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.
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…)
As a married woman I am sometimes asked, “how do you know that he is the one?” Well the truth is that you never really know, but there are some clues that you may have made your final selection. Married or not here are some helpful hints that you have turned in to a wife:
1. You start using the pronoun ‘our’ for stuff that clearly belongs to him.
2. You develop laser like vision out of the back of your head. For example, you are at a party, your husband is standing in another room, yet you know exactly when he is chit-chatting (in his idiot way) with a woman more attractive than you are.
3. You also develop a scanner, like the ones they have in super-markets, and when your man comes home from a boys night out you can scan him for any trace of activities that you had previously forbidden.
4. You hack in to his e-mail, Blackberry, Facebook, and bank account without fear or guilt.
5. His minor hangovers mean that he is an alcoholic. Like that uncle of his twice removed.
6. You stop caring about being too hairy.
7. You constantly insult his parents, his siblings and his friends. Yet he is not allowed to say one word about yours.
8. You sound annoyed when you speak to him.
9. You realize his taste in everything is deplorable.
10. And in some rare and extreme situations of wifeyness you fart, announce you are off to take a crap, and afterwards do not bother with lighting matches, lighting candles, cleaning the whole bathroom or taking a shower to disguise the stench. In fact you are quite happy to leave a skid mark just to show you were there.
‘I think I may be close to failing my squat’, I moaned to Coach Margie Lempert, a strength coach at my gym. For those of you who do not lift weights, ‘failure’ is the inability to move a particular weight and it happens to everyone at some point.
Margie listened politely and then simply said, “You know what – you’re strong, you’re just timid.” I was too shocked to ask for an explanation, and then her client arrived and she had to go, leaving me on the training platform with the bar and my insecurities.
A few days later – and totally unrelated to my fitness regimen – I read about a phenomenon called SlutWalk. For the uninitiated, SlutWalk is a protest march that originated in Toronto, Canada. The impetus for this movement stemmed from the words of a male police officer, who during a talk on safety uttered these words, “…women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized…”. Instead of blaming SHITTY law enforcement, the officer blamed the victim, and instead of lying back and taking it a group of women got together and decided that they were going to dress like ‘sluts’ and march in protest of this blatant BULLSHIT.
The idea caught like wildfire with SlutWalks being hosted all over the world, and I was delighted to learn that a young Indian woman had organized a version of SlutWalk in our nation’s capital. With one of the highest rape stats on the planet I truly believed that this would be a good thing – our girls were taking matters in to their own hands and actually doing something about it. I was truly proud to be an Indian woman. And then, just like that, I read something that infuriated me – there was opposition to SlutWalk in India!
Sure I expected it, but I also expected the objectors to be men, old ones on their way out! But instead I came across these gems on the Internet, spouted by, of all people, Ms. Shobha De – a woman, and an educated woman at that: “Naming the protest ‘slut walk’ degrades women even if it has shock value,” AND “It’s a campaign driven by women in the West. It does not connect with women in the Indian context.”
Let me deal with this CRAP one turd at a time.
The fact that Ms. De is being so literal about the word ‘slut’ is just embarrassingly OLD-fashioned. That she lives in a world where the word degrades women tells me that she is out of touch. It is laughable that she thinks ‘slut’ has shock-value! What year are we in again? I for one have been using the word ‘slut’ as a compliment for ages and am pleased to report I am not alone. By doing so I do believe we devalue it as an insult. The way we did with the word ‘bitch’. But I am guessing Ms. De isn’t aware of that either.
She then has the nerve to tell us that it’s a campaign driven by the west and that we Indian women won’t connect to it. Here is what I would like to know – Ms. De, what are you smoking and might I have some? There is nothing western about the fear of rape, it seems like a very eastern concern if you ask me. The only people who can’t relate are the rich who live in safe zones that only money can buy. And seriously – if you have your La Perla undies in such a wad over SlutWalk, then come up with a better idea than just a half-arsed critique of this one.
