When my chachan, the patriarch Vincent Chacko, made the journey from Kottayam to Kilianthara in search of farming land, it was a move driven by necessity. It was around the time the Second World War had come to a threadbare finish and famine spread like the common flu. Directly affected by the acute shortage of grains in the Pala and Kottayam areas, my grandfather, along with Ammachi and several other members of his family, set out in search of cultivable, affordable land. Land he could also make his home.
And that’s how he came upon Kilianthara. Nestled cosily in the mountains, the virginal Kilianthara (located at the Karnataka border) was sufficiently affordable and cultivable; as a bonus, there was already a tar road (connecting Kerala to Mysore) that snaked through the village. Rife with wild animals, delirious with flower and foliage, gushing with little brooks and streams, and resounding with raw fertility, my grandfather saw in the intense expanse, potential. In what would be a defining moment for several generations to follow, chachan made up his mind that Kilianthara would be his home.
Several years later, to mark the 41st day after the death of my mother (who so dearly loved my father’s native home), the whole family congregated in the village (we usually come together during the Christmas and Easter seasons) in June. Lovely cousins were everywhere catching up on the latest news, nephews and nieces played around noisily; the aunties parked themselves in the thinnai outside the kitchen, cutting and slicing as conversation flowed freely, the men made themselves useful by doing particularly nothing, enjoying their day off from work. And there I sat by the slope of the driveway nibbling on a jackfruit pod ruminating on the rudiment of my existence. Kilianthara was undoubtedly where the seed of my existence lay. And yet, I knew not even what its name meant.
My good Joychen uncle solved that problem, giving me a quick recap of history. Back in the harrowing period after World War 2, Kilianthara was best known for the cashew and rubber estate that was owned by AV Thomas and Company. And at that time, the local tribals had a brave tribal chief- one Mr Kilian. And so, the floor (thara) where he ruled came to be known as Kilianthara. When my grandfather arrived, he had a task at hand. There were beasts to be domesticated, greenery to be cajoled into submission. And of course a house, for expanding family to live in, to be built. So, he built The House. The house that still stands, resonant with voices and memories from the past. But while it was Chachan who built the house, it was Ammachi who really made it a home. Running the family with lots of love, values and an iron fist (I am still not convinced my white-haired gentle granny was as strict a matriarch as made out to be by my aunts and uncles), she is to this day, though she is no longer a physical presence, remembered fondly throughout the village. The house too, like her, will soon cease to be a physical presence. This grand old dilapidated structure will soon be torn down to make way for sturdier livings quarters. It will be sorely missed. We cousins discuss that a lot these days. It makes us feel older and more mature, discussing the good ol’ days- when we’d alternate between playing hide and seek in the house and playing hide and seek in the woods behind the house. By the time Joychen uncle is done with the story, I’ve inadvertently gobbled up another five jackfruit pods (and I don’t even like jackfruit) and I mentally scold myself.
But then again, in Kilianthara, food is a way of life. Conversation surrounds it and is surrounded by it. My father gains a good two kilos on every visit to his village. Because, eating is primarily what everyone does when we have gathered for an occasion. There is puttu, kappa, kappa biriyani, meat, coconut-laced veggies, spicy mango pickles, crisp papadams, mounds of fat red rice, pulicheri… every bit, every drop polished off by greedy tummies and hearty appetites (yes, it is the mountain air). Most of us don’t eat at the table (some of the elders do), but there’s always someone eating, so you’re never alone. Sometimes, to wash down our ablutions, there is fresh toddy that is rationed out generously to everyone. Even the girls. Actually, for those of us interested, the uncles are most-willing to part with a share of alcohol when there’s a booze session happening (‘just make sure, you never drink anywhere outside’ we’re sternly told). And it is on one of these booze sessions in the evening when the grasshopper has just begun his song that my father tells us that when they (his siblings and him) were kids, chachan would always share any alcohol that he’d got equally with everyone at the table. He was a forward thinker, that man.
Chachan also cultivated in the family a certain joie de vivre that honestly not many other families can lay claim to. We love life. We also love bathing in the river, we love drinking toddy while at it, and splashing around like happy fish. We love water. Sometimes, during the monsoon nights, when all is quiet, one can hear a distant stream, or a little waterfall gushing down merrily down some obscure slope. But my all-time favourite water memory is of when the vanilla plantations (Joychen uncle apart from being a pioneer in organic farming in his region also dabbled in the vanilla venture briefly) still existed. It was a rainy afternoon, and I was aimlessly walking about, when suddenly I stumbled into paradise. Heavy, chilly mist enveloped me, the light aroma of vanilla wafted about langurously, bottle green shrubbery preened with moist grit and the only sound was that of a stray insect. For all practical purposes, this was the mist irrigation technique (wherein, lines of overheard tubes release mist) used to cultivate vanilla. When not in the water, we are in the woods. My generation of cousins, we spent our vacations in the green expanse behind the house, happily uncaring about the resident snakes and the like around. To me, the woods were like the Enchanted Forest. I had my favourite corner, where stood a tree whose trunk curved like a divan, and I could repose and introspect. I liked doing this alone. On one such occasion, I vaguely remember a gigantic white pig grazing away at a distance. I have other random memories too. Like watching a ladybird scuttle around in circles, even as someone in the house was getting a real telling to by Beana aunty. There’s another I tree I loved, this tree I joyously shared with the cousins. The great mulberry tree, which we’d climb bravely just to gather the prickly little fruits. At that point, my most favoured fruit in the world was mulberry. There were other options to choose from too, sapota, cherry, passion fruit, jambanga.
