The Idea-smithy

Eight years after hearing about it for the first time, I finally watched The Vagina Monologues. Wish me a happy birthday since I’m being reborn. On second thoughts, don’t say a word. Just listen as we speak - my vagina and I.

I hated being a woman. The restrictions, the rules, the fears of my mother, it made me angry.

I hated being a woman. Being smaller built than the boys, slower than them at games, lagging behind them on my bicycle, my scrawny legs pedalling furiously to keep up. I never could.

I hated being a woman. It took me a long time to get used to my curves. I walked like my flat-chested 12-year-old self till I was 17. Till a classmate told that it wasn’t the done thing for a girl to walk with such a straight back. Till, a boy said, “You walk with your boobs thrust right out at the world.” And when I did get used to them, I took them on with a vengeance and used them as lethal weapons. Bait? Hah! Call them Venus fly-traps! I loved their power and I hated them for the compromise they were.

I hated being a woman. Bleeding every month, feeling pukey and giddy-headed and sticky and smelly.

I hated being a woman. 10 years old and being told, “Boys can do whatever they like. But a girl’s reputation is like glass.” Twelve and my tuition teacher’s voice, “What a horrible laugh, so loud and monstrous! Look at Sonya, how prettily she covers her mouth when she laughs. And she doesn’t make a sound.” Thirteen and being admonished, “Sit with your legs together. Only a slut sits with her legs apart.” Yes, I really and truly hated being a woman.

But I didn’t always. I didn’t know I was a woman for some time. And then suddenly I did. Or more accurately, I suddenly knew he was a man. As he introduced me to his manhood and asked me to pat it, hold it, feel it.

Oh stop! I wanted to scream. But I didn’t. I held myself back. And I held myself in. Realizing suddenly that if I didn’t, everything inside me would fall out of the hole.  And in that moment, I seperated my vagina from me.

Sometime later, I summoned up the courage to tell my parents. I said he had tried to kiss me once. ‘Tried to’, not did. ‘Once’, not many times. ‘Kiss me’, not…. 

My classes were stopped and we didn’t speak about it again. I gave up trust that day as well as faith in men. I even stopped hugging my father. I assumed a genderless identity. And later, sexuality was paraded as an accessory, not experienced from within.

As the years passed, I built armour upon armour. The strongest of them was the desicion that when I was uncomfortable or hurt or unsure or unwell, no one would know, least of all the person who caused me pain. I banished the fears. I suppressed the blushing and giggles. I stifled innocence and wonder. I held back pain. I shut down tears. I sent them all to the dungeon to keep my shameful prisoner company. 

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I didn’t speak of it for ten years. One day a neighbor asked my mother about the guitar lessons I’d taken, since she wanted to send 8-year-old daughter for them too. When my mother told me, I asked her to tell our neighbor what had happened. She admitted that she was too embarassed to. I said, “If someone had told us the truth a decade ago…” and I left the room. There was nothing more to say.

Four years later, I was playing a silly game with my boyfriend, slapping and giggling. Then in a dramatic flourish, he pinned me down and held my wrists. That’s the last thing I remembered. The next thing I knew, he was shaking me very gently and asking, “What happened? I was only playing.” I didn’t say a word. Apparantly I’d gone all stiff and began whimpering.

My vagina was locked away into a dungeon when I was nine and went into silence after that. 

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

As I watched the monologues and the vaginas of women around me sing and squeal and laugh and moan, I asked myself,

If my vagina could speak, what would she say?

And I heard her stammering, painfully shy reply so clear it made me cry.

She said,

I AM SORRY.

I’m sorry I disappointed you.
I’m sorry I hurt you.
I’m sorry you are in pain.
I’m sorry that I remind you of my existance.
I’m sorry I exist.
I’m so very sorry that I didn’t make you happy.
I’m really sorry that I don’t make you proud.
I’m sorry that you’re ashamed of me.
I’m so, so very sorry.

And as she spoke, her fellow prisoners stepped free from two decades of confinement. I had scratched off the worst I’d seen in my life and sent them down to my vagina, keeping the best bits for the part of me on show to the world.

