The flip side

In complete antithesis to what I’ve been doing here for the past few weeks, I give you this speech by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College’s Commencement (via India Uncut):

“It’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. “

Read it for more than timepass.

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How my mom met your mom2

V’s folks decided to come to Bombay to meet my parents. I was in Hyderabad and was to take the train down. I arrived a day earlier and immediately got into a panic because I had nothing to wear. One of V’s sister’s (who I’m going to call BS for Big Sister) had come a day earlier and I took her shopping and she started laughing at me because I was frantically trying to find black trousers. I don’t know why I couldn’t have just worn jeans. But I guess after the first debacle I decided to at least make an effort with appearance.

Obviously, I was nervous but it all went well on the parental front. I had warned my parents that language might be an issue – V’s dad is uncomfortable in English and V’s mum slips into Mal whenever she’s insecure – but everyone managed to communicate.

On my front, not so much.

V and I had decided that we would like to get married on a weekend so more of my friends could attend. Since Saturday was December 31, and presumably people who had a life would have one on that night, we decided on December 30.

The very strange thing that happened when V’s parents met mine was that V’s dad asked my parents when they would like the wedding to be. Like the two of us didn’t exist.

This is another culture shock – this whole pretense that it’s all about the parents. Eventually I would find out that, in some people’s book, it is, but at that time I remained woefully naïve.

I don’t know who it was that interrupted to point out that we would like it to be on the 30th. But V’s dad kept insisting on the 29th and his mom backed him up. Strangely, V was not saying a word.

The reasons given for insisting on this date as opposed to the one I clearly wanted were:
a) V’s parents were also married on that day: which strikes me as a really icky reason somehow. b) It’s the feast of some saint. Like I care.
Later on a Malyalee friend told me that apparently Malyalees never do anything on a Friday because it’s inauspicious. It all made sense then. But why not just say that instead of the totally unconvincing reasons they did give.

I began to argue for my date. Mainly because I thought giving into the unreasonable demands of parents was setting a bad precedent, but more importantly because my friends from Bombay would find it very hard to make it on a Thursday.

To which V’s sister interrupted: “You can’t have everything.” Which is why I find it hard to be completely openhearted about V’s sisters, despite their general aweseomeness and ability to buy me cool footwear without me even trying it on; they have this unsettling habit of suddenly turning into jellyfish and stinging me when least expected so it’s better to be wary from the start.

Even more weirdly, V turned to me and said: “So we’re ok with 29, right?” in the manner of marketing professional who only hears what he wants to. I was so shocked, I agreed. Later when I railed at V for not backing me up and instead, putting me on the spot, he said he hadn’t expected me to agree.

It doesn’t make any sense but so many things about men don’t make any sense, especially around wedding time, that it’s better not to dwell. Though obviously the fact that I’m writing this means I did and do.

And that is how I ended up getting married on a Thursday. I mean, really, who gets married on Thursday?

Recession WTF statement of the month (year?)

I am interrupting regular programming for my WTF moment of yesterday, which I stewed on and decided to post today in case anyway missed the news already.

Some guy has commissioned a wedding sherwani of Rs 1 crore for his son-in-law. (please go read the story, it’s very short). This story irritates the hell out of my on so many levels:

1) Most obviously, the Marie Antoinette-ness (I know, I know, she got a bad rap poor thing but I’m using her name metaphorically) of this statement: “recession is for the government and the media — not the people.”

There has been some debate in Hong Kong about whether it’s in good taste or not for wealthy people to flaunt their riches during a recession. I’m not entirely decided on this issue but I think that if you have it, you might as well use it (though maybe not flaunt it). If wealthy people stop spending, the economy would be in worse shape.

But at least be discreet about it. Or if not discreet, then avoid statements that are completely insensitive to 90% of the population that are struggling to survive.

The sense of entitlement coming through that statement is even more jarring when contrasted with the reality in which so many people live in India, where the fabulous sherwani is being created. But the media seems to bolster this view of “India Shining” by printing such statements without comment.

2) Which brings me to my second point – the sloppiness of the reporting. This is not some clueless person like me writing a blog; it’s printed in a mainstream newspaper. Even for gossip, it’s too badly written.

