Monday MindBlast

I never write about  political stuff because I laugh so much at the shenanigans of the elected, selected, self-imposed leaders that I mis-type almost every other word while I guffaw. Never heard a truer statement than this one made by a wag  - the problem with political jokes is that  they get elected .

 Imagine how terrible life would be if we were not blessed enough to open the papers each morning and explode with laughter . People walk, meditate or do stretch exercises. Me ? I just start my day with belly aches and stitches on my sides . There is always some jackass who thinks his or her  statement that will shake the world - all it does is shake my belly muscles. So while have my tea my stomach muscles do more rolls than the average belly dancer. With a good costume designer and a make-up artist I may have an alternate occupation. While they spend their five odd years doing whatever it is they do , for I don't see them doing anything useful ( except that they promise if they comeback for the next five they will do it) I am increasing my longevity with laughter therapy. My only fear is they will realise their great service to the general public  and slap a tax on that. They have some time-tested comic one-liners on the usual subjects :  women, economy , drought, power crisis, water shortage , floods , price rise, culture, religion,bomb blasts. All the statements  seem to begin with "profound"and wind  down with "condemnable" It does not matter but now and then someone WILL go original and say stuff like rape is always with consent of women or beef eating has caused sexual depravity , women who use make-up are dishonourable or men who respect women are sissies or bras cause floods ( ok I made that up - they will not mess with the billion dollar lingerie industry) .   

The next lot that make me hold the furniture while I have tears streaming down my cheeks are film stars. Their comical acts  may be over the top in movies . Some border on vulgarity and crassness but in real life they are a scream.  Everyone spouts about how this one movie will make us think deeply or awaken our senses  or change the film industry forever , and then they  dish up the stuff  probably my grandfather or his father saw in the pre- Talkies days The over-the-hill-and-so-far-far-away old men with wigs trying to romp the Styrofoam moulded nubile young things amuses me so much  that I again and again willingly part with my money. The "serious"actors and directors  are even funnier - they take mundane ideas and then pretend they discovered it . Thank god for the ones who are clear that they make movies to make money .

Sports commentators who stutter and mutter   , ad men who make ridiculously stupid ads about toothbrushes , plaque and health drinks  , religious nuts who give crazy explantions for  god's wrath in the form of earthquakes and floods , bigots who dishonour their gods by shoving them down other people's throats , tv anchors who screech and squawk and wave their arms about , minsters who prostrate easily because of lack of a spinal cord ,  government officials who grovel for those above them  and strut and posture to  those below them  - imagine life without all this real life comical elements. What would I do if I cannot open a magazine and see air-brushed and photo-shopped women  peddling some horrendous clothes and jewellery , metro men in ridiculous underwear , silly shoes or turnip-sized watches and be totally amused. 

We need these people for every one of them was created to  keep us joyous and happy  :   the charlatan with fake degrees ,  the  liars who claim they went to Ivy League institutions, the self-righteous spoke persons of the divine who tell us how to live and die. 

There is some sadness though in all this - If do feel sad for those who actually  believe them and take them seriously .
 Hoping my heat-addled brain can work again on Monday .

Monday MindBlast

It is the Special  Day for the cook , the maid , the laundry lady ; for the paramedic , the plumber, the chauffeur, the electrician and the carpenter . It's also the same Day for the counsellor , the tutor and the accountant . It is the day for the Dictator  and the Devil's Advocate.
  It is called Mother's Day !!
Mothers get snapped at , yelled at and blamed ; they also get loved and hugged and thanked in the heart a million times a day. I have felt all these feelings  for my mother and now in a reversal of roles I have learned and earned all the above. The saddest lives are those who have not got Mother's love because their mothers are no longer there  but even more miserable are those who have misread  or rejected this Love.
Upon my mother's death I often wondered whether I had done enough for her. I was confused by thoughts of whether I had shown in small ways how  deeply I loved her , how much she mattered to me each day . I kept thinking of the million ways I could have made her happier while she lived . Then one day,  while I was still blaming myself for my inadequacies , I realised that she never really bothered about it . She loved me with her whole her heart and her whole being. Just loving me was her joy ,her whole purpose and how I returned the love or whether I returned it all , mattered not a whit to her.
 A Mother's love is so deep , so unconditional and totally all- encompassing . The Love  is so strong and  so divine that it reaches out from beyond the grave and protects us  . I was not an ideal daughter nor was my mother without flaws and weaknesses  .It actually made her more lovable for I loved her "warts and all"  . Those moments when she was quick to find fault because she had had a tough over-worked day , when she yelled at me as to what an ungrateful wretch I was when I made her that angry with my actions  . Those words may have dropped from her lips but they never came from her heart . That heart which said each moment : "I  can bear any pain in the world but I cannot bear a single drop of tear fall from your eyes."
Mothers are flawed because they are human but they carry in them that Divine spark that lights up our lives.
So where does that leave the Fathers? Are they to be relegated to the guys who merely  brings home the pay packet . Fathers are actually the silent ones who do everything and seldom take credit. They do not indulge in drama and hyperbole but they have the same love that mothers have. Their drawback is because they have not  physically carried one  in the womb,  we forget they carry us in their heart and in their soul.
All great thinkers and philosophers have placed both Mother  and Father above God for that is where they should be , right  above  The One . He certainly drew up a mighty tough  contract  with them for your care  . When they die ,  they leave behind  so much of them  in us that deny as we might , we do see them in us : in every nuance , in every thought, in every action - through the day !
In loving them we say the highest Prayer.
Back on Monday !