My poor vagina, surrounded by my shame,
my guilt,
my pain,
my bad memories,
my nightmares,
my anguish,
my betrayal,
my agony,
my frustration,
my sorrow
…and my tears.

She cried, my vagina cried. And for the first time in years, I did too, with her.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Small wonder then that my relationships failed. Such a hellish place it had turned into that I’d only send those I wanted to banish down there. No wonder the very worst of men appealed to me and the very worst in them turned me on. And even they were petrified by what they found there.

I hated doing it in the dark.
I hated doing it on my back.
I hated doing it in bed. Or a couch. Or a car. Or in the open.
In fact I hated doing it so much that I never did.

Those who came to visit were offered a gracious cup of tea and then lulled into a battery of tests - a moat, a dragon, an army of defenses. And those that got past, walked up to the gates to find them locked. No entry into this love-lane, we’re shut, you’re unwelcome, go home. They did.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

My new friend calls me a child and tells me that there’s a little girl he sees when he looks at me. Now I understand. At long last, I’m in the throes of an emotion nearly long-forgotten - TRUST. I banished it to my basement along with the other more tender emotions. If other people trust with their hearts, mine has gone made its home in the hovel downstairs. I trust from deep down there, like a slender creeper growing out of the ground. And what do you know? He’s right after all. My vagina thinks she’s only nine years old. That’s the last time she breathed free. Sweet child of mine indeed.

I used to be a sweet child. Warm, affectionate, trusting and open and always getting into scrapes. All of that went away with the confinement, right down into my vagina which is everything I am not. Sweet, pure, soft and warm. And it stayed that way for twenty years despite the confinement.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

The book was wonderful. But the play brought it to life. It made me laugh (not smirk) and cry (not scowl). It gave my vagina her freedom and her voice too.

This is for Mahabanoo, Dolly Thakore, Avantika, Jayati (the moaner!) and Sonal Sachdev, the wonderful, spirited ladies who made last night come alive at Prithvi theatre. You made me whole again. You brought me back to life.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

If my vagina were to dress up, what would it wear?

Well, it’s worn iron shackles for two decades. Now, if she could, she’d like something light and airy - preferably nothing at all.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I read Lolita when I was eighteen. It was a revelation. One more step in what turns out to be a long journey. A journey of healing. A lot of people I’ve discussed the book with say that it is a sick book, making excuses for paedophilic behaviour. But I think, they just don’t know. Of all the people, I can hardly be an advocate for child abuse.

But reading Lolita gave me some perspective on what happened to me. I suddenly saw my abuser as a human being - a very bad and flawed human being, a sick human being but a human being nevertheless. Not a monster, but human. And human beings can be overcome, overpowered and even forgotten. Almost.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

About 5 years ago I was at a doctor’s clinic when I suddenly realised that the man sitting across me was my former guitar teacher. I was shocked that it had taken me that long to recognize him. Even more shocked at what I felt - nothing at all. In my memories he was a big-built man. But in person, after all these years he just looked so tired, so small, so weak, so obscure and so old. I can’t change what happened and it would a lie to say that I’ve forgiven. This is a wound that cut me so deep, it bled me right out of the right to be angry and seek revenge. Seeing him again was like someone smoothing over the scars of the wound.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I didn’t have the courage to put this up online immediately. I had to ask a few friends about it. Two of them told me that it was deeply moving and should be shared. One cautioned me that I should remember to ignore any weird-ass reactions. Finally two others,  told me about their own personal accounts of horror. And in the end, that’s really what gave me the courage to share this.

Happy birthday to my vagina. And welcome to the world of the living again.

He picks out the notes to a vaguely-familiar tune that I recognize as a part of the ‘Beginner’s Basics’ on a guitar. Mornings are practice times. During yoga class, he’s the only one who can bend over and touch his toes gracefully. This following week, he’s signed up for a workshop on Kallaripattu, that ancient martial art-form from Kerala.I am not sure but I’m willing to bet that in the second, just as in the first, he’s the oldest member in his class.

