30

On the 8th of June, I turned 30. 30. That was it. I think until you have children, you still expect to be one. You're still expecting to be seated at the 'kids' table' so the grown ups can have eat their steak in peace. You're still expecting liftmen to call you "baby" and air hostesses to give you a lollipop.



And then you're thinking "Ok I'm 30 and I should not be eating lollipops." But you still want to walk only on the joints in the floor tiles, you still want to ask someone if they want something and then say "keep wanting!" when they say yes and you still do the TV cops shoot and roll with two fingers and you're always up for a water fight in office.



And I've done all the expected in the run up to turning 30. I told Father A I wanted a diamond, I'm on a weight loss programme that is totally kicking my ass, I've been getting drunk, I've been standing on the table at a night club and dancing, I've been hanging out with younger people and giving them lectures, I've been moisturising my boobs in an upward direction, I've been wondering what I've achieved in life so far and where I am in my career. I've had existential issues and nightmares, epiphanies and salad. Cod liver oil, pedicures and ambition.



And on 8th June '09... I still wanted to eat cake for breakfast, and pretend I'm going to kiss Father A and then lick his cheek. So yes. 30 feels great. And despite what they tell you, nothing is sagging yet. So here it is. A picture taken a week before my 30th birthday with a colleague and friend who doesn't mind her picture being up on the net to be morphed and used for porn.



30. It's lovely. Wish you were here.

Keeping it fresh.

Father A and I do an occasional shopping trip that lasts three hours or more. On this trip we buy everything we think we might need for the house at one go. Because of course I never shop in between hours and in case Pakistan ever does bomb us, we can use the skins of the one thousand chicken franks we bought to make parachutes and fly to Iraq.

This place we shop has everything in super size packs and you have to buy those otherwise the organisation will realise that you aren't retailers but actually a supermarket addicted housewife who gets off in the cereal section while caressing the baked beans display at the same time.

So on Saturday, Father A put my straight jacket on and took me there so we could shop for my birthday party on Sunday (another post, another post.) And that reminded me of another incident at the same place when Father A picked up a mammoth pack of frozen corn and dimpled at me while placing it in our shopping cart.

"Gunduls, I'll make this for you everyday."

He didn't. He made it once. And that was it. So one day I squeezed my eyebrows together till a few blackheads popped out and said, "But you said you'll make me corn everyday."

"Gunduls," he said, "When I say everyday, I mean I'll make it often."

Father A. WHEN I SAY I'LL PUT OUT, I MEAN I'LL JUST SHOW YOU MY BOOBS.

Look who decided to stay for cake.

Much to our surprise, my grandmother turned 89. She however, is not in the least surprised. In fact she can't understand what on earth we've been standing around her bed crying for. It's not like she's dying for God's sake. She's 89. She's tired. Never mind that she can't walk, can barely hear and can only manage one cigarette at a time. Never mind that she drinks her whiskey through a straw, she can still outdrink the two wussies she gave birth to.

On Sunday, when I went to give her a manicure, she pulled me close with a withered claw and rasped out 'What's this tamasha all about darling?"

I have to say I'm a bit relieved. Despite the fact that I loved the melodrama. It's no fun to have someone die on you when you're least expecting it. Worse when you've had a week to cry about it and wonder if you'll be left their plastic bag collection and if so, will you have the strength to throw it away or will you place it in the showcase with your estranged mother's shoebox collection?

In the past week, I've been in touch with many other bloggers. Many who are concerned about my grandmother's health. Very touching stuff. Among them has been the delish 'Once again in Mumbai' who you would have found on 'Who invited you?!" had you been around then. And of course some others. With who's identity I cannot be so liberal. They catch me on chat. On facebook. And they talk to me. Or demand that I talk to them.

And I realised that there is this whole group of readers out there who think I'm off. Crazy, psycho, suicidal, slightly touched men. And while I think it's perfectly normal to have attempted suicide a few times, to have lost and put on weight as often as I've changed underwear, to have called the neighbour's cat 'auntie' and to have flashed my colleagues regularly; apparently this gives people the impression that some marbles are not where they should be.

To these people I say, I'm normal. When you cut me do I not bleed? When you hurt me, do I not cry? When you let the air out of my car tyres, do I not poison your mother-in-law? I am people just like you. I am but human and I err just like you. I am normal. I just eat a lot of sugar.

On Togetherness

If I had it my way, people would die in groups. Families. Friends. Coworkers who like each other. Or even those who hate each other so they wouldn't have to feel guilty. Whole communities would be wiped out. Neatly. At one go.

It makes more sense that way. Like group sittings at weddings. You feed a whole lot of people. They get up and go. You feed the next lot. No one gets left behind wondering why the guy sitting next to them got up before they could eat their banana.

The way it is right now, people die and then you're all crying and thinking who's going to tell me stories now, what am I going to do for the rest of my life now, dude, where do I store all your stuff that you collected over 89 years.

Personally I think it's very bad organisation.

What strikes me is that the whole world keeps moving on even though someone is dying. People are watching TV, buying playstations, cooking, crying, leaping, weeping, watching porn, somersaulting and planning. Planning to be in love, to love, to hang around. But would they plan to have the courtesy to stick around so all hundred or so people connected to them could leave together? Oh no. Finances they can do. But talk about dying and everyone clams up.

