Category Archives: Humour

The Handy Dandy Square

31 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Published Verve Magazine, Verve Man Supplement, October 2011

The handkerchief – once a permanent resident of a gentleman’s pocket – is hardly to be seen, but this accessory still has its uses….

There’s something about a well-dressed man that has me waxing eloquent on more than one occasion. While most men today are considerate towards our eyes and have upped their grooming quotient remarkably, it does send the heart in a tizzy when you spy that devilish, impertinent, cheeky little square punching a direct access to our emotions right out of the pocket. Tissues replaced handkerchiefs with ease – really does no one care about trees anymore? And we can never have the mid-century British moment of a flutter-and-swoon with the gentleman’s hanky popping out promptly to the rescue. With the disappearance of the hanky, came the appearance of the less-than-perfect man, whatever Raymond may claim. But the gregarious pocket square may save the day: in its beautiful sateen avatar, it promises a lifetime of care.

12 fortuitous ways in which the pocket square may come to the rescue:

  1. When there is a snivelling bride. And you are the solicitous groom with pleasant manners.
  2. When you are the best man at your buddy’s wedding and the delectable bridesmaid is having an emotional moment. The pocket square ensures that you will have a lucky night.
  3. Offering it to patch up the teensy-weensy sari blouse the girl next to you on the dance floor has managed to rip with an enthusiastic move.
  4. Serenading the woman of your dreams by dashing off poetry at a moment’s notice on your pale pink square and handing it to her by going down on one knee.
  5. After points #2 – #4 have worked, using it for some impromptu S&M.
  6. Knowing that you both scored a 100 per cent compatibility ratio in point #5, leaving your square with your number written on it with her lipstick to plan the next date.
  7. Using it innovatively to gain miles for your mile high club membership.
  8. Blindfolding your date before throwing her off a plane as you surprise her with a skydiving-and-dinner plan.
  9. Using it as loincloth, when she takes her revenge and runs away with your pants after leaving you in the Jacuzzi.
  10. Wowing your betrothed with vows scrawled in a flourish on the initialled-square and handed to her with her favourite piece of jewellery.
  11. When the elderly auntie right next to you is looking with quiet desperation for a tissue to quickly spit her tobacco…or paan before
    she has to make a lengthy speech about an enjoyable and hitherto utterly uneventful 75 years of marriage.
  12. You can use it as a gag for the auntie who makes it a point to nudge you repeatedly to ask you if you are next, while you play best man at your buddy’s wedding.

Size Does Matter

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Published: Verve Man Supplement, Verve Magazine, October 2010

When talking about one of the most important things about a man, it’s important to find the right size

Just the other day, I was at an event filled with oodles of beautifully turned out heterosexual males. While I know there are enough women out there who love their men all brawn with wife-beaters and torn jeans sitting atop a truck chewing hay, there is something poetic about a man impeccably turned out. Besides the fact that it’s more likely that he bathes regularly, it shows that he cares about the way he appears – he thinks about the exact fit of his suit as much as I would care about the cut of my dress. He isn’t a dandy – he’s eye-candy. And baby, there is a world of difference.

So while I was checking out these Baskin-Robbins’ Men, I noticed their shapes. Each one was a different one. Some had it long, some slender, some stubby and short, some boxed in and some entirely non-existent. It bothered me. I mean is there a perfect size and shape? Should all men be made the same – or should there at least be an ounce of difference to tell them apart?

I tend to lean towards the long and slender, but sometimes it can be too thin, you know? As you hold it in your hand, it feels like a string or a ribbon. You want something substantial, that when you hold it, it begins to state its presence, or you can command it by pulling it (and the man) towards you. (Ouch!) They used to be plump and thick earlier – but with men’s bodies getting slimmer and more well maintained, it seems to have affected the size too. Nowadays all you see are skinny ones and believe you me, they get thinner by the season.

Those short knobby ones don’t work either, they show more than they hide – and who wants to know what lies beneath? Ideally, when in use, it should be the size of his hand – from finger to elbow. No, that’s not too big, you need a little something to go all the way. And in width, it should be at least half your middle finger extended. And that’s not too much to ask for. And horror of horrors, there really shouldn’t be any visible blemishes when on display – that just shows that you can’t keep your things clean!

You can tell a lot about a man with the way he handles it. How coarse or gentle, how he smoothens out the rough folds, whether he can manage his dimple. And if it occasionally curves to one side, he should be able to know how to work it for the best result. There’s nothing like a straight cylindrical shape. And ground rules – it should always be restrained. Kept loose and flapping around like it’s about to attack isn’t friendly – it’s just not the way of polite society. I’ve heard there are contraptions that help keep it under control nowadays.

