Happy Diwali

The lights in my house do twinkle,
They shine so bright tonight.
Beautifully flickering candles,
Little diyas with their golden lights.
It's Diwali time again,
As I sit with a throat so sore.
The exams that call for my attention,
On the study table do snore.
The Kurkure ke dibbe,
Are not this time to be seen.
But the juices and chocolates and cookie jars,
In my room themselves do preen.
So I eat and eat, and eat some more.
With each bite, there's a wish for you.
May good luck be showered on your family,
Lots of health and wealth be, too.
I wish you sparkle with a beaming lovely face,
Everyday of your life with joy.
And may you succeed like the do sau ka rocket,
That goes up up up in the sky.
May you be the WhatsApp in everyone's life,
And not the sucker of a thing that's Voda.
May you be as rich as.. um, the dry fruit.
And wise like the green old Yoda.
May your happiness be never ending,
Just like Sarthak's perennial exams.
And your days be as chilled out as the hippies,
Who smoke up at the cafe of Sam's.
With this my cookies are over,
But the after taste remains.
So, may you be the Section 54 ke provisions,
And there be no tax on your capital gains :D

Vegetable Sweet Porn Soup

Don’t we all love Chinese food?

Um, not really. My mum hates Chinese food. The typical Saffola Health woman that she is, she thinks Chinese dishes are too full of soya sauce, vinegar, and other such concoctions that are way too acidic for what my dad’s prosperous looking but gentle paunch houses. My dad loves Chinese food though. And my mum loves South Indian cuisine. Food is one thing, where referring to it as “South Indian” doesn’t really piss off our brothers and sisters from the south of the Vindhyas.

“Hey, you’re a South Indian, right?”

“No, I’m a TAMILIAN.” *pissed off*

“Hey, Kalaripayatu is a South Indian art form, right?”

“No, it originated in KERALA.” *pissed off*

“Hey, masala-dosai is a south Indian dish, right?”

“Yes, it’s from Tamil Nadu.” *proud smile with a little black til ka dana shining through the little space between the two front teeth*

I digress. Sorry. So, because my mum loves Dosais, Idlis, Utthapams and Vadais, my dad loves them too. He basically loves food. Period. But since my mum isn’t too fond of Chinese, whenever we go out for food, it’s mostly Sambhar and its various companions that give us company on our table. If not South Indian, then it’s Shahi/Kadhai Paneer, Dal Makhni, Butter Naans and Lachha Paranthas that form the staple restaurant diet for the Ahujas. Chinese? Almost never. Compromising on choices is one of the basic principles to live by for a couple whose marriage was “arranged”. And, I’m happy to see that my parents live up to those vows.

But I love Chinese food. Since it’s not a much preferred form of food on our family lunches and dinners, I choose to indulge in it with my friends. I remember my college for the various business seminars that would be arranged every alternate day by one of the odd 48 management societies, whose organisers would plead, beg and bribe people to attend them; and for the local Chinese food joint right outside college. I would have enough Chinese there during the day for me to not want any more of it during my evening walks in the colony with my friend Rahat.

Things have changed since college got over. I’ve been eating a lot at the local Chinese Van at Shankar Road lately. A yellow little food joint on wheels, it boasts of its existence by proudly displaying its name in a Chinese looking font in deep green. “Hot Pot”.

The van is strategically placed in the middle of the Shankar Road market and invites visitors from not just Old and New Rajinder Nagar, but also from Patel Nagar. People flock around the four round tables next to the van as soon as the evening clock strikes five. With customers lined up on foot and in their black “Jatt di Pasand” Honda City’s, the sight of those mean machines with tinted windows is no different from the sight of the different ladies you get to see around mehndi-walas a day before Karva Chauth. There’ll always be a newly wed twenty-three year old with straightened hair and the fairest of skin. And you’ll also get to see aunties with broad waists and a daughter or two hanging by. There’ll be Punjabi ladies and there’ll be Baniyas. There’ll be those coming right from their offices, and those coming back from a trip to their “Maaika”.

