Just One More

(Day 111 of 112)

I’m on my last stop before I head the Fellow’s way. Unfortunately, getting here meant taking a train at the supremely inhuman hour of 5.50am. Essentially this means, that I didn’t sleep all night (since I don’t trust myself to wake up before the birds do) and kept waiting for the alarm to ring, and the TV to show something interesting.

Of course, I did try sleeping in the train. But the really fat aunty in the seat in front of me kept switching the fan on and off, depending on her body temperature. And so I kept shivering and cursing all through the 6 hours I had the misfortune of being stuck behind a thermostatically challenged woman! Then when I got to the uncle’s house (my transit point for this leg of the journey) I decided on a nice, refreshing nap. Unfortunately, it only needed my declaration for the power company to run an unscheduled power cut for 3 hours. Hmph.

So here I am, at 11 in the night, yearning for a comfortable bed and a good night’s sleep. And all I can think of is how when I wake up tomorrow morning, it’ll be the last day I’ll be without the Fellow.

Just one more day. *stupid grin*

The End is Near

(Day 110 of 112)

I can’t stop grinning as I type ‘Day 110 of 112’. It seems like just yesterday (ok, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration) when it was day 10 of 112 and I had months of waiting and complaining ahead of me. Now the waiting is coming to an end. Another 2 days and the same number of trains later, and I shall be chattering nineteen to a dozen to the Fellow – in person!

You can’t imagine how excited that has me!! Finally I shall be able to see his expression of utter and total amusement, exasperation, disbelief (at the speed and flow of my chatter), and of course love, all rolled into one! I have missed that look a lot these past months you know.

And then there is all the undivided attention I get once again. No more sharing the Fellow with his insane workload any more. I’m so glad I won’t have to listen to “I have to work now, can’t talk” anymore. Now it’s only going to be “I have no work, talk all you want”! Yay!! It does make me happy, you see, when I can talk as much as I want to.

Sigh. Grin. Happy face. 2 more days. Jigging away.

Dry Roasted

(Day 109 of 112)

Important lessons learnt today –

1. Never park your car where there is no shade from the sun.
2. Never get into a car that has been standing where there is no shade from the sun.
3. If you do have to get into aforementioned car, try not to get into contact with the leather seats (note: don’t have leather seats).
4. If you do all the above three, be smart – don’t touch the steering wheel, gear stick and/or the handbrake. Just sit there willing the air conditioning to kick in before you reach your destination looking like you’ve just spent an hour in a sauna!
5. And most importantly, and for this I blame the Fellow - never, ever, ever, have a black car if you’re going to be living in camel-land.

Obviously, I’ve been through this for me to be ranting about it here. In fact, I have to emphasise that the actual experience was about a hundred times worse than it seems. Kind of like going to the dentist – the actual experience is so much worse than what you imagine it to be!

The 15 mins that I spent in my car today was as close to hot, burning hell as I’ll ever be, before popping it for good (I really don’t have any delusions about not going to hell. Too many friends will be there!). The very act of sitting in the drivers seat made me shudder and go ‘ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch’ (the word most used in the next few minutes. Well, actually, second most used. The first is too inappropriate for here). And then there was the super-heated steering wheel and gear stick!! I quite literally had to use my fingertips to steer and change gears because the rest of my hand felt like it was blistering!

And don’t even get me started on the airconditioning! It was non-existent. By the time the car cooled down enough for me to stop cursing, I had reached my destination (I miss Bombay at times like these really). And even then, the first thing I did was to mop my face up and get the sweat out of my eyes. The next, to shake my fist at the black car and the universe.

But I’m guessing, that 15 mins in that sauna of a car must have resulted in at least a kilo of weight loss. Bring on the ice cream I say. And a can of white car paint.

Is it Indifference or is it Me?

(Day 108 of 112)

Warning: Long Post

Being from Bombay, I’m not as used to being eve-teased as, say a girl from Delhi. However, I have had my share of road-side romeos, jerks, and pervs. The first time I was teased, I was in school, and too mortified to tell anyone about it. By the time I got to college, I had become immune (at a certain level at least), like most women do. And then came the awareness that I could do something about it. I could fight back and make sure the guy paid, at least in humiliation if not jail time. And I’m proud to say that my friends and I did do something about it. We did try and bring to task guys who thought they could get away with whispered comments and distressingly wel placed gropes. I think a friend even broke a finger. At another time she even threw a glass of water in a chap’s face at a restaurant.

Today, I did my share for Women’s rights. Asking a chap to move his car from the middle of the lane, where he was parked so that he could chat with someone, resulted in him following me for about a kilometre. The fact that the whole time, his hand was on the horn and his bumper almost touching mine, did nothing to lower my stress levels. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been this scared in a long, long time. There was so much going on in my head that I’m surprised (and proud) that I managed to keep my cool and stay on the road. I’m also proud that I didn’t succumb to the madness in me and get out of the car with the Fellow’s baseball bat!

Anywhoo. With the Fellow encouraging me, I went to the nearest police station and filed an FIR. At first even the policemen there were incredulous at registering a complaint about eve-teasing/harassment/rash driving. I finally had to tell them I was a fauji-wife and drop some names for them to take me seriously. That done, I finally told the uncles and aunts what happened.

And their reaction? Why are you picking fights for no reason? You will go away and then he’ll come after your aunt (who was in the car with me). Why are you making such a big deal about this? There is no point in taking on such men. So on and so forth. Note that all this was accompanied by expressions that clearly said I was crazy and had all these new fangled notions which were stupid.

