Wednesday, February 08, 2012

In which alternate careers are explored

So yesterday, someone on my timeline (why, yes! I am on Twitter now!) asked one of those questions that are guaranteed to mess up your head.

“Are you what you’ve always wanted to be?”

The reason this kind of question throws me into a tizzy is because I’ve never been one of those people, who, since the age of five, have known, with dazzling certainty, what they wanted to grow up and be. Hell, I don’t think that thought (or any thought really; I was not a very bright child) crossed my mind until I hit eighteen and was forced to, y’know decide on a career.

Like most daydream-prone, reality-divorced people, my professional (for want of a better word) ambitions were usually based on something I’d recently read about / seen / heard. This, for someone who grew up in a household full of genre-defying cultural stimuli, proved to be, as you can imagine, a bit of an issue.

At some point or the other, some of the professions (and I use the term loosely) on my list were: Maria von Trapp (or Julie Andrews), astronaut, fairy, singer (I haven’t given up on this one yet), doctor, vet, theatre actress (more on this later), rich heiress, item dancer (someday, when my body catches up with my mind) and, umm, hooker.

It was some time after our third-year exams, when the prospect of another whole year* of doing the same bloody things loomed large and depressing, that N and I decided we would become hookers. There was, it seemed, such a thing as too much painting. And too much drawing. And too many goddamn girls wearing black nail-polish and too many boys wearing their hair long and too much of being surrounded by people who were so much like you that you want to throw up at the very sameness of it all. And of course, this being Delhi in the late 90s, the concept of part-time jobs to supplement your meagre pocket money did not come into the picture and GOD were you sick of asking your parents for money.

And because a not-quite-graduate from art school is a gloriously, magnificently unemployable creature, 'hooker' was the only career option we had the er, assets for. But we weren't just going to be ANY hookers, mind you, we we’re going to be hookers from BROOKLYN, bay-bee! Because that’s where all the awesome-est hookers went (or came from). I don’t know where we got the idea that Brooklyn was the pinnacle of hookerdom - probably from the same place we got the idea that getting paid for sex was like, the coolest job *ever* – but there you have it. (Considering that we had never been to the States, nor had any previous hookering (hooking?) experience, I’d say the place was called Really Stupid Central.)

Ah, youth and all its accompanying idiocy!

So according to our plan, were going to quit college, somehow reach the states, proceed to sleep with different guys every night and get paid for it. Except, and therein lay the rub, neither of us had lost the curse yet** and sex was a little like Kandivali, i.e. unexplored and possibly hostile territory. And because the market for Brooklyn hookers was kinda difficult to break into – being the seat of higher hookerdom and all – we decided that we needed some sort of specialisation that didn’t involve any actual, well...sex.

The plan was shelved back then because it seemed no-one wanted to pay to have baffling conversation – which is the best we could offer at that point – with cute-but-clueless girls (oh cruel world!). But as the noughties rolled around, the internet’s orgy with language and capacity for instant gratification led to the birth of instant messaging, which has unearthed in me a surprising talent.

I might be socially inept and magnificently awkward in real life, but I give great IM.

Kind of like a 21st-century whore of mensa.


*I don’t know if this is a case with a lot of other undergrad courses – with the exception of engineering and medicine – but ours, the Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Delhi College of Art was four years long. And in this I was informed, we were lucky because earlier it was a five-year course and before that a SEVEN-year course. Though what on earth you could possibly do in art school for SEVEN YEARS is a bit of a mystery to me. What you can do after seven years of a liberal arts education, is an even bigger mystery.

**Yes, yes, we were slow starters okay? Although it *was* more a matter of venue than virtue. Did YOU guys ever get any that wasn’t a furtive grope in the back of somebody’s car? I mean, where, if you were in college and yes, still living with your parents DID you make out?


18 comments:

AKM said...

The correct answer would be either :

I sweet potato what I sweet potatoe. (==Check Popeye)

Or

I have never *always* wanted the same thing!

Roy said...

You are not alone, I considered being a gigolo right after college..even after I found a job. Guess it was not the right job for me ;)

Sougata said...

Quote: I might be socially inept and magnificently awkward in real life, but I give great IM.

LOL. If you can make that fit on a bumper sticker, you'll sell a lot of bumper stickers.

Chronicus Skepticus said...

AKM: Hello, new person!

And y'know, if that's the answer, I'm no longer sure what the question is!

I *did* get the second part of your comment though, and I know, right?!

Roy:
Yeaaahh, it's one of those talent thingies, I think. You either have it, or you don't.

(Obviously, I don't. *sigh*)

Sougata:
Maybe...I could be a...writer of bumper stickers! That's a career too, right? RIGHT?

P.S. Get your ass back to your blog, will ya?

(Why yes! This single post after more than a year HAS given me the right to be a complete bossypants.)

AKM said...

“Are you what you’ve always wanted to be?”

(a) I yam what I yam, said like Popeye

(b) You got already: )

Sougata said...

Maybe...I could be a...writer of bumper stickers! That's a career too, right? RIGHT?

It is, and you show great promise in said profession, young Padawan.


Get your ass back to your blog, will ya?

But... but... Mommy, you said I didn't have to eat my vegetables. *cry*

PV said...

LOL I can see the Brooklyn 'ho's quaking in their boots: Customer to Brooklyn-pimp: I did NOT ask for a cute-but-clueless socially inept fine arts student!
Brooklyn-pimp: just give her a phone and see what amazing IM she gives!

You know, being a hooker would have probably allowed you to live out all your other "professions". Except maybe a vet ;)

Still reeling from the shock of seeing a new post! Following you on twitter now. Tweet me bay-bee :D

Generous Stranger said...

Hilarious, because I love your style of writing :)

Anil said...

That was one hell of a bouquet to choose from growing up :-)

Eventually, it's the job that finds us rather than the other way.

lady grouch-a-lot said...

Sigh....yes, I've gone through the same stage of wanting to be a spy, the cat woman and a high class hooker all in that order. But then again I decided I would be bored outta my mind of sex (God forbid!) and gave up on that idea. So now I'm back to not having a clue about what I want to do in life!

G said...

Its nice that you're writing again.

Hillarium said...

Cool, I see I was not exactly the odd woman out when I wanted to be a nautch girl , thanks to Rekha's rendition of the kothewali numbers and the exquisite anarkali churidars, except I changed my mind when I came to know that the same Anarkali Churidars come off unceremoniously every night in front of different persons.
Nice one. Enjoyed reading it

Hari said...

Hahahahaha.. Wait.. Hahahahahaha..
On a different note, as a friend says it, you're a BLAM (Bloody Liberal Arts Major)

Sougata said...
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Sougata said...
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Sougata said...
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Sougata said...

It's been 11 years, give or take, and I still giggle at this:

"I might be socially inept and magnificently awkward in real life, but I give great IM."

Hope life is treating you magnificently, old friend.

Chronicus Skepticus said...

@Sougata!

It's been forever. I'm so happy to hear from you! (I used an exclamation mark so you know it's real.)

Life is treating me...well enough. The last three years were a bit...HOOOEE! But things appear to be tentatively, warily looking up.

How are you? Are you well? Are you happy? Did we always communicate so...*publicly*?? AWKS.