Popagandhi

Or, my ex on why we really are worse than Bollywood

So I was complaining about a mutual friend of ours being always of indefinite status, see-sawing between “on” and “off” with her girlfriend. Z looked at me with a “are you kidding look” and says, “well, J. was asking me how we broke up. I said that started at the Taj Mahal.”

(Awkward silence)

“And then we made up, sorta, the dancing scene shifted in the background from the Taj to the great Thar desert, riding on camels and all that and dancing some more, then broke up, sorta, went to Goa, got caught in that bloody monsoon, there was no electricity for 5 days, we were hugging in that little hut by the sea while the storm raged, the lights flickered on and off before going off completely, and I said come back to me, and you were like Nahin! Nahin! and we went to Bangalore and everything was really good and we were all ready to end on a good note, and then we got back and it was my birthday and then at the club, I… and then you said come back to me and I was like, Nahin! Nahin! and…”

“Dear Shiva, we really are a Bollywood movie.”

“Wait, I haven’t finished my story… and there were three more hours of dancing and crying and dancing and crying and dancing and crying… and now we’re trying to be Best Friends Forever.”

“Have you considered a career in the advertising industry in Bombay?”

“Thought about it, I’ll be the creative director, you can be the film guy. Together we can make Orbitz toothpaste ads!”

I Don’t Have A Tava

In a separate incident, my good friend Gayathri was at my house a few days ago. When dinner time came, my very Chinese, very Teochew grandmother started worrying about what I would have for dinner (I’m notoriously picky about my food, and establishing what I will eat is a daily chore for my household). My grandmother walked over to me, while Gayathri and I were deep in conversation, and said: “Do you want these?”

I looked up and I saw that my very Chinese, very Teochew grandmother was offering me Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR) ready mix thosai and kharabhath.

This is the point where all my Singaporean Indian friends say: “Even my grandmother doesn’t offer me that… wait, even I don’t eat the things you do!”

Unfortunately I realised that without a tava, the thosai will probably suck, so I am making Gayathri take me to her house to have her first ever thosai-making-on-a-tava (and-don’t-forget-the-chutney-too) session in her 26 years.

This is also the point where Prasad offers to arrange my marriage with a dowry of 4 bullocks and a lifetime’s supply of ghee, to a nice convent-educated upper caste girl who hopefully went to IIT and works as a programmer for Google in Hyderabad. Am I confused or what?