Prose before hos

Un-used ISBN number. 

Uphill climbs bring out the worst in me, whether on feet or in the car. The market where I work is located on a relatively uphill slope. Naturally, I'm at my worst every single time I'm asked to lug my ass anywhere around the area.

On one of my last ATM hangs with Mia K, I was ranting to her about a friend. I believed the said friend had fewer fucks to give about me than in comparison to her SO's friends. That should irk anyone.

Mia K being Mia K (ahem) looked at me calmly with an expression that read, "This child." and continued to hear until I shut up with all my ranting and replaced it with panting.

Speaking of panting, Mia K has a great joke on how dogs wear coats and they pant in the Summer due to the same coat (haha fuck me, hilarious). It's something that's a part of her overcompensational behaviour since she put in her papers.

I digress, but coming back to the uphill climb and Mia K, she responded with a counter example on how my friend was giving me all the fucks and how I have been forgetting about the same (citing two academic papers and four parties from the last one financial year).

"You know what's your problem? (mental note, not verbal.) You keep a list of grudges only. Instead, why don't you focus on a list of gratitudes?"

"You know what, I hate you (mental note, not verbal.) You are right. I have never done that. Maybe, it's time for me to make that."

What better than the last post during my birthday month, to recall the kindness and the large heartedness of the people I've encountered.

To the girl who didn't show up to take admission at my second college - You helped me secure a seat. Without your input (of staying out of admissions) help, I wouldn't have managed to meet the people I call family today, the degree that taught me everything about images, still and moving. That made me realize that there's a life outside academia and that it's worth pursuing. You also ensured I didn't go to the UK since I got admitted in Delhi and that was the only one condition upon which I skipped all the colleges I got through there god I hate you so much (how does one not add grudges to the same list man?).

Mum - For being oh so nonchalant about dating, bringing men home and for being all round resourceful by ensuring me the tastiest present from my birthday wishlist this year.

The Japanese passerby who told me to pick the John Coltrane Tshirt - He was my Yoda and I had a full padawan moment with him. He appeared out of nowhere when the Thai woman was charming her way in and ensuring she sells me three t-shirts including Chili Peppers ("We don't stock Chili Peppers, but we do keep Red Hot Chili Peppers hahaha.") and Oasis. He came in nonchalantly, not looking to buy anything and when I was hyperventilating over the Coltrane t-shirt he asked me to pick that over the Chili Peppers. "Classy, definitely. RHCP is more rocker like. Which one are you?"
All of a sudden, I no longer needed Sinner to help me with my purchase. The Thai woman looked a bit disappointed.

Speaking of which, Sinner - For being the most compassionate travel partner despite travelling with me since 2010 and knowing I throw up at the drop of the hat. For fussing over me when I didn't sleep enough and for calming me down when she lost her wallet full of monies and cards. For baking that cake on my blog anniversary party (it wasn't this month but still) and being one eye roll away from knowing what's up with me. Recently, she pronounced I liked a guy before I knew I liked him. I don't know about you, but I need more of her in my life. "He's crazy, just like her.", she told her Catfish friend, and he nodded in agreement. This, when I knew nothing about the person. All that we (Sinner and I) are missing is an umblical cord. Really. She wouldn't agree though.

My University - For making sure I exited academia with an A, and nothing less. It was an absolute pleasure and my gratitude to the people who feigned well at tolerating my work and vice verse. Quite a ride.

My workplace - For trusting in me and giving me a chance of a lifetime on projects that people usually take a long time to reach to in their career. 

Thai Airways Ground Staff in Delhi - For blocking the middle seat and thus ensuring I slept through the flight with my feet curled up on the next seat. I make a silent wish for everytime a ground staff personnel does that for me.

The lady at Platinum Mall who exchanged our pants two days later - She's my hero, for not only did she recognize me and gave me stuff my size in a plethora of colours, she also agreed to exchange sizes and allowed us to try outfits (despite so, we came to exchange). She was more than happy helping Sinner and I pick pants and skirts. In a country where you're asked to not enter a nightclub cause you're not a guy and not allowed to touch clothes which don't fit your size, she was quite something. I hope she makes a fortune selling those soft as hell, skinny pants.