I don’t know what to think anymore. I’ve grown up thinking that there is no way in hell any woman should stand abuse (of any kind, and at the hands of anyone). And here there are people telling me I should have let the guy get away with what he did. It may not seem much as compared to a lot of other eve-teasing incidents. But for the couple of minutes his car was following us, I know that I was shit-scared, with my heart threatening to explode with stress. As for my aunt, she was so petrified that she didn’t even think of taking the number of the car down (which I did, even while trying to drive calmly) or even say anything beyond “is he following us?” over and over again.

Like the Fellow said (when I was in some kind of minor PTS and was having doubts about my actions), we have the benefit of education, awareness and fortunately, the right contacts. If we don’t take any action, who will? If we let fellows like these get away, we are simply encouraging them. If we don’t make them take responsibility for their behaviour, they’re just getting reinforced and will do this to some other girl tomorrow. The Indian Penal Code has provisions for eve-teasing. Yet no one really bothers. Yes, I know, our judicial system isn’t the best there is, especially about such cases. But as a responsible citizen, isn’t it our duty to at least report it to the police? How can you complain that the authorities don’t take any action to ensure safety for women, if you yourself are complacent about it and don’t step up?

How can you, as a woman, forget what you owe to yourself? How can you continue living with the panic, the increased heart rate, the dread of what might be coming next, the fear? How can you forget that you’re a human being too and don’t deserve to be followed like an animal and harassed in broad daylight?

How can you be so indifferent?

Super-Annoyed I Am

(Day 107 of 112)

I hate it when things go wrong. Especially just when they seem to be going right. I’m in my happy place and then I have to wrench myself away from the bubbles and chocolate and crawl into despair and a grumpy mood. Hate it I tell you.

Right now I’m all worked up and hyperventilating. The Fellow tried to tell me that by Monday everything should be sorted out. But Monday is a whole day away and I don’t think I can take the not knowing for certain for so long. The Fellow of course is used to my neurotic upstarts. But today even he was all confused (and I think too sleepy to really make sense of my ramblings). What I really think is that all this time away from me, and getting tortured by those bosses of his has made him forget how neurotic I can get.

So that’s another thing added on the things-to-do list – help the Fellow get used to my weirdness again. And convince him it’s endearing- what he loves most about me.

The Analysis of Persons on Two-Wheelers

(Day 106 of 112)

It’s simple. They should all be consigned to hell. Hot fires, pitchforks and run by the devil kind of hell. Torturing them might be a possibility too. I’m thinking Chinese torture methods. Maybe having them listen to George Bush talk politics. Anything that makes them want to jump into one of hell’s fires and atone for the sins committed on the roads of small town India.

I mean, driving here is like asking for trouble and begging for three more sets of eyes. It’s impossible to be a good driver here and follow all the rules of traffic because there aren’t any – good drivers or rules of traffic. I know this because I’m very sure that I’m one of 3 people in this entire place who actually uses the indicator in the car. I’m also the only one who likes to stay in the lane I’m in, and not weave around like I’m have a seizure or something. And when I stop to let pedestrians cross the road, they look at me like I’m the crazy lady from Timbuktu and am luring them into a trap!

Why do men on two-wheelers think, that by virtue of being on two wheels (and this includes everything from a cycle to a motorbike), they are suddenly endowed with immortality and skin that’s like armour? That could be the only reason for a) not wearing helmets, (b) weaving in and out of traffic like they’re in a video-game arcade, (c) piling on people on the two wheeler like it’s the roof of a State bus, (d) looking for my car to try their stunts with. Morons each and every one of them I tell you. And suicidal to boot.

And you know what scares me more than hitting one of these fools? The Fellow. I mean it’s his beloved car that will bear the brunt of immense stupidity let loose on the roads right? And I really don’t want to be the one behind the wheel when stupidity collides with the car. And I refuse to be the one to tell the Fellow about it. I have a feeling love will take a back seat then. At least for me.

This Feeling I Have

(Day 105 of 112)

As the days pass by, and the countdown (or countup) gets closer to the end, there are a multitude of feelings in me, that are making my head a very annoying place to be in right now. I don’t know which way to think and this is leaving me standing all confused and lost in the middle of my own head.

To begin with, there is the excitement. Obviously. I am super-thrilled to finally be with the Fellow again and can barely stop grinning whenever someone mentions the name of the town he is in right now.

Then there is the worry – about all the packing and travelling I have to do. Not that I’m afraid of either. It’s just that I’m a little (and I make an understatement here) fed up of living out of a suitcase and dread the idea of packing. Then there is the travelling. Both trains I have to take are at 6 in the morning and my worry is about waking up in time to catch them. And even if I do wake up, I just hope I’m lucid enough to carry my bags and walk without support! 6am. Godforsaken hour I tell you.

Add to all of this, increasing panic, about all the work I have to finish, before I can go waltzing off to the Fellow and at least a fortnight of no productivity. I complained about this yesterday and nothing has changed today. Except that I’ve slept a little lesser. And I get cranky when I do that – sleep less that is.

This crankiness is made worse with the damn furnace that I’m living in right now. The universe seriously doesn’t like me and global warming has done the rest. And so instead of experiencing a cool pre-winter, it’s back to the summer and seriously torturous temperatures of 45 deg C! How is one to achieve any work in this kind of weather I ask you?

And so, this feeling I have, is of extreme conflict. The excitement in me is fighting to stay afloat amidst the worry, panic, crankiness and of course the heat. But I have a sinking feeling that it’s a lost cause. All I can do now, is wait it out and hope that the Fellow can sort it all for me!