Rant For Today: Breeding Ethics

A non-developmental series of models made for medical science. Click for more info and the credit and all that.

Now here is a sensible blog post about breeding by Duchess.

It actually has citations from proper articles. It even the mentions a girl doing a PhD on the subject of the ethics of breeding. Unlike me, who can never be bothered to track down research and cite shit. I am too lazy to do any more than have an incoherent rant. This entire blog is one huge, incoherent rant.

I must confess I particularly enjoyed the timid disclaimer at the bottom about how the PhD girl who is writing about breeding morality loves children and isn’t having a go at any breeders. That made me snicker a little, the idea that there was a need for that disclaimer.

The article linked within the post from the New Yorker was also a very interesting read.

The size of your family helps determine how the world of the future will look. (Credit the New Yorker)

‘The case against kids: Is procreation immoral?’ Elizabeth Kolbert, 2012. in The New Yorker.

“In “Why Have Children?: The Ethical Debate” (M.I.T. Press), Christine Overall tries to subject that decision to morally rigorous analysis. Overall, who teaches philosophy at Queen’s University, in Ontario, dismisses the notion that childbearing is “natural” and therefore needs no justification.

“There are many urges apparently arising from our biological nature that we nonetheless should choose not to act upon,” she observes. If we’re going to keep having kids, we ought to be able to come up with a reason.”

I had a huge argument with a friend of the ex’s back in Bombay last December. We met him and his now fiancée at this hotel near the airport for dinner (Don’t know why we chose a place near the airport. The airport is in the middle of nowhere, the food was so-so and was massively over priced). We got into a heated debate over our Paan Pasand flavoured Shesha, or perhaps even a sequence of debates.

The first one was about breeding dogs to develop or enhance certain genetic traits. (I’m totally against this. It seems cruel and unnecessary to actively cultivate a squashed pug nose if that nose results in limited or poor ability to breathe.)

Or those genetically bred cows that have so much muscle (It’s for people who want really lean, low-fat meat) that they can’t even have sex without a human manually having to inserting the bull’s penis. Here I’ve even attached an article. See? I’m being so good and almost semi-researched. Maybe I should do a PhD.

This argument then morphed into:

“If you know you and your partner both have a high chance of passing on a debilitating genetic condition to any offspring would you still have a baby?”

I’d like to say that I presented a good defence of the ‘No’ stance, but some of his arguments (especially no.4 below) were so maddening that after a point I just got enraged and incoherent. Also the ex was on my left, acting like an atrocious little troll, constantly interrupting rudely in trying to change the subject and derail the debate. The ex doesn’t enjoy debates.

So this guy’s response to the question above was “Yes” and these were the core reasons listed below (My arguments underneath)

Venus in Flames. Click for info about this Votive drawing on the Wellcome collection. (and the artist credits and stuff)

1.

“All procreation carries some risk.”

Of course it does. What a redundant point. Everything we ever do carries risk. Walking across a street carries risk. But most people also have the capacity to assess the risk and make an informed decision based on that assessment.

If there is a high risk when running across a train track when the signal is red that you will get hit, then most people would avoid running across a train track. I don’t see why this wouldn’t apply to breeding. In fact I should think this should especially apply to breeding in the circumstances mentioned above.

“Dark-skinned” pregnant doll - Edo-Tokyo Museum. Click through for more info from the blog I nicked it from.

2.

“Doctors don’t know everything and can’t predict the outcome accurately. Even if they tell you the chances of this kid having a horrific incurable condition is high, like a 50/50 chance. Even if its 80%. Even if its 99.9%. They can’t know everything. So I’d have this kid anyway and take that 0.01% chance.”

What an idiot.

Again, sure part of the statement is true to a degree. (Doctors don’t know everything.) However it is also insane.

Firstly doctors don’t claim to know everything. They are presenting you with the chances of a certain outcome that you are free to then take or leave. However their inaccuracy will be a good deal less inaccurate than yours.

Secondly if using the logic above, you refuse to listen to a professional who may have spent a several years studying to give you solutions, why bother going to see a doctor at all? Just visit a Homeopath. Or a yogi. Just as good. In fact better – You’ll won’t have to think about the risks at all – They’ll tell you to pray harder, swallow a special herbal remedy when the Moon is in Vishnu and everything will be just dandy.