Circuit - For fighting through the time I was traveling. After I came back, there were days I wondered how he survived. I am so fucking glad he did, I would be devasted otherwise...

The lady who gave me change for 1000 baht in exchange for buying two rubber bands worth ten baht each - You make me want to move to Bangkok and embarrass myself asking people to help me get a job there. Recently, I was out trying to buy a bottled water in exchange with a 100 rupee note. I was shown the door by FOUR fucking shopkeepers because they did not deem a 20 rupee purchase worth giving 80 rupees worth of change.


Fuck you guys, learn a thing or two on how to treat people.


His Holiness The Dalai Lama - For making that miraculous entrance during my vacation and ensuring I didn't come back to a situation where my ass was on fire trying to hunt rare images from the cesspool of shit that the internet is. Youdaman.

The men who played Charlie "Putz" at the drinks trucks - You gave me a reason to laugh at myself, besides stiff drinks.

Man Friday- Very few people can drill facts in your head without an ulterior motive. While I'm ducking my head in the sand and not coming out to the reality, he's pushing me to face the facts and pick my life and look at what I intend on doing for the next couple of years. In his words, "fun and games are over."

Mia Khalifa - There's no easy way of doing this. I'm high out of my mind and to write this after giving her a farewell isn't exactly simple. While I'm at being sentimental, let me count the times Mia K was the bomb.

For rolling me a doob in the conference room. For the reverse psychology that made me stick around the job. For drilling in me that clean eating is completely possible regardless of being fussy and picky. For proving to me that incest is real by playing both, the role of my elder sister and potential lover. For always being a phone call away (yet never answering). For single handedly standing against everything that went wrong in the last one year and making sure I remember none of that. For making me into a better person. For telling it to my face that my IRL game sucks and for planning my mayyat. It's been a real pleasure, Mia.

At a Safal outlet, 18:08 hours.

Baby Banana - (observing a rack full of Granny Smith) "Listen, how many calories are there in one green apple? Are those like carbs? Like I know there are 80 calories in a medium normal apple."

Mia Khalifa - "Ah, those (pointing at Granny Smith) are called pear in English and बब्बूगोशा in Hindi. You might want to learn fruits first before you learn about calories."

I was all of 16- when I first found out what they called me behind my back.

"Baby elephant"

At 16, I definitely had better legs than that adorable thing on the left.

A girl filled that as an entry in response to her "Favourite Pet" in my slam book. Looking back, I barf at the idea that I went to her in the first place to have it filled.

Regardless, I was 16. Weighing 49 kilos- an average of over 9 kilos than most girls in my class. Blessed with a round face, filled cheeks and hair tied in a single braid (pretty much all of the school tenure), I was hardly the size of a baby elephant, my arch nemesis at the time.

I don't quite remember what my reaction was (besides shock). Shock, that they were picking on me for my physical appearance. You see, unlike today, there wasn't quite an outlet for "awareness" and making memes such as "best swimsuit size is whatever the fuck you have" and so on.

I didn't have heavy boobage, or legs or waist. Hell, I'd kill to go back at 16 (but with the boobs please) and be the same person. I truly think the 16-year-old me had the kind of spunk that present 25-year-old (thirty kilos fatter and three cup sizes bigger) doesn't have. I digress but this "baby elephant" instance came to me, as I spiralled back into thinking about how trolls are made.

Last evening, I found out that Writer/Comedienne Supriya Joshi apparently put out a thread in response to the trolls who have been fat-shaming her. If this were an academic piece, addressed to people aged 30 and above, I'd explain every fucking term in my previous sentence. However, since it's my blog, clocking in under 50 fucking views, I feel I have the liberty to move on. She wrote a long thread, addressing her issue against those who reduce her body as a currency into shaming her for what she is/she does. Joshi's thread was absolutely compelling read, especially for someone like me, who's been at the receiving end of it.





