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

Open Letter To My Best Friend

Dear best friend,

Just a few more minutes, and it’ll be midnight. You’ll wake up to the day which marks your 17^th year in this world. I’m glad I’ll be able to celebrate it with you this time.

And since I missed out on two of your previous birthdays, I think I might just make you add 2 extra candles to your cake this year.

It’s not very often a 16 year old can claim to have had a best friend for more than 10 years. So thank you, birthday girl, for being my best friend. Thank you for being that one person I can truly trust in this world full of cynicism.

So much had changed when you left. Losing a best friend was something I wasn’t ready for. And when you tragically moved to another city, it made me sad. The kind of sad that makes you wonder if you were ever really sad before –the saddest kind of sad there is. But you never let us get split by lame facts like distance or time. Thank you for always being closest to me even when we were in completely different parts of the country or separate stages of life. Thank you for never giving up on our friendship.

Scooting people as close as you aside seemed like a natural thing to do sometimes— after all, you’ll ALWAYS be there for me. But you never got mad when I didn’t call you for weeks or reply to your message just because I was too busy being someone else’s friend. Thank you for forgiving me for my stupidest stunts and my selfishness; for wearing through my best attempts to drive you away, and refusing to leave my side despite my flaws, weaknesses and failures. And thank you for keeping all the promises that you made.

You taught me what it is to be loyal, and what it is like to share an exclusive friendship with one person. You taught me the beauty of having a friend who feels like family. And even though my life without you would’ve been like a pile of abandoned puppies, I know that I don’t need to talk to you every day; because that would be like checking in with your sibling every 24 hours which would only lead to silly arguments and unsolicited fights.

I know that it’ll probably be really hard to find a more battered, broken, screwed-up person than me in this world, and that I’m not really deserving of the love that I am so freely offered. And a few crazy souls like you, for some strange reason, go on offering it anyway. But their love is often so unglamorous and indispensable to my life that it is almost invisible, and the fact that I don’t thank them more for it is a crime.

So, thank you for taking care of me in every way possible. Thank you for standing by me through thick and thin. For being there when no one else was or wanted to be and when even –you- didn’t have to be. Thank you for always being there to listen when I have something important, or annoyingly inane to say.

Thank you for always being fun to hang with. You made me realize how we don’t need to have common interests in music or movies to get along. I know I can do the most mind-numbingly boring tasks with you, and they won’t suck. You taught me how the amount of fun you have during class is directly proportional to the number of crazy caricatures of your teacher you can make; and that I can –live- on your mummy-ke-haath-ke-samose for the rest of my life, or I could just keep eating them and never stop. Thank you for being that one person whose existence makes me feel less lonely in this psycho, crazy world. And with whom the silences are never awkward.

You know exactly how incredibly immature I can act sometimes. Thank you for not judging me when I did something really stupid, but also thanks for telling me I was an idiot and probably shouldn’t have done it in the first place. Thank you for believing in me when I was too weak and exhausted to believe in myself. Thank you for being there to pick up the pieces when yet another person had let me down. Thank you for being a friend without motivation or desire to back-stab. And thank you for making sure that I’m never really alone, even when I feel like I am.

I want us to be friends when I graduate from college. I want us to be friends when I have my first serious relationship. I want us to be friends when I get my first job. I want us to be friends when I’m married and have kids or pets or a silly potted plant that I get way too attached to. I want us to be friends when I’m going through menopause. I want us to be friends when I’m old enough to have grand children. And I want us to be friends even when I’m sitting on a wheelchair and have no teeth.

So here’s to you, birthday girl. Here’s to you and our friendship.

P.S. Happy Birthday.

Image Source: www.someecards.com

Baal Baal Dekho

I hated my hair as a kid. My parents would take me to the barber’s shop every six months for a haircut. I’d hate that place. Because every time I went there, my 10 inches long hair would be trimmed down to 3 inches. I had a boy-cut till I was 7 years old and a really short bob for the next 3 years. I’d always wish I had longer hair which could at least be plaited down into cute braids. You see, there’s a certain amount of vanity in long tresses.

By the time I got into the 6^th grade, I had shoulder length hair and I had decided upon growing it even longer. This was the time when the ritualized trips to the barber had come to an end and my mother finally decided to give me the freedom to style my hair whichever way I wanted. I grew my hair for the next couple of years. I finally had hair long enough to be tied into braids. But this was when I realized how unmanageable long hair can get.

Life without hair must be a lot easier to take. People who lose their hair and/or choose to shave their heads would know this.

