Till When..?

That's the question which haunts my sleep and makes me gasp whenever I read yet another piece of information about yet another rape, molestation, eve teasing case in my country.

I beg your forgiveness even before I say this. Every hour three women are raped in our country. Gang raped, marital rape, minor rape.. You name it, we got it. We protest for a bit, ofcourse - none of the protests were this large scale and it just dies down. What happens after some months? Everything is forgotten, nobody cares anymore, some odd newspaper tries reviving the story for the lack of another story to cover the allotted columns and slowly but steadily it dies down, like it never happened.

Why did you wake up so late? Dear countrymen - Why? And when you have finally woken up, will you just douse the uproar when you're bored? When you have to worry more about your electricity bills than the false promises of change you made to yourself?
I'm getting half sick of all these protests. Because a part of me knows that it will just die a sudden shameful death, and yet again the ministers will clank glasses brimming with white wine and cheer each other for fooling the short sighted Indian citizens.

I'd love the protests. I'd bring food and water for everyone trying to make a change. I'd kiss your feet and worship your statues if and only if you care to continue this uproar. Promise me, fellow Indians, that this fire wont die the death of a poor man's embers but will roar on like the Amar Jawaan Jyoti,and everytime someone did something heinous, this fire will engulf and wreck the savage beast.

Would you care to do that?

The Chronicles of Straight Hair

Tears stream down my eyes whenever I narrate this incident. Tears of laughter I'd like to add. :D
I'm amazed that I have never gotten around to sharing this story on my dear blog. Ah, well. Everything has it's own time and maybe my reason for stumbling across Indiblogger's newest event was to share this hilarious story.

Yes! It's a true one. Reiterating, because I'm sure half of you wouldn't believe me, even if you tried.

Rewind. Rewind back to grade 9. Almost nine years ago. (Wow, I'm getting old..) So life back then was pretty simple for us as compared to the ninth graders now. All we cared for was completing the damned homework and going out and rolling in the mud and playing pithoo. Me and Shreya - my BFF played day in and day out and couldn't care if we had tanned seven shades darker than our original skin tone.

Enter Priya* (I am changing her name, because I do not want to be killed) Priya was the ultimate chic, sexy, make up loving teen. She was two years younger to her but far more knowledgeable in all the worldly affairs of boyfriends, make up and *drumrolls* sex. (Later I realised - all she knew was the guy "goes" into the girl and that's sex..but well, our childhood innocence made her Lolita for us.) She belonged to a royal lineage, had shifted to Delhi just few months ago and was charming every little boy's heart through her mini skirts. She lived in the same building as Shreya and I and it didn't take us long to realise that despite her crazy ways, she had a heart of gold. We quickly became the trio everyone envied. We were the Dil Chahta Hai of our little colony.

Fast Forward to grade 10. 
Shreya and I were battling the "Boards" blue and were trying to mug up everything that we could lay our eyes on, in order to excel. Our trio-thalons were becoming rare and Priya was getting upset over the lack of together-play-times. So one day, she phoned both of us and announced - "You guys NEED to come over. I have to go to a party and I need to straighten my hair." I was like.. "what do you even mean by "straighten" your hair? You aren't an actress that you have a make up man and they do all sorts of hairstyles for each party you attend!" Priya then informed us that she had read a brilliant idea somewhere and wanted to try it out. We hung up.. and in a jiffy were at her door, curiosity getting the better of us.

She ushered us into her room, where the only thing we could see was an iron all plugged in and steaming. Shreya also pointed out her crumpled clothes and boy did I get angry. I started screaming at Priya. "Is this some sort of a joke? You called us so that we could iron your clothes? Are you kidding me Priya?" She asked me to shut up and firmly shut the door of the room. I was impatiently waiting to be told what the heck was I supposed to do.
She walked in to the bathroom, dampened her hair and came out with a towel in hand. I whispered to Shreya - "Priya is losing her mind". She spread the towel on the bed, spread her hair in a Japanese hand fan fashion on it and knelt down on the floor. Her instructions started to fly around.

P: Take the iron, A. Hold it in your hand. And you, S, you hold my hair down.
A (Me): Iron what? Hold it where? What are we upto?
S: Ughh I am not putting my hands in your hair!
P: JUST DO AS I SAYYYYY.
A: Okay. Holding the iron. Now what?
S: Iron clothes, I suppose.
P: Can you girls shut up? A. Take the iron and just iron my hair like you iron your precious red tee.
A: WHAA? IRON YOUR HAIR? WHAT?
S: P, your hair will get all burnt. Where do you read such stuff? Deathwishes.com?
A: Are you sure?
P: A hundred percent. It works. I read reader's views too. Everyone said it worked.
A: Um.. as you say.

So I took the iron and plopped it on her hair and started moving it up and down. The length of her hair was not too long, and the iron covered it all. The water from her hair was steaming its way to my glasses and in a matter of 60 seconds I couldn't see anything. Shreya kept on saying something is smelling strongly of being burnt and Priya kept on reassuring us that it must be her Bengali neighbour cooking her fish curry. So after three minutes of blind ironing, protests and reassurances.. Priya ordered us to stop.

