Hic, hic, hurrray

It’s the party season. All that lovely Christmas cheer. The excitement of getting dressed up, all sparkly and Christmassy. And falling down drunk on a pavement at 3 am.

The days leading up the Christmas and New Year are dotted with parties, parties and more parties. And copious quantities of alcohol.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good glass of red. Maybe even two, three or four - on a good night. But any more, and I’d spend the rest of the evening communing with a toilet bowl.

I have no desire to wake up with no memory of the previous night. Or waste a precious Sunday, nursing a hammering hangover. So I usually stop, when my body tells me to.

Apparently, not everyone else does. Every party I’ve been to this holiday season, glass after glass of wine or champagne is downed with gusto. There is no food in sight – no one else seems bothered about eating except me.

Things start to get ugly after about 4 hours of non-stop drinking. Tempers get frayed. Inhibitions are non-existent. Everything is just one big alcohol-fuelled blur.

Going out in the UK is like worshipping at the altar of booze. A tad dramatic, I know. But real, nonetheless.

It’s not just my opinion. Here are a few statistics to ponder over our next glass of wine:

• 33% of men and 16 per cent of women in the UK drink alcohol at levels that are hazardous to their health
• Two in three under-18 girls (among 1,600 surveyed) needed medical treatment after drinking binges last year
• In 2007, there were 863,000 admissions to hospital in England due to alcohol misuse and 6,541 deaths directly related to alcohol misuse
• The number of British women needing treatment for alcohol poisoning has doubled to 14,000 a year since 2003, according to official figures
• The cost of treating alcohol abuse in the UK is £20bn every year

The statistics are enough to fill a few pages. But I think these will do for now.

So what is it with the British and alcohol? The French and the Italians drink too – but how many of them do you see vomiting outside the pub every weekend and collapsing on the streets?

Most Brits I know have no stop button when it comes to booze. Walk around any high street in any town across the UK, and the same scene greets you. Drunks young and old, male and female totter out of pubs and nightclubs. As a woman, it’s worrying to see so many other women, senseless from drinking - getting into cars and taxis with men they’ve just met. Or attacking each other over stupid arguments that usually start with something like: “Who are you looking at?” (Usually uttered in an aggressive, drunk tone of voice.)

My friends here tell me that most teenagers grow up drinking lots. So by the time, they hit 20 or so – their capacity for alcohol is huge. Compare that with say somewhere like India where I grew up. Over there, it was the other extreme. In our family, drinking was equal to alcoholism. It was weird and irrational. My folks believed that having a glass of something was an un-pardonable sin. So as teenagers, we sneakily drank the occasional rum and coke or wine and hid the evidence. I don’t think that was a particularly healthy attitude to alcohol either.

I hated it at the time – I thought it was so silly. After all, a few rum ‘n’ cokes didn’t mean heading to rehab.  But in hindsight, maybe it was a good thing. All the hiding meant I couldn’t really develop a huge alcohol habit. Unlike the thousands of young British kids stumbling around the streets as we speak, glugging their cans of beer.

There’s something else too. This unspoken attitude: I drink lots. Therefore I’m cool. The more alcohol I consume and the more wildly I behave, the cooler I become. That’s the impression I get from a lot of people around me. And surely, that is wrong. And is responsible for so much of the booze-related binge-drinking culture among British men and women.

I have come to the conclusion that I am un-cool. I’d love to be hip too. But not if it means downing lethal quantities of booze and ending up face down on some concrete high street every Saturday night. So I think I’ll keep my un-cool-ness. Thank you very much.

Mum’s the word

Women want kids. And they want kids in a primal, undeniable sort of way.

I know someone who has chosen to remain in a loveless marriage. Because she wants to have kids. And nothing else matters. Even the minor fact that she cannot stand her husband. Her big plan is to have the kids, then leave the man. And who are we to judge?

Another woman I know of, has three gruelling jobs. She finishes one, then falls exhausted into the next, and the next. Her goal is to save enough so she can afford fertility treatment. Again, her biggest dream to have a child of her own.

I grew up with images of self-sacrificing mothers on countless Bollywood films. These women lived, and without a single thought about themselves even died, for their kids. Their lives were interspersed with much emotional wailing and chest beating, all proving the self-less nature of motherhood. They weren’t so much real women as one-dimensional cardboard creatures who existed solely for their kids.

Some of my friends seem made for motherhood. Their glowing smiles when they’re with their kids say it all. Overall, they find being a mum a life-changing, positive experience. And even when they crib about the mindless chores that motherhood involves– it seems that deep-down they really enjoy it.

Why then, am I not rushing to buy pregnancy kits? Or taking pills to boost my fertiltity? Or cooing at the sight of every person under the age of eight?