And how loud you want it to be depends entirely upon your personality. Can you handle the repercussions? After all, the tie maketh the man, and not the other way around.

Knotty Travails!

11 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine, Travel Stories

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Published: Verve Magazine, Feature, September 2013

What is a wedding but meticulously planned theatre for those in attendance, finds an aunt who helps arrange her niece’s destination soirees. A peek into her diary…

Going to a destination wedding is always buckets of fun. Planning one – not so much. I recently had to help my sister plan one at an exotic Thai locale. The beaches are fantastic, we’ve heard. The waves under our already-wrinkled toes, the sun on our already-tanned skin; well it’s what children want nowadays. Vows by the sunset and chiffon frocks instead of Swarovski lehengas. Poor Tarun, Sabya and Manish – they are going to have to work doubly hard to sustain their bridal couture business. And all of us – having to go shopping for things that steer clear of our ankles and don’t have a shimmer on them. How plebian it is to have a subtle wedding. It’s a good thing everyone won’t be there….

The guest list – well one mustn’t go there. The wedding is quite nearly called off because of the guest list. It seems silly, but there it is. It reaches the point where there is some vicious discussion about killing off some relatives in a timely fashion. The parents have a pretty tight list of invitees – it’s true, they do want to invite their tailor and the step-aunt that lives in Kenya whom no one has ever met, but then you can only do the daawat once in a lifetime for your only child, right? (Even if it goes to a second marriage – generally the sho-sha is generously muted.) And really – the tailor has known the bride longer than the groom – he has been stitching her clothes since the time she has been in diapers – so who deserves to be there more?

With the parents arguing over how many weddings they had been invited to and attended, the bride and groom insisting that it is their moment and only people they really know and care about should be there; as most things do, it all comes down to the bill. After much bloodshed, tears of betrayal and the drama to befit a Balaji Diwali special, they whittle the guest list down to 300. Of which 150 are under 30 and 75 of whom are foreigners from places I can’t pronounce, much less find on a map. So that leaves just a few of us to carry on the tradition of bitching out the other side, gasping with a faux scandalised air at the youngsters and weeping at the vidaai.

The wedding ceremony is so quaintly poised on the water, while a dress circle seat is reserved for us on the waterfront. Along with the little booklet to translate the shlokas and vows, the considerate family has also organised binoculars for the audience. It’s nice – we have our own space, can peer into the binos when we decide to catch what’s going on – in between bites of Thai cake and spicy gossip – and give the family their privacy. That way the entire occasion remains a rather private affair – if having only 300 at an Indian wedding isn’t private enough. Tiny speakers dot the waterfront, where we can hear what the Pandit is saying – noting the large number of non-desis in attendance, he ups his tricks by adding flair and doing his own little broken-English translations. After all, what is a wedding but a meticulously planned theatre for those in attendance?

It’s all very well now, but getting Panditji here has been a task in itself. Now I’m quite proud of this – I organised this part of the journey. Panditji couldn’t travel to the destination alone, so I figured the saffawala (person who ties the turbans over the men’s heads) could accompany him. You mustn’t ask me whether they wanted to travel business class or not, but it is a special feat that I convinced them that economy is altogether better and safer. It turns out that the saffawala is quite a fellow. He’s rather in demand for this specialised art, and is hopping off to America before the ceremony has even ended. So Panditji and the saffawala end up having a favourable journey to the destination – it’s all in the stars, after all. I think they are now friends on Facebook

I need to track down the missing wedding photos – it was quite a sweet affair after all, what with the jello-shots and the beach raves. I couldn’t feel my toes after a point of time. Three months later, the photographer hasn’t sent us the photos yet. He is quite a spiffy number – doing mood shots and natural light silhouettes. I know it sounds like a condom ad, but photography these days is very different from our layered make-up, bright lights, hands-held-together poses, bling-and-click moments. It’s a bit wanton nowadays, to be honest. After my mother harassed me for photos, I began trying to track down this hotshot photographer. It seems he has been all over Europe attending functions and clicking away that he hasn’t had time to get home and regroup! So after basking in the Riviera sunshine, he has promised to send some over to us via ISendYou.com or something like that. Is it a specialised (and expensive) courier service? Will have to see how one can pick the photos up from there. Must share them with you sometime.

