I was watching some porn this afternoon and I realised I’m never ever going to get to experience a threesome. Since I’m getting married. It wouldn’t be hard to convince Chef into one involving another girl, but I’d probably get mad if he so much as touches her and that’s no fun. I think orgies and threesomes involve some level of either super deep emotional committment or none at all.

On a completely unrelated topic, I want to bitch about my person life, okay? Okay.

a) My aunt just called me on the phone from UPSTAIRS because she wants to know if I can book tickets for the family to go to a movie. I shit you not. There is a computer not 10 feet from where the family is vegetating at present and two young girls who definitely know how to do this. So why does it have to be ME?! Also, you still can book on the phone- which my tech unsavvy uncle and aunt can manage, no? Further more the theatre itself is about a 10 minute drive from the house. Okay 20, given the traffic. It’s amazing how lazy rich people can get.

b) Did I bitch about my aunt calling me on the phone from upstairs? I’m glad she called on the phone over YELLING down the stairs over and over again until I got the fuck up and climbed the stairs to find out what she wants. Here’s my deal: If I want something from her, I will walk up the stairs and talk to her. If she wants something from me, she ought to do the same. Most of the time, by the time I yell back and walk up the stairs, she’ll say to me shit like, “Hey, can you run downstairs and get my purse?” or her phone or some diary or a knife or a mango or something so trivial that I wonder why SHE can’t get the fuck up and go get it. WHile she can’t do these simple things, she will go for a ‘brisk walk’ in the mornings to keep her weight down. Sometimes, hilariously enough, this walk will take place IN the house. I’d like to tell her that if she ran the house and did some chores like she should, she mightn’t have to work at working out at all.
Now I’m not saying she should do the house work coz she’s a woman, wife and mother. She should because she rarely goes to work. Well I shouldnt say that. I think she goes more regularly since i started working because she comes to pick me up from work for lunch. But either way.

c) It wouldn’t kill the members of this household to pick the fuck up after themselves. The maid has to clean this fucking mansion on a daily basis, cook breakfast, lunch and dinner, do the dishes, make ALL the beds, tidy ALL the rooms on a daily basis. Twice a week she has to wash clothes and fold and put the dry clothes away. God forbid, she doesn’t fold the dry clothes they will be transferred from the pile on the kid’s bed to the chair and back again until they are all dirty and are back in the wash. Apparently, the kids are incapable of folding their own clothes. I love them to death but this pisses me off because when my aunt realises the clothes have not been folded and put away, it’s the maid who gets a yelling not the kids. I dunno. I used to get yelled at on the reg when I wouldnt fold my clothes and my mum eventually did it. Ha ha. But here, these kids are kind of learning that they do not NEED to do this stuff.  Also the maid has to be ready to iron clothes as and when required by the family.

d) Today, I walked into the kitchen and noticed that the stand which holds the onions, ginger and garlic had fallen down and was a mess. I asked what happened. The dog happened to it. SO I started picking it up and the maid was shocked, “No no leave it. I’ll do it as soon as I finish the dishes” but I did it anyway. Nobody else would have bothered. Now the maid’s not exactly a saint. She’s a bit stupid and tons annoying. She won’t finish one task completely before she moves on to another and hence my aunt is constantly yelling at her but I do feel on some level that if they stopped treating her like she was supposed to do everything in the house all the time, perhaps it might make life easier for them.

For my part, I make my own coffee in the mornings and tea in the evenings. I try to get the kids involved in some cooking event in the evening coz I can’t cook and once a week we try one of Chef’s recipes out. I make my own bed on a daily basis and have told the maid that she can pretty much put all my clothes in the washer- she doesn’t have to do it by hand. All the clothes that NEED to be hand washed I’ll do myself. I iron my own clothes and fold em too. I do NOT want to add to her work load for two reasons:
a) I do not think she’s capable of handling it.
b) I’d rather not depend on her for the shit I can do myself coz here’s how she made my bed one day after I made it. Why did she remake it? Coz according to my aunt, I didn’t do it right. The maid stripped my bed and forgot to put the sheets back on. So I come into the room at 5 and I’m greeted by a mattress and several tangled sheets on the floor. It pissed me off.

