On my sitemeter I noticed that in addition to confused women who ask koschans such as ' If he kisses me am I pregnant' there are others who are even more confused and stupid because they search for koschans such as 'If he puts mangalsutra am I married.'

For the benefit of such people , I and a few newly wed friends of mine (which includes my dear ex roomie Ms.Malhotra have compiled a ready reckoner sort of list here.If you answer 'Yes' or nodded sadly in agreement or suddenly go and bang you head on the nearest wall in response to any of the following then my dear reader, I pronounce you married and sacrificed:

You know you are married..

• When you wear the engagement ring, the mangalsutra, the sone ka chudhas, the diamond necklace giving major competition to baapi da, instead of wearing strange jewellery you picked up from random stores or exotic street vendors ;)


• When suddenly your bank balance is in the negative and the chances of it ever going back to it’s pre wedding high are non existent, thanks to the credit card bills. We all waited so long for this day just so that we could use marriage as an excuse to buy the overpriced things.


• When just because you are wearing a saree, mangalsutra and aforementioned jazz young boys and girls can call you aunty and walk away smiling, you also smile back coyly like the perfect newly wed bride when actually underneath that saree and jazz there is the old you which wants to beat them and say ‘Teri maa ki!’ or ‘Aunty kisko bola bey!”


• When you are judged every now and then, of course the husband had a bee line of eligible women he could have married but he chose you, so you need to be judged against them, the Mehtas' loving daughter who cooks the best chiken tikkas, the Agarwals' daughter who is oh so pretty!


• When suddenly your phone bills drop to 3 digits from 5 digits.


• When you have a mummy and a mummyji at a same social gathering or function and you don’t know whom to give more attention.


• When you go to some random distant cousin’s shaadi wearing a really heavy lehenga giving competition to the bride, just because you wanna use your shaadi ka outfit and you better use it before your newly wed tag is not so new anymore
  


• When suddenly you have relatives on your facebook friends list, aaaaaaaaaargh, all his aunties and uncles are now your friends and in some cases you actually do have had the courage to not accept their request then keep faking how you never got it!!


• When you enthusiastically bend and touch every tom, dick and harry’s feet since they have grey hair and are related to the husband, damn isn’t there any better way to show you respect (and we don’t actually really totally disrespect you then why the hell do we have to show our non existing respect).
  


• When your ratio of number of meetings with friends and relatives becomes inversely proportional to the one before marriage!


• When everything you mother in law cooks is 'so yummy! I have to learn this from you!'


• When instead of going and spending the entire Sunday at the spa followed by a coffee out with friends and a late night movie, you spend it putting your house in order! or instead of wondering which movie to watch at a surprise stay over at your friends place at Bandra, you are wondering what you can cook for dinner!!

After I have been married a lot of people (mostly well meaning) have asked me "So what is your name now?" to which I politely reply "I am retaining my maiden name." I have been getting mixed reactions about this, some people shrug it off, some people raise their eyebrows (including my parents!) but the worst kind question my decision. It's one thing to want to know why I decided to retain my maiden name, it's totally another to question my decision.

OK, so let me tell you one thing: My name is My business, really, that's surprising huh? I am sure there are plenty of women who go about embracing the hubby's last name or as in our (Sindhi) custom even changing their first name without a thought. I have no opinion or rather I have no time to sit and judge their decision. As for myself, it would kill me. My blog, my email ids (official and personal), visiting cards, passport, bank accounts, trading accounts, assets, insurance policies and what not. Why should I go through the pain of updating so much even if it can be done with minimum effort! I sign Rohra,not Kusum. To me 'Rohra' has a nice ring to it. I've been arguing with hubby that our name plate will read 'His last name and Rohra'. To me Kusum Rohra is a brand. I am not going to change that. My marriage is the most important part of my life, read that properly, it is *the* most important thing in my life, still I see no reason to change my name specially since my loony heart loves it.


Nothing wrong with my hubby's last name but I see no logic in giving up mine. If I ever get bored with being a 'Rohra' or feel like I need a change I will change it but that will be my decision and not something that comes in the package when one marries.So people who think that a woman who is old enough to make her own people can't take her own decision about her name, let me kindly ask you to shut the eff up. Thank you.

This super hilarious post reminded me of how facebook also tries to mess with me. I mean have you guys noticed sometimes on the right hand side it produces the picture of the most meek in your friend's list and asks you to 'Poke him'! I do not want to poke any of my friends, stab with a steely knife maybe, but poke, never.

I mean helloooo just because I occasionally hit the husband doesn't mean I am violent, on the contrary I am very very non violent and docile.I don't get the poking bit at all, why poke? I mean I can understand stab with a steely knife or tie around a pole and electrocute , or *eyes shining* dip in boiling water er sorry I got carried away, what good is a simple poke I ask.

