Was School Really So Cool?

To all the 18 year olds, or soon to be 18 year olds standing at the threshold of life, your state of ambivalence is probably shared by fresh high school graduates all around the world. Daydreaming of stepping into a new exciting life sounds about just as fun as the idea of having to live a life without mom and dad cleaning up your mess sounds miserable.  But hey! We won’t begin with the cheesy old cliché- “Oh! High school comprises the best years of your life! I wish those years never ended!”

No.

Certainly, though, this phase of life will be missed. Texting during classes, doodling on notebooks, inane talks with our best friends or imitating teachers at every chance we get will surely be missed. Having said that, however, we definitely would want to grow out of this phase of our life of embarrassing fangirling, which we have already begun to will later regret (I’m seriously concerned that my obsession with Darren Criss will one day ruin my love life), correlating all of Taylor Swift songs with our life and crushes, or sleepless nights before the exam when we are desperately trying to finish our syllabus.

Yes, school is hard.

It’s not even remotely similar to High School Musical where you can break into dance numbers in the middle of the cafeteria, randomly start singing in unison or put sports and relationships ahead of school work.

This is why we do not mind a time where the “cool kids” or the nerds, both have to start afresh their own lives. Hence justice prevails!

So here we are, with our own list of why high school WON’T be missed.

1. Math Classes

“I LOVE Math!”- said no one ever.  If they did, they are probably sent by evil forces from outer space to study and destroy mankind. Because high school Math is no fun and games. Occult like symbols behind every number or studying a topic like Algebra which funnily enough has nothing to do with numbers- yes, Math is THAT annoying. And you say Math is required in everyday life? Yeah right! Because that’s what EVERYONE does in their daily life, solve ridiculous inequalities or integrate stupid numbers or find the vertical angle of a cone in a hemisphere circumscribed in a sphere inscribed in a cylinder. I would rather summon the Grim Reaper! This is why bidding farewell to school also implies bidding farewell to Math classes that I have deeply detested for so long. I’m unable to recall ONE Math class which I sat through without doodling/not paying attention/not wishing for the bell to ring/not wanting to tear the pages of my book/pull out my hair or plant a nuclear bomb in the class. So yes, I’m a Matheist, and if you’re not and you actually enjoy differentiating this 78xy^2e9+48yz_elog(xyz⁸)=4790xye^x, then I just feel sorry for you.

2. Waking Up At An Insanely Early Hour In The Morning

If your school starts at 8am and your bus reaches the bus stop at 7am, then your life is doomed. Getting up early every day for school had rendered me lifeless and frail. Because even if you’re a morning person, the fact that you have school and the first period starts with you scribbling down to finish your incomplete homework and taking tests is enough to put you to sleep the entire day. 

If there is one thing I would deeply cherish doing after school, it would be catching up on my long lost sleep.

3. Morning Announcements

*BEEP**BEEP**BEEP*

Good morning, children. Please maintain silence as I read to you the meeting timings for a bunch of clubs you don’t care about. The auditions for the Drama Society will be held in the Basketball court-cum-area-we-use-for-every-other-school-activity during recess. The last day to submit your application forms for the quiz no one is going to attend is Tuesday.

Then Mrs. Mukharji will tell you how much you’re being overcharged for the school trip this year. We would also like to inform you how badly our school’s Basketball team lost in a match last week. Now, the Sports Captain will tell you the importance of team spirit because she likes to hear herself talk. And since we’re celebrating Christmas week in our school, we’ll all sing a song about Santa and his sleigh. Thank you.

*BEEP**BEEP**BEEP*

4. Homework

I’m pretty sure homework was invented by some teachers attempting to explode their students’ minds even when they’re at home. Homework is supposed to be a reinforcement of the concepts and information that we’re taught in school and I’m actually happy to do it if it’s mentally stimulating. But sadly, most of the work given as homework involves writing down the same things written in our textbooks in another notebook in a good handwriting. The real problem begins when you spend more time doing homework after school than the time you spend -in- school. Never ending projects, crazy long assignments and finding time to study for the class tests is the reason why we end up sleeping during class.

Teachers: “Why do you look so tired?” 

Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I stayed up all night trying to finish the assignments you gave me!

Homework can not only be a waste of time, but it also takes away from the time we actually STUDY at home. And to be honest, I’d rather throw myself in an eel pond than write pages about why “management is called an inexact science”.

There are plenty of other things that I won’t miss like the obsessive checking for uniform defaulters (how does it matter if my hair clip is black or brown?!), the terrible canteen food, that girl in my class who is only capable of talking about the latest Vogue cover, and the fact that the world “love” is tossed around like a hacky-sack no matter whom you talk to, but rant’s over for now. Ciao.