I think my aunt should cook breakfast for the kids before they go to school. I think she should make their lunches and dinners. SHe is an excellent cook anyway. I think the kids should put away their clothes and make their beds (at the very least). I think she should stop lounging around the bed getting angry with everyone and everything because shit isn’t going her way. There is a reason her husband has been cheating on her for ten years. I’m not condoning his behaviour at all. It’s just that unlike others in the family I’m not shocked at what’s happening. It’s almost in his nature to have gone that route. He always struck me as less than trustworthy. It’s not entirely her fault but it’s not entirely his either. I realise her husband’s infidelity is rendering her helpless. That’s why she needs SO much help around the house….

But … hell I can’t say a thing to her coz I’m her NIECE. You know? I’m a kid. WTF would I know about cheating men? And you know what- thank god I don’t know about being cheated on. I’m marrying a man who would never do something that immature to our relationship. So threesomes or not, I guess in the long run and bigger picture- I’ll stay with the man who got me a pink diamond and has given the best orgasms.

Chef told me he picked out diamonds for my engagement ring yesterday. Cant wait to see it. Its one pink diamond and two white ones.

yay!

Remember that Kylie Minogue song, “I should be so lucky…Lucky, lucky, lucky“?

*****WARNING: EXTREME MUSH AHEAD.*****

Fucked if I know what she was wailing about but I’m going to take it out of context and say that the song’s been looping around in my brain box all evening. In fact, contrary to the actual meaning of the song, in my head the song means that “I am oh so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky“. Here’s why. (I’m sure you care)

I went out this evening to Orchard Street to meet an old college buddy of mine Nan. Nan is two years older than me and since we lived close by to one another (In late 90s and early 21st century Bombay), we’d ride the bus home together and generally shoot the breeze. She was also my original drinking buddy and thinking buddy. Aaanyway, turns out she’s in SG and we met up for dinner and drinks. She came with her friend Roma, a lovely young lady who forgot she’d taken medication and promptly got dizzyingly drunk on two martinis. But that’s not the point at all.

We were talking about relationships and the respective men in our lives. I told them I’d be getting married to Chef soon and Roma asked me, “How do you know that he’s the right guy?” I tried in my head to word my answer as profoundly or as funnily as possible but the truth is a cliche sometimes: it just feels right. Shortly afterwards, they began discussing their respective boyfriends and Nan mentioned how she’s never sure if her boyfriend is coming home that night; if he doesn’t show, she never asks him where he’s been and when they’re together, he never tells her how beautiful/pretty/awesome she is.

At the risk of sounding petty, it kind of made me realise what an awesome man I have in Chef. I realise it’s a matter of maturity and that’s what I told Nan. Her man will come around only when he’s mature enough to. I’ve only been with Chef a year and I’ve already forgotten how younger people can mind fuck you in a relationship with their sudden distance, abrupt callousness, their commitment phobic insecurities and pretty mind games. I say ‘people’ and not ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ because I think I myself am guilty of all above reactions. In fact, on an average day I go through at least two of them with Chef and what makes our relationship so special is that he can hold the fort down if it comes to that. Knowing that makes me secure.

Chef asked me to marry him a week after he met me. Before we were dating. When I was considering a proposal from Canadian Boy whom I had spent three months crying over and getting over. When Chef told me he wanted to marry me, I laughed and told him he was too old for me. Now I realise that’s about WHY I am marrying him. In his own words, he’s “been around the block a few times“- he’s been married thrice. Twice out of ‘love’ and once to get the girl a Green Card.

It makes me wonder about why I rejected Canadian Boy and went with Chef instead. There’s a social theory (of family) that says that women probably began the institution of marriage because of their need for security. Their need to bear children (that ticking time bomb of a bio clock) and their need to feel safe/protected while they gave birth and reared their children is what gave rise to the first systems of marriage and family. Perhaps this security played some role in my selection of a life partner, no?

Last evening as my dad and I were walking home from the mall (where he bought me walking shoes and Snuff by Palhanuik) we got to talking about life in America and marriage. At some point I made a joke about how if I wanted to live in America I should probably marry Chef and suddenly we’re talking about marriage and he’s telling me that if I really want to live in America, perhaps I should look for potential grooms in America. Now, I’m not like all dead set against arranged marriage. I don’t think it’s uncool or horrible or too trad or whatever. I mean, when I was in America all those Americans would be round eyed and ready to be sympathetic when they’d ask me, “SO… do your parents like want you to have an arranged marriage?” Unfortunately for them, my parents don’t live up their ideal of the patriarchal Indian male dominated household where girls are objects for marriage. They were, however, given their dose of shock when I’d tell ‘em I do not think arranged marriages are made in hell. That’s a very popular notion. It’s easy for people (esp Urban Indians) to talk of arranged marriages in one tone: of forced marriages. I am against forced marriages but I know a lot of my friends who got married to the boy/girl their parents chose. They dated them for a while, figured out if they were compatible and then went ahead. Gone are the days, at least amidst urban educated folk, that boys and girls see their respective better halves only on the day of their marriage.

