Confessions of a bride to be… Part 2 !

Statutory Warning – I am encashing on the huge success that was Part 1, hence the narcissistic need for part 2. But, yes, comparisons are not welcome.

Lately, my life has been turning into one big lesson in ego-mastication. There have been so many instances in the last few months where I have fallen flat on my face, the fall squishing my nose and whatever egotistical spunk (in Panjabi we call it ‘akad’) that was sitting on it.

I am often at the receiving end of the tantrums the children I work for and with throw at me. It is so random and spontaneous that I do not even get a chance to duck with the punch landing right in the center of my gut. I drink my anger without so much as a straw. But, the love that I feel for them is beyond such everyday ego-castration.

I’d like to believe that I am an endearing person (barring a few times) but that I have faced and still face outright rejection on account of my religion and three Ps – Profession, Partner, Principals and a potpourri of other things, is no exaggeration.

Whatever sense of elitism I have left in me, takes a hit regularly when I travel in packed RTVs, bouncing from one end to the other, the bus drivers in a state of trance, with explicit Haryanvi music running in their veins, uttering obscenities whilst overtaking each other. You want to give them a piece of your mind, but then you remember it’s ‘Delhi’ and you switch off your brain altogether.

After a sweaty day at work, I go to a small salon near my house to get my bushy eyebrows managed. The female client already on the hot-seat won’t give up till her brows are as symmetrical as Denzel Washington’s (this weird comparison is owing to an article I once read in Reader’s Digest… about how Mr. Washington’s face is one of the most symmetrical ever and that small babies cannot take their eyes off his picture). She goes to the extent of humiliating the staff and yours truly by not giving me a chance to look half as symmetrical as her. When she does finally get up, she goes to the adjoining cabin, pulls the curtains and calls out coyly to the salon lady, “Won’t you first wax my arms and legs, I am in such hurry, you see.” The salon lady is at her wits end but since she does not want to lose out on an old client, she pleads with her to wait so that she can give me the deliverance that I deserve. But the woman comes out all guns blazing and issues a threat of leaving the salon with her hairy limbs in tow. I chew on my anger/ego and gesticulate to the salon lady to deal with her snob-of-a-client and let me go. In the meanwhile, I fantasize about inviting her for a bout of Kushti to show her my feline skills, but as soon as I step out of the salon, our neighbourhood dog starts barking at me, perhaps because he was expecting me to undergo a la ‘Jassi’ makeover and I ended up disappointing him.

And did I mention that my mother wants me to get my bridal clothes stitched from a ‘Gents Tailor’, for reasons that are best known to her. I’d rather get hitched wearing a tuxedo then.

The insults keep coming; but I am learning to suck it up, baby.