One two many

What is it with men and the word 'breasts'? The other day Chrys and I were at a large store buying some meat. Chrys was in the frozen foods section and I was at the butchery. I asked for boneless chicken breast. The guy at the counter suddenly widened his eyes and got all excited. There were three chicken breasts kept inside the chill area. When I say three, I mean breasts that came from three chicken. It seems however that the guys don't think of it that way. For them each individual breast has to be counted.
So when he asked me "How many" and I said, "All three", he got confused.
He asked "All or three?".
I said, "All three", then to clarify I said..."Give me all that is there in that container".
He packed what he had and I asked if there was more. He called a butcher to cut up more. Then he turned around to me asking, "How many breasts do you want mam? See, this is one breast and this is another"... pointing to the left part of his chest and then the right. I almost burst out laughing but just ignored him and from then on communicated with the butcher directly who was one of those rare guys who didn't go googly eyed and start counting when 'breasts' were mentioned.

Mean me

A few weeks ago I was at this really beautiful resort in Lonavla. I had breakfast and while Chrys was still tucking in some more, I decided to take a stroll in the lovely grounds. I walked with butterflies flying all around me, the birds chirping away, a cool breeze blowing and I am in a trance. Suddenly a shrill voice shouts out, "Excuse me". I turn around and see the most hideous thing I have ever seen. It's a black tent enclosing something that is obscenely blubbery. Four appendages stick at different points and there's a big bloated balloon on top with some wispy black hair. Through all those blobs of flesh on the balloon there seems to be some opening that's speaking these words. "Excuse me", he/she(I'm not sure) says again, "Did you just have a massage?"
"No", I manage to croak out after he/she asks me a couple of times.
"Oh! I wanted to know if it's any good".
I just make some shrugging sort of gesture and slink away, although all my instincts are screaming to me to run back and warn the people at the spa to escape while they can.

#IknowIammean

The race

Everyone knows that an important factor during the courting period is to pretend to love a person for who he/she is. The key word here is 'pretend' because the moment you get married you start 'training' each other to change into a person you can live with.

The training starts right at the mandap or altar or registrar's office. No really! Haven't you seen Hindi movies? The man says to his wife, 'Ma ke paer chuo'... that's training - lesson no.1. My mummy is my world, you better respect her. The girl isn't far behind. She accepts lesson number one coz she's got a trick or two up her sleeve. She offers unlimited - as Sheldon would say - 'coitus'  for the first month or so and then... holds it back as a bargaining tool. 'Your mummy is mean :( , she doesn't iron my clothes, or give me bed tea.... what is worse, I have to operate the washing machine myself!!!'.
The boy at first will ignore these things and hope that things get sorted out soon. But then a guys gotta do what a guy's gotta do, so he gives in. They shift out into a new home to avoid conflict.

There further training begins.
'Make the kind of sambhar or khichdi or papad or boiled water... (it could be any thing) just the way my mummy used to make'
'Why don't you wear more sexy clothes?'
'Why do you wear clothes that show so much cleavage?'
'When will you wear the sexy lingerie I bought you'
'Why do you spend so much on lingerie, who's gonna see it anyway?'
'Why don't you ever finish the food we have ordered?'
'Don't touch my electronic stuff'
'Don't make dog-ears in my books'
'Don't go tidying up my closet, I like the mess in there'
'Don't laugh so loud in public'
'Don't talk so much on the phone'
'Don't put starch in my underwear!'
'Don't drag me for grocery shopping'...

The girl meanwhile has her own stuff going on-
'If you want, you eat what I cooked or go back to your mummy'
'Is your chacha going to pick up that plate and put it in the sink?'
'Don't leave your towel and shoes lying around the house?'
'Do you HAVE to listen to music SO loud?'
'Why do you order so much food in a restaurant?'
'Don't eat from my plate'... a little later.. 'I can't eat anymore, can you finish this?'
'For once why can't you wake up before noon on Sunday?'
'Do you have to wear that hideous shirt your mummy gave you?'
'Don't stare at that girl!'
'Don't drink/smoke so much'
'Leave the toilet seat down'
'Don't scratch in public'
'How do you expect me to carry all those grocery bags alone? You have to come with me'...

