I was 5, standing outside our home and weeping, I was terrified at the idea of going in. At our school we were given a set of workbooks for all subjects that cost Rs.50 which I had left behind at school on the very first day. We never had much money, and 50 bucks was a lot, my mother had been beating me for days about not finding those damn books. Every day after I returned from school, she’d beat me with the rolling pin, slap me around and pinch me hard but mostly it was the rolling pin. She would ask repeatedly if I checked with the housekeeping and the teachers about the workbooks and why didn’t I find them if I left them behind at school. I don’t remember if I found the workbooks, all I remember is standing outside our door and weeping uncontrollably knowing fully well what waited for me at the other side.

I was 7, sitting on the kitchen floor, sipping on water and weeping. I had a terrible tooth ache and it never occurred to me that I could wake up my parents and ask them to do something about it. I wouldn’t dare to wake my mom up. My father woke up in the middle of the night, I am no sure why, maybe he heard me crying. He gave me a sip of Whiskey and asked me to hold it in my mouth and spit it out after a bit, that did dull the pain. I don’t remember if they took me to the dentist the next day, all I remember was weeping alone on the kitchen floor not knowing what to do about the pain.

I was 11, sitting on the steps to the terrace of our apartment. A neighbor spotted me there as asked me what was I doing sitting all alone on the steps in the dark. I told her the truth, that my mom had beaten me up, and I had taken off from home and was waiting for my father to return, for she would never beat me when he was around. She took me to her home, gave me dinner and then she asked me something very strange. She asked me if my mother ever hugged me or kissed me. I don’t remember what I replied, I remember that was the first time I consciously thought about it, realized that my mom never did hug me, that the neighbor asked me that question in a way that sounded like that was grossly wrong and almost pitied me. I started lying from then on about my mother. I’d tell exaggerated stories about my mother caring and loving me. A very few handful friends knew that in reality my mother beat me regularly and never cared for me.

I was 13, locked in my room, I had no water, I hadn’t eaten the whole day, I would anxiously look outside the balcony to see if my father was returning from work, he would let me out, I could drink water. My mother beating me and locking me up and my father letting me out had become a common occurrence in my house. My mother would beat me up and lock me. My brothers sometimes would open the door and sneak in some water and food and lock me back so that my mother didn’t find out, but she did find out, then she started using a lock and key, instead of the plain door lock that could be opened easily. I started stocking food and water in my room knowing I’d be locked in my room. This was an ongoing circus for many of my teenage years, my mother would beat me, lock me up. My brothers would find the key, sneak in water and food. I started locking her up too, I would make her promise that she wouldn’t beat me if I let her out. She’d promised, sometimes she’d keep her promise, sometimes she’d beat the living day lights out of me, I went to school the next day and would tell my friends about how my mom wanted me to do well in the Social Sciences since she knew I loved studying history and civics.

I was 15, I had recently started eating lunch with a new group of friends. One of them told me her mother had woke up late that day and would be bringing lunch during recess. This is back in 1995 Ulhasnagar. Her mother drove from Ulhasnagar to Kalyan (which was a big deal in those days) to make sure her daughter had her lunch. This surprised me a lot. I couldn’t understand it, why didn’t her mother just give her lunch money instead of driving all the way. My mother never packed me lunch, but she gave me lunch money and wasn’t that good enough? If it wasn’t then why didn’t my mother pack me lunch? 

I was 17, I was staying with my aunt, I overheard a telephonic conversation where my aunt was complaining about how it was going to be impossible for her to let me stay any longer since she didn’t want the hassle of a young girl staying with her. Every once in a while my mother would tire of beating me up and would throw me out. I’d stay with my granny, my aunts being passed from one family to the other, never realizing they wanted nothing to do with my mom and me. I hated having to stay with others, I felt like a burden, I did my best, but I never knew why my mom beat me so I didn’t know what I had to stop doing for her to not throw me out on the streets again. I thought that dying would be the best.

When I was 5 I never knew that mothers shouldn’t beat up their little kids for losing a set of books, when I was 7 I never knew that I could go to my parents if I was in pain, when I was 17 I didn’t know that committing suicide was not the only solution. It’s not been easy putting all that behind me but now in a few days I’ll be 33, I no longer am beaten up, uncared for and thrown out to live with unwelcoming relatives and I most definitely do not want to die. 

I have someone I can wake up in the middle of the night if I am in pain, someone I know will stand by me through thick and thin. That for me has been the biggest joy of my life.

