You know how I keep telling you that once in a while, Bill redeems himself and I feel so proud of him? This morning happened to be one such day. We were at some UK version of Schaumburg (its called N Greenwich) trying to buy a couple of random last minute things that I need to take back to India. We find ourselves in this electronics store called Comet - its looks like Best Buy perhaps a little smaller. So I get my stuff and look around for Bill.
"What are you looking at?"
"Hey, check this out na. This steamer thing - we can make idlis with this"
"Yeah its nice. But you need those depression type thingys to make idlis"
"Hmm...yeah but how difficult is to make that? I am sure some dude in India will have a plastic version to go with this. We can buy this steamer and make idlis"
"You want us to buy this now?"
"No, no I was saying its a nice product. If we ever have anything resembling a house, then we can buy this"
"I guess"
"And this. Look at this crockpot. So cool, na? We can leave that pudina pulao thing on this forever and it will get cooked slowly"
"True"
"Is this the food processor that we have? This one looks more powerful"
We have reached the end of the aisle. On one of the aisles on the far side, a bunch of grown men sit around fiddling with game stations. And here, Bill is admiring a Black & Decker food processor.
"I love you"
"What? What's wrong? Is this because you are going to India? Or do you want me to buy something for you now? Holy shit. What am I to do now?"
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21 comments:
Awwww. How sweet.
And then you wonder why people think that being married makes you uncool.
Idli makers and crockpots forsooth!
Ya ya, marriage is uncool but not as uncool as being married to one of those game boys. Eeeks. And you know, for some of us, food is important. We do have some priorities.
But yeah, see your point. New post coming up as I cannot tolerate the diabetic nature of this one anymore.
Veena: Oh, agree entirely. People who spend their time with game boys are terminal losers. Genuinely cool people have romantic conversations about books / movies / art / ideas, not domestic appliances.
ha ha. cool. But not as cool as walking into Shop on Lex with your husband and another (male) friend because you know they have to pick up groceries, chillis and whatever else you use to make food with and having White woman ask you in the shop while you are idling around how to make basmati rice and you looking at her in utter despair because damn, you know you were going to learn how to make rice sometime just not today and suddenly, thankfully, Husband and Other Friend appear by your side suddenly and give her four different ways between the two of them on how to make basmati rice depending on the appliances, time, energy and authenticity level. The last we saw of her was her trying to get out of the shop and being pursued by my mad Bong friend who was desperately trying to impart rice expertise to her like it was Gods Own Word.
Falstaff, I see you have very little knowledge into what makes a good relationship. Talking about books, art, movies is nice but talking about what to eat for dinner tonight (especially when you are not cooking) is way way nicer. The former is kind of like Bergman - you can watch those movies once. The latter is like watching Entourage - you don't even mind reruns.
n!
Please excuse the grammar and punctuation in that last comment.
n!
n!: Ah, but see, I've watched plenty of Bergman films multiple times and have no interest in watching Entourage.
You may have a point about my not knowing what makes for a good relationship, though. But this isn't about good relationships. It's about being cool. And who said those romantic conversations I mentioned were with Other People?
You know Veena, you ought to take random comments also and put it up as a conversation piece. that would be hilarious.
(I have to say here, I agree with Falstaff, but then what do I know about relationships?)
(Veena, apologies in advance for commentjacking your blog).
Ok, Falsie, why I do get the distinctly unhappy impression that you want to divide the world into cool and not cool? And that, by random chance, by happenstance, by the merest of coincidences you inhabit the cool part? Oh Falseness, thy name IS Falseness! The art, the movies, the poetry, the books, the ideas, the romantic conversations (even if with only the resident advisor on your floor), the smug singledom - all this for so long merely to establish yourself as the epicentre of.. COOL? Oh, that you could have spared yourself the trouble and simply bought some Brylcreem and learnt to ride a motorbike instead.
Dearest, get yourself a wife and children. Soon. Before we actually believe in your propaganda and think that you are gasp-choke-do- the-Heimlich-thingie-here... cool.
Cool Falstaff. Falstaff the cool one. Jesus Wept.
n!
Falsie: As always, I agree entirely with n!!
Even genuinely cool people have to eat, you know. And if genuinely cool people do not care about dinner, I give up - I want nothing to do with this coolness (not for nothing am I MR's pal. Food is bloody important)
what is this? no one thinks the world well lost for love? what happened to living on love and fresh air (and in the latter's absence these days, only love?)
love, love, love. all you need is love. ring a bell, anyone?
what is all this about crockpots and wafflemakers and other base things? we gotta become pure spirit, man. how will that happen if we keep feeding the body?
ok. i will stop now. i can't wear specs for a couple of days and i'm slightly delirious with the effects of the screen on my unprotected eyes.
