- You are getting older. Marriage doesn't come with a use-before date.
- You need sex. Get a lover. Better yet, learn to help yourself. And have some one-night stands.
- Your relatives want you to get married. No, not even if they are hinting that your parents (or grandparents) are not getting younger or healthier and you should have a wedding while they're still around to see it. If you have to, buy a huge doll and stage a fake wedding so your parents can have fun.
- You have younger siblings. Well, let them get married first. There's no law, I assure you.
- You are lonely. Make friends. You can't expect your parents to keep doing everything for you. Seriously, this is a skill you should have picked up in kindergarten. (And if you find this difficult, you definitely aren't ready to take on marriage.)
- You want to have children. (Seriously? Do you know how much work kids are? Oh well, okay.) Adopt a kid. If you need your own genes, have a kid with another single child-hungry friend and share custody. What if you do get married and then realise the two of you can't have children together?
- You have been with your partner a long time. Have you ever heard of sunk costs? It doesn't matter how much time or effort you've put into your relationship. All that matters is whether the relationship is of value to you today.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
7 Wrong Reasons for Getting Married
Saturday, June 27, 2009
On "Jane Eyre"
Friday, June 26, 2009
On "Arzee the Dwarf"
Thursday, June 25, 2009
My (Really) Short Story: Penne
Monday, June 22, 2009
A Fantasy
We will have little money, of course. We’ll sell off the house and car – and get nothing out of it after paying off the home loan. But how much money do you need to live?
We will cook spare meals. We’ll go to the beach every morning, swim in the ocean, walk on the sand. I will sit in the shade and write, while he sleeps. We will come back when the sun is high up in the heavens, and have lunch. It will be too hot to do anything by then, and of course we won’t be able to afford an AC, so we’ll sleep. We’ll get up in the early evening, before the sun sets, and race to the beach to catch the last rays on the water. We’ll frolic and get wet again. Then sit on the beach sipping tea and letting the wind dry us out, while the stars turn on one by one.
We will hold hands and look at the sea, and talk. There is always so much to talk about. There will be peace, away from the noise and the never-ending race of the city.
And I will write again, and the Guy, perhaps, will get bored and go home. By the time I finally gather up my laptop and walk home, it will have grown quiet. But I won’t be afraid, because I walk down this path every day, and everyone around here knows me.
I will go home to a dimly-lit room, and the Guy will be working on dinner. I will put my arms around him and he will push me away so that he can concentrate.
And then we’ll eat, from one plate, sitting side by side on the bed. Our food will be simple, but lovely. We’ll wash the dishes and then go to bed and make love.
I am not quite sure what the Guy will do in all this while. He will get bored of reading and lazing around. He will take up some kind of work, perhaps. He might open a vegetarian eatery – he loves cooking. He might just work for a few hours at someone else’s. He might take up a more regular job at the nearest town. I can’t quite imagine him happy in any of these roles, and I feel a bit selfish imagining him there, in my dream.
(Written a few months ago)
Saturday, June 20, 2009
In Which We Meet Chandrahas Choudhury
Friday, June 19, 2009
A Wish Fulfilled
Thursday, June 18, 2009
More Thoughts On Dowry
The Most Fucked-up Article I Have Read Recently
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
On Some Car and Bike Ads
Monday, June 15, 2009
How Feminism Unveils Romance
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Way to Stop Crime Against Women
"Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college," Meeta Jamal, principal of the Dayanand girls' college in Kanpur city told AFP. "This is the only way to stop crime against women."
To,The Principal
DG College, Kanpur
Dear Madam,
I am appalled that you are banning students from wearing jeans in college under threat of expulsion. And this, you think, is the way to stop harassment against women? By blaming women themselves for being somehow responsible for the harassment? Do you think women in salwar kameezes, in sarees, are not harassed? It is deeply disappointing to hear such statements from the principal of a women's college. I wish instead, that you would encourage your students to be confident and intelligent individuals, standing up to harassment and discrimination.
And please, place the blame for crime on criminals, not on the victims.Best regards,
Unmana
Friday, June 12, 2009
That's What We Think of Romantic Comedies!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Happiness Is Made Up of Little Things
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Adventures!
- Stayed in a crummy hotel that charged us 800 for an AC room. (No wonder we saw no other guests except people from the wedding party.) The first room we found ourselves in that the two of us women were to share, I saw a mouse peeking down at us from the top of the cupboard. While we made a speedy exit to the facing room that our male travelling companion had occupied, he tried to get the hotel staff to move it out... Getting little response, he made some effort himself, with little success. We decided to move to another, smaller room. But if there was a mouse there, it didn't make its presence felt.
- Ate the most delicious - though rich and spicy - food at the wedding. I don't usually like spicy food (to be honest, this wasn't really hot), but it was a welcome change.
- Spent two days in a small town with little to do - the heat doing a great job of discouraging us from stepping out. That is an adventure for a city slicker like me!
- Saw the bride - a sassy urban woman, reluctantly wearing a pallu over her head as had been dictated by the in-laws. Not a nice adventure, this one.
- Helped the bride make up! Yeah, me, who still can't put on lip liner straight. The bride decided at the last minute not to use a professional make up person or hair stylist, so the bunch of her female friends had a great time experimenting on her. It helped, of course, that she has marvellous glowing skin. The bride delightedly informed us the next day that the wedding photographer had praised the make up.
- The wedding was like a mela, the grounds lit up and decorated beautifully and rapidly filling with people, especially around all the food stalls. Within a few minutes though, we saw the ground covered with litter. A guest would finish their portion, and ignoring the strategically placed bins, "remove their hands from under the utensil", as a friend put it. Hardly everyone even made the effort of throwing the used utensils a little out of the way. So we found ourselves walking on a carpet of trash, and I was wishing I hadn't worn my nice sari and my best sandals.
- The wedding was on Saturday night, and our train was on Sunday evening. So a hotel employee knocked roughly on our door at eight in the morning and asked us to vacate our rooms. So we spent the rest of the day, seven of us in one hotel room, as it was too hot to go out except for breakfast and lunch.
- Our train was three hours late. We sat there in the station with nothing to do and too tired even to talk, longing to be back home.
- The train came and we had two minutes to jump on. We found our berths and also found that there was no space to place the three small bags among the three of us. We managed to arrange our luggage somehow, and asked a guy to remove his bags from one of our berths. The young man demurred, and our friend explained that we had had a difficult time already with waiting on the station for so long. The female half of the couple piped up to say they had had to wait too. I wonder how she felt that gave them the right to keep their luggage on our berth. Anyway, the man removed their luggage, we ate some biscuits for dinner and went to bed. In the morning there were two extra people in our area (as people were sharing berths) and it was altogether an uncomfortable journey. One of us had pledged at the station not to travel by train again - I merely pledged not to travel three-tier.
- We finally reached our destination nearly four hours late. I got home and promptly fell sick. I think that's enough adventures for a long time!
Friday, June 05, 2009
How Does It Feel When Your Father Dies? (II)
Part 1 here.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
How Does It Feel When Your Father Dies? (I)
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
The Mad House
Who is a little mad,
But there's just one Mad Momma
And just one OA-dad.
There is a noisy little Brat
Who'll charm you out of your wits;
A Bean who now talks oh so pat:
They love each other to bits.
The MM is blogging a rant,
The OA watching the new TV,
The Bean is chasing an ant,
And the Brat runs around all the three.
That's the Mad House and those that in it dwell:
How do I know? That I never shall tell!