The race continues. Sometimes the guy is ahead, sometimes it's the girl. There are no clear winners coz the race goes on and on.

If you are unmarried, you will not understand this post. Living-in doesn't count... trust me when I say, a piece of paper changes everything. The important thing is that in-spite of all the training and changing, if you love each other, everyday is an adventure. So put on your training shoes and enjoy the race.

Crusade against profanity

What is this addiction to profanity that has taken over the world? Song lyrics mention the unmentionables, actresses are clamouring for roles where they can swear to their hearts' content and kids start and end their sentences with the F-word. Even my maid who has only studied till the 4th standard says "Oh S***"... yes, in English and LOL has been replaced with LMAO.
One might argue that these are just words like any words and the dictionary meaning probably just makes them more popular. So if you happen to just invent a word and attach an obnoxious meaning to it, it will become extremely popular.
I for one, cannot help my ears going red when I hear profanity. It actually produces an extreme physical reaction in me. Embarrassment and anger at the speaker for subjecting me to it. And most of the times the person doesn't even realise that he/she has said it.
There was this young male colleague who was in the habit of using the f-word to describe everything. One day, a very senior lady from my organisation, this colleague and me were travelling to a campus interview. On the way there the three of us shared a car. The young man was so delighted by the company that he began a long speech about his experience in campus recruitment and so on. Invariably the f-word crept up and kept showing up in every other sentence. My senior colleague and me went red in the face, but the young man didn't notice. Finally I interrupted him and requested him to watch his language and if he can't then keep quiet on the campus recruitment drive. He was genuinely surprised and apologised profusely saying that using the word had become such a habit since his college days that he used it sub-consciously.

I refuse to believe that argument. If you want you can use different words instead of a bad one. Read and educate yourselves in vocabulary and don't restrict your speech to a few bad words. This is a sincere request.

Good Morning

There was this story about Gautam Buddha. Once Buddha is meditating beneath a tree with his disciples. A man walks up and starts abusing him. The disciples get agitated, but Buddha remains calm. After some time the man is tired to abusing and walks away.
The disciples are curious about why Buddha did not react. He says that, when someone abuses me or calls me names, I refuse to accept them and therefore it just bounces back to them. Just because someone calls me a donkey, I don't become a donkey.
This story may not be accurate, but it teaches one thing. Everyone can project calmness and pretend to be truly at peace with themselves till the time this peace is put to the test. Well, Buddha passed the test.
Now, there's another story. I was watching the live telecast of some yoga program this morning, presided over by that winking fellow who calls himself "Baba Ramdev". So this guy is projecting all calmness and peace and all that jazz till some MP in the audience calls him a "bloody fool". This so called baba gets so riled, he instigates his disciples to go and rough up the guy saying "itni himmat ke mujhe bloody fool kehta hai".... all this on the mike and telecast LIVE!!!
Made my day hahahaha

Godot can wait

Facebook is interesting yet a little irritating at times. I posted a comment about my migraine and immediately I received a private message from an ex-colleague. She asked me to have it checked coz someone she knew died of cancer. Apparently it had started with a migraine. This really scared me. I mean I don't want cancer. However some people tend to jump to conclusions without first checking. She could have first asked me if I have seen a doctor about it and then gently put this across. I hardly know this girl. What did she gain by scaring the daylights out of me.

Anyway, I went to Breach Candy today. I told the doctor all symptoms. He asked if I had a cold. I said no. He then asked me to get a simple brain scan done. This set all alarm bells ringing. I had the scan done and waited for the doctor to get the result. I waited almost an hour and while I was waiting I imagined all sorts of things. I imagined that I was going to die of cancer. Worse still I had to shave my head (yeah! I have my priorities right). I mentally made a will of my meagre possessions. I planned on telling Chrys to remarry but not too soon else I might come back to haunt him. And loads of such morbid stuff. Then the doctor called me in and told me that my sinus was blocked on the right side and I need to see an ENT about it.

Phew! I'm not dying.

