Fear and Loathing in Chandigarh

Towns. Small cities. Tier-II-up-and-coming-metros-whose-‘you will see’-awe-inspiring-awesomeness-will-leave-me-in-awe-by-the-year-2031. Please bugger off.

I abhor you.

I am not being proud of my big city upbringing. Neither am I being presumptuous. I speak from experience for my work takes me places; small places to be precise. For the past two years, I’ve spent 2-3 months, at a time, living in shitholes like Kanpur, Hyderabad and Bhopal. Yes, shitholes. The kind that little boys from Dharavi are prepared to voluntarily dive into for the sake of an Amitabh Bachchan autograph (as vividly depicted in the factually correct, phenomenally logical and thoroughly Oscar deserving cinematic masterpiece Slumdawgg Millionaire. Err… sorry, Anil Kapoor uncle, was it Millannairre?).

Bhopal, especially Bhopal. It is a city so devoid of life, character and fun that the longer you live there, the more you die within. It is so monumentally boring that if you Google for ‘fun’ and ‘Bhopal’ you get 0 results. If you’re cheeky and you click on the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button instead – Google takes you to a page that says “No you’re not. It’s fuckin’ BHOPAL you idiot!”

I’m not kidding around, try it. Google; not Bhopal!

I detest these microscopic ink blots on the Indian map. Apparently they’re ‘quaint’.

Bollocks. They ain’t.

The point I’m trying to make is that when I was asked to move onto a project in Chandigarh for 4 months, I died. And rightly so. The city is bloody unlivable.

But I had to move.

Fortunately, I wasn’t going to move alone and wasn’t going to live (or die) alone. Or so I thought. As unfortunately, the said accomplice is a woman. So an unmarried, non-couple finding a house together, in a small city, was as easy as the Pope helping this guy out with his problem (click click).

So during the house hunt, we obviously expected a few raised eyebrows, ruffled feathers and tirades on morality from balding landlord uncles and their queerly hirsute and mustached wives. We got more.

Foxed by our ‘peculiar’ living arrangement a seventy year old retired army officer wondered – “So, you’re really not related?” No. She is Sharma and I am Gogol. Do we sound like we’re related? Are you retired or retarded? “But how will this work. A lady needs her space! You have to give a lady her space!” Dearest fake handlebar moustache uncle, after four back-to-back vodka shots, the said lady threw up all over me last Saturday. She is as lady as Gaga. You can’t read her,
can’t read her,
no you can’t read her poker face.

And the only bloody SPACE she needs is a brown paper bag with ‘Puke Here’ written on it.

Reluctantly, he proceeded to show us around the house. It looked perfect, or so I thought. The woman… sorry the lady, had issues – lavatorial issues. There were no attached bathrooms. The loos and the bedrooms were on either side of the hall. So? “Dude, I need my very own bathroom.” Yeah, okay. Pick one. Any one. “No dude. The thing is I have a habit of walking naked from the shower to the wardrobe. Absolutely no clothes on. It’s my thing. So I need an attached bathroom.”

This was TMI*; way too much information for the war-veteran to handle. I swear I could almost see his eyes well up. We left before he could die.

The next place we stopped at was being guarded by a man well into his afterlife, a Gollum like being. He did not care about our living ‘situation’. Clearly all he cared about was the rent which was to be paid in a mystical currency known only to him as ‘the monies’. “I need the monies on time.” “You give me the monies, and then do what you want.” “I want the monies in cash. I don’t keep the monies in the banks.” Obviously! How can you let go of my precioussss?

The house tour involved Gollum, the lady and me, each clenching 4 feet long wooden sticks to defend us from ‘the doggies’. “I have many doggies. The stick is for your protection if the doggies get naughty.” Gollum was honest. He did have many doggies. And they were being very naughty – but, to our relief, only with each other. The doggies were being naughty on the sunshade, on the rooftop, in the garden – in the middle of the day. It’s a doggie’s life after all.

The lady felt she would have teething problems with canines. She after all did not want the doggies invading her space. We moved on.