Then there is the other ads it has, from the friend list it will pick the most irritating person and it will as to reconnect with him. I get online on Facebook at least for 10 minutes daily and still if I have chosen to not connect to that person there is a reason. Then there are other irritating things Facebook says, 'Say hello', 'Help her find her friends' er no thanks, 'Share the latest news' there is NO news and so on and so forth, these social networking sites have their leetal ways of messing around, don't they.

7.00 am: it's 7.00 am already!! :( Ok so I have to get up make breakfast, make lunch, pack our snacks *deep sigh* but I feel like a zombie *zzzzzzzzz*

7.10 am: I really should get up now, I have to reach work by 9.30, finish the damn thingie I am working on by 11.00 am. Just the thought of being at work is making me sleepy *zzzzzzzzzz*

7.15 am: Er, if I make Dal and Rice, instead of subji roti for lunch and ask the hubby to make breakfast then I can sleep another 10 mins :) decided then, dal and rice it is :) *zzzzzz*

7.18 am: But it's not good, I am becoming very very lazy and taking too bloody much advantage of the hubby, God I feel like I haven't slept at all! *zzzzzzzzz*

7.21 am: Wait a min!! I really haven't slept much, what time did we go to bed last night? 5.00 am or 5.30 am, I really need to stop watching movies all night, *sigh* how do I get myself out of bed now *zzzzzzzzzz*

7.25 am: Wait a min! I saw movies all night, all night? Er, why, er it was a Saturday, so today is Sunday so er I can *zzzzzzzzzz* ...... YAY *zzzzz* YAY *zzzzzz* YAY *zzzzzzzzz* * turned around and hugged the sound asleep husband*

7.30 am: But anyways must make husband make breakfast and lunch and dinner, taking advantage is must for a healthy marriage *zzzzzzzzzzz*

Such an torturous half an hour I spent early Sunday morning all because my mind which is not supposed to be existing in the first place lost track of what day it was :)

Everyone loves the story of good winning over evil, even the sarcastic smart asses do, ram winning over ravana, pandavas defeating the kauravas, harry potter beats the crap out of Voldemort, Bhuvan and team beat gora's at their own game, so Avatar is a simple story of the age old good winning over evil, so what makes it special? The very very colourful and vibrant visuals, the stunning frames and the very much present Hindi-movie type of surety that hero hi jitega.

James Cameron has done what Valmiki did long long back, he took a simple story, added stunning visuals and made it much lovable. I doubt if Valmiki were to remove the vanar sena(the army of the monkeys), the super powers of Hanuman, the very visually evil 10 heads of ravana, the small stories in the big story, the flying saucer type of vehicles of the Gods, would it be interesting as it is today.

Avatar has all the standard must haves for a good V/s evil story, common forces unite against the evil forces, one face to face good dishoom dishoom between the bad and the good guy, one strong leading lady to support the Good guy, (un)expected help thrown in from super powers to whom ardent prayers have been offered by the common forces and a special prayer from the good guy. Even then it's a must watch, the visuals are that good.

The weekend has begun on a very good note for us, hope you guys have a good weekend too.

You raise an eyebrow, you purse your lips, sometimes you roll your eyes and take a deep breath. At other times you heave a deep sigh and look away, you know how to widen eyes very subtly but dramatically, so basically you know how to give Khunnas a.k.a the look without speaking a word. You are every woman. Most of the days when the hubby is being himself I just give him one of my looks, environmental friendly you see, I am conserving my energy.But then the problem is in the pitch dark at night when the hubby is still yak yakking and making bad jokes we go something like this:

Hubby: You know I am smarter than you.
Me: *silence * *sigh*
Hubby: In fact you can never be as smart as I am.
Me: *One eyebrow raised* *pursing of lips*
Hubby: You do know that I can't see you so whatever look you are giving me; it's wasted.
Me(since getting up and switching on the light for him to see 'the look' will be too much of an effort): *kicks him in the tush*
Hubby: Of course you are smarter and more intelligent, I am just beginning to develop a strange sense of humour, I don't really know what is wrong with me. *sobbing meekly*

So now let's get to the point of the post (finally!). During my brief stay with the in laws at one of the lunches, hubby was sitting right next to me, chomping away. I totally hate people who make a chomping noise when they eat, but I am with the in laws, I can't look up and yell at him, can't kick his tush, such unjust restrain of emotions. Ah! But to the rescue comes my environmentally friendly looks, ever so subtly I widened my eyes to express my displeasure and looked down immediately like a shy new bride and fluttered my eyelashes smiling coyly. My very attentive husband, who happens to the man of my dreams as in everything I liked about him is now a dream, totally missed my signal, but it didn't go unnoticed, well the ma in law saw it and quickly reprimanded me in her quintessential I-am-the-ma-in-law tone, "Well I noticed he makes that chomping noise, but I feel I should just let him be so that he can enjoy his food." I was shell shocked that she noticed my ever so subtle, blink-and-you-miss signal to the husband. Ah! Mother in laws.