He’s well over 50.

He’s the first man in my life. Also The First Man.
(more…)

I would have left you eventually
Perhaps it was a good thing that you left before, instead
Thus ensuring that I’d remember you
With loathing, if nothing else

And that means you needed
To be someone or something to me
A memory at the very least, even if a horrible one
That I’d erase in a breath, if I could

Unforgettable experiences are all we’re all after
Having them and being them

Happy remembering, memory!

Being my own best friend is probably even more powerful than it sounds. I’ve been groping in the dark for faith, for reason, for light. And then, I find this, written three years ago, or slightly longer…by me. And to think I’ve been brooding over bad traffic, space constraints and petty mind games. When I wrote this, my maternal uncle was battling cancer and the family plunging deeper and deeper into the despair of watching a second loved one dying before their eyes, in the space of 4 years. And I was encountering the disillusionment and vileness of the working world for the first time. Surprisingly, I pulled through. When did I forget how to?

This morning I thought that real rejuvenation could only come from the company of the young, untainted by cynicism, unbroken by disappointment. But I guess real inspiration comes from those who have weathered it already. I stand in awe of both, youth and old age.

14 October 2004

Yesterday was voting day and I left home early so I could register my vote before going to work. I felt a little silly especially since all my friends who were working shrugged and begged off and the lucky ones with a holiday decided to ‘enjoy it and chill out’. As I walked into the schoolroom, deserted as it was at the early hour, I realised I must be the only voter there below 50….and one of the few below 60.

Today I drifted back home wondering whether I’d missed a cycle and somehow the nightmare world had got interchanged with reality…I seem to be going through 18 hours in a dazed state and 8 hours in complete comprehension…instead of the other way round. I walked down the road, my vision a blur as I kept dabbing at my eyes and finally I broke down. For the first time in months I cried….and cried…and cried.

A little old lady in snow-white hair and a sleeveless terrycot dress ambled up to me, patted my shoulder and said

Are you feeling alright dear? Is there a problem? Are you not well? You can talk to me.

I managed to shake my head and indicate the phone in my hand. After the call I went to say thank you to her for caring enough to ask…and I had to stop and talk..and listen to her story. So many little things she told me….that she was 80 and loved people and life, that she had lost her husband to cancer 10 years ago and what a wonderful, loving man he had been and how much he loved her…her eyes gleamed as she said,

Cancer is a very bad thing. He was 80 years old when he died. I am 80 now.

She told me how she loved coming out for walk and talking to nice people like me, how her neighbor had taken over her house and was trying to oust her, how she cooked for herself, cleaned her house and walked and talked and was never sick.

Life has come to me in huge, overpowering waves recently.
I am watching a loved one sink into an abyss where no one can pull him out.
I am holding together like a dam against the flood of the grief of the people around me.
I am fighting battles that everyone says are routine but rough nevertheless.

Yes, there is a lot of pain in this world
There is injustice and grief and jealousy and manipulation and cruelty and sadism and weakness and terror.
But there is also hope, blind optimism perhaps but hope nevertheless
…I have seen it in slightly breathless but determined faces of the senior citizens who believe that this country is theirs to respect and run.

There is courage and compassion and inspiration….in the eyes of an 80-year old widow who fights worse battles than mine and more bravely.

Yes, life has its miracles.

In the Snake Woman issue that I read, Jessica says:

Maybe that’s what growing up is….realizing the things we do don’t mean anything. Things aren’t right or wrong. They’re just impulses. They just are.

Or perhaps in the grander scheme of things, beyond everyday breaths, in an entire lifetime some things cease to matter. Even within one relationship in a few years, it may be forgotten - those details of who spoke first, who made the first move and who ended it. Where then, is there any significance of our mundane emotions and selves in the grand panorama of multiple lifetimes?

Is it possible to live several lifetimes in one? I always liked taking stock at the end, summarizing, taking one key point out of each of the lengthy stories beforehand. What if this lifetime were nothing more than a fast-forward of a thousand others, a recap, a reminder to pick one sentence, one word from each lesson? An executive summary of everything thus far.