Image Source: memegenerator.net

Open Letter to My Teenage Self

Honestly, I’ve been sitting here for the past half an hour with the laptop buried in my lap trying to figure out what to say to you. We’ve known each other for a while now and I feel like we’ve reached a steady plateau in our relationship where we can talk about things that you need to know. But here I am, struggling to find words that I wish to carve into your memory so that you may never forget them.

But before I begin, I have a few questions for you. How are you? How did you ever survive being 16? Did you finally manage to act your age and move onto to something bigger rather than spending days curled up in your bed trying to ransack your brain for answers and finding your voice in this world? Because I’ve had enough of the drama now. I’m getting sick of it!

I know you’re at a point in your life when you’re vulnerable. Of course, this doesn’t make up for walking into the glass door of a showroom in the mall yesterday. Neither does it justify you falling from your chair in the classroom. (No, not stumbling down the stairs like normal people, but falling from a freakin’ chair!).

But I’m not here to cruelly remind you of every time you felt embarrassed and humiliated (I’ve lost count honestly), I’m here to tell you of how you’ve become everything you vowed never to be.

Time for some tough love.

So what the hell happened, bro?

I know it all seems difficult at this stage –growing up, getting good grades so that you can at least get into a decent college, and trying to fight the urge in school to stab a few people in the nose with a ball point pen. But you know what? There are bigger things in life to look forward to.

Do you remember telling yourself to not dwell upon what others think of you? Do you remember promising yourself that you will never change who you are? What’s wrong with your ferocious mood swings like a giant oscillating pendulum? Is this some sort of a teenage bipolar disorder? And there are not just the mood swings, but also mood slides, mood see-saws and mood bloody jungle gyms.

Feeling all foolishly happy like Santa’s stoned elf and then come crashing down to ground like a heartbroken and deceived Hindi Movie heroine.  Well, SUCK IT UP!

I do not, for the love of god, understand why you’re turning into such a Devdas in life. What exact phrases and paraphrases do you want me to preach to you that would stop you from whining and brooding over how strenuous 12^th grade is for you all the time?

Today, finally being thrown out in the spotlight, I beg you to hear my voice which you most often choose to ignore. Everytime you felt broken, or just too weak to face the reality, you sent me off to the world as your savior, hoping it would make things better. In an attempt to fight the disappointments or the brutal words of other malicious beings, I was created –your dauntless alter ego, hurled into the world to slash all those who tried to hurt you. But you know what? I’m not doing that anymore! I’m tired of being the Superman to your Clark Kent.

As a teenager, yeah, you’re still immature, but I know you always try to be self aware; be responsible. And to be honest, I’m genuinely proud of you for trying. But right now, your attitude towards life is worse than a teenage boy adding obscure bands in the list of favourite musicians on his Facebook page to come across as "cool".

I know you hate putting yourself out there because you’re afraid of failing miserably and embarrassing yourself. But let me tell you something, even if you fail it wouldn’t matter; because we’re still just teenagers trying to make it in the little game.

Do you remember the time you were awfully chipper and jovial that people turned to YOU for advice? What’s with this sudden feeling of isolation like the weight of the entire universe is upon your shoulder?

You, my friend, have lost the reason that made you jaunty and happy. The constant feeling of being underrated. I know, it sucks. But brooding over it isn’t gonna help, is it? I recommend you to join a club of well, ALL teenagers! So don’t start with a pity party where the theme is how hard it is to survive as a teenager.

Now I could be evil and let the most awesome years of your life pass you by. But since I care about you so damn much, I have to stop you.

Yes, these years are amazing. Way better than worrying about growing up, earning your own money, not having to depend on Mom and Dad for it, no deadline for your bedtime, doing whatever the hell you want to…

Okay, wait, I kinda lost my drift there.

But it IS better than worrying about jobs, promotions, presentations, marriage, kids (ugh, those nasty brats!).

Don’t you get it? You don’t need to be rescued. You don’t NEED a savior.

This is the year of the future. That future we spent dreaming about every night this year. Now is the time to turn those dreams into reality. Now is the time when I can see you work hard towards the goals you set out to achieve. Now is the time when I can see you struggle to free yourself from the bars of conventionality, fighting your way out with the strongest of blows, and being your own savior. Now is the time to finally find your own voice. And now is the time when I bid you farewell because as you cross over the obstacles thrown your way, tumbling and falling, bruising yourself with every step, you become stronger –stronger than me.