Living off my Art: Comment

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Art, Literature & Culture, Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Published: Verve Magazine, July 2013 (Illustration, Farzana Cooper)

Can the world that we live in become more valuable simply by the company we keep? Surrounded by the Masters, Sitanshi Talati-Parikh finds that happiness can lie in the brushstroke and in its bottomline

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As the Sensex crawls indefinitely, I have decided to buy art. Gold is too over-priced, and frankly, a wee bit middle class. I’m not particularly classist; it’s just that thing – clutching onto a shiny nugget hoping that when the Income Tax guys come and raid your house, you can slip it into your pants and hide it, is not quite my scene. I’d much rather play it cool – in the Thomas Crown way…where his heart was linked to his art and his art was all linked to his masterpieces of theft. But he didn’t really steal, he just borrowed and often did this cool barter thing, where he left one of his own paintings there and took theirs. Basically Pierce Brosnan made art cool. He loved Monet, and one of those is far more beautiful than anything Hirst (Damien, for the uninitiated) could ever dream of doing. Whatever you may say, installation isn’t quite art. I know it’s a huge topic of debate, but art should be old-fashioned and romantic, the kind that you have to painstakingly hang on a nail, look at, and think – ‘How beautiful, I so can’t do that!’ as opposed to, ‘Hmmm, interesting. But really, my dog could have pooped better than that splat.’

While I’m not a big collector or anything, I just like filling up space – the walls, the corners; the void inside me. So I live in this rent-controlled apartment, (at Rs 1800 a month for a one-bedroom in SoBo, it’s a total steal), and I pour all my money from being a finance geek into the art world. Sure, I know the anomaly – someone who gets money doesn’t really get art, but I’m one of those weird breeds that actually earn to spend on a bit of culture. Not that you can buy culture, but it’s cool to pretend. Basically, every inch of my house that was previously exposed is now covered – and I mean the ceilings, too. I believe in optimum use of space, so you’ll find Paresh Maity’s Kerala and rain-washed De charcoals next to Riyas Komu’s large portraits. I’m not a big name dropper, so I won’t go into the details of who else lives in my house with me. And I’m not fussed about the positioning, except when a curator-friend sort of talked me into buying Subodh Gupta’s installation. That’s when I got a bit annoyed with art. I know he’s doing some clever stuff, but my pad doesn’t really have any space and if I need to put his works in the kitchen, may not the universe object to his objectification? The problem with art is that there are way too many problems. But I figured that I put down good money to buy the stuff, so can’t I put it where I please? And thus, in the kitchen they are lodged.

And then, a well-meaning friend – I don’t know what he was suggesting – from the UK actually organised a replica of Damien Hirst’s Unmade Bed to be sent to me. (I don’t know why he bothered, because the real one is probably worth less than the fake right now. Didn’t you hear? The art world has totally shunned Damien.) When people hear on the grapevine that you are into art, firstly they assume you are into the new-age stuff. Secondly, they assume they can impress you with some of their outlandish picks. Thirdly, they think you won’t care if the stuff is a fake. Sure, I’m no Jobs, but I’m the real deal. I treat art the way a tree-hugging environmentalist would treat, well, a tree. Or a figure-hugging fashionista would treat Beckham. OK, so I was referring to David…I’ll change that to Herve Leger instead. Basically, I want the original. Which is why I stick to what I can afford. Hirst – real or not, is a con job either way. I mean now I have to actually sleep in his Unmade Bed, because I don’t have anywhere else to dump it!

Eventually, as life would have it, my mum stopped by to meet me one day. She generally avoids my home, because she thinks it’s a bit overwhelming and no amount of protesting that the condom on the bed was Hirst’s and not mine made her change her mind. She believes I have been dating some Shantaram-type character called Hirst (she keeps asking what his last name is) and refuses to step foot in my boudoir since. Oh well. Let’s be thankful for small mercies. Anyway, so she decided to freeze some food for beta, because beta isn’t getting enough home-cooked food. (I’m a girl, but I’m still beta. She doesn’t discriminate that way.) She sort of used Subodh’s stuff…I don’t really have any use for my kitchen, when the universe has kindly invented take-out. She didn’t understand why I looked so horrified that she would use Subodh’s stuff, she thinks Subodh is an irritable cook who doesn’t like anyone touching his utensils. (There may be some Freudian thing there with the real Subodh and his utensils. To be discussed over wine with curator-friend later.) When no amount of convincing my mom that she should just express mail food to me instead worked, I just decided to let it wash away. It didn’t seem worth the effort, and who’s going to snitch on me and tell Subodh? Who knows, maybe Bharti does it too. Though she doesn’t seem the cooking kind, to be honest.