But reading between the lines here’s what I think this guy was actually saying,

“I’m willing to take the risk, even if it’s very high because the person who would suffer the most is this child but that’s ok because what I want is a baby and getting what I want is more important to me and besides I can easily rationalise it.”

In fact if he just said that I’d be fine with the whole thing. I’d still think he was a selfish, amoral, butthead but at least he’d be an honest one. This whole ‘I’m bringing a child into the world for its benefit and the benefit of the world’ is such a crock of shit. I want to vomit every time some deluded breeder or to-be breeder says it. (Unlike the Duchess I have no disclaimer)

Wood carved fetus model set (circa 1877) - Toyota Collection. Click through for more info from the blog I nicked it from.

3.

“Existing but being in incredible pain is better than not existing at all.”

I couldn’t even be bothered to argue this at dinner. It’s too … exhausting. Non existing creatures won’t care that they don’t exist. Plus creating something when you know it will suffer (and not in the existential angsty sort of way, while listening to a Morrissey album, but really suffer.) seems like nothing short of torture to me.

I think this guy had religious leanings. People with religious leanings never seem to mind creating things that will suffer. They have a million ways of justifying it. So that’s always a dead-end. I stopped bothering with it a while ago. Religion I mean. If I’m going to argue about fiction I’d rather it was a debate about The Hobbit and whether Gandalf was a bit gay. (I think he might have been)

Image from the Wellcome collection "Draw your own votive". Click through for the story behind it on the Wellcome collection. (and the artist credits and stuff)

4.

“I’d love this child. My love would be better than it having good health.”

Actual statement. I’m not even paraphrasing.

Oh yes yes of course, your love would compensate for all this baby suffers even though you chose to procreate in the face of medical advice, even though you could have adopted. What a saint.

He then presented us with 2 theoretical situations:

One a baby is born to a large but poor family. They neglect the child and probably they won’t be able to give him/her any of the good things in life but this kid would be totally healthy.

Or two, a baby is born to this genetically dodge couple, he has a terrible incurable chronic illness and disability but his parents would really, really love it and give it whatever it wanted.

If you had the power to decide into which family this baby would be born which would you choose?

Even the ex who normally NEVER agrees with me picked the first option. Who the fuck wouldn’t?? I’d imagine that most parents just want their kids to be born healthy.

This particular argument really blew my mind. The sheer deluded arrogance of it. The amazing selfishness. My love will conquer all. Even genetic illness. Even suffering. I mean seriously. Who does this guy think he is? Mother Teresa?

Even now, months after this dinner my mind reels.

Drawings of pregnancy to guide clinical examination. Click for more info & credits. The grossly distended tummy over the vagina in last image makes me feel a bit queasy.

“Benatar’s case rests on a critical but, in his view, unappreciated asymmetry. Consider two couples, the A’s and the B’s. The A’s are young, healthy, and rich. If they had children, they could give them the best of everything—schools, clothes, electronic gaming devices. Even so, we would not say that the A’s have a moral obligation to reproduce.

The B’s are just as young and rich. But both have a genetic disease, and, were they to have a child together, that child would suffer terribly. We would say, using Benatar’s logic, that the B’s have an ethical obligation not to procreate.

The case of the A’s and the B’s shows that we regard pleasure and pain differently. Pleasure missed out on by the nonexistent doesn’t count as a harm. Yet suffering avoided counts as a good, even when the recipient is a nonexistent one.”

I’m totally on board with this Bentar guy. In fact I wish he was with me at this dinner. Just him, his huge thesis (not a euphemism) and his beautiful logic.

The ex was very annoyed about this entire debate and refused to take part, except by trying to stop it by occasionally yelling at me. (Being the incredibly rude person the ex is).

For once though I was perfectly happy to comply and wrap the thing up. (It wasn’t going anywhere this debate, although I did get quite annoyed when the ex was being particularly trollish. We were both sitting there hissing at each other now and then.) but the ex’s friend really wanted to carry on. He just wouldn’t drop it. The ex lectured me all the way home. I didn’t pay any attention.

In other news, I just got back from holiday in the Caribbean. I feel terribly smug.

