Rashmi Kumar - Hooked, Lined and Single

Hooked,
Lined &
Single

Hooked,
Lined &
Single

Rashmi Kumar

SRISHTI PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS

N-16, C. R. Park

New Delhi 110 019

First published by
Srishti Publishers & Distributors in 2014

Copyright Rashmi Kumar, 2014

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This edition is for sale in the Indian subcontinent only.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publishers.

To my grandparents

My childhood begins and ends with you both!

Teach me to do thy will.

Psalms 143:10

Acknowledgements

A s a new mother, it is easy for a woman to lose herself through the journey of nurturing, caring, feeding, changing diapers, waking up at odd hours and literally seeing your little one grow minute by minute. But there are those who made sure to remind me every now and then that I am also a woman, an individual, a writer and possess the special power of touching lives through my words. My readers, I owe this success to you. You never for once made me feel that my journey has come to an end. In fact, you always reminded me that I still have miles to travel.

My family, who never let success get into my head. They never truly stopped believing in me, no matter what. My friends in India, who make my life worth living each day. My friends in Canada, who helped me immensely to make this new country my new home. Team Srishti Publishers who have fulfilled my dream through this book.

Above all, thank you Lord, for not only loving me but also for being with me through some of the most challenging phases of my life. I hope I can continue to use your gift of writing to touch more lives.

Part ~ I

The Beginning
or
101 Reasons why I Should Try Again

Mission Me a la Marriage

With me, Ala

M yra told me it worked that way.

It did. It did. It did

This is what I had to repeat to myself 140 times. This is what my female soulmate repeated to me 400 times, though Ive mentioned it only three times for the readers convenience. So, in all, there was a mental, social, spiritual and religious assault on me, some 540 times! But I took on the ravages of these numbers and decided to go for it anyway.

So there was a list of demands made by this woman I had grown up with for the last fifteen years and couldnt say no to:

Number one: Get a tattoo any part of the body would do as long as its big enough to be seen.

Number two: Get a Brazilian wax a must do.

Number three: Get a hair makeover do away with the unruly curls theyre out of fashion. Ouch! Are they?

I didnt want to get a tattoo done because its painful. I didnt want to get a Brazilian wax done because its even more painful. And I didnt want to get a hair makeover done because its painfully painful (I am a huge fan of my curls). But Myra, for the sake of being herself, believed that all these must-dos would do me a world of good. Now you might wonder why a best friend would push me for such painful things, that too against my wish. Was she trying to make me a rebel? Did she see my short curlies jutting out of my knickers? Or did I have a bald patch that had to be covered with leftover hair? None of it. Myra just believed that a makeover inside and outside would do me good. And for some strange reason, I knew that it was going to work as well. How, says who, really?

Nevermind! Finally, in the squeaky little breathing space that Myra allowed me, I decided to do what I did best write. Out of sheer compulsion, I started penning my thoughts in a tiny notepad. It was so tiny that Myra wouldnt have had the slightest suspicion.

And instead of enunciating thoughts that could vary from,

Dear Diary, today morning I woke up realising I have missed my periods in the afternoon I went to see a doctor evening I cried, night, I wanted to be a mommie, etc

to thoughts like:

Swimming, swimming, swimming in the middle of the sea, certainly not winning, mind down on its knees

which I thought were profanely boring

I subscribed to penning down random words and phrases like,

Hebrew greeting on my shoulder blade XYZ is a mother fucker (doodle of my name)

My notepad soon looked more like miniature graffiti on paper. A writer should do better than that! So I re-vamped.

This time, I was more specific:

I am Alafia SinghThough my name means peace and blessings in the native African language, right now, I have run out on both I have neither peace nor blessings; I am not even in Africa to change my mood with some fantastic African lover! I need resurrection, I need resurrection, I need resurrection, I need resurrection, I need

And while I wrote all that I didnt have and craved for, I began tearing up.

Wouldnt any girl whos 31 years old in India, desperately wanting to get married well, okay, not desperately; almost desperately tear up too? Having survived a mini marriage at 22, which lasted a whole of 11 months and 10 days, the pressure was immense and the loneliness, burdening. Deeply concerned relatives and various others I bumped into at festivals or weddings talked about the delay in my getting hitched, and that heightened my loneliness. They shamelessly sermonised: to not be so snobbish, or so narrow in my thinking. How do they master the art of cornering the vulnerable kinds? Some even claimed, again brazenly, that I was unreasonably high in my expectations, and that I had to learn to compromise, if at all I ever wanted to get married again. Then there were those who had already lost hope, because as per Indian standards, I was way beyond a decent marriageable age. Did they see the first few grey hair peeping out? Then there were those who strongly believed that extensive travelling and writing books had screwed up my mind. How is it my problem if Indian men hate intellectual women!

Oh, but hold on! If that sounded like I was all-lost-with-no-hope, you got it all wrong. Then again, before I went on to prove how-beautiful-life-is and 101-reasons-to-smile, I wanted to add another challenge that stared stark at me. Like when you stare at the lizard on the toilet door (if youre scared of one, youll know what I mean!) just when youve shut it close. So now, you can neither pee in peace nor can you open the door after peeing, if at all (in peace). All you can do is wait for the lizard to dislodge. But in my case, the options were limited. Rather, I had none.