P.S: Upon turning 33, I wanted to write a post about how wonderful things are, about how I can now drive, I've started playing TT and gotten very competitive about it, about how I have quit my job which was getting very boring and have become an entrepreneur, but some ghosts come back and need to be dealt with. I have spent years trying to hide all of this from friends and family so I decided it’s time I stopped hiding or being ashamed. It was never my fault and I have suffered enough. If you are a friend and are reading this, then you know I am a happy go lucky kind of loony person, I am doing great, but some wounds hurt even if they have healed.

My mother married young and had me when she was just 17. According to doctors she suffers from a rare form of dementia. My family has had a very tough time living with it. We didn’t know that it was a mental disorder and maybe it could have been treated. For most days she is okay, but my father still has a very tough life living with her, in my case I am in a caring and nurturing relationship but in his case he will never have that kind of support and love which only a spouse can provide. All that pain from my childhood will hopefully fade away, but he has no such hope and he will stand by her no matter what.

If you know of a family member with similar problems I urge you to take them to a specialist and get a diagnosis/treatment.

 

When I got married I used the trousseau as my excuse to shop with wanton abandon. I am in general frivolous but armed with an excellent excuse for my reckless spending there was no stopping me, actually when it comes to shopping there has never been any stopping me. So a fortnight before our engagement I was in Jakarta for work and used that opportunity to shop as much as my dad and my husband-to-be and I could collectively afford. When I am shopping, I am quite particular about what I’d like to buy, most often then not, what I like is totally and utterly unaffordable.

For my wedding I wanted a watch that had a big dial, but not too big, a golden belt but not too golden, basically something that looked elegant and not too ornate.  I had a very clear picture in my head of the watch but had still not found it. Basically amongst all the watches I saw I never found what I was looking for, either they were too shiny or too big or too ornate, until of course one day while window shopping in Jakarta I came face to face with a beauty that I thought was only in my head. I gingerly entered the showroom, quietly pointed towards that beauty and tried it on. It was exactly what I wanted; it matched to the tee with the picture I had in my mind, I was ecstatic to have finally found it, until of course…….. I turned to look at the price and gulped. I very very carefully took it off, put it back and ran away from the shop, as fast as I could. I decided to forget about it but it haunted me for days, but I knew I just couldn’t afford it, so well, I turned my attention on the other piece of jewelry that I was very clear about and still hadn’t found; the engagement ring.

I am crazy about diamonds, yes I know they have no intrinsic value and the lust that women have for them is an outcome of some bat shit crazy marketing strategies but the heart wants what the heart wants and mine wanted a solitaire in white gold. I had still not recovered from the sorrow of having to let go of the watch that was made for me and was treading carefully in a mall when I saw it, There it was, b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l; so beautiful that it literally did take my breath away. When I tried it, it sang to me. I am not being poetic here; it really did sing to me, I had to take this one home. The engagement ring was going to be paid for by the lover boy who was soon to be my husband. I quickly called him and in a very gibberish, dizzy and excited voice crooned about finally finding the ring for me.

Upon hearing the price he flatly refused. Now now, I had already been on the this-is-what-you-want-but-can-never-afford trip for the watch I was not under any circumstances going to give up on the ring too. What followed was a series of fights and boy can I fight, but the lover boy just won’t relent and boy can he fight back. Finally I had an idea, for our honeymoon we were doing two trips, one to the mountains because I am an earth person and one to the beach because he is a water person. So I told the lover boy he could cancel one part (obviously the water part) of the honeymoon and buy me the ring instead. On the grounds that I was clearly delirious to even suggest cancelling a part of the honeymoon for a ring the lover boy still did not relent. So well, I had to take the this-is-what-you-want-but-can-never-afford trip for the ring too. I have seen too many solitaires before and after that one, but none of them sang to me, sigh.

So anyways, the lover boy got me a ring that suited his pockets. Our engagement was 3 days before our wedding and after the wedding we waltzed away to our double honeymoon, which turned out to be a double trouble honeymoon because we missed our flights to Bali and had to rebook our tickets and we ended up paying a whole lot of money for that, money that was enough to have bought me the ring.

Maybe I shall post someday about the whole honeymoon fiasco but coming to the point of the post, if the lover boy had relented and cancelled the Bali trip for my ring, today I’d be wearing the ring and we’d have been to Bali with the money we had to shell when we missed our flights. That way we’d both be happy. I wonder if there is a statutory period after which husbands can go scot-free for all the pain they cause, but even if there is, my husband sure will pay very dearly for this one. Grrrrr.

 

Well, not the universe, but definitely at the end of mainland India, that's where we went, this Independence day weekend. They say make hay while the sun shines, so while we are in the extremely sunny and hot Madras, the husband and I decided to travel to as many places easily accessible from here and one such place is Kanyakumari.

