Bikini Wax

At the lowest point in life, when I was in extreme physical pain from a back condition, Sunita from the neighbourhood parlour was someone whose kindness helped me make it through the haze of pain. She understood why, despite extreme agony, I would hobble over to get my eyebrows threaded or arms waxed. She didn't judge my need to indulge in such grooming rituals just to feel normal. When she noticed I couldn't sit up for more than 2 minutes at a stretch she invented new ways to thread, exfoliate, soften, condition and wax.

Since then, our friendship has grown. We continue to meet once a month, when she comes over, all-professional, to deliver 'parlour' services. I am healthy now and have my own place. I've had a significant romantic relationship and remain unmarried. She got married a year & a half ago, late by her family's standards. Within the first year, she suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage and came to realise that the man she'd married was less life partner and more petulant man-child.

Whenever she comes over, we hang out for a bit - me in my ganji and shorts, her chatting away as she heats the wax, knowing where everything in my kitchen is.

She tells me that a few days back she found herself at a bus stand at 8pm, not wanting to go back home to her husband yet unable to return to her parents because they would only send her back. As she rips out the tiny hairs on my calf, she declares that women in this country can rely on no one, not even their own parents. I ask her why she didn't call me from the bus stand.

"I thought you were traveling for work - don't you travel a lot?"

"I do, but you can still call."

"The phone works outside Delhi?"

"Yes, it's called 'roaming'. You can ask your mobile company to activate it. Anyway, I don't travel that much anymore."

"Oh, then I should call you."

Then like always, she recommends that I get a full body uptan treatment done. "I will do it nicely. You see how your skin will glow after that!"

"I don't want it Sunita. I barely have patience for the basics."

"But bhaiyya will like it."

There is no bhaiyya in my life anymore. She doesn't know this because I haven't updated her yet. Instead I launch into a lecture about how I don't care to go through hours of treatments for bhaiyya. Any bhaiyya who enters my life will just have to deal with me as I am.

"I'm waxed and threaded, Sunita, that's about all I can offer bhaiyya."

She giggles and then gets serious.

"It took me a year to realise it, didi, but I can't rely on my husband for anything. As long as I'm happy and laughing he's fine. He'll take me out for shopping or ice-cream. But when I suffer, he can't handle it. When I lost the baby, he moved out to go live with his sister."

Then she says, "It's good you are not married didi. You did the right thing."

Over the years I've known Sunita, I've heard this line many times. Earlier, she would say it as a kindness. "It's good you didn't get married." I imagined she felt bad for me because she knew how others perceived unmarried women our age. Now when she says it, it's as if she's proud of how my life turned out. So I don't tell her how lonely I feel sometimes and how my gut wrenches in the middle of the night because I miss being held so damn much. Instead, I listen as Sunita tells me about her other friends at the parlour, girls like her who wouldn't give up their jobs for all the husbands in the world. Girls, who would sneak out at lunchtime to cheat on their 'karvachaut' fasts because "When have our husbands ever cared enough to fast for us? The day they bother half as much as we do, we'll skip the samosas." She tells me about the elaborate labyrinth of untruths they spin to avoid the wrath of their in-laws. It sounds a lot like the lengths I go to to avoid relatives fixated on undoing my single-status.

"Ok didi, let's try something new today. Bikini wax."

"WHAT? No!"

"Just see how bhaiyya will love it, didi."

"I don't care what bhaiyya will love. It's too painful."

"Oho, the way I do it there will be no pain."

"Yeah yeah yeah. No thanks."

She looks exasperated. She had me pegged for an adventurous woman and now I've disappointed her.

I don't know when it happened but at some point a hairy bush became not-normal. When I realised it wasn't a passing fad and that 'everyone was doing it' it made me angry. Burning hot wax on my shins was one thing but my crotch?! That was going too far. My politics wouldn't allow me. My fear of singeing my cooch absolutely forbade it.

But here is Sunita, bored by my tedious politics, unimpressed by my fear. Is there some arcane code of sisterhood she's invoking because it's beginning to feel like I just might let her come at my vagina with hot wax dripping off a butter knife.

And HOLY SHIT it hurts like a motherfucker.

"You SAID it wouldn't hurt. STOPPPP."

"I can't stop now. That would be silly. I can't leave you half-done like a chicken."

"I DON'T CARE. STOP."

