Saturday, August 23, 2008

Where I wonder why I'm not punjabee

Whenever I see Hindi movies these days, this is the one thought that strikes me - Why am I not punjabee?? Clearly it seems to be the most fun ethnic group around. I see them on screen and wonder why my life isn't like theirs. Why there aren't as many weddings in my family as there seems to be in an average punjabee family. Hell they even have humongous families. What is that punjabees do? multiply like rabbits?? and how, I wonder, do these humongous families manage to sing and dance in perfect synchrony and celebrate the business of holy matrimony? It almost seems like they've all been trained in this matter. I see punjabee weddings and wish that weddings were an olympic sport. I look at them and sigh deeply that I will never see my sombre south Indian family going "shava shava" and I really want "shava shava" although I think its in everybody's interest that south indians not do "shava shava"

Another thing about punjabees is the well endowed-ness. The whole carefree- stress free-I'm-Karan Alhuwalia-I-don't-have-to-work thing. how is it that they never have to work? how is it that they never have worry about appraisals and review? why is it that they have rich daddies? These punjabee daddies are a confusing lot if you ask me. They send their daughters on europe trips (favourite haunt being switzerland) and allow them to spend obscene amounts of money and then act all funny and conservative and start arranging marriages. What sort of twisted logic is that?? although to be fair, most of these punjabee daddies are closet softies and will certainly do the trade mark about turn and agree to the daughter marrying her chosen punjabee, sweet talking, good dancer type, chikna lover.

So I'm thinking, why not me. I want daddy to send me on europe trip too and have a romance on eurail and miss my train and fall in love. I want to have the certainty of knowing that just because I'm punjabee, I'm guaranteed a saccharine life. I want to psuedo rebel against my parents and then sing and dance and make up with them. I want nephews who are called bunty and chintoo and who have little beanies on their head. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I'm guaranteed a life time time supply of butter chicken and sarson ka saag. I want to be assured of having the confidence to break into a ditty number in the middle mall and have everybody around me dance and telepathically know the song too. I want to know that I can shop at Christian Dior's outlet in St.Troprez because being punjabee means never having to worry about that little thing called money.

So clearly, as I have outlined, being punjabee is the ticket to good life and if any punjabee family, preferabbly one owning manufacturing facilities in Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur, wants to adopt, please pick MEEE!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

To summarize, I need a stiff drink

Well the last couple of weekends were fine. It was spent in lovely drunken+ amazing conversation haze, so much so that I don't remember the exact details but just remember feeling nice and dopey. Oh also managed to see the latest Rajnikanth Starrer - Kuselan, which I definitely want to forget. VERY BADLY. So much so that, I hear its going to be the weapon of choice to torture people. Now, now don't get me wrong. I'm HUUUUUUUGE Rajni saar fan. I am. and Infact, I'll even say, "ALL HAIL RAJNIKANTH" (Ok that will attract a huge bunch of fervent I'll-worship-the-very-screen-he-appears-on rajni fans to my blog and if I am not kind in my words, they'll vandalize this blog and I'll lose all hope of that book deal but that's just the risk I must take, so bear with me y'all) but that doesn't take way the fact that I lost 3 hours of my life when I could have shopped!!

Why did I go you ask? Go?? I was bloody dragged there by two wily tam fans who said Dark Knight first and then at the ticket counter said "Kuselan". I believe there even was an impromptu jig by one of them tams but I was too shocked to notice these things (or I was slightly tipsy, was alternating between these 2 extremes, you see). The two tams also happened to be RV College seniors, so much nostalgia happened. Infact, you won't believe this, but at the Kuselan screening we even bumped to a classmate of mine at RV and he had even booked his tickets through the internet. The other 2 tams agreed that THAT was desperate but this dude was like a die hard fan so we respect that. We invited him to sit with us and so there we were, 4 RV college alumni, in poona watching a tamil movie. That is just soooo wrong. Which is why I desperately need women friends in this city

RVites are one of the smartest people I know and so the conversations are usually pretty sharp. We talk about world politics, about the olympics, about the darfur crisis, but when alumni gather, there is only one thing to talk about - RV. Where our current classmates are, what they are doing, basically a lottttt of "THAT bastard got into THAT B-school???" stuff. Then there also is talk about who all got married and that just depresses me. I dunno but just thinking of all those fellow 25 year olds running to the altar, gettin hitched and spoiling it for the rest of us (who have to defend our single existence for no reason) is maddening. I mean what's the tearing hurry??

Th other day, I bought a saree for mom which she outrightly rejected. I told ma that it was fine and that I'd use it to wear to the weddings of all my friends. Her face widened and I knew what was coming and I wanted to hit myself for being stoopid. "All your friends are getting married?? Really?? Shouldn't you too?" Why is marriage a necessary stamp of approval? isn't it about a personal choice to be with the person you love? and if that is so then why is it happening around a particular age? statistically speaking (and I can't believe I'm saying this!!) but this should be a fairly random distribution. I don't have anything against my fellow twenty-somethings getting married but it sure is fucking up things for the rest of us. I mean, I'm asked at work, when I plan to get married!! The other day, I was telling someone that I was goin to bangalore for a week and her immediate reaction was to ask if I was getting engaged!! Jeeeesus!!

I hate this slotting. I hate society sometimes for its oppressive and archaic thinking. So when ma was pleading with me to get married, I told her about this theory called the "Odyssey Years" and I BELIEVE in this theory. It appeared in the Op-ED of the New York times last year and it was written by David Brooks, in which he proposed that twenty somethings these days were going through an "Odyssey" phase where instead of following the traditional path of graduate-find job-marry, they were following a path of self-actualization. Where individual achievement takes precendence over starting a family as the big goal. Read the article here

I told mom about this. Spoke quite passionately about my Odyssey phase. She listened to me patiently and then she said, "What do Americans know huh?"