Chee Chee Money Shanker

So, everyone knows this particular Dhongi Baba, who peddles classes to teach you to breath and makes millions out of it, got shot at (allegedly) and a poor bystander bore the brunt. Mr. Dhongi Baba didn't miss the chance for free publicity. He quickly enrolled the bystander into his classes and claimed him for a disciple. Then he went around feeling pity for the shooter.

Next morning he woke up to find that the news had grown cold. So he went about proclaiming that he forgave the shooter. Immediately after, he claimed to have clearly heard the shot and demanded that the police take the incident seriously and arrest the culprit. He made lots of noise to show that he wasn't afraid and even offered to enrol the shooter into one of his courses (of course he would have to pay the price first).

Finally it turned out that it was just some guy on a farm 2.5 kms shooting at stray dogs attacking his sheep. He was shooting in the air and the bullet travelled far. I wonder how Dhongi Baba heard the shot fired from 2.5 kms away. I also wonder if the gun-happy farm owner had shot straight up would he have brought down a plane? Nah!

Weirdos all of them I say!

Love, Cheques aur Mauka

This Ayesha aka Maha is one cool operator. First, she allegedly trapped a young and good-looking cricketer in far away Pakistan into marrying her solely based on some stolen pictures and some hot chat room romance. (I refuse to believe that Shoaib could have actually married this girl being shown on T.V.) Then she slapped a case on him just as he was about to get married to a 'real' woman. When she saw that all her mother's histrionics aren't working, she produced clothes from her wedding night supposedly unwashed ever since.... Yuck! In cricketing terms this is called 'Mauka dekh ke chauka marna'

I guess Shoaib Malik and his family had enough of all the drama so they convinced him to divorce the girl. They took no chances and in the divorce papers the girl's name reads Ayesha alias Maha. The girl's parents seem maha pleased. I wonder how much money has actually changed hands. I don't buy the 15k figure. Mumbai Mirror claims that Shoaib had to shell out 15 cr. to close the chapter.

Hopefully the circus is over. Oh wait! The wedding still remains. Next is what? The Maharashtra government is going to sue both the parties for using only the acronym of the state. No amount of arguments that Maha refers to a girl and not the state will pacify them. They will go about breaking random shop windows and burning buses before they realise that these shops and buses belong to them.

I'm going to hibernate. Call me when all this is over.

Maintain Overweight

Yesterday while I was trying to pass a really boring afternoon reading a Sherlock Holmes book, someone rang the bell.

A woman carrying a large black coloured bag stood there and asked me if there were any children below the age of 10 in the house. Now, I was used to being asked about kids below 5 years by these "Polio vaccination campaign" ladies, but this was new to me. I replied in the negative and was about to close the door when she said, "Actually, for ladies problems there is a seminar.... ummm... could you call your mom please?"

My Sherlock instincts perked up.

"Why call my mom?" I asked.

She said, "I need to talk so some ladies"

"Don't I look like one?"

"Aap ladies hain?" (Are you ladies?)

Notwithstanding the grammar in that statement, I was incredulous that I don't look the part of the female of our species.

Then she said, "Aap lagti nahi hai" (You don't look like one?)

I asked her if I at least looked human.

That's when she clarified that by 'ladies' she meant married women and apparently I looked too young to be classified as either... 'ladies' or married!

Now, I consider myself well endowed in all departments almost tending towards the over-weight (although my mom wouldn't say that)

I told her that I had crossed the psychological thirty milestone and the last I checked I was definitely female and a married one at that!

Then she asked me if I had any children. I replied in the negative.

She says, "Aapne apne aap ko bahut acha maintain kiya hai. Plus bache bhi nahi hai na. Main to aap hi ki umar ki hun lekin mujhe dekhiye, bache-wache ke baad kaisi ho gayi hun"

I couldn't help laughing at that... I am far from "maintained".

Then she peered around me into the room and saw the treadmill.

"Aap treadmill karte hai kya?", she asked.

I said, "Main nahi mostly my husband uses it"

"Kyu? Woh overweight hai kya?"

I just laughed and laughed and laughed and closed the door before she tried to sell me any products to combat THAT problem.