There are two cooks who stand for hours together in the hot iron van every day. Manchurian, momos, chowmein and chopsuey get packed at the speed of sound. There’s a new stock of twenty ketchup bottles with the label “Continental Sauce” that takes its place in the van’s inside rack every morning. The cooks bend down and rise up with pearly white noodles and shredded cabbage in their hands. The noodles are thrown into the big black pan every thirty seconds and the cooks chant “Ek Singapuri Chowmein ready!” as they perform these rituals like magicians from the West of Bengal.

Hakka Noodles. Singapuri Noodles. Chilli Garlic Noodles. Egg Noodles. Chicken Noodles. Veg Noodles, and oodles of more noodles churn out from their pans. But that’s not really what the van is known for. Hot Pot is known for its Soups. The menu displays some twenty varieties of hot steaming soups, which are served in old green or orange colored bowls. Garnished with little bits of paneer, the sweet corn soup that happens to be my personal favorite is deliciously hot. Whereas the Jatt di Pasands sit in their neon lit Santros and Safaris, holding bowls of Hot and Sour or Chicken Soup in their hands, while the Manchurian and noodles adorn their cars’ dashboards.

I ordered for a plate of the orange colored Singapuri Chowmein, and a half bald attendant got my order on the table.

“This attendant guy looks familiar”, I told my friend.

“You must’ve seen him around here only” was Rahat’s blunt reply.

“No, dude. I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere else!”

The plate of chowmein didn’t leave me on a happy stomach that evening. ‘Cuz I knew that I had seen the attendant somewhere else, and I couldn’t figure out where. With a heavy tummy, I sat down on the study table and opened my book. Not in a mood to read through the boring black and white text, it was time for my daily boredom inspired ritual. I picked up my phone and looked up a few pictures of Jayde Nicole on the internet.

“Man, this is what a true Playmate of the year is made of”, I thought to myself, with a smile that no one but Shakti Kapoor can imitate.

My phone reminds me, have you ever spoilt your phone and had a crazy experience while it was gone for repair?

Around two years back, I had spoilt one of my phones and I immediately sent it for repair to an electronics repair workshop at Shankar Road. On my request for a spare handset, I was given a snazzy Sony Ericsson Walkman phone by the store manager who assured me of my phone’s safe delivery to me in two days. It was the same model of a phone that my dad owned for a few months and I had great memories of it. An orange cover and a jack-knife design. I was given a spare model that was better than the dead piece of cellular device that I had given for repair. I came back home and checked if my two day possession was in good working condition. Curiosity struck and the following happened.

Menu>Gallery>Images>*Haww, nude photos*>Back>Back>Back.

Whoa hoa hoa! “Hahaha”, I LOLed around for a little while and picked up the phone again.

Menu>Gallery>Images>*Eww, naked dudes*>Back>Back>Back.

You know that feeling, when you’re a little crawly kid. You crawl down to the closest electric socket and try pushing your fingers through it. At times there’s a little shock that sends shivers down your shitty diapers. You cry. But you come back again the next day to give it one more chance.

Or the feeling when you’ve been in a relationship with the craziest girl in the world. She breaks up with you. You cry. A few months later she wants to get back with you, and you give her one more chance.

I hate that feeling, but I’m a simple mortal just like you. So I picked up that phone again.

Menu>Gallery>Videos>1.Desi Mama, 2.Nurse Nurse, 3.Night of Dreams…

And then there was no pressing “Back”

“Hahaha, dude. This spare handset that I got from the repair guy yesterday is every IIT-ians dream!”

“Uh, and why is that?”

“’Cuz it’s friggin full of porn!”

“Are you kidding me! Give me the phone.”

The phone was passed around by a classmate in class the following day. And no, I didn’t start it!