But it isn’t just Ms. De. It’s a bunch of other people I have spoken to since then. Many think that we ladies are up in arms over nothing, and that there are ‘bigger’ problems for us to deal with. Really? There is a bigger problem than basic safety for HALF our population? Like it or not India is a country where a woman has to worry about what she wears, because if she doesn’t she might end up with the wrong kind of attention. And until our women are safe it is not an equal society.
Margie was right, timidity will get us nowhere. Being good, nice little girls who do the ‘right’ thing will get us nowhere. Worrying about what people think of us will get us nowhere. I applaud Ms. Sabarwal for having the balls to organize this protest in the face of all the opposition. Regardless of the outcome it shows me that young Indian women are no longer willing put up with a corrupt, inept police system and instead, like their Canadian sisters, are staging a fight for their BASIC rights.
SlutWalk may not be the answer to all our problems but it certainly got a reaction. And that’s a start. As for me, well, I did fail my squat. But I’m going back tomorrow and this time I won’t be afraid.
As some of you may know I am currently performing my one-woman show ‘Unladylike: The pitfalls of propriety’. The show is about a woman who is fed-up of living with the pressure of being a ‘lady’ as it is defined by modern society.
The show is supposed to begin at 8pm. The audience starts to trickle in about 30 minutes before then, and because I perform in costume (see above) I am banished to a closet like space off-stage until show time. Because this closet-like space does not have a toilet my last opportunity to purge my body of waste is 730pm. As a big believer in the 8-glasses-of-water-a-day theory I go the extra mile to stay hydrated and moist on show days, which means that by the end of the show the only thing I want to do is pee.
All of this is quite manageable and I am not complaining. Yet.
However (here we go) sometimes we are forced to start late. And once we had to start 25 minutes late. Sitting back-stage I continued to sip on warm water, breathing deeply, and trying to ignore the growing need to pee. But at 8:15 I started to worry. This was not usual and so at I texted my generals (door staff).
‘whats happening?’
‘big group late. 1 person here. promises the rest will be here in 5’.
‘are the late people all Indian?’
‘yes’
FUCK. This was very bad news. Holding pee for an hour and a half was one thing, having to hold indefinitely was quite another.
The thing about pee is that the more you worry about it the worse it gets. Plus I wear a dress that requires me to hold in my lower abdomen, and with a full bladder this was going to be beyond painful. My head started to hurt. What the hell was I going to do?
8:18. I looked around the closet and spied an empty paper cup in the dustbin. “That is too disgusting even for me” I thought.
8:19. Headache worse and now my eyes had started to water.
8:20. Fuck that; the bloody show is called ‘Unladylike’. I picked up the cup, dropped my undies, positioned cup to avoid spillage and peed like a fucking horse. I then wrapped it up in several plastic bags and put it back in the dustbin. Sorry Producers Club.
I didn’t think much of this until yesterday when I finished reading Tina Fey’s article ‘Lessons from Late Night’ (This month’s New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/03/14/110314fa_fact_fey) in which the delightful Ms. Fey explains, amongst other things, the difference between men and women comics. Apparently the men pee in to cups.
Miss Fey you may be right about a lot of things – just not this.
Tickets are on sale for shows on March 18, 25 and 26. Come listen to me pee backstage. www.unladylike.eventbrite.com
Today is a big day for me. I have figured out how to upload unique (and sometimes frightening) images to my blog. This photograph was taken by my husband on a Sunday morning. This is what he wakes up next to the lucky bugger.
Allright then get back to work and I will get back to being beautiful.
Once up on a time, long, long ago, in a faraway land called India, I used to be a virgin. As a virgin, I learnt many things. The first thing that I learnt was that I was living in a pro-virgin country. We Indians love our virginity. Virgins are pure, chaste creatures of God. The second thing that I learnt was that many, many men would not consider marrying a girl if she did not bring her hymen to the table. I learnt this by reading the newspaper.
During my virgin years I enjoyed doing two things—jogging and reading the personal advertisements in the HINDUSTAN TIMES. The personals were an opportunity for single Indians of marriageable age to advertise their wares. As someone who has always enjoyed other people’s business I would read every one of the ads. One day I came across an ad that read, “Innocent divorcee, age 25, seeks groom”.
