MARRIAGE MATERIAL

I was hoping my next article would be about meeting the 6'2"inch boy my mom found me. I was hoping to meet him, not because anything about this man sounded particularly exciting. He was an MBA graduate who worked in HR. But I thought, if nothing else, meeting this man would make for an interesting blog post. I live to entertain. And I’m trying to be open to the process of letting mommy find me a hubby. I am internally repulsed by the idea, of an arranged marriage. No offense to any one who found their soul mates that way. But I still decided to give him a chance.

When I say give him a chance I mean I glanced at his face book profile. It was like breaking into Fort Knox, the man had some insane privacy settings. There was only one picture that was accessible. It wasn’t particularly interesting. And that’s as far as I took it.

 He on the other hand had full access to my unabashed profile. I am not sure how long he was on it, or what he saw, that sent him running in the opposite direction. It may have been the chin piercing. It may have been all the very drunk pictures. Pictures of me hugging men and women. Or maybe it was the pictures of me kissing my ex boyfriend. In my defence -  those were up there from when he was my boyfriend. Or maybe he is pro BJP, and dating a congress girl was just more than he could handle.

So I’m sorry to disappoint you guys but there wont be an article on my meeting the 6'2"boy. Cause the 6'2" boy, who was using the modern technology of the Internet and facebook, couldn’t handle my modern-ness. I was too modern. I’ll try not to sound too disappointed.

I am 26 years old and I am a month away from being 27.  I run my own company. And we do great things. I have a chin piercing and a tattoo. I can drink all night and I can dance till the morning light. I hug people I love. And I love lots of people. I am a loyal friend and the best kind of lover. I am fun and funny. And one day I will write a book and you Mr. 6'2". You will not be a page. Not even a paragraph. How sad for you.

IS IT IN HIS KISS?

After the last set of setbacks on the boy front, my mother re-petitioned to join the cause. So I figured, what the hell, how bad could it get. I didn’t think she was taking her new role very seriously, it had been weeks and I hadn’t heard anything. I wasn’t too upset.  But what I didn’t realize is that she was so sly about it, the evil plotting had begun. I was clueless. A week ago in the middle of an evening in front of the TV, while she is complaining about how I should be cleaning my room she throws in, don’t you think its time to take down some of the excessively intimate pictures with your EX from Facebook. I brush this of as random mother worry that I may still go and look at these pictures and reminisce. But a week later when she says there’s this boy I found and you can go check out his Facebook profile.  All the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. This boy has one profile picture, mom says he’s 6'2". How had my mother found this boy?? She had enlisted the help of some discreet matchmaker. What were her search criteria? Well she had asked how tall I was, apparently 5'5" is pretty tall for a girl. It was going to be hard to find a boy tall enough for me.(PAUSE TO LAUGH). Anyone who knows me knows height has never been an issue. (no I never dated a midget but some boys have come close)

My own checklist is this:

1.     They must be funny.

2.     They must smell good.

3.     They must read. (not talking about literacy here)  

4.     They must not be a jobless bum.

5.     And the recently added to list requirement of must not be in love with ex-girlfriend. (you know why)

This isn’t tailor made for me, it’s probably what any woman’s basic checklist looks like, but finding a man that fit these criteria is surprisingly difficult. This list was a response to a lot of trial and error. I didn’t always have a list in fact as far back as I can remember I had only one rule of thumb, you could tell if a man was for you when you kissed him. If there was a spark, a piece of electricity when two people were close, something unexplained that left you light headed, butterflies in your stomach then the deal was closed. 

As you can imagine this rule makes a hunt for a man very interesting and extremely fun.  It’s not the best and most practical rule but a man can check all the boxes, could also have all the extra customization features of cooking, dancing, gardening, travelling, serenade and likes dogs but if there is no chemistry there is nothing to speak of. And just chemistry, is a bad idea. It’s how I ended up with my college boyfriend. Opposites attract and how. We had so little in common but when he held my hand I thought I was going to die, every single time.  The first time we kissed, we were in a dingy boys hostel room in the middle of a lunch break. I have no explanation as to how we made that work for as long as it did other than the kissing was great.