“Shit dude! This phone’s full of creepy pictures, man. Half naked guys with hairy chests watching tv in a cramped room”, a guy in my class remarked. It prompted the others to open the Images folder too and their reactions were no different.

I dared to take the same road again that evening. Menu>Gallery>Images>*WTH!* A good five second look at its contents, and that face stuck in my head like Mr. Reshammiya’s bongo beat music. Pictures of a dark, half bald man with a chest bushier than Anil Kapoor’s gave me nightmares that night. The Videos folder housed some of his home productions starring himself and his beloved body parts to whom he made sweet love.

The repair guy had given me another of his customers’ phone to use for two days! And it wasn’t just any other customer’s phone. It was a -really kinky- customer’s phone.

I was happy to return the phone the following day and relieved to receive my instrument back.

I was passing by Shankar Road a few weeks back and the aroma from Hot Pot pulled me towards it again.

“Bhaiya, ek sweet corn soup.”

My order arrived in less than two minutes. The same familiar looking attendant got me the soup. I didn’t care to think much this time, and slowly blew on the soup to cool it. A spoonful of hot thick awesome liquid went down my throat and it lived up to its name of an appetizer. I ordered for a plate of chowmein and a veg manchurian to go with it. Having eaten to my belly’s content, I stood up and strolled back home. The same routine followed for a few days.

I was walking down to my office yesterday, and I passed by the yellow little van preparing for a long day at work early morning. The cooks were chopping baskets full of cabbage and peppers, and there was a helper washing utensils under the tap on the roadside. There were five of these familiar faces preparing their beloved van for another day of incessant orders.

“Paani nahi aaya!” shouted one of the helpers who stood on the roof of the van trying to peep into the water tank that shamelessly spoilt the van’s appearance. He moved away from behind the tank and sunlight shone through the hair on his bare chest. The familiar attendant! Soon there were flashbacks of nightmares and I knew why that face looked familiar. I haven’t visited Hot Pot since that day. ‘Cuz I fear that the manchurian balls have been subjected to the attendant’s bare hands. I miss the Chinese food from the van. And what stops me from going is a stupid idea of not eating something made by hands of a horny immigrant. His sight makes me cringe.

On second thoughts, the internet history page on my phone proudly displays names like Jayde Nicole and Amanda Hanshaw. What is life? Nothing, but a hypocrite jalebi.

Image Source: pakassociationdubai.com

Halva, Poori and Embarrassment

You know how there are certain things about our families that we think are queer. Certain routine behaviors, traditions, customs and beliefs. Things that we as kids perceive to be weird, but grow into following on our own one day. I’m not from a very superstitious family. A very general level of Indian superstition is what my parents, grandparents and other elders believe in. Things like, I was told not to go over any of my little cousins lying on the bed. Apparently, doing this would hamper their growth and they won’t grow any taller. I grew up with such little lessons on conduct just like all my other friends. It used to be fun to discuss such beliefs and family teachings with each other during classroom chats in school. But there were certain things, which even though not that queer, people chose to stay mum about. “Kanjak” was one such thing.

The last day of the navratras, I think, is called the Ashtmi Puja day. I always knew it by the name “Kanjak”. I would get up early in the morning to the aroma of pooris, halva and channe being cooked in the kitchen. Getting ready for the day when a new stock of colorful lunch boxes and stationery pouches would hit my shelf never seemed like a chore. I knew I had to dress up in a white kurta-pyjama and part my hair from the side. Those were days when my mum hated it if I tried to look like Shah Rukh Khan from Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai and tried to puff my hair up by parting it a little from the centre.

My mum and chachi were no different from the other “colony ki aunties” when it came to buying gifts for the little lehnga clad girls who’d visit our home the following morning. Lunch boxes, pens, pencil boxes, crayons and chocolates were the usual favorites, and would sell in the market on the previous night just like Kurkure and Tropicana boxes do around Diwali time.