PS: There was no seminar. The idiot was selling Aloe Vera juice to combat 'dark circles and hair fall in six months'. She decided herself that I didn't need it and didn't try to sell me any.

Need to complain to the watchman to not let any salespersons in the building, not even entertaining ones.

PPS: The title of this post refers to the stand that Financial Analysts take when they think a particular stock has potential for price increase. Although Chrys usually uses it to refer to my potential - Too fat to be in the Olympics, too ugly to be on T.V.

Weekend with a bear

One fine day my little sis called up and asked me to write a one page essay on 'A weekend with a bear'. I ask her why and she says 'Because I said so'.

So I sit down and write the lamest essay I have ever written. She hated it. But what the heck, I'm gonna post it anyway. Here goes...

Weekend with a Bear

When you spend a weekend with a bear, you always get the weak end of the bargain. But in my case it was different. How? Let me tell you.

I am not much of an outdoors person, but I like going camping and driving around in the countryside once in a while. The ‘once-in-a-while’ probably has come just twice in my life. The first one was a total disaster that ended with water all around and a dead frog. But that is another story. This is the story of my second excursion into the wild.

It wasn’t planned. It was a Saturday and I had set out on my motorbike for a nice ride around the hills near my house. All I wanted was some quiet time to myself. I had a backpack which had a couple of books, a matchbox, some frozen chicken, some canned food, some apples and a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. There were also some other knick-knacks that I will tell you later about. The later is now. The knick knacks were a pocket knife, dental floss, Bandar chaap toothpowder, one extra large pajama, one towel - rather frayed at the edges and my phone plus charger – although I didn’t know where I was gonna plug it in.

So, there I was, driving around on my Harley Davidson, feeling like the wind. I had set out in the morning and had covered a lot of distance by noon. The road was winding up a mountain and it was becoming narrower and narrower. There were huge trees all around. Suddenly I felt a commotion in my stomach which told me that I was hungry. I decided to park the bike behind a small clump of bushes and set out into the jungle to find a place to settle down and eat. After I had walked through the thick undergrowth for a while, I came into a clearing which looked like heaven. The light from the sun was streaming through the large trees but not quite reaching the ground. The leaves cast shadows all around and moved with the wind… as if they were dancing. Right through the center there was a small stream running. It had perfectly clear water and was shallow and narrow enough that I could step on the stones and jump across to the other side.

I did just that because the ground was higher there and so a little more dry. I sat beneath a tree and pulled out an apple from my bag and munched on it. Everything was quiet except for the occasional bird or the rustling of leaves and of course the soft gurgling of the stream nearby. After I had finished the apple, I filled some water into my water bottle from the stream and drank the sweet water to my hearts content. Then I sat down to read a little, but about an hour later I started feeling sleepy. So I curled up, put the bag under my head and dozed off beneath the tree.

I woke up a short while later when I thought that I heard someone. I looked around but could see no one, but I felt like I was being watched. The sun was still up in the sky and I was sweating a little. I pulled off my jacket and shoes and washed up at the stream. When I returned I still couldn’t shake off the feeling of being watched. Then, I saw him. He was larger than me, but not that large for a bear. He had thick brown fur, large brown eyes and a round black nose. He was standing on his hind legs and peeping from behind a tree. He was a young bear probably just recently weaned from his mother and never seen a human before. Bears have a great sense of smell and can smell food from several miles away. It was the smell of the chicken that attracted him I suppose. I was terribly scared, for although this was a young bear, he could still be very dangerous. All the horror stories I had heard of people being mauled came to me all at once and I think I fainted.

When I regained consciousness I felt something wet on my cheek. I opened my eyes and stared into large brown eyes. The bear was had his nose on my cheek. I gave a little shout and that scared him. He quickly ran off into the trees again. That surprised me a bit. I quickly wore my shoes and jacket, gathered up my bag and stood up to leave when I heard a little whimper. It was the bear. He was peeping from the trees again and making sounds as if he wanted to say something.

