message in a bottle (02.2003 - 09.2008)

Around 18 months back, on a boring weekday afternoon, I came across a fun blog – a blog written under a pseudo name. After reading some three-four posts, I decided it was a perky read on boring days and bookmarked it. (Yes, I still live in Stone Age and book mark my favorite pages!)

Anecdotes about drunk parties, embarrassed meetings with ex-boyfriends, confessions about addiction to booze and smokes, some bitchiness, some sweetness – I was hooked to the blog after a week or so. The author was an avid blogger, never letting me down with infrequent updates, a good writer, and very honest in her description of feelings. The fact that she lived in Delhi just did me more good because I personally knew the places she would talk about. She never took names of other people, used pseudo names for them too. Slowly I realized that her writing was more than just bold and candid, it was also wild. Yes, for a person from my social background, discussing a personal sexual experience (names or no names) or a blowjob is wild. Nonetheless, being only human, I continued to read her.
 
She got a lot of anonymous comments (no surprises here!), some rude and derogatory, but most complementary and the number of comments just kept growing with every passing post. Most chicks seemed to like her. I think that is because she talked about stuff that they could/did not. Interestingly, most men seemed jealous. Intriguing! The girl moved to Mumbai after a while and the writing got even wilder. No, I am not insinuating anything here, just describing a pattern I observed on the blog.
 
This Monday, I found a new post on the blog announcing that the author who had made so many efforts of remaining anonymous until now could be seen on that night’s “We The People” on NDTV. Curiosity got better of me and I streamed the video to catch a glimpse of this wild-wild woman.

The topic of discussion on the show was “Should Blogs be Regulated,” and to my horror, Barkha Dutt introduced the author in question by quoting the following from one of her recent posts:

More and more of my male friends tell me, “You know, sex isn’t that important.” And I’m wondering when they reached that conclusion, for me, sex isn’t that important unless I have to go without it, in which case I turn into a mixture of Cruella De Ville and Bambi, alternating between long drags of my cigarette and fluttering eyelashes at whatever’s closest.
 
Now, first thing first, this is a wonderful piece of writing, is it not? Second, would one like this to be read out on National television when your folks are glued to the screens going “my little baby is on the television!” to the neighbors?

The girl in question looked like any of us, a normal happy chick, not a wild Goth or a link-whore as the Interweb likes to call her. This quote was followed by a direct question from Dutt, “So, you have quit smoking! Does that mean you are getting a lot of sex these days?”

You cannot blame Dutt. But can you blame the author?

Barkha Dutt was talking about something which was already there in a public forum for everyone’s consumption. But this girl had been writing everything under the comfortable protection of a pseudo name until now. Yes, it was her decision to change that and come in front of millions of viewers and hundreds of her readers, but still!

My point is that from the looks of it, the girl did not feel comfortable when all this happened. Although, she regained her composure in a jiffy, but there was a definite odd moment.

Having found out her real name, I could not help but google her this morning and the results shocked me. Tons of people are out there on the Interweb bashing her. People even claim that she is not original as her writing is too much of “Sex and the City” in it! They think she should be writing about erotic experiences over a vadapao instead of cheesecake, you get the drift? This, ladies and gentlemen, amuses me. And if you have been patient enough to stay with me till now, I should finally come to the point.

We all write with the knowledge that anyone can read our posts but do we want absolutely everyone to read them? If a curious boy of 22 in New Zealand reads my personal post, I do not care. But if my best friend’s mother reads it, will I be comfortable? Will you be comfortable? I do not know.

I have kept my journal fairly non-personal but I am sure there are lapses. Nonetheless, the fact remains that none of my family members (barring the husband) reads my journal and I like it that way. Why? I am not sure, yet.

I do not consider myself a Delhi-ite because I was born in this city; I
am a Delhi-ite because I have lived here for the last 18 years. Eighteen
freakin' years!

I do not love Delhi because I am a Delhi-ite; I love Delhi because even
after those 18 years, it still has the ability to surprise me.

I have seen the city grow, move with the times, in front of me. How the
roads made way for the flyovers and then for the metro rail; how the local
markets shifted to allow construction of multiplexes and shopping malls; how the city spread its arms to let the faraway wilderness like, Dwarka and Rohini, creep in and be its part. I was right here while all this happened.

I love the city for its vivaciousness. The bright pinks and gold of
Karol Bagh; the aroma of Chandni Chowk, which (no denying) is mixed with
the odor of sweat; the lazy corridors of Connaught Place; the
never-ending queues outside cinema halls; the tangy flavors of the
roadside stalls; the loud indecipherable calls of the street vendors;
the shirking breaks of the buses combined with the loud beats of Punjabi
pop music from the flashy cars; the sleepy-eyed school kids at six am;
the wannabes in trendy attire in South Delhi; the sheer size of the city
and the distances that one has to cover every day. I love it all.
Really.

