Letters to a Soup (II)

Dear Tom Yum Soup,

As manly as you sound, your taste makes me rethink your gender. Such readily displayed passion can only be a woman's forte and I will refer to you as woman. I hope you don't mind.
My conversation with your pal, Chicken Clear was clearly, a reflective one and has made me contemplate on the benefits of having a soup as your best friend. I have to say that there are more disadvantages than I would like to believe but I know how passionate, sensitive and hormonal you are so I would exclude it from this conversation. Let's just say that our relationship works because of the one-time-good-conversation-never-to-be-seen-again phenomenon. All your herbs are making me cranky already; your womanly demeanor passing into me like the monthly cycles of girls who share a room together, dirty linen included.
You know how in movies when a woman begins to narrate her saga of love life, she pauses for a bit and stares long at the camera, well I would do that too, except I am afraid to lose track of time lest you become cold and inconsistent, just like a man. I fear that your attention will not last further than a few minutes into the conversation regarding hair, more so because you don't have any, (nor the concept of hair in your breed.) so I will keep it short. Consider yourself lucky and my tirade as a folklore that you were lucky to hear before your ultimate death. Time and again, I have been asked to explain the very attention-seeking act of chopping off my locks for no supposed reason and I have always answered two separate things to two separate kinds of people. To the sensitive lads, I told them it was a very practical decision to cut off all the hair to beat the summer heat. To the practical ones, I told them it was an impulsive decision of performing a dare (and winning). Both are true to an extent that I am convinced it was a result of the two. But as psychology has proven time and again, there was an underlying layer of sentiment to it, one that involved a certain someone.

Maybe it is different in your culture and mating habits, but amongst us privileged to be deemed humans,we  have always been a victim to the Laws of Attraction. Without elaborating further, the point of the short hair was to beat the fundamental law of attraction and saving yourself from severe pain later in the relationship. In other words, look bad, attract none, get attracted by none, stay passive. I don't know if it really worked because it is as easy as handing me a bowl of soup for me to spam you with my hormonal decisions.
As I sip you lightly, my stomach reeks of a warmth that may as well be described as heartburn.
The spices that stick to my throat tingle and burn.
But just like every other woman, I sip some cold water and wash it away. You know Soup, sometimes I feel that the womankind have lost their passion, their hormones to the fear and insecurity of the men they once loved. Their sorrows have taken the form of stalagmites and feminism is their child born out of wedlock.
Just like you Soup, women have turned bitter, cold and inconsistent, with flailing attention.

With all this extra Vinegar, you taste as strong as Vodka and are just as well making me reveal secrets.
Is it any comfort then, that as I drink you, my tongue is exhausted by the flavour already and yet, there is a moment of reconciliation when I feel I am drinking my own tears from the past?
You are a true lady, Tom Yum Soup.

Yours,
Me.

Letters to a Soup.

Dear Chicken Clear soup,

I bet you are looking at me right now and wondering why I am fiddling with the earrings. If you really had a voice, you'd ask me to sit straight and drink you up. But really, I want to keep you in your bowl a little longer as a witness to the non-existent conversation on this table. By the way, my blurry, slightly sepia toned reflection actually looks quite nice and I wish some of my photographer friends were here to notice it, take a picture and I'd put it up as my profile picture. I haven't had a good one in a while. But my photographer friends are all away and they hardly ever carry the camera when I am around. Is it weird that these days I look at random occasions and think of profile pictures? The other day, KBC was going on and they played a video of Amitabh Bacchan shaking hands with a random man and I said, with my hands in the director's pose and all, "Hmm. He should take this still and make it his profile picture. 73 likes for sure." Everyone laughed, but I was pretty damn serious. And then in Bombay I keep seeing these artistic hippies with jholas sitting on the sidewalk and I wish I was their friend so I could click a photo of them and then they'd put it up as their profile picture and give me credits.
But all this is too dramatic to be true, soup. See all this chaos that surrounds my table? The conversation is mind-numbing and the laughs too shrill. Small children dressed in miniature dresses are running everywhere. They remind me of protons because of their energy. If I were an old man sitting here, I would get high just looking at those kids.
You are quite delicious. Hm. Its a pity you can't drink it yourself. I don't mean to lead you on, though. I haven't done that in a long, long , long time. Is it weird that at the peak of my youth, I neither long for nor distance myself from a mature relationship? Hah. The last time I felt like a messed up, in-love teenager seems like a long time ago. So ancient and unkempt that texting furiously while smiling seems like an act from History. My hair is shorter too now, see. Some think it is for a dare and some think it was a random decision. I don't know, Soup, I cannot explain my hair to anyone. Nor my theory for cutting it so short.

The bowl you are currently in, makes you look like some sort of a pensieve. Especially after adding the sauce. Maybe we can be friends in an alternate universe where I don't have to drink you and serve as my reflection.  
I look at you and just find a small boy wearing earring looking back into all things that don't really matter, including this conversation.
You could do with some vinegar honey.

Yours,
Me.

"Akka ek half chai ka kitna?"

"Didi five rupees only."