A man can freely do so without giving it a second thought, but if a girl decides to take this step, she will become the talk of the town. Her bald head will soon become controversial. After all, a woman can’t go against what the society expects her to be –a fragile object of beauty? It just wouldn’t make sense in this society who has taught women to be Cosmo girls who wear high heels, have a beautiful figure, pursed lips, small hips and long and pretty hair. And even though it’s just hair, it says something about the vanity of our culture, doesn’t it? Despite how far we’ve come, beauty and sexuality remain tied to a woman’s hair.   

Why does a girl suddenly become unattractive if she has no hair on her head? Is our identity really a haircut away from being taken? What is this global fetish with hair?

Women have always conformed to the norms of the society. If we don’t toe the line of femininity or behave in a way which is even slightly different from the way society expects us to behave, we’re labeled as freaks. Outcasts. 

Sure, not every girl will look like Demi Moore from GI Jane or Natalie Portman from V for Vandetta, and some might even look crazier than the bald Britney Spears, but what people fail to realize is that nobody’s identity is molded by their hair, but rather by the content of their character; their morals, their values, their thoughts and their dreams.

And if a woman DOES decide to do this, she will surely be looked down upon. Some people might even stare at her, mock her, think she is stoned or start speculating about her sexuality. After all, long tresses have always looked desirable on women. It is the symbol of beauty  and if they are chopped off, people would say a woman has lost her sheen, even her femininity.

Come to think of it, shaving off the hair must be liberating. It’s low maintenance too. Going bald would also be more environment-friendly in saving water and the time that people spend in the shower washing and styling their hair. They wouldn’t have to worry about spending money on haircuts or on all those hair products people use to make their hair look lustrous and less stringy.

I’ve always wanted to try this too. But it’s difficult –throwing away something sure about yourself, a quintessential part of your identity. And it takes a strong person to break out from the normal and be different.
So, I guess I still try to hide behind the wall of my own hair because when I look at myself, that is one of the few beautiful things that I see  –and I know I have a lot to work on when it comes to my self esteem. I want to know what it feels like to not worry about my appearance. I want to know what it feels like to look a certain way that will ensure that no sane guy would ever hit on me and still be okay with it. I want to know what it feels like to be appreciated as who I’ve put in the time and effort to really become, and not just the body I was born in.

There will always be people who’ll tease me or deride me, but I guess I’ll also be able to find out who my real friends are; people who’ll be willing to look past my face and love the person inside.

I refuse to tell myself that I won’t value the same because I look a certain way. I know my hairstyle doesn’t define who I am. Plus, it’s just hair –It grows back! But I also realize that life would not be the same for me once I decide to do something so extreme. Maybe someday I’ll be able to muster all my courage and actually do it.

I wish I lived in a world where people are not so concerned with superficial ideas. At the end of the day, I don’t want people to remember me by the way I look or dress or carry my hair, but by the person I am.

Image Source: www.liesyoungwomenbelieve.com

Teen Nation Desperation

If you know a teenager, you would know one prominent and very likely, an annoying habit that is embedded in them – they are obsessive. Dangerously obsessive. You will find them hooked to a particular kind of music, movie, celebrity and they will be addicted to it till eternity. That will be all they would choose to talk about, irrespective of whether you’re interested to hear them out or not. And we’ve all been there, done that. However, thanks to today’s digital era, these obsessions spread like the plague. And teenagers being the young, impressionable creatures that they are, allow themselves to be obsessed and are preyed on by producers trying to sell some ridiculous idea that they are otherwise unsure of. Screw the injustice!

We have the misfortune of having a few such friends who are obsessed to the point of driving everyone around them up against the wall. And they are NOT going to slow down in the foreseeable future. So we present to you a list of obsessions our friends obsess with and just won’t stop – take a clue for the love of god! (Unless you’re sent on Earth by the evil forces and your ulterior motive is to kill us by making us hear your never ending rant.)

1. Harry Potter

If you’re anything like me, you’ve never read a Harry Potter book and neither are you a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies. Being a non-fan of the franchise, the release of a new Harry Potter movie would always make me feel like the only abnormal teenager who wasn’t in awe of this cute adolescent boy who has a lightening scar on his forehead. Watching a story about a young boy with hidden magical powers who is actually a wizard and his constant attempts to kill the ugly nose-less villain is something that never interested me. But as a teenager from an all-girls school, I do have a friend who is obsessed with this wizard and I fail to understand her fascination with him.

With the release of every new Harry Potter book, I’ve seen this fan’s obsession grow stronger. Any mention of Harry Potter makes her scream, applaud, laugh, or overall just become rather giddy. While other teenage girls would want a cute little dog as a pet, this Potterhead begs her parents to get her an owl. And even though people might start to think that she has gotten clinically insane when she calls the teachers she doesn’t like “Snape” and says things like “Wingardium Leviosa” and “Expelliarmus” in everyday conversations, she doesn’t mind being a crazy fan. She’s that one friend who’d always wish to dress up as a wizard or a witch for Halloween and owns several pairs of black robes and pointed hats. She memorizes spells and sorts everyone she meets into “Houses”. She believes she knows more about Harry potter than J.K. Rowling does. And the worst part is – you would expect her to get past this Potter obsession now that the series has ended, but it has clearly worsened it. Damn you, unfair life!