“Mumma, Dexter wala lunch-box laana.” I would tell my mum an evening before, and she would always keep my glint-eyed request in mind while she shopped. Dadi would keep a bowl of milk ready to wash the little girls’ feet. It was one puja that I waited for every year (or six months, if that’s the frequency) eagerly. I was five, and my feet used to be washed too. Knowing that there was no threat to my receiving kanjak gifts, I asked my dadi why my feet were also washed despite me being a boy, and therefore definitely not a "kanjak". “Kanjakon ke saath ek boy bhi hona chahiye. Woh hanumanji ka roop hota hai. It’s his responsibility to take care of all the other girls and ensure that no harm comes to them”, was her valid reply and it left me beaming. I would happily go to the “neighbor aunty’s” house on my dadi’s orders and ask her to send the kanjaks to our place once she was done with the puja.

The puja used to end with me sitting on the dining table in the afternoon, looking at the food that came from all the houses in the neighborhood for my sister, who could eat nothing but Cerelac at that time. I would open a box and compare the texture of the pooris, the look of the channe and the stickiness of the halva with those from other containers. People who gifted identical lunch boxes as we would, and whose parshad items would taste like the food that my mum, chachi or dadi cooked used to win a special place in my heart. I would picture them having a lifestyle just like ours, and the next time that I would see the aunty from that house in the colony, my “Namaste aunty” would be accompanied by a wider smile.

But we all grow up from being kids into becoming bigger kids once we cross the 7 years’ age mark. I used to think why some festivals like Baisakhi called for a special assembly in school, but not the colloquial “Kanjak”. It must not be a festival then. It’s just a custom that people in my colony follow, but is otherwise unheard of by the masses, which included all the boys in my cool gang of friends. The best way to avoid being ridiculed was to stay shut about it in school. The much awaited Kanjak-day started falling on week days, and that meant I would get to play my game of food comparison only after getting back home from school.

I waited for my school bus at the bus stop, and rubbed off the “tika” from my forehead as soon as my dad drove back home after dropping me there. Hoping that there was not even a hint of redness on my forehead, I boarded the bus to the sight of a couple of red marked foreheads playing Pokemon cards. They were mostly children from the area around my place, so it wasn’t hard to accept that they were from families which belonged to the same cult that celebrated Kanjak in my colony twice every year. The red marks were nowhere to be seen in school. It was evident that I was moving among the non-cult children now, in front of whom it’d be shameful to even talk about what my family was doing back at home while they discussed last evening’s episode of Duck Tales. The break was the time when everyone opened their lunch-boxes. Halva, poori and channe in a friend’s box caught my attention. He had got exactly what my lunch box concealed. He noticed the contents of my new lunch box too, and then there was an unsaid understanding that resulted in a pact that required us not to discuss the customs of our families when among the other friends.

Another apparently popular guy in class had a “tika” though. It brought a smile on my face, and I asked him as I headed towards the school bus that afternoon, “So, you wore a tika today? Haha. Why?”

“Yaar, there was a puja at my place.”

“What puja?”

“I don’t know. It was some Ashtmi Puja.”

I asked my bua that evening about what Ashtmi Puja meant, and figured out that it was the same as what my family conveniently called “Kanjak”. There was an epiphany that hit me then, a sudden realization of what even the families of the cool guys did on the last day of the navratras while their kids boasted about their new G-Shock watches in school. And surprisingly, no one would mention it in school. I had managed to understand a little secret that prevailed in my all boys’ school. A feeling of embarrassment from accepting that Ashtmi Puja was a known and religiously practiced exercise in one’s family.

I grew older. Ashtmi Puja slowly turned into even more of an embarrassment. Embarrassment not for the family, but for every family member individually. My mum doesn’t go shopping for lunch boxes anymore. Chocolates and cookies have replaced the durable, unbreakable, colorful plastic containers, which earlier sold like audio cassettes for everyone’s hip walkman. I wake up on the Puja day, hoping that I do not get to see the sight of food from different kitchens that would make me play my old game. My sister’s 16 now, and has not stepped out on the Puja morning for the last 6 years. She takes a bath at her usual time, not caring for mumma’s constant, “Go take a bath. It’s Kanjak day.” No longer do we have kids in our neighborhood visiting each other’s homes. My mum tells the maid to fetch some kids from the neighbor’s house, while another lady staying two houses away, shouts out loud to her best friend staying across the street. “Sunita! Bachon ko mere ghar bhej dena!”