To begin with, the problem here at point zero isn't trolls alone. The rhizomatic structure from where these trolls emerge always tend to go towards the can of worms, aka conditioning. You grow up to be a person, a reflection of who you were while growing up, by and large. A mirror image of your parents, of the friends who shaped you (aka the asshole from school who started the "baby elephant" label). You've been in a place where you've learnt to point fingers at anyone with a visibly different shape of body than you all your life. A thread on Twitter, educational creatives on Facebook and Instagram can barely help you. They can probably make you sympathize with them for like 20 seconds or more (depending on how thick in the head you are). The discourse moved from pointing and laughing at you after filling your slam book to trolling people online. Bullies acquired a form in Trolls, where faceless identities can do the same to you, what spineless gits attempted in school/college.

For me, the ordeal ended when I left school. During the college admissions, I was convinced of not wanting to go to a girls college because our convent school was a hell hole, nothing short of penance to live through (despite Jesus dying for our sins). Thankfully, people at college, even at 18 were far more mature than cunts from school. To this day, I don't feel judged for occupying space, when I sit, when I eat or when I walk. Basically, I thank all the people I ever brushed shoulder with at college (and believe me, there were quite a few in the three colleges that I attended) for being fucking normal about how I look.

At 25, I no longer am affected by what people say for me, call me or tell me to my face. The only opinion that matters about my body is mine. So, when three months ago, I looked in the mirror and did actually see a stranger look back, I knew I had to take the matter in my hand. After many trials and errors, I'm now attempting to work on my body, mostly because I don't want to subscribe to the same lifestyle I was living in the last eight years of my tenure at different colleges. I want to be able to go back at where I was when I was 16. Look back at the same body and marvel at it.

The most critical thing in looking back, ofcourse, remains facing my demons. I was once told by a dear friend, that kids who grow up fat and are called names for it are forever fat kids in their head. No matter how much weight they lose, or what they turn out to be professionally or personally, or how many packs of abs they visibly sport, the fact remains that a part of their mental health is forever stunted. Somewhere deep down, I knew she was right.

But as someone who wants to look back at being 16, and wanting to change my life, I need to address these bullies and trolls I've encountered in the process.

As Joshi rightly said, when you call someone fat, there's nothing more than a physical description you're explaining. That's an adjective and that's who they are. More often than not, a fat person is pretty self-aware that they're fat. However, when you call someone a terrible terrible person, you should know there's something off about them. Sometime back, a man I went out with (and was actually beginning to enjoy his company) randomly told me that how any Indian family I aspire to get myself married into, will not "traditionally" accept my presence for how I physically look. However, he did add that atleast my skin colour will work in the favour. Was that man a bully? Probably not. Was he a troll? Hardly so. Was he concerned about what the world truly thinks of people like me, ten-twenty-thirty kilos overweight, obese, chubby, "healthy"? Fuck yeah.

If everything came down to looks, Charles Sobraj would make for Nepal's president and not a terrible fucking individual. However, given his sweltering looks and suave attitude, he would surely make an Indian man and his family truly happy. As for that girl from school, I sincerely wish she comes under a speeding car and breaks her triple chin (oh did I point at the obvious now?) that she proudly sports in all her pictures. Umm, is my favourite animal a giraffe? I don't think so. Not that petty, but still, petty (enough to point my vanity and pitch it against hers, convent school women only understand one language).

You know what they say, being bullied can turn the victims into becoming a bully themselves. Aka the plot of Mean Girls. Or, how I'm not sorry about being the venomous, unapologetic asshole that I am. Thank you, moral science classes. You truly helped my personality in its complete development. 

I returned from Pune, last week, to hear that Delhi was anticipating "Wettest July" in what seems (?) like a decade. Predicted by the met guys and having that conveyed by my mother only means alteration of some facts so if this seems dodgy to you, I'm passing the blame to my parental unit.

What's a fact checker and why does my blog need one?

Moving on, the misleading title is quite an opener to the problem of lack of getting any. In other words, 'Cobwebs on my Vagina', 'Drought in my Pussy', both contested and lost to the current opening title. I really need to look for a solution to problems such as, "Dude, we discussed weather so does that mean he's friend-zoned me?" but really, I am just so full of negativity, I thought let me pep up with some weather talk and what better than Monsoon to get the juices (gunk) flowing. (yuck)

I used to get dating. Much like I got the idea of taking a bus to school. There's a reason you indulge in camaraderie. You apparently save the environment from pollution by contributing to the noise when you shove 50 or more hyper kids in a bus and release 20 such buses in all directions to and from school every morning. If you care, I believe in home-schooling (also cause wow the fee structure is insane and I can possibly never afford to send my hypothetical child to school).