For one, the businessman in question was not named. Somehow this irks me. I can understand why he does not want to be named, even though he’s fine making his boastful statements anonymously, but then I think they shouldn’t have printed it.

Also, it seems the designer uses “Chinese tailors of Indian origin”… what on earth is that? I suppose they mean tailors from the Chinese community that has made Kolkatta their home. But it just seemed like just the kind of sad pretentious marketing statement that would be spewed out of a designer’s mouth and which the reporter would glibly reproduce. Ugh.

Somewhat inexplicably, there’s a line in there about the model wearing the sherwani being an art lover. I just don’t get it… how does that help the cause in any way? Yes, he acted as Raja Ravi Verma or something but how is that relevant to the 1 crore sherwani? Unless TOI is getting a cut for mentioning the film, thus killing two birds with one stone. Yech.

The tone of the article might have worked for me if it was ironic, but it seems to be complicit. There is nothing apparently wrong with a person commissioning a Rs 1 crore sherwani to be made in a country where so many people are struggling to eat. How much were “the Chinese tailors of Indian origin” paid, I ask?

3) The wannabe-ness of commissioning such a suit, in any case. It seemed (and I may be mistaken here) as if the man said “I want a Rs 1 crore sherwani made” and the designers did everything they could to embellish it to meet that price. That doesn’t seem to make much sense. Fine, if you wanted a diamond encrusted sherwani and it ended up costing that much. But to commission something for Rs 1 crore just to be able to say that you did… so not classy.

4) Finally, they got some model to try on the suit and be photographed. If I was the groom-to-be I’d be pissed off: a) the suit’s already been worn, someone else’s sweaty armpits have graced it’s sleeves etc. b) he’s never going to look as good as it as in the model.

And that, my dears, is my rant for the day

How my mother met your mother1

Before V left for Bangalore, he decided his dad should be told and our parents should meet.

I don’t know how they broke the news to his dad but I think he had had an inkling anyway what with me showing up at their house and everyone acting strange and then some random friend of theirs blurting out about “his son’s wedding” at a party.

Now the reason everyone was scared he would freak out is because I’m not Malyalee. V’s dad had had high hopes of his oldest sister but she had already chosen someone for herself – who was a Malyalee but not Malyalee enough apparently because he was half-Manglorean and didn’t speak Malyalam – and she refused to back down. After many tantrums, V’s dad’s older brother in the village (apparently the word of the older brother is a big thing in Malyalee families) told him to let her be and the wedding went ahead.

Then V’s next sister decided to marry a Hindu. This is apparently even worse than not marrying a Malyalee, even if the Hindu in question is a Malyalee. More tantrums later, he finally relented.

To V’s dad’s credit, once he decides that you’re part of the family, all his past grudges are totally forgotten and then he’s totally welcoming. It’s very strange but for the best I guess.

So, in V and my case, one would think the path had been laid by his respective sisters. But V was the only son and unfortunately, now all his father’s hopes were pinned on him.

But luckily, he took the news without a whimper. Or if there was a whimper, I didn’t hear it.

The storm before the calm

Although when V proposed he said he was ready to get hitched “anytime”, we decided that we’d wait for the following year. My sister was getting married that year and I didn’t think I could rush a wedding in the same year. And since both of us wanted to have a December wedding so our families around the world could attend, it would be almost two years after V proposed to when we actually would get hitched.

In the meantime, I decided to move to Hyderabad. The alleged reasons were:
a) I had always wanted to do a Master’s degree. There were a couple of good programmes in Hyderabad and I have family there.
b) I was sick of my job so now was a good time.
c) Hyderabad is closer to Bangalore than Bombay.

Obviously c) was the overriding concern. But a) and b) played a part too because otherwise I would have just shifted to Bangalore. However, even in my lovelorn state I was too cynical to follow a man around the place without something in hand, the something in this case being marriage.

See, as much as I love the idea of walking down the aisle in a floaty white dress and all that, for me primarily marriage is a contract. It means you are legally bound to me and I you and because we publicly so swear, we can’t just ditch out at the first signs of trouble.

Though I probably would have moved there had Bangalore had any English Literature programmes of repute.