So Carpe Diem, woman! Soak in every minute of awesomeness that your life is. Celebrate how you never gave up even when you wanted to (even when the reasons were dumb enough).  Be proud of not losing the sight of yourself and sticking up to your beliefs.

You may or may not be the most popular of them all that a thousand people would want to add you on Facebook, but you WILL always remain this beautiful, sappy li’l weirdo that you are. Your family and friends know it. And that is all that matters.

Don’t worry about me, though. I’ll still be here when this is all over; somewhere in the background watching you; cheering and applauding with all my might, when you have successfully conquered this battle. Or to pull you back up if you somehow manage to act like that Humpty Dumpty retard and fall over the edge again.

I’ll write to you again someday. To remind you of who you really are lest you ever forget. And to show you that you can achieve a lot more than what you’ve settled for. So, keep calm and love yourself, because despite everything, I know I do.

Image Source: knowyourmeme.com

Hey Bully, What's Up?

Lo and Behold beloved readers, for the moment you all so long and desperately waited for has arrived. Yes, we know the ordeal you must have been through. The desperate prayers, sleepless nights and furious anticipations, and finally, Acrimonious Snob has returned. But we didn’t give you a complete dry spell, did we? There was a guest post written exclusively for you, which surely doesn’t make up for our two month long hiatus, but the ordeal that we went through was pretty tormenting too.

So, what sucks about being a 12th grader apart from Boards? Pre boards. We were away studying for these exams, which ultimately proved to be futile since they went horribly, our lives were sucked out of us and we wonder how we even made it alive.

But since we did, here we are with our very first blog post after a long gap. And in case you start wondering about the nature of this post thinking that the drudgery of exams has rendered us melodramatically and extravagantly severe and solemn, well it has.

But that’s not the reason we chose to write this post. The reason is a little more personal.

So, why would the otherwise cheerful and sanguine blogger suddenly choose to write about something as serious as bullying? Because I have seen it happen. And as a high schooler, it shouldn’t be much of a shock. Except that, it was, because I never imagined a friend so close to me, whom I’ve known for around five years, could ever be a victim of it. It’s been a year, and I couldn’t admire her resilience more than I do now. Even though it’s all over now, I still remember all that she went through.

Though her enmity with a certain person begun over something quite petty, probably some argument leading to an ugly fight, she surely wouldn’t have thought it would lead her to where it did. There was name calling, UGLY name calling, flinging out abuses wherever she went, the girl and her accomplices following her and jumping at every chance to insult her.

And then, they fell really low. There was a time when my friend used to wonder that any unknown caller could be the girls trying to harass her. And then there was text bullying, which was all the worse.  Of course, being her friend and sticking up for her, I bore the brunt of it too. But she bore the most. And thanks to Facebook, cyber stalking and cyber bullying was another way to tease her‐ fake accounts and snide comments.

But despite all of it, never once did she dignify those name callings and abuses with a response. She knew it would worsen it all the more. But moreover, she knew she wasn’t that person. And if there is ONE thing she retained through it all, it was her self-respect.

I deliberated a long time coming up with a sentence that would hopefully complement the gravely sombre and widely relevant subject this is. So here is it y’all –bullying sucks.

I’ve had the misfortune of knowing many people having the personality of a breadstick that when you meet them in real life, you wouldn’t believe they are the same people that they come across on Facebook. They aren’t half as “awesome” as they claim to be. And they take on the internet to complain/whine/grumble about everything gone awry.

And while Facebook just made the life of stalkers and bullies so much more convenient, the worst part is that when something is out there on the social media, it is for the world to see. 

The controversial case of Amanda Todd that ended tragically met the wrath of thousands of irascible internet trolls. Nobody condones her actions and whatever she did to face the inevitable consequences that she had to. But the fifteen year old girl is dead now. Can’t we show a little more respect to someone who died?

Or the less controversial case of Balpreet Kaur, who chose to give a placid dignified response to the man who clicked her picture and put it up on some social networking site, mocking her for her looks. Even though her reply made me want to stand up and salute her, it also made me shudder to think that girls live in a world where a bad dressing sense and not sticking up to conventional good , "girly" looks could land their pictures up on the internet for the world to have a good laugh.

Sure, there are many empowering songs and stories of people enduring bullying and emerging out of it as strong individuals. And the victims can always try to make themselves feel better by telling themselves that they will survive it, and all their bullies “are ever gonna be is mean”. But does it really matter?