Waking up every morning, surrounded by the mighty Western Ghats, with virility surging forth from every patch, bursting with green goodness and fresh air, the family knows it has to be thankful. So we go to the church (the act of going to church is more of a religion than the actual religion itself, for most) to relay our thanks and best wishes to the Mighty One above. We usually walk to the church together. The ones from the US, the ones from Glasgow, the ones from Delhi, from Bangalore, from Chennai, from other parts of Kerala…we all walk the small distance. The walk, another religion. In my early childhood after church service, we’d unfailingly head to Babychan uncle’s little sweet shop for free treats. But talking of shops, beloved Kilinathara still doesn’t have its own pharmacy. In fact, it only very recently got a departmental store (courtesy my second cousin). For better shopping options, one can always head to Irrity (the nearest town), where you can get anything from tacky umbrellas to quality organic products. The price to pay for decent shopping is a half an hour drive and if the car is not free, a very bumpy bus ride.
Yet, when I look around, I am not too sure I would change a thing. I am being selfish, development is much desired by the locals, but I fear it will kill the splendor of my land. For once I don’t feel badly for my selfishness.
Sunday 5 December 2010
Wednesday 24 November 2010
How I earned a brownie
There’s nothing more blissful than waking up late on a working day. Or so I thought, when I woke up at 9 am today, a working day. But by 9 pm, I had realized in entirety that there was in fact nothing more blissful than a brownie. Period. Err, no, actually scratch the period. You earn a brownie, you don’t just eat it. And today, I earned it. Bliss. Now, period.
I wake up at 8 am today, as usual, but instead of creaking out of bed, scratching my neck, I roll over to a more comfortable position with evil pleasure. It is the time when all my colleagues are busy getting ready for work. And her highness is still in bed, lolling about in a sea of faded pink linen. At 9 am, when I finally crawl out, I decide I need a change. So, I take a pair of scissors and chop off the front of my hair. I now have a fringe. Then, the ablutions happen, I scrub myself with a rough coconut naar till i turn crimson and feel sufficiently clean. I get dressed, say bye to daddy and Lola and hop out. I manage to scratch the side of my car by skillfully grating it against the gate two times and then get caught in a traffic jam for one hour. I hate West Mambalam. May it be banned and sent to jail in some obscure place like Uganda. Ok fine, Somalia. I finally manage to get myself to my assignment destination- a hotel where an aqua aerobics demo is already underway. I watch as well-toned bodies and fat, podgy bodies dance in the pool to loud blah music. I take notes. I leave. I get caught in a traffic jam for half an hour. And my ipod cable refuses to relay music to the speaker. May the cable suffer. I shall throw it away in the kuppathotti at the end of Venkatachalam Street – officially the dirtiest kuppathotti. Rot cable, rot along with stale kalyana saapad, rotten banana peels and E-coli infested, decomposing unrecognizable masses of nonsense. I reach office. People say I look like a poodle with my fringe- then I remember, I now have a fringe. I say ‘whatever’ as coolly as I can and sit down at my desk, when Srini the Kalyana Correspondent tells Purba via chat that there’s a poodle in the house. She comes running, looking for a poodle. I stare at her with puppy eyes, not wanting to disappoint her. She smiles, but she is still disappointed. Noosh apparently doesn’t hold a candle to Poodle. Can I be Noodle (Noosh the Poodle) by the way? Meanwhile, Lak, my bezztezzt offizz friend, watches as I apply Vaseline on my lips and says I look like a bimbette. B for Bimbette. She is B for B****. I watch her cringe maamily when I say the B word and with much satisfaction, get down to writing two articles. And I’m soon off to a food review with Purba. The restaurant is fancy and we do a fair bit of visual eating before getting down to the truffle, morel, porcini, creamed spinach and broccoli. And the panacotta. Slurrrrp. Lakshmi is already frenetically calling me, demanding that I come right away to the office to honour our Winner’s Bakery appointment. I reach at 7 pm. We go to some random community hall to get ‘a jean’ (Hey, you are wearing a nice jean ya), and are pissed off that the pimply boys with blonde ponytails are more interested in staring dumbly than showing us ‘the jean’. So we go to Bestsellers where Lak finally gets a pair. And I buy two topss, because ‘tops’ is singular. For example: ‘Noodle wore a nice tops today’. Then, Lak starts whining because she wants a brownie. We go to Winners Bakery. No brownie. We go to Coffee World and ask for their Famous Brownie. Out of stock Madam. Coffee Day or Anokhi? Noodle says Anokhi and Lak follows because Noodle is older and Noodle has trained Lak to listen to elders. At Anokhi, we sample all the tables in the al fresco area before deciding we’d rather sit in AC comfort. We order a brownie each and look around to see if B-face look-alike is present. Absent. Glee!
And then the brownie comes. It is cold and hard. So I ask Chinese person # 1 to heat it up. Lak copies me. Copy cat, kill the rat. When my heated brownie arrives, I shut out Lak’s inane conversation entirely while soaking in the aroma of heated chocolate. I feel the warm chocolate coursing through my veins. I feel happy, relaxed with every bite. I have endured so much today. Traffic jam, heat, being called a poodle, not being accepted as a poodle, suffering Lak’s inane conversation… I had truly earned the brownie. Sigh.