I thought uncool was the new cool...
n!: Wrong as usual. Who ever said I was cool? Or wanted to be (see cat's comment below)? That doesn't mean I don't know what constitutes coolness. And fantasizing about idli makers is not cool.
veena: What has eating / not eating got to do with this? Genuinely cool people sleep as well, that doesn't make it cool to spend hours in a furniture shop drooling over different styles of beds. Genuinely cool people have windows, but when was the last time you spent time with someone going on about how they picked the fabric for their curtains and thought "oh! how cool he / she is!".
As MR's friend, you should know that caring about dinner means fishing out the Zagat guide from under your copy of the New Yorker and picking a new sushi place, not standing around in stores admiring crockpots.
poor bill. quicksand, quicksand.
Falsie: Appreciating good food and how its made is cool in my definition. This "cool" thing as BM said somwhere is not exactly objective. Actually making food(whether its idlis or sushi) is way cooler than flipping through Zagat ratings. More later.
Cat: Yes, uncool is the new cool (atleast some people hope so!)
Space bar: Pure spirit? Love? Space Bar, yes, you were right. I am convinced that you know nothiung about relationships.
TR: Go check out this "online check-in" ad for Emirates, will ya? Might see some familiar stuff..No, Nothing related I am just at this kiosk at DUbai airport and they are all over
Veena: Ah, but the 'my definition' bit is irrelevant. All boring married people have their own definitions of cool - all the annoying parents I know think, for example, that it's 'cool' to share baby pictures. In fact, having a definition of cool that no self-respecting 18 year old would subscribe to and then being indignantly defensive about it is practically the first requirement of being a boring married person.
The point isn't whether you think obsessing about kitchen appliances is cool or not, the point is that given that you think spending time in a store staring at idli makers is a stimulating grown-up activity it's not hard to see why the vast majority of people would consider you uncool.
Think about the three coolest characters from movies / books you can think of. Now try and imagine them obsessing about crockpots. Can you imagine Humphrey Bogart looking deep into Ingrid Bergman's eyes and saying "Here's looking at this idli maker, kid."? Or Jean-Louis Trintignant driving Anouk Aimee home in his car and discussing the best way to make steamed rice? Can you imagine Batman spending time trying to decide which blender to get for the Bat Cave? Or James Bond haranguing Q for a better food processor? Can you even imagine Woody Allen taking a break from Kierkegaard to research juicers. Well then.
Ok Falstaff, the trouble with you is that you are so fucking unimaginative. So Veena and Bill were lusting after crockpots. And you think they were thinking about.... FOOD??? Ah poor you, you unmarried romantic fool!!! I would've thought all those depressing art movies would have taught you better. If only I'd known about the role that idli-makers play in obtaining high quality marital orgasms when I was 18, appliances would have ranked as cool to me too. (Veena, do forgive me for presuming about your sex life, but I feel this need to lend you s'port, as my Punj relatives-in-law would say. You can ignore me).
Go, Falsie, be banished from the Married People's Utterly Cool World (Idli Makers optional). Go watch those baby videos where they feed babies lemons and record their expressions. Exquisite torture. Har har de har. I want to do a sequel with codliver oil or Waterbury's Compound or both.
n!
n!: You evil woman! Now have image of Veena and Bill and idlimaker in compromising positions stuck in my head. Gah! Ctrl-Alt-Del. Ctrl-Alt-Del!
Personally, while my sex life is nothing to write home about (hmmm...a very disturbing use of the phrase that) I hope I never get to the point where I need kitchen appliances to get it on. It's not just the manifest uncoolness of it, it's also that I'd hate to live with the Pavlovian after-effects. Imagine getting to the point where orgasms and kitchen appliances are inextricably linked in your head. No sooner do you hear the whine of that blender then you start...errr...salivating. There's one association of ideas I don't need. I'd never be able to go over to my great aunt's place for a home cooked meals of idlis EVER again.
Falsie: Now that you put it like that, it does sound rather Tristam Shandyish doesn't it? The clocks and all that..
n!
falstaff:
what n!'s trying to say is that a crock pot is a *slow cooker*.
People, people here I disappear for a few days and I discover that my sex life is under discussion here..tch tch.
n!: S'port appreciated. But really, this kitchen appliances fetish sounds a little shady. Falsie can do Ctrl+Alt+Del and erase everything. I, on the other hand, have to go into my kitchen every single day :(
Falstaff: Yeah okay, I got carried away. Talking abt kitchen appliances is not cool by any defn. (Though I do want to know what poor Woody thinks about when he sees a juicer.) Its still better than looking up Zagat which is just pretentious but neither of them are cool. All I am happy abt is if I let loose Bill in an electronics junkyard, he seems to have his priorities right. (Ofcourse I understand that sulking in a corner and thinking abt depressing German philosophers is an option but that ain't cool, just anti-social)
Oh no, I don't particularly want to be cool by majority standards. Even you include both Bond and Batman in that list, I shudder to think what mere mortals might include. The reason I crib abt it is that most of the time, I don't fit my own defn.
And btw, I am in total agreeance with this married people are uncool theory. You do not have to point that out in every single comment you make. The only difference is that I put them on a scale with diff levels of uncoolness while you just dismiss them totally.
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