Pothead never
had this feeling before while watching Dil Chahta Hai. It was half past three.
What would the time be at BB’s place? Ok…some hours back. He should be pretty
much awake now. She let the phone ring once and cut the call. Some 10 minutes
passed while she waited for the call to come. The new cat was meowing in the
corridor. She had to go to the washroom. What if…..but 15 minutes passed. Noh!
It wasn’t going to come now. She looked out for the cat and rushed quickly
across the corridor. It wasn’t those days anymore. People had work, get that
into your head duffer. It was five minutes to 4 when she could not resist
giving another ring. Immediately there was a returned missed call. For no good
reason she sat up on her bed laughing, holding the phone. A couple of minutes
later the call came.
Two months
later, the first thing she said was “Exactly why have all stories got to
revolve around guys?”
The sleepy voice
on the other side sounded confused, Hello…this is?
ME! Screamed Ph
into the phone, Me, Me, Me. She obviously was her grandmother’s grandchild. The
granny in question always picked up the landline and said “Ami bolchiiii” with
full confidence expecting the other person to obviously get her voice. That
never failed to annoy Ph back then.
How comes you
have lost my number again? You’ve already taken it from me some 30 times.
BB broke an yawn
midway and hastily said, I I…its there. I don’t know why only the number came
up now….I was wondering who’s calling at half past four from India….I well…
Its five minutes
to four, what sort of a clock do you keep? And whatever, I was watching Dil
Chahta Hai.
Uh…ok…um…nice
film.
Why has
everything got to revolve around you guys? Its your lives, your friends, your
jobs, your holidays….with girls thrown in between as fillers…
Naturally, we
lead more interesting lives.
Like what?
You are sounding
feminist, you know that, right?
So, anything
that questions this patriarchal model has to be feminist? Fine, feminist,
granted. But this isn’t fair. You get to have all the fun.
Dekh, men create
history. They dream. They have visions of transforming this world.
They are
certainly doing a great job for the last few thousand years, I can see that.
Stop talking
like a girl. You guys never create anything worthwhile and then blame it on men
for having all the fun and being the authors. Which woman has written another
Man and Superman?
Now man and
Superman was Ph’s pet favourite. And no
one reminded her more of John Tanner than Blackboots. She hated Anne, btw, and
never figured out why all of Shaw’s heroines (minus Eliza) were the sly hateful
lying plotting flirting type. BB had found Anne eminently attractive, as men
will, of course, even when you could glaringly see how she led poor Octavius on
and dumped him unceremoniously, and lied left and right to keep up her damsel
in distress appearance. And then one day BB found the Anne. Through all his
gushing of this perfection in feminine form, she listened with a bored face and
kept asking herself why perfectly sane (well. Not quite in this case) and
terrifically intelligent guys fell for this kind of trope. He even got it into
his head that her beauty parlour visits were an expression of her independence
and personality. He alternately grew jealous and awestruck at the ease with
which she juggled ex, present and future admirers. He developed a newfound
admiration and respect for her lack of propriety and in-your-face vulgarity of
speech. And then he went hibiscus hunting with her, of which to make a paste
for her hair. All of this had the side effect of a profusion of written matter
which kept piling up in Ph’s mail. Plodding through a steady stream of
undivided faith directed at her highness, Ph banged her head on the creamy wall
one day. Hey Ram, now he finds she has blue eyes! Like, seriously?
Dekh BB, I think
there’s just too many people I am falling in love with.
Oreeee! That
Happens. Good, good….
BB is never
surprised at anything. Especially thought related. You’d think he has already
thought up everything there is to think.
You don’t get
it. Its not like I really love them. I’m not feeling any selfless sacrificial
kind of love for anybody. Its rather self centered really. I’m getting the
flutter in the stomach about too many people. That can’t be happening. I mean I
know I’ll never be able to live with almost any of them, and I’m not even sure
if I’d like to make out with most of them,…
Eijonnei tor
kichu hobe na re. You actually tried to think of domestic scenarios with each
one? And like tick them off?
You don’t do
that?
NO!