Do we really think that these bullies themselves feel empty and crushed inside, which is why they act out? That they are the actual losers in life who end up alone in a ramshackle trailer and repent all they did? Well, maybe the loser cyber bullies on the internet would. Maybe not.

But the ones in schools and colleges don’t.

For a high school kid who thrives on popularity, being alienated and left alone is the worst. It is the time -kindly excuse the cheesiness that would follow- when we are yet to figure stuff out, enjoy even the silliest of things, laugh like a hyena, fall for a fictional character or an out of reach celebrity, hope to live like F.R.I.E.N.D.S someday, daydream, have crushes, stress about how we’ll fail the exams or how we passed the deadline for homework, discover ourselves, screw things up and fix ‘em back with no worries about anything because we know that it is all we’re gonna get in a few years (or months). But certainly, it is not a time where we begin self-loathing, worrying about things we shouldn’t be worrying about.

But I have hope. So if someone does drive a person over to the edge to cause them to have this outlook towards life, then yes, you may become rich and successful, or not, but surely all you’re ever gonna be is mean.

Image source : thepunch.com.au

The Haircut Hypothesis (Guest Post)

As a 12th grader whose preboards are about to commence in a week, it has been pretty difficult to find time for my blog. And even if I somehow manage to squeeze out a little time by giving up on watching an episode of Modern Family, which has become a part of my schedule now, I just don't wish to put up something on the blog unless it's something absolutely brilliant to make up for the fact that I haven't been posting enough lately. And so I drop the idea of posting anything at all, because to be honest, I'd rather be lazy than stupid. And since I love you too much, hypothetical reader, to not put up anything at all, here's something that I managed to bully my brother into writing for this blog. :)

I try to pull a Ranbir Kapoor from Anjaana Anjaani, who stands resting his back against the wall. The office workload and the pseudo post breakup grimace on my face; I act it out perfectly while in the shower, trying to look as serious as Alok Nath with four widowed daughters. I let the water pour on my head and trickle down my cheeks to mask the tears which I wish I could act well enough to secrete naturally from my eyes. My heart does a bit of a jig inside, telling itself that its abode is a brilliant actor. I try hard to not let the scene break, and enjoy the beauty of an act like that in a hot shower on a winter morning. With some experience in theatre, one tends to push it further and overact a bit. So, I decide to tilt my head further back into the wall and then crouch down silently, gliding my spine on the bathroom tiles to my way down. That is the plan. Ah, let’s do it! And as soon as my head decides to obey my command and places the tip, the little circle that makes a whirlpool of hair on my scalp, against the wet tile, I feel a tender cold touch on my head. It’s a nice cold feeling. I begin to wonder why I never experienced it before. I wonder why I couldn’t feel it at the lower back of my head when it was touching the bathroom wall for the past few minutes. Oh wait! The scene breaks due to a brilliant realization right in the middle of a Bathroom Oscar winning performance.

I immediately move away from the edge of the bathroom, and my fingers run to the top of my head. They pat around violently, in a state of confusion, stomping the finger tips on my scalp trying to imitate Sunny Deol’s foot movements in the song where he does this pulling out a hand-pump from the ground step. (Which song was that?) I throw a towel on my head, rub it furiously and then reveal my dried hair to the mirror. I’ve had a receded hairline for quite some time now, but I don’t think one can look at the back of my head and point out that I’m balding. Y’know, how Saif’s hair has styled itself since Race hit the theatres some four years back. But my fingers suddenly feel cooler on the scalp, right on the tip of my head. I figured how I didn’t wish to try crazy hairstyles like Akshay Khanna to hide the soon to appear bald spots, so a trip to the barber was planned. “I’ll keep my hair cropped short. Short is neat. It’s neat in a suit, nasty in a leather jacket.” *chewing on a twig smirk, baby doll*

I walk into the barber shop and see the seats occupied. I really hope that the guy who I like getting my hair cut from gets free before the other two hair dressers. I always feel a little sad when put in a situation where I’m invited to a chair, but have to heartlessly deny the offer ‘cuz I don’t want to be attended to by the not so experienced barber. In my defense, whenever I’ve thought of being a nice guy and giving the youngest barber a chance to cut my hair, the session has always ended with me wanting to ask him if even his sister would ever think of dating someone whose hair has been cut like that.