MondayMindBlast

I don't know how many people noted the fact that I missed  consecutive Mondays. Personal inconveniences ( and we all have those niggling bugs that keep us away from productive work) and global tragedies  created a more sombre mood in me .
 I know there are a few friends who read my blog loyally ,they  may not enjoy it week after week but they read it anyway . There are many things we do for a friend because we know it matters to them a great deal even if it seems frivolous to us . We often  go along with an idea , even if personally we are not exactly enthusiastic about it . We prevent them from emotional disasters  , at the risk of them sulking at us for a day , a week or even what seems to later  turn out to be forever. A friend I once  warned about a lascivious jerk did not believe me at first.   So well had he ensnared her , she could not see him dripping lewdness. She was very angry with me  and stopped talking to me . It was only when his mask slipped much later , that she realised it and  we went back to being friends as if the pervert had never existed .  Just picked up where we had left years ago !
 My friend , who is always worried about my wild outspoken ways said to me the other day ;"what if these people you write about ( you know the pompous academics or the la-di-dah social wannabes ) read your stuff and get angry with you"?
 I assured her that such people never read anything , they are too lazy or too busy with self-promotion. "In  any case ," I asked her , "who would want to underline the fact that they are the pompous asses/ brainless dodos I am talking about  hm"?
  This  friend is special for she is  one who has outlasted my crazy adolescence days and my even wilder prepubescent wackiness and rambunctiousness.  It is true isn't it : a Friend can see through you and still enjoy the show !
About shows - I am all  for attending those "to be seen" theatre events . Other than the fantastic actual  show , the side show is great fun. It's the place where to just sit in a seat  in a dark theatre , people dress up as if they are going to be on stage. At theatre festivals I  shamelessly eavesdrop and hear blowing the wind from these gas bags statements like - " when I watched ...... show  in Broadway"  or  "I never miss theatre in London , or at the Opera House in ..... when we went on our usual Euro trip ( nota bene the stress on usual !) . I also ponder did the usher lead them out politely or did the bouncer chuck them out - if their loud comments and artificial guffaws at all the wrong moments are anything to go by. If I am ever to act ( and no one I know will risk that )  my career on stage would come to an abrupt end with the act of my chucking my shoe at the offending creatures . That , however legitimate and laudable the cause may be , is not the actual  reason I won't ever  make it on stage . The truth is that I can play only two roles with aplomb - Deer Frozen in the Headlights or Coma Patient in hospital  bed ;  the second too ,  if I am assured that the scene will last just  a few minutes. Lying still is imposable for me . The only time I go into that that kind of stupor is during a post-lunch power point  presentation. The stomach is happy , the lights are dimmed and my body tells my brain : "hush  little one , breathe gently , relax and I will ensure that you are not caught , by fixing the eyelids into frozen posture".
Freezing always brings me to those ladies who happily inject distilled snake venom converted into serum to freeze the nerves for six months . They end up with these frozen grins that look painted upon them in red , burgundy or fuchsia dependning on their lipstick.  They are meant to  to erase their frown and laugh  lines - yeah those over-the-hill and desperate-to-pass-off-as-thirty  botox aunties. I always assumed the laugh lines were there to show what a zany life you were leading ; the frown to announce to  the world that you survived and even managed to raise a decent kidor two  . The crinkles at the  corner of my eyes, I truly believe,  speaks of the lovely and ugly things that I have seen in life and still managed to retain my sanity and humour.
So really , when the sales girl  at the upmarket cosmetic counter asked  me : " ma'am would you like to try  some of our new  wrinkle cream ",  I really didn't know whether to tell her I am proud of my lines as I have earned them  or to give her a lecture about what a disaster sales person she is for  telling women that they need wrinkle cream !
More MindBlast soon !

Monday MindBlast

I do not  enjoy falling sick. Technically it has all the right ingredients to make one happy - lying in bed, covered with a nice comforter , off from work , someone fussing over you or you wallowing in self pity and  definitely somewhere someone missing you ; even if it is to find the blasted file you tucked under Miscellaneous because you could not figure whether it went under B for Bastard , J for Jerk or S for sonofabitch. The problem is the other factors do not play along -so you are sniffing , burning with fever with every joint twisting itself like it is on Torquemada's  rack of torture . It is called the "flu" and as that is the generic name for any undiagnosed fever, the doctor gives you a "broad spectrum "antibiotic. Notwithstanding how  the virus may  react to it , I react very badly. I walk around with a sandpaper tongue that feels like it has been dragged for a week over a field covered with bitter gourds and thistles. My mother always said - sickness and feasting should not last more than three days . Unfortunately the Salmonella and the Ecoli have not been told this .So they  continue to party in my system for a lot more days than they are supposed to. Then they leave all the mess (typically like teenagers after the party) and I walk around looking like a raccoon with dark circles around my eyes , like a  Slow Loris with a perpetual look of misery. Actually the Slow Loris has a jolly good reason considering there are so many morons whose manhood depends on this creature. They believe it has aphrodisiac qualities  . How stupid can people be :  there is a reason it is called slow , dummy!!

The last time I used the word aphrodisiac in public was when another ace dummy asked me why I was chewing cardamom and I told him because it is a proven  aphrodisiac . Frankly , I would rather use that to freshen my breath than some rubbish that some filmstar chucks into his mouth which comes in a golden sachet and will probably give me mouth cancer. The last I heard was the guy was masticating cardamom by the handfuls. So all you masala chai ladies and biryani making mamas you know why the cost went up - yeah I confess to the crime!
 Sometimes , it is absolute fun to say something outrageous with an innocent face. My  male college mate  and I were in a crowded  lift when in stage whisper I said  : "I missed two periods " and while I saw a few freeze in shock and others arch an eyebrow of disapproval and a lot of lip twisting with - oh-my-god-girls-these-days look I continued : " one in international law and the other in jurisprudence "and jumped off at the next floor. I haven't cackled like that for a long time and my friend went into a black-slapping high-fiving  frenzy .
It was one of those official boring parties that one has to attend . There were crass  plutocrats, self serving bureaucrats , dripping-with saccharine socialites and fuddies and duddies by the dozen. There were also the pompous academics , the type whose necks are stiffened in case the cloud of knowledge that  hangs over their head dissipates if they shake their learned noddle  around. My wicked self could take the dreariness no longer , so I picked on the man who I knew was pretty prurient and with the wonderful stage whisper leaned across and said "oh yes , I totally support polygamy and polyandry".  All the men formed a tight circle around me all evening  to hear the merits which ( I humbly submit) I argued quite well . I wonder why  the women in the room glared at me all evening ! Mr Prurient was so  titillated by the thought that he smacked some one's bottom, I heard  . Luckily for him it was his  long suffering PhD student who had worse things done to him , I am sure.I have seen him sent to collect  Madam's blouses from the tailor,filling  bank challans  and depositing cash in the bank  , picking  up lunch  from the canteen and filling water bottle from the water cooler . Once he was sent on a city jaunt to find an ice cream soda bottle for the Prurient's progeny . A smack on the bottom is the least painful . It is truly the extension of the over- glorified Gurukul system where the disciple did everything for his Master and Guru which may or may not include satisfying the mistress. Not so curious, really,  considering the modern connotation of the word Mistress . Who can blame the lady : a strapping wood cutting six pack youth is a better choice  to a wizened ,filthy ,matted hair, mumbling ,  old and  pompous One  .
The last time we were in a crowded shop when my friend asked me what I would like for my birthday,   I couldn't resist  saying ( yes, in that wicked  stage whisper ) ; "a Coffee Maker please , preferably six foot , blue-eyed blonde , thank you !"
More MindBlast soon !