Then that’s why there’s so much room for deja vu, familiarity and seemingly-magical connections in my life. No wonder then I’m frequently bored…I’ve seen all of this before. Who’s got the time or the inclination..or the need, to recreate the entire production again? When all I have to do is run through it just to pull out the very essence of it? Ah, no wonder I seem cold and even slightly mad sometimes. I’m running the same tape, but just at a different speed than you are. And I loved you no less than yesterday. Or was it three lifetimes ago? I forget, the order doesn’t matter anyway.

My love, my hate, my passion, my indifference, my callousness, my grief….everything was just a series of impulses. Ha.

I realized yesterday that you can’t control your friendships any more than you can control your love life. I heard someone ask, almost reproachfully,

Since love happens on its own,
Without will or volition,
Why hate someone for loving you,
Or, for not being able to?

I thought long and hard but I never had an answer to that.

You certainly can’t control who you fall in love with. Or who falls in love with you.
You can’t control who to like or not like. Or who places you up on the pedestal of friendship. Or sacrifices you on the alter of love.

All you can do, is turn your back on relationships that you think aren’t right…and hope to heaven that they leave you alone and don’t come knocking on the door of your unconscious every now and then.

J once told me that,

A relationship is like eye-contact. It takes two to maintain it. But only one to look away and it is broken.

I disagree. As long as one person is still looking, the gaze exists, the spotlight, the glare and eventually, the other must come back to look again. It takes one to start and two to end.

In my mind, I effectively killed off those that hurt me and inadvertently created the ghosts of my past. Now, I am done and wish them nothing any more. Not joy, not fear, not hatred, not love. I’ve been the response to their initiation. Each spell of wonder, of lust and of love that was cast on me, I reciprocated with a counter-spell of murky attachment, of resentful longing, of secret guilt.

I wrote this months ago but did not publish it because it didn’t feel real. And now, finally that the impulse has caught up with the truth….like colour filling into the lines of what must come to pass…here it is.

I never did learn how to make a person stay
But it seemed like I learnt how to let them go
And I’ve always known how to make sure I’d be missed

Today, after all the grand entrances and exits,
All the passing throughs and mixed memories
I acknowledge what I’ve done

And to all the people I’ve bound to me,
Without seeming to,
I set you free

I stole my freedom away from you and us
Now I give you back yours, as a parting gift

You have been loved. And hated. And indulged. And denied. And finally absolved.
Your crimes washed away along with mine. And your pain redeemed for my tears.

I don’t have any regrets
And I hope, neither do you

Go in peace.

This is for everybody I’ve had any kind of strong attachment to, especially in the past few years. Friends, lovers, foes, ex-boyfriends, rivals. I’m letting you go. Not with any ulterior motives or from misplaced pride anymore but because…it is the only thing left to do. Please let me go. And let’s just get on with the rest of our lives. And lifetimes.

Had a thought - a few actually - in the last fortnight, that I haven’t had a chance to put down.

I saw this movie and thought,

I see ghosts too. They hurt me sometimes. They talk to me. They walk around like everyone else. They are the ghosts of my past.

And then perhaps, as with Cole, my ghosts wanted to tell me something as well and it might make sense to listen.

Last weekend, I spoke to my best friend about him. Not in anger, not in pain but an unemotional reflective way, ending with,

You know, I think he must be thinking of me.

And then, in another conversation, was ressurected the spirit of someone who was once as dear as no one else has ever been and I ended that remisiniscence as always with,

I’ve never run away from anyone’s love like that. But then again, no one has ever loved me as much. I always wonder if somewhere deep down, even in me, lies the capacity for all-encompassing, womb-like comforting, parasitic, suffocating devotion. I’m a Cancerian as well after all. And I’ve always had a strange relationship with other Cancerians.

And then, during the week, seemingly after deciding in an idle moment to ‘talk’ to my ghosts, they came knocking on my door. His hello comes back like the years in between never happened. And her voice had the same warmth like my goodbye had not ever been said either.

