She left me with her roses
and her black dirt garden with her flowers and plants
but she forgot to take our evenings in the kitchen together
and she forgot to take the smell of her bed sheet
and the sound of my name, the way she said it
She left me with her photographs and her care of the house
and a set of paintings on the wall
but she forgot to take her glass of wine and ginger ale
and her hands around mine.
She left a recipe book,
a handmade shirt and some homemade pickle
but she left her nightgown on the rack
and her glasses by the bed
but she forgot to take her name,
forgot to take her smile.
She left her books on her dresser,
the statue of the Buddha in her living room
and Candy who she loved so well...
Anupam Mittra, August,2001
"The Travails of Single South Indian men of conservative upbringing"
Or
"Why we don't get any..."
- Unknown Author -
.
Yet another action packed weekend in Mumbai, full of fun, frolic and introspection. I have learnt many things. For example having money when none of your friends have any is as good as not having any. And after spending much time in movie theatres, cafes and restaurants I have gathered many insights into the endless monotony that is the love life of south Indian men. What I have unearthed is most disheartening. Disheartening because comprehension of these truths will not change our status anytime soon. However there is also cause for joy. We never stood a chance anyway. What loads the dice against virile, gallant, well educated, good looking, sincere mallus and tams? (Kandus were once among us, but Bangalore has changed all that.)
Our futures are shot to hell as soon as our parents bestow upon us names that are anything but alluring. I cannot imagine a more foolproof way of making sure the child remains single till classified advertisements or that maternal uncle in San Francisco thinks otherwise. Name him "Parthasarathy Venkatachalapthy" and his inherent capability to combat celibacy is obliterated before he could even talk. He will grow to be known as Partha. Before he knows, his smart, seductively named northy classmates start calling him Paratha. No woman in their right minds will go anyway near poor Parthasarathy. His investment banking job doesn't help either. His employer loves him though. He has no personal life you see. By this time the Sanjay Singhs and Bobby Khans from his class have small businesses of their own and spend 60% of their lives in discos and pubs. The remaining 40% is spent coochicooing with leather and denim clad muses in their penthouse flats on Nepean Sea Road. Business is safely in the hands of the Mallu manager. After all with a name like Blossom Babykutty he cant use his 30000 salary anywhere. Blossom gave up on society when in school they automatically enrolled him for Cookery Classes. Along with all the girls.
Yes my dear reader, nomenclature is the first nail in a coffin of neglect and hormonal pandemonium. In a kinder world they would just name the poor southern male child and throw him off the balcony. "Yes appa we have named him Goundamani..." THUD. Life would have been less kinder to him anyway.
If all the women the Upadhyays, Kumars, Pintos and, god forbid, the Sens and Roys in the world have met were distributed amongst the Arunkumars, Vadukuts and Chandramogans we would all be merry casanovas with 3 to 4 pretty things at each arm. But alas it is not to be. Of course the south Indian women have no such issues. They have names which are like sweet poetry to the ravenous northie hormone tanks. Picture this: "Welcome, and this is my family. This is my daughter Poorni (what a sweet name!!) and my son Ponnalagusamy (er.. hello..).." Cyanide would not be fast enough for poor Samy. Nothing Samy does will help him. He can pump iron, drive fast cars and wear snazzy clothes, but against a braindead dude called Arjun Singhania he has as much chance of getting any as a Benedictine Monk in a Saharan Seminary.
Couple this with the other failures that have plagued our existence. Any attempt at spiking hair with gel fails miserably. In an hour I have a crown of greasy, smelly fibrous mush. My night ends there. However the northy just has to scream "Wakaw!!!" and you have to peel the women off him to let him breathe. In a disco while we can manage the medium hip shake with neck curls, once the Bhangra starts pumping we are as fluid as cement and gravel in a mixer. Karan Kapoor or Jatin Thapar in the low cut jeans with chaddi strap showing and see through shirt throws his elbows perfectly, the cynosure of all attention. The women love a man who digs pasta and fondue. But why do they not see the simple pleasures of curd rice and coconut chutney? When poor Senthilnathan opens his tiffin box in the office lunch room his female coworkers just dissappear when they see the tamarind rice and poppadums. The have all rematerialised around Bobby Singh who has ordered in Pizza and Garlic bread. (And they have the gall
to talk of foreign origin.)
How can a man like me brought up in roomy lungis and oversized polyester shirts ever walk the walk in painted on jeans (that makes a big impression) and neon yellow rib hugging t shirts? All I can do is don my worn "comfort fit" jeans and floral shirt. Which is pretty low on the "Look at me lady" scale, just above fig leaf skirt and feather headgear a la caveman, and a mite below Khakhi Shirt over a red t shirt and baggy khakhi pants and white trainers a la Rajni in "Badsha".
Sociologically too the tam or mallu man is severely sidelined. An average tam stud stays in a house with, on average, three grandparents, three sets of uncles and aunts, and over 10 children. Not the ideal atmosphere for some intimacy and some full throated "WHOSE YOUR DADDY!!!" at the 3 in the morning. The mallu guy of course is almost always in the gulf working alone on some onshore oil rig in the desert. Rheumatic elbows me thinks.
