I still remember the happiest day of my three years in college. It was the day after my friend Snehas brothers pre-wedding party. He was six years older than we were, and so his friends were in the age range of 26 to 30. They were ‘adults’. Working people. Worldly. I knew it would be imperative to impress them, and so dressed to kill in Anandi’s party jeans and someone else’s black t-shirt I was all set.
The party was on a terrace somewhere in Bombay so I had loads of space to show off my moves. Moves I had carefully studied from Flashdance, Footloose, and Dirty Dancing. It was a fantastic night.
The next day, as I was recuperating in my room in the hostel I heard the hall phone ring.
“Vaz! It’s for you.”
God damn it. A phone call for me? My then-boyfriend lived in another city and only called on the weekend, and my parents never called. Who the hell was calling on a Wednesday afternoon – it was nap time.
“Hello?”
“Is that Radhika?” A self-assured, female voice inquired.
“Yes.”
“Radhika, my name is Deepa*. I saw you at Jai’s party last night.”
OK. Lezzer. I silently and politically incorrectly thought but did not say.
“Anyway, I work for Anaita Advani*.”
ANAITA ADVANI! She was, at the time, the best-known model scout. I warmed to Deepa immediately.
“Are you still there Radhika?”
“Yes, still here.”
“OK, well we are currently casting the Limca Ad.”
LIMCA AD! Limca was the biggest soft drink brand, and my personal favorite vodka mixer. I had thrown up vodka and Limca several times and to this day I still remember everything about the TV ads. Everyone dressed in green and yellow, running about enjoying ‘fun times, Limca times’. Limca cast only the prettiest young thing AND she became instantly famous. Thank god I wore Anandi’s jeans, I knew it!
“I see.” I was trying to sound casual but I had to fight to keep the eagerness out of my voice.
“We are wondering, would you be interested in coming in for a screen test.”
INTERESTED! Of course I was interested, this was the moment I had been waiting for. Three fucking years of sitting through boring economics and statistics lectures was finally paying off – I was being discovered! I would be the next Meher Jessia, the next Madhu Sapre, the next…fuck India – I would be the next Linda Evangelista. I could see it all so clearly – London, Milan, Paris. It made perfect sense, I was born to do this and finally someone had noticed.
“Hello Radhika?”
“I’m here.” I gasped.
“OK good. So this is the best number to reach you at?”
It was actually the only number to reach me at, “YES, this is the number!”
“Good, so someone will be in touch in the next few days.”
“OK – well bye then.”
“Bye”
I hung up and floated back to my room, making a mental note to stay mum on the whole business of my future fame until the screen test was done with, and I was selected to be the lead in the biggest advertising campaign to ever come out of my motherland.
The first 24 hours was the hardest. What would I wear to the screen test, would they make me dance and sing the jingle, or were they already so enamored with my beauty and personality that this was all a mere formality?
The next 24 hours was worse. Why hadn’t Deepa called? She definitely had my number. May be I should ask Sneha to call her brother so we could track her down. No – that was too desperate and certainly something Linda Evangelista would never do.
Three days later it was clear to me what was going on. I was going to have to pass my final year exams. I was not going to be snatched from the jaws of real life with a lucrative modeling contract.
It certainly hurt my feelings that Deepa never called back, and in hindsight I realize I was probably up for the part of an extra and not the lead. Regardless, I did learn one valuable lesson. Always take the other bastards number. Always.
*Names changed because I can’t remember the actual names.
I had never been to Beyrouth, I had read about it for the very first time in a Sidney Sheldon novel, and so, in my mind, regardless of everything else I knew of Lebanon, Beyrouth was this place of mystery, an ancient city where men and women – all double agents – skulked around dark corners, drinking strong coffee, and having very good sex.
Another thing I had never done was stay at a Four Seasons hotel. So when my husbands friend, nay, my husbands handsome, sexy and generous friend Rat Kapoor called to invite us to his 40th Birthday, all expenses paid, I made a very minor fuss. A fuss that ended as soon as my husb informed me that he would be going to this party with or without me.
