IN PURSUIT OF A GOOD BLOUSE TAILOR

Last week, when Barack Obama and his wife visited India to be a part of our Republic Day parade, rumours had it that Mr.Narendra Modi might gift 100 Benarasi sarees to the first lady as a gesture of goodwill. Now this way of tightening cross border friendship deeply troubled me because our Prime Minister failed to answer one important thing, ‘Where will Michelle Obama find a good Blouse tailor?’

Once a girl reaches the threshold of womanhood, she begins to understand that she can no longer inveigle herself into believing that her T-shirt can make up for a saree blouse. It is then that she begins her pursuit to find the one who understands her enough to wondrously stitch out the perfect saree blouse and mind you, a good blouse tailor is not an easy catch.

If you think about it, blouse making shouldn’t be an arduous task. You provide the tailor with the matching piece of cloth which you spent hours to select, leaving you wish that you were colour blind and all he has to do is stitch out a decent blouse by following your measurements. You even ignore it when the tailors, irrespective of the gender, use more of their hands and less of the measuring tape to chalk down your size. You brave it all, just for that one perfect blouse. The result is almost always, disappointing.

My first blouse tailor was obsessed with Egypt. Why else would he stitch out a blouse that made it look like I had pyramids built on my chest? Another tailor made a blouse so tight that I began to think that I had deceived puberty and was continuing to be flat-chested. The tailor I went to get a blouse stitched for my college farewell ardently took down all the measurements and promised to not disappoint me like the others did. Interestingly, I attended the farewell wearing a blouse that resembled a shirt because the tailor didn’t want to upset my family by cutting my back low. Then there was this particular tailor who added pads inside my blouse and his reasoning was a classic “Medem, aapke wo jo haina, wo kaafi nahi hai.” Sleepless nights were spent considering a boob job.

Now it is a universal fact that all women secretly hate each other. There is this woman my mother is friends with whose blouses are so perfect that you might doubt if they were pasted on her. Others including my mother would regularly swarm around her encouraging her to divulge the name and whereabouts of her tailor. Her answer was always, “Yahan ka nahi hai. He belongs to my village. I got this stitched when I went home.” Such a bitch!

Recently, I happened to come across this particular guy who ran a small tailoring shop named ‘OOH LA LAAA’ near my brother’s school. I wonder what might have been the reason behind me choosing him. May be it was the proximity to my place or the fact that he was ready to first stitch a trial blouse to clear my confusion. I was sold! After a week of questioning my patience, this gem of a guy gifted me a blouse that made me wonder if he knew my proportions better than me.  I had finally struck gold after going through so much dirt.

A woman’s relationship with her blouse tailor is unique. He knows what she means when she requires a Vidya Balan style blouse, or when she says “Bhaiyya front deep chahiye. But not that deep ok?”. He knows the contours of her upper body better than her boy friend and he is ready to make alterations to her heart’s desire. He is true to his words when he says he will give her the blouse on Saturday and he never messes with her cup size. He knows when she has gained a couple of kilos and silently increases the length of the blouse to cover up her peeping back tire. He should be declared an Indian Super hero.

I wore my new tailor’s creation to a wedding recently. A friend asked, “Kahan se silwaya?”. I flushed a bit, looked at mother while replying, “Yahan ka nahi hai. He belongs to my village. I got this stitched when I went home.”

I blame it on Muliebrity!

P.S- I am not dead. :) 

THE RED HANDED "GIA BATH AND BODY WORKS" GIVEAWAY !!!!

So, I love chocolates and anything or anyone who smells like one. A few months back a friend of mine gave me a box and told me that inside it were some bars of soap. Now this made me furious. Why would anyone give someone soap unless they think that the person cannot afford to buy one from the local supermarket because of which his/her personal hygiene has been compromised. But then I opened the tiny box it came in and was immediately compelled to dig my teeth into a divine bar of soap. It was the ‘Chocolate Crème Silk’ soap by ‘Gia Bath And Body Works’.  Ladies and Gentlemen, GAYATRI BROWN made me eat soap!!

Gayatri Brown is professionally a makeup artist, celebrity stylist, cosmetic formulator and a gourmet artisan soap maker. Fancy eh?! She is personally an amazing person and a mother of an equally amazing little girl named Georgia, who was the inspiration behind the brand name ‘GIA BATH AND BODY WORKS’.