Monday MindBlast

There I was in a upmarket shoe shop  teetering on some high heels that I was gingerly balancing on   and swivelling my ankles to see how they looked,  when in the mirror I caught a reflection that looked a bit  familiar . It was a  lady  (for she was not  a girl anymore but then neither was I)  yet I knew  she was my class mate from the distant past for those eyes behind the thick glasses were known to me . Equally familiar  was the deep voice that I heard  as she asked the salesman for something.  I squinted  into the mirror , I frowned trying to get her name and then suddenly the penny dropped .
I hurried up to her . "Excuse me, "I said , "you are C... aren't you?"  With my biggest and  warmest smile I continued "Remember me ? I was in school with you ,  I am ......"
She cut me off quickly "Geeta ! Yes I know , "she replied coldly "you called me a bitch one day when we were in school".
You could have knocked me over with a shoe horn. Is that what she remembers about  me - one day(!)  from eleven years in class together ? Phew !!  Before you go thinking that I hated her or something equally vicious , let me enlighten all :  way back then  it was fashionable for rebels like me and the rest of my ragtag clique  ( though our teachers called us lazy blokes and saw us as the you-will-never-proper-in-life ones) to greet each other with a jolly wave and a  "hi , bitch" . It was not an expletive or cuss word, it bordered on endearment and was a bonding  among the defiant ones .  The word was used as a Proper noun, a verb , an adjective , an adverb and even an exclamation of joy - "what a bitch !" was a total compliment.  Sometimes it was philosophical like : Life is a bitch, isn't it  . I certainly don't hear Life complaining about it .Success has also been referred to as the Bitch Goddess  I don't think she minds too much either .  No one seems to like Success  the less for it - everyone is too busy wooing her ; bitch or not !
Back to C : the funny thing is I remember that one day very clearly.  She was sitting on the  school bathroom floor , miserable  and  alone,  during break  and howling with pain because she had stomach cramps and I distinctly recollect  running to fetch the school nurse . I was punished in the next class for coming in late and stood outside the class. Our Principal saw me during her rounds and enquired.When I explained why I was late for the geography class , she took me in herself and whispered the reason to the teacher and I was allowed to sit at my desk again. Memory sure is a  funny thing . She remembers what suits her and I what suits me . But what amazed me is how long she has been holding a grudge . at least now I am totally justified in calling her a capital B with an itch !
Words do change with times. Someone in the eighteenth century walking down the street in London  would have looked up at St Paul's Cathedral and murmured - what an awful church ! We would now call it awesome but we would mean the same thing as that bloke  .  A Sunday afternoon I walked in on my school going teenager and asked what he was watching on tv.  "Pimping" he said , then noting my shocked expression he clarified "it means customising a car !"  So I asked him "you mean like accessorizing?" He looked at me as if i was nuts and muttered  - what is accessorising ?  By the way ,  is that what customizing/ accessorizing  called these days  . Pimping had a certain sex worker  related  connotation when we were young  and we never used the word in polite conversations and certainly not to your mother. Besides, if my mother had heard me use it she would have rapped me . no, not broken out into a rhythmic use of similar sounding/ rhyming words- just given me one across the face !
More next Monday , ciao for now !

Monday Mindblast

I am always amused how easily we find things to which we  attribute our good luck and our misfortunes to . If things work out well it is because of the  extra alphabet  added to the name or some obscenely large and gaudily coloured gemstone  worn next to the skin. I think the only person whom makes maximum money with the  "Fortune " plants  is the Charlie who sells those  bamboo shoots all tied up  with red ribbons  . The ugly pussycat in garish gold known as Goodluck Kitty  is something my mother could have used in my growing year to scare me with . Thank God ,  they were not found on every mantle-piece or corner shelf, like they are now.  There is something very creepy about the the way the Kitty waves a paw as if to  beckons me to some ghoulish  world if I do not down the veggies  .
 If I was still a kid I would  certainly scream with fright and have nightmares after seeing one of those Santas who besiege every mall before Christmas They peep from behind   the hideous   Made-in-China masks. They hardly look jolly and benign , more like trolls and fiends that descend on evil nights to carry one away screaming to the nether world.  But the question still rattles in my brain : why do people attach good luck and bad luck to things? I had a friend in school who insisted that it as the blue panties  that she wore for every Maths exam  that helped her score her  centums . So,  it wasn't the hours she spent practising and solving hundreds of maths problems, it wasn't the dedication of Mrs Britto who taught us so thoroughly and inculcated in us the love for numbers - oh no , not at all! It was this wispy itsy bitsy lace thing that did it . I wonder whether it has survived the onslaught of time and does she still wear it to her Board Meetings ?However, I do owe her much in life for it was she who got me off irrational beliefs of all kinds. How can a lizard who spends his entire life stuck with suction pads to a ceiling be a harbinger of Death if he falls on my head ? Greater possibility  of me screaming and jumping up and down than curling up and dying. I truly believe there is a black cat out there somewhere telling her lovely little kittens to be careful of a white woman crossing their path. A family I know not only believes  thirteen is unlucky but the multiples of thirteen are unlucky too. Luckily for the kids of the family ,  the elders  are not very strong on counting beyond 13x3 .
I take great comfort in the fact that all religions assure me that everything is pre-ordained and I have come into this world like a packaged product with  an expiry date . Sometimes the " Best Before ", or the  "Use By " date also becomes applicable ;  as in the case of job eligibility and marriage proposals . So the  Big Guy ( or Gal , as the case maybe ) is up there in the Heavens with the headphones on , listening to all the whining, groaning, moaning  pleading , cajoling , bribing  etc  from down below ; and humming " I am gonna get you anyway...." This is why when I need to tune into His /Her frequency I rarely do it on my knees . Just a  hale-fellow-well-met kind of conversation works just as well for me - a mild conversation for some gentle tweaking within permissible limits is all one can ask for ( after all it's all pre-ordained , remember?)
This is the wedding season , actually it is always the wedding season if one were to believe the advts and free attachments that come with your regular newspaper. The one thing I thoroughly enjoy at weddings is the element of surprise . The charming pretty girl you knew all along could turn up to be almost anything on her wedding day : Bat Woman with exaggerated winged eyes , the alien from the movie  Predator with long ringlets reaching out beyond  her face and waving around  with a life of their own , a creature from the movie Species glistening and glittering  and with shimmery blue hued eyes. Some look so different that I have almost left the wedding venue sure that I had gate crashed into  the wrong one. Imagine if the groom were to shout: " But that's not her..........." when he gets a glimpse of her heavily-made up totally-changed face How do the  petite lithe girls turn into these muscle women capable of  carrying tonnes of gold around  their slender necks? I can almost hear the thoughts in the groom's head as he blinks into the camera and wonders if  this the frail one for whom he  lugged big shopping bags around the mall? For whom he  carried popcorn cartons into the theater ?   The bride stands for hours on the stage next to him,  carrying on her delicate frame kilos of brocade and silk  artfully wrapped around her  in every conceivable manner and trailing  behind her.
Wedding venues resemble  Trade Fairs more and more : flashing lights , wandering people ,food outlets with different cuisines  et al . I attended a wedding which had a Giant Ferris wheel installed at the entrance, ice cram kiosks and a cotton candy man turning out pink sugary clouds . I wish I had worn something more appropriate for the summer fete. As inappropriate as it may seem to wear a silk saree in the blistering Chennai heat , I wear them anyway sacrificing convenience for a greater cause .  I made the mistake once by attending a distant cousin's wedding in weather - friendly clothes and minimal jewellery. I  was besieged by phone calls  the next day from concerned cousins , busybody aunts and overwrought uncles ; each one of them wanted to know if I had quarrelled with the cousin or had been offended by someone.  All because I had not turned myself into a walking Fort Knox.
Rushing for a wedding and so more MindBlast next Monday !