Sadly, Hyderabad, a city I’ve spent many happy summer holidays in, turned out to be too stultifying for me to live in. I’m not sure if I’ve done a post about what I love and hate about Hyderabad but the bottom line is – I don’t think I could live there.

Although I had family and later good friends in Hyderabad, I was scarred by loneliness. Filling the hours became an almost desperate concern, the silence of the house I lived oppressive. I had always thought of myself as a loner but I guess before I moved I had had an active social life in Bombay.

The plan was that V and I could see each other more often if I lived in Hyderabad. It turned out that V came and saw me ONCE (to be fair, he was working and I was studying and had a more flexible schedule, but still) and the rest of the time I commuted to see him. Trains have completely lost their charm for me – I have had too many experiences with slimy men and screaming children – and I became adept at checking flight prices and grabbing cheap deals.

Then V moved to Hong Kong. It was the one time I have ever told someone not to do something for me. Normally, I don’t want to be burdened with other people’s favours. But in this case, I really believed our relationship would not survive the distance. Something had changed and we were in a rocky place.

But V chose to go. It was too good an opportunity to pass up and he rationalizes that he also took into account that it would be much easier for us to build a life together there than for me to adjust to life surrounded by his folks in Bangalore.

If we stayed in Bangalore there would be pressure to live with his parents, a prospect that haunts me to this day. The one condition I laid down to V when we decided to get married was that I would not live with his parents. He claims he doesn’t remember.
What was also bothering me was that V had still not told his father about us, on his mother’s advice. They intended to decide everything and then spring it on him. Believe me, being someone’s dirty little secret does not do wonders for one’s self esteem. It also amazes me that a wife might actually counsel her children not to tell her husband something but hey different folks, right?

On the other hand, my mom had told my entire family we were getting married. And a cousin of mine had also decided to get hitched and somehow it was agreed we’d both get married in Bangalore since his fiancé was there too.

Now in Bombay, you have to plan a wedding at least a year in advance. If you don’t book a hall, at least a year before, and you want to get married at a peak time like December, forget it. You probably won’t even get a church date.

Apparently, this is not the case in Bangalore. You can plan weddings even upto six months before.

But my mom was freaking out. Because she had planned my sister’s wedding the year before, she couldn’t imagine how it was possible to not do a thing till the last minute.

My side of the family began panicking because they said they wanted to book accommodation in the Bangalore Club and apparently, it all get booked up etc. It’s true, accommodation in Bangalore is a nightmare and you can’t get anywhere last minute. Though it later turned out you can’t book the Bangalore Club rooms before three months in advance or something , anyway, so they were just being assholes.

Finally, I told them, since V hasn’t yet told his father we’re getting married, you can go ahead and book the club but don’t blame me if there’s no wedding. That shut them up.

How I met your mother2

So V had met my folks.

But I was yet to meet his. This turned out to be a long drawn out saga.

Remember the trip to Bangalore on which I got proposed to? Well, although I was staying at V’s sister’s house, it turns out every Sunday they go to the parental home for lunch. So she asked V what to do with me, and he said “bring her along”.

In typical guy fashion, his plan had been to spring me on his parents. Or to slyly insert me into their consciousness before they had fully realise what hit them. Or to pass me off as a friend of his sister’s and not tell them.

Whatever it was, I was having none of it. I insisted on being made an honest woman of.

This, I admit in hindsight, was a mistake.

Having never met any of V’s family or close friends before I landed up in Bangalore, I had pretty much assumed they were all like him. In the case of his siblings and friends, this was the case. I assumed that because V and his siblings were like me and my sibling and cousins, his parents would be too.

Wrong.

V’s parents look and are conservative (though they sometimes reveal themselves to be openminded about the most surprising things). I later realised that he had never brought his girlfriends home, or at least, never introduced them as his girlfriend, even if his parents figured it out. This seems somewhat inexplicable to me but I guess there are many of you out there who will empathise. Although V and his siblings spend pretty much all Sunday at home with their parents, they rarely, if ever, have intimate chats about the details of their lives. They are the kind of people, hip young things like V and his sisters call “mom” and “dad” to other people but not to their faces.

