My husband and Murphy seem to be at loggerheads always and this time Murphy really outdid himself. Every evening on our drive back home husband and I have recently been hooked to a radio show called 'The evening drive' by a fantastic RJ Disha Oberoi but once we get home we have to listen to the radio on the cell phone and hence I decided to get a FM transistor and on our next visit to Mercy electronics I wanted to pick-up a simple Philips transistor, but the husband refused. He said he wanted to check for better deals!

I was so furious, I mean the thing was for Rs.550 and he wanted to look for deals? But it's my geeky husband and when he says better deals it necessarily translates into an expensive piece of electronic junk that will do hajaar things that are really not necessary like for example it will say "God bless you" when you sneeze, if you spend an extra Rs.10,000/- * rolls eyes * So off he went and came back with this fancy IPod dock, that cost us 20 times any decent transmitter would have cost us. Oh well, I was happy as long as I could listen to the radio at home and the first thing I wanted to do was to tune it to 104.8 FM and well um we couldn't tune it. Seriously we just couldn't believe it, I mean it would go from 104.7 to 104.9, we were exasperated. I mean how difficult is it to tune a radio? To top it, there wasn't a user manual We tried everything we could think of including begging the radio to have some mercy on us. So there we were, trying to understand why, what and how did this happen! Hubby dearest felt really frustrated and bummed and I can imagine Murphy smirking smugly as if to say, so you just spent 20 times the amount required, now let me spoil it for you. So for this birthday I have a request for Mr.Murphy, can you please not mess with the hubby in matters where I am involved too?

P.S: We finally found a online manual and were able to tune the radio, we just had to change the region under settings to Asia for which we had to press few buttons together which we would have never thought of! But for the hour or so we took to finally be able to do that, we felt really stupid.

P.P.S: I was recently telling a friend about Murphy's love for my husband and around 10 minutes later the friend remarked "Oh! You mean Murphy as in from Murphy's law. I was wondering if you were talking about your landlord." I didn't know if I should laugh or cry for having such intelligent friends, so if there are any more like him around let me clarify, Murphy most definitely isn't our landlord * Chuckles *

That's the worst advice my dear husband Mr. Loony ever gave me. No really. After dating me for years when he finally takes me to meet his parents he advises me to be myself. That could only mean trouble no? I mean an average person would take 5 mins of taking to me to tell that I should never ever be myself if I am meeting 'The Parents'.

So well, I met his parents for the first time during Diwali. We met in a food court (of all places). I am super confident Ms.Loony but then hey it's the guys parents so I was nervous as hell but then I had to be myself as per Mr. Loony so I eased up a bit and started cracking bad jokes under pressure, OK Ok your sniggering is so uncalled for! I agree, I crack bad jokes without pressure too, but that one time it went totally out of control.

Mr. loony in an attempt to show how creative I can get brings out this hand-packed fancy basket of D goodies that I had gifted to him earlier in the day. His mom in a very prim and proper social response tells me "Iski kya zaroorat thi beta." to which myself replies "You are right, iski zaroorat nahi hai." and looking at Mr. Loony I say " Wapaas de do isse." His mother of course looked like someone just told her that she was pregnant at the age ripe age of 55 and would really scream out loud. Mr. Loony being used me myself went on admiring the basket without giving a thought to my foot which was stuck in my mouth.

Forever I have been branded by the in laws as the one who has her foot growing from her mouth. This incident has be told and retold to whoever would care to listen, it has been exaggerated to an extent where some of his family members look very disappointed when they meet me and find foot on my leg which is on the ground. Heh. So girls please note, being yourself is all dandy but not when you are meeting his parents, when you are meeting his parents only two things should be done; smiling and nodding while looking at the floor. Trust me you will thank me for this one.

It's just been a few months but then lots of people (specially my mom) have been asking us to give them some good news. Of course it's good news for them for us on the other hand having kids will not be such a good news I feel. I know I know I am not getting any younger, post-30 pregnancies can be dangerous blah blah blah, but we really are just not ready to be parents yet. OK, let me give you an example. Generally when I can't sleep I ask my husband the Mr.Loony to tell me a story, he asks me to give him a few characters, generally whatever characters I give him end up having sex and the story ends up as a soft porn boring story. To avoid another soft porn story I chose a lion and a giraffe. Big Mistake.

Here is his story:

Many Many years later (he is very futuristic I must tell you) due to global warming the only two surviving animals in the jungle are a lion and a giraffe. The Lion is quite a romantic at heart and very horny too so he realises with the giraffe being the only option around he must woo her. The giraffe is very very old fashioned and needs to be swept off her feet. The horny Lion decides he can do anything for sex, so off he goes wooing the giraffe. After a few song and dance numbers, flowers and gifts, praises and poems the giraffe finally lets the lion kiss her. But now now, the lion can't really jump that high and the giraffe being old fashioned and shy won't come down. So our hero climbs up a really high tree to kiss her. He finds a branch that gives him perfect height, looks into her eyes, swears of his eternal love and just as he is about to kiss her, he slips and falls on her neck killing her instantly.

The lion looks at the dead giraffe and is heart broken (or an equivalent term for horny plans gone wrong) but then he thinks to himself 'What the hell! It's a good thing I can eat her dead too.' So he feasts upon the giraffe for many a days and is very happy for finding such good food considering there weren't any other animals around because of global warming.

To say that I was disturbed by the story is an understatement. But now I always crack up thinking of this lion who wanted to eat the giraffe dead or alive. Sigh. There you go now, he makes up a sick story and I find it funny, obviously we can't have kids. What kind of kids we would we raise with stories like these.

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.