I wake up at 8 am today, as usual, but instead of creaking out of bed, scratching my neck, I roll over to a more comfortable position with evil pleasure. It is the time when all my colleagues are busy getting ready for work. And her highness is still in bed, lolling about in a sea of faded pink linen. At 9 am, when I finally crawl out, I decide I need a change. So, I take a pair of scissors and chop off the front of my hair. I now have a fringe. Then, the ablutions happen, I scrub myself with a rough coconut naar till i turn crimson and feel sufficiently clean. I get dressed, say bye to daddy and Lola and hop out. I manage to scratch the side of my car by skillfully grating it against the gate two times and then get caught in a traffic jam for one hour. I hate West Mambalam. May it be banned and sent to jail in some obscure place like Uganda. Ok fine, Somalia. I finally manage to get myself to my assignment destination- a hotel where an aqua aerobics demo is already underway. I watch as well-toned bodies and fat, podgy bodies dance in the pool to loud blah music. I take notes. I leave. I get caught in a traffic jam for half an hour. And my ipod cable refuses to relay music to the speaker. May the cable suffer. I shall throw it away in the kuppathotti at the end of Venkatachalam Street – officially the dirtiest kuppathotti. Rot cable, rot along with stale kalyana saapad, rotten banana peels and E-coli infested, decomposing unrecognizable masses of nonsense. I reach office. People say I look like a poodle with my fringe- then I remember, I now have a fringe. I say ‘whatever’ as coolly as I can and sit down at my desk, when Srini the Kalyana Correspondent tells Purba via chat that there’s a poodle in the house. She comes running, looking for a poodle. I stare at her with puppy eyes, not wanting to disappoint her. She smiles, but she is still disappointed. Noosh apparently doesn’t hold a candle to Poodle. Can I be Noodle (Noosh the Poodle) by the way? Meanwhile, Lak, my bezztezzt offizz friend, watches as I apply Vaseline on my lips and says I look like a bimbette. B for Bimbette. She is B for B****. I watch her cringe maamily when I say the B word and with much satisfaction, get down to writing two articles. And I’m soon off to a food review with Purba. The restaurant is fancy and we do a fair bit of visual eating before getting down to the truffle, morel, porcini, creamed spinach and broccoli. And the panacotta. Slurrrrp. Lakshmi is already frenetically calling me, demanding that I come right away to the office to honour our Winner’s Bakery appointment. I reach at 7 pm. We go to some random community hall to get ‘a jean’ (Hey, you are wearing a nice jean ya), and are pissed off that the pimply boys with blonde ponytails are more interested in staring dumbly than showing us ‘the jean’. So we go to Bestsellers where Lak finally gets a pair. And I buy two topss, because ‘tops’ is singular. For example: ‘Noodle wore a nice tops today’. Then, Lak starts whining because she wants a brownie. We go to Winners Bakery. No brownie. We go to Coffee World and ask for their Famous Brownie. Out of stock Madam. Coffee Day or Anokhi? Noodle says Anokhi and Lak follows because Noodle is older and Noodle has trained Lak to listen to elders. At Anokhi, we sample all the tables in the al fresco area before deciding we’d rather sit in AC comfort. We order a brownie each and look around to see if B-face look-alike is present. Absent. Glee!
And then the brownie comes. It is cold and hard. So I ask Chinese person # 1 to heat it up. Lak copies me. Copy cat, kill the rat. When my heated brownie arrives, I shut out Lak’s inane conversation entirely while soaking in the aroma of heated chocolate. I feel the warm chocolate coursing through my veins. I feel happy, relaxed with every bite. I have endured so much today. Traffic jam, heat, being called a poodle, not being accepted as a poodle, suffering Lak’s inane conversation… I had truly earned the brownie. Sigh.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
ghetto in colour
I cruise along the dusty roads, staring at Sun who paints my ghetto a honey gold. Stifling a slow smile that threatens to bubble over into a lazy laugh, I throw back my arms and turn right to look at Stevie Moe. He lazily maneuvers the car with the surprised amusement of a manic pianist who’s just accidentally mastered Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Concerto. I chuckle. Stevie Moe chuckles too. The traffic lights seem to be laughing with us. The yellow, green and the red, they all blink dark room red. We slink forward anyway. Because Moe has mastered the 3rd Concerto. Stealthily we turn right and left, checking to see if anyone noticed. Then Mr Pauncho Cop rides up next to us and looks all gruff and angry. I think he noticed. Then I smile sweetly, Moe smiles sweetly too and Mr Pauncho Cop rides away. We watch as he quickly becomes a speck in the distance and realize we’re moving at turtle’s pace. Moe is kicked. He’s a quack quack duck to be sure but the idea of emulating turtle walk has got him whopping. A yellow lady with a big red button on her forehead peeks out of the auto and bares her red fangs at us. We instinctively show her our superpower rings and shout ‘Go Captain Planet!’ Err Moe, we’re short of three hands, ditch it wotsay? We timidly look up at Fangula. She looks mighty hurt. Oh Moe, she was only smiling at us. Unlike the sun that be throwing an indigo blush on rustic ghetto, making it look like the jackal that fell into a vat of indigo dye and was mistaken for king. Don’t blush too pretty you silly ghetto; in the morning when your true colours are revealed, and they are gaudy and vile, they’ll know you are no king.
Due advice doled out, we zoom ahead at snail speed, towards that frothing mass of salty Medusa. Frothing Medusa throws forth gossamer strands and voluptuous bunches of artfully angry mane onto the golden grains that contain her like a vast vessel. We haven’t reached yet, but we already hear Frothing Medusa hissing and roaring like first-thing-in-the-morning toothpaste gargle. At the vast vessel, we equip ourselves with icy orange sticks that drip rivulets of orange liquid down our arms, making Moe and I look like zebra-clown hybrids. Then we step onto the utterly hot Gold Grains, and he yields temptingly, tempestuously. He wants me, bad bad bad. I look up to sneer at Moe and am upset instead. Gold Grains wants him too. Shrugging, we sink wordlessly and lay back, winking and blinking at Sun, whose indigo blush has now been replaced by spinning chakras of crimson. A stray chakra leads our eyes to one corner where Jimi Hendrix is puffing away, doing yoga in technicolour and playing a psychedelic tune that rocks our world in silent sepsis. Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison are there too, sitting in a hazy maze of Pandu pinks, gaga greens and yabadabadoo yellows. They are performing the ritual of the Dead J brotherhood. Hood. Wood. Weed. Whatever.