2. Justin Bieber

While many teen pop stars have inspired hysterical behavior, Bieber fans are the craziest. This group of people suffering from the highly contagious Bieber-Fever usually consists of the hopelessly romantic teenage girls and a few pedophilic gay men. The mindset of these fans is something that no sane person should attempt to decipher. They feel some sort of bizarre attachment to this boy which I personally find slightly creepy.

I’d like to make it clear here, that I’m not one of the people who hates his music or finds him annoying. I don’t care if my calves are probably bigger than his, or if he looks like a girl and has a high voice, or even if he swings his hair more often than the women in shampoo commercials. But like everyone, I too have that one friend who’s so completely obsessed with this baby-faced teen sensation, that it makes me wish I were deaf when I’m around her so I couldn’t hear her constant blabber about her love for Bieber. She can only express her fan-girl joy by either screaming at the top of her lungs or crying hysterically at the mention of his name. She’s someone who has seen every Youtube video of Justin Bieber and can dance around outside singing his songs all day long. She checks the newspaper everyday to cut his clippings. And I swear I saw her cry when he recently won an award. If only she knew that more than star-struck, she comes off as annoying!

3. One Direction

It’s a well established fact that all teenage girls are obsessed with songs that sound like pretty white teens singing about “love”. And a certain friend of mine is madly addicted to this boy band which seems like the next Backstreet Boys and is giving our beloved Justin Bieber a run for his money. Remember girls drooling and dying over Bieber’s hair flip? Well imagine FIVE Biebers, all flipping their hair in sync (the horror!). And there you got One Direction.

One thing that is as difficult to comprehend as their British accent is why most (not all) of the mainstream music is total and utter crap. There is no originality and no soul (imagine record labels hiring guys to be writing songs for you, others composing songs for you, a few other auto tuning “your” songs and the rest of the guys making you look pretty on the album cover). Not that One Direction is absolute rubbish, there has to be SOMETHING about them that makes them this huge. The sad part is that often more obscure artistes fail to get such recognition. No denying that some of their songs are quite catchy and they comprise of five cute looking boys, but my friend finding them irresistible and wishing one of these guys would sweep her off her feet and end up marrying her has become a bit too much now. And too much of anything is bad. This is why I’m just one step away from banging my head against a wall.

4. Taylor Lautner

Tanned skin, buffed up body, handsome looks –this is probably what every teenage girl wants in her dream guy. But Taylor Lautner is certainly not the only celebrity possessing these qualities. Then why is my friend obsessed with him? Because she is more addicted to the sexy werewolf, Jacob Black and not the actor playing him.

Apart from her walls adorning Twilight posters where she mercilessly cropped out the irresistible vampire, Edward Cullen, she proudly proclaims she is in “Team Jacob” and has dedicated countless Facebook pages and groups to the same (which makes it all the more terrifying). Certainly, the odds of a Jacob Black making her his werewolf princess are as high as Taylor Swift refraining from singing love songs. But she is addicted and it doesn’t seem like there’s any turning back.
Having a crush on an out of reach celebrity who is oblivious to your existence is understandable (we have all been there, right?), but having a crush on a fictional supernatural character is just pitiful.

5. Vampires

The “Dracula” –once known for venturing in the dark and mercilessly feeding on human blood has now become a butt of jokes thanks to the growing number of writers and producers for turning these evil, scary, mysterious and terribly hideous vampires into vulnerable, sympathetic creatures who not only survive, BUT glitter under the sun. Sure their knowledge about vampires is as limited as Paris Hilton’s brain and the teenage girls who’re drooling over them wouldn’t recognize one if it bit them in the ass.

Who would’ve thought a decade ago that a day would come when young girls would want a vampire to suck their blood? And vampires too, along with having to deal with everyday teenage issues, have to resist the urge of sucking the blood of the otherwise quiet, socially awkward girl, who for some reason seems incredibly attractive to all vampires who also happen to be hot guys. And this vampire epidemic does not seem to recede. My vampire-obsessed friend loves all blood suckers, be it Edward Cullen from the Twilight-puke-Saga, the Salvatore brothers from the Vampire Diaries, or the ones from True Blood. The situation has gotten so worse that now she actually believes that vampires exist. If her obsession doesn’t die down soon, I would just show her Bram Stocker’s Dracula –this movie will prove to her that vampires are horrifying creatures and not wimpy ones.


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