Anyway, I digress. My dad wanted me to look at boys and see if I liked and was compatible with any. I was like, no fucking way dude. I cannot for the life of me see myself married to some Tam Bram. Then my dad went off about how if I want to get married, I ought to get into a stable relationship like STAT so that I have enough time to consider compatibility and other issues. He said how it doesn’t matter if the dude’s Indian or not, or what religion he is or what he does for a living etc as long as I’m happy and he will be able to take care of me. Blah, right? The usual liberal parent crap. So I said, “Okay dad… but what about age?” And the smart man that he is, he caught on: “Do you want to marry (Chef)?” I was really nervous, let me tell you, my mouth was DRY but I said yeah and asked if that was okay.

TO my utter surprise, he’s absolutely cool with it and even said he’d talk to my mom! Ha ha. SHe already knows but yeah, she does need some convincing. This is a great relief to me. I was pretty certain my father was going to go a little ballistic and be really strained about it.

THe only problem from now on is that the closer we get to actually getting married, the colder my feet are going to get. I realise now that I am extremely committment phobic. I’m terrified of living in the same place for too long, with the same person, in the same house, same country, same job…. I told Chef that and I told him not to freak out if I freak out. I just need to be reminded that it don’t get better than him. At least I’m not thinking about that ‘one last fling before I get hitched’ because let’s face it- no one’s ever been able to satisfy me like him, so what’s the point in even looking? Besides, who could give up all that delicious food.

Warm but not friendly is how I remember this place. Warm as in weather, unfriendly as in people. But then again, the last time I was here I probably spewed out black vibes enough to scare the most well meaning folk. This time will probably be a lot different. The problem with me in new places is that I hate being a “tourist”. I’ve rarely been one lately even though I travel so much. I’ve tended to live in places rather than visit them and in that sense I feel like I’ve had a better understanding of a city/country/people than an ordinary tourist. This repulsion I have for touristy activities must be stopped because it’s really very counter productive. I mean I have no interest in going out and doing stuff (i.e. seeing Singapore) and instead I’m sitting here typing. Gah. I suck, no? Well, in my defense, I’m ultra tired this morning on a/c of not getting enough sleep, flying four hours and then not sleeping well again. All I want to do today is go down to the pool and I told my dad we could do the night safari thing tonight. He wanted to hire bikes and ride all around the beach today but my aching calves aren’t up for it. Perhaps tomorrow.

Now that I am here, I’m really unsure how to broach (or is it breach?) the topic of Chef with my Dad. Chef;s been calling me for long hours and I’m hoping my Dad kinda gets the idea, you know? But the thing is my father has lately been in his own bubble wrap of a world. I mean when he came to pick me up at the airport, he was on the phone the WHOLE time. He finally said cut the call and said hi to me when we pulled up outside the apartment! But I’ve been subtly hinting that Chef and I are really close and that I might go back to the States in about a year or so. I’m not sure what he thinks of it or perhaps the idea of me with a man SO much older is just something his brain doesn’t compute? Whatever. I’ve decided that this is not a job for me. This is a job for…. Mommy! Ha ha. Yep. I’m passing the buck.

My grandmother is here too and for ONCE in my life she hasn’t looked at me in dismay and said, “Look at you. How THIN you’ve become.” Which of course is completely fatal for me. Despite that, she has been trying to feed me all kinds of food and being immediately offended at my refusal to stuff my not-so-flat-anymore belly with more food. Gah. I blame my jelly belly on those doctors in Canada who took my appendix out. All those years of building muscle GONE in some 5 minutes of laproscopy. I hate doctors. I may as well have a baby now coz that damn thing will pretty much do the same thing.

In other news, I dropped my stupid Motorazor into a glass of ice water the night before the last and killed it. That shitty phone was asking to be murdered, if you want to know the truth. WHoever the fuck designed the software for the motorola phones should be banned. It is the slowest and most braindead phone software I have ever had the displeasure to use. So now my daddy needs to buy me a brand new phone which is very exciting for me. It was either a phone or a Nintendo DS and since I killed the motorazr – it’s gonna be a phone.