And so we headed to The Paris of the East for a weekend of adventure. Let me be clear. This holiday was planned for one reason – to have a good time. Any sight seeing and cultural exposure that took place was accidental – and because Beyrouth is beautiful, historic, modern, and diverse and hence fascinating all on its own.
Having made my excuses, the first thing you will notice about Lebanon is that everyone smokes, and they smoke where ever it is they damn well choose. As soon as we exited Rafic Hariri International Airport, we were accosted by a cab pimp. His job was to negotiate the rate and then dump us in to one of the cabs that came under his jurisdiction.
‘Four-thee Dollairs’. He said, obligatory ciggie hanging out of his face.
We got him down to 20. Nice try buddy. We ain’t Ameerican. We Indian.
Our cab showed up with a young, incredibly hip driver who yelled something in Arabic to the cab pimp, who then yelled back at him. We took this to be the exchange of fare and address info. We got in the cab and sped off. And when I say SPED off I mean SPED off. The man put his foot on the accelerator and did not take it off until we reached our destination. This was not the part that bothered me. What bothered me was that he insisted on chain smoking, drinking his Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, and chewing what looked like ganja, through out our 25 minute drive. The husb and I grappled about for a seatbelt, but of course they were not working. And so we gave in to the thrill of possible death at any turn.
Remember the good old days?
Having survived the drive, we disembarked at the very grand, extremely well located Four Seasons Hotel. The hotel faces the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the city on the other. This is downtown Beyrouth championship style!
Why do I need to stay at The Four Seasons? Because I am too fancy to wash my own arse.
View from my room. The Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, or the Blue Mosque, by night.
Christian Church, Blue Mosque, Hungover Me.
If these walls could talk...
Beyrouth is nothing if not fashionable.
The other thing about Beyrouth – TERRIBLE DRIVERS. Almost as bad as my homeland but with faster, cooler looking cars.
I look like I am trying to steal it. These damn things were everywhere.
The locals are hard to miss, mainly because they are all so good looking. I think its in those eyebrows.
The marina. Big boats, tight bottoms. Chugh and Me.
Local talent.
The freedom to protest.
And then there is the food…
India is everywhere.
And so is AMERICA!
But this is what you want to eat.
Outside Beyrouth.
Day trip to Byblos.
We didn’t get to do much in Byblos besides walk around and eat delicious crepes. But it’s well worth the 40 minute drive form Beyrouth. If you have some time visit Byblos Castle. We didn’t because we were – wait for it – hungover.
At Jeita Grotto. This little toy train was our mode of transport.
A half-hour from Beyrouth, the Jeita Grotto is not to be missed. These karstic limestone caves are a finalist in the New Seven Wonders of Nature competition. We were not permitted to take pictures so check out this link http://www.jeitagrotto.com/. And, NO SMOKING!
As I said before, because the main reason for this trip was to celebrate Ratty turning 40, our waking hours were usually between Noon and 6 am the next day. My camera didn’t make any of these nocturnal trips but I can assure you that if you visit Mad, Crystal and Music Hall you will not be disappointed.
Hello my name is Radhika Vaz and I am a reality television addict. Three days ago my husband and I made the joint decision (our first, and possibly last) that we would disconnect our cable channels.
I thought I was doing the right thing until I woke up yesterday, got my lovely cup of Yerba Mate and plunked myself down in front of the TV to watch my friends. I had programmed our DVR to record Khloe and Lamar, Ice Loves Coco, everything and anything the Real Housewives are involved in, Millionaire Matchmaker, Million Dollar Listings, Tabatha Takes Over and Bethany Ever After.
A blank screen greeted me. My puzzlement turned to panic when I realized the folly of our decision the previous night. I called the husb immediately. Yes he had already requested the cancellation. FARRRRRRK! I was not prepared for this! What would I do with the half-hour between drinking my tea and taking a shit? This was my special time in the morning when I am angry at the world and need the Kardashians and Mr. and Mrs. Ice T to help me deal with the day ahead.