We leave them to their devices, dusting Golden Grains off our backsides and limbs and setting off towards Frothy Medusa. She’s wearing tiny turquoise beads of salty spray, her body bathed in a swathe of sheer champagne, cappuccino and cilantro. She’s tough on the outside but she throws locks of white that greet our feet coolly. Soon we’re in knee deep, as filaments of our imagination merge with fibers of her raw power. Little turtles swim about us, turtle doves fly above head and a turkey sandwich cooks in our heads. Pauncho Cop looks like powder puff. Moe admits to Fangula in a stage whisper that we aren’t Captain Planet or Powerpuff. We head back out of Frothy Medusa and search for Gold Grains and find he’s aged a gunky grey. But we like them old men. They are like wine, divine, mmmmm. We lay back and look up to find that the magnanimous Sun has let his supporting cast take centrestage. Many of them are stars. Moe agrees. He especially likes that one he is pointing at, it seems to like him back too. I’m annoyed and throw Grey Grains into Moe’s eyes. He does the same to me. Soon we’re tugging and tousling, against a spurt of floating particles and spew of colours that Frothy Medusa and Sun are making together way at the back, where they are at peace with themselves and the world.
Their lovechild will wake up as a glorious baby-bottom-pink morning and gain legitimacy as the peace that runs through its filigree veins reflects, itsy speck by bitsy speck, by the Moes and Mes of the world.
Due advice doled out, we zoom ahead at snail speed, towards that frothing mass of salty Medusa. Frothing Medusa throws forth gossamer strands and voluptuous bunches of artfully angry mane onto the golden grains that contain her like a vast vessel. We haven’t reached yet, but we already hear Frothing Medusa hissing and roaring like first-thing-in-the-morning toothpaste gargle. At the vast vessel, we equip ourselves with icy orange sticks that drip rivulets of orange liquid down our arms, making Moe and I look like zebra-clown hybrids. Then we step onto the utterly hot Gold Grains, and he yields temptingly, tempestuously. He wants me, bad bad bad. I look up to sneer at Moe and am upset instead. Gold Grains wants him too. Shrugging, we sink wordlessly and lay back, winking and blinking at Sun, whose indigo blush has now been replaced by spinning chakras of crimson. A stray chakra leads our eyes to one corner where Jimi Hendrix is puffing away, doing yoga in technicolour and playing a psychedelic tune that rocks our world in silent sepsis. Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison are there too, sitting in a hazy maze of Pandu pinks, gaga greens and yabadabadoo yellows. They are performing the ritual of the Dead J brotherhood. Hood. Wood. Weed. Whatever.
We leave them to their devices, dusting Golden Grains off our backsides and limbs and setting off towards Frothy Medusa. She’s wearing tiny turquoise beads of salty spray, her body bathed in a swathe of sheer champagne, cappuccino and cilantro. She’s tough on the outside but she throws locks of white that greet our feet coolly. Soon we’re in knee deep, as filaments of our imagination merge with fibers of her raw power. Little turtles swim about us, turtle doves fly above head and a turkey sandwich cooks in our heads. Pauncho Cop looks like powder puff. Moe admits to Fangula in a stage whisper that we aren’t Captain Planet or Powerpuff. We head back out of Frothy Medusa and search for Gold Grains and find he’s aged a gunky grey. But we like them old men. They are like wine, divine, mmmmm. We lay back and look up to find that the magnanimous Sun has let his supporting cast take centrestage. Many of them are stars. Moe agrees. He especially likes that one he is pointing at, it seems to like him back too. I’m annoyed and throw Grey Grains into Moe’s eyes. He does the same to me. Soon we’re tugging and tousling, against a spurt of floating particles and spew of colours that Frothy Medusa and Sun are making together way at the back, where they are at peace with themselves and the world.
Their lovechild will wake up as a glorious baby-bottom-pink morning and gain legitimacy as the peace that runs through its filigree veins reflects, itsy speck by bitsy speck, by the Moes and Mes of the world.
Tuesday 31 August 2010
My room, me
My room, my world. My room, me. My room named Room.
Room is like me. She likes to stay shut. No, don’t get her wrong. Room likes other rooms too. But Room is scared. Scared that if she opens her door, the dust and germs from other rooms will invade her and make her icky and dirty. Oh no, Room is not squeaky clean herself. She has her own ick and dirt, they are her own. But Room doesn’t want to breathe the dust and germs from other rooms. That makes her sneeze. But Room never learns her lesson. Every now and then, on a thoughtless, euphoria-laced experimental spree, she decides to throw her door open to other rooms. Room always regrets it in the end. Because, beneath her hard-as-oak exterior, she is really a naïve Bird-brain. Room can’t tell the good rooms from the bad, rotten ones. There are rooms that seem so spotless and clean and lined with interesting artifacts. Room is enamoured. She starts to think, ‘hey, here’s a roomie I could like!’ But before she knows it, clean, spotless, lined-with-artifacts room has pooed and puked all over Room. Clean room leaves a stinky mess that takes so long to air out, Room starts to forget what it is like to breathe her own smell- the smell that is made of books, Chinese food, silence and Lemon air freshener.
