An encounter with a cop.

Numerous times i have seen people being pulled over on city roads as well as highways, for speeding, jumping red lights and the like. And I have always had some curiosity as to how the encounter with a police officer would go. But since I have always been a safe(boring) driver, I have never been pulled over. Until now, that is.

So I was driving on a 25 mph road in a university town, trying to get to the bookstore to spend a good hour or two reading books for free and I saw the upcoming signal turn orange/yellow. I didn’t  want to stop a few extra minutes at a red light so I accelerated to about 30mph to get through the orange signal. Little did I know that there was a cop lurking around to catch people like me! I cursed myself as I saw the car in my rear view mirror and I pulled up and stopped. The cop stopped behind me, got out of the car and slowly walked towards me with his left hand on his gun!

Cop: Hello ma’am! License and registration please.

Me: Here.(Hand him that stuff)

Cop: Hmm ok. So do you know why I stopped you ma’am?(very politely)

Me: Errr yeah

Cop: And what is that?

Me: (Trying to decide if I should confess to jumping the light or speeding in a 25mph zone…) Coz I jumped the light?

Cop: And you were speeding (Me: Damn he saw everything!)

Me: (cheeky smile and very drunk expression)

Cop: Where were you trying to go?

Me: Err to the bookstore

Cop: Ok. Do you have insurance?

Me: Yeah the card is somewhere here in my wallet wait. (searching furiously through my stuffed and very confusing wallet)

Cop: (pointing at  something in my wallet) I think that is the one ma’am

Me: No that’s not it…….(and still searching, meanwhile the cop had a weird smirk on his face)

Cop: No ma’am that one’s it

Me: (now realizing that it was actually the right card) oh yeah, here.

Now he might have gotten a doubt that there was something wrong with me, because I could not recognize things in my own wallet.

Cop: Are you drunk ma’am?

Me: Oh no I am not. No!

Cop: Ok wait while I check stuff out, I will be right back.

He walked back into his car and it was clear he was checking stuff about me on his computer. I had no tickets, no warnings, nothing in my driving history so there I was good, but I had a feeling he would ticket me, and that is why he was taking so much time to get back to me.

Finally he was done and he walked back to me with my license and registration papers.

Cop: Ok so there is nothing in your history that indicates that you have been reckless so I am going to let you go with a warning….

Me: Oh great thanks(and reaching out my hand to grab my stuff and run away before he changes his mind)

Cop: (Still in a mood to lecture) but why where you in such a hurry?

Me: (should I tell him I wanted to go quickly to the bookstore than get stuck at a stupid red light or…..oh yeah) ehh I really needed to go to the restroom, thats why

Cop: (smiling wildly) you will get there ma’am but you have to slow down and follow the rules, you will get there (hehehe I wanted to smile but I tried not to) So here is your stuff, you can go now, but please remember to drive within the speed limit.

Me: Oh yeah, definitely, this is the first time I did anything like this, funny that I should get caught………(at this point he was already walking away from my car)

So there, I, who laughed at people who got caught for jumping lights or speeding, for not being smart enough to spot a cop, got a ticket on a lame-ass 25mph road for having sped! And instead of handling it like a sexy damsel in distress, ended up being clumsy and bumbling!

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The story of our wedding

Monika tagged me to write about my wedding day(or rather I forced her to tag me)!

This is the story of our wedding day. Not of our wedding preparations or the aftermath, but what happened during our wedding. All our wedding preparations were being taken care of by S’s and my parents, and all we had to do was to show up! And I and S liked this arrangement because all we cared about was being married, not how. Well, he did, I still cared about how I looked etc, but more on that later.

Our wedding date was set for mid May, and there was an engagement in Feb. Well, if you can call it that! Both of us were in grad school in the US, and the engagement was more like an invite everyone and have naach-gaana party! And we were sent pictures and videos of all that fun!

Well, we were pretty excited too, but reached Hyderabad barely 10 days before D-day. I had entrusted all my jewelry and saree shopping to mom, and had complete faith in her choice. I liked all the sarees though, but there was a minor glitch. I had told my mom that I had put on a little weight, so I would want my blouses to be slightly bigger than the measurements she had. Guess what! The tailor sent my stitched blouses and I realized they were of tun-tun’s size! I was in tears (while my sister was passing comments like – ahh wear your sarees without a blouse, thats latest fashion!) but my multi-talented mom fixed them all in a matter of hours!

