January Braindump

Guess what's happening in my house RIGHT NOW. Guess!

Wait, this needs to be even more dramatic. Let's start with a story.

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, a barely five foot tall gnome sleep-walked into the shower. Then this happened:

via GIPHY

Is it just me, or does that gif make you feel strangely nostalgic too?

Anyway, today is the day when the boiler at 22 Nelson Street finally gets fixed. This day will go down in history as the day on which I finally stop pulling my hair out in chunks out of frustration. It's the day on which I finally stop trying to break heavy machinery with screwdrivers that I don't even know how to hold with my tiny hands. It's the day on which I officially denounce religion because until now, I've sometimes had to go down on my knees and pray for a consistent stream of hot water while I showered.

Speaking of religion, I just remembered this massive argument I had with one of the seniormost teachers in my college when I was doing my masters in English Lit. You see, English Lit is one of those fields where you're encouraged to have an open mind, be accepting of various theories, speculate upon them, discuss them, apply them to the texts you read and most importantly, be respectful of other people's views. Enter: Senior teacher from my parents' generation. "How many of you believe in God?", she asked. All the nice Christian girls (for I studied in an all-girls Christian institution and YES that's a thing in India) raised their hands. My friend Punchy and I half-raised our hands because you know, peer pressure and we're generally confused people. Unsurprisingly, this teacher started picking on us.

"So you're atheists!", she accused. When we explained that we didn't necessarily reject the concept of God but were mostly confused about it, she proclaimed, "SO YOU'RE AGNOSTICS!"

That would have been okay, had she not said it in a way that made her face look like she'd just walked into a room full of rotting corpses. I guess that facial expression coupled with the fact that she asked Punchy to "pick one" instead of "sailing on two boats" when Punchy mentioned she didn't care if she prayed in a temple or a church, is what pissed me off and turned this whole thing into a full blown theological argument.

So I said, "I don't know about God but I know that religion is man-made and I reject all aspects of man-made religions that foster segregation, hate, and scientific ignorance."

"So you won't go to a temple?"

"I don't see the harm in going to a temple. The architecture of most temples is often beautiful. But I don't have to be in a temple to pray. I could pray right here, right now, in front of you, in this very classroom and it would pretty much mean the same to me."

"But what if the boy you marry is religious?"

"What if the boy I marry is religious?"

"Wouldn't you have to start believing in his religion too?"

"ARE YOU DUMB? I really don't understand what you're talking about. If my partner turns out to be religious and loves visiting temples every week, he's by all means free to do so. What does that have to do with me? And as long as I never come in the way of his beliefs, why would he interfere with mine?"

This is the part where she started foaming at the mouth and shuddering from the shock of encountering the Antichrist.

"BUT WHAT ABOUT HIS FAMILY?" (That had to be in all caps to make up for the Bollywood-style-dramatic-shrill-voice-effect coupled with hand gestures of weightlifting coconuts that she was bringing into the conversation)

"What about his family?", I asked genuinely confused.

"What if they're religious and need you to be religious too?"

"ARE YOU DUMB? Well, it would suck to be them, now wouldn't it? They surely cannot expect a human being to suddenly shape-shift into an inanimate puppet?"

That's when she looked at me like she was thinking "ARE YOU DUMB?" because you see, for a minute there, I forgot that I was talking about Indian in-laws to a woman who herself was an Indian mother-in-law.

That whole conversation finally ended with her telling me that "Never, and I repeat, NEVER will you find a boy or a family that will be accepting of such views. I understand that you are young and progressive but all that will go away once you get married. It's okay to be open minded but make sure your brains don't fall out in the process".

I'm surprised I didn't burst into flames and get transported back to the molten fiery depths of hell after she made that statement. I mean, how dare I slither my way up from there and into her classroom in the first place? THE NERVE!

But coming back to the original point of celebrating the day on which my boiler finally gets fixed (boy, was that a tangent), I want to document that I wrote about said boiler in three posts starting on Dec 17, 2015. Exactly one year, one month and two weeks later, it got fixed. That just shows how much Shane and I have grown as adults. I mean, if it was The Bromance who was living in this flat, he would have fixed it on December 18, 2015. And by now, he would have also gotten the landlords to fix the mould in the shower and the inefficient exhaust fan in the kitchen. He might have even moved out of here or not accepted this flat in the first place. But hey, we're getting there! Also, this is a time of celebration. Which is why I've added a new tag called "Boiler" to this blog and under it are listed all the posts that I ever wrote about it. It's about time that thing got a blog of its own but it'll have to do with just a tag on this blog for the time being.

Also to celebrate, this evening, I will engage Shane and Ser Campsalot (who's crashing at our place tonight YAY!) in a re-enactment of the classroom scene I just described. I'm going to make Shane frame my side of the arguments. After all, he's the boy I did end up marrying, isn't he?

Is it weird that I already know his closing argument is going to be a yo mamma joke?