So that was two months ago, and I’m thinking of starting my own business. I like to sleep in, and reaching my job on time has become increasingly difficult. The wannabe Hirst bed came with a great spongy mattress that doesn’t make me want to leave, ever. So I figure that if I start my own venture, I can also start at my own time? The only deal is that I need to put in a sum of money, as a goodwill gesture. I haven’t been able to leverage off anything, but as I lie thoughtfully on my unmade bed, I can’t help but notice a rather over-crowded wall. I could easily pluck one of those out, hand it over as my part of the investment and not even feel the difference. It’s like having one too many bags. When you are shopping you can never have one too many bags, but when you look at them all lined up at home, you wonder if it would matter if you had the peach Prada when you already have the beige Birkin. Culture, after all, isn’t like any other material acquisition. The more you give away, the more the world recognises that you have it.

I got my curator-friend in to help me choose. While she suggested hocking the obvious, I was rather loath to part with the household items that had now found a home. So, goodbye concentric circles…. May you find another home that loves you the way this one did. And while we are on the topic of blessings, one day, when I have a child who will be born in a material world, may she learn to appreciate the legacy I leave behind for her: of painstakingly brush-stroked wealth, of seasoned culture and a diary to my life, choices and moods, all on my walls.

An Ode to Juicy Couture Pants

19 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in Fashion & Style, Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Published: Verve Magazine, May 2013, Humour

As women hide their exhausted silhouettes in sombre black, the girl with Juicy will stand out like a star fruit in Burma. You know you just want to be that girl…

Oh ye of the softest terry material,
Spun woven for maximum pleasure,
Snapping at the ankles to ensure that you don’t flap,
Drawn ribbon-like curving gently around the waist bulge,
Holding on tight, you remain open to being open:
For a quick visit to the restroom or for a mile high sojourn.
You arrive in popping electric colours,
For if that isn’t enough to draw my eyes to you,
Then the shiny letters that spell your Juicy name –
Poised perfectly on the owner’s luscious bum…just do it.

When you appear at the airport terminal,
I see a flash of your brightness and then suddenly you are gone,
I look around quickly, hoping to catch sight of more…
But you choose to ignore me, tease me, tantalise me.
So enamoured am I by your flashy presence,
So envious am I with the wearer of your mystique,
I fall prey to your flighty aura,
I search for more of you, drawn like a moth to a flame,
And like a moth that perishes,
I very nearly miss my flight.

I see you slide smoothly into first class and my surreptitious glance,
Leads me to the Juicy derriere lounging peacefully on a plush seat,
The wearer’s eyes masked by a hot pink furry shade
Keeping all ills at bay.
Misery’s claws creep into my lime-green soul,
As my plebian cotton and I trudge back to our seat.
Juicy: your soft touch, furry and alive, warm and sensual,
Burn a fire within me that nothing save a glass of the fiercest poison can quench.
My word, the very moment this winged vehicle lands, I shall have you.
You shall be mine; and next time, I will be The Girl With Juicy.

Angry Bashers

15 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine, Social Chronicles

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Published: Verve Magazine, December 2012, Musings
Illustration: Wyanet Vaz

For the guests to be left dry and not high would be the death wish of a host trying to throw a successful party. 

At a very chic soiree on Malabar Hill recently, we arrived bearing gifts, an appetite and a desire to while the day’s annoyances away with a quencher. As we air kissed and settled into the plush little seating arrangements dotting the landscape, we pecked on a canapé (corn and mushroom tartlet, if you must know), as a waiter arrived with a tinkle of delicate glasses, swirls of orange rind and whiffs of lemongrass. The eyes of the general populace lit up in anticipation – wine or pink champagne is generally the order of the day, after all we were toasting the arrival of someone special – but if our hosts meant to serve up a unique cocktail, so be it. After all, many hosts try to create a unique stamp of their own. In their personalised branded brandy glasses come concoctions of intoxication brewed under their eagle eye – a special mix that can only be served in their home. We reached out for the glasses filled with pale grey liquid in unison, swishing about with promise; and as we touched it to our lips I could see eyes widen in confusion, shock and then distaste in one fluid motion.

Musings02

Coconut water! In whatever way it is served up, in however a fancy method of presentation, it isn’t rum. And as much as one pretends, one can’t get buzzed on it. The unfortunate truth about the parties of today is that it is less about the delicately-flavoured food and sharp repartees and more about the strength and calibre of the inebriating substance preceding or accompanying it. I could see the rumble of restlessness float through the guests, shifting eyes darting for an escape, some disbelieving glances flickering around for the host to come out and cackle, ‘Gotcha!’ and bring out the real stuff with a flourish. The men, whose throats suddenly went dry without their favourite tipple, found that their ability to hold the bejewelled lady next to them in witty conversation also faded away. A sudden appalling silence filled the room – and the brave ones continued whispering as they do when someone has passed away. The ambience of celebration and merriment became one of stilted sentences and uncomfortable silences. The charming hosts flitted from one gathering to another, in complete oblivion.