With such a set-up, I am now forced to concede, a more subtle and gradual approach would have worked better.

The problem is that V was playing both sides of the fence. He had never given me any inkling that his parents would be less than accepting of me. I had had no preparation for what was to be my reception.

Maybe he didn’t see the need for preparation because just as I had assumed that all parents are like mine, he would have assumed that all parents are like his. But he had met my parents.

In fact, before I arrived in Bangalore he had told me that his mom had been giving him grief about getting married and he had told her that he would tell her who he had decided to marry. And then he had told he was going to marry someone from another religion and his mom had pretended to be cool about it.

This should have warned me, but love being blind, it didn’t. Instead of seeing it as a desperate attempt to prepare his parents for how different I was from what they would expect in a wife for their only son, I thought it was encouraging that he had told his mom he had decided who to marry. I guess it was. But there was a but.

The few hours I spent at V’s house were excruciating. His dad looked at me quizzically. His mom looked shellshocked and said a few forced words to me. She was cold and strange. V insisted in putting his arm behind me on the sofa and I began wishing he wouldn’t. I remember wishing my hair wasn’t in such an awkward stage.

It was culture shock on both sides. And not a good beginning.

How I met your mother1

From here on, darlings, the story’s not so pretty. (Though recent comments might indicate it stopped being pretty a while ago).

What I skipped in all the aw-ness was the meet the parents bit.

After Em, I had sworn off introducing meaningless boys to my parents. It was, I figured, just not worth the effort. Because no matter what you tell them, parents always panic because they think you’re going to marry the boy in question. Parental-ness goes into overdrive and they begin asking you questions about his family and job prospects. When your answers are the honest ones (“I dont know and couldn’t care less”), they try not to let on, but secretly they’re going crazy with worry that you’re going to marry someone “unsuitable”. So, it’s easiest to save them and yourself the headache by only bothering to bring up those boys that are not of the casual variety. Because that’s another thing parents don’t understand – “casual”.

I can’t remember when V actually met my mother. But I do remember when it became impossible to hide his existence from her.

I had these enormous hickeys (courtesy of V) on my neck. And I had been taking the utmost care to hide them from my mom, through the usual favourites – strategically placed hair, foundation, turtelenecks and the odd scarf.

Just when I least expected, a couple of days after the fact when the hickeys had almost faded, I was stumbling out off bed and to the kitchen for some water, when my mother suddenly shouted: “what’s that on your neck”. I was caught off guard and so predictably unable to lie, because to lie I need oodles of practice, but I tired anyway. “Mosquito bites,” I ventured. “No! I know what they are! They’re those kiss things!” she exclaimed. Which would have been funny (I’m rather proud of my mom for being able to tell a hickey from an insect bite) if she hadn’t been so horrified.

So I had to sit down and tell mom all about V. And then I figured I might as well introduce them. It must have gone okay because I can’t remember it.

My dad had been away on work all this while. Don’t tell him as soon as he comes back, had been my mom’s sage counsel.

Except the moment he arrived and we were all in the same room, she blurts out… “Look at The Bride’s ring from her new boyfriend.” Poor me.

And poor Dad. I then had to break to him that I intended to marry this person. His fearsome daughter who had declared war on marriage. My dad’s always dealt poorly with the existence of men in our lives. Now he blurted out: “But what are his goals and aspirations?”

To which I humbly offered: “He works in a bank.” Which frankly was almost the extent of my knowledge.

Later, V was introduced to Dad, who later offered: “He seems like a nice chap.” I guess given my track record, that was a surprise.

And that was that.

Popping the question3

And then V moved away.

And I surprised myself by really really missing him. I generally don’t do missing. When people go away, I turn the part of me linked to them off and can function pretty much normally. When they come back, if I like them, I turn it back on and we pick up where we left off.

Missing someone all the time was a shock.

It also spawned the start of what later became the hallmark of our relationship. Frequent and meaningless phone calls. We would call each other every few hours. This was another shock to everyone who knows me. I don’t do phone calls. I pretty much avoid talking to people on the phone. I don’t know why phones make me so uncomfortable when I can probably talk nineteen to a dozen in person. But they do. It’s probably because silences are so awkward over the phone.