I discovered that an “innocent divorcee” was a divorced woman who had managed to cling to her hymen the entire time that she was married. As her most valuable asset, her innocence was the first thing mentioned in the ad; an ad written by her father because, as a man, he knew that no other man would want a dirty little whore.
As a rather uptight 16-year-old I did not question the status quo. I had been sold the idea that my first time needed to be special and believed that one day I would present my husband with the gift of an unused vagina. I wasn’t sure if an unused penis held quite the same allure, but not having a penis myself I don’t suppose I gave that much thought.
I continued to think this way until one day my horizons were broadened by some pornographic material—two visually stunning pieces; a lesbian love fest called “Pink Ladies” and a hetero hump fest called “Pleasure Hunt: Part One”. These movies convinced me that I was missing out on something. We Indians were not being given all the facts. It was clear to me that none of the people in these movies were married, or even engaged for that matter, yet there they were enjoying each other’s company in ways I could only imagine!
My resolve began to crumble. I knew I was supposed to wait, but at the time marriage seemed as distant a concept as death. And for the first time I wondered, how much longer was I to guard my precious punani? 2 years? 5 years? ETENRNITY?
With each passing day I was more and more convinced that this whole virginity thing was over-rated rubbish. Clearly it wasn’t a particularly useful, or visible, body part, like a foot. If I lost my foot, everyone would know and I wouldn’t be able to wear Nike high-tops. If I lost my virginity nobody would know and I could continue to wear Nike high-tops. My virginity brought nothing to the party, it just sat there doing bugger all, yet losing it was going to be a very, very big deal.
As if it were something you could actually lose in the first place.
“Oh no, I just lost my virginity. How careless of me! It’s the second time this week!”
By this time I knew that I would not be holding out for a wedding ring. But I was a spineless little tick and I needed the approval of my peers. I needed for them to say it was OK the way they had said it was OK for me to wear a mullet and acid-wash jeans. But in this country of virgin lovers who would stand by me?
I was beginning to think I was going to be stuck with my virginity for a very long time, when I met a girl who changed my life. She was my First Slut. She was the only girl I knew who had given her boyfriend a hand-job and so, as far as I was concerned, she was a woman of vast experience and so I asked her.
“Do you plan to wait until you are married?”
“Absolutely not! I don’t care if I’m married, so long as I really love the guy.”
LOVE! But of course! LOVE! Love was the reason for everything. Love would conquer all. And as Mahatma Gandhi said, “Cowards are incapable of expressing love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
All I needed to do was fall in love and I could go right ahead and lose my virginity, because the noble act of love would make my first time special. AND I was a fan of Madonna’s music so I knew that in the future should I fall in love—again, and again, and yet again—it was entirely possible to feel like a virgin, even if I wasn’t one.
And so long, long ago in a faraway land, I discovered the loophole of love.
It is an accepted fact that while men can march around with body hair spilling from their every pore us women must convey an air of hairlessness at all times.
Let’s be realistic about something. Having a body that has no hair on it is not the way Mother Nature intended us to be. But as much as I whinge about it I am fully aware that a sound trimming is a basic requirement if one wishes to be viewed as sexually appealing. And so, like all of you, I put on my big girl panties and do what needs doing which in my case involves waxing, shaving, tweezing, threading, plucking, pulling, epilating and depilating every square inch of myself.
I would submit an endless number of body-parts for grooming both at local salons across India and at my friends homes – because truth be told there are some things only your friends can help you with. I have taken so much hair off this body Tirupati has nothing on me. Eyebrows, upper-lip, chin, sideburns, arms, legs, armpits, fingers, toes, back, front, and let’s be honest ladies—the only reason every one of us owns a pair of tweezers—nipple hair. I know nobody likes to admit that but fuck you because it’s true.
Now, I have endured the pain of having hair yanked from the root and I have endured the inconvenience of wearing jeans in the summer time, and I have endured all of this in as cheerful a manner as possible. But I do believe we have gone too far. And I began believing this during my first ever Brazilian Bikini Wax.