Now, I don't get that anymore. Or dating. Have the rules changed? Why do the kids travel in cars now? Why did my school stop sending buses to pick kids? Why do parents pay upward of a fucking lakh for their kids to learn colours and numbers? Somethings I will never understand. For everything else, there are rich fuckers paying their kids fee and making the rest of us question our subsidized convent education.

I digress, but my dear frenemy Mia Khalifa answers. Her version is almost rude.

"Darling, they all want your ass and you give them your hand. You're getting none back."

Bitch is probably PMSing and taking it out on me. I took the answer back home, as she drove me in her new shiny car, only to repeat that to SSA.

He had a better explanation (or maybe, I was just well fed), "You don't get a call back for second ones because you give out the complete package in the first."

"You know that makes total sense...the ones where I did follow up or like met the guy again are like the ones where there was so much awkward silence. Yeah, you're right...they weren't the kind of dates...you know...on acid.", I said while standing under the shade of a Peepal tree which did us no good in protecting from torrential downpour earlier today. In the last 48 hours, it's been humid and dry and no sign of the clouds. I step out of the house for an hour to meet SSA over a walk, and it rains on my parade.



When they said Wettest July, they certainly did mean having for it to rain on my actual fucking parade.

Is there a problem with placing your chips on the lopsided end? If so, then I missed the announcement cause I don't get this behaviour. If I put myself out on a date, I'm slutty and obviously "too into" the guy that I want "it" instantly with. If I don't, then I'm "prude" and how dare I have a "taste" for men. Have I not learnt enough from the idea of Tinder? Swipe, Sleep and Repeat.

But no. I want the wine, and for us to dine and the sixty-nine. So what if it takes awfully long time?

However, the rules have changed and clearly my manual was lost in the mail. To get some, you've to be aggressive, like a fighter. Destiny's Child didn't sing Survivor years ago for nothing. They forecasted a situation such as this to avoid dry spells of July.

I mean, it's half a fucking year and I've gotten NONE.

If you, like me, are having questions about me, may I publically announce that Mia Khalifa isn't getting any either. Despite a name like hers, she doesn't manage to go beyond cuddle.

"He says it's done and I'm like, 'Oh? Already? I didn't even feel it.' and then I never hear from him again...You know I should start like these classes on how to train people to have good sex. Like a whole school, how to initiate, how to take it forward and obviously how to have good sex. You should be my first customer."

Because yeah, the problem is me. To my face, I don't get any cause I have it tattooed on my forehead.

Which brings me to my fucking point, which I have been trying to find ways and means to convey. Men, women, everyone- BUCKLE THE FUCK UP!

You will climb mountains, trek to the fucking Himalayas, run a 20k marathon but when it comes to asking a person out, what the actual fuck happens? Does anyone ask you to give up your first born in exchange of sleeping with someone or going down on them? If so, please feel free to share. I'd be happy to empathise with your choices.

If not, then I don't understand. You'd do everything except for asking for some.

Because let's face it, dating as I know has become this- you text, you plan to meet, you ditch, you text some more, you forget, you text again, you feign excitement, you try to cancel, you meet, you have a good/great time, you never speak to them again.

WHY? Why would you waste good effort to do this nonsense? You're defying the laws of science because you're destroying energy...mmm good energy in this nonsense that you're putting the other person up for.

If you want to meet for "a" drink, say so. Tell the other person, "Hey, you know what, I have no intentions of following up cause I don't quite care. You still up for that one drink?"

Half the fucking time, I meet people out of politeness. At least, we can be politely honest with each other and say, "Hey, you know what I'm going to flake on you so let's end it right here. Let's save each other the energy and the process. Why don't we spend our respective time reading Camus and never talk to each other again?"

Trust me, that'd be romantic af.

