Murphy's Law

Why is it that…


…I'll be dying of boredom the entire week, when I'm raring to go…and a pile of work drops into my lap an hour before the weekend begins.

…I make the best friends in the world…2 weeks before either they or I leave the city/country/continent.

…The guy I crushed on for a year realises he feels the same way…7 years after I've gotten over him.

…I can dance like seduction personified when no one's watching, but the moment even one eye swivels towards me - I spill my drink, step on someone's toe, trip over another someone's leg and end up with a bruise the size and shape of Texas on my butt.

…For lack of anything better to do, and tired of channel surfing, I'll watch some crappy movie through till the end. Only to flip the channel and realise I missed my favourite Buffy episode on rerun (mostly anything where Spike is shirtless. Or says "bloody hell". Or blinks.)

…I can down a six-pack of Coke and function just fine…but the guy I'm crushing on steps into the room and I let out the most almighty, unladylike, Homer-Simpson-esque, ear-shattering burp.

…My period may be delayed for 6 months sometimes, but it'll come without fail the day I'm wearing white capris. With white lace underwear underneath that. My uterus hates me.

Played more poker….

And the run of luck is over…went from 15 rials down (which is about Rs. 1,950/-) to barely recovering my 5 rial buy-in. MUST NOT PUSH LUCK.

Oh, who am I kidding. I don't listen to myself any more than I listen to anyone else!

Sitting at work and CRAVING Coke. I'm trying to go a day without one. It's not working out well…have pulled out a tuft of hair and my desk now looks as though the creature from 'The Grudge' has been shedding all over it. Great, a bald spot to add to all my other woes.

On the plus side, going to Dubai this weekend!! Will meet D.S.! Some best friend I am, haven't even met her since October '07….Looking forward to the general insanity that ensues when we meet up. Plus whole bunch of college friends there to catch up with…including Married Ex. One would think it would be weird, but the simple fact is his wife is such a sweetheart (and a genuine one, as opposed to the keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer-I-secretly-hate-you-you-utter-bitch-who-had-my-husband-first variety) that meeting the both of them is an unparalleled pleasure…it's amazing hanging out with a couple who's happy and in love and secure and just so fun!

Need a little change in life. I love this place with its quiet, sleepy life and 99% friendly people…but I swear I'm in a rut. Sunday to Thursday it's work and the gym and the occassional meeting up with the guys to play pool or poker. Weekends it's clubbing (at the 3-4 good clubs there are here!) and getting drunk and discussing who did what with whom while drunk. And more poker.

To quote a terrible old pop song: There's gotta be more to life….

Alphabetical list of reasons why I am a total spaz:

