I get surprised. Then I evolve..

In 1997 when I dared coming to Delhi for a career, it was a super daring scene to see a woman driving a car. I missed a local bus once looking at an woman driving a foreign SUV.

It was a spinal chord turner. It was super sexy to see a woman in command. I used to wonder if they have two cars in the house, or if the husband is okay sitting in the passenger seat. I used to think, "Isn't that a paradigm shift of control"
By 2001, when I started my first job in Mumbai, it was still not too common to find women driving to offices. If a woman is driving to office, then she had that extra edge in the game of peer pressure and women liberation.


I was evolving. I have started accepting as normal, as a good sign of modernity. It was still a bit awkward for me to be in the passenger seat of a car driven by a female colleague.


Now, it is my 10th year in Mumbai and I have completely evolved.


Around the year 2001, I saw the first girl smoking and walking on the streets. Few of my friends used to smoke during my MBA days, but that was still mostly closed doors. Seeing a girl smoke in the street, in a chai ka galla was strangely mesmerising and disgusting at the same. Mesmerising because it was sexy. Disgusting because smoking is harmful and I knew that she would never be able to quit.


I once saw a mother telling her husband to keep the kids, then almost running to the side of the building to smoke. The husband busy on his phone could not stop the kids to run to their mother. You had to see the mother's face, being caught red-handed by her kids.


I used to practically ogle at women smoking, more so if she was pretty and looked innocent, trying to pretend the 'what's the big deal' attitude at the same time. It is pathetic to admit, but I felt kind of macho to be smoking with them. Whenever I would go for a chai, I would not be able to control my urge to smoke, if there was a girl smoking in public sipping tea all alone.


Soon, that too became a normal sight. It became just another man smoking beside me. However, I am still doubtful if I would be able to accept a smoker wife.


Back in 1997, it was a college secret for a couple to live-in. The girl would have a house on rent with her friends, but she would mostly sleep in her boyfriend's house. Or the vice versa. These relationships were the grapevine - discussed, abused, mocked in closed doors at every get-together in the absence of the co-sleeping friends.

I would have been very uncomfortable about living-in with my girlfriend. I would have to run away from my friends, become a loner with only my girlfriend beside me.

Today Supreme Court has recognised live-in relationships and with that we have evolved to accept it as something better than going for an arranged marriage with someone, one hardly knows.

I am in my second live-in relationship.

Then came the ubiquitous hot pants in around 2006. How could a girl wear such a short pant, was my first question. Today, it seems every 17 year old wear a hot pant when she is just meeting her friends, going to the shopping mall.


I swear that I can't be fantasizing about all these 17 year olds irrespective of the milky-ness of her thighs or the smoothness from the latest waxing session. It was mostly a sight of questioning the status quo. What's happening to the kids?


It's been a life of constant evolution. I have moved a thousand years ahead in just 10 years. I feel so far away from all my friends and cousins back in Assam. Whenever I visit my home town, I try to travel back in time to relate to every statement directed at me from my elders. I wonder how it will be for my parents if I get them to Mumbai to spend the rest of their lives.


Would they crib to despair and get restless due to the whole hopelessness of the situation?


I may be hopeful. They may be hopeless.