee, thank you." Maybe it was the giggling or the nudging or the fact that a family of three was sitting their and ordering a single cup of coffee between them - the waitress gave us the dirtiest look.

"A coffee, dad, seriously? You got us all the way here for a coffee. You get coffee everywhere!!"
"Beta," my mom said. "We just wanted to show you Hooters. It is very famous.  How much time do you think it takes them to apply all that makeup? Bubbles LOOK!"

"Look at what ma!"

"Look at those big breasts!"


That coffee cost us quite a few euros, a situation my parents would have ideally cribbed about. But their was an odd glow to their faces. It was like a Mastercard ad in the making:

Tickets to Madam Tussauds : ..... euros
Cab ride from hotel to nearest KFC: ...... euros
Discussing Hooter waitress' boobs with 15-year-old daughter: priceless

The Uncool

I never really got to have the 'high school' experience back in my high school. I mean, I am not even sure if you could call it a school. It was a convent. With lots of nuns and ignorant girls. If we were Hogwarts, sex was our chamber of secrets. We heard about it, people vanished down that area to never return or returned and were never quite normal again and most of us tried to like... not think about it. (OMG the phallic possibilities of this metaphor! One must Never look a basilisk in the eye. Bwaahahaha).

So high school happened to me when I went to journalism school. When pitted against left-leaning liberal dudes and Chomsky quoting chicks, I felt my teeth sprout metaphorical braces and my skin break into a thousand prickly whitehead metaphorical pimples. This was high school. Those were the jocks and cheerleaders while I was on the bleachers wearing sneakers (as Taylor Swift would say). Suddenly, I was in a world where NOBODY cared that Angelina Jolie had adopted another kid.

Now, I know I am making myself sound stupid. I am not, stupid. It's just that... When intellectual people talk about guilty pleasure - I say, 'bullshit, why feel guilty?'. I am like the fat girl who eats junk food while the cheerleaders throw up in the loo. ( Yup, its still a high school metaphor tethering vaguely into reality. Fat girl-me, junk food-Taylor Swift, cheerleader-the intellectuals, throw up- their intellectual bullcrap).

I hope all the pretentious dickwads reading this can see that while this is thinly veiled satire of myself, it is also a reminder for you to stop taking yourself so goddamn seriously.

Ps- I still dislike people who NEVER liked "Titanic".
Can't trust those motherfuckers.

The Pessimist

I drive like an asshole. I inherited this from my mother - who, incidently, channels all of her feminism onto Delhi roads and saves all her sexism for Kate Winslet's character in "Titanic". You see, I have been reviewing my own downfall. I think somewhere around the time I turned 20, my own optimism exploded in my face. By that time I had already realised I was never going to be a detective/nun/duchess/Carrie-from- "Sex and the City". My existance was pointless. And all of a sudden, I was aware of things like Feminism. Because you can't ignore Feminism. It's right there. It slaps you in your repressed face.

And now I realise, the last time I was truly optimistic was back when I had no idea about all the possibilities...

Listening to: "It ain't me babe"

I love this song. I loved this song back when I heard "The Turtles" sing it. Maybe because it reminded me of that jerk at that overrated party who I was crushing on, while he callously stubbed his cigarette of indifference on the ashtray that was my heart. And I love this song so much more now, when Bob Dylan sings it on loop. Maybe because this is how I like my relationships, callousness topped up with a generous helping of one-sided paranoia. And maybe because if it were up to me, I would scream "It ain't me babe" at everyone. See? This song works on so many intricate levels. Sometimes I think that if it weren't for olives and hummus, and Bob Dylan fuelling my soul, I would surely die.

Sometimes I stare at Gwyneth Paltrow's glossy hair or think of as many "That's what she said" jokes as I can.

"I shampooed my hair," I tell him in the same seductive tone that one would adopt to describe the colour of their underwear. "No seriously, you don't understant the gravity of this - I washed my hair!"
He stares at me, wondering whether I am honouring or mocking him.
"If there was a tribe of Kritikas," I elaborate solemnly. "Washing our hair would be like our mating call."