Promptly, Bird-brain Room shuts herself out. ‘Closed’, her door reads. And while she broods and adds another element to her olfactory repertoire- the smell of ‘forever-occupied’- dappled, dirty room, who smells of beer, smoke and all-things-evil-and-dangerous-and-fun, comes knocking. Room pretends she’s not there. But dappled, dirty room knows she’s there, because, well, she’s right there. At one point, Room opens her door, because she can’t take the noise of the knocking. She opens, a tad, just a sliver of a creek. And dappled, dirty room is standing there, saying, ‘are you done brooding, roomie?’ Room sniffs and retorts with self-importance and self-pity, ‘leave me be. Can’t you see the ‘Closed’ sign?’ Dappled, dirty room says ‘no, I don’t see things I don’t want to see. Now be sensible and open your door. Not all rooms are all bad, ya know?’ Room is touched by her unlikely roomie’s concern, and she smiles a small, watery smile through the creek. A few moments later, Room shuts herself again. She won’t get pooed and puked on again. She will never open Door again. Never, ever, ever. Because, Room is Bird-brain.
Room is not Bird-brain always, though. She learns things. For instance, she has learnt that there are some rooms, like the entertainment room. He promises nothing but fun, nothing less. ‘Nothing more, baby’. Room is accustomed to entertainment room now. She also knows that there are intimidating rooms that have stone doors that refuse to budge even when you use a steamroller. But tickle her in the right place, and she will fling open her doors with a delighted ‘whoop’! Then there are rooms like dappled, dirty room, that all Victorian-tight-upper-lipped rooms warn you about. Room now knows that while the Victorian-tight-upper-lipped rooms have the smelliest, germ-infested, poo-plastered underbellies, dappled, dirty room is so airy and carefree inside, once you care to, err, dare to, enter. Then, there is squeaky-clean room. He is Room’s potent shot of all-things-wholesome-and-nice-and-warm. Squeaky-clean room is all hers, she takes him for granted. But, it is the rooms that are like herself that Room has all the trouble with. Room never understands them. Room doesn’t truly understand herself.
But, Room discovers something new about herself every day. There are cobwebs under the dresser that she needs to memorise. They are ick and dirt, but they are her own ick and dirt. There are little crevices between the shoe rack and cabinet, where, if she just strains harder to look, she will find old memories tossed about carelessly. They might make her smile. Then, there is window. Room is protective about Window because she is the window to her soul and she doesn’t want any peeking Tom Cats. But Room knows when she decides to open shop ultimately, she will start with opening Window. From the little opening of Window, she will observe World and learn and learn, till she is wise and witty. And wily too. One fine day, Room will throw open her door. And she will be the finest Room that ever was. Sparkling, wall-hardened, window-strong and smelling of lemongrass, basil and books, she will stand the test of time.
My room, my world. My room, me. My room named Room.
PS- The name Room for my room was inspired by Emma Donoghue's Room, one of the most uplifting books I've read in recent times.
Room is like me. She likes to stay shut. No, don’t get her wrong. Room likes other rooms too. But Room is scared. Scared that if she opens her door, the dust and germs from other rooms will invade her and make her icky and dirty. Oh no, Room is not squeaky clean herself. She has her own ick and dirt, they are her own. But Room doesn’t want to breathe the dust and germs from other rooms. That makes her sneeze. But Room never learns her lesson. Every now and then, on a thoughtless, euphoria-laced experimental spree, she decides to throw her door open to other rooms. Room always regrets it in the end. Because, beneath her hard-as-oak exterior, she is really a naïve Bird-brain. Room can’t tell the good rooms from the bad, rotten ones. There are rooms that seem so spotless and clean and lined with interesting artifacts. Room is enamoured. She starts to think, ‘hey, here’s a roomie I could like!’ But before she knows it, clean, spotless, lined-with-artifacts room has pooed and puked all over Room. Clean room leaves a stinky mess that takes so long to air out, Room starts to forget what it is like to breathe her own smell- the smell that is made of books, Chinese food, silence and Lemon air freshener.
Promptly, Bird-brain Room shuts herself out. ‘Closed’, her door reads. And while she broods and adds another element to her olfactory repertoire- the smell of ‘forever-occupied’- dappled, dirty room, who smells of beer, smoke and all-things-evil-and-dangerous-and-fun, comes knocking. Room pretends she’s not there. But dappled, dirty room knows she’s there, because, well, she’s right there. At one point, Room opens her door, because she can’t take the noise of the knocking. She opens, a tad, just a sliver of a creek. And dappled, dirty room is standing there, saying, ‘are you done brooding, roomie?’ Room sniffs and retorts with self-importance and self-pity, ‘leave me be. Can’t you see the ‘Closed’ sign?’ Dappled, dirty room says ‘no, I don’t see things I don’t want to see. Now be sensible and open your door. Not all rooms are all bad, ya know?’ Room is touched by her unlikely roomie’s concern, and she smiles a small, watery smile through the creek. A few moments later, Room shuts herself again. She won’t get pooed and puked on again. She will never open Door again. Never, ever, ever. Because, Room is Bird-brain.