Disturbed by the amount of chemicals that the skin care products in the market contained, Gayatri decided to launch her brand of skin care products that were untouched by any harmful chemicals. Handcrafted with love, her products contain no SLS, SLES, hardeners or preservatives, but are instead packed with liquid silk, fresh cream, sweet almond, cocoa, jojoba, avocado, shea butter, virgin olive oil and other such delicious ingredients.

Since Gayatri specializes in Gourmet Artisan bath and body products, where her soaps resemble a pastry, a cake slice or even a cupcake, I won’t blame you if you actually lick it or eat it. They smell irresistibly good, feel good, taste good and are suitable for all kinds of skin type. She also makes shower gels, body butter, perfumes, body mist and body polishing scrubs, all of which are made in a smoke free, pet free and a germ free environment that is her home kitchen. How cool is that?!

Now I have a problem. If I really like something, I keep recommending it to others till they actually try it out and eventually fall in love with it. Since I am addicted to this particular brand, I have been off late recommending it to almost everyone who I believe takes a bath. Gayatri stepped in and decided to help me by generously agreeing for a Giveaway.

You have got to participate and support!

WHAT IS UP FOR GRABS???

1^st PRIZE-  Gia Bath and Body Works gift hamper worth Rs.1500/-

2^nd PRIZE - Gia Bath and Body Works gift hamper worth Rs 1000/-

2 winners, 2 humble prizes

Now participate in the giveaway already! For Indian residents only, but if you have an Indian address where we can possibly ship these goodies, hop in!

You can ENTER THE GIVEAWAY THROUGH THE RAFFLECOPTER WIDGET BELOW.

GIVEAWAY STARTS TODAY, 26^th December, 2014 and ends on 6^th January, 2015. Support!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An Ode To The Indian Toilet...

Dear Indian Toilet,

Nothing screamed of your slow demise more than the Harpic advertisement, where you were heartlessly replaced by your western counterpart. Renovation after renovation, you were destroyed, only to survive in areas that were yet to be touched by westernization and joint problems. In a world where everyone and everything pretends to be urban and red carpet, you have become a symbol of rural living. But I shall miss you.

You my friend taught me my first and only known yoga pose, Malasana. You made me squat before squatting became mainstream. You would be surprised to read this but you also taught me the art of meditation. You see, with you I only had the option of staring at the opposite wall or the ant steadfastly walking on the handle of the red bucket. Sometimes I would work on my predilection for peeling the paint off the opposite wall by counting the numerous bindis my mother had left on the washbasin mirror, permanently stuck because she found them too unhygienic to be used again. Our romance was always interrupted by the numbness creeping into my feet, forcing me to leave you temporarily. But you knew, I would always come back.

I still remember the day those men came to my house. We already had an English version of you on the first floor of our place, rarely used because we all loved you. But my grandfather was 78 and you knew that he couldn’t garner enough flexibility to use you. He needed a seat, which the western toilet with its ceramic throne kindly provided. Your demise was inevitable but let me tell you something; you served us well my friend.

You are well aware that innovations make life easy and I know that you would scream “traitor!!”, but I have to tell you that it did not take time for me to fall in love with your western avatar.  On the day following a strenuous workout at the gym, I didn’t have to scream out a cuss word or two every time I had to attend the nature’s call because unlike you, the western toilet understood my limitations. But as much as there are pros to something, there are cons. The western toilet has sprouted my yearning for extra entertainment like replying to important mails through phone, watching viral YouTube videos or stalking the ex, which wasn’t possible with you because all available energy was utilized by me towards keeping myself from falling into you.

You might be thinking, why a letter now? Well, I was forced to squat yesterday while fitting accessories on the lowest branch of my Christmas tree and guess what, I fell backwards. Wouldn’t have happened, had I stayed loyal to you.

Until we meet again (courtesy-Indian railways).

Love,

Your once devoted user.

P.S- I know that blogging works on a give and take basis. I also know that I haven't stalked other blogs for long, owing to being a junior lawyers who gets excited at the mere mention of the word 'sleep'. I humbly apologize. I shall stalk you soon! 

I am a winner.I don't even lose weight.

I need to lose weight. The mirror in my bedroom seems to have a concave surface every time I look at it. This reader’s digest with its every damn issue wants me to lose weight. I am so desperate!