It’s kind of sad that there is only ONE person in this city that I can hang out with without feeling like my IQ is spontaneouisly committing suicide. I went to meet AK yesterday for coffee and then we went to his house. The long term plan for the night was to go clubbing and they had to wait till a decent hour to leave to seem cool. At AK’s house were all of this friends. His ridiculously immature friends and it’s not just the boys who were immature. They were all watching MTV Roadies. Don’t ask me what the show is about. I don’t get it. It has something to do with bikes and I’ve only seem two eps and I have NEVER seen anyone riding one. It’s a reality show and the last three contestants were two boys and a girl. THe girl was voted out and when she was, all the girls in AK’s house looked PISSED and the boys started taunting them and high fiving each other saying, “Dude, the boys won man. We’re the best. We’re the best!”

I was like holy wow, These fucks are 27 years old and still acting like 12 year olds. Then the girls starting fighting over how the girls WERE better on the show except that the show itself sucked and they picked all the wrong people to go into the final two blah blah. I swear to god, I was regretting my decision on taking a rain check with Lucifer and the EX. It was THAT bad.

Before AK and I got there, he kept asking me if I was sure I wanted to go clubbing with them and I was like yeah man, I do. When I got there I realised why he thought I didn’t like clubbing. It’s because I don’t like his friends and I have nothing to say to them AT ALL. In the end it comes down to that there is only one person I can hang out with and have fun and that is the DIrector. I had to call him and make him come to the club with us coz I was sure I wasn’t going to survive the night without him. He came and it made a world of difference coz I actually enjoyed myself. Where are all the fun, smart people in this city? Jeez.

Chef’s daughter Bella told him she thinks I’m never coming back. Her exact words were, “Dad, how many times did you change your mind when you were twenty five.”

In all honesty, I can see where she’s coming from. I know that it’s been his insecurity all this time as well. I can’t imagine what he must be going through. ALl said and done, in the end I AM a 25 year old girl and he is 54. As far as numbers go, it doesn’t look good. When we go out, he’s the envy of his older buddies but deep down inside, they think he’s setting himself up for failure. But he’s a smart man. Not to second guess him or anything, but I sometimes wonder if he’s holding himself back or simply isn’t as into me as it seems so he can protect himself? Am I being paranoid? Coz the thing is, if I were in his place I’d treat me strictly as a good time. I’d avoid getting too tangled up and I’d avoid taking any talk of marriage and babies too seriously.

It’s been a freaking hard one week. I’m mostly okay during the day. But sometimes in the evening, I’ll think about rolling a joint and shooting the breeze with someone and I realise there’s no one in the world I want to smoke a J with except him and there’s no one who will listen to my BS with as much humour as he does. I miss that. At night of course it’s a whole different story. Let’s just say my fingers aren’t nearly as effective and the pretence isn’t half as exciting as his physical presence.

I realise that Bella doesn’t want her father’s heart broken and I respect that. I only hope he isn’t going to be taken in by her talk and feel the need to distance himself from me. If he did think I was untrustworthy, he wouldn’t talk about sending me money, right? To my savings account. For to go to Italy next year. And he wouldn’t be applying for a fiance visa for me, right?

Charles de Gaulle wasn’t too bad. The French were actually awesome to me. As I was going through customs in Paris, the black Customs Man looks at me and smiles beautifully. He asks me for my passport, reads my name out and tells me I’m absolutely beautiful! It was nice of him to say that since I thought I looked and smelled like hell given that I’d already spent 20 odd hours travelling. Merci, Customs Man, merci!

I bought two bottles of red wine at the airport. One Bourdeaux and one Syrah. Both 2006 and the cheapest available. I gave the Syrah to my aunt and uncle here but it’s completely wasted on them. Nobody I know in India has a taste for wine. THe first thing my uncle asked me about the wine was if it was sweet. My heart sank. I popped the bottle yesterday because Dark Knight (my cousin) and his father came over. Neither of them liked it at all. His father wanted beer. My aunt wouldn’t drink it because she “doesn’t like wine.” Later that night, I drank about half the Bordeaux by myself in bed while reading ‘Hunted’.