Room is not Bird-brain always, though. She learns things. For instance, she has learnt that there are some rooms, like the entertainment room. He promises nothing but fun, nothing less. ‘Nothing more, baby’. Room is accustomed to entertainment room now. She also knows that there are intimidating rooms that have stone doors that refuse to budge even when you use a steamroller. But tickle her in the right place, and she will fling open her doors with a delighted ‘whoop’! Then there are rooms like dappled, dirty room, that all Victorian-tight-upper-lipped rooms warn you about. Room now knows that while the Victorian-tight-upper-lipped rooms have the smelliest, germ-infested, poo-plastered underbellies, dappled, dirty room is so airy and carefree inside, once you care to, err, dare to, enter. Then, there is squeaky-clean room. He is Room’s potent shot of all-things-wholesome-and-nice-and-warm. Squeaky-clean room is all hers, she takes him for granted. But, it is the rooms that are like herself that Room has all the trouble with. Room never understands them. Room doesn’t truly understand herself.
But, Room discovers something new about herself every day. There are cobwebs under the dresser that she needs to memorise. They are ick and dirt, but they are her own ick and dirt. There are little crevices between the shoe rack and cabinet, where, if she just strains harder to look, she will find old memories tossed about carelessly. They might make her smile. Then, there is window. Room is protective about Window because she is the window to her soul and she doesn’t want any peeking Tom Cats. But Room knows when she decides to open shop ultimately, she will start with opening Window. From the little opening of Window, she will observe World and learn and learn, till she is wise and witty. And wily too. One fine day, Room will throw open her door. And she will be the finest Room that ever was. Sparkling, wall-hardened, window-strong and smelling of lemongrass, basil and books, she will stand the test of time.
My room, my world. My room, me. My room named Room.
PS- The name Room for my room was inspired by Emma Donoghue's Room, one of the most uplifting books I've read in recent times.
Thursday 1 July 2010
I come a full circle
I don’t know who I am.
I have lived with myself for close to 23 years and yet I know not what I am, who I am, why I am the way I am.
It is a pain in the bum, living with a stranger.
When I am in a dilemma, I don’t know what to do, because I don’t know what I want.
When something hits me in my head, I don’t know how to react because I don’t know what reaction is the right reaction.
When danger stares me in the eye, I stare back. I know I should run, but I can’t help but play with danger. It is enticing. It is dark. It is sensuous. It cajoles me with sinuous fingers that curl around my little heart till it is sedated and sated. Passions abated.
I am at conflict with myself. I like the way my skinny jeans caress my ankles. But I rip it in half because it is so hot outside. I like my new skinny shorts. But I miss my skinny jeans.
I like ice cream. I eat ice creams all the time. It bothers my tonsils sometimes. But I don’t mind the pain. I like pain, depending on my mood. Like the pain I feel when the one thing I cannot truly possess looks me in the eye with anguish that equals only mine. Some pains are nice. You gladly suffer them. You feel enriched by them. But that tonsil might need to be looked at sometime. It might have to go under the knife. May be the one thing I cannot truly possess will go under the knife too. Sometime. In good time.
In good time? What about time is good? It just keeps passing you by doesn’t it? You cannot control it. I find that I dislike the feeling of not being able to control something.
No, I am not a control freak. I let my dog Lolakutty do what she wants, when she wants. I am accommodating.
But I will not accommodate that pesky rat that chews up my shoe laces. It will be punished. Creatures that destroy strings- shoe strings, heart strings, blah strings, bloo strings- will face my wrath. I can be evil.
I can also be Holy Mary. Like when I helped that man who had fits on the road outside my school. He said thanks and said I was like Mother Mary. Hah! Hail Mary. Hail me.
That was the past though.
That immature letter still lies in my treasure chest. It means a little more than the rotting banana peel lying in my rubbish bin now. But it is my past. I like holding on to the past. When my past phones me to say I am not the past yet, I wish I was the past. Perhaps I like the past because I know the result of the past. I know how the past plays out, pans out.
Which isn’t to say I am fixated with the past. I like the future too. I like the future so much that I dream silly dreams about it. May be I like the future because it is as uncertain as the location of my next monthly zit. I hope it isn’t my chin again. I like my chin. My cousin says I have Vyjayantimala’s chin.
Personally, I’d choose my eyes any day. They are magic. They cast a spell on you. They say I have cat eyes, not because of the colour (I have gloriously black irises) but because they hold an unsettling feline guile. They called me Catwoman in college. Promise me nine lives, baby! Pffft…I can never look as hot as Halle Berry in a catsuit. But cat or not, my eyes are something else. They look into your listless eyes and decide if you are the part of the past or the future. In the present, they play mind games with you.
The present is the only tense that bothers me. I rant and rebel against the atrocities meted out to me. I grovel and grumble about the unfairness of it all. I am discontent with the present.
I love presents, though. Especially materialistic ones. I am a material girl.
Oh, except when I preferred the look in that person’s eyes to the look of that shiny, fancy gift wrapping that held promise of some hardcore material bliss.
That stupid girl, who thinks she’s doing womankind a favour by being a feminist, calls me a hardcore male chauvinist. Yes, so I happen to think men are awesome. But does that mean my core is hard? Because let me tell you, when I die, my core will putrefy faster my memory. Not that you’re going to dig my grave and check. Shudder. Someone just walked over my grave. My mentor recently read that when someone walks over your final resting place, a shiver will race up your spine. If it was you, go back and place some nice flowers. Actually, I don’t fancy flowers much. They wither.
I don’t like things that wither. They look ugly, they litter the place and are a reminder that beauty is but a phase. Hah, but have you seen my mother or grandmother? Their beautiful phase lasted an entire life time.
A life time of undying stability vs a life time of adventurous instability. What would I choose? Well, who says it is in my hands?
My hands are small I know, but they’re not yours, they are my own hands- Jewel, singer.
And I like it when those big, warm palms wrap around mine and lead me on.
