Your Life is Poop...But so is mine

Preface

The messy bun!

Messy is not an adjective

It’s a state of mind; it’s a state of being

And, I won’t shy away from accepting

I am a hopeless optimist from what I have been seeing

I have grown to be a tough girl, and how

There is seldom a moment when I don’t kneel and bow

Even in the darkest of times, as I believe

There has always been a blessing in disguise, ready to conceive

I don’t listen to those who ask why 

Why not this, and why not thy 

Because messes make us learn even more 

That’s what I have been hearing since I became a mother of two who equals four 

No, I won’t let my hair down 

While holding onto my untidy crown

Until I have picked up every block 

Done with the day and let chores dock 

All the worries and creasing frown 

Before I pick back my crown 

I may look pale; I may look brown 

But, I am the lady with a messy bun in the town! 

Hello there! I am, as you may call, lady messy-bun. I am mostly in a bun while running errands. I simply cannot function with my hair down because a) it drags me down and makes me slow, and b) I don’t want to leave my traces, my ever-falling hair (even more since parenthood), to get into food and whatnot.

Why is the bun messy, is that you ask? Because I wake up with my younger one spooking me out in the morning, handing me over my glasses, watch, hair tie, and phone to get me armed and ready for the day immediately. I somehow try to open my eyes, tie my hair, and pee with the toddler because he doesn’t trust whether I am going to pee or try to escape him. Can’t blame him. I have escaped before, so he has all the right to fear. Then, I clean him up while waking my daughter up for school, and my day begins. Remember the nanosecond I got to tie my hair? No combs were used in the process. Now, my day does not stop or even pause until nine at night. At this time, I have no energy to comb or make a neat bun. And, who cares? I don’t even get out of my pyjamas for most of the day.

Now, at this point, I tie my loose hair again in an even tighter bun to get ready to relax. Again, leaving my hair open is not an option since I look like a doll whose hair has been pulled off by a sibling duo, and she seems either sick or assaulted. But, as I said, I am an optimist; I did manifest this messy bun, and I am glad I did.

2nd February 2021, Tuesday, 9.30 am:

Pristine white snow covers the trees, and knee-deep spotless snow lies settled on the deck and in the backyard. Lots of cardinals and blue jays chirp, feed, and play in the snow while trying to keep themselves warm and alive. I sit pensively by my window, contemplating my vanilla life so far. Introspection and retrospection have become an integral part of the Covid-19 lockdown routine, turning half of us into artists because, of course, this is an artist retreat that’s going on. More so, now that I am out of a job, that’s the best I can think about amidst all the chaos. I wish we could record sounds in a book, or wait, can we already? I would love to share with you what I listen to every day: the screaming and shouting (both joyfully and painfully) of two toddlers. Even their singing now feels like a call for help, not for them but for myself.

Actually, I am no famous or old person “yet”, but that’s exactly why I am writing this book. I am ordinary yet special, just like the pairing of tea and biscuits. And, why am I writing all this on a weekday morning? Because I don’t go to work. I mean, technically, most of us are not going out to work, but I am in between jobs, as they say. Long story short, who knows if I will find another job. But, at this moment, I am ecstatic, writing my heart out! However, the real reason why I am writing it is that I don’t want anyone to feel alone. Feeling alone is one of the worst emotions. Sometimes, the most comfort comes from knowing that someone else is as miserable as you are. No, you are not a sadist. You are me. You are a lot of us. Unless you are the one causing all that misery, in that case, you are either you or Satan, not me. 

Hopefully, in a few months, I will have my work permit. The processing time is longer than the gestation period of a hippopotamus. Eight months to be precise.

Disclaimer: Please forgive me for overly using incidents, instances, and metaphors related to pregnancy, parenting, poop, pee, and puke. The reason being that’s what I have been dealing with for the past three venturesome years. After two phenomenal pregnancies, my life is precisely what you must be conjecturing by now—alluring from the inside and petrifying from the outside. 