As I scrounge my pocket for the only five rupee coin I have, I watch them walking towards the kadai.*
I wouldn't call them my closest friends, let alone best buddies.
They're two people in my friend zone who come with no emotional entanglement, no long facebook chat messages, no erratic phone calls at 12 in the night post depression.
They probably wont stay after the completion of the four years in college and even if they do, our pragmatic relationship will not be touched.

We sit down on the pavement together, all three of us looking at the noisy girls smoking across the road.
The crowd is chaotic as though they were on their way to a U2 concert and got lost midway.
I find it almost funny that the three of us sit there in silence amidst them and let out a giggle.
Lost in their thought, the other two don't notice and I don't mention. I let my mind wander off to search for topics to write my research essay on.



Fifteen minutes pass and the crowd seems to have dissipated to a tiny number.
Suddenly, all of us look at each other and realize the same thing.
"Wow, we forgot to speak at all today."
"Yeah let's go back to class. I was thinking I'll do my research essay on Bose. I can't find anything on that alien topic."



I don't remember the rest of the day as distinctly but that day I decided that these two came a step closer in the friend zone and had graduated from being just beer buddies to maybe, better beer buddies.

Theory #58: How to tell the exact moment someone graduates in your friend zone from being a mere buddy to a mere buddy +1. (Constants g=9.8 m/s^2)
The day awkward silences stop being awkward.




P.S: Meet Sheep. He's here to stay and stay happy at that.

*Kadai: Tiny roadside cart shop that sells chai and bun omlettes for students dealing with bankruptcy.

Wow. *wipes tear*

Wow.

*Sigh*
*voice cracks*

This. This award means so much to me. Really. The last time I won anything, it was a consolation prize for a drawing competition in my building. And I was 13, did I mention that?

*insert fake raucous laughter*

Infact, I am quite used to not winning now. I have had my share of participation certificates though. So I'd like to say a very heartfelt Thankyou to Meher from Translucid Graffiti for this virtual proof of my awesome-ness.

Jokes apart, thanks man!
I mean the part about all the competitions, despite the fake melodrama surrounding it.
And congratulations on completing a 100 posts!
*insert fake raucous laughter*
*Show clipping of a standing ovation stolen from The Ellen DeGeneres Show.*

You have made me and Sheep very happy. We are currently floating with so much happy buzz.
 Colourful balloons et all. 

Unchartered waters.

In economics, you are taught a certain phenomenon that occurs called the 'Cycle of Poverty'.

They teach you that every factor leads to another and continues, reinforcing the next step.

A very spirit crushing chapter of life, I must say.

I've never been poor and my family is far from tugging at the Poverty line. 

Today I came across, what modern economists may refer to as, the Cycle of middle class.

There is a fine line of compromise that we must not cross so as to remain within this cycle.

The Cycle of Indian Middle Class is the blackhole sucking the money out of people's pockets and injecting it directly into the economy. Credit creation increases, oh yes and the rich just get richer. Meanwhile, the middle class remain the middle class, despite investing in a loan.

The very fact remains that no one really makes it out of this circle unless exempted from tax for a few years or handed a suitcase full of cash, two things most unlikely to happen in a country like ours.

Any man who begins with a moderate salary, goes only uptil a certain increase in his real income. As he grows older, he wishes to settle down, buy a car, a house. Which is why he takes up loans, compromises on his monthly expenditure so as to pay off all his EMIs. And yet, after spending all that money what he gets is a small house, small garage, bad bathroom fittings and no security.

He remains a small man, only this time, he has a small house.

As the years pass, his children need more space and before all loans are cleared off, the time arrives for another big investment. 

He pools in all the family money for maybe just an increase in the number of rooms; buy an apartment from a trusted builder. The cycle of EMIs begin again.

This time, he becomes a small man with a small house but many bedrooms.

Meanwhile prices rise and so do the needs of the family. The public sector companies, haraamis that they are maintain the same salary. 

The new Government refuses to pool in the money they had promised to these public sector companies and uses them instead, for the upcoming elections.

The middle class remains in it's cycle, compromising every single fucking day just to feed the Government, the upper classes and the real estate tycoons of this country.

These are the people who unfortunately, fall under the highest tax brackets which minimizes their real income to a trivial number. The government that claims to work for the 'common man' has infact never worked for it's benefit. Every day, new strategies are developed to mobilize the rural population of the country, and none for this so called middle class.

The media too is paid by the government.

It is pure economic exploitation.

This cycle is as vicious  the cycle of poverty, for there is no way out of it.

Any man who starts middle class, remains middle class and dies middle class. And to all those fools who have been brainwashed by articles written by writers such as Pawan Verma, talking about how the middle class has developed a 'consumerist streak', you are invited to my Middle Class household anytime of the year and see for yourself how mistaken you have been.

It is the first time in months that I feel utterly hopeless for my family and this country.

As an Indian, I feel ashamed.

Tension hai yaar.

These days what keeps me awake at night are nightmares about the future.
I know, I gave up on ambition too easily a few months ago but I guess all this worrying about getting a job has been brought back by numerous facebook feeds telling me how everyone except me is busy doing something substantial, like an internship, jobs or even vacation courses.