But let go of my hands at some point. I don’t like to be guided all the time. Like that time I went on a treasure hunt and I was almost there when you came and annoyingly told me where the prize was. I would have found the prize on my own. You ruined it for me, you imbecile. Constant guidance takes away from self-satisfaction.
And as a scar, I despise guidance of all sorts now. My father tells me to skip. I won’t. I might have skipped, had I thought of it on my own. Daddy, it is that imbecile’s fault.
But it is always my fault. I am faulty. I am faulty by default.
I am also intelligent by default.
I am intelligent because I don’t know my own intelligence.
I don’t know my intelligence because I don’t know who I am.
I don’t know who I am.
I have lived with myself for close to 23 years and yet I know not what I am, who I am, why I am the way I am.
I have lived with myself for close to 23 years and yet I know not what I am, who I am, why I am the way I am.
It is a pain in the bum, living with a stranger.
When I am in a dilemma, I don’t know what to do, because I don’t know what I want.
When something hits me in my head, I don’t know how to react because I don’t know what reaction is the right reaction.
When danger stares me in the eye, I stare back. I know I should run, but I can’t help but play with danger. It is enticing. It is dark. It is sensuous. It cajoles me with sinuous fingers that curl around my little heart till it is sedated and sated. Passions abated.
I am at conflict with myself. I like the way my skinny jeans caress my ankles. But I rip it in half because it is so hot outside. I like my new skinny shorts. But I miss my skinny jeans.
I like ice cream. I eat ice creams all the time. It bothers my tonsils sometimes. But I don’t mind the pain. I like pain, depending on my mood. Like the pain I feel when the one thing I cannot truly possess looks me in the eye with anguish that equals only mine. Some pains are nice. You gladly suffer them. You feel enriched by them. But that tonsil might need to be looked at sometime. It might have to go under the knife. May be the one thing I cannot truly possess will go under the knife too. Sometime. In good time.
In good time? What about time is good? It just keeps passing you by doesn’t it? You cannot control it. I find that I dislike the feeling of not being able to control something.
No, I am not a control freak. I let my dog Lolakutty do what she wants, when she wants. I am accommodating.
But I will not accommodate that pesky rat that chews up my shoe laces. It will be punished. Creatures that destroy strings- shoe strings, heart strings, blah strings, bloo strings- will face my wrath. I can be evil.
I can also be Holy Mary. Like when I helped that man who had fits on the road outside my school. He said thanks and said I was like Mother Mary. Hah! Hail Mary. Hail me.
That was the past though.
That immature letter still lies in my treasure chest. It means a little more than the rotting banana peel lying in my rubbish bin now. But it is my past. I like holding on to the past. When my past phones me to say I am not the past yet, I wish I was the past. Perhaps I like the past because I know the result of the past. I know how the past plays out, pans out.
Which isn’t to say I am fixated with the past. I like the future too. I like the future so much that I dream silly dreams about it. May be I like the future because it is as uncertain as the location of my next monthly zit. I hope it isn’t my chin again. I like my chin. My cousin says I have Vyjayantimala’s chin.
Personally, I’d choose my eyes any day. They are magic. They cast a spell on you. They say I have cat eyes, not because of the colour (I have gloriously black irises) but because they hold an unsettling feline guile. They called me Catwoman in college. Promise me nine lives, baby! Pffft…I can never look as hot as Halle Berry in a catsuit. But cat or not, my eyes are something else. They look into your listless eyes and decide if you are the part of the past or the future. In the present, they play mind games with you.
The present is the only tense that bothers me. I rant and rebel against the atrocities meted out to me. I grovel and grumble about the unfairness of it all. I am discontent with the present.
I love presents, though. Especially materialistic ones. I am a material girl.
Oh, except when I preferred the look in that person’s eyes to the look of that shiny, fancy gift wrapping that held promise of some hardcore material bliss.
That stupid girl, who thinks she’s doing womankind a favour by being a feminist, calls me a hardcore male chauvinist. Yes, so I happen to think men are awesome. But does that mean my core is hard? Because let me tell you, when I die, my core will putrefy faster my memory. Not that you’re going to dig my grave and check. Shudder. Someone just walked over my grave. My mentor recently read that when someone walks over your final resting place, a shiver will race up your spine. If it was you, go back and place some nice flowers. Actually, I don’t fancy flowers much. They wither.
I don’t like things that wither. They look ugly, they litter the place and are a reminder that beauty is but a phase. Hah, but have you seen my mother or grandmother? Their beautiful phase lasted an entire life time.
A life time of undying stability vs a life time of adventurous instability. What would I choose? Well, who says it is in my hands?
My hands are small I know, but they’re not yours, they are my own hands- Jewel, singer.
And I like it when those big, warm palms wrap around mine and lead me on.
But let go of my hands at some point. I don’t like to be guided all the time. Like that time I went on a treasure hunt and I was almost there when you came and annoyingly told me where the prize was. I would have found the prize on my own. You ruined it for me, you imbecile. Constant guidance takes away from self-satisfaction.
And as a scar, I despise guidance of all sorts now. My father tells me to skip. I won’t. I might have skipped, had I thought of it on my own. Daddy, it is that imbecile’s fault.
But it is always my fault. I am faulty. I am faulty by default.
I am also intelligent by default.
I am intelligent because I don’t know my own intelligence.
I don’t know my intelligence because I don’t know who I am.
I don’t know who I am.
I have lived with myself for close to 23 years and yet I know not what I am, who I am, why I am the way I am.