Warning: Spoilers ahead, so read this post to save your money.

I had booked tickets for De Dana Dan for the much awaited Friday night, since husband and I are in Chennai we have too many options for the weekend, however we ditch all those options and choose to see bad movies.The very snooty husband told me De Dana Dan was trashed badly so in spite of my intelligence and prior bad experiences on taking his advice, well I sold my tickets to De Dana Dan and bought tickets for Kurbaan and along with it Kurbaan-ed a Friday night and my money.

Why can't people like Karan Johar stick to their core (in)competencies. Song,dance, clothes, location. At least people know that it's a song-dance routine and just chill. Is it too much to ask?What exactly was the point Karan Johar tried to make with his story? Anybody? The movie obviously was a joke from the moment Vivek Oberoi with his very bad acting decided to deal with the terrorist gang himself instead of alerting the authorities. I mean really, what the hell was the point of the movie? In this one particular scene Om Puri is to drink coffee when Kirrrrron Kher stops him and says "oi, tumko diabities hai and coffee main cheeni hai.....blah blah blah' I think the scence would have been better if she said "Oi, tumko diabities hai and coffee main cheeni hai, tumhe bomb blast main marna hai, diabitites se marega to tumhe jannat nahi milegi."

To add to the anger and confusion I was feeling while watching the movie, (anger because I am sure no matter how bad it was de dana dan could never have been as bad as Kurban and confused because I kept hoping that may be D'Silva tried to add something to the movie and maybe there was a point to it after all) was just aggravated in the interval, the lady who used the loo right before I entered had wet the entire seat. I stepped out and asked her how can she just leave the seat all wet. To which she said it was already wet. Grrrrrr. When we were leaving the theatre, I saw her walking on the sidewalk and yelled out to her "Dirty unhygienic woman!!" The hubby has disowned me after that, but then it's time somebody yelled at idiots like that. We should put pictures of these people in public places and ban their entry. If you don't have basic civic sense then bloody nonsense you stay at home.

While I would complete trash this movie, a word of praise for Kareena and her make up man are a must. She acted the best I guess and her make - up well oh la la au naturale' . So there if you think the movie is still worth watching than I am damn sure its only because of the ( love-making scene! Hmpf.

Since I am a working housewife (do you realise how much I harp on this, full footage I want from the fact that I slog so much to earn money for buying diamonds and feed the husband to make him fat and ready for the kill. heh) I like to try and make sure I can cook in the least required time. If you have cooked 4 meals a day, regularly and are looking for adding variety then you know that one of the toughest and time consuming activities is deciding the menu and to avoid wasting time in this activity I hereby present to you the 'Menu of the week' hung carefully on our fridge with my lovely fridge magnets :) This saves me time every day and is handy every Saturday when I am shopping for the coming week. I know, I know what you all want to say; What an idea loonyji * smiling from ear to ear *

Long long back I was blessed by this mysterious charm due to which all the room-mates were getting married leaving me behind on a long and tiring room-mate search. When I moved out of my parents' house for the first time I moved in with couple of my colleagues who now are my best friends, since I was lucky to have them as my first roomies the thought that room-mates can make your life hell too never crossed my mind until both of them got married and I moved into Palm villa where the roomies made my life hell. So after these women left (thankfully) I was very sore from the experience and decided to scrutinise the next girl moving in very very closely.

One evening I get a call from this punju girl, we decided to meet close to my house. I being the loony I am reached 15 mins late and the poor Santo stood there waiting for me. When I finally reached there she had this lovely smile on her face, I was surprised I was expecting her to make a face or at least get pissed silently instead there she stood smiling. Once we reached home and settled and spoke to each other I knew she was the one ( I know it's sounding like I was looking for a spouse but believe me finding a good room-mate is just the same )

She asked all the relevant and important questions 'Where is the nearest theatre?', 'Where is the nearest mall?' when I told her how she easily get a bus to her work she said "Bus is good, but don't we get rickshaws from here? Just that I am too lazy to take the bus." She didn't bore me with the regular questions like Do you drink? (I have a post coming up on this stupid question) Do you smoke? Do guys come here? How do we split the expenses? Those question would be sensible but heck, what can be more sensible than theatres and malls?