I’m brown as a nut and looking more like an Indian than I’ve looked in ages.

So I’m asking Punjab to send over a crate of Fair & Lovely. It seems to be all the rage these days. 

Role Reversal

Fruit wala in Juhu Market

While in Bombay, which seems like an age ago, my mother and I are walking down Juhu market.

Every inch of it is dug up. They dig up the road every single fucking year. It’s a government tradition. Like corruption (See? I can be political.)

Cars are honking constantly and ricks are driven by lunatics. It’s a chaotic, noisy, pot-hole filled, obstacle course.

My mother is not looking up as we are trying to cross the road, and is furiously texting some bum-chum.

“Mom, must we do this now? You can text who-ever when we get home or are off the road.”

“Haan, but it’s urgent! I need to reply to Vivek about our milonga!”

(Apparently a milonga is some dancing get-together thingummy. My mother has grown addicted to Salsa and Tango classes.)

Our roles have rather reversed of late.

For her birthday my mother wore some deadly off-shoulder, tight, lace mini (see above), while I was fully covered up to the neck.

She was dancing away, while I was at the bar drinking.

Chatting to my folks these days is like have a conversation with teenagers.

Mom’s tango class teacher (who is 30 years her junior) is sulking.

People have left his class and have gone to someone else’s class, then have being saying all these bitchy things about him behind his back, so he’s upset and is now saying he won’t come to Mom’s milonga and if he doesn’t come, Mom won’t enjoy the milonga because he’s her favourite and so she’s trying to convince him to come to the milonga. 

Who knew you could say milonga so many times in one sentence?

She’s such a dedicated student that she became class assistant. That’s my Mom – class apple polisher.

All this milonga drama and dance class back stabbing made me have vivid school flashbacks.

“Oh my god! Have you heard?? Karishma said that Shipali said that she had a pakoda-nose-pimply-face! No one is going to talk to her ever again!”

That actually happened. Then it turned out that the person who said that the other person said that thing about their nose was lying, so no one talked to her after that. (A garbled business, I know) It brought her crashing down from position of social queen to social leper (for a little while anyway).

It was perfect example of social politics (I love school politics, don’t you?). Instead of taking part I documented it in detail in my diary back then like a huge nerd.

I told my mother that I recommended a nice tight slap for Sulky.

“Aare how can you say that? Poor fellow. These people are being damn mean. But there’s so much politics in this small tango community of ours.”

I love how my father says that. Like he’s experienced dance politics for eons.

“Yes, of course. Didn’t you watch Black Swan?”

I’ve learned a lot from Black Swan. That and watching ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ religiously.

“I thought I had resolved and smoothed out issues but then today he’s sulking all over again.”

“You should just leave it. What is this? High school?”

Seriously. I feel old listening to this.

“Just tell mom to slap him. Slap him hard.”

Man I really want my mother to slap someone.

“Mom says how can you talk like that? Poor chap. These people are making his life a misery. They say they don’t like his dancing. How can expect him not too sulk?”

Oh.my.god. So much drrrrrama!

“But if they don’t like it, they don’t like it! Loads of people tell me they don’t like my drawings. I’m not so lame that I would sulk. He needs to grow up.”

“Mom says she will bash up these people who say this to you.”

You see – This is what happens when you get a tattoo. You’ll start trying to ‘bash up’ people for no reason.

“Then she needs to bash – Munt, My boss, The ex, and various other sentimental types. Tell this guy to sort it out and go to the milonga.”

The ex and Monty think I need to be more ‘commercial’. They don’t approve of my dark material. Kittens and ponies, that’s what I need to draw. Preferably kittens riding ponies. You just can’t go wrong with material like that.

“Mom says she can kick ass. She works out at the gym. She says tell them that when she comes she’ll kick their ass.”

Aw. Mom is gonna fight people.

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

She’s gotten another tattoo by the way (ankle). Thought you’d like to know.

The Goa Airport

Hideous statues at Goa airport. I mean, who commissioned these monstrosities? And then grouped them for Christmas? Like that's doing anyone a favour.

Back dated post (such a bad habit) from my Goa Trip & New Years Eve. 

