A handful of thoughts

To live is to pretend. We live to pretend and pretend so that we can live happily ever after. However, I am not as good at it as many others that I know. Here’s a tribute to those women who light up my life with loads of laughter arising out of their pretention.

Case study 1

A certain someone who I cannot afford to offend has suggested I watch a VAN DAMME movie and even lent me his dvd. And the next day onwards he has been asking me daily, whether I had time to watch the movie. The very thought of sitting through the movie is quite scandalizing for me and desperate, i turn to her for help.

Me: Hey listen, this man has lent me this movie, what do I do now?

She 1: Simple, tell him you’ve watched it.

Me: But what if he asks me whether I liked it or not, or if he wants to discuss a particular scene with me?

She 1: Chill. Begin with a pregnant silence (as if you are speechless) followed by ‘mind blowing‘ and then tell him how the entire movie fascinated you and he’ll be so excited that he’ll start describing the scenes himself; and while he does that drop in the word ‘exactly‘ at regular intervals. That’s it, your job is done.

Case study 2

One my other friends widely known for her demanding and old yet sexy (OYS) mom-in-law is my second source of inspiration. It is commonly acknowledged that her mother-in-law is quite intolerable by all means. She had lost her husband early in life and had henceforth transferred all her affections, demands, tantrums to both her sons.

She 2: You know what happened? The other day myself, my husband and his mom went to this mall to shop. At one point OYS grabbed her son’s hand while walking as if he is her knight in waiting; huh.

We: WTF!!! And what did you do?

She 2: I pulled up by his side and grabbed his other hand

We: Poor him.

She 2: And do you know there was this musical quiz and she stood right in front of the dias and kept on clapping. She even won a CD as an award for “clapping continuously”. I almost felt like digging a hole and burying myself out of embarrassment.

We: Wow couldn’t have been better. But did you compliment her or not?

She 2: Huh, what do you think, of course I complimented her. I told her “I hope I am as energetic as you are when I am your age.”

Nowadays, whenever I am forced to attend a dumb gathering of boring and over inquisitive relatives, I am game. I smear a smudge-proof smile on my face and inquire about every eligible bachelor/spinster, every wedding gone wrong, every ailing aunt, every toddler who has just learned to speak, and so on. And when I am done with all that, I retire to a quiet corner and start observing the glittering, bejeweled, caked batch of people quietly; but if then someone finds me and starts talking, I put my smile back on my face, transport my mind to the Himalayas and start thinking about Brad Pitt (replace BP with the man / woman of your dreams and feel the magic)