I have a love-hate relationship with auto rickshaws. I've spent the best 'me time' in them. Staring at congested city streets, wiping them clean on a mental slate with a giant piece of wet cloth. Staring at odd empty spaces that appeared suddenly like lost pieces of an otherwise complete puzzle. Head swarming with the thought of  a thousand different things all at once till I blissfully lost track of what it was that demanded thought in the first place.

If I could color each strand of thought conceived in an auto a different color, a sketch of the frontal lobe of my brain would require way more than the measly 42 shades of crayons available at regular stationary stores.

 There's no substitute for a rickshaw ride on a windy evening if it's one of those days when you're bubbling with meaningless glee. Or so I would like to believe. 

I must however confess that my presence is not exactly conducive to the good health of these beloved three-wheelers. I can't remember exactly when I stopped counting the number of autos that broke down right after I stepped into them, settled snugly in a corner, resting my head against a wall papered with a sleazy poster of a well endowed Bollywood heroine, preparing to plunge into a reverie, only to be rudely awakened by a sudden jolt, screeching brakes, general chaos, sprinklings of quality profanities,ending with the sound of a disgruntled autowallahs voice asking me to find another way to reach my destination.I've been stranded in the middle of the same deserted highway late at night,with such unbelievable frequency that I'm sure I've been exalted to the status of the pet highway ghost lady. All because my mere presence caused the auto to run out of fuel, or caused its perfectly good engine to mysteriously give out puffs of smoke, or caused the auto driver to get involved in a full fledged brawl with the driver of the one solitary car on the same highway.

I have also been dropped off in the middle of smelly dark alleys and bustling markets in the middle of nowhere without so much as an apology. Some drivers have promptly taken the liberty to take me to wherever it is that they decided I should go. Where I needed to go was a secondary consideration to be deliberated upon based on the autowallah's time, leisure, inclination and the state of his spirits.

Happy to be disgusting!!

I happen to like certain things that the rest of the world finds downright dirty. I’ve always looked forward to summers for three simple reasons. Mangoes, Norwesters and prickly heat rashes. In that order. The feeling of running down my fingers over a forehead or a neck full of tiny red bumps always brought me unspeakable joy. I could do it for hours. Just that and nothing else. Run my fingers over the delicious coarseness of my summer skin and let my mind wander off.

When I grew up, I discovered pure, pristine happiness in the tingling of cracked feet.  My mom insisted my maid’s feet were prettier than mine. I was polite enough not to point out that my mom’s feet were capable of giving a serious blow to any self-respecting Yeti’s self-esteem. My cracked feet bothered a male friend of mine to the extent that he gave in to a very typically feminine, pronouncedly Bengali way of saying “eeeeeeeeesssssssssshhh”, every time his eyes fell on them. Strangely enough, I was so busy enjoying the tingling that I was oblivious to the sting of harsh criticism showered at my feet.

Moving on from my feet to my hands, I choose not to wash my hands after I pet a dog. When I eat, I eat with my hands laden with dogginess. The thought that my stomach might rise in rebellion someday doesn’t even cross my mind. It never did. But it does make me vouch for the fact that I will scrub my hands with the strongest smelling liquid handwash the next time I touch an awful person before eating. That to me would make sense. THAT would be respecting the physiologically determined upper limit of my intestines.

To this hat-trick i will proceed to add yet another quirk. I prefer to use a hanky instead of a tissue when I have to go “a-tish-oooo” . I sneeze like a water spraying mammoth. It takes me only the preparatory half sneezes that come right before the real sneeze, to shred a flimsy piece of tissue to nothingness. I don’t care if it’s dirty. I refuse to have silly little bits of paper tickling my nose when it is already embroiled in a battle of its own.

I love scratching my head and watching flecks of dandruff gently float through air and fall on a dark surface. If done correctly, it gives way to an illusion of falling snow. Who could tell such rare sights of sheer beauty could be created from so crass a thing as dandruff? That’s why I say, dirt breeds creativity. Look at Pirates of the Caribbean, it’s the rot, the gore and the general yuckiness that make all the films work. There’s beauty in dirt and the day you find it, life becomes a joy ride. Especially if you live life in a smoke choked, dust glazed dumpster of a metropolitan city where the whole place looks like it was born out of a drain one fine morning.

I love the way my dog smells when he hasn’t had a bath for some time. My maid thinks he stinks up the cushions. My dad says he smells like me. And my dad thinks I smell like an adult goat at a meat shop. I love how Micky’s odour transfers to whatever I’m wearing the moment I cuddle him. My pyjamas smell of him, because he burrows into the crook of my knee when he sleeps every night. I don’t mind. Because I think he smells exactly like a heavenly mixture of warm rice, mashed potatoes, boiled eggs and dollops of butter. My best friend echoes my opinion, which gives me reason enough to believe I’m not entirely insane.

I love picking ticks. Fleas not that much. But ticks, oh yes! And I’d like to blame it on my deep seated primate instincts. Thankfully, I’m spoilt for choice when it comes to food, so I stop short of eating what I hunt. When I’m at it, the setting transforms miraculously from something as mundane as a dog’s back to a deep, dark forest where deadly creatures lurk. Creatures that feast on blood. Or, to a hunting ground teeming with game where I am a Kalahari Bushman on the threshold of manhood, learning to hunt.

Yes, I’m disgusting. Quite happily so.