The next morning, while still buzzing from the night before, I went for swim after breakfast. The ex was still groggy and refused to leave the hut.

It was amazing. Really it was. I think I was still high, which made it feel even better. I wore my sun glasses in the water.

Then me, the ex and PhD all smoked one last one before we left for the airport.

PhD got into an argument with a young, mustachioed policeman at the Goa airport entrance about how they should open both airport entrances, therefore making everything more efficient and that he shouldn’t just accept the status quo but try to change things! Yes We Can! Jai Ho! I have dream! Friends, Foes, Countrymen!

Clearly the effects of the smoke had worn off.

The ex tried to drag him away but he wouldn’t budge. This lecture/debate lasted 15 minutes. His hindi is only marginally better than mine, so it was with some horror that we left him to it and joined the line for security (X-raying the bags)

Maddening bureaucracy and pointless red tape cripple the Goa Airport. (PhD had a point after all, but don’t annoy a cop just as you are about to board a flight is all I say).

One Goa airport rule is that all airlines have their own security stickers for your bags post-screening. Imagine that – Printing all the different types of stickers for each airline, then managing who is being screened for what flight and then matching the stickers correctly. Logistically it’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever witnessed.

Since my mother made us reach the airport some 2 hours in advance for our flight – She fucking tricked us! She told us there might be lots of traffic and we should leave early! It was a scam. I’m sure of it. There was no traffic. She loves to get people waiting at airports. Some OCD thing – So security weren’t even ready for our flight – Surprise surprise, our bags got the wrong sticker.

When we went up to the check-in counter, the counter lady said,

“Aare! You can’t fly with the wrong stickers on your bags! You must screen them again.”

PhD promptly had a fight with the counter lady. Most definitely the mal had worn off.

“What difference do the stickers make? They are all generic anyway!”

The counter lady seemed baffled, both by the use of the word ‘generic’ and his casual rejection of the immutable laws of the Goa airport. Then he said,

“We’re leaving the bags with you. This is your problem! You made the mistake and you should sort it out for us! Why should we screen them again? Come on guys, we’re going to the waiting lounge.”

I thought, I’m not leaving my bag unattended you madman!

Luckily no one listened to him. No one ever listens to the academics, thank god.

By this time the ex was getting rather hot under the collar. The ex gets very agitated with unforeseen occurrences. It’s so cute.

The ex then scolded me severely for taking that photo above of the mind blowingly hideous airport statues instead of sorting out our luggage issue.

Plus I had 2 lighters in my bag because Goa Airport, unlike all other airports in the world, still implements the ‘no lighter’ policy (even if the lighter is in your checked-in luggage), just because they can’t be bothered to change it.. So I had to open 2 suitcases to hunt for the lighters.

There was a hidden 3rd lighter which I only found back in Bombay once I unpacked! Hah! Take that Goa Airport!

Then we settled down to find some snacks. While we stood in the queue at a food counter waiting to buy some samosas, PhD got impatient, (Yes We Can! Challenge the status quo! Jai Ho!) went off on his own and returned with an armful of samosas.

Unfortunately everyone else waiting patiently in the queue had just been served. So in the end we had nearly 4 extra plates of huge samosas.

I told PhD he really should run for Mayor of Goa.

Tramp Stamp: The Update

The Tattoo

My mother, true to her word, went and got her tattoo.

It’s a blue and green chinese dragon from the neck down to her shoulder. (No tramp stamp, thank god.). Took over 3 hours to tattoo I’m told. Impressive stuff, I couldn’t stand the drilling after about 5 mins.

When she first told me she was getting a Chinese dragon I told her she might look like a take-away menu.

Also let me just break away here to say: If your mother is getting a tattoo, then it is a sure sign that the trend is has peaked. (Unless you intend to wallpaper yourself like this guy here.) I’d suggest that rule for about just any trend.

So she asks me, what did I think of it?

This is all via G-chat by the by, with my father typing because my mother hasn’t yet come to terms with technology, even though she’s been using her iPod lately and has a new baffling high-tech phone. (Which I can’t use at all – It’s too complicated. By comparison to mine at any rate. Mine has no call button and doesn’t connect to the internet.)

“So what do you think of Mom’s tattoo?”

“Very nice.”