I decide to wait on the couch and flip through all the pictures in the Filmfare and Stardust lying on the table in front of me before it’s time for my turn. Deciding on the speed at which one flips pages is a gamble, here. I don’t want to be done with looking at just half a magazine till I’m called for my turn; nor do I want to finish flipping through them too early. It’s just like rationing the portion of subzi on your plate to match with the morsels of rotis on your platter. (It’s a bloody middle class analogy, really. But whatever, I do it all the time.) I try to read an article in the magazine, and call it a coincidence if you may; any article that interests me is next to a full page lingerie ad. Every effing time! Now, it’s ok. I’m at a place full of men. No one’s gonna judge me even if that page is blaring into everyone’s faces right in the middle of the “saloon”. All the uncles sitting around will probably thank me for holding on to that page for that long. “Ah, it’s all chill. Read the interview anyway”, I tell myself. And then in a minute, I start to feel really awkward about the tubelight reflecting on the glossy paper with a picture of a red laced bra. “F***, is it weird that I’m still reading this?”… “Um, I think I’ll just turn the page.”… “Uh, no. I think people know I’m grown up enough to be ok with this. Let’s just read on.”… “F*** it, I’m turning the page”.

I’m soon called by the guy who normally cuts my hair, and I thank my stars for not putting me in the I’m-not-getting-a-haircut-from-you situation today. I sit on the chair and he puts the blue cloak around me. It’s not one of those fancy barber cloaks that has a velcro collar. It’s like one of those cheap polyester bed sheets that he’ll furl in the air like a matador after the haircut, and make hair rain in the room. He knots it around my neck, uses his spray gun to wet my hair and then asks how I’d want it cut. It’s funny how he asks that every time, when I’m not someone who orders for a mullet once and a mohawk the next time in the past seven years of letting him cutting my hair. So I tell him to shorten my side-burns while keeping their volume intact, knowing well enough that he’ll crop the hair around my ears really short again. “Baal chhote kar dena”, I tell him, also specifying that I want it short enough to not be combed and long enough for it to not stand like baby porcupine spines on my head.

He starts snipping, while watching either Zee Cinema or Star Cricket. I can tell from knowing him through all these years that he is a big fan of Govinda and Ajay Devgn. It kind of scares me at times, since these are the only two actors whose movies’ rights Zee Cinema can afford to buy. And then there’s a bit of a Govinda look alike in Sehwag, too. It scares me ‘cuz then he gets distracted, running his fingers through the holes on the scissors, while keeping his eyes fixed on the TV screen. My fear vanishes in less than fifteen seconds, when I start finding the dialogues interesting and try to look at the television set from the mirror in front of me. What follows is a push of his hand on my head to tilt and get the right angle, countered by the thrust of my head against his hand so that I can enjoy a few minutes of a ‘90s Govinda starrer through the corner of my eyes.

He finally stops and asks me if I think the length of the hair is fine. I just nod in silence, knowing that no matter how good or bad a job he does of cutting my hair, it’s all eventually in the hands of mother nature. He holds up a mirror at the back of my head and I see my hair thinning. It breaks my heart a little too much and I ask, “Baal kam ho gaye na?” He replies like a Haryanvi Shahrukh to Preity Zinta in Kal Ho Naa Ho, saying that it’s all gonna be fine. He gives me a nice head massage to relieve the tension off, knowing that I’ll tip him extra for that. I gladly get up after having let my head be treated like a percussion instrument, and pay him a little extra with a smile.

It’s effing gay how towards the end, this is sounding more like some deep connection I have developed with my barber over a haircut, and less about my thinning hair. But anyway, it’s a sign of growing up isn’t it? Pessimists call it ageing. But, growing up it is, and I think I’ll let my new hairstyle grow on me. (Bad, bad pun.)

- by Sarthak Ahuja (on special request)

You can check out Sarthak's blog here.

Image Source: ihfun.com

It Was Midnight

It was midnight. Lucy lay languid in her cosy bed, waiting for sand man to pour in just that extra grain of sand to make her forget the harsh truth and slumber once again. The fickle finger of fate had driven her into this traumatic phase of her life.

The past week, Derek, the love of her life was run over by a truck. On her wedding day.

Dealing with anguish of losing someone without whom she could never imagine her life had crippled her mentally. Maybe that was the reason behind those recurrent dreams…

Or maybe because her mind was too exhausted by dealing with the loss. It was harder when she revisited old memories, quietly to herself. It was not easy to bury them, and she couldn’t make them disappear. They were a part of who she was.

She watched Derek being run over by that truck, a Red Volvo. She watched his life float away, his blood spewing on her snowy nuptial attire, she watched him struggling and trying to enunciate words he wanted to say, but his eyes revealed them for him.  She watched him take his last breath before he closed his eyes forever.