"Shh...it's the first time you're doing this, no? That's why it hurts. You see how good you will feel later. Especially when you get your period."

"Sunita, you're being ridiculous. OH MY GOD WHAT SATANIC TORTURE IS THIS."

"You know didi, I've opened up a secret bank account. I'm going to put all the money I make from this job in that. I won't tell my husband."

"That's so great." I whimper. I hate her so much.

"Bas bas bas...ho gaya. It's almost done."

Whenever Sunita says something is 'almost done' I know that something terrible is about to happen. And so, as a last ditch effort I scream out my confession:

"There's no bhiayya anymore! He's GONE!"

Sunita looks up at my face. She looks just the right amount of sad. And then she grins.

"OhO! It doesn't matter didi, who needs bhaiyya? Now turn over. Let me do your bum."

Like A Motherfucker

A Social Experiment

I bought my first car recently. It's an LSD-hallucination shade of green and looks a bit like those pod-thingies at Heathrow airport that take you from one terminal to another. Aside from the natural euphoria it's induced in me by virtue of being my first car, I have uncovered a rather pleasant side-effect to purchasing the highly affordable 2012 version of the Tata Nano*.

*Beach Not Included

First, unlike its predecessor, it promises not to spontaneously combust (and since I cross my fingers every time I get into it and say three 'Hail Mary's, I assume I'm in the clear). Secondly, everywhere I take it, it tends to make people smile - people who would otherwise scowl at me, like the security guard outside my cousin's home, who recommended I feed it chocolate because it was such a cute little thing.

At shopping malls, guards grin at me gamely and let me pass without too much trouble - they know the car has neither space in the trunk (where the engine goes) nor glove compartments, nor space in the front boot space that's just large enough for the spare tyre. They wave me on with a smile that says: "How can something so cute pack a ton of RDX?"

Because A Nano Driver Could Never Be A Terrorist

This evening, my cousin, his wife, the Nano and I giggled into the driveway of The Leela. The valets beamed at us. Then on our way out, the doorman got into a conversation about the car's specs. A towering Sikh gentleman with an apparently equally statuesque wife, he was especially interested in the head & leg room the car offered us. And then: "Kya mileage?" "Kitney me liya?" "Finance kiya ki full payment?" Ordinarily I would shut such personal questions down in a second, but not this time. The Nano had made the world go rainbow bright with socialist bonhomie. All was candy floss, puppies and proletariat. Short of giving him my bank account details, I answered all his questions and we parted with a warmth uncharacteristic of interactions between strangers in New Delhi.

Of all the benefits I thought I'd get from purchasing a dirt cheap, petrol-burning automobile, earning goodwill from the legendary grumps of Delhi was not something I'd anticipated. I wondered: Which other sourpusses could the Nano join together in harmony? How about we drive Nanos into Taliban strongholds? Or swerve one past Mamata Banerjee's office? Maybe park it under Raj Thakeray's building? Or use it to cheer up Nicholas Sarkozy. Take a ride through Syria, Darfur, Abhishek Manu Singhvi's bedroom...the possibilities seem endless.

There is a flip side too, though. As with most things, the Nano holds equal potential for being used for evil. So if you ever see it driving around with a 'Being Human' sticker across its back, alert the authorities immediately and run for cover.

My Zara Bag

I bought my first big girl handbag recently. It's from Zara - a big girl brand with big girl price tags. It is charcoal grey, with two types of handles. One is the shortened version, where the bag fits tightly under my armpit. The other is a longer strap that allows me to look like a very chic postman. The main body of the bag is like a black hole into which anything & everything gets sucked. Ordinary laws of physics cease to apply in this realm. Only prayer and superhuman rifling through its depths can help you attain what you seek.
In that sense, my Zara bag pleases me greatly.
Although I bought my Zara bag on sale, the world does not need to know that. It gives me the notion that maybe someday I could dress like big girls too. That maybe one day I will chuck those denims and start wearing razor thin belts around my shirts. Those girls look so pretty and their hair never moves.

Two weeks ago, I got called away to a mountain. I took my Zara bag with me. Then I was told to go into a tunnel. Like a small girl, I took my Zara bag with me. Ten minutes into the tunnel, I slipped in a soft, clay puddle. I grabbed the sides with one hand as the other hand gripped my companion's. My Zara bag slammed against the wall. Charcoal grey met wet clay grey. My Zara bag sighed.
Back in my room I tried valiantly with paper napkins to scrape off some of the dirt. But there were these shiny specks that wouldn't come out. They glistened like diamonds, bits of mica from the rocks. My Zara bag had been bedazzled.