The day of the wedding dawned and I was in high spirits. I need to mention here that our muhurtam was at 1:40 am the next day.(Yes that is 1:40 AM), and there was to be a reception in the evening, before the actual wedding, so that all those friends and relatives who wouldn’t be able to stay for the wedding would get a chance to congratulate us, and also have food

So the day of the wedding arrived, and I and my sister, along with another cousin, were to go to the hotel room so the beautician(there is no word like that?) could get my makeup and hair done, and get me ready for the reception. Then after the reception I was to come back to the room so I could change into the wedding saree and also have the makeup toned down a little.

We were about to leave when I hear my mom yelling at someone at the top of her voice. Mom is not the yelling types, so I knew something was wrong. Turned out that the wedding photographer hadn’t turned up! Yes! The guy who was contracted to take pictures of our wedding was AWOL! And it was a day when half of Hyderabad was getting married. No wonder then that all the good photographers around our wedding hall were booked. My uncle and cousin went running to find someone, literally someone, to take wedding pictures. And they did find someone. And the fact that we never look at our official wedding pictures is proof of how good he was!

Anyway, back to makeup. This was to be the first time I was going to be all made up, and I was apprehensive. I told the makeup aunty that I wanted subtle makeup and not jhango stuff. She gave a snort(like a huh). I asked my sister to keep an eye on how much makeup is applied(meaning I wanted her to stop aunty before I was over made up). She nodded. Aunty turned my chair around so I wouldn’t be able to look in the mirror and got about her business. A good hour later aunty informs me that aal izz done! I turned around and shrieked. It wasn’t me staring back at me, it was someone jhango! I was the jhango madeup girl! I yelled at my sister but then it was too late as people were already starting to arrive and I had to go and stand with S and look pretty! I went. Like that. With OVER THE TOP makeup. As I walked in people did a double take. I knew instantly that they were shocked to see me, but couldn’t ask me why I did what I did. Everyone said I looked great, but no one except S expressed the kind of shock I had expressed when I saw myself in the mirror. (I bet he had buyers remorse, meri hone wali biwi ko is jhango ne kidnap kiya!)

The reception went well and I was back in the room for the wedding dress up. The wedding saree thankfully, was to be a white one, which was nice and airy and comfortable. And the makeup this time was less mime type, and more me. The wedding processes began at about 11:00pm. S tied the taali at 1:40am, and then the post tying rituals like homam etc began. We shifted from the main mandap to a side one, where there was a ‘homam’ kund ready. While we were walking around the fire, we looked around us to see everyone except our parents and siblings fast asleep. I kid you not! They were all sitting there a couple of minutes ago, then they stood up to put akshad, and now in a matter of minutes everyone had fallen asleep where they sat! So for the final ritual it was only us and our parents and grandparents who were awake!

Well the wedding done and at about 5:00am we were to go to S’s place to take some rest and get ready for the Satyanarayan Vrat again! I was dead tired. Went home, barely slept and then got ready and the puja started. I and S and were on the stage with the pujari and we were doing whatever he asked us to(pour water on the hands, touch the leaf, sprinkle haldi etc). Sometime between the pouring of water and sprinkling of the haldi I started to feel sleepy. The puja was almost coming to an end and the final part was the story. The story usually talks about how so and so family had bad things happen to them because someone fell asleep during the puja, and I was fast asleep! Poor pujari had to ask S to wake me up to do some finishing up stuff! So there, I fell asleep at my own wedding. Can it get more interesting than that?

UPDATE: Anyone who wants to write about their wedding is hereby tagged!

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Generation gap already?

Dis is a pst dat tlks abt hw lnguge hs chngd frm bing wl wrtn to bng shrt nd crptc so nly a fw ppl cn undrstnd. wen I askd my nphw y dey wrte lke dat he sd dey sve tme by shrtng der wrds lke dat. But then what about poor souls like me who have to spend double the normal time to frikking understand what they say?

Uff writing those two lines in sms lingo, or whatever the hell that is, took the living breath out of me! When I asked my nephew why he writes the way he does he said it saves him time! Are kids really writing like that to save time? If so, what are these kids doing by saving up those precious few minutes? Save the earth from an alien invasion? Or is it just cool to write like that, so people who are not into that, or not of their generation would pull out the remaining hair off their almost bald heads to understand? It is generation gap alright. Inching towards 30 and I already feel like there is more than a generation difference between me and my sister!

