Prose before hos

Years ago, on the morning of a Math exam, I'd picked a fight with my mom. Maybe, it's my mother who picked the fight.

Your guess is as good as mine.

It probably had to do with food. I am convinced there would be no other reason.
By food, I mean forcing milk down my throat. The terrible association I have with school begins with milk. Being forced to chug a glass every morning. A large, steel tumbler, filled till the brim. The taste of milk reminds me of the drudgery that school was.

My grandmother tried making it better by adding tea leaves, and sugar (definitely, a lot more than I needed). This deception often lead to crying, and progressed to throwing fits of anger towards my years as an angst-y teenagers.

Which angst-y teenager began their day drinking milk? Not the kind who'd listen to Nirvana and feel oh, so smug.

I digress, but I vaguely remember this episode. I must have been 7-8 years old. Why I assume this age is because after that, I never quite understood math.

Morning of the math exam; rage of fit over milk. Before stepping out, my mother's last words to me -

"Have a bad day."

I recall, I aced that exam.

Since then, I insisted that my mother wish me a "bad day" before every exam I knew I was going to fail.

Over time, I think it stopped working because despite our best efforts to pass, I continued to fail those exams. In this time, I forgot about this "bad day" episode, rather the details of it.

Years later, instant re-collection happened.

I'm in the office. Inspired by the pep talk of a 21 year old intern on how I should confront and call out the bullshit, I make up my mind to do the same with someone I'd been seeing briefly.

I took the plunge. A few minutes in, his sincerity turned to shamelessness. I called the bullshit out again. In response, I was told -

"Have a good day."

"I will. Thanks."

And so, I did. I had a day I deserved.
No amount of disgust in both those wishes could stop me from having a great fucking day, on both the occasions.

Off late, I have been finding myself in situations where I no longer remember the people who I come across in my phone book. At least 90% of those names are off Tinder, a space where I exist like chimera in undergraduate philosophy classes. People have heard of it, but don't quite understand the nature of its existence.

I digress, but most of these forgettable men have one thing in common- they're godforsaken boring and have done little to nothing to me to make me touch base, unblock, un-mute or whatever it is the reason they are not on my recently touched base with list. If I think about it, if you've held my attention for a little over three months, you should rank yourself god level interesting because I'm yet to see anyone cross the three month mark in my diary.

I am probably making this all about myself but that's not the point. I see men around me who have set ridiculously high standard for wit, charm and whatever it is that men ought to bring to the table. You learn at home.

My reason for blog hiatus has been my grandfather. Man gave us a fright with a heart failure, water in his lungs, high potassium levels and everything possible in between.

It's been over a week, he's home and sass still in tact.

Motherfucking sass.

Where do I even begin?

First day after having been shifted to the room, he looks at me and asks if I have been going to work, "No, I am not doing very well and I'm working from home."

"If you don't dress proper, how on Earth do you intend on keeping well?"

Oxygen pipe in, multiple cannula marks and sarcasm on fleek.

All of yesterday, I spent watching a shit film from the nought with him while he continued to make remarks on all and sundry- from the heartthrob of the lead to the person who produced and even the ones who interrupted- cricketer who recently got married.

I woke up this afternoon after a night of heavy debauchery (bread, waffles, jam, butter, eggs and cigarette- shit) and walked to his room disgruntled. That used to be a ritual until I started this wretched job, which he began enquiring about the minute I entered.

"How's your job?"

"Crap. How else."

"How's your boss?"

"Crap. How else."

"You have a pensionable job. Enjoy it."

I stopped rubbing my eyes and looked at my mom, seated across the room. Was he hallucinating again?

All that time he spent in the ICU, he had something called the ICU Psychosis wherein the person is delirious and has no sense of space and time. They mess situations and and events and let their imagination play havoc to their rational abilities.

"Er, no. I don't have a pensionable job. I barely make any money."

"What's wrong with you? You walk in late, you come home early. You also take work from home when you're sick and I'm sick and complain about the job all the time. They're paying you for surviving, not for working. Jobs are where they pay you for hard work not for bullshitting. You get pension for bullshit which is what you're getting."


Owned.

If that wasn't it, as prologue I can throw some more-

"You can't hear because you're not wearing socks."

"You have been wearing socks yet you landed up in the ICU. How about that?"

"How about you wait until you're 83 and write me a letter telling me about yourself then? We can take stock of things at that point."