Our maid gets a couple of children from a construction site two blocks away. Little girls dressed in Indian suits enter the house with polythene bags full of pooris and quickly fetched out ten rupee notes. My mum gives them each a fruit, chocolates and cookies along with the usual halva-poori combination and bids them farewell, feeling content about the puja having gone well. Her questions, which preceded their departure, related to which school or class the kids studied in remained unanswered by eyes which just longed for more food to fill in their polythene bags and head back to the construction site that they called home.

“Sarthak, I have to send Ashvi and Shreya’s parshad to them. Please go and deliver it to their homes”, my mum orders me. I try to act like I didn’t listen and the words are repeated again. Nicely laid plates full of halva, channe, poori, chocolates and some money are handed over to me for delivery to our neighbors.

“Are you going to go like this?” is what comes next.

“What’s wrong with whatever is –this-?”

“You’re not going in your shorts is what I mean.”

“What’s wrong with my shorts?”

“Shut up. Just go wear your jeans or something. You’re getting out of the house. Look decent atleast!”

To save my parents from the embarrassment of a son with unwaxed legs, I go and put on “decent” clothes. The two minute trip to the adjoining house seems like an hour long. Well, it turns into one literally.

“Namaste, aunty. Mumma ne Ashvi ke liye parshad bheja hai.”

“Arrey aao beta. Come, sit down.”

“No thanks, aunty. It’s ok.”

“Aise kaise ok? Aao baitho.”

This follows a sight of another household with the same visitors who gave us darshan at our house a few minutes back. The lady rushes to get me a glass of coke and then asks me to wait while she packs some parshad for my sister. I awkwardly look at the glass, whose contents I wish to gulp down in an instant and run back home. But my parents would be embarrassed if they got to know that I did that. So I sit there, sipping on the liquid like it’s red wine. The parshad for my sister arrives, and I know my chore is not over. There’s probably a glass of awkward Frooti waiting for me two houses away.

Ashtmi Puja doesn’t feel like the good old Kanjak-day anymore. I don’t expect my sister’s friends to post “Happy Kanjak” on her facebook wall like they post “Happy Teddy Day” or “Happy Rose Day”, but in this age when on a person’s death, his facebook profile fills up with RIP messages from friends, I wouldn’t mind some “Happy Kanjak” to pop up on social networking sites so that the little puja ceremony doesn’t fall any more a victim to a feeling called embarrassment.

P.S. Who’s in the picture?

That’s me dressed for a little morning assembly on Raksha Bandhan in 2^nd grade. Now talk of embarrassment :P

(Un)Comfortable Communicators

September is a crazy month at all CA offices throughout the country. 30^th September being the last day for filing of some Income Tax Returns, the past month seemed like 30 consecutive Tuesdays. There was always a grumpy Monday feeling behind me, and a silent consciousness of 80% of a work week still to go. I realized a couple of things during this time though. One, I can happily live on Channa Masala and Kadhi from the local Aunty Ka Dhaba in Old Rajinder Nagar for dinner every day of my life, not caring for the meal’s timing being 1 a.m. and the following bowel movements reminding me of the little vibrations that Delhi felt because of an earthquake that hit the city about two weeks back. And two, that a lot of people don’t realize that their diction changes depending on the person they’re talking to.

“Bhaiya, aap green tea lega ya normal wala?” the office boy asked me. “Mere liye hamesha green hi banane ko bola na. Green hi mangta.” I replied.