Like many of you, I heard about this procedure a decade ago. I was told that the Brazilian was the removal of all hair from the happy cavity—both happy cavities actually, front and rear. Because it sounded so unbelievably painful and stupid, I assumed that this was some Amazonian tribal ritual restricted to the rainforests of Brazil. It made sense that they would have an exotic ceremony like that because they are hunters and forage for food in the wilds, completely naked and as a huntress, the last thing I would want is to have my flaming forest caught in the underbrush. But if one shopped for food in a super market, why would this be necessary?
Eventually, after years of skulking around the locker room encased in toweling, lest anyone think I were wearing mink panties, I finally caved and made myself an appointment with Beata at Bliss Spa. I spent the entire week leading up to this appointment in a state of high anxiety.
Yes, I was concerned about the pain, but more than that I was concerned about disfigurement. As a mature woman, I do not need any additional wear and tear on my lady parts. I was afraid that some things might stretch. What if, when Beata pulled, it just unraveled?! That was all I needed – a long, floppy vagina.
Finally, the big day arrived and I found myself standing in a warm, quiet waxing room wearing a turtle-neck sweater, a paper g-string, and my socks. I looked like an asshole who was about to have her own asshole waxed. The next thing I know I’m on my back with my knees in my face and Beata peering down at my End Zone.
Until then, the only person who had ever looked that closely at me was my gynecologist and I always trim the hedges when I visit her because I am a decent person who likes to make things as pleasant as possible. But for obvious reasons, I had not trimmed anything for Beata and so I nervously apologized to her. She lied and said she had seen worse. I won’t pretend – it did make me feel better. And then, with the swift, efficient moves of a highly trained ninja, Beata waxed me all the way from Bangalore to Madras. And she meant business. No hair was left standing. Any errant locks that had managed to evade the wax were savagely tweezed out one at a time.
When I hobbled away from Bliss Spa, I must admit, I did feel like a new woman. I had the same feeling I usually get when I have been given a radical new coiffeur—the feeling that every stranger on the street is staring at me because they know something has changed.
As soon as I got home I took my pants off and examined my newly naked nether region in the mirror. It was a shock to my system. For one thing, I hadn’t seen it in all its glory since I was 9, and for another, it looked like something you would find in the frozen meats department at Wholefoods—a pair of chicken cutlets squashed together.
It isn’t natural. We are not supposed to have bald vaginas. Everything was strange, even taking a shower was strange. I was unable to create a lather of any kind because there wasn’t anything for the lather to cling too.
We shouldn’t be waxing our bits and pieces. Men should be waxing theirs. Because waxing would make their knick-knacks look bigger. For them, the pain would lead to an actual benefit. For us there is no benefit. What woman says to herself, “I wonder if there is any way I could somehow make my vagina look bigger? Because there is nothing more attractive than a really vast, sprawling pudendum.”
It was 1998, I was 25 and in a new relationship. What kept my new liaison fresher than a steaming heap of cow dung was the fact that it was a long distance one. I lived in Madras and he lived in Bangalore. I was properly infatuated and the object of my affection was Thaks. I had seen our future flash before my eyes about 2 days in to our love affair and the only thing that could have made me any lighter headed was if he would just open his damn eyes and see it too. But half the fun of a relationship is the drama and half the drama is being in love with someone who appears to have less interest in you than you have in him. And so that was the state of things at the time.
Because that was the state of things it was left to me to keep the relationship alive and so every Friday night I would board the Bangalore Mail or the Lalbagh Express or the Brindavan Express or some bloody express or other for a weekend by my beloved’s side. I was beginning to tire of these over-night trips when one long weekend in September he and four of our friends decided that they would like to visit Pondicherry. Pondicherry – or Pondi as it is commonly known – is one of the most charming places in India. It used to be a French colony so the old part is still very French with rues and boulevards instead of streets and roads. Most locals speak French and the food and architecture reflect the city’s history. Madras happens to be a three hour car ride from Pondi and so the plan was that Thaks, Shaalu, Kabir and Aditya would drive from Bangalore to Madras where they would rendezvous with Mams – who would be driving the second car – and moi. We would then proceed to Pondi, spend the night there and drive back the following evening.