My breath stuck in my throat at both times. And once I learnt to breathe again, I spoke to them. But they’ve both vanished. Odd, isn’t it? Like the only thing each of my ghosts had to say to me was,

Don’t be afraid of me.

Incidently, the most memorable scene in the movie (in my mind) is the one where Cole has his first encounter with a ghost that he doesn’t run away from. Sitting quietly in his little tent, as his breath starts to hang in the air and the clips overhead snap off, his eyes race down to find a little girl sitting in front of him. And in her eyes….there is only pain. So much of it.

How can one run away from someone in even more pain than oneself? And yet, we do.

I once painted this on a kurta for him. It wasn’t the first I’d done for him, nor the last either. But it was probably the best.

The first one was given to me after much deliberation and then again, a new off-the-roadside kurta that was bought for the occasion. He loved the black single-stroke line-drawing Buddha I etched out on the white textured cloth. And that one was worn long after the cloth had gone ‘unwearable’.

There was also a colourful Ganapathi that I remember. Which he received without much comment. Until he got back from home-vacation with the message that

Mum said it should have been painted on the back.

Nothing of the Durga though. Goddess of his land. Goddess of my spirit. I think of him when I see this particular picture. And I wonder what did happen to the kurta I painted….since it received no comment from him (but a mark of appreciation from a common friend who saw it on him in class and recognized my style). Relegated to the bottom of a cupboard most likely. Yet another object untreasured in its lifetime of use, but elevated to useless sentiment later.

But he never really understood Durga, did he? In spirit or in me. I never painted for anyone else after that.

We live in cold storage during the week, shutting away emotions, fears, aches and fevers till such a time that we can experience them ‘on our own time’. And then the weekend is when it all comes back….like trying to live all of the previous five days in these two. Of course the weekend really starts on Friday evening.

I hate crowds. I feel suffocated in groups larger than three. Strange since I live such a crowded life. But that’s just clutter - bodies, masses of breathing carbon moving around me. The real people are the ones who are greater than rituals, more meaningful than furniture, more unpredictable than habits. They make me feel. Too much. Not more than three at a time, please….it is positively decadent luxury. Like starving through the week and then feasting like a glutton after that. An average human being could die of that in the non-metaphorical world.

Fridays are often a plethora of impressions, a crazy psychedelia of emotions. People I missed so much and suddenly find I feel not a thing for, sudden realization of how much I love someone, accidentally bumping into those I was petrified of and now I find myself getting bored with, a gnawing emptiness when unaccountably I miss someone at the most inopportune moment, an inexplicable sense of loss of someone sitting right in front of me, annoyance over ill-timed but not unwanted affection, deep mirth over the hysterical irony of life’s situations. It is that instantly suffocating smell of smoke that I’ve never quite gotten used to, the headiness of a slight alcohol high that I’m constantly playing hide-and-seek with, the giddiness of meaningless jokes and deep conversations sleeping together. It is like not being able to tell green from blue and periodically getting stuck in a turquoise tapestry.

So I suddenly shot out, on the pretense of ‘taking a walk’. It felt more like those days in a swimming pool, trying to stay under the water the longest, learning to deal with the burning eyes and lungs that felt like they’d explode. An almost imagined movement at the corner of my eye would make me wonder (always) if the stories were true and there were strange, magical creatures at the bottom. And then, suddenly, I was tearing for breath, like even being conscious of that forbidden idea meant that I had to be expelled from Wonderland. So thrashing, I’d make it back to the top, breaking the surface of water just in time to put all such stupidity out of my mind. But I never really forgot. This is what it feels like, all these years later.

The moment I walked out, was like that moment of instant clarity, of great gasps of air free for me to breathe. The grand tapestry crystallized into a good comfortable sepia film. And as always I knew, that I never wanted to be a part of the other world again. I stood and watched the sea across the road, for how long I cannot tell. The cars seem to zoom past, not quite real but a film running by that I could walk through anytime I wanted, only I’d tear the screen if I did and there wouldn’t be any more film to watch.