1. A cute guy smiled at me in the crappy office cafeteria. ::Snap:: went the plastic spoon and ::whumpf:: went the chicken manchurian and hakka noodles all over my new white shirt. The front of which is now neon orange.
2. Boobs…or rather, my inability to keep them in place (although, thankfully, they are always covered. Pam Anderson I am not). Jogging bras don't help when I'm exercising, and I've given myself AND the 18-year-old on the treadmill next to me a black eye on more than one occasion.
3. Coke…cola that is, and my…shall we say…affinity for it? Affection? My friends would say it was more of an obsession. But I'm getting better! I only drink 2 cans a day now (5 on weekends), and my memorabilia is down to 1 Coke-can replica glass pencil holder, a t-shirt, and a porcelain thimble with the Coke logo. I'm practically normal!
4. Dopey eyes that have caused more than one boss to look at me suspiciously and say "We conduct random drug tests here, you know…"
5. Epiphanies in the middle of poker sessions. When I'm not even drunk. So I will then expostulate about random insanity when, y'know, all anyone wants is for me to shut up and put in my 2 rials.
6. Food…any and all food…but especially Bombay food in Bombay restaurants surrounded by Bombay people…
7. Girls…well, the lack thereof in my life at the moment. Not that I swing that way (most of the time). But female company would be nice. A girl can only take so much of being around a bunch of guys with their …hysterically rude jokes…lack of bitchiness…amazingly yummy cologne…maybe I'll retract my complaint…
8. Hee-haw…my friends' description of the way I laugh. Which, I suppose, is better than being told to go swing from a tree with the other howling monkeys (by the guy I'm crushing on, no less)
9. Idiocy…especially when it comes to men. But I've learnt my lesson…never date anyone who is a combination of the following: shorter than me, thinner than me, with a bigger ego than me (well, bigger than the 7 continents combined).
10. Juvenile pursuits. But I can't help it if I'm a 26-year-old who still occassionally likes to re-read her Sweet Valleys (and Archies) and watch Jonny Quest (and Tom & Jerry) and eat orange ice-lollies (which are sooo passe, Galaxy Chocobar premiums are THE sophisticated ice-cream to suck on, dontcha know dahling?)
11. Klutziness….refer to points no. 1 and 15
12. Lameness in general, which would be why I am making this list…
13. Men and my complete inability to understand them, even when ALL the close friends I've ever had have been guys. But no, they'll do something asinine, as they are wont to do, and everytime it'll shock me!
14. Name…my name, I mean. It miiiight have been the height of cool when I was named more than a quarter of a century ago (although I doubt it) but now you throw a rock and you'll hit 20 chicks with my name. Don't even get me started on my nicknames. They bring to mind a fat boy, an African warrior tribe, a Baywatch alumnus and a teddy bear. What any of them have to do with each other, I'll never know.
15. Over-the-top hand gestures when I speak. You'd think it would be impossible to be narrating a story and knock over an entire refridgerator. You'd be wrong.
16. Poker…and my utter inability to play it safe. So in the past couple of weeks I've won big. But will I take my money and spend it on shoes like a sensible woman? Of course not. Sensible? What a strange word in an alien language…
17. Queens…drag queens to be more specific. Anybody else but me out there who finds them strangely…interesting? Not like that, but just…I wonder what they look like in the morning, and are they happier not being actual women, thereby missing out on PMS and horrific cramps?
18. Ringtones…I HATE cellphone ringtones…those things should be banned! They're SO annoying (yes, even the one that plays "Sweet Child O' Mine"). What, I ask you, is wrong with putting it on vibrate mode??
19. Spike. The love of my life. You know, bleached-blonde-six-pack-sporting-"bloody hell"-saying-leather-wearing vampire from Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I heart him.
20. Telling myself that I CAN lose 5 kgs. When, on a zillion-calorie-a-day diet, it clearly ain't gonna happen.
21. Understanding the basic mechanics of anything to do with technology. Yeah, I don't possess that.
22. Vampires. Love 'em. Not that I'm a wanna-be-Goth-with-far-too-much-eyeliner or anything that random, but if it's got anything to do with Buffy, or Angel, or Anne Rice, or Laurell Hamilton, or MaryJanice Davidson, or Charlaine Harris, or God help me, even Stephenie Meyer...I've been there done that and bought the t-shirt :)
23. Wanting to be a librarian…but liking money and expensive shoes faaar too much to actually go ahead with it.
24. X…man, this is a tough one. X-treme fear that all my lovely guy friends will end up with horrible girlfriends and wives who will make it their life's ambition to keep me away from my friends (as I already see happening with some of the married ones)? No? Too paranoid? Damn, I shoulda put that under 'P'.
25. Yennada? Yepdi irka ma? Spell 'moon' with a yem-yo-yet-another-yo-and-a-yem-after that. I may be half-South-Indian, but man it's SUCH fun to rip apart a southie accent!
26. Z..z…z…uh, I dunno….'zaps' is 'spaz' backwards. That should tell you loads about my state of mind!

I'm Going Home, Back To The Place Where I Belong

So, other than the fact that I luuurve Chris Daughtry (something about the bald head and the gravelly voice and ..um...I think that's it....my taste in men was always pretty suspect), this is all about the fact that, this time on Friday, I'm going to be in Bombay, baby!!!

