1st February.
Monday
Dear Vinny,
You always complained that you don’t know me enough and that my job eats into any time I may get to call or write to you. Well, here’s some news you will surely classify as ‘good’. I quit my job today.
I mean, really, I understand that Bollywood is the nation’s pride and joy, but trying to glorify hindi cinema can get awfully tiresome after three whole years of it being fed on a loop. And actually, after the station changed its name from a barely acceptable ‘Masti’ to ‘Desi tadka’, I didn’t see much intellectual growth there. And the Programming Director there, Avinash, the original voice of sexperience, was beginning to get on my nerves, to a point where I’d started drinking 56 cups of espresso a day just to steady my nerves to be able to look at him. and his annoying habit of breaking into an old ditty while crossing me, reminded me of my thousand and one experiences of travelling by the Delhi blueline bus, where there would be soft humming by the man next to me, and then a little rubbing against me and then finally he either gets slapped across his face or I reach my destination.
Here too, at bloody ‘Desi Tadka’ (bwahahahaha, I still can’t get over the wretched name of the radio station), I think I’d reached the time where I had to step off the bus. When I broke the news to Avinash and Co, I got the usual “but you are an asset to us” which decoded in man language is “you are a piece of ass to us, which we’d still like to devour”, and with the passage of time in the course of the quitting conversation, they went from looking like robust blood donors to no blood owners. It’s at times like this, I wish I hadn’t wasted my money on that wretched ex-boyfriend, furnishing his house, instead I could’ve bought myself a high end camera, and maybe clicked boyfriend’s picture with it when I told him that I was dumping him.
But, coming back to Avinash and his motley crew, they finally resorted to the last trick in the book, “we won’t be able to pay you two months of salary if you quit in a huff”. I looked back in amazement and smiled, how I was dying to light up in that cubby hole of a fucking office, made to look like an aesthetic studio in red and black, I’ve always believed the management also makes it money on the side by loaning the studio to porn film makers on national holidays and at night, post the show they were planning to give me, so lovingly called ‘Raat ki Rani- Reshmi’.
That’s another reason why I wanted to quit. First things first, why would I want to change my name from Tara to Reshmi to make a show title sound more raunchy and then to add insult to injury, they wanted me to be a ‘cock-tease’ in their words (the MANAGEMENT) on radio, talking to any man who called in, heavy breathing, et al.
So anyhow, they threatened with stopping my payment and knowing ‘em penny pinchers, they wouldn’t spend the time of the day if they could have it their way, and frankly by then, I was past caring, I just wanted to get out of porn studio and get my smoke downstairs so I looked at them, all of them looking like if they walked into a wall with an erection, they’d hurt their nose, and I said “keep my two months salary, you can use the money to sue your brains for non-support’ and walked out, frantically reaching out for my bag and rummaging to find my cigarettes.
It was a tough thing to do, I had no other job in place and now they weren’t going to pay me for the two months that I endured Smriti the bitch producer of my show who had this annoying nasal twang and a face that looked like a bottle of warts as well as that annoying Aditya who’d started becoming scared of his own shadow because it resembled a bloody mob, add to it, his IQ, it’s the closest I’ve seen someone be to a rubber duck. My fear wasn’t that I may never get a job again and also may never hook up with a man, it scared me to death wondering if I’d become like either of these two wretches, that would mean, not just the end of my career as a radio jock (or an audio-specialist as I’d like to call myself) but the end of my life as well. I’d sooner die than look like a prime candidate for natural deselection like them.