Bruschettas! They became the saviour of the party. Without the safety net of a drink in hand, the harried attendees began to stuff their faces. It would keep them safe from awkward conversations, for no polite company will talk with food in their mouth. If the servers appeared surprised that their trays replete with tasty little servings were getting depleted before they even reached half-way across the room, they were well-trained enough to not show it. And of course, they ran out of starters.

Meanwhile, as the older gentlemen bravely bore the no-show of their favourite buddies, Jack, Jim and Johnnie, and their wives tapped their arms comfortingly, the younger lot assumed that the youth of the house would have a bar tucked away in their part of the apartment. In fierce determination, the skinny little things and the six-pack guys flounced to the other side of the house in search for a better life. Their astonishment wasn’t quite as well masked, as they discovered that there weren’t even any miniatures tucked away under a silk cushion somewhere. After all, they were all game to pretend they were drinking nariyal paani – this was the generation adept at deception. At this stage, I could sense the beginnings of a rumbling – the signs of a no-booze-brawl were all there. The girls shifted uneasily in their sky-high strappies, the boys muttered angrily under their 8-o’clock-and-no-drink shadows.

The remonstrative voices seemed to get louder and louder until I was sure even the neighbours would soon realise that there was a teetotaller party happening on the premises. What if they called the cops? We wouldn’t even have a bottle of alcohol to gift them with! (In case you aren’t aware, the good man will meekly look the other way if you hand him a nice one over the security grill.)

As reality set in and everyone realised that there wasn’t much left to this party and even the toasties had run out, dinner was a quick affair. By 8:30pm dinner was served and by 9:00pm dinner was wrapped up. Everyone was now on a mission, with all the BlackBerrys and iPhones out and frantic messages being sent back and forth to find a place to drink to make up for the precious hours lost. Those who could bear eating on an alcohol-free stomach, piled their plates up high and freely commented on the delicious food. The hostess beamed with pleasure – she felt that she had, once again, nailed the party. The irony was possibly lost on her.

I salute the host who attempts to bring in a certain amount of sobriety to a social gathering. It’s become too much of the norm of polite society to have alcohol-laden veins to muscle butterfly evenings. Are we unable to conduct a decent conversation or enjoy the company of friends without generous splashes of booze? Is it our own inadequacies we need to overcome or are we suggesting that people around us are so intolerable that we need the crutch of intoxication? Shouldn’t it be the choice of the host to serve or not serve? Is a successful party one that lasts into the wee hours of the night where guests teeter and titter on pointlessly? Is it one where you can discuss the shenanigans of the evening with great zest all of the next day while nursing hangovers? Or is it popularly one where you can’t recall anything from the previous night, even how you got home?

At this particular one, I ate with great relish, enjoying the first party I had been to in a decade that actually laid out its meal at an earthly hour. At most others, we bravely nibble at the hors d’oeuvres trying to quell the loud hunger pangs that must surely be audible to all and sundry. Being soberly full is so much my choice of gathering than inebriated and hungry. But, as I observed with some amusement the various reactions to this party, I grimly made a mental note to pack in a punch at my own little do. Salt-laced Margaritas, I’m thinking. And apparently, nowadays, no one likes a virgin.

Musings01

 

‘A Suitable Girl’ @vervemagazine September Bridal Issue

21 Friday Sep 2012

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Published: Verve Magazine, September 2012, Verve’s Got The Nerve

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife drawing a good ‘package’

My darling Jane Austen would turn in her grave at the unsightly events taking place in the high society of Mumbai. The patrons of SoBo who may be old or new money (after all today who’s checking how mosscovered your tijori may be?) apparently want the best for their sons. Sarva gun samparna and seva are all in their place, and dowry may be a bit antiquated even if you do expect the Beamer with polka-studded leather seats at your doorstep, at the very least, but what you do question is whether the girl is happening – career-wise or not.

There were days when girls were made to study home science, because that made them imminently eligible in their green-thumbsewing glory. They were promptly married off about the time they were to graduate – or even right before their exams, so that the timing was just suitable to learning and never applying their knowledge. As society became more egalitarian, girls were encouraged to be thought of as equal to boys – taking up the glorious path of law. It seemed so much nicer to say, ‘My daughter is ridiculously smart – she can ensure you know how to write your will even before you decide to make one.’