Moday MindBlast

We all make lists. Every one of us. I do not mean those boring grocery list or the tasks to be done lists   , the ones of which even half the stuff  doesn't get done on time  The list on the white board scrawled in green and red markers that gets carried over week by week . The one you look at , sigh , swear to yourself this weekend you will definitely do some of them or at least ONE of them  and then convince yourself weekends are not for lists and that you will start first thing on Monday. That same list which makes you feel so rotten as it stares at you every time you go into the room until you vanquish it and wipe the sneer off it's silly face.  Such joy when you strike just one item off it - the feeling of somehow taking the elevator all the way up to Mt Everest and now all you have to do is look around and drink in the pure beauty. 

No,  I intend talking about  those other lists , the secret ones I relish  ,  really interesting lists I revel in .I have several of those and now I shall make all privy to a few. I have the Genuinely-I- Want Wish List. This has as many as twenty items which are so mundane and hopeless  I don't  even bother about them  anymore  like " I wish I fit into my  skinny jeans again , I wish my hair grows back in those little patches that I cleverly hide by back combing , I wish my forehead would stop receding so that like male aging film stars I don't need to artfully arrange  bangs to cover them , I wish my mid region would  shrink so that  I don't  have to hold my breath for a photographs  and  it will not  jiggle so much when I am shaking a leg at the New Year  party etc etc . Most have to do with vanity and less with reality. 

It’s my Totally-Impossible-but-Hope-It-Happens Wish List which is really exciting. The first wish is that my unfinished scribblings stashed  in the dusty Adidas shoe box gets discovered a la Gone With The Wind style and then upon publication I become richer than J K Rowling and that I can buy Scottish castles and English Manors and a couple of Indian palaces . Of course ,  I have no idea what the heck I will do with them but let's not get real here. Alternately, I wish a long epic poem full of human misery and foreboding gloom penned by me wins the Nobel Prize. I may not make money but surely all the publicity will ensure that I can endorse some memory hocus-pocus drink or some runaway luggage or at least a pair of nerdy spectacles with tortoise shell plastic frames.

 That is followed by the wish that someone hides in my shopping bag while I am tooling aimlessly in the mall, this little black velvet bag of diamonds worth trillions like it happens in the Hadley Chase books which was made into the highly successful Bollywood movie Victoria No 203. I really don't  think  too much about disposing the diamonds part but it  would really really be  convenient if  the police or the rival gang guys or the cheated and angry Boss shoots the guy dead so no one ever  finds out about it and I am home free. I could just use them as paper weights for a start and sell them off one by one later.

 The next on the list that really sends me in a tizzy is that some rich Sheik sees me and has a déjà vu moment or a last birth revelation, realises I was the sloe-eyed beauty with lissome body and enchanting grace who mesmerised him with the Dance of the Seven Veils and stole his brave Bedouin heart away and then vanished forever. He bequeaths a couple of oil wells to me for old times’ sake. I am not one bit choosy but in the current political situation in those parts I would prefer a fiefdom where there isn’t much bombing going on. Now just in case you start thinking that all my wishes are  all about fame and fortune ( of course none  of us can have enough of that anyway) I also have in the  same list a wish for  becoming God's Chosen  Emissary and bringing joy and peace to all mankind , oh wait !!  That’s also about Fame and plenty of Fortune isn’t it? 

My next list is truly the BEST. It's the Absolute-Pleasure-Giving-Worth -Dying-For Wish List. 

This List starts with a smaller list in parenthesis, which comprises of the names of persons who are the subject matter of the List that I shall now reveal. These so-called persons, who are actually unworthy to be deemed human , are those nasty creatures who bitched about me without reasonable cause. There are , I am sure , many  to  whom I have given reasons  to be horrible and vile  to me and I do not  grudge them their meanness for as  a good sport I am willing to take what I dish out . However, the ones who have messed up a day or even a minute of my life,  oh boy are they going to finally get it and how! So the List which contains their names contains my Deadliest wishes too and the pun is very , very intentional.  

The first on that is after I die I wish that I turn into a vile screechy ghost who carries her head tucked neatly under her arm and runs up and down the corridors scaring the living daylights out of these listed people. All the ladies whom Henry VIII so cheerfully beheaded and are doing that in the Tower of London are my inspiration.  I think this wish should truly be granted as a reward for the few good deeds I have done. It shouldn't be difficult for St Peter for not many people will ask this.  His waiting list for this surely,  cannot be that long. The next exciting item on this list is more present day. It’s also a kind of contingency plan, if I get bitten by a rabid dog these are the. people to be bitten by me. Of course I will not tell them I have taken the injections and am not rabies- carrying anymore, I want them to suffer for the next fourteen days watching me. What is even more pleasurable, these horrible harridans are going to be praying for my survival like they've never prayed for anyone before. The  list goes on and on but I shall not relate  all other wickedly naughty things I wish  but neither shall  I keep the last item , which is not just an item , it's the ultimate fantasy wish. The wish is to have enough money to hire Wembley , invite all the  obnoxious people of the earth across nations and creeds  , the wily greedy grabbing-from-the-people Politicians,  the earth destroying Nature-marauding Business Honchos , the thieving Bankers,  the holier-than and talking-down to us pompous screeching all-knowing  television Anchors Journalists , the mind destroying no-principles-or-values Educationists , the God-calling Divinely self-endorsed  false Propagandists of religions , the Corrupt bureaucrats , those sitting  in exalted seats meting out injustice in the name of Justice and all those who have paid to get positions and are now earning it back every which way; to  invite them all for a mega party and then signal the aliens to take them to the farthest  moon of the most distant Galaxy and keep them there for all eternity . I did warn you it was a totally impossible wish. So off I go now to get cheated as I buy the without-any-preservatives  stuff in a department store ,to be  hoodwinked by some package that claims  it's all organic , to get conned by the advt that promises me soft  shiny hair , spotless younger skin, no-fat- keeping-my-heart-ticking oil and fizzy drinks that assure me  happiness and success  .
More MindBlast next Monday !