I cast my worries aside, I had been reading ‘what’s there to worry, but worry itself?’ and though that book made as much sense as Serena Williams would, talking about Mohiniattam, I chanted the name of the book on a loop in my mind while the liftman chattered away about how Priyanka Ranaut, the current heartthrob of the nation should not wear hot pants to the studios for interviews, “it makes these boys all frisky and that is not a good thing now is it, Taraji?” he asked me with a smirk on his face. This liftman was always a huge source of inspiration to me, its him who helped me propound that ‘ man with hand in pocket feel cocky all day’, so anything he said or did, was largely pardonable, besides he seemed like he always needed a ‘lift’ in life. (And a pathetic sense of humour promises to be my best friend for life)
After successfully looking preoccupied and snobbish, I got off the lift and made my way to the main road. So smoking in public places has now officially been banned in Delhi, which means you cannot smoke in the comfort of your cozy office ledge, instead you will walk all the way to the main road, which for some reason, is not considered a ‘public place’ by the government and thus not only inhale nicotine that promises to kill you anyway, but also inhale the exhaust fumes from cars which guarantee a faster death. I sighed at these subliminal ways that the government chooses for its own little bloodletting, getting a feeling that I was on the list too but hell, I no longer had a job and there was no man in my life anyway so fine, my young and premature death wouldn’t really stall any pending interviews with celebrities or a night of drunken sex with a boyfriend. I smiled and inhaled a long satisfying drag of my cigarette.
My next challenge was to gather my stuff from hell with fluorescent lighting I called office and to find an auto to get home. Both in their own right were a challenge. I had rubbed Avinash and Co, the wrong way (though knowing them, they probably wanted me rubbing them. Period.) And now I had to go upstairs and manage a dignified departure which at that point in time seemed more difficult than learning jujitsu over lunch break. As I punched my card in and stepped foot in the office, it felt like it had gone from radio station to BioStore freezer room designed for cold storage at – 75 degree C to – 40 degree C. Everyone seemed irritated and worked up, pretty much how they look when the CEO came visiting, but this special brand of cantankerous behaviour was their way of saying bye I presumed. I walked around looking belied and cheated myself, (oh what a glorious scene from a B-grade hindi movie we all looked, playing our parts to perfection, so apt for a radio station called desi- tadka) and then finally I popped my head into Avinash’s cabin and grunted (usually his way of talking to the other men in the office) he looked up and asked in the sweetest tone “are you sure you want to go? Are you sure you aren’t being impulsive?” I appreciated his concern over my impulsive behavioural patterns and pretending to go into deep thought, eyes glazing over, body going limp and then with as much cinematic élan, straightened my drooping shoulders, looked back into is eyes and said, “I made up my mind the day you decided to rename me Lacy Lucy for a show and call it Rasmalai” and in his defence, he raised his voice and said “but we’ve changed that, haven’t we?”, I love it when men behave all daft and confused about the simplest things and their expressions start resembling those of a slightly slow St. Bernard. I had to remind him, in spite of myself that they were both changed to ‘Raat ki Rani – Reshmi’. He looked away as though I’d shoved a 76” rusted iron pole up his arse.
So our good byes done, I breathed a sigh of relief, felt like Sarah Jessica Parker out of Sex and the City and walked on to the main road, feeling like a free bird. To my surprise, I even found an auto after only 7 tries, which is quite cool by Delhi Standards and he only asked for half a month’s salary to take me from CP to GK since of course, his meter was there for everyone to see but not working. I would’ve negotiated it to a quarter of a month’s salary but then the auto had parrot green and fuschia pink interiors and Salman Roshan’s sexy six pack abs; he’s the kind of guy one would use to make a blueprint for an idiot, but he sure looks like hot melting chocolate, quite contrary to recent ex boyfriend, Vinayak, who had all the capability in the world to hand out mental orgasms like they were going out of style but his mouth was beginning to get too big for his muzzle and so I had to leave; I’d begun disliking him so much, it kept me up nights.
Auto ride done, haggling at the end of it ( in spite of negotiating price earlier since it is urban ritual to have last round of haggling at the doorstep) and finally stomping my foot in protesting, demanding driver’s RC and threatening him with a life behind bars, I finally put key into lock and plopped myself on my bed, gleefully kicked about the fact that I could now plan my next vacation without bothering to check with the calendar and the secretaries of all the Bollywood stars in case they might come to the studio for an interview.
Of course, the good thing is that I can now write to you often and you can become my sugar-daddy that you have wanted to become for so long now.
Lots of love,
Tara
fairytaleindelhi 