I mean it, even though that sounds like a half-hearted attempt at diplomacy.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘nice’?

She asks suspiciously.

“I mean it doesn’t look like a takeaway menu.”

It’s hard to know how to compliment the tattoo. I was mostly relieved it wasn’t something terrible. Or somewhere terrible.

“That means you think it does look like a takeaway!”

“Aare no! It looks cool, very cool.”

It does, it does. I mean it.

“By the way, have you noticed that it’s an ‘S’ for Sonja?”

“No I didn’t but that’s a nice touch. Although, all dragons are drawn in ‘S’ shapes. What if Mom’s name was Gonja?”

What if her name was Gonja. I don’t think I’d like having a mother with that name for a start.

“She says there’s a method to her madness. The dragon could be the other way too.”

I have no idea that ‘the other way’ means. I let it slide. Sometimes it’s better not to ask.

“The head has to be inwards because that way it gives her power and strength. That’s its significance.”

What maha bakwas (hokum). I love how tattoo artists and branding people tend to spout the same garbage. We’ve had to do a couple of branding exercises at work and man, the nonsense you have to make sound legitimate is amazing.

Then my father had the audacity to tell me my mother has more ‘guts and balls’ than me because her tattoo is bigger.

I know. Like, gasp.

And whatever!

So I told him she was a copy cat. I got mine over 10 years ago. So there.

“Now now don’t be like that…”

I like that he says “Now now” even though he clearly was stirring.

“But yours is so wimpy!”

The cheek!

My mother didn’t speak to me for a week when I got my navel pierced and was dead set against my getting a tattoo. I had to hide it for 5 years. I got it done in a shed in Goa by a man with the most appalling black nails. I have had no desire for another.

“It cost Rs. 350! What do you expect?”

Apparently my Mom’s tattoo cost Rs. 12,000. Holy crap.

Also I can’t believe I’m having to justify the smallness of my tattoo to my father. The world has turned on its head.

She wants to get another one now. On her ankle.

Seriously. The trend is totally over.

Heart breaking, I’m sure.

Tramp Stamp

So True.

I went through a brief phase of wanting to ‘experience things’ when I was in college.

The predecessor to that phase was a phase where I decided for a whole year I would enter every single school inter-house competition. So I did. All of them. The glorious Charasvati had loads and loads of inter-house events, some listed below:

Quiz - I only knew 2 answers. I was so excited that I actually knew something, that I yelped the answer loudly and the table next to us (dastardly and vile, S.V. house) stole my answer.

Dramatics – it was a really really really REALLY bad play. There were many monologues that were meant to be funny. They weren’t. I hate plays.

Rangoli – The art teacher, Jignesh, drew us some hideous lotus on a big board. For the competition you had to fill it in within 45 mins with coloured powder. If you used too many unadulterated colours you were disqualified, but if you mixed too much of the white power that made it easier to sprinkle, it would look bland and you’d lose marks. We came first. Hah.

Poetry recital – What was I thinking??? Holy crap. I have mentally blocked most of the poem part. I only remember a teacher telling me to try look less like a wreck.

Vegetable carving – Yes that’s right, our school had a vegetable carving competition. I had to audition for this; I carved a tomato like a flower and then cut capsicum slices to make lotus leaves and placed it on a small blue plate, which was on a larger blue plate (for the water, see?). The teachers loved it. I have to admit, it was largely my mother’s idea. At the time I thought my Mother was some kind of genius, because I would never think, capsicum slices = lotus leaves. At the end of the competition we dismantled our sculpture and took the vegetables home for bhaji. Not the tomatoes though. I hate squashy tomatoes. A tomato needs to have a nice, crisp body and a firm texture (Ok that came out a little dirty but you know what I mean). I’m a bit of a tomato connoisseur.

So the up-side of this phase was that I got to bunk a heck of a lot of classes. Vegetable carving takes a lot of practice. The downside was I got noticed for being so fucking enthusiastic and accidentally ended up becoming House Captain. (There was some drama involved in this, but that for another time)

I was a terrible House Captain. I had no idea how to lead or organize things. But at least I got to bunk even more classes.

So after this enthu-responsible-vege-carver phase, I decided all of my good behavior was nonsense and I was going to smoke, drink, swear more (It was a conscious decision. I didn’t swear before college) and get a naval ring.