But no, here I am, and here are your rules. I will be 'cool' and 'chill' and wait for the next person to nudge me to death to have some drinks, make conversation, waste energy and never hear from them again.

I wish I could eat and spend my energy digesting refined calories than writing this crap. If I tried, maybe even I could run for some 50k and do well, because dating for sure is harder than running a marathon.

Morning after my blog anniversary party, I was high as a kite. After weeks, I found myself up on a Sunday morning, naturally, I decided to spend the time with my favourite person. My grandfather was catching up on his morning news, over a banana as he normally does. I sat on the chair, next to his bed and found myself staring at the wall. Twenty minutes into that pointless non-interactive hang, I heard him talk.

"You'll die if you eat a banana and egg."

Jack Johnson's Banana Pancakes started playing in my head as I imagined myself swimming into a pile of hash browns and pancakes. I'd booked a cab earlier in the day to head to McDonald's for breakfast, despite the wretched cleanse. Take it as a hint from the universe or bad karma or just pure luck, it didn't show up. Exasperated, I stepped back in the house after what seemed like an hour and a half of negotiating with the cab driver. "To hell with the diet, it's not working anyway", was my vibe after the party. I'd survived the last two days without eating any kind of fat, let alone good or bad and it was horrible. I was low on metabolism and high on substance. The song continued playing in my head as I stared fondly at the wall, only knowing I'd imagined him saying that. Five minutes later, he repeated again.

"See what does this say, if you eat eggs and banana you'll die. Does it say that?"

I tried to re-focus. I stared hard at the television screen and my brain was blank. Blank as a sheet of Word Document waiting for my crap before every MPhil assignment. Still craving pancakes and maple syrup with salted butter I attempted to look at the television screen. More than half the screen was occupied by Baba Ramdev trying to do Surya Namaskar or some such and some product placement for his brand on the side. There was a tiny screen showing how Pakistan has something to do with nefarious things going on in India. I tried to look for the headline that my grandfather had said out loud but couldn't find it.

"Huh?", with a dry mouth I tried asking. I was convinced, it was my brain talking and not my sober grandfather.

"It was on TV."

At the point I was sure, he'd passive smoked with the rest of us and that got him high. There was no way such a bizarre thing would play on a Sunday morning. I mean for fuck's sake, Sunday's the day of brunch and champagne and eggs with banana are the most harmless things you can do together.

Then it happened.



I stared at the screen in disbelief and let different bulletins roll three times before taking this shot. Ended up eating a greasy plate of Chole Bhature that I needed to fight the hangover with. Been avoiding Bananas and Eggs together since.



Epilogue (Blog Party)

(During the course of Taboo)

AJ- "Where did Abéy go?"
Me - "JAIL."
AJ- "What is he then?"
Me- "Convict? Arrested?"
AJ- "YES THAT!"
Me- "Arrested? Arrest?"
AJ- "The last one."
Me- "Arrest?"
AJ- "YEAH. (softly) do you think he heard it?"
Me- "Nah, he doesn't care. He's barely interested."

Four hours later

Abéy- "So when I was in jail..."
Remaining guests including AJ- "Oh you went to jail?"
Abéy- "Can you all not pretend that you don't know? I heard your Taboo clue you know."
Mia Khalifa- "Oh."
AJ- "Oh."

There are few things in life which are as therapeutic as walking down an aisle full of products in a well-stocked store.

Disclaimer- I love burning money. I love to shop. If I have it, I've gotta spend it.

Which makes me for an interesting case study. Here I am, I love to spend. However, when I do go to 24/7, literally every day, and come back without buying anything, I sound like one of those pathological liars on Facebook- you know the kind with the fake boyfriend's fake account writing them sonnets in the forms of memes. That, in itself, is quite an amazing blog entry.

Anyway, where was I? That I love to shop.

My absolute favourite is alcohol shopping. Possibly Delhi's best-stocked liquor shop is at 5 minutes distance from my place and there's nothing ever that they don't have. The queues are insanely long and the assistants helping inside are as kind as Mirra Alfassa.