After a 14 hour sleepy train journey we arrived at the Kanyakumari station which was in complete shambles. The one good thing about this train journey was that instead of reading, or playing UNO, we played 20 questions for guessing a celebrity. We stayed at the Vivekanandapuram, which I think was a bad decision because roughing it out and staying in budget accommodation is just not in us. Once we settled in our dingy little room we decided to get out of it immediately. A problem I seem to have with travelling around south India is that every tourist destination seems to have temples gallore, something that neither the husband nor I are really interested in. So if we leave out the temples then the only two things to do in Kanyakumari were to enjoy the Sunset and Sunrise and visit the Vivekananda Rock memorial and we were disappointed in both of these.

Unfortunately it was very cloudy so even though we reached well in time, found a huge rock, managed to climb it and plonk ourselves on to it, we were not able to see much of the sunrise or the sunset and we had really picked the worse time to travel as there were hordes of people from around the country, it being he independence long weekend, which meant huge queues in the harsh sun. I love getting tanned but I would rather be tanned from lazying on the beach then from standing in a serpentine queue to visit some Rock. Sigh. All in all, I would recommend that you rather skip this place unless of course you are loony like me and think that it's fun to go to a restaurant at the end of the universe, oh I know it's just the end of mainland India but that sounds so lame doesn't it?

A mention about this restaurant is really necessary, one of our biggest disappointment in Kanyakumari was the food. Now I really like South Indian food and stick to it most of the times but even the South Indian food was horrible to say the least, right when we were about to lose all hope, we found this little place called Sangam which thankfully served a mean fish fry and food that wasn't great but wasn't bad either.

My husband and Murphy seem to be at loggerheads always and this time Murphy really outdid himself. Every evening on our drive back home husband and I have recently been hooked to a radio show called 'The evening drive' by a fantastic RJ Disha Oberoi but once we get home we have to listen to the radio on the cell phone and hence I decided to get a FM transistor and on our next visit to Mercy electronics I wanted to pick-up a simple Philips transistor, but the husband refused. He said he wanted to check for better deals!

I was so furious, I mean the thing was for Rs.550 and he wanted to look for deals? But it's my geeky husband and when he says better deals it necessarily translates into an expensive piece of electronic junk that will do hajaar things that are really not necessary like for example it will say "God bless you" when you sneeze, if you spend an extra Rs.10,000/- * rolls eyes * So off he went and came back with this fancy IPod dock, that cost us 20 times any decent transmitter would have cost us. Oh well, I was happy as long as I could listen to the radio at home and the first thing I wanted to do was to tune it to 104.8 FM and well um we couldn't tune it. Seriously we just couldn't believe it, I mean it would go from 104.7 to 104.9, we were exasperated. I mean how difficult is it to tune a radio? To top it, there wasn't a user manual We tried everything we could think of including begging the radio to have some mercy on us. So there we were, trying to understand why, what and how did this happen! Hubby dearest felt really frustrated and bummed and I can imagine Murphy smirking smugly as if to say, so you just spent 20 times the amount required, now let me spoil it for you. So for this birthday I have a request for Mr.Murphy, can you please not mess with the hubby in matters where I am involved too?

P.S: We finally found a online manual and were able to tune the radio, we just had to change the region under settings to Asia for which we had to press few buttons together which we would have never thought of! But for the hour or so we took to finally be able to do that, we felt really stupid.

P.P.S: I was recently telling a friend about Murphy's love for my husband and around 10 minutes later the friend remarked "Oh! You mean Murphy as in from Murphy's law. I was wondering if you were talking about your landlord." I didn't know if I should laugh or cry for having such intelligent friends, so if there are any more like him around let me clarify, Murphy most definitely isn't our landlord * Chuckles *

That's the worst advice my dear husband Mr. Loony ever gave me. No really. After dating me for years when he finally takes me to meet his parents he advises me to be myself. That could only mean trouble no? I mean an average person would take 5 mins of taking to me to tell that I should never ever be myself if I am meeting 'The Parents'.

So well, I met his parents for the first time during Diwali. We met in a food court (of all places). I am super confident Ms.Loony but then hey it's the guys parents so I was nervous as hell but then I had to be myself as per Mr. Loony so I eased up a bit and started cracking bad jokes under pressure, OK Ok your sniggering is so uncalled for! I agree, I crack bad jokes without pressure too, but that one time it went totally out of control.

Mr. loony in an attempt to show how creative I can get brings out this hand-packed fancy basket of D goodies that I had gifted to him earlier in the day. His mom in a very prim and proper social response tells me "Iski kya zaroorat thi beta." to which myself replies "You are right, iski zaroorat nahi hai." and looking at Mr. Loony I say " Wapaas de do isse." His mother of course looked like someone just told her that she was pregnant at the age ripe age of 55 and would really scream out loud. Mr. Loony being used me myself went on admiring the basket without giving a thought to my foot which was stuck in my mouth.