I was thrilled about this for two reasons. First – I would not have to travel by over-night train to get laid. And the second and more important reason – I was looking for any signs that our relationship may be approaching the ‘I love you’ mark and I had decided that anyone willing to drive all the way from Bangalore to Madras to whisk me away to Pondi for the weekend must be close. I was ignoring the fact that he would be sharing the driving with the others and also the fact that there would be others on the trip in the first place. Oh the things we are blind to in the name of l’amour.
The drive from Madras to Pondi started out on a very good note. We had managed to procure plenty of cold beer and some very strong weed. Everyone got high as soon as we hit the road (or rue). Back then I was not the recreational weed user I am today – I had tried inhaling the stuff on a few occasions but had obviously not done it right and so it never seemed to have the desired effect. I stuck with my drug of choice which was alcohol and to look slightly cooler than I was feeling lit up a Classic Milds. Today my toes curl at the thought of driving or being driven by someone who is fucked up but at 25 you think that you will live forever.
Lucky for us traffic was light and we made it to Pondi alive. The first thing we did was look for a hotel. We found a lovely place – Hotel Chateau de Croissant* – an old house that had been remodeled into a hotel. They were able to give us all three rooms on the top floor so we had private access to the hotel’s ‘roof garden’ which was actually a balcony covered in potted plants. While the male contingent of our posse settled themselves in for a drink and a smoke, Shaalu and I adjourned to our respective rooms to freshen up. I unpacked my things (even though we were only staying for one night) and in a very gay move unpacked Thaks’ things as well. I liked arranging his one T-shit next to my one t-shirt and his sneakers next to mine. In a fit of emotion I decided to go the extra mile and unpacked his shaving kit as well – perhaps if I continued with these extra little touches he would see my true worth and beg me to marry him.
For dinner the proprietor of our dwelling had suggested that we visit Chalet de Baguette* – a restaurant that he promised us was one of Pondicherry’s finest when it came to authentic French cuisine. Clearly it was a very popular place because we were only able to get a reservation for 9pm. It was still early so a unanimous decision to stay on the balcony and finish the rest of the weed was taken. I sat there with my bottle of beer and Classic Milds watching the rest of them pass the joint around. How cool they all looked sucking deeply on the spliff. I yearned to be part of the circle.
I’ll have some. I chirped the next time it came around.
I inhaled deeply and held the smoke in for a bit like I had seen them do. I did this a few times before Aditya snatched it out of my hand. I didn’t really feel anything so I continued to drink my beer. We lit up a few more before we finally got going and I made sure to get a few drags in. My god I was smoking weed! How cool was that? This weekend was coming together beautifully. I was able to showcase my caring, nurturing side (due to the unpacking) as well as my bad-ass, drug-abusing side. What man could resist this combination?
The restaurant was amazing. Like the hotel, it was situated in the compound of an old house. There were two seating areas, the garden and a two storied building in the back – which is where we had our table reserved. We made our way through the garden and up the stairs. The entire place was packed so Thaks, Mams and Kabir went over to the manager to find out when we would be seated. Shaalu, Aditya and I stood among the diners, marveling at our good sense at having taken the hotel guy’s suggestion.
Suddenly Shaalu grabbed my hand.
I think I’m going to pass out, she said and then she passed out.
Luckily for her she stumbled backwards in to Aditya who reacted quickly and grabbed her. Together we managed to keep her from hitting the floor. Noticing the ruckus a very nice, sari clad lady at a nearby table jumped up and shoved a chair at us in to which we shoved Shaalu. I had never seen anything like this – her eyes were glazed over and she looked like she was in a trance.
Go get the other guys. Aditya whispered to me. We need to get her out of here.
Is she OK? I asked stupidly.
No she isn’t – we need to get her the fuck out of here. He reiterated – a little slower this time to make sure McMoron (aka moi) got it.
Sari clad lady, her husband, children, as well as the patrons of several nearby tables were all focused on Shaalu. It suddenly occurred to me that the drugs may have caused this reaction and that one of us in the group was still holding. I whipped around to go get the rest of the party and suddenly I felt myself falling down a very long, very dark, very hard tunnel. It was a very strange sensation.