However, my planets have reconfigured. I got the news this morning that I might have bountiful time to myself, as I mentioned, processes! I have mixed feelings about the former, though. 

As I have told you, I have two gorgeous toddlers, one of whom is pulling my enervated hand to stop me from typing, and the other just scurried into my room howling and chuckling about something that either happened in the simulation we exist in or in his imagination. Both are gleefully busy bringing my home down and throwing my life up, every single day, which sometimes I manage to bag and sometimes I drop. If you have kids, you would know; it’s transformative, and if not… 

Wait, my elder one needs to pee. Toilet training times! Ok, I need to go. 

15 minutes later...

I just got a pool of toddler urine in my corridor! So, I was saying, toilet training is harder than most things in life unless you are rich enough to have a nanny just for taking your toddler twenty and a half times to the toilet. (Twenty and a half times because one time she won’t be able to drag the kid, utterly bored of doing the extra work of going all the way to the toilet, or your toddler will leak either being too lazy, distracted, or too tired.) In that case, you are fortunate. But, I don’t have that kind of money yet.

I mean, of course, it seems totally unimportant and auxiliary: why put our shit out in the world? Let’s just keep it to ourselves, in our fragrant diapers, and I agree with it except for the part where I have to clean it each time. However, let’s stick to the subject.

So, as I sit down, my whole life reels in front of my retina. (At least from the age of three years onwards because I don’t remember much from before that, whereas tales tell that I ran away from my house, thrice. The first time because of a bunch of goats, the second time after the street lights actually lit up at night, and the third time for candy. I am NOT being dramatic, I swear!) It’s like waking up in the middle of the night and wondering what happened to the dog I tried to rescue at the age of eight or why didn’t my best friend stop me from gifting that creepy souvenir (details ahead) to my professor. It is a vicious cycle of revisiting your past, relevant or not, after midnight when you can’t even vent your frustration at your innocent husband, who is asleep. Illogical, heart-wrenching, ridiculously annoying, and funny at the same time. That is how this moment is for me. And, even at this time, both my toddlers are sitting on my table, banging their tender feet on my severed notebook.

But, before I take you on a ride to the nooks of my quotidian life, I want to thank my husband for letting me have some time to write amidst housekeeping, kitchen gardening (which he inflicted upon me), landscaping (again, because of him), travelling, socializing, hosting friends, parenting (yes, partially, he himself is responsible for getting me occupied with it. In fact, you are solely responsible, mister), and cooking while he was off to work. Wait! Special thanks for surviving on cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and rice for dinner. It definitely saved me good two hours. My kids got on-demand nutritious food. No judgements, please!

Shall I begin from the beginning? Umm, no, let me begin with the middle of the story. That’s how my friend told me I could build the plot better. So, here it goes. Year 2015!

Chapter 1

When my guardian angel tried to kill me

Marriage is like ice skating

And you are learning to fly within the boundaries of the rink

You slip so often

You cannot fathom

Once you get to know the tilts, the bends

Understand the gravity and the trends

You learn to balance as you slide

Take everything in your stride

You still fall sometimes, but the count is low

You hold onto good times and let the falls go

Now you have learnt how to skid, smile, have fun

And follow the secrets of marriage: love and valour

“Don’t hold on to everything your partner says under their breath.”

But don’t hold me up for it. I am no marriage counsellor.

When I zip-lined just before my wedding, rolled down a hill trapped in a ball, and toppled upside down under my dirt bike, I should have taken it as a sign from the universe. My guardian angel had put her guard down and was ready to pull me off this world because she knew what was coming. However, she gave me one last chance, and I goofed it up, went ahead, and got married.

Kidding! Just thought of giving this chapter an intriguing start. I am a happily married woman, except when I am in a fight with my husband or tussle with my kids. At that time, everyone curse the day we met, and so do I!