Anyway, that was eons ago, I was young and foolish.  Not that I’m much older and wiser now. In fact I don’t think I’m any closer to figuring out what I want. But lately I feel like the universe is helping me answer questions about what I need. It’s given me chances to explore men I thought were a sure shot, and shown me how far from good they actually were for me. It’s shown me boys I liked that didn’t like me back.  And it’s shown me boys that’s liked me that I didn’t like back. There have been deal breakers and questions about what that actually is.

I just hope I know what I’m looking for and I hope I recognize it when I find it.

Will he be someone like you?

FOOLS IN L-O-V-E

How fickle is this mind and heart

So easily it forgets

that which once consumed me

How easily I forget.

Love doesn’t have to make sense and it usually doesn’t. Being in love is a black hole that sucks your time, and mind. And no matter how sensible and levelheaded you can otherwise be, love can turn you into a crazy. I have had the great pleasure and misfortune of having been in love many times. You would think that after the first heartbreak I would learn but nope, here I am giving it a go again despite my most recent knowledge of the pain it can cause. Am I a sadist or just an addict, or did I just slowly forget.

In the year that it has now been since my epic break up, I have gone on dates with 9 men. I refrain from talking about these men because the way I feel about them so quickly changes from like to hate. I begin writing an article about this awesome new man in my life but in the week or two that it takes me to finish writing my piece, my views about the man have changed and the article is shelved.

For Eg.

My most recent conquest, lets call him Mr. Charmer. And as you can imagine Mr. Charmer is exactly that, completely charming.  He smelled nice, (the most important and commonly ignored feature by most men).  He let the compliments drop often and with sincerity. He opened doors and dropped me home. He was a man that deserved the kiss he got at the end of the night.

It was a perfect evening, I left blushing, and happy. But the cynic in me was wondering where the dark cloud was to this silver lining of a man. It couldn’t have been this wonderful, where was that catch. And voila if you go looking hard enough you shall find it. So this one unlike 3 other men I dated was actually single (hurrah for me) But this one like one other boy I dated still loved his ex.

I feel like I have some ex-girlfriend curse. If I like a man - he has an ex-girlfriend that he still loves OR a girlfriend who things are complicated with. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I have an ex-boyfriend that still loves me. Is this some weird kind of karma?

So I’ve decided, next boy who comes a knocking im going to sing to him.

Spice Girls- Wanna be

except I’d change some lines around

If you wanna be my lover,

You gotta be single...(be single)

No loving your ex-girl friend

That aint going to cut it.

Who knew the spice girls could still be relevant. You live and learn everyday. Amazing!!

FLIGHTS OF FANTASY

My mind is like an active imagination times 100. Writing its self, new plot lines when my real life isn’t interesting enough. It works out all these great permutation and combinations of things that could make it more exciting. These usually increase in frequency around birthdays, and holidays. They are usually filled with the stuff movies are made of - dramatic pauses, intense lovemaking, and romantic speeches. And because of them I am usually disappointed by real life.

For example the week leading up to the pastors sons birthday- In my head, the air was ripe for some drama. I pictured myself being woken up at the stroke of midnight. Only to have this man standing outside my door, saying all he wanted for his birthday was ME. I slam the door on his face and we both stand there, door between us. I compose myself, wonder what to say. I open the door intending fully to tell him off but he grabs me, holds me and we kiss. In other combinations of the story I leave him standing at the door and hide in my room. I even have a make belief speech planned for when the kiss doesn’t happen.

Of course he wasn’t going to come. We hadn’t spoken in a good six months. Last I heard, he was happily moved on living with a beautiful young colleague.  Even if in some bizarre scenario, he had shown up, he would have bumped into my folks first and then my dog who would have for certain peed on him with excitement.

Anyway, none of this happened and I spent his birthday walking around suspiciously thinking he was going to pop out of a corner. I spent the second half sulking cause he didn’t.