I told someone once that I wished I had a job that let me work through the night, alone, when everyone else slept, without having to talk to or meet anybody else…and sleep through the day when the world was awake. ‘Escapism’ is what he called it. Is it?

You know how people keep telling you to ‘just be yourself’? Well that ain’t quite possible sometimes. For what if your self is nothing more than the capacity to conceive infinite new images and facades? A talent, a capability, a tendency to create…that’s all. Not a creation or a being or a tangible characteristic itself. Well all I want is to be myself then. Apart, distant, while close enough to see and even feel…just a bit. But able to switch off the impressions when it got to be too much.

From across the years an almost forgotten voice of a friend comes calling, “Don’t worry so much, little one. Some day you’ll learn how not to be swayed this way and that way by the vagaries of life. It will come with time.” Still waiting.

Then my phone buzzed. Blurry-visioned (though not from tears), I saw my hand move slow-motion almost to read. A text from the only person in the group I thought had any genuine affection for me.

Come back.

And without another thought, not a backward glance at my sepia film, I just turned and walked back in. Love is everything then. It is really all that binds me to this world, that holds me back. I now understand why they call it a bond. When it tugs at me, no matter how close I am to achieving nirvana, I come back. Invisible silver threads weave me into the turquoise tapestry.

Walk into any restaurant in Tamil Nadu – a top-notch local cuisine spread or a roadside ‘rest-o-ruant’. Underneath the socio-economic differences, a little voice pipes up “We’re all the same! Tamizh vazhuga” (Long live Tamizh for the uninitiated..ummmm..un-Tamizhized). Don’t believe me? Run a quick finger down the menu….getting closer…closer…ah, ah there…oops, no missed it! Didn’t see it?

Drinks

Tea
Coffee
Nescoffee
Horlicks
Bournvita
Ganga Jamuna mocktail
Mozambi joos
Maramari
Fresh Lime soda
Soda

There! There! There! You can consume two of the major rivers in one keg-shaped glass with a slippery handle. You can experience a Bollywood masala movie through the not-so-sweet communion of orange and pineapple. I think you can do this in most places in the country (or at least everywhere you can feel the influence of that tiny indomitable speck on the India food map that still holds out to the Punjification threat…a spot called Udupi).

But coming back…the great state of idlis, kanjeevarams and eligible US-based software professionals…is the only place you’ll find that rare delicacy, that manna of every Tamizh mother’s kitchen…Horlicks paal (scalding hot milk with Horlicks and a shovelful of sugar)! A few mommas prefer the potion that ensures strength of body, strenth of mind…Bone-veee-taah. My family was rather partial to the horror-lix brand, however.

So not kidding. Really, try the above experiment and see. Me? I’m fed to the stomach with Horlicks paal…I was brought up to be a nalla Tamizh ponnu after all. Of course mommas everywhere try to stuff their darling terrors with vitamins, essential minerals and all sorts of gunk to ensure the reign of terror is complete. But only a Tamizhian carries this trend ahead into force-feeding adults with this delightful concoction as well. Witness then, the visit of Mr.Arumugam and family to friendly, neighborhood amma’s place.

Mr.A:

Namaskaram, amma. Yenna, yepudi? (What, how?…aka…Wossup?) It is so good to see you looking good.

Amma:

Welcome, welcome! What will you have? Tea? Coffee? Horlicks?

Mr.A:

No, we had lunch before coming!

Amma:

Parawallai (no matter). Have some Horlicks.

Ms.A (in panicky anticipation of future tortures):

No, we just had coffee this morning. So nothing, thank you.

Amma:

Addu yepudi mudiyum? (That how be possible?) Horlicks then. It is very good for health, especially for growing children.

Ms.A at the tender age of twenty-two feels disinclined to protest. Enter a steaming hot tumbler of Horlicks paal for the esteemed guests.