I felt really comfortable saying that to him, but felt a little weird about fifteen seconds later. There was nothing weird about my demand for green tea. It just felt like I was talking more like a Bengali/Goan/Tamil/any other non-Hindi speaking dude who thinks he can make grammatically correct conversation in the language as fluently as Akon in the song Chammak Challo.

The office boy is a Bengali chap, and I had started to talk in broken Hindi just like him. Not with the clients or with my colleagues, but definitely with him. “Tu abhi Bengal jaayega aur shaadi mana ke aayega girlfriend ke saath?” I enquired, while munching on the extra jalebi in the office pantry, hoping that one of the girls gets freaked out on realizing that it was 7.30 already and starts making nervous visits to the bosses’ rooms trying to stop being a chicken and asking for permission to leave for the day ‘cuz “she has to go to another end of the city and her daddy gets really angry if she reaches home after dark”. She gets permission to leave in the next five minutes, and I get to grab her share of the samosa. (Yes, I do that at my own parents’ office, and I’m shameless)

“Tum abhi Bengal jaayega aur shaadi mana ke aayega?” my mum asked a client’s accountant who was telling her about his unavailability at work for a week during Durga Puja, as he had to visit his hometown, Kolkata.

That’s not the kind of Hindi she normally uses. It got me thinking how my parents and I unconsciously change our tone and adulterate the purity of our already vanaspati-ly pure Hindi during conversations with people who are not too fluent with the language. With those who’d find it hard to believe that the word “darwaaza” is to “shudh Hindi” what the cylindrical yellow plastic container with green coconut trees and “Dalda” printed on it is to the banner that reads “Pure desi ghee sweets sold here.”

“Aww, nanu baby. Mele chaat makit jaaoge?”

Translation (in words not incomprehensible because of an overflow of love): Aww, *some word that you think describes cute* baby. Will you go to the market with me?”

I was subjected to such words of love till not age two, but age six. Words that would make a five year old want to give diction lessons to a thirty-two year old. That is what happens everyday to the first kid in a joint family. No one believes that you’re no longer a baby until another bald, pudgy looking, drooling, tooth-less wonder hits your family. But thankfully, all the kids in my family have grown up now, with the youngest cousin turning twelve in another three months.

With no more babies in the family, and no more a girlfriend to call me one, the only time I get to hear “baby” is when I plug in my earphones and Justin Bieber appears in shuffle mode. (My sister put that song there, not me. Go judge her if you want)

But last week, my dadi came over to our place and seemed a little upset on having missed her favorite tv soap that day. Her face clearly showed the extent to which she was missing the sight of some Haryanvi Ammaji woman. She’d have to wait till the following afternoon to catch on the repeat telecast. Her face looked like she couldn’t meet her best friend that day. The best friend whom she’d look at on the tv set day after day and mumble Punjabi curses at under her breath. So to distract her from missing her Ammaji, I started on a mission to entertain her by showing her some features in my new phone. Technologically challenged that she is, showing her the predictive text feature would have been enough to leave her in awe and say stuff like: “Dekha science ne kitni tarakki ki hai. Ab yeh fan ko hi dekho. Kisne socha tha ki ek button dabaao aur pankha chal padega!” My job was as easy as that, but it wouldn’t have kept her mind off the Haryanvi superstar for more than five minutes. My phone had to give competition to her best friend. I clicked on the Talking Tom application and handed her the phone. “Yeh lo, dadi. Yeh dekho kya cool cheez hai!”

“Yeh lo dadi. Yeh dekho kya cool cheez hai!” Tom spoke back. And when I entered the room half an hour later, dadi was still on the phone, with a look that showed how she wanted to put a nappy around Tom’s waist. “Aww le le, Namaste kalega? Dadiji ko Namaste kalega?” she was speaking out loud just to hear him say it back to her. Then she would slap him a little for being a “bad boy” and he would fall down. And then there was more of “Aww le le…” and similar sounding phrases playing in a loop the whole day. Dadi had missed talking to her baby grandchildren in a cute lisp and changing their nappies more than she could ever miss that Haryanvi woman. “And you thought you could take our place in our dadi’s heart, you Ammaji big-ass?” popped my thought bubble on behalf of all my cousins in the Ahuja family.