The few parents, who understood that their girls possessed rare talent, were encouraged to take up science and dare-to-be-different medicine. A new breed of doctors emerged who then juggled clinics and medical practice along with raising a family. The wonder women: whom the fathers and fathers-in-law were proud of. They stood apart from the designers. Every alternate house had a clothes or jewellery designer in their midst, as if the world’s artistic ability had concentrated itself in SoBo. But this made the in-laws happy, because their daughters-in-law were ‘busy’ and yet, always at their beck and call.

But all hell broke loose when the parents agreed to let their daughters into what was formerly a man’s domain: accounting, business administration, marketing, banking and commerce – they didn’t know that they were unleashing a new wave of talent. As the Indian economy exploded and the multinationals came into the fray, the girls in finance (particularly those with a ‘foreign education’) became the ‘it’ girls of high society. Drawing massive salaries, often unheard of in polite company – it is rude to even mention those figures – the in-laws realised that it’s not just what you drive or what you wear that defines you as a person. It’s where you work and how much you earn. It’s the package. A school teacher stands no chance in the society meat market – even if she makes the best chocolates and candles – amongst the brainiacs that know their money and can bet on it. Happy is a father-in-law who can carelessly slide into a conversation, ‘She draws a six figure salary… every month,’ observing the jaws drop and then sitting back with a satisfied air.

As women struggle to become men’s equals, the men have decided to accept it. In fact, they find it deeply favourable. Fathers encourage their sons to ensure a suitable match – it will ensure a comfortable life forevermore, whether he works or not. Househusbands may become the new male of Indian society. The ideal scenario would be to produce three lazy sons. Get them married to a doctor, a lawyer and a banker respectively. You are so sorted. Just avoid the writer who can spill the beans.

The Reluctant Bride

21 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Published: Verve Magazine, September 2012

12 brides who give 12 reasons to stay single

1. I Hate What He Wears If my fiancé hasn’t got the right haircut, or won’t wear that skinny Canali tie with Ferragamo shoes, I have every right to turn away from the big day. The only allowance will be made for wearing last season’s shoes picked up on sale, just because he still doesn’t get it.

2. I Am Set In My Ways When you are young and suggestible, you may succumb to finding your version of marital bliss. Come the 30s, it’s more about do I need a man? Do I need this man?

3. Girl’s Nights Waning Pyjama parties and comfort food. . A far cry from hosting formal dos as a couple, finding the right chic dress, organising the caterer, the help and the finger foods. So antiquated and pati-vrata.

4. No More Flavours It’s also about variety. Imagine the many, many types open to a woman in the prime of her youth. And now to think about picking one man, and settling down with him…seriously? What if he becomes a crazy patriarchal monster post-marriage? Shudder.

5. The Dead-End Chase I can never disrespect the chase. When I’m single and wanted, every guy will be desperate to woo me into his life. You play hard-to-get. You attempt to thwart unnecessary advances, but the attention is flattering. And then, when you settle down, it’s all over.

6. The Dull Relationship Dates are fun! Waiting with a sense of expectation, for something different, well-thought-out, all that creative attention. The banal life of a married couple…without the mystery, the excitement, the fantasy, the effort. He stops caring about caring.

8. The Food Once the talk was about delicate course meals, fresh watering holes, popping open a new label of wine. Now married-girl conversations are about managing food – and the dreaded word of domesticity… tiffins.

9. The moolah When you are dating, it’s all very well to be a hot-shot executive making pot-loads of money. It makes you rather eligible – in that Demi-Moore-power-woman-way. But the moment you are married, it becomes an ego thing. “So if you earn so much, buy your fancy stuff yourself.” Or “Why do you need to work so much?” Less demi and more moored.

10. The In-laws Your home is your home. And however much your in-laws love you, can it ever be the same? Can I ever just throw a few tantrums coz I feel like it, or demand my favourite comfort food made just so or basically, be the kid that every woman needs to be occasionally? I need to constantly prove that I am the perfect daughter-in-law. And I don’t think I am.

11. The next generation It’s like a girl is born to be a mother. I mean, relax. If I do tie the knot, am I expected to produce the brood immediately? And then be nothing more than a cow to be milked? Gross. I think the longer I wait to get married, the less I have to worry about the kid thing.

12. The Arguments When you are dating, you live in different homes. You can have timeouts and just hang up or choose to talk on your time or take up from where you left off. When you live with that person, where do you go? The fight gets implanted in your relationship, swirls around with the morning coffee and grows into a monumental blown-out-of-proportion pressure cooker situation that never gets a chance to blow off steam. Boom. End of the road. Even the make-up sex isn’t as good when you are married. I’ve heard.