Every summer vacation, as befitted the dutiful family from far-away (in Mumbai), we visited our relatives scattered all over idli-land. Time was precious and the loving family, numerous so multiple visits were packed into a single day. Every stopover would bring on a fresh wave of gushing (“Look how big she is!”) and a piping hot tumbler of Horlicks paal. Come sun, come sunnier sun, come eyeball-melting-hot sun, come I’m-nothing-more-than-a-puddle-of-sweat sun, the tumbler of Horlicks paal was always present at the welcome. Scalding hot (presumably to sweeten/sharpen tongue and produce future Horlicks-feeding Tamizh amma), sweetened to maximum with dregs of undissolved sugar lying at the bottom of the tumbler. Oh and always filled to the brim. The typical tumbler is designed for maximum discomfort, engineered for most optimal wobbliness and guaranteed to cause pain through spillage, scalding by transfer of heat to finger and cut lips with sharp rim. One tumbler full of Horlicks paal.

On one such visit, having dutifully consumed a sufficient number of cups of Horlicks paal and feeling duly brilliant (enough to pass my exams of the next 4 years with flying colours), I rebelled. Naturally nice Tamizh aunty wasn’t swayed by my squeaky protests..couldn’t be helped, my tongue was still smarting from the scalding it got from the previous cups of Horlicks.

My cousin however, having acquired a requisite set of survival skills from a childhood in Chennai winked to me to accept the tumbler without further ado. Then with a clear, innocent voice that could only sound that sweet from too much Horlicks paal, she announced that she’d like to show her Bombay cousin the garden ’since poor child doesn’t get to see trees in Bombay’. Nonplussed I followed…I didn’t remember having any botanical cravings back then.

As we trotted around, me carefully balancing the tumbler and taking tentative sips from the tumbler to get the level down. At the corner, sweet cousin neatly poured her Horlicks paal under a plant stem. Eyes goggle-eyed with admiration, I started to her when she stopped me with

Wait! Not this one, then they’ll notice. Even plants get enough of Horlicks. We must find another tree!

Duly sympathetic to my botanical fellow sufferer, I trotted around dutifully and spotted another one. With a gleeful whoop I descended on the spot splashing the Horlicks paal out instead of the graceful streaming my cousin had accomplished. Oh horror-lix of horrors, some of it landed on my dress! And what’s worse….nice Tamizh aunty and my parents turned the corner just then (aunty having decided that the ‘poor’ Bombay adults needed a tree-sighting as well).

You can’t imagine what came next. No, I didn’t get the firing of my life for disrespecting food, drink, the benevolence of the ma-cow that produced the milk and the martyred calves that gave their food away to me, the kindness of my elders, the hospitality of my dear great-aunt, the love my parents had shown in bringing me back to my roots…(do you know there are children who don’t get enough to eat! And here you are throwing away Horlicks paal!)

Instead, my lovely Tamizh aunt (obviously well-fed on a staple diet of Horlicks herself) gaped, recovered in a fraction of a second to say,

Oh poor thing. She really likes trees and in the excitement she spilt the milk. Don’t cry over it. I’ll make you another one!

Hmm…if revenge is sweet, the second tumbler of Horlicks paal was sweeter. I gave up my battle against the Horror-lix that day.

I still wonder though, if children everywhere else are subjected to the same delights each day. Someone should undertake a study to see if Tamizh kids really are better at maths, at running races and giving smart answers in class. Some of us certainly grow a strange sense of humour. Like my uncle who famously claimed that no Tamizhian ever need learn Kannada. Apparantly substituting ‘pa’ for ‘ha’ and vice versa in every word in Tamizh would convert it to Kannada. Hallelujah! Apparantly my dear Kannadiga friends suffer from an onslaught of Porlicks hallu then! I better stop before they notice that along with my blood pressure level, haemoglobin count, my Horlicks paal intake has reduced as well. Tree up ahead!

Ever wanted to tell someone to go #$% off and couldn’t? Yeah, baby I know what that feels like. The words are stuck in my throat.

