Where My Bitches At?

Don’t worry. I believe such language encourages the breeding of camaraderie. What, you don’t? Well, ok “where my lovelies at?” Okay then.

You know, what the agenda of THIS post is. It’s to be so frickin’ random and giddily happy and as Phoebe would say Santa-Claus-In-Disneyland-On-Prozac-Getting-Laid-ish that for a moment you’ll all read this and will be like “The world isn’t such a bad place for me. Look at this one here: poor thing lost it!” Because I think I need it. Because I think all of us do. I need it because I’ve been around the real world and the blog world all of last week that both have so much WRONG and INJUSTICE to point out, it’s becoming more and more strenuous for me to drown their voices out by just sticking my head in a sand pit.

What sort of a selfish person I must be, not feeling the pain of global warming related cyclones and volcanoes (that need a daak naam badly) and gender issues and marriage issues and childbirth issues and relocation issues, right? The fed-up sort of selfish person is what this blogger is. It’s not because we need to avoid these things, but because we need to acknowledge them beside all that’s good and dandy is what I feel. And instead, we’re all so busy digging up new dirt on the world we’re almost tempting it to behave more fucked up than it is (I studied psychology too. So there)

For example, someone I know (and can only hope doesn’t read this blog) ruined my mid-day work-can-go-take-a-hike tea break yesterday by going on and on and on about how the Chalta Hai attitude in India is what is pulling us down. I nodded and nodded and then because I realized my tea had gone cold all because of all the nodding I was having to do all the while, I got very pissed off (it takes me only that much of a realization. Am I not a sweetheart?) I asked him why he thinks we’re all so chalta hai types? Monologue begins: Oh look at the roads and the water supply, nothing works, govt. and municipality can’t care less. Look at the trains and rat-infested stations. Look at the safety issues my girlfriend faces in Delhi. Look at how education system is so screwed, and everyone is sending their kids abroad. Basically, look at the sky, and how it’s falling on our heads. I felt really overwhelmed. Guilty – for wanting to pick up a fight with this guy, for all his genuine reasons. Over-optimistic – for wanting to deny his frustrations. And all I mustered up was “But these are governing issues. Are there other countries in the world that don’t have either these or something worse or something much better but still not good enough? Do they also call it “Chalta Hai” “attitude”? At the risk of sounding like I want to pass off our helplessness as our perseverance, is it so hard to believe that this is what keeps us going and facing life like it needs to be lived? Japan is one of those nations that are better off than us. Much better off. I think they even have robots singing lullabies to the kids, and their kids even agree to sleep to that. And it has the highest suicide rate in the world. And in India, people hang off moving trains, buses, eat one square meal, do back-breaking physical work with little machinery, feed 4-5 mouths on an average and still snore in their sleep. Good that whatever it is, chalta hai. Nahi chalta to kya hota boss.” He said “Get back to work, kid. You’re so romantic in your ideas. People like you give our governments an extra long rope to hang themselves from.” I thought he was right at some level, but I thought that whatever I said helps me not lose my mind. Fed-up sort of selfish, remember?

Well well, back to the giddy happiness. I watched some rather art-imitates-life-and-life-is-shitty movies the last few days. Reviews (you may not want to call them that) are as below:

Housefull: Sajid Khan, you were never funny. We didn’t need a supremely idiotic movie like this one to come to this conclusion, but you decided we did. And we, buoyed by your confidence, did too. Of course, you had all the ingredients:

Jiah I-stripteased-and-now-you-even-want-me-to-act??!! Khan.

Deepika I-raided-my-4-year-old-niece’s-wardrobe Padukone.

Lara I’m-emotionally-unprepared-to-be-seen-as-older-than-these-PYTs Dutta.

Riteish I’m-Bollywood’s-resident-homophobe-yippeeee Deshmukh.

Arjun my-brooding-look-ate-up-all-other-facial-expressions Rampal.

Akshay this-is-the-audience’s-punishment-for-not-liking-Chandni-Chowk-to-China-guess-what?-this-is-the-same-movie-with-a-different-name Kumar.

Boman I-also-need-to-earn-money-why-else? Irani

It’s not them. Not just them, I mean. It’s also that the lot of you should learn to differentiate between a script and an asswipe. No, I wouldn’t recommend learning that from your big sister, Sajid.

Iron Man 2: Mommy, could you get that old stove down for me now? I’m thinking I could get that New Element Whatchamacallit out by Sunday because Saturday’s relatively free for me. We’d need to then send them a memo to do something about that periodic table thingie – it really needs to catch up, for we now have *drumrolls* “The Technology”.

Really now!? And the whole deal with Iron Man smashing bottles for his birthday party? That, for the record, is going to count as The Thing that scarred me and put me off superhero movies f.o.r.e.v.e.r. What could we have next, Spiderman stripping for the masses mid-air? People at Marvel, here’s a tip: Spiderman ain’t no Jiah Khan!

Badmaash Company: This one is complicated. A little. Because I have a crush on both Anushka Sharma and Shahid Kapur. I pretty much ignored the predictability of the plot and the utter stupidity of the whole disguise-to-con thing, because there was.. ahem.. so much to see. If you aren’t that silly, don’t go for it.

Wharrelse? Oh yes. Since you don’t know nearly enough about me and my life, I thought I’d keep you updated with its other (much uglier) aspects as well. (You CAN click on the X on top right side and RUN also). I have, sort of, completed my transition to being a gym rat. No no, that does not mean you’re reading the blog of an Anushka Sharma’s body double (that’s also partly because if a clone of mine stood on my shoulders, we’d still together not reach her height.)

Any case, some time back, I stopped being cool with being fat. The fact that my family has gifted me with genes that contain diabetes, osteoporosis, blood pressure and other assorted goodies waiting to be activated any day, makes it even harder to be cool with it. So, for a while now, I have been making small changes to change my lifestyle. It’s harder than I thought. It’s harder than failing your exams. It’s harder than being able to say No. It’s also harder than picking up the pieces to get a move on. Because it’s a combination of all these and more. Two things that make it easier are Encouragement and Accountability. Blogging helps with both. I feel very encouraged when I read this or this. And the decision to talk about this on the blog will hopefully take care of the accountability bit.

Here’s the little bit I have managed so far: From being the unbeatable couch potato, I am now in a place where I try to get to the gym 4 times a week. It means getting back home at 9 pm, and then going to the gym too, but I don’t feel all that tired or sorry for myself anymore. I carry lunch to work, and don’t end up eating the oil-with-veggies our office caterers serve us. I don’t stock chocolate in my fridge, there’s no other way around this one, I lived and learnt. I don’t snack on rubbish now, when hunger strikes between meals (the hardest part for me. By far!) The easiest part was to give up wafers and fizzy drinks, since I wasn’t big on them any way. That’s been my little journey so far, which I’m making look like I won the Oscar. But it’s only because someone will read it and be inspired enough to check out the neighbourhood gym today. Or that there’ll be someone who’d exchange notes with me, and tell me what I’m doing wrong. Or that there’ll be the rest of you who’d kick my butt when I quietly remove the label ‘Fitness’ from my tag cloud in the middle of the night one day.

More happy stuff is that I shall be off for a vacation in 10 odd days, *fingers crossed*. Once the leave and all the peripheral stuff goes as planned, I shall be writing more about that.

What’s up at your end, lovelies?

PS: I just noticed how this post is as much within parentheses, as outside of them. Respect for you all, who read this stuff!