Saturday, 28 June 2008

Bonanza in Bummbay (and Kihim/Alibagh)
Well as the obvious as the title is, I am going to repeat to everyone that I am in wonderful Maharashtra. I was in bombay from the 19th of june and then drove for 2 hours to the serene village of kihim where both my aunt's (dad's sister) and her son's estates are. Huge bungalows resting on acres of land and it's away from the bustling and over-crowded city and food is fresh here. I've been eating very little meat (for which I feel very good about) and in fact many days without it and I feel clean and healthy. The air here is just cleaner. No pollution, hardly any harmful gases emitting from every nook and cranny. Just lush green, monsoon and bright bright sunshine. Oh and plenty of big slobbery very affectionate dogs. The trip so far has been full of that and a lot of baby nephews(plural)-taking-caring-of and playing with baby toys and karaoke (not the type we get in singapore but where you have to stand and sing in front of an audience sitting at various tables) and dancing and good food and swimming and walking and drives and movies on the positive side and on the negative side, a little bit of snotty a-little-above-middle-aged-approaching-senior-age women (I am narrating an incident that happened this afternoon) who love assuming at the drop of a hat (just because I look oriental, and therefore better than them). This one woman I met today got out of the car with Aunty and Uncle from what she says was a 'wonderful trip' - didn't know where she had been or really care (she was Bengali as it turned out - and mind you, I have always loved Bengalis on a general scale as being warm and hospitable people) and Uncle bobby introduced me as Devendra's daughter and I smiled nicely and put my hand out and she acted like hers was made of porcelain and didn't quite do the same so it left me feeling well, akward, to say the least. So then she goes (the FIRST thing she says to me) "I see you've gone more towards your Mother's side (she was talking about my looks)". Then I go, "Well most people say I look like my dad but I personally don't think I look like either of them. Either that or I'm a blend of the two." And she gave me what seemed like a snort and she turned her ugly head in such a way that the silvery gray hair that was sitting in a 'posh' little bun that resembled a bird's nest wobbled like jell-o gone-bad. She proceeded on to tell Atika (my sister-in-law) that her trip to Manali (somewhere in the hills of Himachal) had been simply wonderful, completely brushing me aside though I was the one standing in front of her and Atika was seemingly a couple of kilometres away. So I decided I wasn't going to help miss perfect-manicure with her bags and headed on into the backhouse for lunch. I played with Atika and Bubbles baby for a bit and went out when called for lunch. The spread looked delicious and I had keema (really tasty ground Mutton - so that sorta broke the whole being-vegetarian-and-feeling-good-about-it thing) and the woman sat down too and when she asked for bread instead of chapatis (she claimed she was allergic to wheat) she said it like she'd never tasted the foreign tongue that is Hindi on her ''English'' lips. I rolled my eyes and then decided I wouldn't let her spoil my mood because I was finally settling down to the first meal of the day (at 1.20pm). She talked like a frivolous teenager (this shows that the initial plan of not-letting-myself-be-affected wasn't working so well) who was showing off a new lipgloss or a diamond-studded cellphone or her bronzed boyfriend or something along those lines, about her wonderful trip and some other wonderful things that I failed to understand as being ''wonderful'' - as she claimed. So anyway she then looks at me, rather harshly and asks my Auntie, "Sunita, she must be looking more like her mother than Davey right?" and I just about snarled at her when Aunty goes, "Honestly I think she's more of a mix". And I guess that sorta shunned her efforts because she was sure she was going to win this silent-battle with me. And then she talked about how her husband's chinese and that when her son and daughter were younger she took them to the beach on Goa and she said they were so chinky and looking at her people thought she was their maid. Obviously she was against the whole idea of an indian looking chinky, therefore this entire drama in the first place. She said they look oriental and then Rina (This lesbian friend of Aunty's who lives here) goes, "Thankfully your kids now look more like you than your husband" - I mean, if I was said anything bad to about my husband, I'd have let the bitch have it. Then the bong(Bengali) goes, "She looks oriental" - I.E I look really bad and chinky (what the fuck is wrong with looking chinky?). Then I just thought, 'At least I don't look like a shrivelled prune'. So the Prune continued her stupid conversation and her speech were like irritating little chirps that erupted over every syllable that came out of her ugly little purt mouth (that looked like the skin of a potato). It was no insult to me that she said I look like my mother, obviously, but she said it with disgust. And she might as well have been saying, ''You're indian? You look chinese and you're ugly and you don't belong here". I wanted to jam my fist into her mouth. And her nostrils were as big and wide as soup-spoons and I thought that explained why her shirt was the colour of vomit. Anyway, I am done bitching. So much bitching isn't good for my karma. Especially on a site people can access whenever. Anyway, hopefully the people concerned don't come across this but I think all these days of casing everything into this tiny shell, I will rant and rant till the sun goes down. I'm gonna watch this british series called 'Sugar Rush' now that stars this lesbian girl (in the show of course) who was also the ginger-haired one in ''Girls in Love''. I think she's brilliant and I'm sure I'll enjoy this. It'll take my mind off all the seemingly 'abstract' thinking I've been doing and all the cooping-myself-up-in-my-room-and-devouring-novel-after-novel and all the lack-of-meat (well this is minusing this afternoon's lunch of course). And. I'm hungry again. It's 9.08pm here. I'll be back on the 1st of July in the morning. My family misses me much more than I do. In fact, I feel very much at home here. I don't miss them at all. But I miss the food. And I miss Aditya. And my dogs. Well okay I do miss my family but to a certain extent. I love them nonetheless. School's starting on the 7th. Sigh. Well fun can just last so long can't it? Oh and I saw 'Untraceable' today. It's good. Watch it.

because oxygen is a drug
22:59