Spa Thoughts: Scrubbed, Wrapped and Polished? @VerveMagazine July 2012

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in Features & Trends, Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Published: Verve Magazine, July 2012, Features

We’ve taken great strides in the personal pampering space. Gone are the days of the kashti-sari-wearing maalishwaali bais. Herald in the age of exotic, fragrant scrubs, anti-ageing wraps and BlackBerry massages. But it’s not all fun and relaxation in the spa-going netherworld…

Upper-class Indians have inherited a special gene (assisted by years of sedentary lifestyle and ghee-chawal-laddoos) that contribute to their bodies becoming so packed with soft adipose tissue that they find it difficult to withstand a good maalish. When the bai turns up with her sari tucked out of way, her glass bangles tinkling and her tobacco in place, you know you are in for one major masochistic-ride. Knots you didn’t know existed get squeezed, muscles you should have used but never got around to working out, get plummeted and your bones actually creak. They make tuk-tuk noises as if sighing under the pressure of pressure. Your skin is rubbed so hard it turns red from the friction and it automatically sheds its dead cells and self exfoliates under the angst. The bai’s hands are now hot from all the massaging and your skin gets a quick-and-ready spot sauna simultaneously. For a perfect steam-finish, keep the tropical air in and switch the air-conditioner off.

Those who can’t withstand the tender care – or sadistic advances if you please – of a home-grown maalishwaali bai, prefer to make their way to the chic spas dotting the landscape with a masala mix of herbal tea, soothing music, water fountains, dim lights and carrot scrubs or honey wraps. And nope – that’s not an accompaniment with the tea to nudge the stomach into a contented stupor, as the motherly-types of yore would have suggested. A wrap is a less layered sandwich and more be layered and sandwiched as you begin to look, feel and smell like a smoothie that no one will ever venture near. These are meant to do something clever and wonderful to your skin – on the exfoliating path – which would make you glow and shine like a beacon. It’s no wonder that soon-to-be-married girls flock towards being wrapped before they are unwrapped.

You lie down on a bed (which would have a thermal blanket) – we are back to the spas and away from the mating ritual – and then a wrap product would be smoothed onto your body. The products could be anything from eucalyptus, honey and rosemary to mud, butter or clay. Or you could have minerals or special ‘vitality’ or ‘anti-ageing’ solutions. Then you get wrapped in plastic sheets. Wraps started with linen and have ended up with plastic – much like most of the world, and to the great stress of environmentalists. (Maybe they could use this treatment to de-stress?) The great spa eyewash is all that talk about mud wraps in the same breath as weight loss – not exactly a proven fact. While the loss of bodily fluids (through the heat/sweat) makes you feel lighter, you put all that weight back on the next time you eat or drink. So – a word of advice, spa-goers – when you choose your treatments, remember that it’s about being pampered – not about losing weight. A wrap on your body isn’t going to fix the problems started by the wraps you eat. Just cotton down to the fact that you are going there to relax and make your skin feel completely moisturised.

‘Moisturising’ is the kind of term that always has so many implications. It never fails to remind me of a sensational experience, related in shocked whispers by a dear friend. She was sold on this excellent mud bath spa, celebrating the open air and nature among the undulating Californian hills. Pre-paid package for two, and terribly romantic at that. At a rather delicate stage when they were escorted to the actual treatment area, she balked at the fact that she was to get into a big mud pond, in her birthday suit. The best part being – every other person who had had the treatment previously had also been in that very same pond. Sitting in there for the better part of an hour. Maybe even experiencing an odd call of nature…or two? Shuddering as she related the tale, she bathed and re-bathed and bathed again, trying to mentally and emotionally scrape off the ‘moisturisation’ that her skin had just experienced. Maybe that’s why scrubs became an important addition to the spa-going experience?

I’ve never quite understood the charm of body scrubs. Freshly (you hope) grated and mashed edible items layered on the entire body and slowly finding their way in orifices they should never be introduced to, setting up a massive itch and tickle which you try to combat with wriggling…. Your upper limbs are of no use – they would just scatter more of the food material around if moved. So you lie there in the semi-darkness, hoping whatever the products are supposed to do to your skin are working their magic rapidly, and hoping even more that the helpful lady who quietly and gently buried you under all that food – enough to feed a few hungry children – would soon reappear and save you from this self-inflicted misery. You actually get the time away from your smart phone to think – about your life, your choices, and who you really are as a person. It is a really cheap price for so much potentially destructive self-reflection. Or maybe the whole point of a scrub is to actually work on your will power – to make you a stronger person from within, while the veggies your mama told you to eat are now decomposing on your body. Call the food police! Now!