Forever I have been branded by the in laws as the one who has her foot growing from her mouth. This incident has be told and retold to whoever would care to listen, it has been exaggerated to an extent where some of his family members look very disappointed when they meet me and find foot on my leg which is on the ground. Heh. So girls please note, being yourself is all dandy but not when you are meeting his parents, when you are meeting his parents only two things should be done; smiling and nodding while looking at the floor. Trust me you will thank me for this one.

It's just been a few months but then lots of people (specially my mom) have been asking us to give them some good news. Of course it's good news for them for us on the other hand having kids will not be such a good news I feel. I know I know I am not getting any younger, post-30 pregnancies can be dangerous blah blah blah, but we really are just not ready to be parents yet. OK, let me give you an example. Generally when I can't sleep I ask my husband the Mr.Loony to tell me a story, he asks me to give him a few characters, generally whatever characters I give him end up having sex and the story ends up as a soft porn boring story. To avoid another soft porn story I chose a lion and a giraffe. Big Mistake.

Here is his story:

Many Many years later (he is very futuristic I must tell you) due to global warming the only two surviving animals in the jungle are a lion and a giraffe. The Lion is quite a romantic at heart and very horny too so he realises with the giraffe being the only option around he must woo her. The giraffe is very very old fashioned and needs to be swept off her feet. The horny Lion decides he can do anything for sex, so off he goes wooing the giraffe. After a few song and dance numbers, flowers and gifts, praises and poems the giraffe finally lets the lion kiss her. But now now, the lion can't really jump that high and the giraffe being old fashioned and shy won't come down. So our hero climbs up a really high tree to kiss her. He finds a branch that gives him perfect height, looks into her eyes, swears of his eternal love and just as he is about to kiss her, he slips and falls on her neck killing her instantly.

The lion looks at the dead giraffe and is heart broken (or an equivalent term for horny plans gone wrong) but then he thinks to himself 'What the hell! It's a good thing I can eat her dead too.' So he feasts upon the giraffe for many a days and is very happy for finding such good food considering there weren't any other animals around because of global warming.

To say that I was disturbed by the story is an understatement. But now I always crack up thinking of this lion who wanted to eat the giraffe dead or alive. Sigh. There you go now, he makes up a sick story and I find it funny, obviously we can't have kids. What kind of kids we would we raise with stories like these.

On my sitemeter I noticed that in addition to confused women who ask koschans such as ' If he kisses me am I pregnant' there are others who are even more confused and stupid because they search for koschans such as 'If he puts mangalsutra am I married.'

For the benefit of such people , I and a few newly wed friends of mine (which includes my dear ex roomie Ms.Malhotra have compiled a ready reckoner sort of list here.If you answer 'Yes' or nodded sadly in agreement or suddenly go and bang you head on the nearest wall in response to any of the following then my dear reader, I pronounce you married and sacrificed:

You know you are married..

• When you wear the engagement ring, the mangalsutra, the sone ka chudhas, the diamond necklace giving major competition to baapi da, instead of wearing strange jewellery you picked up from random stores or exotic street vendors ;)


• When suddenly your bank balance is in the negative and the chances of it ever going back to it’s pre wedding high are non existent, thanks to the credit card bills. We all waited so long for this day just so that we could use marriage as an excuse to buy the overpriced things.


• When just because you are wearing a saree, mangalsutra and aforementioned jazz young boys and girls can call you aunty and walk away smiling, you also smile back coyly like the perfect newly wed bride when actually underneath that saree and jazz there is the old you which wants to beat them and say ‘Teri maa ki!’ or ‘Aunty kisko bola bey!”


• When you are judged every now and then, of course the husband had a bee line of eligible women he could have married but he chose you, so you need to be judged against them, the Mehtas' loving daughter who cooks the best chiken tikkas, the Agarwals' daughter who is oh so pretty!


• When suddenly your phone bills drop to 3 digits from 5 digits.


• When you have a mummy and a mummyji at a same social gathering or function and you don’t know whom to give more attention.


• When you go to some random distant cousin’s shaadi wearing a really heavy lehenga giving competition to the bride, just because you wanna use your shaadi ka outfit and you better use it before your newly wed tag is not so new anymore
  


• When suddenly you have relatives on your facebook friends list, aaaaaaaaaargh, all his aunties and uncles are now your friends and in some cases you actually do have had the courage to not accept their request then keep faking how you never got it!!