It's just so strange...I've lived across quite a few cities in India (and now one teeny-tiny one in the Middle East), but there's no place quite like Bombay (yeah, I'm physically incapable of saying Mumbai. Just ain't gonna happen). And, freak that I am, I have an itinerary of EVERYTHING that has to be squeezed into the 2 weeks that I get in my precious city...but then again, knowing my friends, I can pretty much rip up that list right now. Not that I'm complaining, mind...I'm getting to see this lot after a year now, and I miss the days when we all, as my mom puts it, "Lived out of each others' pockets". Christ, in some ways I think it's great that we've all grown out of the phase where meeting each other was as essential as breathing, but on some horribly selfish level, I still want that closeness....well,okay, the closeness is still there, but sometimes, geographical proximity would be good! This whole cross-country nonsense with Oman and Dubai and Bombay and Sydney is just....yucky (yeah, I topped my class in English, can you tell??)

Okay,so melancholy aside, these are the things I absolutely HAVE to do once I'm there:

1. Go to Leo's - And as much as I know the boys are going to grumble...they can stuff it.Leo's is tradition! Leo's is home! Leo's is comfortable and I've been away for a year and I'm the princess and I have to get my own way (there's a little foot-stomping and pouting going on here. I have to practice if this is going to work on them when I get there).
2. Pig out at Britannia's - Mmmmm God, mutton saali boti and chicken berry pulao and caramel custard.
3. Pig out at Trishna - Crabs. With butter and garlic and pepper. And garlic naan. And Hyderabadi daal.
4. Pig out at any place that serves a decent saada dosa with non-sweet sambar and, oooh, medu vadas! And fried idli! Crap, I miss good Indian food...even though there's a massive Southie contingent in this country, not one fucking place that serves a decent dosa. Bah.
5. Pig out at Bade's - Because I miss leaning against a car at three in the morning, winding down and eating boti and naan.

Yeah, I know food features prominently on this list...but seriously...is there ANY place more reknowned for gastronomic pleasure than Bombay? (if there is, please tell me)

6. Frequent Hard Rock, Toto's and Zenzi - The former two for the music and the latter for the eye candy, both male and female. I tell you, I really missed out, living in South Bombay all those years and neglecting the 'burbs. Obviously all the droolworthy men are there (at least, I'm hoping).
7. Spend time with A.H., who will have plenty of tall tales filled with drunken debauchery and devilry, which will no doubt keep me entertained for a good week.
8. Find a woman for N.M., or at the very least keep bugging him about the fact that I get more action than he does.
9. Try and find out conclusively whether or not I.P. and N.P. are, in fact, gay, and if so, WHY THE HELL WON'T THEY JUST GET TOGETHER ALREADY. 'Cuz, seriously? They need to be locked in a room. Or clubbed over the head. I'll gladly volunteer.

And that is a fraction of my very ambitious itinerary. Somewhere in there I have to squeeze in Christmas, New Years', and an exam (which I'm trying really really REALLY hard not to think about, but it just won't go away!) and visiting cousins and exes and their wives and fiancees... But, whatever, in 91 hours, I'm hooooooooooome!!!

"Are you married?"

The three most despicable and over-used words in this part of the world.

So, I've been in the middle-east a little less than three months, and I lost count of the number of times I was asked the dreaded question after about, oh, 47. Apparently here, if you're female, 24 and not completely bleargh, there's no earthly reason you shouldn't be shoving out Baby #4 as you read this. The shining moment for me, of course, was on my first day at work, when, while I was surrounded and Spanish Inquisitioned by a gaggle of abaya-clad secretaries, one sympathetic soul asked : "You cannot have children, yes? That is why no man will have you?" I WISH my reply had been to slink down in my seat, close my eyes and attempt to teleport myself to some distant and not-so-patriarchal location (a la Hiro Nakamura...don't you just love 'Heroes'??), but sadly, I chose the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar approach. You know, the whole "The world is changing" blah blah blah and "Women are independent and happy without a man" yada yada yada.

I might as well have been trying to teach Osama bin Laden the chicken dance.

So back to the Question-That-Shall-Not-Be-Asked (only by me, it seems). I have been asked that at job interviews (because, dah-ling, don't you know, a diamond ring is the working-girl accessory out here), at clinics during visa-related check-ups (why can't they just come right out and ask if I'm sexually active instead of married?? I have vowed to say the word 'sex' at my next check-up and see if the doctors will spontaneously combust. Or deport me.), at supermarkets (I think they figure no married woman would consume the vast quantities of Coke and hazelnut chocholate that I do), at bars (this one I'm a little confused about. Apparently the unmarried women in bars are prostitutes. So why would any man take his wife there??), and, as I mentioned, at work. Oh, and the women I work with? They're all younger than I am, and, between the 5 of them, have 21 children. I kid you not.