Monday MindBlast

The angle is all wrong -either the person is looking upward as if awaiting beatification by the Pope  or looking downward with the ghastly under-the-eye bags highlighted for all to see . Sometimes it is a head tilt that makes one look like a person undergoing a bout of temporary insanity or it's a stilted smile so fake that it would make the air-kissing socialite cringe .  When it  is such an obvious  conspiracy to make one look uglier than usual,  one wonders why anyone would want to do it except in a moment of masochistic pleasure . I am indeed talking about the taking of  a "Selfie"! Wherever I have traveled , I have always found that strangers not only oblige when asked  to take a picture of you in front of a pillar or a market or whatever but sometimes kind souls who see you clicking camels, bazaars or wherever takes your fancy and do offer to take a picture of you standing  in front of it. Returning the good deed that these unknown souls have done for me over time  , I too have offered the same to giggling young ladies , lovey-dovey couples , geriatric lovebirds,  extended families with innumerable cousins fitting into frames  et al  . Struggling to pan the Vatican with my camera I had this very tall gentleman watching my effort and smiling . I requested him for a picture with me in the foreground and so he took my camera and walked back a few steps. He obviously had a problem with adjusting the three factors ;   his height, my diminutive self and the grandeur of the Vatican Square in the frame - so he went down on one knee to get the best shot . As he stood up after a couple of clicks I heard a voice behind me : That is the second time he has gone down on his knees to a woman. His extremely attractive wife stood arms akimbo laughing at the scene and it was then that he and I realised how it must have looked to her and the motley curious crowd that watched  us mildly amused.  "Groupies" are even worse because it looks like a gaggle of mindless geese sticking their neck into the camera , something more appropriate for the Discovery Channel programme on Funny Animals than a cherished moment of  camaraderie of  human beings !
I spent the weekend correcting answer sheets which left me squinting and cross -eyed as I tried to figure out the sentences as I was  handicapped by illegible scrawls , outrageous spelling,  hastily constructed grammatically-hacked  sentences and absolute gibberish. Some students adopt the ploy of repetition to cover space , something that would read like :  Jack is a boy in blue , therefore Jack wears blue because he is boy and so blue is the colour  that Jack the boy wears as Jack is a boy who like blue and we can conclude that blue is a colour as Jack the boy wears it . Either the student have concluded that those who teach are idiots incapable of spotting the subterfuge (and sometimes they really are justified in thinking so ) or that those who correct papers are doing so while listening to head-banging heavy metal and therefore will not pay any attention whatsoever to the bilge they  have spewed all over the paper. To me it provides hours of amusement and pain alternately  . Even though Mr Wren and Mr Martin ( those who can remember-  that was the Grammar Bible we used in school - the red cover still dances menacingly  in my dreams when I mess up my Past Participle ).  Even if  Wren and Martin would be committing continuous harakiri , I see it as an   opportunity afforded   to learn new facts that do not exist anywhere but  in the mind of the inventive student. To paraphrase Lord Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade suicidal mission  I murmur to myself in self-  destructive mode  : Mine is not  to reason why ,   mine is but to  read and sigh !
When I was little my Father insisted on yoga in the morning which was basically taking deep measured controlled breaths while  sitting cross legged on a mat followed by arm support on the back with the legs thrust towards the sky and the final heave to stand on the head , all the while under his watchful guidance so I wouldn't damage myself ; perhaps also  to untwist me if I knot myself up in childish enthusiasm.  It was a slow graceful and measured  act and so I am quite amused when I hear acquaintances holding forth about  all the innovations that have come in that seem to have twisted poor Yoga itself into new contortions. There is Hot Yoga in some kind of sauna atmosphere where you sweat it out ; and here I naively had thought  Yoga was about cooling you down by reducing the metabolic rate with slow movements. Then someone told me about  Face yoga  - most of us am sure do that several times a day when we pout , grin, purse our lips , bite our tongue in anger , blow up our cheeks in frustration , (yes,  you got the picture) and all this without paying someone by the hour to make faces. What scam will they think up next : perhaps  Nose Yoga where you pull your nose and perhaps your neighbour's as well or rub them together as Eskimos are wont to do or simply ten ways to blow your nose . Maybe  Finger Yoga where you stick the middle finger in the air while holding the other three bent with your thumb. Now that is one  I would happily sign up for , heck I can even teach it for free ! Try it - it will give you the greatest satisfaction and in certain situations , done to the face of  annoying colleagues  and behind the back of your supercilious puffed-up barking  boss ! Keep that up to relieve tension from the jaws and the pain in the neck (actually and figuratively) - it works amazingly!
More MindBlast next Monday !


  

Monday MindBlast

My word , how the week flies and the weekend it's like the Red Bull advertisement - it really does have wings. The reason I felt this week go by so  quickly was  because it was a good week. It's always a good week if one feels vindicated -  it was good to see a detestable  pompous person eat crow. It's so true what they say - the smaller the man , the bigger the ego . So this person was quite convinced that I was not needed in his scheme of professional work . That was quite alright with me , like a realist , I had resigned myself to that fact and got on to other activities . There is so much to do out there if one  moves out of that comfort zone we all love to wallow in and shake ourselves up a bit.   But the gods, they really can be so wicked ,  always love to meddle ,  so Mr Pomposity  was forced to pick up the phone , call me and  plead for my assistance .Don't we all love that moment - that special  moment that should be put on 'Pause"so we can savour it a bit longer . Now it is wicked to enjoy another's discomfiture but what is life if there are no nasty moments for nasty people.
Nasty and neighbours seem to go hand in hand like teeter-totter or teeny-weeny or hoity-toity. When the fire and brimstone pastor thundered from the pulpit about "Love Thy Neighbour" on Sunday ,  it made me wonder why Neighbour , why not Love Thy Cousin, or Love Thy Insufferable Aunt . Then  I realised what a whacky sense of humour God had - you can love anyone as long they are afar;  but loving your neighbour now that's a real challenge! I have had an assortment of them but there are some who are unforgettable for they were insufferable. One that leaps to my mind is the goody goody busybody self-appointed trustee of my virtue ,  who waylaid my husband when he returned from tour to inform my husband  that his brother visited me while he was out of town ( oh dear me !) . My reluctant brother-in-law had been ordered by my husband to drop by and  make sure I was ok while he was away . Oh how that answer disappointed her, all the joy of life dissipated  ! Then there was this deranged  lady who would beat her daughter and son with steel plates and their pitiful howls were unbearable. She , just as a matter of interest , was a qualified psychiatrist . How many affected people she drove to  complete insanity , I truly have no idea but I was mighty relieved when she upped and left one day - hopefully to the Hades.  Then there are of course the Borrowers of everything from ladders to bottle openers , the Know-it-Alls who tell you everything from how to set your table to how the country should be run , the Leapers
-from-behind-walls who want to tell you about their son in the US or daughter in UK or Australia , the Waylayers who just wait for you to emerge from your front door  and jump right in front of you with some inane comment about bus fares or milk prices .... truly the list is endless . Having mastered the art of escaping from these sundry creatures I impart the secret to you - just wheeze and in a raspy voice say you have the flu and they will jump right out of the way. For the more stubborn variety you could try the swine flu variation with a burst of coughing .
Talking about exotic diseases always reminds me of the time in school when our entire gang  wanted to play hookey from a Maths test and wandered off to sit in the air conditioned Library  . Of course we were caught and marched off to the Principal's office . We stood in a line in front of the glowering Principal who asked each  in turn why we missed the test . The first one said she had a headache , the next settled for stomach pain. The next took a neck pain and the next claimed she had a toothache . By the time it was my turn there was no part of the part of the body left , so out tumbled from my mouth : "Sister , I sprained my spinal cord".  "  Thank God she had a sense of humour and laughed and sent us off to class . Humour I realised can save many a day . Like the time I was caught ( seems my school life was all about getting caught ) grinning like jackass in the midst of a shake down ( yes it was the same Sister God bless her soul) and she turned and asked what was amusing me . From somewhere I heard myself say : My lips were twitching and I was only stretching them a bit ".
More MindBlast next Monday !