• When you enthusiastically bend and touch every tom, dick and harry’s feet since they have grey hair and are related to the husband, damn isn’t there any better way to show you respect (and we don’t actually really totally disrespect you then why the hell do we have to show our non existing respect).
  


• When your ratio of number of meetings with friends and relatives becomes inversely proportional to the one before marriage!


• When everything you mother in law cooks is 'so yummy! I have to learn this from you!'


• When instead of going and spending the entire Sunday at the spa followed by a coffee out with friends and a late night movie, you spend it putting your house in order! or instead of wondering which movie to watch at a surprise stay over at your friends place at Bandra, you are wondering what you can cook for dinner!!

After I have been married a lot of people (mostly well meaning) have asked me "So what is your name now?" to which I politely reply "I am retaining my maiden name." I have been getting mixed reactions about this, some people shrug it off, some people raise their eyebrows (including my parents!) but the worst kind question my decision. It's one thing to want to know why I decided to retain my maiden name, it's totally another to question my decision.

OK, so let me tell you one thing: My name is My business, really, that's surprising huh? I am sure there are plenty of women who go about embracing the hubby's last name or as in our (Sindhi) custom even changing their first name without a thought. I have no opinion or rather I have no time to sit and judge their decision. As for myself, it would kill me. My blog, my email ids (official and personal), visiting cards, passport, bank accounts, trading accounts, assets, insurance policies and what not. Why should I go through the pain of updating so much even if it can be done with minimum effort! I sign Rohra,not Kusum. To me 'Rohra' has a nice ring to it. I've been arguing with hubby that our name plate will read 'His last name and Rohra'. To me Kusum Rohra is a brand. I am not going to change that. My marriage is the most important part of my life, read that properly, it is *the* most important thing in my life, still I see no reason to change my name specially since my loony heart loves it.


Nothing wrong with my hubby's last name but I see no logic in giving up mine. If I ever get bored with being a 'Rohra' or feel like I need a change I will change it but that will be my decision and not something that comes in the package when one marries.So people who think that a woman who is old enough to make her own people can't take her own decision about her name, let me kindly ask you to shut the eff up. Thank you.

This super hilarious post reminded me of how facebook also tries to mess with me. I mean have you guys noticed sometimes on the right hand side it produces the picture of the most meek in your friend's list and asks you to 'Poke him'! I do not want to poke any of my friends, stab with a steely knife maybe, but poke, never.

I mean helloooo just because I occasionally hit the husband doesn't mean I am violent, on the contrary I am very very non violent and docile.I don't get the poking bit at all, why poke? I mean I can understand stab with a steely knife or tie around a pole and electrocute , or *eyes shining* dip in boiling water er sorry I got carried away, what good is a simple poke I ask.

Then there is the other ads it has, from the friend list it will pick the most irritating person and it will as to reconnect with him. I get online on Facebook at least for 10 minutes daily and still if I have chosen to not connect to that person there is a reason. Then there are other irritating things Facebook says, 'Say hello', 'Help her find her friends' er no thanks, 'Share the latest news' there is NO news and so on and so forth, these social networking sites have their leetal ways of messing around, don't they.

7.00 am: it's 7.00 am already!! :( Ok so I have to get up make breakfast, make lunch, pack our snacks *deep sigh* but I feel like a zombie *zzzzzzzzz*

7.10 am: I really should get up now, I have to reach work by 9.30, finish the damn thingie I am working on by 11.00 am. Just the thought of being at work is making me sleepy *zzzzzzzzzz*

7.15 am: Er, if I make Dal and Rice, instead of subji roti for lunch and ask the hubby to make breakfast then I can sleep another 10 mins :) decided then, dal and rice it is :) *zzzzzz*

7.18 am: But it's not good, I am becoming very very lazy and taking too bloody much advantage of the hubby, God I feel like I haven't slept at all! *zzzzzzzzz*

7.21 am: Wait a min!! I really haven't slept much, what time did we go to bed last night? 5.00 am or 5.30 am, I really need to stop watching movies all night, *sigh* how do I get myself out of bed now *zzzzzzzzzz*

7.25 am: Wait a min! I saw movies all night, all night? Er, why, er it was a Saturday, so today is Sunday so er I can *zzzzzzzzzz* ...... YAY *zzzzz* YAY *zzzzzz* YAY *zzzzzzzzz* * turned around and hugged the sound asleep husband*

7.30 am: But anyways must make husband make breakfast and lunch and dinner, taking advantage is must for a healthy marriage *zzzzzzzzzzz*

Such an torturous half an hour I spent early Sunday morning all because my mind which is not supposed to be existing in the first place lost track of what day it was :)