*ring ring*
Mum- Hello Suman? Can you come over tomorrow to shave baby's head?
Suman- Is she still on that?
Mum- Yeah.
Suman- Can you stop her?
Mum- Nope.
Suman- You'll have to be present... I'm not getting blamed for this.
Mum- Fine.

* * *
*ring ring*
VC- Wassup?
Me- Oh, nothing much. I just shaved my head.
VC- Shut up.
Me- Yup. I'm bald.
VC- Shut up!
Me- No really.
*lots of laughter in the background*
.....
....
...
..
.
* still laughing*
and so on and so forth.... ad infinitum.

* * *
*ring ring*
Bubble- Hi!
Me- Hi!!! Are you busy? I want to meet you.
Bubble- Um, I'm at work.
Me- When can I meet you?
Bubble- Eris, you sound weird.
Me- I'm Bald.
Bubble- ----
Me- BUbble? did you hear me?

.................

Bubble?

Hello?

* * *
*ring ring*
Person- Hello, is this Eris?
Me- Yup!
Person- This is Sheetal from Merul.
Me- ookaay?
Sheetal- You visited the Santacruz branch of Birdy's recently?
Me- Yup.
Sheetal- You filled out a form?
Me- oh! Is this about the suggestion thing?.... Coz I meant what I said. You really cannot expect people to want to eat in a place with pink and green walls.
Sheetal- ........... Madam, you've been chosen as the lucky winner in our sweepstakes.
Me- ok.
Sheetal- You will get a voucher worth Rs.1000 which will enable you to order any of our cakes, snacks and drinks at all Birdy's outlets.
Me- Niiiiice.
Sheetal- Yes ma'am. The voucher will be delivered to you soon.
Me- That's nice. Now about those pink and green walls. Really, false wood panelling is bad enough but green?? ........... Hello? Hello? .........
* * *
*ring ring*
Me- Hello?
Fuzz- YOU DID WHAT???
Me- -----
Fuzz- YOU SHAVED YOUR HEAD???
Me- Hello? I seem to have become deaf in one ear. hello?
Fuzz- YOU'RE BALD???
Me- Yes honey, that's what happens when you shave your head.
Fuzz- YOu're bald??
Me- Yup.
Fuzz- You're bald??
......... ad nauseum.

Happy Birthday Bubble!

It's bubble's 19th birthday and the whole wisdom thing clearly hasn't kicked in yet but there's celebrations all round and bubble is the woman of the hour.. er.. day?Anyway, now comes the big problem- what on earth do I get her? You'd think it would be easy, what with us being friends for years.So, I should know what she likes, right?Well, I do.Bubble like perfume. Very, very expensive perfume. And as much as I love her... that's just not happening.So, while I work on thinking of what to get her and then work on obtaining the mulah to buy it... I thought I'd at least do what she asked and post something funny.

Except.... you know it's impossible to think of something funny when someone asks for it.

Hmm.. ok, here's the funny stuff that's happened lately.

First off, someone stole the manhole ( *snigger* manhole lol) covers from our garden. Sigh. I know they're wrought iron but really! People'll steal anything. We used to have brass taps at various points around the garden to make watering the plants easier. Please note the past tense. Yup, they were stolen and now we have plain steel taps. They steal our mangoes every year but this year some bright young lad decided to steal the soap and soapdish from the outhouse on his way out. It's good to see today's youth so hygiene conscious.
What else? oh yeah! Guano can't draw boobies!! lol. See, I'm doing a course in Graphics and Animation and Guano and I are in the same batch. Well, recently we were working on modelling a 3d female body in Maya.... and Guano can't draw boobies!!! aaaaaaaaand he couldn't see what was wrong with them. My teacher and I kept trying to explain and there was a lot of hand waving and gesturing and diagrams but ( here's a fact of life people) Guano's just too dense. So, finally I just fixed it for him and is the arsewipe grateful? No! First, he thinks they're too snall, then he thinks they're too round and then he decides that the only reason he couldn't draw them is coz he doesn't have any and I could because I've had them my whole life. At which point I tried to explain to him that well, girls aren't born in bras but I don't think he quite got it. The funniest thing is seeing the looks on people's faces when the walk in and see us all zoomed in on the picture of a naked girl and discussing the shapes of boobs and whether or not this curve should start here or should this nipple be so high? You should have seen the look on the chaiwala's face. Poor young guy brought in the tea and nearly dropped dead.And the proverbial icing? Two tiny little kids come in with their mum to ask about the beginner's course. *snigger*.
Teacher: "Oh shit."
Me: "Oh shit."
Guano: "Is this boob sagging too much?"
Idiot.
Anyway, I'm rather impressed with the way the mother recovered while my teacher tried to explain that that was way, way advanced work and that she needn't worry about her poor, impressionable kids.

