House Insanity I

I live in a big house in DLF. Well, big by Delhi standards. Having lived my whole life in a two bedroom flat with my parents, this place is mammoth. Sharing my new home and stealing all the hot water, is Blue (also known as boyfriend). Blue and I are owned by two dogs, Darth Ravenous and Darth Gazelle. Yes, they are in fact proficient in the secret arts of the dark side. Come visit and you'll see.

In retrospect, I must rephrase. I live in a mad house in DLF. Insanity pools in the bathroom floor along with the bathwater because the drains are clogged and can only be cleared through demolition of the neighbours kitchen. Needless to say I will be wading through both insanity and bathwater until the end of time.

Adding to the merrymaking and chaos is the household help, lovingly referred to as Idontknow. There is also the more explicit version of her name, prefered by Blue but unsuitable for use in this blog. Idontknow is called thus because she speaks no language discernible by modern man. Or women. Or canine for that matter. My mother, who speaks more languages than most of the people I know combined, informs me that she speaks in an obscure dialect of Bengali. As a result, giving her instructions to do anything has more inherent dangers than a game of russian roulet. I once told her to clean the bathroom floor, you know, mop up the bathwater and the insanity. Ten minutes later I found her on the first floor balcony wringing out the stray cat that had adopted us. Blue thoughtfully told her she did her job very well, and she took the afternoon off, reduced to bitter tears.

We never did figure out what it was he said in that obscure dialect of Bengali. Though since that day she has come in every morning and stood over him while he slept, watching with what I hope is maternal tenderness. Though its not likely.

She is currently on a fifteen day hiatus, no doubt trying to regain some sort of perspective on life outside the gigglefest that we conduct here. OR she is off to her village to recruit other, more voluptuous unintelligibles to come and stare at Blue. The possibilities are endless.

Urban Legends

When people first discover that I live with my boyfriend they all react the same way. Their eyes glaze over, they emit a deep sigh and generally exclaim with great sentiment, “How ROMANTIC!” (Yes, in capitals)

Usually I respond with an indulgent smile. Let them have their delusions, everyone needs some hope for mankind. But sometimes, when for example I’ve had a particularly ‘ROMANTIC’ morning at home, I break into vigorous laughter tinged with rampant hysteria. I try to stop before they begin to edge away and talk soothingly of therapy.

Unfortunately this romantic concept of living together is shared by many who have never tried it. Its not all candlelight dinners (unless the electricity has disappeared again and you’re forced to eat cornflakes with wax dripping into it, again) and soaking together in bathtubs (what do you mean you forgot to put on the pump? Is there no water at all??).

The one sure way to kill romance sadly is to move in with it.

Dont Come to me for a Watered Down Love

Im facing a bit of a dilemma at the moment.

This space, though obviously not private in the true sense has always been safe to speak out in, because the people i have met here have been open minded and generally tolerant. Im not saying there arent bigotted and nasty bloggers (both who read and write are included in this definition), but i hvae been fortunate enough to have almost no interaction with them.

I never write to fit accepted social norms. I havent kept my life a secret, either on this blog or in the 'real' world. But in both places, my choices, opinions, views, though not always met with agreement, were always met with tolerance.

What Im trying to say, is that I have led a very sheltered existance, and am thus unused to being judged. Though in theory, and occasionally in practise, I KNOW what kind of reaction my decisions and lifestyle will bring out in educated, intelligent, conservative sections of our society, actually hvaing to deal with said reactions is exhausting.

I have been evicted from my closet to be honest. Or rather, I woke up to find that the back wall of my closet disappeared and the world was staring in, watching me dance around my living room to revolting love songs wearing My Little Pony flip flops and my boyfriends boxers. Its not the best feeling.

However, we (thats me and the new personality I developed due to the psychotic break i suffered at being discovered in boxers and flipflops slow dancing with a pillow to 'unbreak my heart') have decided that this is the year we are going to become proper grown ups. We live away from our parents, we earn money (not a lot but some), we share our life with another grown up who has given us much to want to be grown up about (and we thank him most affectionately), so we can deal with gossip and disapproval and outrage.

And I smoke too!