It's inside the alcohol store that I come alive. Which is strange because I wasn't exactly conditioned into buying alcohol as a child or anything. My closest association with buying alcohol is at the airport. Usually left with a decent wad of cash, I burn all my money (not leaving enough for the cab home) at the Duty-Free. It helps when it's my scholarship funds and not what I earn. If you're the agency that gives me the scholarship money then please stop, look at the pigeon coming right at your face from the East. Look!

Something bothers me about putting things online- say for example on this blog. Here am I, telling you something about myself. To what extent do you believe this something?

My alcohol story is kinda farcical. I love to shop, sure. I love burning money, yes. I also spend all the remaining cash at the Duty-Free but does that mean it's my favourite kind of shopping? Perhaps not.

I've trivialised a really simple thing which has been bugging me for a long, long time. How far do you, as audience/reader/consumer of the content on social media believe what goes online?



Let me simplify this.
There's this person on my list, who has my renewed interest. For maturity sake, let's call her "X". Miss "X" happens to have a thriving life, her social media appearances are very dramatic and touched up, almost as if it's a framed painting by Goya. She keeps a record of where ever she goes by doing a "check-in", which are interspersed with places where she "actually" goes and you know, hangs with her two and a half friends. Look, I'm not the one to have a problem with having few friends and no life. I advocate that shit. However, I will, never, for the life of me understand what makes people create fictitious Facebook accounts for fictitious characters in their lives. How do I know this? Well, the boyfriend has no appearance and none whatsoever for at least eight years.

Yeah, sure, he's not a Facebooker. But then, he's always the one person showing "love" react to all her posts, all her nonsense and continues to post things on her wall, all day, every day. He lives abroad and conveniently has no friends, no internet self and definitely yields no search results if you look him up. Why does that bother me? I think the girl needs therapy. But that's my opinion. As a concerned flanéur, I need her to understand it's not okay to have a fictitious life.

In the Summer of 2011, my friend KneePee and I had stumbled upon another one. This was amazing because she'd not only created a fake boyfriend but a whole fake family. There were family members, each with the profile picture of a different flower from a generic garden. There were 17 people in total that this particular woman, let's call her "Y", was interacting with. Why would "Y" do that? I wouldn't know. But our friend "Y" was amazing. Pure genius. At this point, I wasn't even trained in identifying scams and fake profiles (yeah, there's such a thing and yeah, I'm trained for it- whatever you may say).

So, coming back.

There's this man I was crushing on at 19-20, and sometime then, I remember a picture of him which popped up on my feed. It had a familiar face with a different name. That was "Y"'s supposed boyfriend standing next to my crush, with a name I wasn't familiar with. Now, as curious as I was, I clicked on his profile and what I saw next blew my mind.

"Y" had lifted images off from this guy's account, since all those pictures existed and as did the comments, but only given by people with same names and different surnames. After having given generic flower photographs to the family and the man, she'd proceeded to post his family and personal pictures on his account, in the various album(s). Incidentally, they were stolen from that man, who shared the same name but different surname as "Y"'s fictitious boyfriend.

Guess who was the mutual friend between that man and me?

Turns out, "Y" was absolutely obsessed with the guy, to the point she had claimed it was her in the pictures, next to the man (wherein it was actually his real girlfriend, a journalist/fashion enthusiast). Her face, completely different than the girlfriend's (you know, round, curly hair and stout whereas the girlfriend has poker straight hair on a long, oval face and was skinny and tall) and yet she went with the version, "Yaar this is me only I look different now" under the picture as a friend had proceeded to ask that it doesn't look like her.

Soon after we learnt about the real guy and his existence, KneePee and I weren't exactly mature about the whole thing. We put up a troll birthday album and a troll birthday video and proceeded to celebrate a whole day of celebrating their love (a video still exists somewhere on Facebook). We never got around to doing the same with "X", since it's rather tedious and more so, we have both lost interest in having 'fun' or whatever version we think it is that we are trying out.

This afternoon, Mumjane asked me if I thought X had a boyfriend she was faking. It was right then I knew I wouldn't be able to control this "cheap thrill". If only, I could have the balls to put out a front and a Facebook check in such as "feeling great while indulging in cheap thrills".


For all you know I might just.