Monday MindBlast

I love Birthdays - mine and others' too. I love Birthdays so much that it's the only other word for which I use  the uppercase (capitals)  besides I (that's me)  God and sometimes even he/she gets the lower case when spoken of in plural or when I am a wee bit mad at them.  I know a lot of people who do not get excited about it  for different reasons. First ,  the morose ones - because it actually reminds them they are getting older. I would like to remind them of the time we couldn't wait to get older. When asked  how old we were , we rubbed our grubby  palms on the front of our frocks or shorts and said four and a half - heck, that half mattered so much to us ;  or we said :  I  will be five in two months , my birthday is coming! Aaah childhood, if only I knew I would regret growing up some day.
Then there are the other  ones : deeply dyed in pessimism  - they believe that every year brings them closer to The Day - the End . I am quite flummoxed by this variety that lives in denial . Of course there are a whole lot running around  who turn their snooty noses and say so what is the big deal about birthdays , it's just another day  - there's a whole PhD in psychology waiting to be done on those joyless persons  ! 
Birthday is a  wonderful thing - it  comes once a year ,  don't be a killjoy and say so does Christmas or Diwali or whatever day you use as an excuse for binge eating )  it's YOUR own special day. Of course you may be unfortunate enough to share it with some pimply  boy cousin or obnoxious shrilly girl cousin or God forbid even a  celebrity( unless sharing with a celebrity is your only claim to fame and so you surreptitiously  check in Linda Goodman's Sun signs who that is and pathetically preen about it  )  . So it is your exclusive day and if you have friends who go back to your frilly bloomers days or your Disney characters pyjama days and they call you and wish you - you can sing tra lalal la  for the rest of the day . Someone other than the Guy-in-the-sky loves you ! There is a material part of me that also kicks in , so to avoid major disappointments  I make sure that I start announcing a week ahead that the Birthday doth approach to the family members thwarting any plan they may have of escaping from gift-giving. It's quite alright to be a little obvious about it - it happens only once a year . Diwali , Christmas et al , everyone in the family is peering at shop windows , showing pictures online and dropping hints faster than the fast food guy dropping dehydrated french fires into the oil fryer, so that does not count. 
Fast foods of the simpler  variety , which is fast only in the sense it is quick, is fresh i really love. Hot steaming idlis, crispy dosas, puffed up bhaturas , right off the tawa tikis, ladled off the stove channa , pulled out of oily depth samosas , crispy floating in sugary syrup jalebis , boiling in cauldron kesar milk, tossed in the wok noodles - i have no problem going at them with gusto.  . No one dishes out dehydrated idlis , pre-cooked dosas or frozen rotis  in those ubiquitous  Bhavans and  Dhabas .The more complex the name , the higher the budget for the  impossibly-ravishing photogenically-perfect  mouth-watering  advertisements , the more you pay for a meal - the staler it is ; kept at subzero for a long , long time before it is chucked in oil for you to chuck into you. 
On the other side are the smarties who are cashing in on the organic rage. Probably grinding the humble  lawn grass and peddling  as alfa alfa, the I-wouldn't-serve-it-to-the-dogs  huge fat  grains of all sorts  as  being good for some condition or the other . There are persons in a  parallel universe who want  to stay healthy eating all those things you would never even know what they tasted like if your mother didn't dish it out and your father didn't glare and threaten hell.  I swear I  would never have eaten french fries if I knew they were made from potatoes , I thought for  long time they grew like that on trees. I, however, signed a  truce  with the tuber as it was way better than the rest of the squiggly ugly stuff that was fried or floated in curries and made funny faces at me , mocking me to reject them .
I love getting gifts , like most people but I enjoy giving gifts even more . Of course it  gives me an excuse to shop and thereby  buy all the bags, belts, shoes , stoles, dupattas, shirts, trousers,  leggings, jeggings and lingerie I definitely do not need ; but more importantly , it provides me the impetus to plan a major strategy. It's never a simple pick up a gift thing for me - oh that would be sacrilegious . Every time you feel tempted to do that grab-a-gift-and-wrap-and-shove-into- giftee thing ,  think about  receiving a sad wooden dolphin with a clock in it's belly that beeped every hour. I actually did get it and as much as I love  karma because it is a bitch , even I draw a line on recycling such horrendous offerings to my bitterest enemy. I still remember how I pretended that I kept forgetting to take the gigantic  I LOVE O......CITY  ceramic mug  which weighed a ton.  After dinner , thinking I was rid of it I smiled gracefully at the host ,  until she placed it next to me  in the  back seat .  It clung to me like the Old Man fastened himself to Sinbad's back . All night it beamed at me from the side table and in the morning ( when I put a towel over it ) ,  I devilishly  grinned  as I the  left it behind in the room   when I checked out . The honest bellboy chased after the airport taxi waving it to me but I ignored him like a  diva ignoring the mongrel. Phew that was so close !
So now I trot off to stuff myself  with chocolate cake and unwrap the goodies................ 
More MindBlast next Monday 