Being an 80s child means there were no cell phones, smses, internet and most houses did not even have a land line telephone. We did, and we were hot property with our neighbors. Passing the telephone between walls was a favorite task of me and my sister. But I digress. I was talking about 80s kids not growing up with the things that kids these days take for granted. Like cellphones and internet. All communication between people was face-to-face, over the land line phone or through letters. I got my first cellphone when I turned 21, and started working. Even then I never texted to my friends because calling and talking was still easier and more reliable. I come from a school of thought which requires immediate acknowledgement to a message that is transmitted. eh? By that I mean, I prefer a mode of communication where I can get instant reply from the person receiving the message. So I prefer the telephone, not for me the waiting around for text message replies. No! So that is why I never caught up with texting and its many nuances. No wonder then that I barely understand the sms language of the kids these days. But I can always learn, right? Wrong! I like the written word. And I like my written word to be clear, and correct. Not for me the shortening of 4 letter words to 3 letters by eating up the sole vowel. The one entity that suffers this mass carnage is the vowel. The humble poor vowel which makes a word complete. And there are only 5 of them out of 26, already a rare specimen. Why then are we irreverently removing them to save a precious few moments?

Also, does my refusal to learn the ‘lingo’ mean I would barely understand my kids when they are teenagers? (The thought of having to understand teenagers sends a shudder down my spine! But that is for another post.)

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A he says, she says dilemma

Disclaimer: This is not about anyone who reads this blog

X tells me that Y told her I said something to Y, which I never did. Now, this thing that I was supposed to have told Y is very offensive and so not me. I haven’t spoken to Y since. I am closer to X than I am to Y, but now I am in a dilemma.

a) Do I blindly trust what X told me and continue not speaking to Y?

b) Confront Y about why I was ascribed something I never said? I don’t want to get into a cat fight but I don’t want things to spread about me in the family that are not true!

c) Just ignore all this and speak to both X and Y like nothing happened?

d) Something else?

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Midweek Masala

• Apparently Bhagat Singh’s grandson, Abhay Singh is suing Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia for using Bhagat Singh’s name in a Kings XI team advertisement. Ahh so now we have to ask permission to use people’s names?

• Following the ‘success’ of Rakhi and Rahul Mahajan, team Swayamvar is looking for a new celebrity to participate in the next season of the show. They were looking at Mahendra Singh Dhoni or Yuvraj Singh, both of whom refused. Smart cookies I must say. For who would want to be associated with the likes of Mahajan?

• The recession has hit Nana Patekar hard. So he says. Apparently a couple of his films could not find any financiers so he had to put them on the back burner. Well, hopefully this year would be better for you Nana. (Did you guys know that Nana is pushing 60?)

• Dimple Kapadia was asked to (gasp gasp)cut her hair short for an upcoming film where she plays a Parsi woman. Thankfully, Dimple put her foot down and absolutely refused to budge. She is wearing a wig instead. Yay Dimple, a lot of us would have had broken hearts seeing your beautiful mane being tampered with.

• Producer Rakesh Sidhwani has filed an FIR against MNS for extorting money from him during the shooting of Crooked. He says a group of MNS thugs showed up at his film shooting at Mehboob Studios and demanded Rs. 25 Lakhs as fine because he hired outsiders for the shooting. Here’s a yay to Rakesh for standing up to the goons!

• Shruti Hassan, whose Bollywood debut(Luck) did not go as planned is all set to start shooting for her first tamil film opposite Surya, and made by Ghajini director Muragadoss. Hope the Hassan girl is as popular and awesome as her dad and mum!

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Sources:

Picture courtesy http://www.eventprophire.com

http://www.gossipbollywood.com

The Times of India online edition

http://www.pinkvilla.com

http://www.rediff.com

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Question.

Does not being able to find the neem flower for Ugadi/Gudi Padwa mean there will not be any bitterness to life in the new year?

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Have you been Pottered yet?

We spent the good part of last few weeks reading Potter and watching all the movies. And we want more. I had never imagined I would be one of those people going crazy reading Harry Potter books over and over again, and discussing and dissecting every plot theme. But I was in for a surprise.