We then saw a house owned by an army-wife who had clearly assimilated the ‘defence’ culture into everyday parlance. She punctuated every sentence, filled every conversation gap and responded to every query with the same pair of verbal artillery – ‘Great Guns’! Is it okay if we have whores and meth-addicts over for sex de addiction therapy on the second Saturday of every month? “Great Guns!” Can the lady boisterously frolic around in bed with your sixteen year old once in a while? “Great Guns!” We urban yuppies say ‘Fuck’ during orgasm. What, aunty, is your choice of words during climax? “Great Guns Son! Great Guns!”

While the army-wife had a strangely elegant demeanor, there were a tad too many guns and rifles hanging on the walls for our comfort. Not so great after all, eh.

At the end of the day we were strongly considering a reply to this ad -


Chandigarh, I loathe you.

Note to self. When a ‘To Let’ newspaper advert says ‘suitably furnished in a safe locality’, it’s to be read as hospital beds, white ceramic tile floored hall, gentle electrocution sources and alcoholic Chucky Sr. standing guard.

*@SP – This is what aptly can be classified as TMI.

What Lonely Planet won't tell you

There are two ways to travel in a new country - as a tourist or as a backpacker. If you have the luxury of time and little money you backpack. If it's the other way around you're a tourist. Also, in all probability, you're a corporate whore. But I'll leave that for later. I've backpacked a bit and as a backpacker one is predisposed to despising tourists. They're loud, with kids (always plural; there is never only one kid) in tow and are always either searching for McDonald's or posing in front of McDonald's or, if Gujarati, are complaining that there are no veggies in that country's McDonald's.

So a couple of weeks back when a friend, ATG* recommended that we 'tour' Kuala Lumpur as opposed to a trek across the Malay countryside, I had my misgivings.

(ATG*: Desi, economist, feminist, Mallu-Maoist, armchair activist, Bombayite-Singaporean. Don't be overly impressed. This is snapshot of what these pseudo-intellectuals study - pic below. JB's kid's rhymes are more profound.)

Tourist? Who, me? Was she expecting me to use taxis, hunt down desi restaurants, ogle local women, drink Budweiser and wear denim during travel? Really? Did she even know the anal ego that she was dealing with here?

Despite our ideological differences we wanted to meet up. So we talked it out and a loose framework of ground rules to mollify any potential tourism-guilt was drawn. No butter chicken or meen moilee. No shopping. No phone calls. No wake-up calls. There is no such place as a crowded place. Drink till the first one drops. If we ogle, we ogle together. One is free to not believe in the lord but one must trust the trinity - Jack, Johnnie and Jameson. Cigars are injurious to Clinton's health, not ours. The amount of alcohol in one's system does not dictate one's sexuality. Darker the night, weaker the gaydar. Use zebra crossings.

With such pious, devout and upright principles, we were not surprised when our trip went from being weekend of tourism to weekend of debauchery.

This is how you do it.

1. Hotel Booking - Do not ask for the 'City View' or the 'Lake View' or even 'Petronas Twin Tower View' bedroom. Request for the 'Bathroom View'.

2. Dining - Begin your night in a shady back-alley with the 'Soup Torpedo' - a recommended local aphrodisiac; a devilish concoction of 11 spices, beef broth and bull's penis (hence the explosive euphemism). Follow it up with a cuppa of Tongkat Ali Coffee - essentially coffee spiked with local viagra - strictly for men. What that translates to in English is 'Not recommended for women'. So if as a lady, you choose to ignore the warning from the hawker, you have only yourself to blame when you find yourself doing something extremely unladylike with transvestites (always plural; there is never only one transvestite) in a club.

3. Sightseeing - Sufficiently satiated and appropriately aroused from the meal, head to the busiest whore pickup club. Take your seat at the bar. Do not order a drink. Why? As the only Indian couple at the bar, adorably horny, significantly sloshed and incredibly stupid Indian men on the prowl would be more than happy to send across bottles of whisky your way in an attempt to impress their ladies.

Warning: In a club, never let your wily albeit drunk friend out of sight. He/She would surreptitiously pay off a prostitute to come feel you up and freak the crap out of you. True fact!