You know that fear you have, when you go to a new school, that you're just not gonna fit in? Yeah, that might be the case here! Though I'm not sure whether it's because of my "radical" opinions or my Sex and the City shoes.

But really, even back home, this whole preoccupation with marriage is mind-boggling! When did it become the be-all and end-all; the cherry on the sundae; the nirvana to be attained? What happened to the fiesty, fun, I-need-a-man-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle women? The ones who stayed single till their thirties and then married for equal parts love and lust? Who worked till midnight and then partied till dawn? I mean, obviously not here, where it's a big step forward for the local women to leave their hair uncovered. But at least in B'bay, I thought we were moving towards that new breed of woman that said "Fuck you" to matrimony, swivelled on one three-inch Jimmy Choo (Colaba knock-off) and sashayed away to flirt with...well...I can't actually remember there being anyone to flirt with at work. Are there people to flirt with in the workplace? Most of the bosses I've had have looked like Mr. Potato Head.

Then again, maybe all this introspection is because Serious-Ex#2 is getting married in November.

Wake Up and Smell the Bubble Wrap

So we're moving again.

As a kid, I went through eleven schools in the kindergarten-to-12th years, and I loved almost every one of them (there was just this one place that was an all-girls' disaster...you know, with the rampant desperation and the comparing of boob sizes. Puberty is a tough time). But I think the best time I had was at the last school I was in. I actually managed to spend 3 years there! And it was those all-important years from 15 to 17, so of course there was drama and intrigue and mayhem and men...all very Sidney Sheldon (God Bless his soul), but without the sex.

And, of course, there was the-object-of-affection . Said object was actually someone I knew this time (as opposed to his predecessors, Prince William and Nick Carter), and lord, sometimes I think back to how utterly clueless I was about such things and I want to bang my head against the wall. Oh, I managed to talk to him without stammering and stuttering (I think), but it would more or less remain at comparing English marks (how scintillating!). And, embarrassingly, I think I was rather obvious about the entire thing, you know, with the blushing and the hair-twirling and the gaggle-of-giggling-friends a few feet away. I was a reasonably attractive teenager, but gawd, so low on self-confidence, so back then all the innuendo-laced flirting that I now manage was pretty much out of the question. What I wouldn't give to have projected this calm, cool, worldly image instead of the weirdo I must actually have seemed like! But I guess something must have been in my favour, since I got my first (and second) kiss out of it...And look at that, I still have a goofy grin on my face when I think about it! I guess once a nerd, always a nerd.

I think the strange part with object-of-affection was that my relationship with him only really began after it ended. I remember (once we started talking again!) that I could finally talk to him without the what-is-he-thinking-about-me and the ooh-say-something-hilarious-so-you-can-hear-that-cute-laugh. And as I grew a little older and a lot less self-conscious and, amazingly, so much more comfortable within my own skin, it became easier and easier to talk to him about men and women and college and jobs and aspirations and moving-blues and everything else under the sun. So then he become one of those friends. You know, the kind where you can pick up the phone after six months and start yakking like you just hung up five minutes ago? Love that.

So last night when mom and I were looking at empty walls and stacked packing crates and indulging in our moving-time ritual of curling up in bed and popping the bubbles on leftover (or, well, stolen) bubble-wrap, she asked me what I hoped to get out of this move to Muscat. I gotta say, with the way things have worked out in the past, a little crush wouldn't hurt :)

Plus, it's been a long time. A veeery long time.

Venereal Disease (Well, okay, no, but it sounds more interesting than 'Valentine's Day')

I have never celebrated a Valentine’s Day with a significant other (even when I was dating, there would invariably be fights on either the 13th or the 14th itself (ah, tempestuous romance of college days, how I miss thee. NOT.). But the day is still pretty damn special for me. Okay, I’ll admit, it’s so blatantly commercial that it’s difficult to see where the romance begins and the promotional schemes end. And honestly, if you’re a woman and you’re PMSing and you’re – god forbid in these hearts and flowers times – single (gasp!), the copious amount of red-heart-bedecked store fronts and ultra-mega-gigantic billboards shouting “Valentine’s Sales” and “Two-for-One Lovers’ Discount” get to be a bit much. Well, when I say a bit much, I mean only in the hitting-in-the-head-with-a-bulldozer sort of way.