I love lipsticks.
There's something so uniquely innocuous with wearing lipstick and shooting people with your choice of weapon. My favourite is usually a combination of death stare with Ruby Woo (despite Mac testing on animals-shit), and a dash of words which can put the fear of god in a man. For some others, it's a devastatingly sexy side smile and for the rest others, it's their teeth that gets the lipstick.

It's completely alright if you didn't catch a word of what I was trying to convey in the paragraph above. I'm swinging between enchantingly snooty and completely intolerable. What I'll be to you is entirely dependent on which side of the scale you view me from.

In the last month or so, I've given my piece of mind to quite a few people professionally. While I admit, it's not the best thing that I did, I also completely admit the reaction I've received from the recipients of my brashness was completely worth the trouble of indulging with them people.
I can almost imagine my Amazon product reviews to resemble this-

"WHAT A TERRIBLE HUMAN BEING! I DO NOT THINK SHE DESERVES TO BE ON A PLATFORM LIKE THIS. DO NOT BUY."

"She thnks 2hyghly of herslf. Dun waste tym on her."

"One star only. She's shallow and offers nothing except for a well meaning insult from time to time. Horrible experience. I want my money back."

"WASTE OF TIME. Good lord does she think she's goddess or ethereal creature from the Northern Hemisphere? She bullies everyone and wants her work done on priority. She treats everyone horribly and always answers back. Her emails are so terribly composed that I wonder how did she ever manage employment. Oh wait, no wonder they hired her. Please do not indulge with this person. She's raging mad and is mostly always in a sour mood. She's acidic and totally capable of ruining your day."

It set me back on a great fucking memory. All within the frame of 5 seconds.

In the Fall of 2011, one of my dearest friends faced an awful rejection from the hands of a self conferred theatre aficionado. This said friend is a bundle of talent and was trying to land a role in theatre for a long, long time. 2011 being the last year for us at college; she gave it her best shot. To her surprise and ours, the director was shameless enough to reject my friend for acting but instead shamelessly offer Production role. As well intentions go, Sinner, Ude and I set forth to join our dear friend in helping her with Production. Each of us signed up for different roles for that play and began showing up at the rehearsals, almost half heartedly.

Now, when I think back, those rehearsals were probably the highlight of our time outside class, given we spent all our time in class (courtesy yours truly).

I digress but fast forwarding to our first performance, we were at this snooty liberal arts college in Delhi University. All of us racing against time to figure the best implementation of no-resource at the venue. The college's stray pooch accompanied and chilled with me in the sound room during the play. That's how great the theatre scene in colleges is in this city.

Ude, who was responsible for make-up, dressed one character up completely. The brief given to her included the words, "ditzy", "slutty", "blonde". I assure you, those words were not used in a way I could frame in a sentence and get out of slut shaming women. The character apparently called for it.

And so our friend Ude, dressed this girl up, as close as possible to the brief. She had to rush back before the play could start, so just when the character in full make up and outfit walked to the director, she shrieked.

"What the hell do you think you're looking like? Ude, please do her make up again. This is just not working out. Her lipstick looks terrible.", the director threw a hissy fit at Ude in the make up room.

In the most nonchalant fashion, Ude responded, "Atleast her lipstick's not as bad as yours."

Sinner, who was in the room witnessing this went red in the face. Probably as red as the character's lipstick. I do remember the director wearing golden lipstick (a favourite with women from a certain community, I can never understand the logic) and looking hideous. Sinner later told me, "If I were in the place of the director, I'd have slapped the other person." That coming from the most chilled out person I know means shit was serious.

The director looked unfazed. In the most pleasant way she answered back, "I don't have to go on the stage. But, she has to. Please remove her make-up and start over."

As far as I know, Ude left without changing the full thing and the director herself took the reigns. She slapped hideous makeup (equivalent of golden lipstick) on the poor character ensuring the "ditzy" went from fly to shitty in no time.

I panted as I walked uphill from the departmental store to work, knowing what Mia's said is probably true.

"No, I don't care. They're not the ones paying my salary. Their opinion does not matter.", I answered her, thinking about the director and her lipstick. I don't have to be the one going on stage either. I don't need me an entourage or groupies to care where I stand.

In more than one way, I love lipsticks. I do.