And last but not least... I had to spend the afternoon listening to Monty go on about how he shouln't have had that third lunch and how he was going to die. Course that didn't stop him from saying yes to tea. *shakes head* . I don't know how he does it. Bugger eats like a pig and is still the leanest person I've ever met. People at the gym hate him. He joined only for the sauna and he hardly ever works out but he's still fitter than the rest of them. Come to think of it, I kinda hate him too.
So, there you go bubble... hope you have a great birthday and i really hope you like the pic. muah!

*Enter family name here*

I love being a *Enter family name here*!
It’s bloody amazing.
I know I complain a lot but I’ve had the most amazing childhood ever. Sure a lot of stuff wasn’t nice and quite a lot of my life would scandalize normal people but I just wouldn’t be me without it and at least it was never boring.
Ha! Understatement of the century…… my life has never been boring.
Thing is, I live in a joint family. 14 of us in one bungalow and four other kids besides me. In descending order-
My elder brother- lets call him He-who-should-not-be-spoken-of-at-least-in-polite-company.
Me.
My cousin- lets call him Monty. 6 months younger than me and the bugger who knows most of my secrets. We’re pretty close.
My other cousin- Fuzz. A year and a half younger. Completely insane. The only other girl in our particular branch on the family ( not counting second cousins and what not)
And the youngest- Monty’s brother- Lion ( thanks to a disturbing tendency as a child to claw at people’s faces…… we used to consider it an act of courage to venture near his playpen). He’s four years younger than me.
And at the other extreme- my grand aunt Ella. She has to be the most interesting person in our family. My friends used to wait for her to show up for mass so they could see her latest hat.
My favourite would have to be the purple velvet and black lace number.
We’ve actually lost count of how many hats she owns.
She used to give us piano lessons as a kid ( having learnt for Sir.somethingortheother while India was still under British rule) and her wing of the house used to freak us out. She’s got these bloody huge writing desks that are more than 300 years old, barrels full of reaaaaaaaally old stamps that could probably buy her a lot of new hats, more wardrobes than I want to know about -and I’m pretty sure at least one of them could take you to Narnia or somewhere equally as interesting but I’ve never bothered to look because I’m also pretty sure most of them also contain things that would love to eat me- and her beautiful grand piano among other things….. honestly, I could go on for ages.
She’s a real card. She fights with the rest of the family but the two of us get along pretty well. She keeps saying she’s an old fish and I keep telling her she’s an old bat.
She’s actually pretty interesting and its nice listening to some of her stories. It seems our family was pretty well off and whatnot and we lost it all when my great-great grandfather built this house. Seems the contractor ran off with the money and there was a court case that we lost resulting in an even further depletion of funds. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her and her siblings. Imagine having servants to dress you and do your hair and then having to go out and get a job and actually earn your living.
At least that’s what she told me.
Anyway, she’s the one who taught me how to climb trees and she’s the one who broke her arm chasing a rat with a hockey stick and surprisingly enough she’s the one who used to chase the boys playing cricket off the street and then off our mango tree and then away from our coconut trees and then off the street again.
Most people hate going to cemeteries but I love them. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not suicidal or into necrophilia, it’s just that, well, so many of my ancestors are there. It’s nice to stand there at the family plot on All Soul’s Day with my cousins and joke about my grandparents and walk across to my grandmother’s side of the family’s resting place and see the old lady who comes to visit one of my grand uncles every single year with a lone candle. ( they used to have an affair… it’s the cutest thing ever though I’m sure the rest of the family didn't agree at the time.)
And afterwards, we all go to gokul to get some ice cream… it’s tradition. It’s nice. Not fun, just nice.
The general idea in my family is we’ll beat on each other as much as we like but when it comes right down to it, it’s us and the rest of the world. We beat on each other because we’re family… don’t you dare try. At least, that’s what I like to think.