4. Off the beaten track - In a state of ecstatic inebriation, have your future told by a Malay Oracle. Do not call her fat.

Personal digression: The oracle read the tarot cards and this is what she had to say about us -

Me - Women mess me up. I only know messed up women. (Even cards can tell now!)
I will find 'true love' only in my abroad living woman friend's firang friend in the month of Jan 2011. (I have only two close female friends living abroad. The both of you, please to introduce me to these firangs. Don't you think I deserve 'true love' and all?)
An interesting fact - I drew a set of cards 5 times in total for the oracle to read. Every single time the card below came up. I wonder if it was a sign from God or perhaps the trinity?

ATG - If she gets married before thirty, she will get divorced and will not marry again. If she waits till she turns thirty, the guy she marries will most certainly be a jackass. (Whoever said that there is no such thing as Sophie's Choice.)

She will never become a successful politician/economist. At best she can aspire to become a clerk. (I laughed so hard I had tears of joy in my eyes.)

The card below was recurrent in her draws. I'm guessing, I won?

Now you may call the oracle fat and leave.

5. Rounding-off the night - Head to the shadiest transexual club in town for a ringside view of the weirdest set of 'guy-who's-a-girl vs. girl-who's-a-guy' competitive sporting events known to man; rather not-known. I shan't divulge the details of these events on the blog for fear of losing my seven existing blog-readers. The participants, however, I'm sure wouldn't mind a little publicity.

Things that Lonely Planet might tell you -

(Clockwise from top left: Guinness Stout Beer in English/Chinese/Tamil, the most ridiculous soap ad - why is that kid being raunchy?, fresh coffee beans, Ramzan street-food market, multi-ethnic love, random cafes)

*****

My aunt has always said that a really good traveler does not need a camera.
I clicked twenty-odd photographs. That makes me strictly ok.

Atom Heart Mother

I come from a pseudo family – pseudo-Punjabi, pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-classy, pseudo-Madrasi. We’re pseudo and for some unimaginable reason we’re unabashedly proud of it.

So say, for example, why do I think we’re pseudo-Punjabi?

Of the eighteen and a half in-house residents, a majority cannot speak a coherent sentence in Punjabi without emitting guttural noises that bear a strong resemblance to gagging. English and very suggestive signals are the chosen media of communication at home.

Punjabi is spoken only when abuses are being hurtled at one another. Well that’s only because - let’s admit it - the degree of sophistication and punch packed into a heart-warming ‘m@&@#c#od’ is conspicuously absent in a ‘mother-fucker’, right? As you can see, we’re a very religious, god-fearing, simple, wheatish complexion cultured family (why then, won’t you bitches read our dramatically correct classifieds ads and marry into us?)

For the six years that I’ve lived away from home I’ve missed this, the pseudo-ness – evolving, growing, and changing size and shape, like an amoeba. Every time I’m back visiting, I observe a new dimension that has been added to my family’s pseudo-persnalty. And I have never been scared by any new-found idiosyncrasy than this time upon realizing that my folks are now pseudo-conservative.

My typical weekend lunch was brought to a jaw-dropping halt when my father smirked at something he read off his phone, passed it to his wife and said, “This is hilarious. You think I should re-tweet this?”

Tweet? No no, re-tweet! Re-FUCKING-tweet!

For those who don’t know me personally - apart from my heartfelt congratulations - a fun-fact, I’m not what you twits and tweeters would call socially-networked, online or otherwise. I have an email account that I religiously check once in four days. I now know that the deposed King of Nigeria is a conniving bastard who despite all his convincing e-mails will not give me his gold in return for an online transfer of a meager $250. I am completely aware that facebook is not an online database of human mugshots. (FYI – my colleague’s dog has a facebook account and is apparently very active. I don’t blame the mutt; he has his own bloody personalized wall and all. What more could a dog want?)

The point I’m trying to make is that, I now know my folks are more active online than their own son. It’s a precarious situation. It’s the Indian Kid version of the biggest Indian Parent fear – realizing that your kid is sexually active. I now know that my parents are social-networkingly active.

They’ve lost their virginity and that too online! Two fifty year olds. Going at it. On their keyboards and keypads. In full online-view.