It was equivalent to being pricked by a thousand needles. Only more painful. Especially because she wanted to help him. She had seen the truck and she ran after him, calling his name. But she was late. 10 seconds too late. He lay in the middle of the road and there was nothing she could do about it.

And those indelible stains of his blood –they were there. On her wedding gown.  As if to never let her forget what had happened.

But why she had those dreams remained a mystery for her. She did everything she could to run away from what had happened. She did not attend Derek’s funeral. She couldn’t. She was staying at her parents’ house for a while. But it seemed like she could never hide from the reality.

That night reaffirmed this. She was asleep, perhaps praying to her subconscious mind not to encounter any “dreams” that night, but wishes hardly ever come true…

She saw a figure, presumably that of a young girl, walking towards the altar in the vacated church where Lucy was to marry Derek. Her vision was foggy and everything around her seemed hazy. She struggled hard to scan the area around her; the figure of the little girl walking towards her in the dimly lit church. It was dark outside and inside wasn’t any better. Everything seemed to swirl around her, covered in a veil of ambiguity. Finally when the girl emerged out of the murky darkness and approached her nearer –she gazed at her, flummoxed. The girl wore a wedding gown and clasped a bunch of white jasmine flowers in her hand. She remembered how long she had deliberated before settling down to pick out the flowers for her wedding. There was something pristine about them. She felt an innate sense of tranquility by the sight of those flowers. Like nothing could ever go wrong. But everything had changed now.

The girl, about 8 years old, spoke in a gravely severe voice. “Remove the blood stains, Lucy”.

“They shouldn’t be there. Remove them, from your wedding gown. You don’t know what lies ahead. If you don’t do it within these two days, you will be faced with the consequences you’d have to put up for the rest of your life. Consequences far beyond your imagination.”

She woke up with a startle, aghast. She wanted to know what the dream signified. What was the reason behind those dreams? The next morning, she confided about everything in her mother. But she whisked it away. She told her things that annoyed Lucy.

“Lucy, you’re too caught up with whatever happened. But it can’t be undone. It is time to let go; to look ahead. Once you do that, those dreams won’t bother you anymore.”

How could her mother possibly expect her to look ahead? And more importantly, how could she brush this whole thing off like that? She saw it, that girl, clutching those flowers that SHE had picked for her wedding day.

Who was that girl? Why did she want the blood stains to be removed? Questions were weighing her already stressed mind down.

However, the following night passed peacefully. Sans any “dream”. She was surprised she finally had a peaceful slumber. Maybe her mother was right after all…

But her thoughts soon contradicted the reality when her mother rushed to her room, distraught.

Lucy’s mother had that dream. That girl, the church, the flowers –she had the exact dream which had haunted Lucy all along.

One thing was certain. Those dreams WERE real. Not a manifestation of Lucy’s imagination. It also implied that it was the only way out for Lucy was to get rid of Derek’s smeared blood on the wedding gown. And Lucy did exactly that.

Lucy was frantically washing off those smudges of blood of the person she loved the most.  It was evening, but the stubborn stains of blood had refused to die. The redness of those stains had diminished, but not gone. It took her all day but the outcome was futile. Lucy felt incapable and vulnerable. She found her hands covering the stream of tears rolling down her face. She did not want to feel this way anymore.

Lucy put the wedding dress back with no intention of trying to remove those red patches of blood.

“I’m done”, she said to herself. She couldn’t care about any sort of consequences anymore.

“There could be nothing worse than losing Derek.”

The following night, she saw her again –that girl, in the dark vacated church. She warned Lucy that it was the last day to remove those blotches of blood from her dress.

Lucy woke up with a shudder –terrified. “It was just a dream” she thought, trying to console herself. It was still dark. Cold beads of sweat ran down the sides of her face from her forehead. She looked at the luminous alarm clock in her room. It was 2:50am. She tried to get out of her bed, but was entangled in the sheets. After struggling for a little while, she carefully got out of bed and slid her feet into the downy slippers that were neatly placed beside the bed post. She dragged herself to the bathroom door, whacked it open, and switched on the light.

She had spent most of her nights curled up in a corner of that bathroom and crying herself to sleep, in the past week. But this time, she did not cry. She wiped away the sweat on her forehead with her hands and washed the smeared mascara that had cracked and settled in the little wrinkles under her eyes. She noticed the icy terror that had grabbed her heart swirl away as she unclogged the sink.

She stood there and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She stared at her eyes. Derek had always admired the way her eyes lit up whenever they spoke about their wedding; and the way her nose wrinkled when she smiled. Those almond shaped eyes which once exuded sheer joy now looked mournful.