So I approved of her in fact I sent her desperate smses to move in and then what followed was total fun. First memory of her to me was changing the pale off white curtains we had in our house, they were very classy but classy wlassy is one thing but having life and colour is another, so we got bright red curtains for the house. Next thing we got plants, next we got round pillows to rest our lazy selves while watching tv. Just like that one night she says Ms. Rohra if we had round pillows on our royal mattresses wouldn't it be very comfortable? Off we went in our sleeping clothes to get round pillows, sorry I mean the cheapest available round pillows, we were after all broke but surprisingly never to broke to buy totally unnecessary but wonderful things.

So now we had colour, life, comfort et al in our cosy little house in palm villa :) Both were broke thanks to our shopoholic-ness but did we stop? No. We shopped for small little things to make it more of a home than any. Thanks to her I fell into love with colours :) the roomies before her wouldn't spend Rs.50 extra bucks on the maid to dust the house!

Now my favourite memories of her and me are of our super lazy days. We would sit our tushies in front of the t.v. for dinner, finish our dinner and then without even washing our hands would go from sitting to sleeping and watching t.v till we HAD to go to our rooms. and call it a night Other times we would watch back to back episodes of friends taking turns to change the CDs. That to us was a very tiring exercise. I remember one Sunday morning or rather afternoon we woke up and since we couldn't decide which one of us could make coffee, we just went to Hyatt to have breakfast. Ah, Hyatt the place where a huge % of our salaries were spent thanks to our love for their pizzas and disregard for our wallets.

So here is this post to thank the wonderful roomie who made life fun, coloured it with brightness, shopped with me no matter what the capacity of the wallet and most of all was their during the toughest part of my life and somehow helped me through it. Here is the two of us at one of our favourite places in good old Mumbai 'Prithvi theatre' which was only 30 mins away from our home :D

P.S: The title of this post is keeping the spirit of people in mind :) She Banto; the happy punjaban) me Santo; the er healthy like a punjaban ;)

The best thing about being married so far has been the husband's desktop. It has a 19' monitor, just right for the aging and semi blind me. A very typical morning in the Rohra and Advani house has us; the loony couple, sitting on our very sweet built for two breakfast table hogging on our hearty breakfasts. Perfect you would think? Wait till you hear this. *singing tadna tadna tadna tadddddna * The loony husband *pauses for effect * doesn't drink tea or coffee.

Which means on the lovely breakfast table, eating our hearty breakfast there is this awful disconnect! I drink my pudina chai and he drinks his * cringes her nose * Bournvita. So you see we haven't really bonded yet. What do we bond over? Over BOURNVITA, really? I am loony but not that much, yet. Anyways, in the evenings too when I do come home at a decent hour, I sit with my lonely cup in front of the desktop pinging ex roomies about how much I miss our chai sessions together.

That brings me to the 'Chai time in Palm Villa'. Palm Villa was the apartment I stayed for the last 2-3 years of my single life * sigh * how much I miss it. Enjoying chai in the morning or after a hard day of work, was a ritual in our house, all the roomies, Vineeta desai, Swapnagangha Joshi (the one who got me addicted to pudina chai), Raji, Rubina Chowdhury (the Bengal tigress cum singaporean babe who used to have black tea/coffee right before sleeping), Pranati Mohapatra (who lives geographically the closest now and hence MUST drop in for tea sometime after all Bangalore is not that far from Chennai) and last but not in the bit least Vidhi Malhotra were into it like it was a cult.

We all respected the chai time so much that we could give up anything to be at home at the chai time. Poor Malhotra worked the farthest from home and so would miss the chai session in the evenings. So one Friday I get a call from this very chirrpy, happy sounding punjaban saying "Ms. Rohra, I have finally managed to reach home before you, let me know when you are about to reach, main chai chadda dungi" I could almost hear her grin away happily, to which I very very sadly replied "Ms. Malhotra, I am stuck at work and doesn't look like I will make it anytime soon." The very optimistic Malhotra reminded me it was weekend so no matter how late I got home we would have chai. She kept smsing me in between expecting an Main-aa-rahi-hun reply however I only got home in time for dinner and the chai time that evening was Qurban corporate slavery ke naam.

Next day morning I had to go to work whereas a very peaceful Malhotra lay sleeping (one of her favourite things to do in the whole world), before leaving I just nudged her a bit asking "I am making some tea would you want some." She just nodded a no sleepily. As I was about to make tea suddenly she come running and says, "I have been waiting to have tea with you since yesterday! Akele toh chai achi nahi lagegi, I can always sleep again after you go, bring it on ji." and thats exactly what she did, she had chai and went back to sleep. Such is the importance of having tea with some people around you. Having chai just doesn't feel right.