Betty's Umbrella

It was graduation ceremony and even though they got out on time it seemed like they were getting late for the gathering. All the girls from her hostel wore the most propitious clothes. Even the ugly ones wore nice clothes and added many different colors to their face. The short girl with yellow top looked sick while the larger ones were bright and presentable in a strange manner or so it seemed to Betty who also did her best to look good. Lip-stick was not favorable as she thought it accentuated her buck teeth which she always tried hard to conceal using a weird expression which gave her permanent stretch marks and a forlorn expression. It made her appear more lost and friendless than she actually was but it made her look prettier than she thought herself to be.

They met the boys near the large tree next to the bus park and instantly Betty was lost in the crowd. Her tall friend screamed with excitement as she met her fat friend.The loud talks and sighs of ecstasies with occasional expressions of " no da macha" seemed to put her behind a curtain. The curtain was woven out of her own intellect where she knew she was better than the others and from a terrible sense of inferiority derived from her thorough understanding of self. 

The big city was a retreat, an escape, a feeble attempt to rediscover herself as she wanted to. She did not belong there and she knew it. Betty considered herself to be well read and arrogant. She always thought of herself as the more radical one, the extremist and she chose to hang out with a loud and obnoxious crowd. This was in part due to her desire to stay visible and in doing so, the one whom she chose to like was all very wrong for everyone. She did not approve of his behavior either, but still she liked his rebellious streak. She even realized that underneath all that immature display of machismo he might be a meek idiot but the streak of rebellion was what turned her on. Sanity was never her companion.

Her college in the big city was bustling with life… the change of pace was visible in the daily traffic and even the weather which was hotter and sunnier like her home town down south. However, unlike in her townish village, it was cool to be hip and speak English in the big city.

Boys were better dressed. Even the ones from her place wore trendy clothes and some spotted a beard to cover those chubby cheeks. This made them feel new and acceptable as they tried to shed their image of being pretentious, sex starved, hypocrites which they still were.


There was someone from her village she used to like. He studied in the big city before her and spotted a beard when he came back for Christmas. This time they made out at his place, full of fondling and sweet awkwardness. He had since  moved on from ill fitting pants to T-shirt and jeans and on the next Christmas , he fondled her at an internet café at their townish village. On the following Christmas, he ditched her after they had sex. Since he thought it was not right and god would punish them and most of all, he “wanted to move on in life.” He wanted to settle down. ‘That kid was only 22’, thought Betty all of eighteen. This Christmas was his wedding and Betty was 22.

Betty had since hated the many men from her town though they were always revered by elders for how good they were. Why were they the nice ones when they slapped her when she was ten, abused her when she was fourteen, ridiculed her when she was sixteen and abandoned her when she was eighteen.

The celebrations were loud and boring and the crowd showed more excitement than they could muster. It was a sad day for all the messy couples and dear friends were upset about parting ways. Few tears were shed. The younger ones appreciated them elders who had an year back given them many sleepless nights and nightmares. The elders revered their teachers whom they ridiculed for being incompetent six months back and those teachers in turn praised all those students some of whom they had failed few days back and some of whom they hated with all their hearts. So after a whole evening was lost with everyone praising everyone else, they headed for the pub where they discussed about politics, counter culture, moral policing and call centers. All very relevant topics. A few tried to dance while few tried to persuade others to dance which made it uglier and as night grew late they all parted ways after more hugs, tears, bad singing of old songs to celebrate those old times and several sincere promises to stay in touch. 

Betty slipped out of the pub along with her friends. She did not cry but she did laugh harder than usual at all the fun bits. Few of them told Betty how much they would miss her. Betty smiled as usual. She would not miss any of them.

On the cab she thought hard about it and could not find anything that she would miss. She was not upset or emotional, she would not even miss her rebellious friend. She did not miss her folks while she was here, she did not miss anyone. She did not feel upset about not seeing her friends, the ones with her in the cab, anymore. She thought hard and thought she did not like anyone to start with. That cannot be true. She liked them all dearly but she was still not sad. She liked the big city and the college and all the life she had there. Now that was about to be over and she was still not upset about it which seemed weird. 

She reached the hostel and those thoughts were still with her while she took a shower. As she lay in her bed she hugged a stained orange pillow and without the slightest thought she began to cry. She did not think of anything or anyone as tears rolled down her cheek. The unpleasant smell from the pillow felt strangely comforting. It felt so comforting that this ugly orange pillow was more beloved to her then than anyone she had ever met. If someone were to take that pillow from her she would be devastated.

Still lying awake, Betty felt the weight of the ugly pillow against her head. It seemed to weigh hard on her... it weighed on her conscience. She felt young and innocent as she closed her eyes and and  through a thin veil of tears she thought she could see all the clarity and purpose of an adult.

Critical Observation

the gentleman's sanctuary...

I do not know any men, myself including, who cannot refrain from criticizing or correcting their ladies.

Wife, girlfriend or if you cannot get either, an younger sister will do, unless she is so fat that she could slap your brains out.