She knew it was the last day for her to remove those dark red splodges of blood from her dress which was supposed to be as white as a freshly washed linen cloth, convinced that it was the only way she could escape the ”consequences”. But she was too tired to try. She didn’t like the feeling of being alive in this world without Derek, anyway.

She shut the bathroom light and walked back to her bed. She despised the darkness…it reminded her of the dream too much. And she was too exhausted to think about it right now. She dived under the covers and tried to go back to sleep. But more she tried, the more she found herself falling into a semi-conscious limbo where the “dream” still haunted her.

________________________

There was a sharp rap on the door. It was only 5 o’clock in the morning. “Who could it be at this unusual hour?”  Lucy thought. At first she just assumed that her exhausted mind was making her imagine things. Perhaps it was those dreams. They had seeped deep in her mind, and in her heart, blurring the line between reality and illusion. For a minute she thought she had gone stark raving daft, and ignored the rapping on the door. She pulled the covers over her head, trying to muffle that bothersome sound. But then she heard it again. And again. And this time it was followed by a door bell.

 “Okay, so one thing is clear now –I’m certainly not imagining things.”

Lucy leaped out of bed. She quietly tip toed her way to the hallway, lest she woke up her parents who were asleep in the opposite room. She hesitantly walked towards the door. There was another knock.

Lucy felt a lump welling in her throat.

“Hello?” said Lucy “Who is it?”

There was no answer. But she heard it again –the rapping on the door. She could feel the hairs on her neck stand and goose-pimples break out all over her body. The coldness of the brass handle went up her hand and into her heart. Her heart pounded, trying to free itself from her breast and escape the horrifying fright that had took over her as she pushed down the handle and let the door swing open.

Lucy’s jaw dropped. She found the little girl that had been appearing incessantly in her nightmares standing opposite to her. She held a bunch of white jasmine flowers in her right hand and the left one behind her. Lucy felt too incapacitated to speak. Her handicap of expressing what she felt at that moment made her face look blank, like the pages of an unwritten book. She knew her end was near, but the little girl seemed too innocent to be carrying a dagger in her hand. As the girl slowly moved her hand to reveal what she hid behind her back, all the beautiful memories of Derek flashed before Lucy’s eyes, making her zingy and terrified at the same time.

The girl revealed to Lucy what she was clutching in her left hand.

Lucy stared at what the little girl held in her hand, perplexed, as the little girl said -

“Aise daag, waise daag, jaise bhi daag ho, Surf Excel hai na. Ab jasmine ki khushbu mein bhi uplabdh!”

Image Source: www.visualphotos.com

If It's Good For The Goose, It's Good For The Gander!

Guys can be disgusting and gross when they burp or fart in public with blithe disregard to what others may think. Why do boys and farting go together? It’s because almost all boys enjoy acting stupid. But most of all because they can get away with doing it. They don’t seem to be embarrassed about it. No apologies, no “excuse me”. And if they can trivialize it by saying it’s a natural process and they are only humans, then the same liberty ought to be given to the womenfolk as well!

The male chauvinist misogynist who came up with the notion that woman should “hold it in” or else she would be considered “unladylike” deserves to be slaughtered. Women have to put up with enough shit already. And if guys don’t put a halt to these disgusting habits, then you better be prepared to see your girls do the same in front of you as well.

Are we really still living in a world where women are supposed to be treated as delicate flowers? Frail but beautiful objects whose femininity separates them from normal bodily function.

It is okay for men to belch, have grubby fingernails, snort and snore. This is all disgusting yet totally acceptable behavior for a man. But for a woman, it’s a taboo -Women don’t belch. Women don’t snore. Women don’t snort. And they certainly do not fart.

What women do, however, is pretend to be damsels-in-distress waiting for some He-Man to be her knight in shining armor and rescue her. Sexist? Yes. But this is the notion our ancestors passed on for generations, something nobody can shake off now. It’s too late and it’s just the way it is!

Sitting with legs wide apart or cursing comes naturally to men. But not to women. And even if it does, women have to hide it and have to act like a Barbie Doll up for display in front of the opposite gender. Imagine the misery!

And after having to put up with it, we still cannot be annoyed/irritated/angry? You got to be kidding me! We don’t want to be told “Damn, she’s PMSing!” when we’re pissed off. We earn the right to be effin’ pissed off!

Is a woman loved because of her femininity, the fact that she belongs to the fairer sex or because of who she is defined as a person?

Image source: Garnetchaney.com

Bolly, my golly!