Three words that put the fear of god in me aren't "I Love You." They're something even scarier, a question full of hope.

If you can't feign a guess let me give that one right up (because it's 12:50 am on a Friday and I am feeling sick after all the Pork Bulgogi I'm not used to eating anymore).

Let's schedule meeting?





No. Never. 

Incase you didn't get that, I hate meetings. More than I hate Coldplay and F.R.I.E.N.D.S or Butter Chicken. I still think a band like Coldplay offers something. A meeting, on the other hand, doesn't offer crap. It is a construct to eat into your time and make you feel real silly by the end of it. A meeting is as useless as eating bad momos, or using toilet paper over health faucet. Nobody cares about toilet paper. It hurts, okay?

Attendance in meetings is just as painful as living with a butthole after exposing it to the coarse texture of the toilet paper. Meetings that go on anything more than twenty minutes hurt more than toilet paper on arse, after three days, if you have used water all your life.

Toilet papers are the worst. I digress but I hate the idea of meetings just as much as I hate using toilet paper.

Meetings are the curse of mankind. In a hierarchy pyramid of the worst kind of urban torture imposed on healthy, sane adults, meetings are parallel to the idea of self actualization. The parties involved in the success of a meeting know everything, the case, its symptoms and the diagnosis but yet are reticent. They will insist upon wasting your time and their time on company's time and take you through some real banal shit while you dream on about the cruise vacation you could afford if you picked up a shit, mindless writing job in some obnoxious corner of Delhi NCR. Sure, you'd lose your clients and your residence's proximity to work, but you'd gain in money and money can buy you a trip to Lake Como.

Wait, we are still at the meeting.

Successful meetings have a thing in common. The parties involved never digress. They come together, find solutions and keep the negative away (haha, suck it Maya Angelou). However, most meetings like real people have flaws and they always fucking digress. Nice dress, where's it from to Haha can you please not use images of kids, maybe it will prevent a known sexual predator from Croatia to not show up in India to find that kid to sexually molest, everything comes in together, in betwene work and camaraderie.

All in good spirit. Just as how meetings are.

Off late, I realized I considered the attendance of meeting as highly successful adults brainstorming to change the world and make it a better place.

However, as someone who gets regular emails from people to have a meeting, let me break your bubble and say no. Meetings are the biggest professional lie that HR initiated for people to feel welcome and loved in the organizational setup. Nobody cares for you and certainly wants you, especially the youngest employee forced to be sitting there, who could really be online shopping feverishly, just as much as her neighbour on probation does.

Where was I? Meetings, yes.

Meetings are also painful when they're set without your consent and you're just expected to be there.

You can't be kidding me Srishti? You'd like me to meet your clients and your hotel and your boyfriend all on the same day which happens to be the weekend? Who are you and why should I even do this for you? 

In my limited tenure of professional bullshit, there's not been a single meeting where we discussed stuff which came in handy. Sure, I have initiated meetings and yes, hypocrite of me to request to be a part of some of them. However, they made up since there was emotional compensation such as food involved or there's some person whose presence made up for it- a boss who was supportive, a colleague who scribbled on my notebook, "you've lost weight. You look skinnier than ever" or even facts that made me say, "HA! IN YOUR FACE ASSHOLE".

Largely, it's been the last point.

Meetings are vindictive in nature. Since there's no font for Sarcasm yet, we have meetings to make up for being snarky.

I think that's more than enough rant and a mental preparation for me prepare myself for a Meh-ting Monday which involves two back to back meetings. No amount of good/bad weather walk or Tequila shots can help ease the pain. Talking about the problem, however, does a lot of good.

Me-ting me soon, are you?

In the list of TIL today, I found out Honeypreet Singh Insan has bought the building where my Play School once existed and I learnt numbers and alphabets.

I also found out that police raided that place earlier yesterday because they had a hunch that Ms. Insan was hiding at the said building. She was, obviously, not found. Much like I wasn't found at my Play School after I joined the Senior Secondary School.


Tell me how your childhood's been crushed again?

Everyone has a dark secret, that usually never sees the light of the day. I have my fair share too. But the only one I'm willing to admit publically concerns my work.

I fucking love formal emails.

I absolutely love how cold and brutal you could be with a single, helpless "Hi". Used in isolation, it can be anything- a precursor to "I'm drunk and in the mood to eat with you." or accompanying introductions that can last a lifelong impression on your mind. You would not imagine but one of my "Hi" once preceded this sentence, "I was like a peacock in college. Really out there, you know?"

