My stay in a Ladies Hostel !!!

That’s right ! My life in the last two weeks was like that of a security guard in a ladies hostel !!

Imagine a small two bed room apartment with four women and just a helpless guy ! The four women – the missus, her mother, one of her close friend, my cousin and thaat helpess guy — ME! I couldn’t get rid of any of them from my apartment; I was stuck, literally ! Most of my senses were deprived from anything that was male. I could see only feminine stuffs wherever I turned to — hair, hairpins, hair bands, bindis stuck on mirrors and on walls of restrooms, different kinds of cosmetics, clothes and ewww clothes !!! The apartment was filled with the scent of women and all I could listen to was female shrieks. I had to watch stupid and I mean, really stupid TV serials !!! They say every hostel has its own way of ragging; watching these sick serials was the ragging I had to go through at this ladies hostel ! Well, nobody was forcing me to watch them, but they keep those serials only during dinner time which is when I don’t have control over the remote since I would be concentrating on the food !

Btw, what is with women and those shows, I don’t understand? Why on earth do they get addicted to it? They say a few stories are related to them in some way or the other; but all I get to see in those TV soaps are extra marital affairs, idiotic husbands, children who speak more than their age, and bad mother in laws .I swear, none of them who watches these serials at my home has a life that is even close to all that !! I was under the impression that only the old and bored homemakers watch these kinda soaps to kill time. But to my surprise, the missus at home watches all those ‘Pratigya’s and ‘Tere Liye’s and she has the guts to ridicule me when I watch ‘The Simpsons’! Hmmpphh !!! Back at home, its even terrible; my mom bombards me with all her questions and doubts on my whereabouts only when I get to watch TV, but she gets irritated even if the land phone rings during those tear jerkers of hers !

Ok, where was I ? ya, the ladies hostel ! The rooms were always occupied by someone or the other with a phone; restrooms were always in use whenever I needed them; the only room that didn’t have anybody during the day time was the TV room, the hall. But when has life been easy for me? All those women barged inside the hall from I-don’t-know-where as soon as they knew that some of my favourite show was on.

Now, do they allow me to watch the TV? No, they all gathered to talk!

Do they want to watch the TV ? No, they wanted to chit chat !

Do they sit quietly atleast ? Aren’t you all listening ? For the last time, NO, they just wanted to have a loud irrelevant discussion on everything under the sun and moon with their occasional loud laughs and shrieks without even considering the fact that a poor human soul was watching TV !

But you know what, over the days, I developed a strategy to drive all the women away from the TV room! Guys, please read the below points carefully; trust me, it works !!

Go and get seated in the TV room10 mins before the show.

Make sure you have the remote with you.

The ladies are bound to attack your privacy. They all gather in the hall and gossip on something very irrelevant; for example, on their dress that has faded or on the neighbors distant cousin who eloped with the milkman.

Discuss with one of them (wife, mom, sister, mother in law, grandmom and the likes) on her favourite songs and ask her politely to get you some drink.

Surf the TV channels and stop at a channel which you know is of least interest to the ones sitting in the room. In my case, Discovery or any News channel ! 😀

Increase the volume a little bit and leave some ‘sshhh’s in between.

You can see them leave ! But don’t change the channel now. You are yet to get your drink.

Keep that particular channel on for some more time. That one person comes with your drink and notices you fully involved. When she gives the drink to you, pretend to be fully involved with the show by fussing and moving here and there for a better view. She goes in and comments to the rest of them, “One person over there in the hall is seriously watching something. Looks like he is going to get inside the TV pretty soon.”

That comment would be loud enough. Now is the time for your wicked smile (the smile is important, how else can you express your achievement!)

Tune into any of the crap that you wanted to watch and enjoy it with the drink you just got.

Ok, guys, enough of thanking me for the idea, let me get back to the post.

My stay at the ‘ladies hostel’ became worse during the weekends when I couldn’t go anywhere on my will. There were three others at home and even if I felt like going out for dinner, I would have to book a cab which would end up being an expensive affair. (No, I don’t own a car and the traffic officers in Chennai would have a problem with us going quintuple on my bike, even if it was possible!) To top it all, the hard disk of my laptop crashed and I was bored to death. I got my notebook from office and the day I brought it home, the net connection went pooofffff ! I know, bad luck keeps chasing me like mad dogs !

I literally made excuses to get out of the house. I volunteered to get the groceries whenever needed, to get the clothes dried, to throw garbage, etc. The NalandaWay events came at a perfect time; perfect enough for me to sneak out of the ladies hostel that I was stuck in. I called it myself the – NalandaWay GetaWay! On the first day, I managed to get out of the house all by myself and attended the show! Man; was I thrilled or what !!! However, the missus accompanied me on the second day for various unexplainable reasons 😀 😀

Trust me people, with these many women, of all ages. walking in and around the apartment, who wouldn’t feel suffocated. Atleast I was :D. It should be because I used to live like a king in the same apartment until my wedding. I could shout, I could yawn, sneeze and burp louder, I could watch FRIENDS all day long, I could listen and record songs anytime, I could walk topless, I could be on the phone for hours, I could eat and drink whatever and whenever I wanted to, I could even sleep in the bathroom, I could sit in front of my laptop for days together, I could leave anything anywhere and not have to spend the rest of the day searching them !!!

Oh, that reminds me, I finally solved the age old mystery (I really don’t know if anyone else has actually come up with an answer ;)) –

Why do men keep searching for their stuffs?

I first left this as a comment in one of Indys post, and a few men (Swarams husband is one of them) actually supported my view. We men are capable of finding directions easily or we never get lost on the roads, but we do keep searching our stuffs at home almost everyday. Why? Its because of you women !! Yup, that’s right !!! 😀 😀 😀 See, the funda is like this – we may keep our stuffs here and there, wherever we want but we are pretty much aware of where it is or was. But women, in their urge to keep the home clean, shift these things to different locations. The worst part is that we never get to know where it is shifted to. We are not against your compulsive disorder to keep the house clean, tidy and what not. But why do you all have to fiddle with our stuffs and then move it somewhere else? Do we even touch your hair band, or safety pin or any of your make up accessories? They lie almost everywhere, but we don’t even shift their position to make way for ours!!! How would you feel if we shifted your bindhi from the mirror to, say, a chair??

Now, what happens when you move our stuffs from its previous position? Obviously search, search and search until we lose our cool and get you into the scenario to search them for us and half of the time, you all don’t even remember where you relocated them. We men are never spared; pre-wedding, it was mom, post wedding, its wife. I don’t remember searching for bills, receipts or mobile charger when I stayed all alone. Sigh !! How I wish if there was something like a google toolbar available at home !

Anyway, by the beginning of this week, the apartment got empty; the missus stayed back though 😉 She was all tears after her mom had left. I tried my best in convincing her to go back home so that she can spend some more time with her mom. I simultaneously controlled my happiness, because I really thought she would agree! But it looks like she just doesn’t want to keep me happy! I repeat, every husband has a sad story to tell !!!