Christmas in Chicago

Every year in the month of December, I start to get nostalgic about the years I spent celebrating Christmas in Chicago. The memory of my first Christmas party in the city always brings a smile to my face for so many reasons. Hosted by the company I worked for, it was a fairly intimate evening since at the time we probably had approximately 50 employees. Most people brought their spouse or a date so while it wasn’t small, it was the smallest office party that I ended up attending. 

Fresh off the boat and living in the city, I was nervous about driving to a Western suburb that I was completely foreign to. With the days being short in December, no GPS, nobody I could ask for a ride and with snow flurries that I was experiencing for the first time in my life, I plucked up every ounce of courage in my body and made my way to a beautiful party hall in a poorly lit suburb.

The dress code was black tie and having only the one suit that I had brought from India, which had been worn for every interview and to every meeting that required me to wear a suit, there was no way in the world that I was about to also wear it to our Christmas party. Our office was located across the very upscale Oakbrook Mall and having only been in the US for about 4 months, I didn’t know much about where to shop etc. A colleague who had become a friend, walked across to the mall with me but all the stores there were way out of my league as a fresh migrant who had only recently started working. 

Eventually I went to the party in a black and red sweater that I picked up from The Gap with black dress pants and shoes that I wore to work everyday. It was probably the last time I was underdressed for any occasion. I remember walking in awkwardly and while everyone looked incredibly sharp in their suits and cocktail dresses, they never once made me feel like a freak in a sweater! The word of the evening at our table, after a couple of drinks, was ‘marvellous’ and every once in a while one of the ladies would come up to me and say ‘you look marvellous darling’, until we all started saying it to each other. The phrase ending up being stuck with us for a fairly long while. One of those things that I’ll never forget and still makes me grin. 

As the years went by, December was all about attending Christmas parties, exchanging gifts, eating way, way, wayyy too much sugar, fighting traffic and crowds to buy gifts, parking much too far from the mall entrance on snowy days, the family dinner on Christmas day and of course the annual office Christmas party. 

I don’t have much recollection of most of the holiday parties that the company threw, but I do remember the last one, eleven years later. This one was a daytime affair at a large, beautiful home, that looked like it was straight out of a fairy tale. By this time I had a closet full of sharp suits but ironically, the dress code was ‘smart casual’. Maybe I should have worn a suit to make up for my first year there!

The dress code may have been casual but the food and liquor were of the highest class, with the serving staff passing around oysters, jumbo shrimp and caviar amongst other decadent h’ordeuvres, the buffet table laid out with a huge main course and of course more desserts than we could ever eat. My ‘farewell’ Christmas party was truly one that I would never forget.

The food however, was not what made that party especially memorable. With all the liquor flowing, many of us were ridiculously drunk in a couple of hours (there’s just no polite way to say it). And since I was leaving the country shortly after, I was as obnoxiously drunk as I could possibly be. To the point where, when Terry, our COO came out to give a speech, I would keep interrupting him, until he invited me to the podium and probably asked me to shut up in the nicest way he could. I don’t remember what he said to me but as a much loved employee, I’m sure there were no swear words. It’s one of the most embarrassing afternoons of my life but if you had been there, you would know that its a story that deserves to be shared!

Every year, as Christmas gets close, I bring out my fake Christmas tree, add some red to the apartment, put up string lights and make it as festive as I can. This year my man Friday and I made some fudge, reminding me of my colleague and friend, Evelyn, who I used to call ‘the fudge lady’. When I moved back to India, she wanted to send me a box for Christmas but I refused to give her my address as it would cost way too much. A few years later when I was having my New York adventure, she made me happy with a big batch of her famous fudge. 

I could go on and on with all the memories I have of Christmas in Chicago and the friends who made the holiday season so special for me during those eleven years that I lived there. It warms my heart each time I think of the laughs, the love and even the turkey.  I was also always extremely pampered with gifts and one year when boxes of presents were literally spilling out of my office, my friend Elsa stopped by, rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t understand why so many people love you.” Which of course was a complete lie since she was the one who referred to me as her ‘beloved’.

To all my friends and family, who have given me more than my share of love, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Big Snore

Let me start off by saying that I have slept with more people than most people I know. Before you begin to raise your eyebrows and go ‘hmmm’, the keyword here is ‘slept’ and for the purposes of this post, no more than that. Which makes me wonder when it was that ‘sleeping’ with someone began to mean ‘having sex’. But that’s a topic for another day.  