Sour grapes, you say? To which I heartily rejoin: Nahhhh. Sour grapes is this woman I know, who’ll walk down Marine Drive in the evening and scowl at all the poor privacy-deprived couples and mutter about taking them out with a bazooka. Oh, or this other person I know who’ll walk into every greeting-card store and not-so-surreptitiously stick all the heart-shaped balloons with a pin and then gleefully proclaim “I broke 75 hearts today!” Um, note to self: must find new friends’ circle. But really, what I don’t get is how people don’t see the day for the corporate-sponsored malarkey that it is. I know it’s been said a million times before, so it can stand to be said again: Why should there be a separate day allotted to love and showing it? It’s a nice concept, I’ll grant you that – a special day set aside like any birthday or anniversary (and there’s no such thing as too many special days). But card companies and restaurants and TV and movies have turned it into this whole huge deal, to the point where I actually know people running around in a panic at the last minute because they don’t have a date for the 14th of February.

Oh, and since I have chronic foot-in-mouth disease, to these people I said: “So?” And boy, did I ever get reamed out. “Don’t you have a romantic bone in your body?”; “Do you want to die an old maid?”; “Don’t you know how important the day is?”; “Don’t you know how much fun it is getting all those gifts?”; “Do you WANT to be a lonely 80 year old with 47 cats?” and the like. I dunno, really. I’ve always rather liked cats, and as for dying an old maid…well, I really doubt one Valentine’s Day is going to tip the scales either way on that probability! As for the gifts….ok, yeah, I’m losing out there. But damn it, I’m a woman of the 21st century and I earn my own money (albeit not much), so I can buy my own damned Swarovski crystals (the teeny-tiny ones)!

I think what prompts most people to want to celebrate the 14th of February (aside from all the nummy chocolates and the cosy hand-holding) is the fear (or maybe despair) of being alone when most of the world is paired up. I said earlier that Valentine’s Day is a special day like any birthday or anniversary, but unlike those days, which are celebrated by family and friends and large groups of loved ones, Valentine’s Day is a day for two. It’s a more intimate day, a more exclusive one, and third wheels are not encouraged to tag along. It’s very firmly a Couples Thing. And, deep down, there’s a lot of people out there yearning to be part of a Couples Thing, especially on the 14th, when the Couple Vibe is on display EVERYWHERE. They want to walk down halls with fingers intimately clasped and play footsie under restaurant tables and gasp with delight at gifts received and seal the day with a kiss (or, okay, more).

So the thing is, what I miss today isn’t a significant other. This day is normally special for me because in Bombay it always meant going to Leo’s or out for dinner with the entire bunch and groaning over the fact that EVERY place insisted on playing “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You” and “Everything I Do” at least 6 times in succession. It meant looking at couples fighting and smirking to ourselves that we were footloose and fancy free and, most importantly, free to ogle without recrimination, even on this, the much-touted Most Hallowed of All Days of Love (pardon the oodles of sarcasm). It meant eventually piling into someone’s car and sitting by Marine Drive or Worli Seaface at 3 in the morning, speculating about what we’d all be doing and where we’d be, and who we’d be, 10 years from now. It meant a very real, and very visceral fear (confusingly laced with a little anticipation) that maybe next year, one of us wouldn’t be there, because we’d have found someone (someone else, someone not us) and abandoned our little ritual for the wonders of Valentine’s Day. Not romantic, no, not at all, but special in more ways than anyone can quantify.

And okay, now I’m in Cal, and we’re all running up our phone bills (yeah, no more Swarovskis for me...sigh) calling to and from Bombay and Delhi and Calcutta and Dubai and Sydney. But there’s still the smirking and the speculating and god, tonnes of catching up (and all without the sappy songs in the background!). And fine, even if it isn’t 3 in the morning in someone’s car on Worli Seaface? It’s still pretty damn special.