I’ve also imagined bumping into him while I’m walking the dog- this has nothing to do with his birthday. I’m usually a mess and this gets me thinking that I should dress better when I walk duke (the dog).

 I’ve dreamed up scenarios where I bump into him at a party. These are fun cause I also usually get to add an awkward meet his new –girlfriend moment in the mix. These play out either with me being a bitch- where I’m like, “Oh isn’t that outfit just delightful.” Or with me being a nervous wreck- where I have a verbal diarrhea moment that requires me to leave the party rather quickly. But I always have a background story about why I am in Delhi in the first place - cause work took me there, or it was a wedding in the group.  In some of these figments of my imagination, I have a boyfriend, someone who makes me look good. A smart, funny and charming boy doing some great, challenging work that keeps him far to busy but why he bothers to work with a face like his – no one knows. This make belief boy friend usually swoons in and rescues me from making an ass of my self and I get to stick it to the pastors son.

So am I being pathetic and crazy. Of course I am!! I think it’s healthy that I recognize that I’m being pathetic and crazy. But in my defense I have these fantasies about all the boys in my life not just the ones that are long gone.

I imagine all bike rides will end with good night kisses. I imagine these kisses will be magical. I imagine that the boy singing to me in Portuguese will one day be a man. I imagine that all the men will forget the other women in their lives- mothers, wives and girlfriends and see that I am awesome.

An idle minds a devils workshop. 

the company logo

SINGLE – AND LOVING IT !!

My life is in this brand new phase. No man, no job but lots of plans. Between the no job and the lots of plans I took one month off and just did absolutely nothing, nothing useful anyway. I slept 16 hours a day, usually during the day. My nights I spent going out and meeting friends- dancing, dinners and dress up.  When I wasn’t partying I stayed home and played with the dog, watered the plants, cooked goodies, I then ate the goodies I was cooking. There in putting on all the weight I had lost from the break up sadness.

For the first 10 days, I was the happiest person ever. I totally considered why people bother to work at all. Yes, yes people work for money, I’m not such a dreamer. I get that. But as a woman I had the choice to find my self a rich husband and this no stress life could be mine forever- give or take a few changes. I am not proud of this thought but every woman whether she is willing to admit it or not has considered marrying rich to escape the drudgery of a job; considered herself or the thought was put in her mind by a less than scrupulous aunt.

If I “married” a rich man,

Yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum.

All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.

If I were a wealthy man’s wife

I wouldn't have to work hard.

I grow bored of this stay at home life quickly and soon rubbish the idea of being a rich mans wife. In fact I’m questioning the idea of being any mans wife? Why have I wanted it for so long? I have never seen an old happily married couple. I don’t think they exist. I have never managed to stay happy in a relationship for more than two years, so what made me think I’d last the forever that marriage is supposed to be. Was I swayed by the idea of that diamond ring, the white dress, the big party or is it just my foolish romantic side, the optimist in me that likes to think that I will be the exception; that I will somehow manage to beat the odds and make a marriage work.  Maybe it’s just my competitive streak at work.

The idea that a man can rescue you is engrained into our girl brains with all those helpless princess fairy tales we are fed as kids. Stories where a prince has to come in and fix things that the poor princess couldn’t fix herself. She can’t have her happy ending without a prince charming. And we grow up into woman that believe we need a man to marry us, to keep us from being lonely, to keep us secure. And yes a man is great. There is no denying that a good man can make the sunshine feel warmer and your body lighter. But my god, this no man thing has its perks to.  I have this giant bed all to myself. In the summer I take the good spot under the fan. I have more free time now than ever before. I catch up with friends on a regular basis, I write this blog (not as often but that’s more writers block than anything else), I instagram, I read (more than before), I date, I garden, I clean my room and I watch movies (way more than before). I finally learnt how to download movies myself, a task earlier relegated to boyfriends. Let not forget how being single is great for the wallet. No more dinner dates and movie dates three times a week that’s a lot of money saved for the finer things in life, like shopping.