Ok, enough, I will start today. I will start my day with a glass of warm lemon water in the morning with a drop of honey in it. Priyanka told me that this chick from college who resembled a vermicelli strand, used to drink boiling hot water after every meal. Helps with the digestion she said. I will also drink boiling hot water. I have heard that lemon water also helps you pass the stool easier. Stool! What a funny word. A stool also means a small bench and it also means faeces. Faeces, even that is a funny word. Reminds me of the cosmetic brand Faces. Boiling water after every meal it is!

I will start working out in the morning. 30 minutes on the elliptical, 15 minutes on the treadmill and some floor exercises, that would be enough to chisel my body to perfection. Actually, I have heard that Jillian Michaels has this video online called the ‘30 Day Shred’ which is an exercise video of 20 minutes but it is said to kick ass. Last time I saw her video, she claimed that giving her 20 minutes is equivalent to ‘spending hours of phonying at the gym’. I will give her my 20 minutes. She is so hot! Lesbians are hot, except those who pretend to be men, like the ones they show in ‘Orange is the new black’. 20 minutes I will give her, every morning. But I have to be at work 9 am and this is when I don’t have a case to attend. Stupid law! Why did I become a lawyer? Ok, I will wake up at 5 am and workout or maybe I will work out after work because then I won’t have that morning ugly face which needs time to fix. Also, because of the food I ate since morning, I would be having high energy levels. Evening workout it is!

Or maybe, I should just diet. I will start with some cornflakes in the morning. Deepika Padukone feels special after having cornflakes. So, what if I don’t drink milk? I will just have cornflakes dry, pretending that it is Bhel Puri. I will not eat the snacks that the cycle chai wala gets us at work. Also, two chappatis in the afternoon for lunch and two cups of green tea throughout the day. I hate green tea! Ok, I will let it cool down completely and gulp it down in one go. I even read somewhere that cold green tea has more anti-oxidants than hot green tea. My problem is solved. I eat so much at night. I will skip dinner. Actually, I won’t eat anything after 6 pm. In that book ‘Lose weight and not your mind’ the author said that your stomach gets sleepy and that it’s at its best between 7 am -10 am. Oh! The book's name was ‘Don’t lose your mind, Lose your weight.’ Maybe I will follow the reverse diet! Have heavy breakfast, comparatively less heavy lunch and little dinner. May be I will just have fruits at night. There is an apple lying in the fridge.

Fridge. There is ice-cream in the fridge.

P.S- I am in the ‘last line’ stage. Everyday

P.P.S- I missed blogging. Lawyering is keeping me on my toes. So many blogs to read!

Just another woman's take on 'Kiss of Love'...

So suddenly out of nowhere,  kissing in public makes you a rebel, an activist against moral policing. It makes you the flag bearer of justice and a soldier of free living. The youth of India want to kiss.

It all started when a clueless political party decided to vandalize an uptown café in Calicut, because a news report proclaimed that immoral activities in the form of kissing and hugging was happening inside.  Angered by the depravity that the political party was indulging in, a group of young bloods decided to launch a drive against such moral policing.  Thus, ‘KISS OF LOVE’ was born and now everyone wants to kiss their way to a massive social reform.

Now would I kiss in public? Ok, let me rephrase this. Would I as a woman, have the audacity to smooch the one I like, before the lovely audience that the citizens of my country make? Would I ???  NO, and it is not because I hate kissing (don’t be obtuse) or because I have truckloads of respect for our sanskaar and sabhyata. It is just that I don’t think that our country is mentally developed enough to accept public display of affection.

Let us for a minute imagine a scene. You and the one you currently love just got out after enjoying a lovely meal at the restaurant that you frequent. Everything has been perfect and the day is beautiful. The gentle whirling of the wind suddenly sounds like a John Mayer track and you two are having that moment which just has to be made better with a kiss. And Kiss you do. Kiss you do, a little afraid that your relatives might be around somewhere . Kiss you do, as aunties and uncles of your colony pass by. Kiss you do, as a lone auto driver stares on and kiss you do, as a biker records a video of you smooching, for his own private enjoyment later that night. Now, tell me, was the risk worth it?