My mother found out about the naval ring and didn’t speak to me for a week. After a week she asked me

“Why don’t you wear shorter tops. I’ll lend you some.”

I told her I wasn’t a slut.

“What slut? You got a naval ring and at least let everyone see it.”

My mother oscillates from one extreme to another. From not talking to me, to ‘can you please be a ho?’

“But don’t you DARE get a tattoo!”

“Ok, Ok”

“I mean it, I’m serious.”

“Haan OK OK. I said OK”

So of course, naturally, I went to Goa with Riddhi & Mads and got a tattoo. It cost Rs. 300 because we haggled down from Rs. 450. We found some totally random dude in what was essentially a tiny, dark, shed, with 2 plastic chairs and one low-hanging lightbulb. His fingernails were black. We insisted he open a new pack of needles.

The tattoo looks like something scratched out by a prisoner with a rusty scalpel and a smuggled ball-pen. A month after I got the tattoo I had all these nightmares about gettings AIDS and dying. I hid it from my folks for 5 years, I figured they’d kill me. The naval ring was bad enough.

So my mother calls me the other day, to ask me where would I recommend getting a tattoo.

“I’m thinking of getting a Celtic tatoo on my lower back. What do you think?”

“OMG Mom! What is this, some mid-life crisis? You can’t get a tattoo on your lower back! That’s a total tramp stamp!”

“But I like tramp-stamps!”

“Tramp stamps are trashy and don’t get a Celtic thing. It’s so 90′s.”

I really don’t like the idea of my Mom with a Celtic tattoo. I’m sorry but regardless of sporting a shit tattoo myself, I’m a tattoo snob and Celtic swirls are so over. Maybe Enya and that bald chick who cries while singing Nothing Compares could get one and look good but I sinceriously (sincere + seriously) doubt anyone else could.

“I like Celtic patterns… maybe on my arm?”

*internal groan* Celtic pattern on arm, like some 90′s lout…

“Don’t get it on your arm. Get one on your shoulder-blade or somewhere discreet”

“Haan, but I want everyone to see it! Ok but tell me, it hurts right?”

“Yes Mom, it hurts”

“But I always ask people and they say no, no, it doesn’t really hurt…”

“They are all liars. It hurts like hell.”

“Haan…ok. Chalo bye”

The hurting part should put her off a bit.

I’m hoping this is all just a phase.

I should send this to my Mom. She'd find it funny.

Commuting Unchaperoned

Rape Taxi

My mother never let me take a rick until I was 15. She’d tell me how people get taken away and raped in ricks. Like this was standard procedure. This wasn’t the occasional remark either. This rick-rape was drilled into my fragile eggshell brain until it cracked.

She didn’t let me cross the road alone until I was 12. In case I got hit by a truck. Like that too, was standard procedure. This is why I came to the strong belief that she only had two kids so one would be a back up if the other died. (Although this is my theory about why all people have more than one child, a genetic back-up as it were)

The sum result of all this conditioning is that now I have a high level of anxiety when traveling alone at night in Bombay. It doesn’t even have to be particularly late. (I can’t drive yet, and I’ve been in London so long there never seemed to be any point in learning. I can barely afford public transport, much less a car)

After 10pm I start feeling a slight anxiety but it’s still OK, 10 pm isn’t really late. At around 11:00-11:30pm there’s a knot right at the pit of my stomach. I make sure I watch the road incase he tries and leads me down some dead-end alley. After 12 I’m gripping the side of the rick and planning escapes.

One of R.’s friends was telling us a story about how when she was 3 she got lost and now every time she gets lost (if she is driving) she cries. Or if she’s stuck in traffic for ages, she cries. At the time this sounded a bit bonkers, but on reflection I’m very nearly crying when stressed.

So I’m standing with my mother at around 7:30-8:00pm on some hole of a street in Bandra, she’s on her way to Tango classes and I’m on my way to R. classes of smoking.

We find a taxi after 30 minutes of waiting. He’s a young guy. My mom says,

“Hmmmm he looks a bit young….”