Alas dear friends we are not just meant to set the nights on fire. We are just not built to be "The Ladies Man". The black man has hip hop, the white man has rock, the southie guy only has idlis and tomato rasam or an NRI account in South Indian Bank Ernakulam Branch. Alas as our destiny was determined in one fell swoop by our nomenclature, so will our future be. A nice arranged little love story. But the agony of course does not end there. On the first night, as the stud sits on his bed finally within touching distance and whispers his sweet desires into her delectable ear, she blushes, turns around and whispers back "But amma has said only on second saturdays..."
For all those uninformed:
Tam -> Tamilian (Tamil Nadu)
Mallu -> Malayalee (Kerala)
Kandu -> Kannadiga (Karnataka)
True story.
I was in grad school in Sydney, living on campus. There were two Danish guys in the dorm, Mike and Lasse, who had kept in contact with some Danish girls who were going to another university out in the sticks, around dairy and emu farms. Since I didn't have any family around, and had no money to fly home for the holidays, they were nice enough to invite me to their little Scandanavian Christmas.
Things started out great. I was the only non-Dane in the room, but everyone was so nice, I was really starting to feel welcome. Then they prepared the Gluck.
If you don't know what it is (as I didn't then), let me explain: Gluck is a traditional Danish holiday drink made from hot wine, but there are spices and nuts and rasins and shit in there too. I guess you have to have been raised on it, because I could barely choke it down. But since I was a guest, I did my best to smile and swallow. I drank entirely too much of it. ENTIRELY too much.
Later on that night, after everyone was a bit lopsided, the American bashing started. Not mean spirited, or anything, but needling just the same. You know, things like, "Why do you love war so much?", "Why are Americans so fat?", and "What makes you think cow tipping is so funny?"
I was trying, without much effort or success, to defend myself. I explained that I didn't think cow tipping was particularly funny, and that I had never actually been cow tipping. So of course Mike and Lasse start screaming, "Let's do it! I want to see an American tip a cow! That would be funny as hell!"
I said Hell no, I'm not tipping a cow, but everyone was really into it, and Mike and Lasse said that they'd go with me and tip as well. In my drunken mindset, it started to make more and more sense to me, so I reluctantly said Okay.
So we went out into a field that has maybe six or seven cows in it, and Goddamn if Mike didn't pick out the friggin' biggest cow. He said, "Tip that one. Just walk up to it an push it over." Are you friggin' kidding me? The cow must have weighed 500 pounds. There was no way I was going to just push it over. I said as much to Lasse, and he said, "Okay, get a running start."
Well all right...that made much more sense...I got about 50 feet away from the cow and took off. I got up a good head of steam, and ducked my shoulder at the last minute for the best impact. I even aimed high for the best leverage possible.
Lessons learned from that experience:
1. Cows are friggin' heavy.
2. Cows are friggin' hard as rocks.
3. I am friggin' stupid.
I just about fractured my clavicle, and the cow shuffled over about half a step and walked off, leaving my stupid, drunk ass whimpering in the mud. The rest of the cows woke up and sort of wandered off. Mike and Lasse were pissing themselves in laughter. I picked myself up off the ground and resigned myself to taking the walk of shame back into the house.
As we were walking back, we passed a Momma cow and her little calf. I don't know anything about animal husbandry, but I guess the calf was maybe a year old. Cutest little thing. Mike pushed the calf over. He didn't say anything, didn't look to Lasse or myself for approval, just suddenly pushed him over. And started laughing like a lunatic.
The Momma cow freaked out. She gave a scary ass cow scream, which I had never heard before and hope to God in heaven that I never hear again. Jesus Christ, I nearly shit myself. I had no idea that a cow could make a horror-movie scream like that. Then the cow charged. Shit, you never saw three drunks run like that. Suddenly, I remembered a joke from my childhood. Something about running from a hungry bear: I don't have to be faster than the bear, I just have to be faster than you.
Lessons learned from that experience:
1. Cows are friggin' scary fast.
2. Drunk people can't run.
I was clearly in the lead, running back toward the fence. I hopped nimbly over (har har) and promptly spewed all over myself. Purple fluid, nuts and raisins came shooting out of my mouth like the pie eating contest in "Stand By Me". It was evidently quite spectacular.
Mike came over next, but it was obvious that Lasse wasn't going to make it. I guess he thought he was being chased by a bear, because he decided to fall down and play dead, but it was clear the cow wasn't to be had so easily. She stopped, rolled Lasse over with her nose, and started sniffing him. For a minute I thought his ruse was going work. Then the calf trotted over, and I swear, with God as my witness, monkey-stomped Lasse in the nutsack. Then the Momma and baby just walked away. Lasse projectile vomited in a fashion very similar to my own. Mike and I stood there, open-mouthed, disbelieving.
We never spoke of the incident again.
We will put stories from travel and just generally all the fun we have with people.
For example, in Marathi, the language of the state of Maharashra of which Bombay is
the capital, the word to eat and the word to have sex is very similar... Man, I have
made some older women blush when I thought I was asking for food, but was saying something
totally different!!
Another example, Bengalis just need the 3 Fs to be happy. Pheesh, Phootbaal and Phaaking.