But when your boyfriend’s in a another city, you don’t have a choice. You suck it up and make conversation. Even if there’s nothing to make conversation about every few hours, you master the art of making conversation about nothing. You describe every inane thing. You giggle. You make loving noises. You are basically disgusting to anyone listening. But hey, then don’t listen. You revel not in words but in the hearing of them.

We had also decided to try and see each other every couple of months. A month after he left, V came back for some work-related thing. (You see how all this work-related travel has been plaguing me all my V-ed life?). And then a few months later, I flew to Bangalore.

We drove to Ooty. I had never been before. It was beautiful.

We first stopped at Coonoor and got a room. And there for the second time in my life, I was proposed to when butt naked. Only this time I was butt naked and crying.

So to quell my tears, V made me close my eyes and when I opened them, he was down on one knee (still sans clothing) with a ring.

And with the panoramic view of Coonoor town behind us, we were I guess engaged.

Strike three on the proposal stage.

Springing the question1

So, V and I were officially a couple. But we were a couple with the clock ticking down on us. Because ironically, V had finally got what he had wanted all along – the green light to go home – except now he didn’t want it so much.

Already, there were beginning to be signs that we were not just coasting along being emotionally and physically connected.

There was this one time that V asked me if I ever saw myself getting married. To which I replied: “Well, I used to say never but now I’ve come to realise it’s probably inevitable. At some point.”

Or this other time, when he said he was interested to know where I saw this all ending. And then I turned the question on him. And he said: “To it’s logical end”.

Huh. How coy we were being. That could mean anything. And yet.

Finally, I finally got stoned. By that I mean I had tried to get stoned before but nothing happened. I remember smoking weed with some boys in an empty flat and getting so bored about nothing happening that I started reading the label inside the Coke bottle. And the boys started laughing and telling me I was stoned. Only I wasn’t. I was just really really bored.

Anyway, this one time I went out with V and his friends and the friends had some stuff that I smoked. V doesn’t smoke but at that time, he was very tolerant of me smoking. Not so much now… but anyway.

So, on the drive back home I began to feel all trippy. Like the car rounded a bend and I thought the road was coming up to meet us. And the lights began to take on this zippy character. And I began to giggle. Yup, I was stoned. I was so excited about being stoned that I began to sound more stoned than I actually was.

And then, I can’t remember exactly how or why, but V told me he wanted to marry me. And I stopped being stoned and hugged him.

In some retellings of this story, V actually says this is when he proposed to me. But considering there were two (other) times, I’m not sure if this one counts as the real deal.

TBC…

Popping the question2

In December, two months after we had first met, V went back to Bangalore for Christmas. He was due to come back for New Year which only now do I recognise for the collosal sacrifice that it was because V had a very happening party scene going in Bangalore while New Year in Bombay tends to be an overdone, overcrowded mess.

Anyway, he lands in Bombay and we have an emotional and erm passionate reunion. And then, as we’re lying on this mattress in complete undress, V springs the question. Which he later tells me he had just figured out he wanted to ask me on the two-hour flight in.

And I just as impulsively say yes.

Somehow it seemed like the most natural thing to say. Never mind that I had pretty much ranted against marriage my whole life (though as I grew older I was resigned to the fact that I would cave in and get married, I never expected it to happen that soon). Never mind that we had just met a couple of months ago. Never mind that we didn’t actually know some very fundamental things about each other.

So, pretty much lying on top of V, I decided (belatedly) to get practical. “Can you afford a house?” I asked. “Because I can’t.”

Poor V. He started off on a brief description of his financial viability, concluding rather sheepishly: “I’ve never been asked my net worth before.”

Now it was my turn to be embarassed. Somehow, growing up in Bombay, I had acquired the belief that people couldn’t get married without having enough money for a house because otherwise they would be condemned to life in an even-more far-flung suburb than they currently lived in on account of having to move out of the parental abode. And this possibility really gave me the heebeejeebies. So I had always assumed that I would only get married if and when either me or the guy had the money for that not to happen.

But anyway, too late for that. I had not only agreed to get hitched, I wanted to. Practicalities could come later.

TBC…