Flutterbys

Like I was telling someone, I'd have thought the wedding thing through more carefully if I'd known it meant going offline for ten days. Not the marriage thing of course. Just the wedding thing. The marriage thing I'm unnervingly certain about for someone who's generally so obsessive and neurotic. He must be a keeper. 

Okay so anyway, long and short of it - I'm going all over the internet leaving 'last (fill-in-the-blanks) as a non-married person!' You know, kinda like territorial pee'ing, only longer lasting. So here it is then. Words of wisdom? I dunno, I'm more scared about not having access to email for ten days than about getting married. Seriously, easiest decision I've ever made in my life and I'm not just saying that because he stalks this space.

I highly recommend being in a long-distance relationship before you get married - then you get so excited about 'Oooh, we're meeting this Friday!' that 'Omg, we're getting married this Friday' just flies right out the window. Almost. 

If Only.

Now that the ordeal's done and we're back to normal breathing, here are all the ways in which Mahesh Bhatt's movie 'Haunted' could've just been avoided, sparing us all the trauma:

- If the annoying old man at the beginning (the one with enough money for a Reid & Taylor suit, but not enough for food) who knows all the answers to everything would just take care of the situation himself

- If Mimoh had realized that his realtor ass would get sued if he decided to stay at every single house he attempted to sell

- If any of the house's owners since 1936 had bothered to sell, replace or even shift any of the furniture, including but not limited to a piano that isn't even all that grand

- If Mimoh had ever bothered switching on a light in a house that's clearly haunted, instead of waiting for an angry Iyer ghost to come and do it for him

- If Meera had realized that it's simpler to let a piano professor rape her and leave her alone than to survive six days of rape from a ghost followed by eighty years of spirit rape

- If the piano-teacher-rapist-ghost Iyer wouldn't spoil the name of Iyers everywhere by pretending we're monogamous enough to enjoy eighty years of buttfucking the exact same person

- If the rape-victim-sparkly-ghost Meera had just not been a slob and washed out her locket instead of letting the rapist's blood dry up on it

- If Kishan, Kanhaiya, and all the other murdered chauffeurs, cooks etc, had realized their spirits could haunt the house for some added kicks, instead of leaving it to just Iyer and Meera

- If Meera's ghost had been less of a wuss.. I mean, what was she scared of now, death? No wait, that's right, she killed herself

- If the priest who said he'd 'pray' to keep them safe had just continued praying instead of getting up to check his wardrobe... and/or realized that Iyer would've been better exorcised by Andal anyway

- If Mimoh had just said 'Meera Meera Meera' instead of 'Iyer Iyer Iyer' since apparently calling someone by their name adds to their power

- If Mimoh had realized that given he could not only outrun a ghost and hold it down by its foot for five minutes when it attempted to fly away... he could pretty much just do away with it too

And the unero numo one-stop solution for getting rid of Haunted before it even started? If Mimoh had just turned around and shown the ghosts his superior 'dancing' or 'acting' skills, I'm pretty sure they'd have 'died laughing' and rested in peace forever more.

Sckrewfel!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't want to call this 'Random' or 'Arbit' 'cos too many non-special people are calling albums/posts/things that, so I'm calling it Sckrewfel instead. You know. 'Cos no one else has called an album/post/thing that yet.

... Are you starting to understand why the 'special' in 'specially abled' probably refers to me? And also, yes I know Shakespeare said what's in a name, but I mean look at his name and the fact that he was bald.. he was probably just jealous and repressed and did you know it was Freud's birthday last weekend, which, combined with Mother's Day, is just really funny? 

Moving on. I'm high!!!! It's been a while. I've been busy obsessing and being all blah-Bridezilla-y and otherwisely blearghy... but now we're 17 days away and okay, so 17 isn't 10, or even 15, but zomfgwahyowly'all, it's SEVENTEEN. I'm so excited I just want to eat all the cheese in the world and then wash it all up with some fried potatos and end with three zillion pounds of ice cream. 'Cos isn't that how we all respond to excitement? No?

Man I'm making so much sense. And here's a heads-up: this is exactly how much (not!) sense I'm going to make for the next seventeen days, wooooot!!!! Also, just so you know, in case you were worried, all that omnomming's happening in my head. I'm still a ring size four. I checked. HOW AM I GOING TO FIT INTO MY ENGAGEMENT RING???? 

... Okay so backstory: when he proposed, my finger was a size 9 (which in itself is small in a finger size, but it's also my shoe size, and in a shoe size a nine is HUGE but that's not the point except to say that it's SUPER hard finding sexy heels for a frikkin Yeti-woman). By the time we got engaged, it was a 6. Two months ago, it was a 3. So honestly, I'm really proud of myself for even getting to a 4. What the hell kind of freak loses weight on their FINGER? 

This is my last official 'single' week in the city by the way. Tomorrow's my last ever Agarwal Roti dabbahwallah lunch. Sniffle sob. Can you tell that I keep track of everything? I mean EVERYTHING. We've already celebrated our last single monthiversary, the equinox point between the proposal and the marriage, between the engagement and the marriage, between the proposal and when the marriage was MEANT to be (June 29th, btw. Can you imagine my being this high for another MONTH? Hello, spontaneous combustion), the last day in his old 'bachelor pad,' the day I bought the last sari for the wedding (incidentally, 17 dresses for 3 days?? Wtf yo), and numerous other totally sckrewfel but supremely significant things.

