American girls speak with a question mark? Like, it’s called HRT, or High-Rise Terminals, which is not the same thing like Hormone Replacement Therapy? Or uptalk, the speech that goes up and up, like someone climbing the stairs, never to stop? Or it is maybe called California Valley Girl accent? Or whatever?

Maybe it’s catching on? Maybe VJs and models and a nation of young things here who are actually VJs and models but are just waiting to finish school are speaking it already? Like the VJ interviewed on television this week? Like she said that she believed in reincarnation totally? Like she remembered what her doggie was in his past life? Like she strongly felt he was Mickey Mouse, but has turned vegetarian in this life?

But maybe girls have a reason to speak like this? Maybe, like Danny De Vito said, it comes from kids who want to be heard and are afraid that if they stop, adults are going to cut them off? Maybe girls and women are seen too often as kids? Maybe they feel tentative? Maybe they feel shy of pronouncing absolute truths? Or maybe they really have too many questions?

Like maybe they want to know why most typhoons are named after girls like Linda? And all saas-bahu soaps have a strange wailing as theme music? Like the female comedians in Hindi films, they always have to be so fat and ugly? Like at a filmi awards show, two stunning and silent female forms in a sari always glide in carrying the statuette, but are never introduced? And all the good detectives on TV are middle-aged men? And salwars, saris and skirts, like, don’t come with pockets for mobiles? And a goddess called Ma Nachinda appears on the back of trucks? Like, her name, but no picture to go with it? And a cosmetic company is called Aele 18?

And bleached hair on the face burns like burnished gold in the sun, like, setting up a halo? Like a weekly claims that the new Indian male mixes iron-hard machismo and rosogolla-soft sensitivity? And the picture is of a naked man with a fig leaf and just because they have drawn a circle around him they are claiming he is based on da Vinci’s Vitruvian man? And posting her picture on Orkut means there’s every chance that it will be posted somewhere else saying she is available? And then the balle-balle number in Karan Johar’s movies, and many other numbers in many other movies, will shower words like maahiya, beliya, soniya, kudiya, like one after the other? And it’s confusing how all the words rhyme? And an ad for a uterus operation at a multi-speciality clinic features such a young, well-toned mid-riff that you feel like having the operation right there?

And then the purse gets lost, and you want it to ring like the mobile? And why do the most vocal women leaders in the country, like Mamata Banerjee and Uma Bharti and Mayavati, though not Jayalalitha, kind of look like each other? And Jayalalitha looks like a ship in full sail? And maybe that’s why Aishwarya and Bips are such big role models? Though Bips looks very thin now and Ash is a “Manglik”?

And then suddenly Medha Patkar appears in Singur for the farmers and you think that Arundhati Roy will be there, too, and she is followed by a rumour that Aamir Khan also will sprout in the potato fields? Like, isn’t that asking Angelina Jolie to join in? And then, like a man and a foreigner will steal the show?

And if you have to go the loo in the Chowringhee area, you have no choice but to walk into Grand looking very snooty? And like the underwear ads with the men in red undies still go on? And like, what is he about, iron-hard machismo or rosogolla-soft sensitivity? But maybe he is only for men, totally, for most women find them revolting? And then with the way lingerie is evolving, it’s really difficult to tell it from beachwear and like, it really looks like it can be worn over your dress, but that will not make you Superwoman?

Like I could go on and on like this? But maybe I will stop here?

chandrima@abpmail.com