I turned around and said ‘What?’ He got scared again and hid behind the trees. Then slowly he poked his head out again. Then he said something that sounded like ‘Wua wua wua’. Was he repeating what I said? I don’t know yet. So I said ‘Are you hungry?’ He said ‘Wua wua wuaaaa’. I slowly put my bag down. The bear shifted a bit out in the open. I said, ‘Stay there. I will throw you some chicken and then you can let me go.’ I was opening my bag when I felt that the bear was moving. I looked up and said, ‘I said stay there!’

That’s when I noticed that he was limping a bit. It looked like he had hurt one of his paws. But I was too scared to take a closer look. He took my hesitation as an invitation and started walking towards me… limping rather. I stood rooted and terrified. Then, when he was so close that I could almost smell his breath, I shook myself and started backing off. ‘Wua wua’ he said again. I stopped and looked. He was holding up his right paw. There was a thorn in it. I didn’t know if I could help him, but I felt sorry for him. I thought, ‘Let me at least try’. I put down all my stuff and moved to take a closer look. The thorn was stuck close to one of his enormous nails and cut into his flesh a bit. It must have been really painful.

‘Stay still’ I told him… not that he could understand a word! But he seemed to understand and sat down holding up his paw. I gently took his paw in one hand and touched the thorn with the other…. ‘Wua wua wauaaaa’ he cried, but held still. I closed my eyes, sent up a prayer and pulled out the thorn in one quick jerk. ‘Wuaaaaa’ he cried, but not in pain. He was happy and got up and did a little jig which means he went round and round as if chasing his tail. Then he looked up at me and I could swear that he was smiling. I quickly opened up the pack of chicken and offered it to him. He looked at it suspiciously first, but quickly grabbed it and gobbled it up in an instant. Then he ran off into the trees again. I thought he was gone for good and turned to go my way when I heard a ‘Wua’ again. He returned rolling a large water melon with him. He came and put it near my feet as if offering it to me. I looked up questioningly. He seemed to think I didn’t know what it was, so he took it and plunked it on the ground and it broke into several pieces. Then he took one piece and scraped the tender red flesh off it and offered me one piece saying ‘Wua’. I took it that he wanted me to eat it, so I did. It was the most delicious water melon I had ever tasted. We sat down and polished off the rest of it. By now the shadows were growing longer and I had to leave. I patted the bear on his head and said goodbye. I hurried back to my bike still not believing what just happened.

When I returned and told my friends this story, they didn’t believe me. It seems a bit unreal to me too, but all this really happened. I had the most wonderful weekend with a bear and lived to tell the tale.

Mooch ado...

Speaking about weirdos... I was waiting at the dentist's when I saw this lady - shabbily dressed, holding a large cloth bag which was almost like a potli - walking up to the two Parsi ladies sitting next to me. She leans in close to the younger one and whispers something which couldn't be heard. We could only see her lips moving.

The Parsi lady says, 'What?'.

The potli-wali says, 'Aaaa oooo eeee ooo?'.

Now the Parsi lady looks around for some help. Then the potli-wali repeats those sounds. Now everyone is curious. The Parsi lady seems very uncomfortable.

Then the potli-wali tries again and this time I could make out the words, 'Are you Hindu?'

Finally, the Parsi lady says, 'No'. The potli-wali moves on and comes to me, leans in almost 6 inches close to my face and asks, 'Are you Hindu?'.

I say, 'Yes!?!'

Then she says, 'For long life and good health, pray to Tulsi mata'

Then she moves on to another fellow sitting next to me. Thus she goes around the room and whispers to everyone.

Now the older Parsi lady is really agitated. She calls out to the potli-wali and asks her, 'Excuse me, why did you ask us if we are Hindu?'.

The potli-wali turns around and says softly, 'Because I'm a social worker'.

Yeah, I know - weirdo!!!

Later when I walk into the dentist's cabin, I notice this young, really short and really fair young girl. It turns out that she is the doctor. She has her face covered in a mask all the time that she is examining me. Then she takes off her mask and I notice the most perfect set of pearly whites I have seen in my life. And to go with it, there was a nice little moustache on her upper lip.

So, she has enough time to take care of her teeth but no time to get rid of her mouthbrow.