Pent Up - Vent Out

I am now tired. I am also fed up. I am irritated and grouchy and snappy and scowling. People are behaving unreasonably. They are coming in loud, kitschy droves to restaurants that can only seat half of them. ‘Why don’t you join some tables?’, they ask in grating high-pitched voices. If the hotel intended to join every table in the room, it would have, gung-head! Go and book the terrace if you want to entertain the population of Homer Simpsons you share your sad office space with.

There are others too.

You go up to someone. You tap them on the back. They turn, they look, and then nod and say, ‘Tell me.’ Yeah! Thanks for the permission, sweetheart. I just wanted to flash my badge and scoot. But now that you’ve mouthed those magic words, I will indeedy ‘tell you.’

And yes, ‘anywayz’ IS NOT a word. It’s a sloppy, lazy emblem of the vacuously inarticulate.

Then there are those artsy-fartsy (more fartsy) women who dress up in Fab-India uniforms. So, same fish-block print kurtas; same onion-pink dupattas, same faded vermillion stained shirts, same, same. And they dare to turn up their odd-shaped blackheaded noses on poor (refreshingly unjudgmental) misfits dressed in synthetic. I mean, sure – you got your style and all. But it’s no-one’s fault you can’t fit into a Lee Cooper (made in Thailand)..and for all the Fab-India chic you swear by, those clothes do look frumpy and dowdy after a while. And a little lycra didn’t hurt anyone.

And let's hear it for those Rockerfellers who travel by train. A little kid is selling kerchiefs. He’ll sell you three kerchiefs for ten bucks. These millionaires go – Gimme 4 for eight. Way to go, big spender! I’ll see some of those bargains when you own your private railway line.

And sure, it’s real snazzy that some people have the latest-schmatest rap jingle as their ring tone..and isn’t it cocklewarming that they share the ‘musique’ with the rest of world before they answer the phone?

There is a reason ticket timings are printed on movie tickets. It’s absolutely foul to have these tardy imbeciles leave a Hansel and Gretel trail of coke and popcorn while they trample over toes to get to their seats. (If the lights are off and the movie’s on, sit on the steps.)

And for the thousandth time – a salwar kameez is not a ‘dress.’ When I say I bought a dress, I mean a (Lord help me!) frock.

Why is every friggin' thing in Mumbai a lounge bar? And who ‘lounges’ in mind-numbingly high decibel levels?

I’m a little sad now. This verbal outburst didn’t do any good. It had felt good to have all that vitriol swilling inside my black, hollow heart this week. Anyway (see, 'any' and 'way' - simple!), now it’s gone.