I lifted the iron to see our masterpiece. The next second Priya's hand was in her hair.. and we all started to scream. Let's just say her hair wasn't on her crown anymore.. but on the iron. All HER hair were burnt away and she had little shriveled up ends which were stinking with the smell of burnt plastic. She screamed and cried and I was just stunned and shocked. Shreya started to pacify her - I was just too frozen to even muster up an expression.
Hearing all of us scream and shout.. Her mother banged the door open and came in. It took her a minute to grasp the whole situation.. and when she did, she started laughing. She laughed and laughed and sat down on the floor because she couldn't stand anymore. Seeing her laugh, Shreya began to laugh.. and so did Priya. Seeing them all laugh, I started to roll too. We pointed, gasped for breath and recollected the story for her mother. After the crazy bout had died down, I finally asked. I asked her, "Aunty, why were you laughing? Weren't you mad at all of us?" She took me and Shreya to her room after drawing Priya a nice long bath. She told us that when she was Priya's age, she tried the same trick too and ended up with a nice chunk of hair missing for months. That is why she was laughing like a maniac. She saw herself in her crazy daughter and it just cracked her up!

Priya's mother's hairdresser finally found a way to salvage the damage and gave her a cute bob cut. The burnt edges were only noticeable to the eyes who had witnessed the horror. Priya made us take an oath never to tell a single soul about this.. and even to this day we laugh our lungs out when we recollect this story!

Priya has a hair straighter now.. She uses it everyday. As they say, old habits die hard and her passion for straight hair cannot be "dampened" by anything! :D


This post is submitted as a part of  'The Straight Hair Experiment' by Sunsilk in association with Indiblogger.in

Finally it's December

Perhaps for the first time in my life I actually saw the last month of the year approaching. Every year it used to be the same whirr of events.
Birthday - Holi - Exams - Holidays - New Academic Year - Trying to figure out what the hell did I put myself into - Diwali - More birthdays in the family - Lo and behold! December has already arrived.
I used to wonder all the time, WHAT? HOW? December already?

This year life has been different. Very very different. I don't think I have done anything commendable since March. Anything worthwhile.. or for that matter, anything. I moved to another continent and wallowing in self pity and frustration was my only agenda. Things have always happened as I expected them to, albeit in my favour or not. I knew when something would go drastically wrong or when a rainbow was around the corner. Not this year. It's like the scare of the world ending as predicted has metaphorically ended my intuition and upper hand over life's events. I used to be the one carving the path for life to follow..and now life is getting it's due revenge. The moment I feel I have found the babbling brook that will satiate my worries.. life decides that the brook needs to convert into the Niagara falls. Beautiful to only who watches from afar. Not to someone trying to be afloat in the giant, never ending pool of water.

I am almost 22. To some it will be a cause of jealousy.. That I am young and have so much time ahead of me to achieve what I fancy. To 10 year olds I will be the "older" woman. For my parents.. I will always remain their little firstborn. Me? For me.. I am just bewildered. I haven't achieved what I wanted to by the time I was 22. I am hurt, angry and need some answers from life.

Hello Life,
This isn't what we had bargained for! You said suffer, kick and fight but most of the times silently suffer till the first two decades of my life. You gave me material comforts and took away my emotional cushion. I accepted it..because we had a deal. Why are you cheating on me now? Why are you retreating? Why do you show me new lows every single day? Why have you made me a prisoner of my commitments and love? I accepted my duties, my responsibilities in return for mental peace.. Why are you being so unfair? Oh, you wouldn't answer. You're a coward yourself. Keep darting around whenever I seek you. But I must warn you, you wont get that far.

I'm on a spiraling deterioration. It's like the downward fall doesn't want to end. There isn't an ounce of optimism that I have left in me. Hell yes, it's shameful. But it's the stinking truth. I'm reducing into the coward whom I always spit on. Maybe it's life's way of taming my arrogance. My ignorance of the fact that life can be in charge..and how. People with no morale, no humanity and mostly, no brains have everything they ever hoped for. I almost feel angry at everyone who made me feel I was smart, intelligent, mature, and born to be someone successful. Something different. Because after 21 years of my life.. I realise what a scam it all was. The worst prank to be pulled on anyone. Mine lasted for 21 DAMN years. A big applause to whoever participated.. I was actually fooled.

I feel I have lived my entire life again in this past year. All my bad karma found me and bit me in every way possible. A part of me is excited to embrace December.. a part of me dreads being the witness and the victim of another year of torture. Another year of suffering in silence. The moment you think it's over.. That's the moment it starts all over again, with a new low to achieve. And, mind you.. life gets very competitive. If it wants to win, it will.  You can only sit back and let it trample you. Or be bruised trying to put up a fight.