Monday MindBlast

Forget the management gurus and the spiritual speakers , it is the Cola Kings who give you the mantras to live by. First one they gave you  to  chant everyday as you woke up was This Heart Wants  More ( yeh dil maange  more) - considerately translated into almost all the Indian languages for  they did not  forget that the  1. billion would-be guzzlers were living in a country called a study of  unity in diversity .  Remember the  first chapter of your civic lessons on India in school ? They had it pat and they are a dedicated lot who wanted to ensure that the secret to happy life  did not stay with the English speaking la-di-da  but reached the masses. So you were told to want More of everything , thus the 250 ml bottle  of cola became the 2 and 2 1/2 litre mammoth bottle . When the Enlightened speak and give you the Key to Eternal Happiness it is incumbent upon you to ensure that you adopt it seriously. So everyone was convinced that the 24'tv had to be replaced with the 28' and the 28' with the 35' and the yeah yeah , you got the picture . Everyday,  in every possible way,  you had to keep replacing what you had with more and more not because you wanted it , but your Heart wanted it and how heartless would you be to refuse the heart . More clothes, more shoes , more gaming gadgets .  Some  dedicated believers  even took it to the level of more relationships in and out of marriage - after all wasn't the plural of spouse :  "spice".
After a while  the  voices from Olympus ,Sinai, Kailash or whichever Mountain they sit on,  decided they had outlived that one - how could you go bigger than the big bottle - somehow glugging cola from a jerrycan wouldn't look chic and trendy. Swoosh - they produced the next mantra . With thunder and lightning the new mantra was sent along : Right NOW . ( abhi ke abhi ) you needed to get everything  Immediately ! If you woke up to see a new phone advertised on the first page of the newspaper  ( of course I mean a mobile phone , who buys the other kind , really !!)with all kinds of features which you  wouldn't have the time to use because  you were busy working your butt off to make more money to buy the next one ( you guessed it )  Immediately! It had to be instant gratification of all senses .Hungry?  Don't cook -  order your food now ! And before you think they don't apply this mantra to themselves ra-ra-ree you pizza will be free if it doesn't arrive in thirty nail biting minutes.
Advertisements reflect a society best . Instead of trying to read up reams on sociological analysis or wade through critical papers just flip through magazines or turn on the television. No more advertisements of - you've come a long way baby as the  Virginia Slims ads of them days .Heck how do you  hock cigarettes  that uses a name like Virginia - more chances with the politically correct puffing crowd  if sold as  Vagina Slims . 
 Then there are all those nylon-wig-swirling airbrushed women swearing they get their beauty , youth  , fairness ( very , very important for the Indian women and men as well) from five rupee mini sachets of magic  . What kind of a cave woman are you if you don't want to  look ten years younger, not for yourself silly (how dare you) but  for your Man . Remember you wicked creature if you don't buy all this stuff and give them all the loose change  that they need to build swanky houses ,  send their children to Ivy league colleges and  holiday abroad you are doomed .  No college admission,  no beauty crown,no jobs, no marriage ; and the worst your family will be so ashamed , that you are not fair damsel . Who cares whether you have brains , brains should stay in the skull cavity to be displayed only as degrees . The CEOs have a penchant for other people's money and sometimes they are bold enough to slip it into their ad jingles : you are a part of our family tra la la  ; kind of you-owe-us-a-living -so-be-stupid dictum is foisted on you.Super smiling Moms doing yoga while assuring their families that their health is taken care off really get my goat .
Talking about Super women ,  I am convinced that our mothers were far better at time -management and at juggling roles than us.  They did all this way before it was called multi tasking . Husbands who were chauvinists but didn't feel guilty about it as the term did not  officially have the tag-line Pig , parents in law with a smattering of brothers and sisters in law thrown in and who were convinced that they were not wrong to make certain demands as it came with the territory ( or the dowry), and the children that were faithfully produced consecutively  depending entirely on the libido of the male counterpart or till the mandatory male child appeared . With all these creatures of the Noah's ark,  for each had a different trait : the tiger,  the sloth, the snake et al she ran a tight ship . There were servants to do the chores  but anyone can tell you getting them to do work may be easy but getting them to do it the way you want , that is  the real  challenge.
The one person who I await eagerly each morning and after the specified time has passed look , often at the clock with anticipation and bend an ear  for the ding-dong of the front door bell  is my Maid. When anyone complains about her tardiness or her cutting corners while she nonchalantly re-distributes the dust ,  I defend her with all the sincerity that  I can muster as she is the bulwark of my life. I hate doing dishes and that she does them is enough for me to nominate her for sainthood all  her tantrums notwithstanding . She has killed off more relatives than I can think of and married the same nephews and nieces a hundred  times over losing count as she makes excuses for not turning up for work  .  When she does turn up after few days I am on my knees thanking the Gods of Daily Chores.  
There are chores I manage to get by, by  listening to music and I have the whole thing so music-coded that I live and fall by it . So it's romantic songs while cooking , good country music while dusting so I can swish the duster  back and forth with the agility to the beat of the drums and the  strumming of the  guitar.   While I iron  Air Supply, Springsteen  and Elvis send me to the upper clouds and make my work lighter  . 
 In school my music teacher taught us a ditty that ran like this :
It was on a Monday morning
When I beheld my Darling
She looked so neat and charming
 To every high degree
She looked so neat and nimble O
Washing off the linen O
Dashing away with a smoothing iron
She stole my heart away!

I never can look dashing away while ironing and thank the good Lord that my husband never waited for that moment for his heart to be stolen away  but stuck to more prosaic things like good food .

More MindBlast next Monday !

Monday MindBlast

Monday mornings aren't just about blues - its about every shade of indigo . I do believe  all about relativity - how long the week lingers and how fast the weekend zips through . When I daydream  , as I am so wont to do throughout the week , I think of all those delightful things to do on Saturday and Sunday and the the special god appointed for Ruining Weekends works overtime and throws totally  everything out of gear for me . By the way , the  "wont" is neither a typo nor a short form of some eighteen syllable word shortened in the fashion of the tweetters and WhatsAppers but rather in  the style of the Bard - good old Bill or Mr William Shakespeare as some of you may better  know him.  Can someone explain to me the mystery of why the person who can text Gud finds it difficult to add the extra alphabet and say Good instead . Good sounds so good whereas Gud sounds like the jaggery sold in kirana stores .Then of course it took me quite sometime  to figure who the mysterious N was who pops up  in the texts I get from the young ones until after much deliberation and re-reading it hit me that  it was used for and. Really ? Is it  so difficult to text "and" ?   So when you tweet you really do turn into a birdbrain - how telling is the logo of the blue birdie ?

Talking about birdbrains - all those syrupy cloyingly sweet stuff I hope has been carefully stored away either to be burnt , returned or re-read at a later date - depending on whether the Charlie or the Jane of this year  lasts till next Valentine's Day.There are of course the thrifty ones who just take their present beau or beloved  to the card section in the store and read out the card they would have  given them. How special is that? Frankly , I think if you find one Cheapskate  like that , my advice is get serious about this one : I mean a person this thrifty isn't going to be unfaithful later in life  - infidelity and adultery costs money ! Huge costs can be a huge deterrent , the "other"  woman  will expect to be plied with gifts and toyboys are usually quite broke and need to be fed and clothed and sometimes require college fees to be paid,  too. I guess all these warning were inbuilt in the commandment Thou shall not commit adultery . After all how  could Moses the Patriarch carve all this in detail on a single  stone tablet of the size he could hold and lug down Mount Sinai?  . Actually wonder if God really did say it or was it Moses' brainwave?  

About God ( if you believe in the mono ) or Gods ( if you are the Pantheon of Gods kind  - the more the merrier kind of person ) -those that think man was  created in his ( hers or their)  own image,  its better to do some serious re-think.  All you atheists  who are convinced that we are an exotic cocktail  of a  lot of chemical stuff that  came together perfectly ( sounds terribly liked blind  date and those always go so terribly wrong) you  better do some rethinking,too. Then there are the scientific kind who insist we  are  perfect working and computing machine and we've got this brain which has the potential of the universe trapped inside ( obviously they have never come out of the labs and met the hundreds  idiots  who I keep  meeting  !). Maybe when they  finally unravel it all ,  we may need another brain to understand it. Now for the truth :  just stand in front of the mirror and look at  the oh-so-many parts stick out at odd angles and how many   dangle in the most embarrassing manner.  Looks like all the God or Gods ( your , mine and theirs) may be good at a zillion things  but  definitely flunked the course on external ( human)scaping .   