Have they no morals? Could they have not learnt from their own son – the significance of social-networking abstinence? And the justification they give me is – “Not our fault son. It was all the peer-to-peer pressure? We gave in.”

Who do they think I am – some naïve fucking n00b!

I’m ashamed. The unethical bastards have let my proud family name down. They’ve hacked my trust.

Come to think of it, it’s my fault only. I knew that introducing them to broadband and wi-fi would do them no good. I should’ve monitored their activities; at the very least curbed their freedom… err… bandwidth.

Twits!

Pseudo-conservative twits.

The women in my household have always been, to put it mildly, mental. The news of the presence of a ‘new woman’ in my life would always warrant an insane interrogation, the sort that would put the Spanish Inquisition to shame. Where did you meet? Is her father the only proven sodomite in the family? Does she re-use syringes for her heroin shots? On a scale of one to ten – if one is ‘a typical daughter of our household’ and ten is ‘roadside Tamilian nympho-by-day-whore-by-night slut’ – how horny is she? Is her mother a witch? Does she respect her elders? The sorts.

So I expected a modest burning at the stake when I expressed my intention of taking up an apartment with a woman. A woman - who was not a fellow man, did the dishes and did not have a penis. However, the only bloody question that came my way was – “Can she cook?”

Can she cook?

That’s it? No witch-hunt? No inquiry? No ‘we’re a god-fearing, religious family’ monologues?

Can she fucking cook? That’s it?

I was bloody offended.

Of course she can cook – that’s the only reason I’m prepared to share an apartment with her in the first place. But they didn’t know that. Why would they assume that I had no intentions to take advantage of her lack of male genitalia? Why would they assume that I would have no interest in her skills that are not culinary in nature? Why?

Pseudo-progressive bastards.

FYI – my mother, who for fifty years of her earthbound existence, was referred to as Pammi, a fairly common Punjabi name, now chooses to go by the name - Pam.

P-A-M!?!

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave you met Pam?

She’s Punjabi, progressive, pseudo and my mom. If she is Pam then I am bloody scared.

Save the tiger na baba

Save him.
Save him so that once in a while, twenty something boys get to be twenty something boys.

Excuse the trembling hand. I was not being big wuss in front of big puss. It was just a tad breezy okay. I know the tiger, tiger was burning bright and all. But believe you me, it was breezy ... err... windy okay. Very windy!

Newshance Makars Will Be Vekatad This Blog

Poster in a Bhopali cafe

Click to enlarge lest I Spit On Your Grave

AB, to your pulp-art taste I'm sure :P

I don't care that it's 47 degrees C and I have to hold an umbrella. I'm getting married today. So fuck you!

Who the hell do you think you are?

Dearest Hawtt dudie,

If you ever see this video, please know that I was very late for work because your entire family's favourite pastime is gallivanting to bhojpuri music on a National Highway in the middle of the day, in the middle of summer.

Also, while I was waiting for your highness and HMS* Equestrian Ass to pull over, I could think of but three rational reasons why you must get married in sweltering Madhya Frigging Pradesh on a Wednesday afternoon in May -

You get to sport these really sexy glares/cooling glass/goaggles while there is a horse between your legs
You can have the audacity to look like a clown who's really really so desperate to get married despite all weather-beaten odds that you're prepared too hold an umbrella over your head while there is a bloody horse between your legs
You get to lead the most gaudy and retarded entourage that decides to block traffic on NH-12 for over an hour just because you have a bloody horse between your friggin legs

Please know that I am pissed. Very Pissed.

Love,
Your biggest fan

*HMS - Haggard Motherf*****g Steed

Us and Them

I don’t like airplanes. I don’t like being disturbed when I’m asleep.

Don’t try to wake me on an airplane.

If you are a harebrained airline steward (as opposed to the fictional intelligent one, eh?) who particularly enjoys being at the receiving end of some nimble eye-gouging or clumsy rectal probing, ignore the warning.

My shoulder was nudged by a hand that ignored the warning. The hand would soon be involved in a fierce struggle to prevent involuntary colonic irrigation by a monkey with a squirt gun.