But I get in because there are no other taxis around and we have been waiting for ages. I ask him to take me to Worli Naka by the Sea Link. He has to ask another cab for directions. This ought to have been my cue to ditch this cab, but I didn’t. He drove jerkily, slowly and stalling occasionally. This also ought to have been my cue to ditch this cab, but I didn’t.

He kept asking guys in passing ricks and taxis for directions. Go straight they said, and then turn left. I had to stop him from turning after every straight and left. Then he tries to go up on the highway to Pune. I started to wish I could ditch this cab, but I couldn’t.

Then he goes up on the right ramp to the Sea Link at last. I breathe deeply. Now how can he possibly get lost? After 5 minutes I notice he’s taken the exit lane on the right and is going back to where we started.

My mother calls to check up on me;

“Where are you now?”

“This guy can’t drive. He’s on the sea link and has just taken a full chakkar around”

She immediately goes into hysterics;

“GIVE ME THE CAB NUMBER! YOU’RE GOING TO GET RAPED!! HE WILL TAKE YOU AWAY AND RAPE YOU!!! GIVE ME THE CAB NUMBER! PASS HIM THE PHONE!! YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF THE CAB! YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF THE CAB ON THE HIGHWAY!! LISTEN TO ME!! YOU WILL GET RAPED!!”

Do you see why I have anxiety? This is hardly helpful.

I insist I am getting out of this cab, he is fundamentally useless and he can’t even drive. I refuse to even try to take him to Shazu’s house. I don’t know the way and this guy knows even less than me. It is my long-standing belief that at least one person in a moving vehicle ought to know something and I no longer expect this fool of a U.P.ite bhaiya, who left his farm the day-before-yesterday to learn how to drive, to know the streets of Bombay.

My mother forces me to go to Lilavati Hospital by screaming about rape and calling every 5 minutes.

“Mom! I can’t concentrate on anything if you keep calling! I have to get out of this cab! He doesn’t know anything! Fine!! I’ll stop at Lilavati Ok? I’m not going anywhere! We’re stuck in traffic!!”

R. calls to ask me where the hell I am. She tells me I might not get a cab at Lilavati. I insist I am ditching this cab. Shazu calls to tell me he will speak to the cabbie, I say no I am getting out of this cab. Shazu tells me I might not get a cab at Lilavati. I insist I am getting out of this cab. Then I hang up.

So I’m stuck in non-moving traffic on the road to Lilavati for 30 minutes. I could have just hopped out across the road but the taxi was on the right and it could have been awkward. My mother was frantic by this point and it was only 8:00pm. It was maddening, I wanted to cry. Instead I yelled at this cabbie in my fuck-all broken hindi. Why did he waste my time if he doesn’t know where he was going?

I also wished I was someone who could speak better hindi only so I could give galis in a proper, legit way. Like R. or J. or a fisherwoman

Then, to add insult to injury, I even had to pay him.

Chut.

Dengue Father

The Lawn

My father sent me a text on the weekend saying he had Dengue fever and also that my mother was digging up the lawn to replace it with a patio.

I was obviously concerned about the Dengue fever but more than that, like what the hell?? Why was my mother digging up the lawn? And a patio? We don’t need another patio. What about the picnics?? What’s going on here?

My father tells me nothing and texts me saying I should call my mother.

So I send her a frantic text saying

“Pop’s told me you’re digging up the lawn??”

Then I call her and said

“You’re digging up the lawn?? Why are you digging up the lawn??”

“Hi darling! Who told you I’m digging up the lawn?”

I consider the statement above as an admission of guilt. Clearly she’s tried to keep it hush-hush but my father ratted her out! I panic immediately.

“Pop’s sent me a text saying he had dengue and you were digging up the lawn!”

“Ooff-ho! Tubs, you told her I’m digging up the lawn?”

My mother is confronting the whistle-blower. Why did he blow the whistle anyway? And why do we need another patio??

“Why are you digging up the lawn?? We don’t need a patio!! How are we going to have picnics??”

My poor sick fathers Dengue has taken a back seat to the lawn-patio debacle

“Darling, I’m not digging up the lawn, your father is just…telling lies”

I’m suspicious of this. Is my mother telling lies about my father telling lies?

“What do you mean he’s lying? So you’re not digging up the lawn??”