I just sit around drawing and drinking cold coffee. Meet Jo once in a while. Talk to her about how we might end up like those Bollywood twins who were separated at birth, one of whom becomes a crook and the other a police officer. Likewise she may become the most sought after graphic designer in the country while I continue to draw portraits of people sitting on the footsteps of Dadar railway station, making hardly enough to buy stationary from Gangar stores.
Why do so many people exist in this world?
Why must we reproduce and create more people so that there is a pool of talent created leading to an invisible hierarchy in society along with competition so much that 'Survival of the fittest' has been universally acclaimed to be the determining law of evolution?

WHY DARWIN WHY OH WHY MUST THE FITTEST AND THE STRONGEST AND THE TALLEST SURVIVE?

"Babuji?"

*father turns head slightly*
*Nods*
*looks up at poster of Santoshi Maa*

"Kya lene aaye ho ab?"

"Babuji."
*voice breaks*
"Main...main aa gaya hu. Permanently."

*Focus on feet*
*View of dried leaves rustling outside*
*Slightly overbearing Cyan tones*

"Iss khandaan me tumhaare liye jagah nahi hai! Jab tumhaari maa sadme me chali gayi thi, tab tum kaha the?"

*Son looks on with shock*
*folds his hands*
*One tear rolls down*

"But.. Babuji..Amrika se VISA nahi mil rahi thi Babuji. "
*gulps*

"SHADAAAAAAP"
*LOUD DRUM ROLL*
*Son looks fearful*

*Father looks at poster*
*Keeps nodding*

"Meri hi galti hai. Pichle janam me maine hi kuch paap kiya hoga ki, Thakurji ne mujhe tumhaare jaisa nalayak beta diya. Saare maryaadayo ko bhoolke, saare bandhano ko bhoolke tum chale gaye Pardes! HOW D-A-R-E (*spits*) YOU!"

*Insert red fire inside eyes using Adobe AfterEffects*
*Dried leaves rustle more*
*Sound of wind blowing fills up awkward silence*

*Son takes a step back, hands still folded*
*Turns his back to walk off*
*Realisation-waale-eyes*
*Turns around again*


"Babuji. Main samajh sakta hoon ki aapka pyaar aur lad paane ke liye mere pass kuch nahi hai.
Magar EK baat yaad rakhiye, MERE paison ke bina
apki Pillbury waali roti *drums*,
aapke Gucci suits *drums*
aur aapka Beach house *drums*

kuch..nahi...rahega."

*Religious music*
*Dhoom tanananana dhoom tanannana dhoom tananannana*
*Angled shots of baffled father*
*Insert few shots of Santoshi Ma grinning in the middle*


*Son gives out slight laugh*
*Tears glint in his eyes*


"Aur Babuji, aapke Jacuzzi ke bill ke baare me toh socha hi nahi. Tch Tch Tch."

*Dhoom Tanana merging with evil laughter*
*Fades*
*Screen goes blank*

*meager voice*
"Beta?"



Dil Pe Chot Lagi Hai Yaara aka DPCLHY.
Coming soon.

PS: My ex-Hindi teacher decided to drop in for some chaai. I guess this is just an after-effect.

Happy photos to follow.

Sometimes I write sad posts and upon reading them the next day, realize how immature they sound and delete them hoping no one important has read them already.
I want to keep this section happy.

Sethupo to you too.

Depressing title but hey, only in South India.

In recent news, I have been feeling very happy and useless. To compensate for my lack of sleep this semester, I have been waking up mid-afternoon, mouth-open-with-a-pool-of-saliva-on-the-pillow for the past few days.

Also the Bombay weather with it's humidity and dirt makes my hair stand despite shampooing it every two days.

Which means I can make a Mohawk anytime I want, now.

I met Jo yesterday and we sat on bean bags discussing certain art school specimens. And then, because we hadn't planned anything we decided to surprise Ray (two days before her math exam) and distract her from studies. We did well.

AND THEN WE WENT TO JUHU BEACH WHICH IS SO CLEAN NOW OMG. AND WE SAT ON THE WHITE SAND AND KEPT OUR LEGS ON THE BROWN SAND AND WE BURIED A CHILLY AND WE EVEN SAW FACES IN THE CLOUDS AND WATCHED THE SUNSET WHICH WAS SLIGHTLY WEIRD BECAUSE THE SUN LOOKED SO MUCH BIGGER YESTERDAY.

And IF TED WAS OUR FRIEND HE WOULD SAY "KIDS, LIFE TEACHES YOU MANY LESSONS. BUT IF AUNT JO HAD TO TEACH YOU THAT IN ONE LINE, SHE WOULD SAY THAT THE SUN LOOKS BIGGER ON THE DAYS YOU ARE HAPPY. SETHUPO.

And that's all folks.

I need to travel.

To sit in a bus with broken, rusted seats next to the window.
To feel a tad bit un-easy with all the women rubbing their massive handbags against my ears, unintentionally.




But for now, sitting at home in front of the AC in the humid Bombay heat, I'm doing just fine.