Amma,

A picture of you and the love of your life, popped up on Facebook, on what would have been your 43 rd anniversary. The worst, the bad and the good! Kudos, to both of you. Inspite of all the dysfunctionality it was a relatively honest, relationship. I never gave it credit because I bought the facade that other people display to the world. Only to realize much later, that all relationships are full of all sorts of compromises and people have a dozen skeletons in the closet but they keep them, well hidden.

The other day, Dad’s friends came over and of course the discussion steered towards marriage. One propagated companionship as a worthy reason for lifelong imprisonment and the other very subtly tried to explain to me that ‘bringing someone to the house’ for either Dad or me, would be a dangerous idea. Don’t know about your husband but I really wonder, how people assume, that a lifelong commitment phobic, loner, who feels exhausted by other humans ( other than some of my male friends) can ‘bring’ someone into their space. Imagine me in one bedroom with a man…sends a freaking shiver down my spine. The rumour mills, keep churning because the house is falling apart so something or the other has to be repaired and each time that happens, the assumption is that I’m getting married. Chances are —-if there’s a wedding in this house, it’s going to be of the man who spent over four decades with someone, not the one who has never even survived four years, in a committed, you are mine and I am yours kind of relationship!

Though, I do think I should give some sort of a relationship or an ongoing hookup, a shot. I’m getting way too comfortable, by myself and the way I’m going, I’ll invariably become more antisocial, if that’s possible! The trust issues are of course, off the charts. But you know with all these voice recording applications, that have been used on me for the past year and half, where conversations have been recorded, cut short at crucial times, edited to make points, I really have a hard time trusting anyone at all! Also, insulting to my intelligence, which apparently I don’t have much off, but insulting to my ‘sharpness’ nevertheless!

One of my exes asked me a few months ago, how the boys scene is and I said, ‘ replaced you all, with technology but I do miss kissing, sometimes!’ I wasn’t trying to be cocky, it’s the truth but I have to wonder how viable it is to wait for robots, to spend your old age with. That’s my latest plan for companionship! Robot ain’t going to care about relatives, complications, friends, past, the two boys I can’t seem to get over and is probably going to be better than a man at everything! You think, having parents who weren’t hypocrites and having a grandfather who said, ‘the only men who don’t cheat are the ones who can’t’ ( which your sisters will deny since nobody told their children the truth, unlike you) or reading Osho at a young age, has warped me just a little, like men tell me all the time? I doubt it…I suspect, some of us are just born with a couple of loose screws. In my head I’m either Sunny Deol, singing ‘mujhko apni jaan se pyaari he apni aazadi’ or Amitabh Bachchan, wanting to get on a tempo with my brothers, and serenading a man with , ‘Jumma meri jaaneman!’. Haaye, Amma, when will I grow up and stop enjoying the chase? So freaking Alpha one is and to top it one wants a worthy ( Thomas Crown, haan?) companion or opponent! Most people tell me ‘oh, it’s not like that’ and ‘ marriage is about having someone’ and blah, blah ( basically a snooze fest) yet I find relationships are games, not necessarily mind games like chess but games nevertheless. You want to play, with someone who keeps you mentally and physically engaged. My overthinking brain that they want to tame with meds, could do with an engaging distraction but not with anyone cowardly! So, my new plan, is freaking fabulous, I’m telling you! Siyapa, hi khatam!