“No, No! I’m not digging up the lawn.”

“Why is Pop’s lying? He’s damn mean!”

“Tubs, she says you’re damn mean”

“Pops! Why are you telling lies?”

“Because I like to irritate you darling”

This is why I have no sympathy for the Dengue, although I suppose he must be bored.

Squeeze

I finally decided to leave the little womb of my house, detach my ass from the garden furniture and actually go out.

Leo said he was covering some event at a new Smirnoff bar called ‘Squeeze’, he promised free booze and all the cool press privileges that came along with it.

So very excited I actually wore a skirt and my flat black boots for this bum.

He came over at about 10 and then sat around with my brother, mom and dad watching some generic, entirely predictable sitcom.

My family has never entirely mastered the concept of walking across a room to hold a conversation. We only communicate across the house, in very loud shouting matches.

I’ll yell from across the dining table,

“MOOOOOM!! WHERE’S MY TEEEEAA??”

My mom will yell from the kitchen,

“WHAT? WHAT TEA? IS THIS YOUR TEA? I DRANK IT BY ACCIDENT. EAT YOUR LUNCH!”

“I’M NOT HUNGRY. STOP FORCE FEEDING ME!”

My brother will yell from his room,

“MOM! I’M HUNGRY FOOOOOOD! WHERE IS MY KNEE BRACE?”

I’ll continue and yell

“HEY! WHO’S GOT THE CAT? WHERE IS THE CAT?”

My father will complain no one is paying him any attention while Leo sits there giggling like a moron.

“Has J gone? J?? Has she gone??”

My mom asks Leo as I’m in my loo.

The walls literally being made of tin sheets, I can hear her as if she were right in the loo, which doesn’t help me pee any quicker.

“HOW CAN I BE GONE MOM?? LEO IS STILL HERE, IF HE’S HERE WHY WOULD I HAVE LEFT??”

Finally, I mean finally, we are ready to leave for ‘Squeeze’.

Just as Leo puts one foot out the door Riddhi calls to say she is coming to pick us up and she’ll drop us off at her house.

Her house is no closer to ‘Squeeze’ than mine but of course the ulterior motive is to smoke in her car on the way. (That devious minx)

Leo and I get scolded for daring to make a plan that didn’t include her.

“You guys obviously don’t love me as much as you said yesterday!! ALL LIES! Why didn’t you tell me your plan?? And fucking pick up your phone BITCH!”

“Dude! You said and I quote ‘Haan so you guys I won’t see you until you come back from Hyderabad or if your going for H.’s party on Friday so bye I’m damn busy tomorrow’.

Anyway come with us now babies, come on it’ll be fun. A party isn’t the same without you, we love you, come on man”

(This woman demands major bhav)

“No way dude, I’m too tired anyway I hate Squeeze and besides I shall never forgive you for not telling me about this plan.”

Such a drama queen.

I have realised that Leo has no fucking press privileges. I was so disillusioned.

Squeeze decor was entirely red and black with bamboo featuring some third-rate Photoshop artwork mounted on light-boxes (also in red). Some guy called Raghav was performing anglo-desi pop to a mini group of cheering girls and boys.

Leo tried to go upstairs but rebuffed by the security person or some PR person. He then grudgingly spoke to the PR lady but still couldn’t get upstairs OR score any free booze.

Somewhat defeated, we bought 2 very expensive drinks and parked our loser behinds on a bench outside (not even inside) oogling (what a great word, almost onomatopoeic) at any cuties going by.

Within 40 minutes or less Leo and I were  back home sitting in the garden.

Shopping

I really don’t understand my mother’s attitude to shopping.

She drags me out, when I have a splitting headache, sneezing, wheezing and coughing (if I’m going to be sick you’re all going to hear about it) to Shoppers Stop.

She then tells me I spent too much money shopping last year, so I feel guilty and say

“Fine fine, lets not shop anymore. I honestly don’t need any more clothes.”

Then she gets all offended and shocked and says

“What?? You don’t even want to go to Westside? But they have some really nice things!”

What the hell am I supposed to do?

I’m just not one of those window shopper types. How do people ever enjoy window shopping? I hate wanting and not having.

Delayed gratification means nothing to me.