WOW. It's all DONE. For REAL. OhmyGOD. 

PS: Dear Bachelorette-Thrower: I hope you see I really don't need alcohol in me. I'm quite.. Akx'y at the moment.

Counting Down.. Or Not.

Me: Lol but I'm getting married in 18 days

Shit, eighteen.

Friend: But your ring should fit your fingeeeeeeeeeeeer!

Omg!

Seriously!

Me: Oh well, its not ten

Or even fifteen

I refuse to take 18 seriously

Friend: 18 might not like that.

18 might push you ahead to 3

Me: Even if 18 likes that, I'm getting to 3 in 15

It's a win-wise lose-lose null tie situation

18's rights are waived

Awkwardddd

We interrupt our frequent wedding telecasts with this special feature on real life. And what a dose of real life it is! Caste is undoubtedly a big deal in South India, particularly Tamil Nadu. I've seen it manifested in big ways, such as the lower-caste woman who had her arm chopped off by her higher-caste employer. I've seen it manifested in subtle ways, like the glasses at home that are for 'known people' and others that are earmarked for 'outsiders'.

I see it all around me, in the comments people make, the stories my friends tell, in the hilarious book 'No Onions Nor Garlic' which, at the end of the day, shouldn't really be funny. But it never came and hit me in the face like it did since I met a certain person a few days back. 

I meet this person on a daily basis, and they're from a minority religion. Everyone else in that group of people just happens to be from a higher-caste Hindu community. I suppose as a result we never really consciously thought certain things through, we're just a bunch of pretty-much-identical-cooking-styles, non-egg eating, right-hand-only, raising-the-glass-when-we-drink type people.

In comes a person who, to be fair, probably had bad experiences with that category of people, given this is Chennai, and the category can be elitist. I sympathize. I know it's hard being the minority and a newcomer. But really - it's like this person is working hard to alienate any sympathy I may have. In the last 3 days of my knowing this person, they have:

1. Asked me if I don't wash my plate before I eat from it, because who knows whether someone else had eaten from it the previous day/touched it since then 

2. Told me pointblank that the reason I'm not eating their food is because I probably think it was cooked in the same dish as some other egg item.. uhm. I'm allergic to beetroots! It wouldn't matter if my mother cooked it.

3. Accused me of not wishing them a good morning in the morning (?!?!?!)

4. Had this conversation at the lunch table:

Person: I swear to god this dish I keep only for purely vegetarian food. But it has garlic.

Me: Don't worry about it, we eat out all the time, right? They probably don't bother separating anything there. So yeah, no big deal.

Person: (to another staunch vegetarian on the table) Oh is it, so liberal. Why don't you try eating chicken then?

Why don't you try shutting the fuck up? It's hard to recreate this scene, I know it sounds like it wasn't that big of a deal, but it could pretty much redefine awkward. There we are, toeing eggshells on the off-chance that someone else from the community potentially hurt the person's sentiments at some point in the past... and then they just go right ahead and toss someone else's sentiments out on a joke. 

It's painful trying to achieve some semblance of normalcy when other people don't necessarily feel like you're normal to begin with.

On My Mind

Lately it seems like all anyone wants to know is how I feel, how ready I am, am I excited, yaddaya. Sometimes, I'm tempted to remind them I have a life outside of the wedding... but then I remember, 'Oh wait, no I don't.' So here's the lowdown on my current state for whoever else asks*.

Above all, I'm curious to know if people will keep asking me questions that only relate to my marital state going forward, eg: 'Are you excited about the marriage?' 'How does it feel being married?' 'How does it feel now that it's a year?' 'Are you used to it yet?' .... because if so, I'd like to suggest alternate conversation topics.

Only kidding. Topmost on my mind is my wedding-obsession, and hoping it's a passing phase. If not, will I be stuck crying over every single wedding blog I look at, ever? To be fair, I cried over them before too, but lately I'm about ten thousand times more emo than usual. 

I blame the meds. Because, at twenty four, for the first time in my life, it looks like I'm hitting puberty. I'm developing pimples and rashes and all kinds of useless things I should have had when I was 13 and didn't. It's actually just a stress reaction, but still, it's hugely scary. I could also put in TMI here about needing to regulate my period for the month because I'm not allowed to get married with it on, but I'll spare you.

Also scary: the nightmares. I'm a really chillaxed person during the day, and all my stress kind of balloons up and goes crazy when I sleep. I usually sleep through my screaming and jumping and running, but it can be discomfitting for those around me. Which is why I'm glad I get to spend the next fifteen days or so all alone at home. Before going over to my parents' house for a week. And then all trooping back over to my house. Or atleast that's the plan, if I don't wig out and decide I don't want to leave office work alone for that long.

Why do I feel so guilty about taking time off for my wedding? I mean, this thing only happens once in my lifetime (that I know of.) It's just... there's no way I can get back to work till June 2nd, and then I'm taking off again June 18th to the 25th, and it just feels like asking for time before my wedding too will be overkill. Then I think that unpaid leaves don't really matter and I can totally just be Bridesy and take time off, but... yeah. So that's really the major thing on my mind right now, not the wedding itself, or anything associated with it.

*Except I think they don't really want to hear about this stuff, so I'll just beam my usual angelic beam and say, 'Oh my god, yes! I'm so excitedddd!'