At what stage these treatments become de-stressers, I have yet to figure out. These over-priced lie-there-and-relax spa elements are always more complicated than they look and more trouble than promised. What about all the time and effort you have to put into washing yourself after? You can’t help but imagine the spa staff – after having swiftly completed the layering and covering – all gathered in one little corner snickering about another sucker. After all, there’s nothing like a good scrub or wrap to give them a nice long tea-break – and a hefty tip. So basically, it’s all about who’s smarter. The ones who get massages obviously know how to get their money’s worth. It’s a cut-and-dry deal that requires no reading between the lines or dreaming about stabbing someone. You pay for a massage, you get a massage. The ones who choose gently exfoliating scrubs and ultra-trimming infinity wraps are the benefactors of society and the patrons of the good life – they have truly discovered the mysterious worth of paying for just lying there covered with substances that you can’t see – just feel and smell.

Massages are all about getting things just right. The room temperature, the volume of the instrumental music – they never have music with lyrics, it’s as if they want to exhume the inner poet in you as you lie there deftly putting words to the lilting melodies. And most importantly, what has to be just right is the pressure. Working out those knots developed over years of laziness and excessive use of digital devices is a painful task. As you spend hours hunched over that elusive Excel spreadsheet on your laptop while attacking your smart phone simultaneously for the night’s dinner plans, your shoulders and arms are slowly ageing – this was not the workout they expected. Technology has impacted the world in so many ways – and particularly the spa industry. Masseuses are in demand and propound the benefits of BlackBerry massages for your hands, hot stone therapies and tension-relaxer points. Ideally, they should mildly suggest more time playing a sport and less time Facebooking, but it wouldn’t quite be in their place to do so. Instead, you find, it is a great opportunity to market their annual massage and pain-containment packages. Sometimes, you miss the good old maalishwaali. She would grin with her half-broken tobacco-stained teeth and soothingly coo at your aches and pains and suggest taking it easy.

Bored Games

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine, Social Chronicles

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Published: Verve Magazine, July 2012

In a swiftly-changing world peopled with inner demons, complex characters and spiralling violence, games and activities for kids have considerably morphed…

Remember the classic old-fashioned board game? The well-worn box that contained innocuous tools that began describing who we were to become as people, began giving free play to our subconscious personalities, whether dominant or submissive, as we learnt how to manage money, life, homes, countries, and even run medical check-ups, all in one night. We lived to spend hours in cozy drawing rooms and nurseries getting feisty over fake wealth, secret missions and die rolls. When did we trade in competitive fun for corporate ladders and managerial snakes? When did we keep aside the Monopoly money for hard cash and real real estate? When did we abandon Scrabble for SMSes?

Smartphones, iPads and computers make it possible to play games virtually. But having real people across the board to trash talk to, midnight feasts and conspiratorial whispers, and even reaching out to the board and flinging it across the room and watching all the little pieces scatter when you lose, is not quite possible in a stale, impersonal, virtual world.

Virtual games tend to walk on the evil side of life in their full experiential fantasy. Stealing cars, sniper games, subterranean ninjas, they make you more exhausted mentally and emotionally than relaxed. British nursery rhymes had a dark side that found roots in the time of war and the plague and served to prepare children for dark times. If our stories, games and activities for children are a sign of the times, we live in not-so-happy times. Building nuclear missiles, being trigger-happy, a desperate desire to save the world – it says something about the current state of society. Where childrens’ tales once spoke about an evil aunt or teacher, it’s our world that is now evil. We are fighting bigger and stronger forces than we ever imagined. We need armies. They have armies. Where once children were made to come to terms with death, today they are dealing with and becoming accustomed to killings. It’s mass bloodshed. Young boys hook up with prostitutes inside a stolen car and then kill the prostitute cold-bloodedly in the multi-award-winning satire on American life, Grand Theft Auto series. Its adult and violent content has not stopped it – in fact it aided it – in becoming one of the most popular video games worldwide.

What’s changed is that it is not as simple as good and bad any more. Characters have grey shades, they have a background, they bring baggage to the table. People are more complex as are the situations they are entwined in. We are teaching our children that the world isn’t a simple place. We are encouraging them to learn that it’s mean out there and to come to terms with their own inner demons. We are suggesting that they find an aspect of their personality that allows them to be bigger and better than the low-lives they are observing and role-playing.

It’s our subversive fascination with darkness and evil. If Shakespeare set the trend, then the gaming industry has perpetuated it. Clue would need to be updated to not finding the murderer, but being the murderer. Monopoly and Risk would go one step further: taking over and then destroying places and continents. Snakes & Ladders would be about killing the competition, not just winning over the competitors. Basically, playing fair would be taboo.