Of Tea Parties

I’m back to my whiny, complaining self. And this time round, its tea parties. Yes. You heard me right. Tea parties. In this age of television, computers, broadband internet, Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere, I’m being made to attend tea parties. And not the cool, Mad Hatter as company kind either. No siree. I have to attend boring, annoying-women-sitting-by-me-and-talking-rubbish kind of tea parties. And I have to pretend I’m having the time of my life while I listen to why Mrs. Y fired her maid and why Mrs. X buys all her clothes only in Delhi. Oh, and there is also Mrs. Z trying to bond with me over something and all I’m thinking is “she’s touching me. Why is she touching me? Get your hand off my shoulder lady or I’m going to smack you”.

I mean, as if we didn’t have enough dinner parties here already, I now have to smile my way through tea too? And I don’t even like tea. But that’s a different story. Personally, I’m sick and tired of meeting the same group of women at least twice a week (and this week it’s going to be 4 times). Einstein’s theory of R never made more sense than at these times believe me. Making it worse is that with the same faces, come the same stories and the same boring conversations, revolving around set topics – their children, their domestic help troubles, cosmetic products and their usage, clothes (what they’re wearing and where they bought it), shoes (yes. They discuss shoes. Shoot me someone.) and of course the next party. Did I mention shoot me someone?

Now since nobody takes my complaints seriously (and shoots me to get me out of this misery), I do what I can. And so I got through the aforementioned party by hanging around the kitchen, helping the host warm the food (and tasting it extensively) and set the table. It made me feel like I was back home, a teenager, helping mum get ready for a party. This way I could dissociate from the bunch of women discussing nappy rashes and Amway products, and pretend I wasn’t married (sorry Fellow) and/or had anything in common with them.

Anyhoo. Tomorrow is a new day. And another party.

I need to find a gun I tell you.

Of The Past and The Future

So we attended a wedding a couple of days back and in the first half hour the Fellow was convinced he’d lost all motivation and will to attend such dos anymore. Why you ask? Because the only girl he has to look out for now, is me. No more scanning the crowd for the hottest chick in the crowd, no more engaging eye contact and definitely no more flirting in an attempt to get her phone number. Oh, and following a girl you met at a wedding, some 200 odd kilometres just because she was uber-hot, that’s a total no no now.

And so, all through the evening, the Fellow kept shaking his head looking trapped. Till he had a brilliant idea. He decided that since he can’t use his years of experience and valuable knowledge to his benefit anymore, he will pass it on to the next generation of young men looking to woo girls at weddings. And this is exactly what he did, ably assisted by me (the woman’s perspective I was).

Thus the only 2 bachelors in our squadron were told to kindly stop hanging out with us married folk, and go spend time with the bride’s friends. At first they were, well, totally sissy about it (apparently they were extremely fearful of getting slapped) and it took a lot of glares and head jerks in the right direction for them to even be within 3 feet of the girls.

And then a window of opportunity opened. One of the girls went all the way to one end of the ground, and sat by herself looking at some annoying kids play. Now, as a girl myself, I knew this was a cry (demand) for attention and was probably the best time for any guy to make his move. And this is exactly what we told one of our young bucks. Not entirely convinced with our reasoning, he nevertheless took a deep breath and did what we told him to, and 15 minutes later came back grinning and thanking me! Apparently the girl wanted to see the city, this being her first visit here and he offered to take her around.

This was it. This was all the encouragement the Fellow and his friend needed to pass on their years of experience forward, and for the next 30 mins, gave this young chap tip after tip after tip. They had so much to say that the poor recipient finally asked them to pen all of it down. And I don’t blame him. From celebrating his birthday one day before the girl left (and 5 months before his real birthday) to convincing her he had dinner coupons to the Taj (and then arranging the payment with the management), they had quick tips for everything!! They even told him the kind of car/bike he should take. And the icing on cake was, that the Fellow being his senior officer got him the next day off so that he could take the girl out!!

Yesterday the Fellow came back home looking all triumphant. The girl has postponed her return journey and will be spending a few days more here.

I now plan on writing a book on all the tips and gyan the Fellow and his friend have accumulated over the years, on how to pick up girls at weddings and other social situations. All I need now, is a catchy title.

Of a Problem and Much Twirling

I love family weddings. But I hate the shopping that comes with it. I mean, I’m the make-a-list-and-go-get-the-stuff kind of shopper. So the mindless window shopping, going through tons of shops and checking out each and everything they sell, is beyond the realms of my patience levels.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what thrills the in-laws. Nothing gives them more pleasure than spending the day in one shop after another, finding things they might need, don’t need, have two of already, but need a spare and then some. And with a marriage coming up in the family, the in-laws have the perfect reason for going all shopaholic and clothes-crazy! Now, shopaholics need to shop. It doesn’t have to be for themselves, as long as they come home everyday with at least one shopping bag. And so the in-laws insist on buying the Fellow and me clothes – clothes which we don’t need (Yes yes, I’m a girl and I’m saying no to new clothes. So?)

This is where the problem lies.

Whenever the topic and/or shopping bag is presented, the Fellow enters fight mode and can get away with stamping his feet, grumbling and generally making a lot of noise about how he has enough clothes and he doesn’t want anything more and how ma and papa need to get a grip on all the shopping.

I can’t do that (throw a tantrum that is). I can only smile and be patient - especially when explaining to ma why I really, really don’t need another lehenga. Really. Then I try not to fall prey to ma’s sheepish and super-naughty smile (which she’s got down to perfection). And when I feel my will power (and good logic) slipping under parental pressure of the subtle kind, I dig out the reason why I don’t need a new lehenga. And hoping to hell everyone gets distracted enough to forget all about shopping, I start twirling!

Teenage Revisited

So Mr. Khan is on Twitter. And even though I know I’m way cooler than this, i’m super-excited. I mean imagine if he actually replied to one of my tweets??!! Aaaahhhh. That would send the teenager in me rocketing up to space on pure thrill and hormones!

Ok. So before any of you (and by that I mean you PK) start judging me about this you should know that SRK was my teenage idol. I put posters of him up on my walls and sneaked postcards of him into my textbooks. I saw DDLJ more times than I can remember. I even imagined conversations with him where I would be all nonchalant and super-cool (and not at all high-pitched and girly), and he would be so charmed by my wisdom (that I had garnered at the ripe old age of 12) and wit that he would be my friend (c’mon. I was 12. What did you expect?) for ever more!

Yes yes. I know it sounds a bit kooky but I was pre-pubescent. I blame the hormones and the fact that I really couldn’t appreciate Ajay Devgan or Suniel Shetty the way I could Shahrukh Khan. And now he’s on Twitter. And he’s playing the same video game the Fellow has been obsessing about (which makes it slightly easier for me to adjust to the fact that a game is more interesting than me).

And so even though I’m having a giant bimbo moment happening here, I make no apologies. I mean I’m already starving Fat Avantika (who is hiding inside me waiting for her time). I owe at least this much to the teenage me right?

Another Year, Another Post

So according to my resolutions for this year i should blog more. And i wanted to. I really wanted to log in a post for the first day of the year and all that. But since resolutions are made to be broken (c'mon, you know i'm right) and i suffer from chronic procrastination, things turned out otherwise (obviously).

Anyhoo. The date has changed and people have hopefully finished going hyper-excited about another year of their lives going by in a jiffy. This also means that the phone lines have finally opened up and I stop getting corny messages from people.

Now since I really hadn’t thought about what I want to write about in this post, and was aiming primarily to fulfill at least one of my resolutions, I’m going to end here.

Happy 2nd day of the new year everyone.