 That is the real reason  humankind decided on clothes.  Of course,  Eve sharing the apple with Adam  helped and don't believe those misogynists who blame Eve for the Fall of Man - imagine if she hadn't shared it with Adam - we women would be fashionistas and all the men would be running around naked ( ugh!) Seriously , test tube babies would have come about before the invention of the wheel. All those awkward body parts that tend to  love gravity so much  can now be turned into  flowing appearances. How many apparel houses that have become major power brokers would not have existed were it not for the Apple . Surely it should be their logo and not of  tech gizmos . I hope , along with Goddess Lakshmi the drapers, tailors and garment exporters  are propitiating Eve too  . 

Same applies to all those who create unwearable clothes which  girls  with most unhappy faces and guys with sheepish expression ( "I need the money therefore I do this " look)  walk in. It beats me how the gals manage the forty five degree angle tilt throughout their ramp strut without the aid of wires , stirrups and  halters  to hold them up.  I am equally  flummoxed by their  ability to maintain the bored look throughout the show..  Fashion shows bore me to death with all that walking up and down , somehow it always seems to be pointing out that I don't get enough exercise .

Exercising , walking and I parted ways long ago , from the day I realised I can get my endorphin rush and spice up my life from hot peppers and other much more interesting stuff. I hate gyms. It has nothing to do with cougars in bulge-showing leotards making mooney eyes at trainers ( who I am sure roll on the floor with laughter when they recount their  shenanigans with their wives and girlfriends later ) nor with the wannabe George Clooneys in shorts three times small with spindly hairy legs,  jiggling their middle age spread acquired by  lusty eating and living ; not even the thought of sweaty handles and perspiration-smelling mats and benches - no ,  its sheer Fear . Fear that like so many I will spin in a  ruthless cycle ,  like some form of Karmic Wheel,   of exercise to burn fat -feel hungry - eat more - exercise more to burn that- feel hungrier - exercise more to burn that .... you got the picture. Now before you snort at that with disdain , I have many acquaintances who have started and quit ( and I know i cannot do this forever - hell , even Love doesn't last forever ) and they have doubled and even trebled . That is the scary thing I was referring to ! 

More MindBlast next Monday !

Monday MindBlast

Why Mondays for some mind blasting ?

 That's easy to explain.

 Work through the week and then during the weekend when I am just sitting around doing therapeutic stuff like cooking , dusting , re-jigging the cupboard ( I am so serious about this - they are truly therapeutic ) I tend to run a montage in my mind  of the things that have happened during the week that have set serial  thoughts pounding my head . 

The other reason is even easier to explain : throughout the week travelling around Chennai and being stuck in traffic lights gives me time to look around  and suddenly  something that I see sets me off  on a ruminating spree . I have this luxury because I do not drive - basically it was a toss up between  paying  a driver to steer me thorough the mad metro  traffic  or pay for some fancy namby-pamby pink jar with divine  smelling goo that promises to make the  stress wrinkles disappear! I opted for the driver .

Talking about drivers - my friend caught me at a movie when I was between hiring and firing drivers . Sympathetically she asked me how I was managing . I leaned across and in my best stage whisper said : you know these guys who seem to come into my life  and leave abruptly despite the fact that I give them what they want .....". Yeah , they carried out the two men in the front row after their cardiac arrest . Serves them right for eaves dropping though I do  have a sneaky feeling the cardiac arrest was more due to lost chances than horror of what they imagined I did in my life. I guess from under their oxygen masks they muttered about  what the world was coming to ! Most men ( and I just  adore the exceptions because they are exceptional men and there are quite a few of those  out there too !)   never can handle the reality  that women can speak their mind .Can't blame them really considering the bilge they are feed by the misogynistic epics. Frankly ,  if a  woman's  Fidelity is subject to inquisition  because the man who irons your trouser from his mobile unit down your road gossips about it,  the person to face the ire should be either the gossiper or the listener/believer  and not the subject of gossip because she is a woman and therefore her "purity " is questionable .

Gossip - now not everyone can do that with panache. Gossiping should be done in a manner where you don't drop bricks, just subtle hints . Never ever start with "you know what......" that is being so  absolutely  unschooled in the fine art of gossip. Good gossip should not hurt - we are not into the business of slander ladies , just some healthy awwws and ooos. I invariably  run into this lady (lady? i am being  so kind to her ) who doesn't gossip - she just  drops names . It is  difficult to be a dedicated gossip because you really have to know stuff no one else knows and know it first  , i mean you can't read it off the Internet unless it is  about out-of-work celebrities. Dropping names doesn't require anything more than knowing   the name  which she probably memorises every morning from the cities  P3 list or worse . 

About P3 , one would think they were really bidactyly (two fingered) for they constantly stand with those two fingers  held up in ever direction humanely possible. It shatters my belief about each generation excelling the previous ones . Those are the young ones for whom I presume someone is breaking their back to pay the bills for they seem to be just living off the fat of the land. Also on P3 are the mutton-dressed-as-lamb women wearing peplum tops and frilly fripperies with sheepish looking togged up males in tow.I truly  feel sorry for the male species because  they cannot put on a whole new face as we  women do. So they can comb their brows   but they cant really tweeze them into  permanent arched questions like some divas, can they?  Nor can they fill up the acne scars or the pits they got pinching pimples during their adolescent nervous days with enough foundation to make it look like a smooth landing strip.I do not have a problem with using  make up, I use it to enhance my face most of the time and blow up considerable sums of money on tasty yummy  ( tasty and yummy  because I lick them off ) lipsticks and glosses. Actually my objection is to calling it Make Up . Sounds like something you fabricate or  fake - like making up a story or something . Just saying , just saying . I am not alleging anything about all that creative work that devises a new face .   

Not being able to wear make up maybe why men wear such colourful ties. It is  to divert attention from the deficiencies of the face and  these neckpieces  can  be used at times  as canvas for artwork consisting mainly of oil drops and sauce splashes while embarrassed wives dab at it with cloth napkins dipped in bottled water.Guess many of them did not become famous only because they were confined by the size of the canvas .The thing I really enjoy looking at are  the colourful trousers men are wearing these days- vibrant  reds, jewel greens and blazing blues. After all  the good Lord meant the male to look ravishing for the female as borne out by the peacock and other sundry creatures that strut about in the animal kingdom. The  glorious hues are  at times  displayed on the crown or  by vibrant bottoms (as in the case of some glorious pink butt primates) . Of course it is not anybody's fault if there is  little that differentiates some  men from the primates. 

More mind blast next Monday! 

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