The Hindi “movie” industry is one in which paradoxically everything else matters, except for, of course, a credible storyline of the film. This includes the right celebrities who can do everything except actually getting down to “act”, a high end production banner, exotic destinations, groovy music and the most important of them all –a ridiculous item song proclaiming how the village belle went naughty (Read: Jalebi Bai, Chikni Chameli , Munni Badnaam, et al).

So if you’re someone wanting to make a Bollywood flick, you just got to have these ingredients in place and somehow build a story around it. And the beloved audiences too don’t really care about being stimulated intellectually as long as they have a firangi heroine for an eye-candy. Oh, and if you’re still worried as to how will you ever build up a story –here comes Hollywood to your rescue! A story that is copied   inspired by some Hollywood movie; and you’ll be good to go. And despite all the copyright infringement charges, your movie is surely going to garner enough publicity to make it work at the Box Office. Yeah, plagiarism is a grim reality of Bollywood, but then again, you wouldn’t expect much from an industry who was too lazy to come up with a decent name for itself, ergo replaced the ‘H’ in Hollywood with a ‘B’.

Our Indian film industry might not care much about a good script, but they do care about a few clichés being passed on from generations. Creating a Bollywood pot boiler? You got to have these clichés in place, or you’re not doing it right.

1. Macho-Man + Demure Woman = The Ideal Couple

Despite numerous contemporary movies breaking the mould (thankfully so!), there was a time when Hindi movies just couldn’t seem to get enough of the flamboyant man jisne “maa ka doodh piya hai” who fell in love with the ever so innocent  “sanskari” girl blushing away to glory.  The male lead is the He-Man of sorts, delivering constant blows and punches on the hundreds of henchmen and inexplicably managing to win the fight. Wait. This is Bollywood. Rules of nature/Newton/gravity do NOT apply here! And the girl standing in a far away corner just shouts “nahi…bas karo…ab chodh bhi do!” while no one pays heed to her wailing. And when the girl puts ointment on our He-Man's wounds after he wins the fight, it is his turn to start wailing. After which they dance around trees, get married and have lots of babies together. After all, life is incomplete if you don’t get married, isn’t it?

2. Two flowers swaying into each other = A kiss

THIS is an industry that once refused to acknowledge any sort of physical contact between the man and woman. No kisses/foreplay/or that-three-letter-word-which-we-are-too-cultured-to-say-out-loud were allowed. Shaadi se pehle galat kaam karna equals to apne maa-baap ka moonh kala karna. That was when some smart-aleck came up with the idea of using nature to propagate whatever is happening to the audience. So when wind wafted two exotic flowers together, it usually denoted a kiss. Today those flowers are replaced by Emraan Hashmi. Honestly, we preferred the former. And to show that the husband and wife slept together on the night of their wedding, the guy just had to bring the dupatta to the girl’s head and lift her chin up with his fingers. Rest is left up to the audience’s imagination. Now go figure.

3. Shahrukh Khan

A young man from Delhi came to Mumbai to try his luck. He went on to become the “King” of Bollywood. And also a cliché. Yes, I said it. The man has become nothing less than a cheesy cliché in every Bollywood flick where he sways his arms whilst lip-syncing terribly corny songs about life, love, love lost and love finally found again. And he repeatedly does it irrespective of whether he plays a superhero or the boy next door. There was a time where it seemed that the key ingredient in every successful movie was SRK. (The horror!). What was more horrifying was that those movies actually worked. There was some sort of SRK-fanaticism floating around which might have started to decline due to the  King of Bollywood’s multiple detainments at the US Airports. We are not judging.

4. Synchronized Dancing

Many people perceive Hindi movies as larger than life, melodramatic sagas that always have happy endings amidst bursting into erratic dance routines with random people willingly standing behind the lead pair and moving every limb of their body in perfect sync.  They are right. Because everything can change EXCEPT Bollywood’s fascination with turning every intellectual movie into a joy-ride musical. In a typical Bollywood flick, you can walk around a street, railway station, a mall or even a public restroom while singing aloud about your “adhoori prem kahani” and no one cares because, well, it’s Bollywood! Singing out loud about your grief/happiness/anger  is only what’s normal. So in Bollywood, ninety per cent of an actor’s hard work and diligence constitutes of getting those dance moves correct. And if you can’t get those right, then you have absolutely no chance of getting into the league of A-list celebrities of Bollywood, my friend.

There are always, of course, other clichés like the rich heroine and the poor hero, kanoon ke lambe hath or the compulsory and inevitable happy ending. Tada! Your Bollywood potboiler is ready. Welcome to the world of Hindi cinema!

Image source: bollywoodbrowser.com