Liar Liar

So the past few months have been about professing interest in random jobs, going to interviews, answering inane questions, being made offers which I then have been gleefully turning down.  Explaining to mother why I haven't found one job that's to my liking is tricky but essentially simple.  If there's one fundamental truth in the universe my ma believes in besides MTR Bisibele bath mix, it's that the world is out to get her husband and her little bambinis.  And it is up to her to protect us hatchlings from the dangers of this cruel, cruel world. 

Ergo, she has spent most of the last twenty-years identifying our probable threats and consequently honing her skills in counter intelligence, pre-emptive tactics and asymmetric warfare. 

A couple of years ago, for instance, her biggest fear was that Demon Kid (what with his lean frame, gaunt cheeks and love for paradise biryani)  would be mistaken for a youth leader of the LeT or worse, the Indian Mujahiddin whereupon he'd be jailed and tortured/brainwashed so much that he'd end up a real terrorist ala Hrithik Roshan in Fiza.  And then I'd have to go petitioning corrupt government officials trying to find him/prove his innocence while mother stayed at home and wept.  So she figured she was saving us all the trouble when she launched mission "My Son Is Not a Terrorist." For two years, Demon Kid was forbidden to remain underweight, speak hindi, wear a sherwani (any variation there of), grow a beard, wear white, eat Biryani or travel without his passport. 

Numero uno on her list for me, on the other hand, has been the same as when I was sixteen, eleven or seven.  Ma's theory is that ALL men, maybe excepting her husband and not-terrorist son, are perverts who just become more and more creepier the older (the more impotent) they get.  So, she drilled it into me early on that all of them men lived for one reason only -- to rob me of my chastity, not because I was a catch or anything (which she assured me I was not) but simply because I was a girl. And why, everyone knows what happened to that silly Little Red Riding Hood who didn't listen to her mother and walked alone in strange woods anyway. 

Also, the things that could happen to me if I disobeyed mother were (i) be kidnapped and get sold to sheiks in Saudi-Arabia who'd use me in camel races or add me to their harem (ii) be made into a child actor who'll endorse Rasna and Cadbury but never be allowed to have them (iii) turned into a nun who'd have to spend her life among sexually frustrated women lusting after a deeply troubled and imaginary man (iv) get adopted by a milk-man (v) be sent to jail for setting grandmaw on fire. 

So I spent my first fifteen years terrified of young men, old men, milkmen, women,  sheiks, camels, nuns and grandmaws. Don't you just have a bright, new, shining respect for me that I turned out so well despite the horror? Naturally, you would. It's okay, so do most others really. Modesty keeps me from telling you how many. 

Drat! Where was I? Yes, providing you context. So what I was saying is that fooling mothers is boring business. Apparently, they don't even need details, which is the most fun about telling lies anyway. Any variation of -- ma, the interviewer looked so shady/was old and touchy/ called me to a hotel for the interview/asked me to work night shifts/wanted to post me in Delhi -- seems to work. 

I really need to get myself a job, man.