I sat there shell-shocked. This was going to take some getting used to. But I suppose I should be grateful, at least I got to watch Kim and Kris Humphries’ wedding, and its disintegration, I have got to know the hopes, dreams and disappointments of Nene Leaks, Kim Zolziak, Countess Luanne, and lion-faced Adrianne Maloof. I watched Coco do squats in high heels and spandex, and Fat Pat on Millionaire Matchmaker hook up a bunch of douchey rich people with a bunch of gold diggers. I have seen first hand, the joys of real love in Khloe and Lamar’s home, watched Tabatha shaft every single person who came on her show, and yelled out advice to Bethany from my bean bag.
On the flip side, I will never know how Coco’s high blood pressure situation was finally handled, if Kim and Kyle reconcile or not, and if Jason and Bethany make it through the difficult second year of marriage.
I know this is better for me in the long run. But right now it hurts. I miss my TV friends – now I am actually going to have to get a life.
Everything looks better in Spanish doesn’t it? And what that means is “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels”, and one week ago I was getting ready to perform my first show there. How time flies. It’s all gone by so quickly – the stress that no one would come to the show, that I would forget my lines and embarrass myself, that if anyone came and if I managed not to forget then they would hate the show anyway. And then before you know it – it’s over and I am back home.
I know most of my New York friends have nothing nice to say about LA but I came back with a love hangover. I have had a crush on LA for years. Being a huge fan of Hollywood and movies like ‘LA Confidential’, and ‘Chinatown’, as well as of shows like “Six Feet Under’ and ‘Entourage’ I just love the way the city looks.
We stayed in the Melrose district where the Spanish-Colonial (thanks Diggi!) style of architecture dominates. Each house is unique in terms of both design and color – and while the cars parked outside are clearly of this century I look at it and imagine that things haven’t changed that much since those homes were first built. And because i feel like the history of LA (as I know it, in my limited capacity) is not that far behind it’s easy to slip in to one’s version of the past.
Before I got there I thought that I would appreciate the weather, and possibly the beach. Turns out it’s neither. What I love about LA is what it stands for – the movies. OK, calm down – of course there is much more. A cute Mexican came to my show – he works with kids, disabled ones. I know. But to me those four days were all my imagination, fueled by the movies and TV shows I had seen all my life. There is this sexy Hollywood haze that hangs heavy over the city, giving me the feeling that at any moment I could run in to someone famous, some people call this smog, screw them.
LA is a huge, multi-cultural, warm city. It’s the kind of city that puts you in the mood for romance – my specific image involved a younger Jack Nicholson (in any film), or Russell Crowe (not from ‘The Insider’). But the best part of the city – like any fabulous city anywhere – are it’s people. They are all uniformly attractive – some may have taken a step too far but so what? You dye your roots don’t you?
Anyway – the point is GO TO LA! And while you are there definitely:
Stay: do yourselves a fave and live like a local, possibly with a local www.airbnb.com
Eat: at Pampas Grill in the Farmers Market on Fairfax, and fish and pork tacos anywhere.
Drive: through Laurel Canyon and Mulholland Drive. The Hollywood Hills are beautiful, take a moment at the vista points (I sound like my mother) – you can view the valley on one side and downtown LA on the other. Carry a barf bag if you tend to get carsick – the roads are windey as fucking hell. Take a picture of the Hollywood sign. I did not and am annoyed. Also drive through Beverly Hills and Bel Air and glare disdainfully at other tourists doing the same shameful thing, in the same shameful mustang convertible (the most hideous, basic version that only a Belarussian and North Indian would select). Admire the Beverly Hills Hotel.
And here are some pictures from the trip.
My entourage. How fucking depressing are these two?
Our back yard.
Our Ride. Just kidding - this was parked across the street from us.
After the first show. With Ms. Jolly. Fellow actor and short-haired fellow.
After second night. With Rockstar Matty P and Katherine.
Last night! Sexy Lady Audience Members.
And some Unladies.
It's over bitch - no need to be nice any more!
Morning after. At Farmers Market with Chriselle Almieda, fellow actor and NY transplant.
Boys from LA, Girls from NY.
Santa Monica. It's like a suburb. But with sexy people.
And as the sun sets on my trip to LA...
...I go 'Hollywood' and learn that I look like an ass with my sunglasses on indoors.
You know those people who always surprise you with their age because they look so much younger than they really are? I am not one of those people. I am 38, in a month I will be 39, and so far everyone believes me when I tell them this, and so I have never been tempted to lie about my age. But I am amazed at the vast number of people who do.