Our mallu forefathers have conveniently designed a ‘Pazham chollu’ to ascertain our wisdom... "pen budhi, pin budhi"… the pen & pin is not what it seems in English, literal translation,’ ladies brain, back brain’ which only means, "babes are dumb".

Truth be told, at least in mallu land, babes are often well read and intelligent when compared to their male counterparts and most of the time, we have to resort to the entrance result rank sheets to emphasis the superiority of our species. There are exceptions though, on either sides...

With girl friends, it may be a tolerated as an expression of love, an act of over enthusiastic concern for her well being, her comfort is no longer her decision, you know that the hot sand at the beach can be perfectly comfortable for her ass... where she places it delicately based on your bloody advice. Or may be the thought goes, if she was dumb enough to pick me, she could easily loose her way to her own house. Or she cannot decide for herself if the just fried chicken is too hot to swallow.

With married men, it is their wife’s; marriage being the woman’s agreed and documented acceptance to the condition of sharing bed-space with a man, a condition which she should now understand as her ultimate resignation of intellect.

Even if the selfish me has at times failed to see her upset face, over the years, I have seen, heard and learned from others… all those red faces and welled up eyes have taught me exactly what not to do and I should by now know well enough when to stop...

but should I really start… No, I don’t have to; I can keep my mouth shut just as I would do if my boss were to proclaim that the moon is indeed made of cheese.

I still do not understand why we do this? I cannot refrain from blurring out a silly remark even with the complete understanding that it is not going to be appreciated… sometimes at the least acceptable situation and with certain knowledge that this remark is one of those things she could live without. At a darker moment when we surrender our will to harmony and peace, reminisce of these pedantries could form a gust of stinky breath while waddling through the swamps of marital memoirs.

I do know a few men who end up being ridiculed by their ladies for not being brawny enough... but in most such cases, it is kindoff true...

But with woman, most often, it is unjustifiable...

All you need to do is imagine that she is your boss and then it could be hard for you to keep imagining how she could ridicule every single aspect of what you are as you sulk for mercy while she threatens to seize your only means for a sane existence.

To those of you who have had a lady boss, you know what it is like... This is not the "come lets go have a smoke" murky shady lazy fatso who makes you do everything and takes credit for everything you do... this is a more viscous, ambitions, organized, multitasking genius who gets her act right each an every time while ensuring that you do not even take a split second to breath.Your productivity is two fold and you catch insomnia. You would rather die in a road crash than report late to office... and while you jump around like a mad man with a bad itch she makes good of the opportunity to vent out all her frustrations from any male dominance on her domestic, social and work front (her boss - aka the big guy). you would not dare to criticize her, would you? At least not until you find a new job.

Yet it is difficult. To control this urge, this innate desire to correct them, to criticize them when even the slightest splash of criticisable element sparks up. 

The other day, while discussing about our dwindling bank balance:

Me: “60 dirham was debited and on the next line it says that 60 was credited, so does this not mean that we still have 60 dirham.”

After a nano seconds pause I look at her confused face while she is trying to decipher what I just told her and blurts out: “What accounts did you study?” (This from me who has almost consistently failed in accounting) and I did not stop there…

“Debit what comes in and credit what goes out?” “Is it not?” This to my wife who works as an accountant, a commerce graduate who managed to complete her MBA with a specialization in Finance.

Aside from my personnel imprudence, a few examples I have heard:

Same situation as above, but instead of bank statements, it had something to do with tan squared theta. The conversation ended with a sarcastic enquiry about her schooling.

Gramatic and linguistic skills are areas where we men need to pee in circles to mark our territory of dominance.

Even a most recently heard piece of irrelevant information can be transposed as an unassuming question to the poor soul. "Do you know about star nurseries? No? Do you know how stars form? "No"At least, have you heard about the Big Bang? Did you not study elementary physics at all?" At this juncture, Big Bang in her mind is the moment she decided to share a bed with this idiot and she could only wish that Big Bang be translated to a Big, indeed bang of the large glass bottle on the large heavy empty head.

"Who was the Zulu tribal leader who developed the ‘buffalo horn’ military formation?" between her impenetrable tight lips, you could hear her say “must be your father, he seems to be a rather athletic bloke", "or that tribal looking POS uncle of yours... With a family full of tribal, it could be any one of those” and if you look carefully, you can see those tight lips twitch with a slight hint of smile.

Appreciation of movies or music can all be made reasons to emphasis our appropriate taste. All the movies we pick are the classy ones… If it is crap movie, we call it kinda cool. Classy and cool are indeed all the movies and songs we pick.

Not from personal experience, but the worst situation to act like an ape is at a social gathering when there are other ladies present. Try correcting her at the dinner table and you could almost certainly expect a splash of water followed by a parliamentary walk out.


A poem by Dorothy Parker titled 'Men'

They hail you as their morning star

Because you are the way you are.
If you return the sentiment,
They'll try to make you different;
And once they have you, safe and sound,
They want to change you all around.
Your moods and ways they put a curse on;
They'd make of you another person.
They cannot let you go your gait;
They influence and educate.
They'd alter all that they admired.
They make me sick, they make me tired.