There was a voice. As I was roused, my ears were forcefully strained to tune into what seemed like a command. Over the acoustic rendition of Careless Whispers (ironic?) – the sort of airline music that would leave the world one less gay George Michael to worry about - was an emphatic command from the airline steward to pull up the window shades. I could hear myself asking why. Why must I pull up the window shades?

Windows. I like windows.

I like the windows in a suburban apartment complex.

Recently, a colleague moved into an apartment in my complex. She has spent a majority of her lifetime in South Delhi (apparently called SoDi by her and others who stemmed from a gene pool that primarily begets bigots, people who say things like mirror-mirror-on-the-wall and people who think Facebook invented ‘The Wall’. Mister Pink Floyd, I apologize).

Here’s the thing about people from South Delhi – I don’t like you.

Correction – I can’t like you.

But here’s what I do like - Irish Whiskey, cigar smoke, a 7th floor balcony view of a grid of windows lit up against the night and conversation with the condescending SoDi woman that is limited to pointing to positions on this fluid grid of lights - 5th floor, right wing, 3rd window from the edge, Aerobics Aunty; 10th floor, central wing, middle window, Chaste Chetan.

Some people talk. Some others poke.

But the both of us - we point. We peep. We peek.

People at work call us voyeurs. These, I think, are the sort of people that poke.

Once every fortnight, standing in her balcony, leaning against the parapet – we watch. We watch a microcosm of suburbia live, Live. We watch Aerobics Aunty running towards her bedroom’s left wall, on the treadmill – not moving an inch. An almost motionless motion. Four windows to her left, Protein-shake Pawar sweating it out on his treadwheel, runs to the right, runs to Aunty. Lovers unaware of their love.

Some lovers are victims of religion, some of society and some of Shakespeare. Our lovers were being kept apart by bricks, concrete and three windows.

Incognizant lovers - AA and PP, loving incognito.

Once a fortnight, we spend our evening with Scrawny Shilpa while she tries to learn Salsa (or Jazz or Kathak? Or whatever, I don’t really know! Not my fault, I can’t tell one from the other two feet away; at fifty metres they all look like conditioned epilepsy to me) or the Harridan on the 3rd Floor – the sort of woman who has perfected the art of nagging at a pitch that drives both men and dogs wild; on grounds of uncanny similarity - the sort of woman who most definitely gave birth to your ex or my ex or anyone’s ex; the sort of woman who PMSes during menopause. Here’s the definitive answer to all those Miss Worlds striving for world peace – Kill Her. Please!

Windows. I like them.

Cars - not so much. But car windows are a different ball game altogether. And speaking of car windows and games, try this one the next time you’re driving to work and are stuck in a bad traffic jam.

Peer into any vehicle that is below a car in the automotive food chain – bus, autorickshaw or a taxi. Say for example, a bus. Pick one window, perhaps the one framing the most seemingly docile passenger and preferably of the opposite sex. Look her in the eye and lock your gaze. Don’t blink. Don’t flinch. Stare.

Now that you’ve grabbed her attention contort your face into expressions that would put a Kathakali dancer to shame – lust, rage, envy, pity, resentment, hatred, awe or even epiphany. Once you’ve found the one that displaces her from her comfort zone – stick to it and hope that the jam lasts long enough to drive her to suicide but just short of her actually slitting her wrist. It’s the Moment of Mindfuck.

If you’re not alone in the car, stare together. All at once, four faces consumed by rage – stare. Stare at same pair of docile eyes. Stare till she is reduced to desperately groping for that elusive blade with her name on it. Mindfuck. Communal Mindfuck.

I like windows. Why must I pull up the window shades?

He commands me to pull up the window shades again. Why? Give me a logical reason to pull up the shades.

“Erm… hmm… Sir, so that when it’s dark, people outside can see the light inside.”

It’s summer. 10 AM. 43 degrees hot Hyderabad. It’s anything but dark. So, why must I pull them up?

“Sir, when the plane lands and if there is a terrorist on the runway, you will not be able to see him!”

Great! Why would I want to see him? I can’t see him. So he can’t see me. Right?

"Erm..."