But, before I plunged into the magma of this mortal coil, I took the liberty to fly the coop. I had my bachelorette with a couple of my friends in an adventure sports park near Mumbai. Perfect place to have it because isn’t marriage the most adventurous thing you do. It gives you goosebumps, an adrenaline rush, feeling of fear, joy, and sadness, and bruises. (Don’t take my words literally every time. I exaggerate sometimes.) Wait! It sounds to me more like pregnancy and parenting. I have changed my mind after writing this line. But, whatever comes after marriage. So, hell yeah! Why not? Let’s have some fun.

Maybe my best friend and my guardian angel were giving me one last chance to kill myself before I got into what I didn’t know I was getting into.

My bachelorette started with a bus ride. Please note that I have avoided bus journeys as a mode of transport my entire life primarily because I have a “nervous bowel”, if that is what it’s called. No jokes, but I have lived through it for more than two decades of my early life. In fact, even now. Now, instead of sharing the details of the story in hand, I am going to proceed to give you a glimpse of my horrid past of bowel and bladder issues. If you are someone who cringes at the name of poop, then well, you wouldn’t have picked up this book. Even though the word poop on the cover means “stern”, I think the content might marginally justify other interpretations as well. So, carry on.

So, I used to have a nervous bowel and had to go poop whenever there was an exam, test, competition, long journey, casually browsing books through a bookshop, getting late for morning assembly in school, or being late in submission of an assignment no one really cared to complete. So, practically ALL the time. I have used the toilets of every exam centre and even those which were only built to bathe in. Even on the Rohtang Pass, a snow-clad mountain, where I froze my butt. Did I mention that I used that snowy slush to wash (scrub) my butt. Anyways, the gist is that I have always avoided buses due to the lack of toilet services on board. I don’t avoid cars for the fact that I can take a pit stop whenever and wherever I want. Like, one time, I was travelling from college to home—a three hours journey—and got stuck in a traffic jam just 20 minutes after starting. I am not sure if it happens to you too, but it does happen to me. I get apprehensive about not having access to a toilet nearby. Right after that observation, I start to feel that my bladder is going to explode even though I have not had a single drop of water or anything liquid since the last night. I am telling you, the world runs on thoughts. The thought of peeing gets your bladder full automatically, running on the principle of manifesting something you fear. Well, I now wanted to go pee, and all we had nearby were some houses with random unknown people living in them. But, I ran out like you run when you see a lizard making out and dropping on your bed while doing its thing. Yes, it has happened to me a lot of times, but that’s a story for some other chapter. I got out of my car, went straight to a house just around the corner and requested them to let me relieve myself to which they obliged. Thankfully!

Coming back to the time when I was given one last chance to die. We started off our journey to Lonavala on a bus because why not. A bus, too, is an adventure for me. We reached the hotel, freshened up and left for the adventure park.

Our first ride was the dirt bike, and I had never ridden a bike before, as one would have assumed by now. I skidded, toppled, got stuck beneath the bike, and almost sprained my knee but, fortunately, just got a dozen of scars and bruises. After that, we went zorbing. By the look of it, it was just a harmless plastic ball, not a lot bigger in size than my then co-worker’s pretentious air. Being accustomed to it, I went ahead and rolled down the hill. How worse could it be anyway! The only time you can get an adrenaline rush after someone kicks you down. Next, we did a few pretty nice gigs and then went on to the zip-lining hill. Seeing people zip by was horrifying, and I could not imagine how people would gather the courage to jump off the cliff and commit suicide. I wore my jacket, buckled the rope, which seemed to be hanging straight from heaven, and sat on the platform waiting for my turn. When it was my turn, I sat down to slide into the abyss. I looked down from the hill, changed my mind about dying before I got harassed by my toddlers from the future and jumped back up. I immediately ran down the hill, throwing up all the gears behind me. Then we all went on a ride, which was literally suicide, which my friends did, and I refused to do it only because it was my wedding the next month, and I did not want to die without witnessing the real massacres of life. So, I stepped down. Later that afternoon, after gorging on a chocolate brownie with ice cream and some comfort food, we decided to take a chance again of going up the zip-lining hill.