Needless to say, I never heard again from the person.

(It's a miracle he didn't file a restraining order against me after that.)

When you take that "Hi" and place it in a formal email, so much can change. Don't get me wrong but a "Hello" simply doesn't cut it. Neither in seniority nor in the tone. A "Hi" is a shapeshifting, classless, gender neutral way of wanting to show yourself to someone. Do you hate someone but want to be nice for like 2 seconds? "Hi". You almost, always read with in a tone that isn't reserved for someone you hate, yet, the content following that could be injurious to health. Please do not use tobacco.

Formal emails turn me on. The more curt and formal they are, the better their purpose is. You know the emails which are all about negotiation for money? They're my absolute favourite. You negotiating with a future employer, a client, an agency, a cuntlet- anyone- you start with a tone curt "Hi" and you know you fucking mean business.

One of my favourite former colleagues gave me this rule of thumb- never address people as "Dear" so and so. She literally peered into my eye and told me, "Hey, we don't do this here? Okay? It's good to learn it at this stage."

I don't usually take no for an answer, especially if that comes from a colleague I've known for less than a week. There I was, a proud motherfucker who made it to that job purely by my talent and here I was, listening to her.

It's a miracle but SrishG and I are friends, despite that conversation. It's simple. Nobody deserves anything more than a "Hi". It's the right measure of fun, formal and fearless and at the same time, just about good for anything- a meal, wedding proposal, hooking up, work, awkward drunk texting which is asexual but oh so fun. You get the drift?

It's not just the "Hi" though, that does it. It's also the power dynamics that play out. If there's one thing, I LOVE about a formal desk job, it's got to be writing emails. I'm as obsessed with them, as I am with playing Ludo at the moment. For a reference, I end up playing online Ludo from 7 pm - 4 am and back from 7 am - 9 am- in essence, all the hours I spend outside of work. The ones spent at work- are all about my second vice- emails.

When I started the current job I'm at, I used to call a senior colleague and she would make me re-write the whole bloody text thing in my emails. I know not what bothered her more, my urge to ask multiple questions and uncomfortable things or just the sheer language. She takes about an hour draft every mail she sends out, annoyingly clicks on the mouse a million times, making sure my patience depletes if I am working with her. Today when I look back, I wonder where's that person who could tolerate that shit for an hour and still be smiling.

I also believe, writing emails is severely underrated work of art. It's something that should be taught as compulsory curriculum in school, as a part of a subject titled "Work Etiquettes". Say what you may, my convent education leads me to believe this shit is critical for people., This one time recently, Meggy told me about someone from our class who asked her for some contacts. "She doesn't have the manners to say "Hi". I'm not sharing anything with her!", something I completely subscribe to. There are too few people in the world who know how this is done and how to respond. My dad obviously isn't a writer but he too had a feedback to share, "You should always write one line emails. Never commit to anything more."

Well, that's the first you'll hear of my father. For one, he's not a writer and for the second, he belongs to the school of "Dear", where if one writes "Hi" or "Hey", his corporate etiquettes tell him the person is being rude.

Later in the course of my work, I was given a simple lesson on the "voice" of the work mails. In one of the smartest things (and probably the only one) my employer taught me during a meeting was how to frame work mails. He suggested I channelizing the voice of the employer itself. While that individual is usually calm, I'm angry. I'm livid. I'm also in shock at the sheer incumbency of people and their attitude to work.

To one of our clients, I'd written an acidic, almost an equivalent of a hate mail. The client in question wanted some changes in the file, which had been done a month ago. Clients being clients were living with the image of the stereotypical tarts- an absolute cunt. My employer laughed (something which I think was so sweet now) at my written responses. He told me to calm my tits and write as a sane, level headed person would (both of which, I think he believes I'm not). If all goes well, we'll close the project soon. I may not have agreed to his idea then, but a fortnight later, I think his strategy really worked. An outtake for life, most definitely.

Whether you're a corporate ho or a college rookie or even just drunk and getting back home on this Friday evening, one thing is for sure. Your shining degrees, your slam poetry, your property papers have got nothing whatsoever on my swagger of sending formal emails.

There's nothing quite like a person who can send you a crisp, curt and formal email to turn you on. Nothing else beats a "Hi" and all that it can possibly lead to.

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."

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.