I was not aware of the ‘Kiss of Love’ event until one of my colleagues told me about it. “Hey, guess what? People are going to gather at Marine drive on 2^nd November and kiss. They are saying that it is some kind of a protest against moral policing” she said, showing me the Facebook page of the event, which had by then crossed 60000 likes, with around 7000 declaring that they will be a part of this drive. We laughed about it, imagining Emraan Hashmi style kissing happening outside the TV box, in our own Marine drive.  In a country that has redefined porn to include MMS of a woman sleeping in a public transport bus, unaware that her saree is innocently displaying her navel, much to the pleasure of the onlookers; we were planning a kiss protest, which can easily be mistaken for a Guinness book of world record attempt.

The problem does not lie in a few politicians who have taken up moral policing as their latest political propaganda. The problem lies in all of us. We perceive a kiss as the initiation of foreplay, a sexual stimulation and not as a way of displaying love or affection. A kiss according to us, has more to do with the fire in the loins than the spark in the heart. We are structured to think that way, thanks to the years of declaring everything including love, a taboo. We as a country, need to change.

They share images of the sculptures in Khajuraho, validating that India is the land of Kamasutra and that kiss is part of our sexy culture. They say that we live in a society where hatred in displayed publicly and crimes happen in broad daylight. They say that if hate is publicly allowed, why not love? They even seriously point out that kissing is their fundamental right, part of their liberty. It is all very true, but we should also remind ourselves that we have bigger problems to counter than the denial of street kissing.

The kiss of love drive that happened in a quaint little town in Kerala, has taken over the country by storm. Every college is suddenly flexing a muscle and hosting a kissing party. All in the name of social reform. But the true intention behind it is lost. Moral policing has taken a back seat. It has become more of a comical outburst than a fight. The ‘Kiss of Love’ event that happened in my city, saw only a handful of protesters, but a tsunami of men who had come to watch the live lip-lock ceremony.

So, do I want to kiss before an audience like that? I don’t. Do you?

P.S- Not every city in our country is metropolitan .Not everyone is modern.

P.P.S- Let me ask you something?Would the protest against moral policing have received such publicity, had it been a candle march  instead of a kiss drive?

KARUTTAPPA.....

http://sketchindia.files.wordpress.com/

Rumour has it that his wife saw him applying soot on their baby’s beautiful white face.

Karuttappa did not believe his mother. His father would never do such an unimaginable thing. Why would a father colour his 1 year old baby girl’s face with dirt? No, it was certainly a lie formulated by his hallucinating mother. The rumour spread like wildfire across the village but Karuttappa never believed his mother. She never truly loved her husband.

Karuttappa was as dark as the moonless night in which he was born. By the time he could walk, he was obese and certified his legitimacy by looking exactly like his dark skinned father.  He was a good child, kind, intelligent and ever so humble, just like his father. His mother was everything he was not. Fair, arrogant and aware of the impact her beauty left on anyone who crossed her way. She kept telling him that he and his father had skin the colour of processed tea that was made in the factory which his family ran. Karuttappa knew that his father would have never got such a catch had it not been an alliance brought by his rich aunt. Money bought everything, even women, the kid learnt early in life.  He was eight when he was gifted a baby sister, as fair as his mother.  Exactly a year later, his father became the hot topic as the man who coloured his fair skinned daughter, black.

Karuttappa always craved to be his mother’s first preference, who cooed over his sister. He was his father’s pet but that was mostly because his father was too embarrassed to be seen in public with the newly born. He always wondered why but never enquired much due to the fear of losing importance even in his father’s eyes. He and his father were dark. His mother made sure they both knew about it.

By the time he was 27, Karuttappa hated his own skin. His mother found a clueless fair skinned village girl and they were married in a fortnight. No courtship and no stolen kisses, but he did not have time to brood, for he was happy that he had married a beautiful girl. He loved her and she loved him back with the same fervid conviction.  While his mother visited him every month with fresh contempt for his dark skin and her constant fear that his children would resemble him, his wife loved him and his colour. Among these conflicting views by the two most important women in his life, he chose the one that he was used to.

Two years down the marriage lane, his wife declared that she was pregnant. Karuttappa rejoiced and the entire family was quick to come down with gifts for his carrying wife. While his father hugged him with teary eyes, his mother filled his ears with ways to make his child enter this world as a fair skinned baby.  Make your wife drink Saffron milk every day, she said. He believed every word she uttered.