Hunted is a childern’s fiction novel about a world where infertility is the norm. So much so that real kids are commodities that are rented, sold and bought. It’s about a little kid called Tristan (I think) and his Minder Deek. Deek rents Tristan out to people for an hour or more so they can, for a while, know what it feels like to have a child. It’s an interesting concept and the writing is engaging enough. I can’t wait to finish it tonight!

Chef and I have been talking regularly on the phone. I told my mother about him and we talked about the whole age difference thing. In the end she said as long as I’m happy, no one is going to stand in my way. That’s good to hear. She did tell me that my aunt in Bombay and my grandmother went to an astrologer earlier this year to look at my horoscope. They called my mother and told her that according to my horoscope I must only marry the man my family chooses for me because if I choose my own husband, the marriage is doomed to fail. My mum was pissed and she told my dad and my dad in turn yelled at my grandmother for being so ridiculous.

I don’t actually understand how in the HELL they would sell me to a proper Tam-Bram Iyer family. I mean I have tattoos, piercings; I smoke and drink; I’m not a virgin and I can’t cook or sing and speak very bad broken Tamil. I’m not exactly a ‘catch’. That and given my sketchy history of drug abuse, what self respecting Tamil boy would want me? I’m curious.

In other news: I will be gainfully employed from June 1. See other blog for scattered details.

I’m leaving tomorrow morning. It’s going to be a pretty grueling flight. I hate flying. Not because I’m scared but because it’s exhausting. Here’s my flight schd:

Hartford to New York, where I’m in transit for FOUR hours.

NYC to Paris and a five hour transit. I hate Paris Airport, btw. The French are incredibly snobbish. I came to the States via France and I swear every time I asked airport personnel for directions in English, they answered in very abrupt French. When I informed the smart asses that I do not, in fact, speak French, they’ve wave me in the direction I was to go with a sense of exasperation.

Finally, Paris to Bangalore- a 9 hour plane ride.

I hate flying. How come we haven’t come up with an easier method to transcend space and time physically? Whatever happened to, ‘Beam me up, Scottie’? What are all our scientists doing?

Chef and I went shopping yesterday. He wanted to buy me shoes. Now the thing is, I’ve never been keen on shoe shopping. In that respect, I wasn’t the typical girl going ga-ga over footwear. I’ve always had the basics:

A pair of running shoes that masquerade as warm shoes or shoes for rainy times.
A pair of open toes slippers OR sandals.
A pair of heels (to be worn only at weddings)

When I met Chef, I was living the three-shoe lifestyle. Less actually, because a year ago I had two pairs: running shoes and a pair of worn out open toe Zara flats. Chef was stunned, to say the least, and one of the first things he did upon my arrival here in the States was to go out and buy me FOUR pairs of shoes. In ONE day. It was great.

The Chef is a man of immaculate taste. He likes fine wines, good food and fancy clothes (on me, ie. HE walks around in torn, burned white tee shirt he wears to work-ah, but it is a Calvin Klein tee!) He has great sense of aesthetics and can pick out pretty jewellery and clothes for me. Which is a good thing because I spent a lot of time rebelling against these ‘girly’ things. I thought I was all ‘dark’ and ‘goth’ and ‘brooding’ and ‘bad ass’. When I told Chef this, he burst out laughing and opened my lingerie drawer to say, “Honey, you’re as girly as a girl can get. All you’ve got here are pink panties with flowers on them.” He’s also a very perceptive man. I’m glad he has good taste because I need help and now, under his guidance, I’m proud to say I kinda like shoe shopping.

So anyway, yesterday he told me that four pairs of shoes aren’t enough for a young girl. Three, to be exact, because I’m leaving the snow boots behind. We went and got me a pair of pretty pink open toe flats and a pair of bright green Crocs. Yes, yes, I know. The world hates Crocs but they’re so bright! Ha ha. I’m only going to wear them in the house anyway.

Now I have a grand total of seven shoes and I promised Chef I wouldn’t wear the pink shoes ALL the time and wear them out like I did the Zaras. We settled on twice a week. At all other times, the shoes being abused will be my skull and cross bones keds.

Here’s to hoping I survive the long flight home.

Mr Sage had me do a post about the 10 things I like about America. It’s over on at his blog. Go and see. It’s a personal list, so a lot of things I say about India and Indians may not be true even as generalisations. Hence the list is called: Ten Things I like about America.

Enjoy maadi. Or not.