I am learning to be independent and self-sufficient and I love it. I am discovering who I am and what I want. It’s greedy but that’s great too. In a relationship it’s easy to forget, who you are and what you like. You drink coffee even though you love tea and before you know it you’ve been converted to drinking coffee and your tea tasting days are over.  I rediscovered tea and its great.

BUT

Lots of rules change when you are single. And I guess its my fault I have never been single long enough to bother with single people rules.

Rule no. 1 – As a single person you can never be wearing the right thing. When you decide to wear a skirt a cute man will offer you a bike ride. When you are in your sweats and sweaty like mad you will meet one of your smug married classmates, who is impeccably put together. When you look gorgeous you will meet no interesting men and no married classmates. Murphy’s law is cruel to single people. It’s a fact.

Rule no. 2 - As a single person you are not allowed to talk to men like you used to, they will think you want them or their wives will. Suddenly you are no longer the woman, women are comfortable leaving their men around. Because your inability to keep a man means you are going to want theirs, obviously!! I mean why wouldn’t you want her middle-aged husband; you have no one, so now anything will do.

Rule no. 3- There is no such thing as the perfect man. If the conversation is great, the chemistry is lacking. The cute ones are dumb. The smart ones are socially awkward. The charming ones smell awful. If they seem fully perfect they are pro-Modi.

Rule no. 4 – It’s a small world after all. Everyone knows everyone. Somewhere someplace someone you are dating knows your mother, father or brother and by some slim chance if they have no connection to your family they have previously been with one of your friends.

And thats the way the cookie crumbles.

                                                                                                        

HONESTLY HONEST & PRIVATE & PERSONAL

Some people applaud what they think is my brutal honesty, but others tell me that my blog is way too personal. Yes, the blog is personal, but I don’t know how honest it really is. I write a lot of emotional stuff that doesn’t go up. It’s only the funny stuff that makes it. I want to save face and I choose what side of me I want to reveal.

 I do not claim to understand the scope of a blog. I don’t really read other blogs and I was quite shocked to find that people read mine. 1500 views really!!! Who are you people? Why do you read this?

I am not sure what motivated me to start writing this blog. I have had it for years and never bothered to put anything on it. Honestly I write it because I had so much stuff I wanted to say. And the person I used to say it all to was no longer there to say it to. Maybe the bunch of you, who read it, are just collectively filling the hole that person left. I guess this blog is my coping mechanism.

So I decided to try to make this post HONEST. Warning: this one is not funny. In fact, pull out the tissue boxes biatches.

I watched Queen last night. And the movie hit closer to home than I care to admit. I went with the best friend and her husband (newly weds). They sat through the movie and got excited every time they recognized the parts shot in Paris from their honeymoon there. I sat through the movie relating very much with Kangana's character's pain. I cried silently, so no one could see me being pathetic.

When the grandmother in the film tells Kangana that a better man is waiting, I recalled the many times my mother, the best friend and countless other people had said the same thing to me. I was not left standing at the altar. I wasn’t even engaged. My relationship had just gotten to a point where people presumed that marriage was an eventuality, and I didn’t tell them any different. In fact in my head I was totally planning my wedding, in my head and on Pinterest.

I sent him a telegram, one of the last few telegrams to be sent, I asked him to marry me. Tragically he only received it after we had broken up. All it took was one fight that led to another. One escalated argument, one mistake. And that was it, how quickly it all changed course. Sometimes I feel like I don’t get to be sad, but there it is anyway.

I assumed I would be able to fix what I broke. I thought I'd fly down, make my puppy face, give him a hug and it would be fixed. I was unprepared for the cold unforgiving person on the other end. This was not the man who loved me, not the man I had loved. I flew back the next morning, with the sun rising, the clouds parting, my heart sinking.  When I got back to Bombay, it was raining and I felt like this city I had refused to leave for a man, was comforting me with its own tears.