The picture was taken just before I toppled. Look at the frowning face of my bike. Looks like she is my guardian angel, mad at me for getting married, planning on trying to kill me in the next ten minutes!

I again went up; this time prepared to zip-line. I started praying to God, reciting Hanuman Chalisa in my head. Suddenly, all my past sins started reeling in front of my eyes, and all I could think was that I didn’t deserve to live. I mean, I could see the guy who had prank-called me in the seventh grade, sang a romantic song for me like a complete creep, expecting me to fall in love with him, to which I replied, “Go and learn the lyrics well and then call me.” He never did and must have cursed me back then that I would die before my wedding day. I could also see the girl whose handwriting was so good, and she used to write just in between the lines, that my teacher cribbed why couldn’t I. Oh, how I swore my entire first grade, if only I could confront her once and break her phalanges. I know, a little violent, but at least I knew precisely what I wanted to do and to which part of her. I also saw the boy I had a crush on pretty early on in life. Wait, then I remembered that I saw him a year ago on Facebook and thanked my stars and God for not making it work out with him. He looked like a malnourished kangaroo whose backbone and pouch had fused with each other. Sorry, not judging anyone based on their looks, but wasn’t that exactly the reason why I had a crush on him in the first place. His looks, his blue eyes, which now looked more like a cataract on a skull. I mustered a prayer for all my classmates and apologized for being the nastiest monitor of the class who fed on teachers’ praises and was a total jerk. At that very moment when I finished mumbling my prayer to God, the zip-line operator asked me to sit on the edge. I sat, and before I could turn back again, he alarmed me by saying, “Ready?” and slightly nudged me forward. I slid, went straight through the zip-line, and while in the air, I felt the most amazing feeling I had ever felt in my life. I was flying, weightless and worriless. As soon as I landed on the other end of the line, I wanted to do it again and again and again, but we had a lot more to cover and then return to the hotel to continue the next stage, the tequila saga.

When we reached the hotel, still alive, we dressed up. I decked up in a red dress, red lipstick, red stilettos, a bride-to-be sash, and mascara, just like a new bride, but let me tell you, my wedding lehenga wasn’t red because I fell in love with something else, which was colourful: blue, orange, and purple!

My friends gifted me loads of stuff, and those who couldn’t make it to my bachelorette because they had better things to do or thought would compensate by attending my wedding sent me best wishes. Anywho, I am grateful to them as much as I am to those who came. Out of all the gifts, the most thoughtful one was sexy black lingerie, which I am not sure will fit me now after two kids, 20 gallons of ghee, 54 kgs of sweets, cheesecakes, and mutton kebabs that I just had last night, which technically represents me during pregnancy, prepartum, and postpartum. I should have said my entire life.

I also got a book of advice, which had a lot of information that I feel I shouldn’t mention here because, secondarily, a lot of my family members will read it, and I feel a little shy to reveal the details, and primarily, my mother and mother-in-law will have to address concerns and questions about what their daughter/daughter-in-law has written and if that is how an ideal daughter/daughter-in-law should be (since one is always on the pedestal of morality and ideality). Moral policing comes free with life and without a manual about how to deal with it. So, not wanting to hurt the emotions and sentiments of bigots, my and my husband’s distant relatives (few of whom I have not even met), I will just keep it brief to the extent relevant for the book. This is no sixty shades of beige I am writing here. The book of advice was about how to keep the spark alive in a relationship after I have had a dozen kids, grey hair, stretch marks, loose skin around my belly, and dark circles under my eyes, which I guess they assumed would happen eventually (maybe sooner than I would know). Provided the amount of weight I used to gain by just thinking about stuffed paratha or jalebi, I can’t blame them. And, to my surprise, the situation has already arisen after less than seven years of marriage. Not the spark quotient but the physical attributes of my sexiness. However, I could not bring it with me when we moved. I am sure someone is getting helped by that book back home.