His disinterested wife obliged to his antics. She gulped down saffron milk twice a day, since her husband did not want to take a chance by limiting it to one. She sat through the poojas that he conducted in their house, tolerating the Brahmins who did not comprehend a single mantra that came out of their trained mouth. She loved her husband and cursed her mother-in-law for making a beautiful man hate himself. She also believed that their baby must have been too tired of being subjected to so many complicated rituals that she decided to enter the world a month before schedule. A premature yet healthy, fair skinned daughter was born. Karuttappa wept as he kissed his newly born baby girl. The Gods had listened to him. His progeny would be spared of the embarrassment that his colour has brought upon him. His wife kept silent, amused by the display of emotions by her handsome husband.

The news of Karuttappa fathering a fair little girl became a topic that garnered much interest among the villagers. While the prudent section believed that the baby might have acquired the colour of her mother, the rest vouched that Karuttappa’s wife must have shared her bed with another fair skinned man which resulted in the birth of this beautiful little girl. The possible debauchery of his wife became a subject of heated discussion even in the Toddy shops and one night when Karuttappa decided to grab a few drinks, the drunkards decided to debate about the legitimacy of his daughter right in front of him. A brawl followed but died when Karuttappa fell on the ground and wailed. They were quick to leave the weeping man alone.

The next day, a fresh topic of debate was delivered to the villagers.

Rumour has it that his wife saw him applying soot on their baby’s beautiful white face.

P.S- I am back to Kochi after a much needed Diwali break. Went home for a week after almost a year and boy do I feel happy. :) 

P.P.S- Please read before you comment. I would be glad.  

A MAN & HIS HAIRSTYLE.....

“The worse the haircut, the better the man.”― John Green

Men have been taking John Green quite seriously. At any given point of the day, if I look around, I can find men with hairstyles that can make a poet forget everything about poetry and force an atheist to pick up a cross. May be I know nothing about style.

Back when I was a child, I remember judging boys based on their hairstyles. Long hair meant drummer/guitarist/ kidnapper/ don’t take the Parle G biscuit he offered you/ Tamil movie villain’s side kick; while an Anil Kapoor style haircut meant decent/ God fearing/ accept the Parle G biscuit that is offered/ saint who will one day crack the IIT exams/hero who will save the girl from the Tamil movie villain’s long haired side kick. Life was simple back then. But as I grew up, barbers around the world began to commit serious scissor mistakes, paving way to some questionable styles. It was all approved in the name of Fashion. When Beckham got himself a Mohawk, the Indian male population went berserk and ran a trimmer on the sides of their heads leaving a row of hair on the middle which was then styled with some Parachute coconut oil.

But nothing hit the Indian hair scene as much as the word ‘Spikes’ did. Mani, our gardener from Trichy was the first one to get spikes. Actually no, I remember how back when I had a boy cut, every morning  meant staring at the hair strands standing up at odd places and putting them back in place with the help of tap water or my saliva, whichever was nearer. Spikes make my tongue sweat.

My brother recently got himself a ‘Honey Singh’ haircut, where the top portion is kept long and the sides barely there. To state the fact, my brother looks like an Indian version of Frankenstein. Since he is a teenager living in an age where the newspapers are filled with reports on children committing suicide over simple reasons like getting scolded, my parents have accepted his personal preference towards mad kick hairstyles.

I want to blame our cute oriental neighbours for this.  They look grand in everything they sport.  Straight hair, front bangs, messy hair-dos, random rainbow hair colour, spikes and punk influenced haircuts; it looks like they are custom made for every single thing. But that is not our case. No Sir, we certainly not that blessed. Sport a messy hairdo and they mistake you for a street urchin. Get an Emo haircut and your mother will check the yellow pages to contact the local Tantrik. Use excessive gel to style your hair and your grandmother would innocently ask if you were licked on the head by a cow. We my brown friend are definitely not that lucky.

My point is that I miss simple men. Men who are not obsessed with the shape of their eyebrows, the hairlessness of their chest or the smoothness of their jaw line. I want men who respect their two day stubble and indulge in mathematics that is not limited to counting the packs on their abs. I want men with hair styles that make them look terrestrial.

I also miss seeing my brother with a haircut that affirms that he indeed has a human skull underneath all that hair.

Somewhere, Anil Kapoor smiles. 

P.S-  RIP my favourite Mr.R.K.Narayan. Malgudi days will always be read, whatever stage of life I am in.

P.P.S- I wonder why I chose litigation. No time at all. I had to somehow update this blog. :(