Despite the years I have spent here, I discover something new in Delhi
every other week. Be it a heritage cinema hall hidden in the alleys of
the old city or a tranquil little café somewhere between the roads
leading to two five star hotels, there is always something new to
explore. If only one looks.

But I had stopped looking. Just like a long-running relationship that
one starts to take for granted, I have been taking this city for
granted. And just like in a romantic relationship, when I realized that
I may not have the city around me sometime soon, I panicked. I have not
had enough of Delhi, just yet.

Inside each one of us there is a strong little soldier who refuses to give up no matter what. Don’t you think?

And this soldier of mine is one hell of an optimist.

I recently watched a movie about a little, lonely girl. This nine-year-old girl lives a very tough life of a slave amongst people who could not care any less. She rises and she works, day after day. One day, she meets a kind gentleman who takes a moment out of his busy life to talk to her, buys her a cup of sweet ice, and gives her some money for food. Touched by his graciousness, the little girl vows to grow up to be a geisha, and win him over. I watched the entire movie glued to my seat, and relished every moment of it. I sighed at her pain, clapped at her victory, and smiled at the happy ending.

Only now I think, how is the ending happy? Geisha is a Japanese woman trained to entertain men with conversation, singing, and dancing. These men, almost always, are rich and married. So, my little hero grows up to win a married man's company and I call it a happy ending! How skewed is my perspective?

Nick Hornby wrote a book about a middle-aged married woman, who sleeps with a guy because she does not like what her husband has become after twenty years of marriage. This woman, mind you, is not in love with this other man. She does not particularly love her husband at the moment either. She has two kids and she loves them. But she catches herself disliking them, every now and then. She dislikes what they have become; what her husband and she have made of them. The husband realizes that his behavior has an important role in driving his wife to some other man and he changes. He stops being angry. He wants to be good. He tries to be good. And, I hate him. I, the stickler for fidelity, do not hate the confused woman but the confused man who is trying his best to be understanding, forgiving, and accommodating. So skewed is my perspective.

One needs to see the larger picture, from an unbiased panoramic view. Every event in life, just like in movies and books, often has multiple vistas. Sadly, I am not a reader of subtext. It takes a second view, a second read, or at least some retrospection for me to empathize with the real picture. Sadly again, this does not work very well in real life.

And by the way, this is just a thought and all is well in the sunshine land. If she can survive for quarter of a century with such a skewed view, cannot see why it would be a problem now. =)

“People blame movies and videogames for introducing kids to violence but no one ever talks about how movies and music build up the belief of happy endings in children’s minds,” mused the mild-mannered gamer.

Being a sucker for happy endings myself, I started to think when this whole quixotic idea of happily ever after got inscribed in my brain?

***

As a little girl, I remember being labeled pesky when I sang the third and fourth line of the following rhyme with much gusto.

Inky pinky ponky
Father had a donkey
Donkey died
Father cried
Inky pinky ponky

I think it was because people flinched every time I stressed on the words ‘died’ and ‘cried’ that I was mystified by the rhyme. On being told to drop this rhyme for a nicer one like Hot Cross Buns, I queried what was wrong with my current favorite. Now, when I think back, I realize I was bluffed. They told me it was not nice to talk about death, but when I further probed they told me that when a person dies, he turns into a star, and then he looks upon us forever. I also recollect seeing an animated movie about this. I believed it.

***

I do not think I was the only kid whose favorite fairy tale list included Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Snow White. All happy tales. I had not even discovered tales of The Little Mermaid and The Nightingale until I was much older. Although, they tried to make those sound happy as well, these were never my favorites. I still loved my childhood favorites. I believed them.

***

As far as my memory goes, Pyar Jhukta Nahin was the first complete movie that I ever watched. A sad tale of estranged couple and their boy, which ends with every one making up and living together, happily ever after. This was followed by Sound of Music, where the whole bunch of kids find a loving new mother and Maria finds love of her life in Captain. They may have had to flee Austria but they were all together, happily ever after. I loved those movies. I believed them.

***

When I first heard the unforgettable song Jamaican Farewell, I wanted to know what became of the little girl in the Kingston town. “He finished his travel all around the world and came back to her,” they told me. I believed them.

***

When I was in an unvanquishable state, crying my eyes out over the death of a beloved, a well-meaning auntie told me, “Come on darling, you are a big girl. You should know this is a part of life. Be brave for your family.” This was not what they had told me earlier. I was not prepared for this.

The day I came home with my first heartbreak, my very own mother advised me to be practical and move on. They had taught me to believe in fairy tales. And when my fairy tale ended, they asked me to be practical. I felt cheated.

Cheated, I still feel but did I learn my lesson? I do not think so. They did their job pretty well when my mind was still impressionable. Despite frequent reminders that life sends out, I still watch the falling rain, catch fireflies by cupping my hands, search for rainbow colors in floating soapy bubbles, and believe in happily ever afters.

I like my happy cliché; like they say, faith is a fine invention.