An angry bitter blog

9:45- Woke up to an onslaught of alarms- La Bamba, Accidentally in love and some random beeping.

9:47- After knocking on the bathroom door for over 3 minutes, decided to change in the middle of the room. Roommate caught sight of naked torso, gasped in horror and turned to the other side, willing herself to go back to sleep.

9:50- Looked for kajal which was carefully hidden behind heaps of newspapers, Maggie soup packets, roasted chana packets, libray books that will never ever be returned, ever, and fluorescent coloured mugs.

9:55- Watched roommate stir again. Struck a deal.(If I go for morning class, you'll do the afternoon one?)

10:00- Promised myself that I would eat one paratha and one paratha only.

10:05- Ate two paranthas.

11:30- Informal meeting with Professors. Got singled out. Oh yes! (Who is the editor???! Ridiculous headline, RIDICULOUS!) Skulked to the lab, re-re-edited page and sat around for the designer to come and help change my life.

12:30- Came back to room. Watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, almost crying at the funny parts.

1:00- Slept.

5:00- Woke up to phone screaming out "Bohemian Like You" and to find people who were not my roommates beside me on the conjoined beds. Clutched sheet to chest, and poked one of the non-female intruders. It was a friend. Somebody pitched an idea, "Let's order Americana", someone else yelled, "I am on a diet!". Wills weakened, wallets groaned in protest. "Yay Americana" screams punctuated by, "I hate Chennai! It's making me FAT"

6:00- No money=No Americana

7:00- Phone calls that made me wish I could EAT love.

8:00- Read two pages of a book I don't intend to finish. Decided to starve.

9:00- Stalked people on facebook.

9:30- Stalked some more. Read celebrity gossip. Snapped at roommate after which we analysed her love life. Skipped dinner, drank some soup, swore that we'd do Surya Namaskar the next day.

10:00- Watched a french movie with hap-hazard subtitles. Googled my body shape, which to my dismay was apple. "But you can't be an apple", said my roommate, her eyes wide with pity. "That would mean you're round!"

12:00- Fought over who'd switch off the lights, and then fought about whether we'd switch off the lights.

1:00- Sat alone. With the lights on. Torn between loneliness, hunger and self pity. Googled apple shaped celebrities to make self feel better.

2:00- Wrote an angry bitter blog.

Sighing and Groaning

My mum did not meet my dad at some party, over cigarette smoke and vodka shots. The story does not go like, “So I ran to the loo, to adjust my dress strap and on the way I saw him standing there, with his back against the wall... “

Nope, my dad was like William. You know, the Conqueror. She had rejected hordes of marriage proposals before he walked into her living room with my grandmother. He came, he saw and he conquered, under my grandmother’s careful supervision of course.

I can imagine my dadi as she climbed the steps of the Agra bungalow, her mind whirring with mental checklists. Punjabi. Check. Beautiful with child-bearing hips. Check. Cooks. Cleans. Sings. Check check check....

My mom continues, ‘I had six beautiful months to decide whether I wanted him or not. He took me for movies and dinners, the works...’

It’s cute and Victorian. It’s my mother, so I am glad that there are no vodka shots involved. I don’t even understand my cynicism, they’re happy. They are in love. A love that is way more long-term and scrupulous than the kind that my friend’s fall into.

And because I am her daughter, she does not want me playing the fallen woman, who adjusts her straps in bathroom mirrors, in my love story either.

‘No alcohol’ she told me at an unnecessarily young age. ‘And no cigarettes... ever’

I would rather have men dropping out of the sky, than walking in through the living room door, for me.

“You’ll fall in love with the right guy”, she would tell me, “At the right time.”
The right time, was a very ambiguous term. Sometimes it extended to college, sometimes it extended across years. I was not supposed to question/debate the right time. It was fate. It was ‘parental fate’, which, as we all know, is of the worst kind.

Until I reached that right time, my mother told me, I was to study. Because that was my entire life’s purpose. “It is all you have to do beta. Just study. Forget everything else. You are not supposed to be doing anything else. You are only supposed to be studying.”

She found a Mills and Boons under my pillow once.

“What is all this sighing and groaning?” She screamed, quoting indirectly from the text, “Aren’t you supposed to be studying?!!”