It all started about a month back when we visited our friends A&S for a weekend of food and fun. They are out and out Potter fans, the types who would go stand in a long line to catch the very first show of the movies. We were packing up to come back when they handed us the first three books, asking us to “just try reading once”! That was a Sunday, and we came back in the afternoon and I started reading Sorcerer’s Stone. I stopped only to quickly cook ‘something’, eat and went back to reading, until I finished it a few hours later! As soon as I finished, S(the husband) started reading it. And I was ready to start book 2. And this didn’t stop until I finished #3 and S started it. Remember we had brought only the first 3 from A&S’s? I was now as desperate as a drug addict to get my hands on the next 4. When I say desperation, I really mean it. Since I could not take it anymore, I drove to the nearest library and grabbed the last 4 books and came home and started to read. I stopped cooking, cleaning or paying attention to work(don’t tell my boss this) until I finished them all in a week flat! Meanwhile S was still on his #5. He, unlike me, didn’t stop living normally, or doing regular things like work etc. So here I was, I knew the ending, and had strong emotions about some things. Lots of things to talk about, share and discuss and pull apart. And he was still reading. That must have been the toughest one week of my life, with him trying to read as fast as he could, and I trying to not blurt out the ending! But somehow I held my tongue(S would disagree, he thinks I gave away too many hints) and he was done and everything was right with the world.

Then I started to re-read. I would just randomly pick a chapter from a book and read. And then the library books got recalled. So I ordered the whole set online, and am now waiting for them to be delivered to my doorstep so I can indulge in some Potter mania whenever the craving strikes! Thanks A&S for sending us home with the books. We are now Potterites for life!

PS: Please don’t judge me, I am normally not such a pathetic loser about books/movies!

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No reservation please.

What do you guys think about the Women’s reservation bill?

I am opposed to the idea of reservation for women. ANYWHERE. And why? One, I think this bill will only enable more men to install women puppets in parliament in the form of their wives, sisters or mothers. Far from being a tool to increase the numbers of strong women in legislature, it will only increase the numbers of powerful men. Men already in the parliament will have the women in their family contest, and god forbid, win, only to fill up the 33% numbers in the house. As if we need more such ‘leaders’!

Two, I for one don’t believe that truly deserving strong women are ever held back because they are women, in any field. So this push to increase their numbers will in no way affect the women who are really motivated to be leaders. And let us get real here. A strong candidate, male or female, faces the same problems getting noticed in public life. Eliminating these problems for women is very unfair to the men. Let me give you a real life example of how reservation affects men adversely. I am from Andhra Pradesh, where there is 33% reservation for women in higher education. In my batch of 50 in engineering there were 17 girls and the rest boys. We all had to write the EAMCET exam to get through into engineering colleges. The girls’ ranks ranged from 183-756 and the boys’ 72-300 something in the open quota(that is excluding students with other reservations). This does not sound that bad, but the last rank of the boy was half of that of the girls. Since both girls and boys are at similar intelligence levels it all worked out fine, but I know colleges where most non-reservation boys had ranks of less than 4000 and girls with ranks up to 10,000 in the same class. Can you imagine how unfair it all seems for the boys who worked harder and got better ranks than the girls? Are we contributing in any way to the collective intelligence of our society by doing that? Do we still need that reservation? Is that reservation helping a poor, uneducated woman’s daughter to get to school?

Already the last go around 61 women were elected to the Lok Sabha. The highest ever. So I believe in the natural course of time the numbers are only going to increase. There is no need of this external push to artificially increase their numbers. That will only decrease the credibility of women. That will only encourage the male members to keep the women out of important bills and sneer and say that the women are where they are only because of reservation and not because they were able candidates. Can you imagine someone saying that to you?

One reason a lot of proponents of this bill give is that more women will result in a more morally upright Lok Sabha.  I am pretty sure this bill will only increase the numbers of the likes of Mayawatis, who are no better than a Laloo Yadav when it comes to being honest and working for the people of their constituency. Not for a moment do I believe that women politicians are less dishonest or corrupt. So merely increasing their numbers is not going to matter to the collective ethics of the Lok Sabha.

What do you say? Yay or nay to reservation?

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Women’s day.

On this Women’s day let us swear to not make a big deal of it. Let the spirit of the day be observed and all the “Buy the woman in your life a diamond this Women’s Day” be done away with.

A Happy Women’s Day to all my women and the women in your life.

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Your life story in 6 words

Six Word memoirs is a new initiative by Smith Magazine, which invited celebrities, authors and readers to submit their life’s memoirs, in 6 words, not less, not more.

I liked the idea. It is indeed a challenge to confine yourself to 6 words that best describe you, your life and everything about you. What would mine be?

It could be ‘Husband, books, and a cool blog!’. If that is too narcissistic and incomplete, then I am sure ‘Let’s go out to eat tonight’ should fit well, I mean, I love food, and I am lazy! But really the ultimate memoir has to be – Broad shouldered, tall Indian girl, misfit.

There! A set of 6 word memoirs define me then! What’s yours?

PS: Husband says his is “Wait. Let me finish this book”

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