Manners are terrible these days.

It's like that W.H Auden poem where he's telling everyone to wear white gloves and all the dogs to stop barking because the man he loved just died. And he's being pretty polite about it. I mean, if a policeman was wearing magenta gloves and doing break dance at the signal near my grandmother's house, I wouldn't go home and write a poem about it. I'd damn near wring his neck.

And that is exactly why my father is so proud of a daughter like me. Because if there are murders to be committed, he can be sure I'm up to it. And if there's law to be run from, you know I'd take a break to blog about it.

My grandmother, I think is beginning to enjoy the drama of being on her deathbed. She keeps promising to tell me something that she must do before she dies. At first I thought she'd tell me I am actually the daughter of a Mexican slave who ate tamarind and then, overcome by lust, raped my mother. But those are kind of things my grandmother doesn't tell people.

After four days of having me kneel at her bedside and teaspoon-feed her juice, she's going to lean close and in her feeble, shaking voice, tell me to lose weight. And I'll be like DUDE. YOU DIDN'T NEED TO DIE TO TELL ME THAT.

Chasing the Clock

My family has this way of killing people off. You're never eleven and seven months. You're twelve. You're never turning 49 in a month. You're fifty. Cross sixty five and you're at death's door.

This is probably because my dad is so time driven that he would leave without Santa if he didn't make it by November. So my entire life has been spent anxiously calculating half an hour before my appointment time because if I didn't leave by then, THEY WOULD LEAVE WITHOUT ME. And I would have to reschedule the entire meeting only because I wouldn't be able to sit there talking to the cleaners for fifteen minutes before the person I was to meet would arrive.

The latest who is on the clock is my grandmother. And she's 89 (in fifteen days) so you can imagine the pressure on her to die already so she can make it while the clouds are being vacuumed.

This is the thing about my grandmother. She has never been on time her entire life. That's one reason my sister and I had such great imagination. When we were kids we'd sit in the car for hours envisioning exactly how the splatter patterns would colour the interiors of the car when our father's head finally exploded from the anger at having been made to wait so long. We'd also imagine our grandmom flying backwards in a mist of chiffon, her gold jewellery glinting in the sunlight as her impossibly long fingers grabbed at the air as if it were a roly-poly of Black Dog.

I can no longer see my grandmother. I cannot watch her work her throat as she struggles to say a witty one-liner. Or hear the feeble voice as she stammers out that I've put on weight. Or apologises to my father for neglecting him when he had a cold. I cannot look at her and remember the upright woman who cracked sex jokes, told her grandchildren that we had all married men who were too short and went to parties wearing just a black lace bra in the place of a sari blouse.

It is normal in my family to hate your relatives. And throughout my life I struggled with relating to this woman who called everyone 'Darling you've lost weight' and then followed it up by whispering to her husband that 'my god, they'll be needing a crane to drag her in next.' Or the woman who wantonly got up and danced a brazen foxtrot at a party at which everyone's moustaches were longer than their black ties and no one spoke in words with less than three syllables. And being the only child with fair skin and dark eyes and who grew only five feet one inch as opposed to everyone who is six feet tall in bare feet with no weight problem, I was sidelined a bit. I was called dumpling. Because that's what I looked like. And that's unacceptable to my grandmother. You have no business not being good-looking. And cute just won't cut it I'm afraid.

I am the one who drew horses on my jeans and wore my straight hair down. Where she could see it. And be reminded that even my hair was not curly like everyone else's. Yes I was badass.

Now I'm thirty. (in 26 days) And I wear roses in my hair, always have some jewellery on and call most people 'Darling you look gorgeous' and say to Father A later 'My god that dress sense! I have kitchen towels with better tailoring.' I talk loudly at funerals and crack sex jokes all the time. My Grandmother has been the biggest influence in my life and unfortunately I don't have her long fingers-just cocktail sausages that grow out of my palms. I am however, always on time.

She's taking her time to leave. Lest she isn't fashionably late and in case her hair isn't coiffed to within an inch of the ceiling when she arrives. And when she does get there at least two hours after she was expected, she's going to blame it all on her husband. And then demand a 'whikky soda.' She'll yell at all the angels and tell them to look tall and spruce up a bit and she'll criticise every bit of their ensemble. And I hope there'll be lots of parties. Because she doesn't like sitting at home when there's a Page 3 she can be on. And when I get there, on time mind you, I hope she recognises me. The grand daughter who reluctantly turned into a watery version of her. Because right now, she thinks I'm the maid who hasn't worn the uniform she instructed me to.

OK, so it wasn't all bad.

This is the problem with recession. You tell someone you have a cancer in one breast. They tell you they have it in both. You tell someone you've been living off thousand rupees for the past year, they'll tell you they've been living off their ninety three year old grandmother. Even their omelettes come out worse, three out of the five Fiji apples they got for Rs. 120 only had bruises on them and you think you hate your neighbours? Theirs walk around in boxer shorts with all the buttons open and don't shave their underarms.