Recently I travelled to Ladakh with a friend whose name begins with the letter ’N’. Our first night was spent at the Ibis Airport Hotel in New Delhi since we had a ridiculously early morning flight to catch. A few minutes after we went to bed, our room began to shake with N’s snoring. For those of you that haven’t stayed at an Ibis, they have small, efficient, capsule like rooms which allow snoring sounds to bounce off of every close wall. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep for a moment the entire night and just to get back at N, I woke up at 2:30 am, turned on the lights, banged on doors and took a shower. Yeah dude, I’m going to punish you by being clean early in the morning.  

The next night wasn’t much better, after which I decided that if I didn’t get my own room and a proper night’s sleep, N would probably not make it out of Ladakh alive.

Save your sympathies for now because I’ve been on the other side, driving my sleeping partner crazy. Eight of us had once gone to Dehradun, where we were staying in a fabulously charming bungalow with enormous bedrooms, 4 poster beds, sunken baths, definitely one of the warmest and most tastefully done up places I have ever stayed at. There were 4 bedrooms with 2 of us sharing each one. The first night apparently went off okay because my roomie didn’t complain. The next two nights however, my snoring was so loud that he had to sleep on a daybed in one of the other bedrooms. Which actually worked out pretty nicely for me as I could spread myself across that king size piece of antique. 

The funniest snoring story though brings me to when I was living in Chicago and was driving to the Smokey Mountains with my friends Mike and Elsa. We began our journey at around 8 pm with the idea that we would drive for a few hours, spend the night at a hotel and continue on in the morning. Except that when we were ready to call it a night, there were no rooms available at any of the hotels we were stopping at. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, there weren’t a lot of hotels to choose from in the first place and apparently a movie was being shot so for miles and miles everything was booked.

Finally at about 4 am we got to a Howard Johnson and the three of us, tired but still nutty and goofy, got off our car in our sunglasses (don’t ask) and walked over to the reception desk. Elsa was in the middle with her arms around Mike and I. She looked at the lady at the front desk and asked in her most serious tone, “honey, do you have a room we could use for a couple of hours?”

Of course the 3 of us burst out laughing and at that unearthly hour, our laughter sounded really, really loud. Anyway, a few minutes later we got ourselves a room, Mike had brought a sleeping bag and Elsa and I got the bed. I don’t remember how long we had slept but all of a sudden every light in the room had been turned on and Mike was standing at the foot of our bed going, “would you guys just knock it off with your snoring?”

How exactly does one do that since a sleeping person has no idea that he/she is creating havoc? 

The good news is that the last few people I have slept with during my travels have not complained about my snoring keeping them up. It’s probably because I now have a relaxed life and get (more than) adequate sleep. So if at some point you’re thinking of sleeping with me, it’s pretty likely that you won’t be disturbed. 

Oh and by the way, how many people have you slept with?

The Cross-Dressers - A Halloween Story

Recently I watched a critically acclaimed American television show called ‘Transparent’. The story (supposedly) revolves around a 68 year old divorced man, father of 3 adult children who decides to start living his life dressed as a woman. Transvestite’s, I found out, are people who dress like, but continue to be attracted to members of the opposite sex. Not to be confused with Transgender’s, who do not live their life as their birth gender.

Sometimes I feel that critics, as well as most folks, feel compelled to like something just to be politically correct. As far as I’m concerned Transparent is probably the worst show I’ve watched this year thanks to lazy writing, an entourage of easily the most unlikeable, selfish and sometimes hateful characters with a story that is heading absolutely nowhere. The show is less about the ‘trans’ parent than it is about his three irritating kids, who have no redeeming qualities and are obsessed with having graphic sex in every 30 minute episode.

Of course it’s also possible that I don’t understand good television. But if pretentious and unlikeable characters is good, then keep me away from it. 

I’ve wasted almost 5 hours of my life watching the show - let me not waste more time writing about it. Last week when I was cleaning my apartment I found a photocopy of a  picture of my friend Rory, dressed as a woman. No Rory is not a cross-dresser or a transvestite - we were simply having some fun on a Halloween many moons ago!