Having been raised in India I never thought being old was a bad thing. If you were old everyone listened to you because they had to, and you basically got away with saying any damn thing and doing any damn thing. My dad smoked, drank and swore as much as he pleased because he could – it was a privilege he had earned. From my perspective, being older seemed like a major advantage. But in the west old age is not part of life, it’s an embarrassing disease that no one wants to admit to. It freaks us out. It scares us. And so we all run around spouting idiotic nonsense like ’40 is the new 30’ but secretly we want to be 20 and look 16.
When did we start pandering to this whole ’40 is the new 30’ shit? And do we seriously even believe it? If 40 is the new 30, then I am guessing that 50 is the new 40, and so on, until being dead is actually being alive for 10 more years. None of this makes any sense and it just pisses me off! I am angry because the ONLY reason for the existence of phrases like ’40 is the new 30’ is simply to make people who are aging feel better about themselves, because aging by definition is supposed to be the worst thing that can happen to anyone.
The obsession with youth is an epidemic, it’s not just stupid it’s embarrassing, and with all the plastic that we can now inject and implant it is getting bizarre. The medical community has practically banded together to provide us with a million and one ways to physically cling to an age in our lives that we think looks good. If you have some money and no fear of needles or blood you can fool yourself into believing anything.
Being older doesn’t bother me. I mean sure, I wish I had used more sun-block, I wish I hadn’t smoked a single cigarette, and I wish I had listened when someone once casually mentioned that if I didn’t watch it my c*&t would sag, but that’s just me whinging over spilt milk. Overall it’s not so bad, for one thing I am still around – isn’t that nice to think about sometimes? And, I am now officially old enough to make excuses for myself based on age.
“Look how high his ass is!”
“Oh please he’s 20! Lets see what that ass looks like when he’s MY age.”
“She just ran the Boston marathon, sub 3.”
“Oh please, she’s 12, lets see what happens when she’s MY age.”
Oh yes, I like using my age – it’s mine and I’ll do as I please with it. Which is why I don’t dye my hair. I am too tired to add one more thing to my stress list. People notice my grey hair and some of them cannot believe I would walk around with this much of it and not try to hide it, but if I were a man my hair would be sexy! Salt and pepper! Isn’t that something ladies?!
“Well I suppose we have George Clooney to thank for that” were my friend Vish’s words of wisdom when I brought this to his attention. And indeed he and his ilk do owe handsome George quite a lot. But what about us? Where are those ’40 is the new 30’ women? Where are our role models?
Yesterday on the subway I saw what looked like a 4 year old with her very hip looking mommy. I couldn’t tell how old the mother was but I could tell a few things. Her hair was colored, her lips had been plumped, and there was plenty of evidence that Botox had been used liberally. I imagine that this woman will continue to add to her face as the years go by and that is her business, the way my grey hair is mine, but I wonder if she cares about the message she is sending her daughter. I may be wrong but she struck me as the type of mother who would never be caught dead with a ciggie in front of her kid, but big balloon lips in the name of youth – I guess that is OK.
Thanksgiving is the most American of American holidays. It is a 4-day long weekend that skillfully combines food, football and family, and ever since my first year in America, as a Teacher’s assistant in Syracuse, NY it has been a dream of mine to be invited to a Thanksgiving weekend in the home of an American family, preferably one with a fireplace to sit by and enjoy hot cocoa (even though I am lactose intolerant and would probably fart the family in to oblivion).
But after moving to New York 10 years ago I gave up on my dream. Why? Because my New York friends, American or not, are, without exception, New York Orphans (henceforth to be referred to as NYOs). NYOs are people who have no family in the tri-state area that they can spend four whole days with, let alone bring their Indian friend and her husband to. Some of them zip home on Thursday morning via the Metro North, eat with their family, and then zip back the same evening or the next day. The rest don’t even have that option, America is a big country and families live too far away.
So instead I would celebrate Thanksgiving with other NYOs. The Sethis, The Bilbys, The Kojics/Poliacks, The Talwalkars, The List Is A Long One. These gatherings are usually a pretty casual affair, and to prove it here is a sample of an invitation I got from friend and fellow NYO Keith Nealon, I have not edited it, this is exactly what I got in my email:
“Hey…thanksgiving?…put you down for drink n anal?”