What is one to do when the world keeps reminding you to suck it up eh? Not that I did. Or will. Ever. I will swill diet Pepsi by the litre, hang one leg out of the driver's side window, let my torn pantie waistband peek out of my jeans like an alluring wink and declare that YOU THINK YOUR LIFE SUCKS YOU WALLOWING ASS? MINE SUCKS HARDER. I'M NOT ALLOWED TO EAT ICE CREAM YOU MUTHAFUCKA.

Ah. That feels good. That was so much easier than not blogging for five months. Bloggers. Try abusing in print. It feels like a coffee colonic. And most of your parents are too old to be on the Internet anyway.

So let's not kid ourselves. Plenny happened while you were away. Christmas sucked. It totally did. Father A left me on our fourth anniversary to go visit his mother. And I think he's totally regretting it now. Regretting it big time. Every night. On the couch. Herein lies the lesson. Ladies, don't get mad. Just get the most uncomfortable couch you can find.

But fuck that dudes. I gotta da nephew. Welcome Tarosh Desmond D'Abreo who's kinda came a while back but how charming, how sweet, how addictive the little spider who hangs like spiderman from your chest and goes off to sleep. My uterus whoops for joy and turns several somersaults every time I see him. To think, I have 40,0000 eggs all capable of creating one of those spiders. My whole world is taken up making up songs for him:

"Sleepy little Taro,

You better go to bed,

Or you'll be up all morning,

With a very big pain in the head."

Or spelling around him. You see I have a mouth like a public toilet. And yes right now he's all goo-ga-ga oooga bugooogle pa, but that's just what's coming out. Sooner or later he's gonna be able to form the sounds in his head and when he does it's gonna be hello Aunt unpronounceable name who irritates the hell out of my parents.

Yes that is my full name. Another thing I like to do with the little Rum Ball is toss him up in the air and then catch him when his mother starts screaming. I even do the endless peek-a-boo with him but apparently you can't teach babies to not expect things out of life. You do everything exactly the same way you did them five hundred thousand times before or you pace up and down frantically patting his back as he screams louder than the holocaust in his extreme proximity to your ear. Yes. It's a lot like pre-marriage sex.

So I'm thinking. I'd like a spider some time next year. Maybe it's time I made up with the spider-maker I married.

Shutting Shop

This hasn't been the greatest year for me. Yes, yes, the whole world is in depression, people have lost money, businesses are failing, dreams are breaking, but when you're sitting alone thinking 'nobody loves me,' the rest of the world seems to have a better deal doesn't it?

I can't say why the end of this year has all the appeal of toe jam and the texture of ear wax for me. Perhaps it has to do with a festive season that's beginning to look a lot like a death sentence. And I mean, I DO festivals. I wear the colours, sing the songs, kiss the wrinkled stinkers, bounce the poopy stinkers, I'm so festive I make an elf look like a homeless drunk in below zero temperature whose dog hates him. I am the original happy cutlet.

But last month as I watched the Taj burn on TV, my world fell apart. My blood is intrinsically connected to Colaba. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I get to gawk at a lot of rich people, everybody speaks Hindi with an accent and it's the only place in the world I get confectionery which I can multiple orgasm over and then dance a Mexican Hat Dance while waving a glass of cold coffee over my head while shouting "I'MMA GONNA MARRY THISA PLACA." A lot of it has to do with the fact that when my mother was busy treating me like the illegitimate child that my dad went and had on their honeymoon while she had to clean up cat poo for three weeks, Colaba was the fat lady next door who baked me cookies and showed me glittery things and kept me distracted. Colaba was the best friend who stayed up all night to hear me sob, Colaba was the boyfriend who hid me in his room till I could sneak out early in the morning.

If you ever do an 'anal search' on this blog, you'll find a picture of a bearded guy in a bandanna. That's my friend Rustom. In another life, when I was kicked out of home and was living in a hostel and didn't even have a hungry rat for company, Rustom took a train from Andheri, picked me up and we walked around the gateway and sat around the Taj lobby till morning when the hostel gates opened. We called the Taj home, and talked about it like we were a rich socialite couple who were just tired of the constant house guests. Today Rustom own his business and only talks to me about how to save money and maximise my potential-yes he grew up to be my dad. And I still haven't called to tell him how upset I am that neither of us has been looking after the house.

Colaba took away my home and with it my three days of a childhood spiralled up like coloured bits of paper in the billowing smoke. I guess we have strange ways of growing up.

So yes, I've sipped away at a tall cool drink and now I get to the part where the pulpy bits, the crushed leaves and the grainy bits just won't squeeze through the straw and it's all too gross to spoon up anyway. Will I be back? Hell yeah! When there is something to laugh about.

But I just have to say to those writers, those geniuses, those hot girls who undress with the curtains drawn everyday so us horny toms can look in through the window and hyperventilate while thinking-'that's so hot!' you have been my friends, my inspiration, my reason to wish I was a better writer and that my ass was smaller.

I am on facebook, on email and on several desperately seeking approval websites. And my real name isn't Helena Haggincroaker. So hunt me down if you feel like talking-I'm quite desperate for validation. I remain, always, your salivating reader-stalker.