Cross-Dressed for Halloween

This is when I used to work in Chicago. Each department would have a Halloween theme and I remember clear as day, a group of us standing around discussing costumes. The previous year we were in the 70’s ‘Saturday Night Fever’ type outfits and this year we had to up the scale. Ideas were being thrown around but nothing was interesting enough, when somebody suggested cross-dressing. Initially it generated much laughter but nobody took it very seriously. While we continued joking about it, no decision was made until Rory came over the next day and announced that Michelle, his wife, and he had picked up his dress and pumps! 

For me, it was, by far the funniest Halloween ever. 

We had one of the managers, Jim who came dressed as a redhead slut in a short orange skirt, fishnet stockings and two gigantic squishy balls stuffed inside his low neck blouse!

Han, the Chinese guy with almost no facial hair, fished inside his wife’s closet and wore a long elegant dress, necklace, earrings, hat and even his wife’s very girlie watch!

And while Rory, Han and Jim displayed their feminine sides,Walt, who was a much taller and much manlier version of Tom Cruise could do very little to be convincing. In his plaid skirt he simply looked like a Scotsman in a wig! 

Yours truly was not in costume though. I was traveling to India the same afternoon and used that as an excuse. But of course, I couldn’t get away with it. Someone brought a nightgown that I was made to get into and trust me, it was a very funny sight. Especially since I used to sport a mustache back then. 

The women, dressed in business suits and ties, did not make an impact. The other guys weren’t nearly as funny so I’ve erased their look from my memory. The team paraded around the entire two-floored office building amidst peals of laughter and needless to say our department won first place. I wish, I wish I had more photos. 

Before writing this piece, I sent Rory an email with his picture and asked if he was okay with me using it in my post. 

‘Who is that good looking lady?’, he wrote back.

You’re the biggest sport I’ve ever met, my friend! 

Hope y’all have a funny, scary Halloween!

There's something about Varanasi - Part 1 'Getting There'

Until about five years ago, I would turn up my nose at the thought of visiting Varanasi. Probably because all I’d heard about the city was that it was dirty and it stunk. I guess at the time I was more immature (it’s possible), more superficial and not willing to look beyond the grime. And then something in me changed. I wish I could tell you what it was that changed, but all of a sudden Varanasi became this fascinating city that I had to go see for myself.

My friend Aparna, who lives in Chicago and visits India every winter, was also very keen and so we decided to go there together. After two unsuccessful attempts of turning these plans into reality, we finally made it there last month. Of course it had to be the year of the Maha Kumbh Mela in nearby Allahabad, something that takes place once every 12 years and attracts millions of people.  Many of who include Varanasi into their itinerary. Which meant that getting train tickets and a desirable hotel wasn’t exactly easy, even though we began trying in the first week of January. 

My train was supposed to reach Varanasi just before 8 am on the 18th of February and Aparna’s around 9 am. Instead I was about 3 hours late so she got there before I did. After two attempts at shoddy auto-rickshaws that kept breaking down, the third one finally got me to this place called Godowlia Chowk, after which I would have to walk about 1/2 a kilometer to get to the spot where Aparna would be waiting for me. 

At this point I have to mention that my chatty auto-rickshaw driver, Golu Prajapati, not only drove me to my destination but was an excellent guide on the way.  He also told me all about his family, where they grew up, how many children he has etc. He gave me his number so I could call him for any local sight-seeing and to be dropped back to the train station on the 20th. In the less than 30 minute ride, I had gotten to know Golu as though he was an old friend. I feel like an idiot though for not having his picture.

As I got out of the rickshaw, all I could see was a sea of people. It could have been an intimidating site for the old me, but this more-mature me was completely relaxed. Golu instructed me to walk towards the right of the Chowk (crossing). With my luggage in hand, I began maneuvering into the crowd, reminding myself that this was so much easier than the time I was on 5th Avenue in New York City around Christmas, being pushed by crazy tourists who wanted to get a look at the store-windows. I got to the spot and called Aparna who said that she was there and was looking out for me. Suddenly she went, “I see you” as I heaved a sigh of relief, because for the life of me I had no idea where she was.

And then there she was a moment later, standing directly in front of me. We looked at each other and broke out into peals of laughter. We kept laughing until our sides hurt and when we finally stopped, we gave each other a hug. We were finally in this ancient city called Varanasi - our adventure was about to begin!

To be continued .....

The cliched India photo. Close to where I was supposed to meet Aparna.