I’m rushing headlong into the end of my thirties. But I feel no ticking of the dreaded biological clock. I lie –  I do feel the odd twinge at the sight of cuddly babies swaddled in fluffy garments. But that’s where it ends. Show me a child above the age of one, and I’m happy to play with them. And, this is the most important bit, hand them back to their Mum and be on my merry way.

So this is the moot point – is there anything wrong with me?

A lot of women I meet, seem to think so. When I tell them that I’m childless by choice – the first look I get is shock, followed by intense almost instinctive distrust. As if, by making this choice, I have gone against Mother Nature. As if, it is the duty of even woman on this planet to procreate. And how dare I not do my bit?

I don’t claim to understand their dislike. But I can see where it comes from. Most of us women are wired to reproduce. In fact most of the choices we make in our adult lives whether it’s choosing our partner or buying a house – they are linked to our biological urge to have kids. And though we think it’s all down to rational decisions, science has proven otherwise.

But my point is – we are a long way from Neanderthal man or woman. Instead of tending the fire in the cave and waiting for our men to hunt and bring back the meat for dinner – we are putting on our corporate clothes and earning our own dinner. So things have moved on.

Women treat other women who cannot have children – with pity and sympathy. And the few of us who have chosen not to have kids – we get loathing and anger.

Men do not react in the same way. In fact, they understand that having kids is a huge responsibility.

I have nothing against motherhood. I am happy for my friends with kids – it seems an enriching, hugely beneficial decision for them. So my question to my fellow women is this – why are you not happy to leave me my choice?

I’d rather curl up on the sofa with a nice book than rush after a bawling child. I’d rather go dancing on a Saturday night than pick up the kids from dance class. I prefer conversation with interesting adults to baby talk with little ones.

I believe that if you have a child, you need to do everything in your power to give that child a good life. And often, that means you don’t have much of a life yourself. And I like my life – thank you very much.

Is that selfish perhaps? Probably. Does that make me a horrible person? Hell, no. Do I have to defend my decision every time I meet a new group of thirty-something women.  Unfortunately, yes.

Ode to The Masala Dosa

There she awaits me, in all her crispy golden glory
Behind the wintry, foggy glass of the Indian diner
Holding the promise of buttery crunchy delights
And explosions of chillies on the tip of my tongue


She is unequaled, unrivalled in her appeal
A delight on the palate, a delicate dance
The sarnie seems a pale excuse for a snack
A bowl of pasta too heavy, too full of itself

She’s not alone, the divine dosa
Protected by moats of green and orange chutneys
So sail across the river of Sambar
And lo and behold, there’s your chosen one


It’s true love, me and my dosa
No dietician, no weight watcher
Shall ever come between us
Only happily ever after, me and my dosa

You say tomato, I say tamatar

I get a call from an Indian friend, and my accent becomes distinctly Indian. The moment I turn off the phone and speak to a colleague here in London, my accent becomes more British.

If I was on a psychoanalyst’s couch, I’d be told that I have a desperate need to fit in. Hmmm, well I do want to belong. And it’s surely preferable to sticking out like a sore thumb. And I definitely want to be taken seriously at work.

Let’s face it. The way you speak determines what people think of you. Simple as that. You may have the combined brain power of Einstein and Plato. But if you open your mouth and sound like Muthuswamy Iyer fresh off the boat from Chennai – it’s going to be very difficult to get a good start.

It’s unfair. Of course it is. As Muthuswamy Iyer, with a few college degrees under your belt and an unmatched knowledge of the world – you probably are a lot more capable than say  John Smith from Surrey. But if you get judged by how you speak – and you do most often – guess who wins and who loses?

It’s not all bad with an Indian accent. I remember a trip to Paris many moons ago – where my Indian accent received instant approval as exotic. Whereas my English fellow-traveller and his British accent got a cold shoulder and sniffing disapproval. I thought that made a refreshing change. 

It’s not something that only happens in Europe either. I’ve lost count of the number of Bollywood films that poke fun at the south Indian accent. Or the underlying hurtfulness of  ‘idli, dosa’ jokes that most south Indians growing up in cosmopolitan Mumbai are subjected to.

A strong South Indian accent in north India or a strong North Indian accent in the south – neither of those are happy prospects. An American or British accent among your Indian friends is not cool either. Everyone thinks you’re trying to sound posh, even if you’re just asking for a cup of tea.

Maybe this instant judgement based on accents comes from an inherent laziness in all of us.  Think about it. If we can listen to someone and slot them into convenient little pigeon holes, we don’t need to bother to really get to know them.

So the next time my Indian friend laughs at my ‘British’ accent – well baby, I’m just trying to survive here.

And that’s what it’s about, innit mate?