It’s nice to see how people, including yours truly, change their pronunciation, diction, tone and mannerisms unknowingly to make the other person feel more comfortable. Or probably try to get into their good books. Or just flatter them. But believe me, all of that –making the other feel comfortable jazz- fades off in two situations. Situations where the communicator makes it unbearably uncomfortable for the recipient to say anything in reply.

One, after you’ve completed six months in a romantic relationship, which you thought was the happy ending to your love story. Grow up, man. All the Hakuna Matata gets over when awkward pauses start hitting your conversations which were earlier full of incessant laughing sessions. No one gives a shit about how comfortable the other is once those feelings of love fizzle out. One of the two tries to break the awkwardness, the other gets more awkward, the couple breaks up. And life goes on.

The second situation is just as tragic as the first. It’s when you get an sms that reads “Heyyy…… hws u?? i m gng 2 da mrkt wid mah sis… u wanna cum alng?........ lolzzz..!!”

Now, I’d have loved to go with two pretty girls to the market. But sorry, your message just made me kick myself in the butt for knowing you.  If you were really trying to save on characters in your sms, why put those extra Y’s in the “Hey”? It makes you look like a Sajid Khan fan, and I judge you now.

I wish you’d have sent me that message when I was participating in a poster designing competition in 8^th grade. The theme of the day was Rural Health Awareness. Your extra dots would’ve made me win the competition by making me choose “TB ka samay par ilaaj”, and intelligently quoting “TB se bachne ke liye -dots- apnaayen” in different shades of color sprawled across my work.

And let me tell you, “da” sounds funny only when you put it after the word “Bappi”. Don’t try to be no FiddyCent, mah nigga!

Ah! That brings me to “mah”. There’s a page on facebook, whose link I am dying to paste on your wall. “Saale, my ko mah bolne se angrez nai ban jaayega.”

You know, I’d love to cum. But you’ve ruined your chances of making me do that, irrespective of how much my fully structured replies make you do.

I’m not done yet, you piece of filthy text message. There’s nothing funny about me wanting to come with you to the market. I’ve danced to Choli Ke Peechhe at all DU college fests, but that doesn’t mean I’ll try on women’s clothing for you in the ladies section of the store that you’re planning on visiting. So yes, not funny. Stop typing LOL when you’re not even laughing out loud, but have just typed it ‘cuz it’s your substitute for a full stop. And, “lolzzz!” Seriously? What in hell does that mean? Are you a comic strip character who goes off to sleep while laughing out loud?

Last, but not the least, the two exclamation signs after two full stops to conclude the message. Personally, I’ve just noticed this in text messages from girls. It’s like they’re practicing the expressions they would give their future husbands some years from now, while arguing with them on the silliest of things. The first full stop tells that she’s finished saying what she wanted to. The second follows to inform the recipient that she has actually finished with what she wanted to say and is now expecting a reply. The first exclamation communicates surprise at having got no reaction, and the second rhetorically states: “Do you even listen to me!”

For heaven’s sake, woman! Send that handicapped message with unnecessary character transplants first if you expect a reply. And since you’ve typed it like that, don’t be pissed off that my phone’s outbox didn’t care to send you a message back. Your message makes it feel awkward, and leaves it with nothing to say. The “It’s not you, it’s me” line won’t work either. It’s breaking up with your ugly text. Oh sorry, wrong analogy. They were never even together!! Yes, that is something that actually deserves two exclamation signs in the end.

While I type these last few sentences, a dog barks in the street outside like it’s caught the seasonal cough. It’s pissing off. I should run to the balcony and bark back at him. I hope it’ll make him feel more comfortable and shut up.

Image Source: brainstuck.com