The Chronicles of Idiothood: The Jam, the Gaga, and the Stayfree

The year is 2013. Lady Gaga’s ‘Artpop’ album just came out.

It has been about 6-7 months since I first started listening to Lady Gaga, and eyeing the new album like a vulture eyes its prey, I get on our hundred-ton desktop computer, and download the entire album.

 

Both my parents are educators. Which is to say, they know how to get kids to do things. I learned to be by myself from very early on. My mother looked after her school and our studies, and us, and used to be super exhausted to make breakfast in the morning. I remember she would pack bread and jam for our lunch day after day after day, so much so that I hate all kinds of jam, to this day. I can’t stand the flavour of jam in my mouth. And to rescue myself and my siblings from this (mar)malady, I would try and prepare lunch that was… well, not bread and jam.

 

One of the smartest tricks my mom played on me, which I am immensely grateful to her for is allowing me to play brain-searingly loud music of my choice on the condition that I will clean the house. We lived on the first floor of a segregated ancestral house and the first floor had four ample-spaced rooms and two huge verandahs. 

 

This jam to music and clean routine began sometime in 2010, because I remember still being in my all-girls school. I think that one to two-hour period was the time I felt the happiest and the luckiest, every weekend. I mean, trust me, there wasn’t a lot to do back in 2010. Smartphones and accessible internet was new, and so was Facebook and WhatsApp addiction. I don’t think Instagram was that popular in India at the time, but I believe they must’ve had some users here. I’m not entirely sure. 

 

It was such a different time. As I reconstruct the scene in my head, I can’t help but feel – even the sun was different back then. I don’t know how. 

 

And so, listening to the pre-2013 era Gaga as I drove to work yesterday, I couldn’t help but laugh at the absolutely explicit lyrics that Gaga had in so many of her songs, that my parents never objected to because they were too busy to care… I think. Here’s a few examples:

 

‘Do you wanna see me naked, lover? Do you wanna peak underneath the cover?’ – Aura, Artpop

 

‘And I lay in bed and I touch myself and think of you; last night you were in my sex dreams’ – Sexxx Dreams, Artpop

 

‘You got me wondering why I like it rough’ – I like it rough, The Fame

 

‘Fame hooker prostitute wench vomits her mind’ – Judas, Born This Way

 

‘No matter gay, straight, or bi; lesbian transgender life, I’m on the right track baby, I was born to survive’ – Born This Way, Born This Way

 

‘Greetings, Himeros. God of sexual Desire, son of Aphrodite, and playback, and feast to this audio guide you through new and exciting positions’ – G.U.Y. Prelude, Artpop

 

I’m not sure if my mom never heard these lyrics or chose to ignore them because playing bass-boosted music at full volume definitely ensured that she heard at least some of it, but I’d believe her if she said that she chose to ignore it. She’s usually pretty cool, my mom. Except for that one time that she beat the shit out of me because she caught this note that I wrote to give to my neighbour who I had a crush on (I knew he liked me too so I wrote my phone number on the paper so he could text me. We had never talked in real life but used to look at each other from our adjacent terraces. Ah, old school romance). And after she’d beaten me up, and my tears had dried, the woman called me to her and explained that I will have more guys to choose from later in life, and that this was the time for me to focus on my studying.

 

My father had quite the sense of humor. Didn’t spare his kids from it too (which I look back at, with respect). I have no memory of this, but my mom used to tell me that sometimes he’d ask me “Chocolate khaogi?” Now, even though I had pretty limited vocabulary as a kid, what kid doesn’t know chocolate? I’d stand up, and run after him. This other time, my father was in the mood. He comes and asks me, “Shoes khaogi?” I’m like, yes!! I mean, I’m 5, for fuck sake. So, he asks me to follow him, and I stand up, put on my chappals and do as I’m told. And then something strikes me, and my mom said that I came back, not wanting to eat shoes.

 

One of the funniest incidents that I remember when I look back on my life as a kid has to be that time when I thought that sanitary napkins were for women to pee in when they couldn’t access the restroom. 

Every day, when my parents would come back home, tired from work, they would eat and go to sleep in the afternoon. No, not nap. I’m talking about full-fledged 3-hour-long uninterrupted sleep. I guess they were entitled to it. Although in retrospect, I do think that they could’ve thought of a better, healthier way to rest up. So, every day, 4-7 pm was my parents’ time to sleep. My sister and I, having been up to no good, would try to sleep, and fail. We couldn’t do a lot of mischief though, because my mom had painstakingly made an example to clarify what would happen if anyone dared interrupt her sleep. (Read: get slapped mercilessly until your ears started to ring). 

 

Anyway, one day, my sister wanted to go pee. Our washrooms were not attached to the rooms, and to go to one, we needed to unlock the door. The doors were old and used to have a bolt latch towards the top. It was already a struggle to reach the latch when you’re a 9-10-year old. Opening it noiselessly was harder still. 

 

None of us wanted to take that risk. 

 

I had an idea. 

 

I had seen my mom hide her sanitary napkin stash behind her humongous saree Everest in the almirah. I swooped it out. The brand was Stayfree. I read the entire packaging. The package said that these were sanitary napkins, and had instructions drawn on how to fix one on your panty. 

 

As a 10-year-old, if you saw a pack that said ‘sanitary napkin’ and you knew for sure that they had something to do with fixing it in your underpants, what logical conclusion would you make?

 

I’m not saying I was the brightest bulb when I was 10, but I knew what ‘sanitary’ meant and logically deduced, that it was supposed to be used by women in circumstances that they didn’t have access to a toilet. I also remember thinking to myself that it’s not that women can pee standing up with the carefree attitude like men do. So yeah, this must be it. This is the big secret.

 

I then told my sister the same, and two kids, terrified of waking their mom up, peed in sanitary napkins.

 

Sometime later, my sister ratted my brilliant plan out to my mom. I remember my mom giving me a stone-faced, “what the fuck” expression, but that’s all I remember. I mean, if that didn’t make her laugh, then I have to say, mom, you had no sense of humor.

 

But despite of everything, I can say without doubt, handling three kids in the household and hundreds of kids at work, it would be apt to give my parents four out of five stars in parenthood. I turned up good, I think. My sister is still pretty retarded, but she’ll get there. I used to think I’m the spiritual one in the family, doing rituals every full-moon night and cleansing the aura of my house with lavender incense, but my sister beat me to it. That weirdo reads palms, is an astrology geek, and runs an Instagram page about getting in touch with your soul.

 

I don’t think there’s anything like a dysfunctional family. Human beings are so varied in character, and I think it’s okay for some families to grow with a different pace and in different ways than others. I mean, the concept of normal is flawed anyway. 

 

Morticia Addams said it best – what is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.