And so it went. Until this year when the director of my show Brock Savage asked me and my husband to spend Thanksgiving with him and his family in Standish, Maine! His sister (Tammy) and brother-in-law (Shaun) have a vacation home on a lake, and every year the family gets together to spend the weekend there. I could not say no to that so I said yes please!
Because I haven’t the talent to be pithy, and because my allotted time for writing the blog this week is up, I have not described my Maine experience in detail. Instead here are some important stats and some pictures from one of the best the weekends I have ever had ever!
Family members at gathering:
Mom and Dad Savage, Tammy and Shaun, Catlyn (Brock’s niece) Donahue, Brock, and us. Or as Brock called it, “ Three couples, the ingénue, and the old maid”.
Total amount of Food/drink items consumed over the Thankgiving weekend by me alone:
Own body weight in Banana Cream Pie with whipped topping.
Husband’s body weight in corn bread and sausage stuffing.
40 kilograms turkey (with TGing meal and in sandwiches).
39 kilograms assorted pies (apple, apple crisp, strawberry rhubarb) a la mode.
1 whoopie pie (for the ignorant this is two slabs of rich, fudgey chocolate cake, with a thick layer of frosting holding them together).
65 kilograms of roasted pecans (eaten plain by shoving a handful at a time in to my gob, or on top of banana cream pie, on top of assorted pie and whoopie pie, and liberally sprinkled in the very small salad I force fed myself out of guilt).
Wine, bubbley, rum and hot water (I did not bother to record quantities because liquids are hard to keep track of).
Total hours dedicated to football viewing:
Zero.
PHOTOS!
The House on The Lake: Thanks to the fact that Deepak was in-charge of the camera, we have no pictures of the house we stayed in. But we do have pictures of some other houses that I have included to give you a feel for the place. We also have no pictures of the fireplace.
The Lake: We (thankfully) have some pictures of the lake from the Donahue deck.
Lake by sunset (ish).
L.L.Bean: This is a major shop in Maine. The boot in the photograph is their most famous product. While at L.L.Bean I purchased green rain boots, also known as ‘wellingtons’, ‘galoshes’ or, and in my opinion most charmingly, ‘shit kickers’. And that is our host, Shaun Donahue, being his normal self.
Dead Moose: To me a moose signifies majesty and mystique. Here he is, sadly robbed of both, in the hunting section at L.L. Bean.
Inbreeding: I was told there was a little brother-sister love going on in some parts of Maine, but putting up signs like this is just mean. (Brock and I go for a walk).
Sock Monkey: A Sock Monkey is a monkey made of socks. Tammy Craft Genius Donahue made TWO of them right in front of me, here is proof.
My own Sock Monkey: I got to keep the ‘trial monkey’ – and that’s him back in NY with the orphans!
One fine night after dinner as I wrestled a large Pyrex dish into the dishwasher my husband turned to me and cheerfully asked,
“Do you want to watch some porn before we do it?”
His suggestion did not surprise me, clearly he had run out of imaginary sexual situations with which to fantasize, but it did make me a little uncomfortable.
Don’t get me wrong, I like porn, but I am old school in my consumption of it. I prefer to be alone in a partially lit room with my pants around my ankles and a hot-water bottle between my knees. The last time I watched porn with other people I was as a 16 year old, the other people were my girlfriends and afterwards we didn’t have to have sex with one another, we went back to our respective parents homes and locked ourselves in the bathroom for several hours, so naturally I had a few of questions.
As we ladies know, beauty, grace, and feminine dignity are an illusion. For if they were not an illusion, and it were in fact possible for us to achieve this ideal of the ‘fairer sex’ then tell me this, why is it that our biology is capable of the astonishing, inexplicable, and quite frankly unnecessary vaginal flatulence (in the show I call it by it’s colloquial names i.e Pussy Fart and Queef – but somehow in writing ‘vaginal flatulence’ had a nice medical ring to it).
I was introduced to this physical phenomenon at the tender age of 11. (more…)