Yesterday, I was walking home from watching the Republic Day Parade. I had seen Sukhois do vertical ascents, a woman, with my name, inside a tank and an 89 yr old war veteran, who marched like a 21 yr old cadet. I had not sung the national anthem in over a decade. I marched home with a swagger, my Zara bag slung around me like those sashes around the Rajputana Rifles boys. Swing, swish, swing, swish. Suddenly I felt a tug on one of the shorter handles. I looked down. It was a little pi dog. He looked like he was in a good mood & wanted to play.
"That's what a Zara bag is for, right?" he asked.
"Bad dog!" I chastised.
He was gnawing expertly on the strap now, "What kind of girl buys a Zara bag and doesn't play with it?" he said.
"Man, you're a judgemental dog!"
"Well, you know...life is short. Especially for dogs. I'm gonna get my kicks before this whole shithouse goes up in flames..."
"Wow...that's that famous line from..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah lady. You gonna play with me or what?"

My Zara bag sighed. Really, what choice did I have?
 

 

Have I Lived Enough?

If there is one question that's plagued me since the age of 15 it is - Have I lived enough?
The definition of 'lived' has changed several times. I've tried to map out its chronology:

1996-2000:
Have I been to enough 'girl-boy' parties?
Have I smoked enough cigarettes?
Have I tried all varieties of Kingfisher beer more than thrice?
Have I studied enough ancient Indian, Greek, Western philosophy?
Have I entered enough inter-college competitions?
Do I have enough people who like me?

2000-2003:
Have I travelled enough across India?
Have I survived enough night edits?
Have I behaved sufficiently badly on said night edits?
Have I made sufficient money?
Have I 'struggled' enough to tell stories of it when I'm 50 and sitting in an air conditioned office ordering my minions about?
Do I have enough long-haired, male friends?

2003-2006:
Have I been daring enough to throw away everything I've worked for because I'm 'not happy'?
Have I done enough narcotics (no harder than E)?
Have I been stoned/ drunk for a sufficient stretch of time without break?
Have I met a sufficient number of 'crazed yet artistically-inclined' people?
Have I lived on my own & been poverty stricken enough?
Have I had enough 'near death' experiences?

2006-2009:
Have I been hugged enough?
Have I been outdoors enough?
Have I been brave enough?
Have I been kissed enough?
Have I been vulnerable enough?
Have I had enough therapy?
Have I made enough phone calls to powerful people?
Have I worked hard enough at improving my writing?
Have I travelled enough across the globe?
Have I heard enough cool music?
Have I fought enough for what I want?

First, dip your toes...

I have hovered, for a little under a decade, around the idea of blogging. Once, I even started a blog and posted the mandatory 'I have started this blog but have nothing of any consequence to say...' post.

Then, things fizzled out.

Now, at age 30, I realise that my inability to keep up with this activity has to do with my rather warped notions of blogs being linked to narcissism and an inflated sense of self-importance. It's time I grew up. Which for me means - Chill Out Yo and Write! So if I want to blog, I will. Even if I have nothing to say. Or even if the things I have to say interest no one. Or even if the language skills I display make me cringe from time to time (no, not all sentences turn the way we'd like them to).

It doesn't have to be anything, it doesn't have to mean anything. I'm coming out of a decade of writing where every sentence had to have meaning and purpose (for the 'masses'). Or else - cut. I'm emerging from a profession where words have images attached and images need words. Baki sab? Cut. I'm coming from a world where everything must have rhythm. Nothing can be bumpy or skip a beat. Or else - cut.

But that is, obviously, not how I think or feel. I scratch around language, I love words but am not always fast enough to catch them. Rhythm? Those things I leave to unforeseen forces. Sometimes it comes, sometimes I can see it stick its tongue out at me and scamper away naughtily.

At least I don't have an evil producer giving me the stink-eye and telling me that what I've written in 'banal'....or worse still - 'yaar, mazaa nahi aa raha hai.' I'm sick of being told that I'm an 'angrezi ki khiladi...do ghante me 30 minutes ki script likh dogi na?' This is a no-entry zone for nincompoops. Go poop your nincoms somewhere else.

And let me take my first dip...