When I came to a few seconds later Aditya looked like he was about to go under. I don’t think he could believe what was happening. He was standing in the middle of a respectable family style restaurant, surrounded by fainting women. At this point he just looked across the restaurant and yelled for Thaks and the others. They rushed across to where we were. This is when I fell more in love with Thaks. He was in complete control.
Rads! He whispered to me. Can you walk?
Yes. I said not wanting to disappoint him. Yes I can walk.
OK good. Mams is going to walk with you and I am going to help Aditya get Shaalu out of here. OK?
OK.
Clearly Shaalu needed more help. I was proud to be able to take care of myself.
Kabir you go get the car.
Kabir fled not wanting to be seen with us. As we began to leave I noticed that all the guests, waiters and several members of the kitchen staff had come to get a gander at the show we were putting on and the sari clad lady was eyeballing us suspiciously. As we approached the stairs Mams, who was supposed to be helping me, lit himself a cigarette, took a deep drag on it, blew the smoke directly in to my face and asked if I could ‘manage’ down the stairs. I replied in the affirmative without really knowing. I then put one foot on the first stair and the next thing I knew I totally blacked out and went flying all the way down yet another long, dark – and in this case bumpy – tunnel.
Rads can you hear me? Rads!
I could hear my lover’s voice in the distance. My heart was pounding, I was sweating madly and was convinced that I was in the middle of a drug-overdose induced heart attack. My mind was racing and all I could think about was that I was going to die from 4 drags on a fucking marijuana cigarette in Pondicherry – if my parents found out about any of this they would kill me – but wait I would already be dead – oh my God this is all too much.
I don’t want to die. I gasped.
You are not going to die. Can you get up?
This time I did not lie.
I don’t think so.
I could hear Thaks take control. Again.
Mams and Aditya you guys take Shaalu out.
Apparently Shaalu – while needing two people to guide her was capable of actually walking. Then Thaks lifted me up and threw me over his shoulder like a fireman. Once he had me up there he just walked out of the restaurant, through the garden, past all the diners as if this was perfectly normal. In the middle of all this my one Birkenstock fell of my foot. I discovered this as I was being loaded in to the car. Having paid 60 pounds for my lesbian footwear I almost passed out again on finding it missing. Mams rushed back in to the restaurant to retrieve my sandal then jumped in the car and we got out of there.
Once we got back to the hotel Shaalu and I were deposited in our rooms. Shaalu promptly passed out and I began to experience my first ever bout with paranoia. What if someone at the restaurant had thought there was something strange about our behavior and called the authorities? This was discussed for a minute and the boys decided that in order to appear less shady they would go right back to Chalet de Baguette.
And leave us here on our own?! What if the cops show up? I wailed semi-consciously. What if they find the grass? What shall I say happened to us?!
The grass is over thanks to the two of you, and just tell them it was food poisoning if they ask. Aditya said.
What shall I say I ate?
While the weed was having a very negative effect on me it was obviously having the opposite effect on the men. They seemed to find my need to cover our tracks very entertaining.
It’s not funny – what if they ask!
OK OK – tell them you ate fish, Kabir snapped. By this time he had clearly had enough. As far as he was concerned Shaalu and I were intentionally trying to ruin his weekend. He was also certain I had faked the whole thing to one-up Shaalu.
Where! Where do I say we ate the fish?
In response I heard the door slam shut and the latch being thrown on the outside. Even if I did somehow get my wits about me I would be unable to leave the room and follow them out with my list of idiotic questions. I spent the rest of the night dreaming that the police had caught me smuggling vast quantities of illegal substances and awoke the next day feeling surprisingly well rested and very, very hungry.
Suffice it to say no ‘I love you’ were exchanged on that holiday. Or for a while.
*Because of my fucked up behavior I do not remember the actual name of the hotel or restaurant and had to make them up.
When it comes to alcohol consumption I am a lightweight. This admission makes me sad because I have long been a dedicated fan of the booze. Between the ages of 17 and 22 I mainly consumed Romanov vodka with Seven Up, Kingfisher beer, and Old Monk dark rum with coke. My drinking practice focused on keeping costs down so I would drink the cheapest quality product at the fastest possible speed. The problem with this system was that it usually gave me the old I-am-having-the-time-of-my-motherfucking-life feeling for about 20 minutes and then I would projectile vomit and pass out.