How do I even begin to explain the feeling of heartbreak? The air feels like it has escaped you, breathing becomes hard, you want to scream and cry all at the same time. You can distract your self with work and movies and friends and men. But then all the work is done, the movie gets over, the friends go home. You can try to drown it all out with booze but hung over or not, it still fucking hurts.

As destroyed as I was from that flight to Delhi, there was some inkling that somehow time would help. So I didn’t tell everyone for a little longer. Hoping that not saying it would make it not true. I was at a family party and an excited aunt was making these beautiful roses out of tissue. She came up to me and told me she was going to make these as decorations for my wedding. It was time to tell people that the relationship had ended. And when I did my aunt cried, she barely knew him, but she was sobbing and needed to be consoled. I had broken their hearts, their dream of this perfect white wedding. I had broken my own.

From Alfred Lord Tennyson's

I hold it true, whate'er befall;


I feel it, when I sorrow most;


Tis better to have loved and lost


Than never to have loved at all.

To all the people who helped me cope. To the friends that got me smashed, plied me with sugar or just gave me a hug when I needed it. To the friends that flew in to keep my weekends occupied. To the man that stayed with me till I fell asleep cause I couldn’t bear to be alone. To my family, for dealing with the insufferable drama queen I had become and for always taking my side. To all the people responsible for that birthday stunt on face book. – I am so lucky to have you guys be a part of my life. Thank you.

SHELL SHOCKED AND HEART BROKEN

Everything in my life was returning to a happy place. The legal battle over the tenancy of my south Bombay residence was partly laid to rest when the supreme court issued a judgment in a similar case that protected my towny ass from being evicted.

My long time friend, colleague and now partner and I finally settled on a name for a company. We are calling it Talking Heads. We finished all the paper work and business was ready to roll. It seemed that the turmoil and anguish of life from just a few months ago was all finally a thing of the past. But life has a way of knocking you off your high horse. Ironically life also picked Valentines Day as the day to come a’ knocking.

I was determined not to be a hater, so what if I was single I still loved lots of people. I called and wished them. I bought some candy but that’s as far as my Valentines Day spirit would go. I was going to keep my head out of the clouds and my nose out of trouble. Today was going to be uneventful; I would go home and chill with my parents. Like the boring 26 year old I can sometimes be.

But it’s a Friday night and of course someone somewhere is throwing a party and I got invited to one of them. Of course getting drunk with the buddies beats being boring at home with the parents. So very quickly my plan to keep my nose out of trouble was altered. Many hours later and a few drinks down I left the party a little wobbly. I got on a friends bike (a friend who wasn’t drinking). We rode on his magnificent Enfield the chill of the Mumbai air in my hair. I was pleased with myself I had survived the night head held high heart intact. In fact I had fun, lots of mad, loud fun, with some of my favouritest people.

But that was not the end of the night. Why would it be that easy!!

We were riding, me with my many bags one hanging from each side. When I felt the weight on my shoulders lighten. One of the straps of my many bags had snapped. I turn around to see my bag is now on the road a few feet away. I stop the bike get off and run to it but before I reach it a giant SUV runs over it and I feel like someone pulled my heart out and then stepped on it. The bag that just fell off a speeding bike and then got run over was the bag holding my laptop, my very expensive mac book pro laptop. The laptop I saved for many months to buy. The laptop that was only a few months old I might add. 

I pick up the bag, dust the tire tracks off. My hands a little shaky, I’m shocked it is not 2 separate pieces. I open it and the screen display is perfect except for a couple of cracks and some shards of glass that are now in my hand. Besides that the laptop works perfectly. I bow to thee oh great ‘Apple’ how durable art thou!

Anyway long story short, mac doesn’t cover laptops getting run over by cars. SHOCKER!! Getting the screen repaired is going to cost me close to 50 grand, which for a self-employed sap like me, is heartbreaking not to mention bankrupting. But we live in the land of jugaad and someone; somewhere will do it for less. So I got it done for 15. What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger and more broke. 

Disclaimer: This blog post was written on a mac book pro that got run over by an SUV.  GO APPLE !!