But my closest friend is very thoughtful in giving gifts. One time, she gifted me a bop bag. Wait, I think I will have to write a full chapter about her because I haven’t mentioned her in the dedication, and she does deserve to be a part of this bestseller book. She has given me a lot of content, for the book and in my life (content: what a beautiful heteronym here).

I agree. I look scarier than the shark, but trust me, in real life, I am sweet until someone steps on my veil, which is very long and extremely delicate. * wicked laugh *

After receiving gifts, we clicked pictures because what’s a moment if it’s not on Instagram. That’s our photo journal for life. I have plans for my old age when I will sit in my armchair on my deck overlooking a little pond in my vegetable garden in the backyard where rabbits, deer, bobcats, bears, ligers, foxes, and birds (please don’t confuse the scene with a National Geographic Biosphere Reserve; this is my house really) will be visiting us and scrolling through and smiling at my Instagram feed of past 50 years. Oh, what a retirement plan! So, we clicked hundreds of pictures, and three of them made it to social media where my upper arms were not looking bulky, my stomach was drawn in like Ramdev Baba while doing Bhastrika yoga, and my dress straightened enough, so it didn’t rise above the societal fashion standards of my friends’ list and followers. We all have insecurities in the early years of life, and so did I. But, not anymore. I can post a picture with my freckled multi-tier belly in a bikini any day, provided my intrusive aunts are no more on social media to witness it, lest they get a heart attack. Though I agree that I threw scissors at my best friend, I would never want (neither would my bikini body) to be the reason for someone’s death!

Bachelorette ready me, unaware of the digestive tornado heading my way.

We then moved on to tequila shots. I had never had it before. Actually, I had never had alcohol other than a cocktail I once had in college a year before. Remind me later to tell you that story too. So, we started taking shots with lemon and salt, and it tasted amazing. I was the queen of the jungle because it was my wedding and my bachelorette, and what kind of a celebration it would be without me getting sloshed. After seven shots, I was high on tequila, and sooner than I had expected, I was throwing up in the toilet. Not a good feeling, I admit, but I felt so much at ease once it was out. Such a relief, not because I let it out of my system but because I had checked that off my ridiculous wishlist. A young, reckless people thing. The next morning, we woke up with a bad headache. Hungover, we called for lemon water and then got dressed to return to Mumbai.

While on the way back, my worst nightmare took shape. My stomach started hurting and gurgling. I needed to go to the toilet, but I was on a bus! The bus I had avoided my entire life because of precisely the same reason! Those were the longest 120 minutes of my life. My stomach was hurting so bad as if a bunch of mice with their long and sharp manicured nails were scratching away the inner layers of my intestine. As soon as I reached my husband’s place for the impending dance rehearsal, I dashed into the restroom and sat there for good 30 minutes. 10 minutes out of them was retrospection and regretting my last night’s life choices and many more before that.

Now, when I am writing this, I feel I have been really ill-fated when it comes to bladder and bowel issues. Even on my wedding day, when I was wearing a lehenga heavier than the weight of regrets of my 19-year-old self, I literally thought my skirt would rip my waist off my trunk. And, if that wasn’t enough, I had to pee. I took my friend, actually two of them, with me to the toilet, went into one of the chambers, and found an Indian toilet seat instead of a European one. Let me tell you, running in an 800-meter race with four other people when I stood third only because one fainted mid-way and the other fell down and broke her crown (as the rhyme goes) was not even close in embarrassment and difficulty. I finally mustered courage, lifted my heavy skirt, and sat down. After relieving myself, I realized the tougher part was now more than before. How to get up because both my hands were occupied lifting up my skirt, so it didn’t kiss the dirty wetlands of the public toilet. It took me good six-seven attempts and a hand from the two friends, embarrassingly, to finally get up, come out, and swear not to have a single drop of water for the entire night.