Not willing to accept any responsibility for this I usually blamed the type of alcohol.
Beer doesn’t agree with me. I would announce as I flung one vodka shot after another down my gullet only to be met with the exact same result.
Then I tried to blame the quality of the goods.
That Old Monk crap is the worst! Were the last words I would remember screaming loudly before throwing up three perfectly good Bacardi & Coke combos.
Yes I was that girl. I was Vazi the Vomiter – a title I have managed to hang on to through the years.
As time went by I found that it was beneficial to slow it down somewhat. I discovered that by sipping gently on a drink I could achieve the same warm and fuzzy feeling. Yes, it was slightly delayed but it would actually last longer. The problem I had however was this. Half way through the second drink I would forget to sip gently and by drink #4 my friends had to help me stagger to the loo and back where I would do my worst. This pushed my friend Ruchika to remark that I was beginning to get to be a bit of encumbrance and my friend Gautam to ask me if I wasn’t too old for this type of thing. Fuck them – I was 24 – I wasn’t too old. Besides I had moved from a 3 drink max to a 4 drink max. But how was I to move to a respectable 5 drink max and more importantly how was I to keep these drinks in my system overnight?
These matters plagued me. From a genetic stand point it was unfair that I even had such problems because my father is from Goa. I shouldn’t have to say much more but for those of you who are not aware – Goans can drink. If we had a drinking contest in India the Goan representative would win. And if he or she lost it would be to a Kodava – another tribe of maniacal drinkers. My mother is half Kodava. I am three quarters alcohol yet I was unable to get past a 4 drink max. Granted these drinks were what we called ‘large pegs’ – and they were quite large – but I was surrounded by friends who could drink much, much more. How was I to keep up with them?
They say that the answers to life’s biggest questions quite often are right in front of you.
What’s the matter with you? My father asked on Sunday morning as I sat listlessly at the dining table trying not to hurl at the sight of two fried eggs. I had had a particularly vicious bout the night before.
Nothing. I lied.
Look at this idiot mother she looks sick. My dad always calls my mother ‘mother’ when he is snitching on me to her.
I’m not sick. I’m just tired is all. I croaked. The last thing I needed was for my parents to figure out that their daughter was the resident puke queen. Please don’t let them find what I did in the flower bed I prayed as I sipped on some water.
I looked up to see my father regarding me with a look of pure disgust.
Why don’t you buggers eat something before you get juiced up? He asked before returning to his wheat germ and bran concoction that he had lovingly laced with raisins, almonds and prunes.
This rhetoric question was the answer I had been searching for. While I did not appreciate being referred to as ‘bugger’ and while I rarely took any advice he handed out I did take note of his point. He was after all an expert drinker himself. So the following weekend I tried out his theory and sure enough – no more up-chuck. I had beaten the system and was on my way to a 5 drink max! This was a huge achievement because it enabled me to stay up and enjoy not only Saturday night but Sunday morning as well.
This new frontier coincided with my finding a boy-friend. I met him in The Black Cadillac (my watering hole of choice right through my 20s). It also coincided with my discovery that a 5 drink max was peanuts. You see around the time my boy-friend fell in love with me also fell in love with my friend Anuli. Here is why – Anuli was one of those annoying women with good legs and an incredible capacity to hold her liquor. She could drink with the boys and the boys drank whiskey, compared to that my rum and coke was merely decoration. I was going to have to enter her world if I was to compete.
But as hard as I tried I could not stomach whiskey. I preferred sweeter bevies and it is some sort of stupid rule that you are not allowed to mix whiskey with coke. I tried doing that on several occasions and always got the dirtiest looks from all the whiskey drinkers. I have no idea why whiskey drinkers take themselves so bloody seriously but they do. Their unspoken hate would fill the room as they watched me contaminate their beloved potion with coca cola and I knew what they are thinking – FUCKING LIGHTWEIGHT.
