I travelled the world and then landed in the furthermost corner of it: Australia. This blog is about politics, culture and media as seen from a global-Indian's perspective.
The words with which Sid proposed to me were simple. "I want to marry you because I really love talking to you". Here was someone willingly signing-up to a lifetime of my incessant chatter. How could I resist?
Six Valentine's Days later, we can still spend hours just talking about completely irrelevant things: Abbott vs Turnbull, The Mindy Project, Gaultier's bras and the pros and cons of moving to Scandinavia (free childcare, old age help, fantastic state schools, free universities vs ridiculously Gi-normous taxes).
Dear Sid, on this Valentine's Day, I gift you Ronan Keating's cheesy " You say it best when you say nothing at all". 'Cause, poor baby, I'm not sure you'll ever find out.
Last Monday, as soon my 3-year-old daughter got into the car on our way back from daycare, she said: "Dorius hit me." I inquired into it, and she insisted that some boy called Dorius had hit her on the head. I spoke to the carer in charge of her room the next morning, and she said she would find out and report to me in the evening.
No one had seen Dorius hit my girl. So it must have been a minor skirmish. But what the carer said about my Chook-Chook gave me immense reassurance. She said Chook-Chook is an amiable girl but she never lets any other child get rough with her. In a firm voice, she will tell them "Don't do it. I don't like it." It is enough to dissuade most kids. I know she was speaking the truth because she has used that phrase in front of me before.
If she can keep up this attitude, I know she will do alright for herself.
I must be doing something right as a mother.
To mark this episode, Chook-Chook and I made this pink lion today. Indeed, she is my little lion in pink.
I loved this dress made out of a garbage bag by Jean Paul Gaultier which I recently saw at a retrospective of his works. (No. 3 on the slide show)
It accompanied his other creations like denim ball gown, an evening gown in military camouflage, a dress with its own faux tits and pubic hair (I kid you not) and of course, the conical bra that Madonna wore during her Blonde ambition tour.
It also finally dawned on me that it is thanks to Gaultier that we women have become so cool about our bras peeping out of our dresses. It was Gualtier's famous conical bras that finally destroyed the "hush-hush" associated with it. He made exaggerated gorgeous bras and put them before our tops. He made us confront them, and suddenly they became just another piece of clothing.
Thank you Gaultier. I may have never worn one of your creations. But you have made your presence felt in my life.
A few years ago, I attended a Bollywood show in Melbourne where I saw teenagers scream in ecstasy, "I love youuuuuuu... Shahid... I looooooveee youuuuuuu!!" I looked at them, I looked at Shahid Kapoor and just shook my head in puzzlement. I just couldn't identify with that sort of fan hysteria.
Then I saw this video today and my brain fizzed and screamed in ecstasy, "I love youuuuuu.... Barack... I loooveee youuuuuu!!!