FFFFFFFFF…………………. uuuuurrrrrrgggggghhh……… gaaaah gaak gaak…. sputter sputter sputter… *COUGH*

Oh deyaam, whatever is the matter with moi? And to think all those years back I trained myself to get over the sheer indignity of unfamiliar words.

Do you remember the first time you swore? Actually I don’t. But I can put a rough guess. From Ms.Goody Two shoes in the small, cosy (and bitchy) confines of school, I found myself catapulted into the big, bad world of college. Junior college it was as we call it in Mumbai but still we were rubbing shoulders with ‘those big people’….the stalwarts of adolescent admiration - the almost graduates. Of course everyone goes slightly mad in their teenage years. My madness was rather…umm…shall we say…delayed? I stood bewildered at the madness around me, it was like being carried along in a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade (or at least what I imagine that would be like). Seemingly safe acquaintances morphed into strange monstrosities, wearing weird clothes, spouting thick accents…and oh the language!

I tried the F-word tentatively..it sounded odd. Felt like alcohol on a teetotler’s tongue. You know like the whole world’s watching and waiting for you to either pass out or be wholly appreciative and all you can think is…that’s all?

I coped. I learnt. I found my own brand of insanity. In time I imbibed the cooler variations of the words

Fuggit!

Ferkorrff!

Foh-kkkkk!

Never quite developed a taste for it though. So I grew sarcasm and wise cracking instead. Trouble with being Smart Alexis is that half the time people don’t get your jokes. It’s rather annoying when the object of your disdain doesn’t get that he’s being insulted. Then I learnt to enjoy it. I do it a lot now. Insult people without them realising it. Ah, the joys of sweet venom!

I wonder if I can learn to smirk. No, I think not. One of my pet peeves…no, actually it is a blessing…is that I think I don’t quite look my part. It would be grand to have a deep, booming voice and look all terrifying and intimidating. On the other hand, I think my orthodontically-enhanced pearls cue GRIN more than SMIRK. Then again, it’s quite tickling to see people’s faces when they expect nice, friendly girl who comes up instead with an evil line. Sometimes I feel sorry for people though…..I do have a heart after all…even if it appears only briefly.

I’m thinking of this time in college and a ‘dude’ I was having a brief flirtation with. He ran with the ‘beautiful people’…you know the models, aspiring actors, dancers sort…toned bodies squeezed into body-fit lycra wear. As expected there wasn’t much ‘up there’. On the other hand, what was down there….umm, I mean….what a body! So Dude and I played along on this strange attraction of opposites. One day, he leaned over and in a practised, deep voice droned,

Idea, do you like bikes?

I looked at him, wide-eyed and with a dramatic pause said…

No, I prefer the guys on them.

He took a moment to digest this. Then,

Sorry? I didn’t hear that.

Patient but peeved, I re-iterated. Once again, moment of blankness, not as I hoped, followed by look of comprehension.

I’m afraid I don’t understand.

With a huge mental sigh, I patted his arm (which caused him to beam) and said,

Oh, nothing, I was just saying some random stuff. I like bikes. Yours too.

Suffice to say, I never got to sit on the aforementioned bike. What a pity though…and what a body! Okay, I’ll stop drooling now.

Lesson well learnt. Models are pretty things, to be looked at, not spoken to. Sad but true. And yet I bash on regardless, for the cause of the Beautiful Brain. In another college episode, I was on stage, in a personality contest thingy. Oh shut up laughing, thou intellectual snobs…these things are fairly entertaining once you realise how brainless they are.

Compere: Ms.Idea, it takes 7 muscles to smile but 52 to frown. Would you say that frowning is better exercise then?

Me: Sure. But by the same token, I’d also say it’s fun to be be fat!

*Long silence*

Model-judge: *In long stretched out words* Could you repeat that please?

Me: Well…sure frowning’s more exercise but isn’t it more fun to be fat then?

Model-judge: Errr….*blank look*

Compere: Ms.Idea, could you…

Me: Never mind. Thank you very much.

Suffice to say that I did not make it to the next round. Personality does not include making incomprehensible jokes or looking at judge like they are from another species. The devil can be too smart for her own good sometimes.