Sunday 9 May 2010
Dear Ma
Dear Ma,
Some years back, inspired by Daddy, I started making an album (remember, the big green one with pink flowers on the cover?) of my most-cherished memories, people and places. And so I brought down the vast collection of photographs from the loft and started sorting them. First, I looked for nice pictures with me in them. Obviously, I wanted to make sure I was shown in the best possible light and after several rounds of deep thought and elimination I zeroed in on a couple of photos in which I was convinced I looked nice.
That done, I started scouring around for nice pictures of you.
You looked beautiful in every single photograph. You were beautiful when the early morning sun sifted in through the striated window of the ‘perumal room’ of your birth home and lit up your face. You were beautiful when you looked coyly at daddy, in your spotted yellow salwar kameez, in our house in Chidambaramswamy Koil Street. You were beautiful when you held me bundled up in your arms, eyes dancing with delight. You were beautiful when you gazed into a distance oblivious to everything but the moment you were experiencing in your mind. You were beautiful when you stared resolutely into the camera; eyebrows arched to perfection, your diamond nose stud no match for your inner radiance. You were beautiful when you looked into Velvet, our first dog’s eyes sharing a silent secret. You were beautiful when you were surrounded by people; you were the life of the party. You were beautiful in solitude; you were a flare of fresh fire. You were a free spirit.
You were a free spirit. You wouldn’t be tied down. You didn’t want to leave, but you did. You were meant to be a free spirit; being tied down just wasn’t your style. You left me crying, you left me lost, you left me dazed, you left me shocked.
But you left me with love.
I have always been forthcoming with you about how much you were my world. I told you every day that I loved you. I hugged you every morning. I showered you with kisses just so you would break into your big smile. I linked my hands in yours whenever we went out. However, the last few weeks that you were alive, I was so anxious for you to get better that I forgot to kiss you. To hug you. To hold your hands. To tell you that I love you. The day you went away, that morning, before I left your bedside, something made me stop at the door. I turned back and told you, ‘Ma I love you’. You said, ‘I too love you so much baby girl.’ That would be the last thing you ever told me.
You left me with your love ma. And despite all the sadness I feel and all the tears that flow unchecked behind closed doors every single day, I feel lucky. The most beautiful woman in my world left the world knowing her daughter loved her to bits. I feel lucky that I made you happy. Making you happy is, was, will be, EVERYTHING to me. I feel lucky.
Today is Mother’s Day. I had to go to the cemetery to see you and wish you. I didn’t feel so lucky then. I wished I could’ve seen your face and wished you and kissed you and hugged you and held your hands. I don’t feel so lucky.
I went to the church with daddy today, despite having no faith at all in the institution, you know. But we went anyway because you would’ve loved to see us there. There, the priest said, ‘A family without a mother ceases to be a family.’ I caught poor daddy, now my full family, standing in the corner. I wanted to smock the priest in his face. I wanted to look sideways at you and roll my eyes. I left the church immediately. I won’t go there anymore ma. Ok, I’ll do it till the 41st day of your death. But I won’t go there anymore ma. My heart isn’t there. But I believe in you. I believe you’re up there. That’s more than enough. That’s more than all the divine intervention I can possibly need. You are divine.
Oh and also, when the choir sang the eternally-beautiful Mother of Mine, did you hear me sing in my heart? The choir sang it with a jarring piano sound. But in my heart, there was only an acoustic guitar and my pitch-imperfect voice. And you. I hope you liked it ma.
You loved the black acoustic guitar I bought you three years back. Yet, you never started learning how to play it. You always said, ‘Wait, wait. I’ll do it.’ Now I’m looking at the unused guitar sitting in my room. The cover is off. I’m going to learn how to play it ma. Then next year, my rendition of Mother of Mine will be so much better.
Oh and while we’re discussing new beginnings, I hope you absolutely adore my new haircut! Yes, as you said, the day before you left, I do look very young, but you know what, people say I look more like you than I ever did. You know how happy that makes me? You were beautiful.
You were more than beautiful. You were a beauty with brains with loads of energy. When you were physically alive, you did almost everything for me- right from making sure my mobile bill was paid to ensuring I had all my basic needs met. I’m not letting you off so easy now ma. There are a couple of things I want you to do. More of that in detail later. But to start with, please teach me to be less ‘selfish’ and more ‘selfless’. You know I basically have my heart in the right place; just in a slightly lethargic place. You made people smile. I want to do that too.
While I am rambling on, I know you are constantly worrying about me. Well don’t. Daddy is down but doing you proud. We still do have our arguments, but I guess that’s just his ‘daddy side’. He can’t be wholly ‘mummy’, can he? Mohana and Pattu perima call me a zillion times every day and I call them too. Yes they are fine. Sangeetha and Vidhya call me every day; send them a little magic health potion if you can! Krishna anna and Baby perima too are in touch. Venita aunty has been handling the food and health department very efficiently and making sure I eat, with calls and reminders. She tears over even now for you. Pee kutty is a sweetheart as usual, being there for me 24/7, along with all my other friends. So you see, I’m pretty much well-taken care of.
But I don’t know if you’ve felt this way; when the whole world is at your beck and call and you still feel lonely and absolutely desolate at times? That’s how I feel ma. Especially on Mother’s Day, when all my friends had a mother to wish. And I didn’t.
I love you to pieces,
Anusha
Some years back, inspired by Daddy, I started making an album (remember, the big green one with pink flowers on the cover?) of my most-cherished memories, people and places. And so I brought down the vast collection of photographs from the loft and started sorting them. First, I looked for nice pictures with me in them. Obviously, I wanted to make sure I was shown in the best possible light and after several rounds of deep thought and elimination I zeroed in on a couple of photos in which I was convinced I looked nice.
That done, I started scouring around for nice pictures of you.
You looked beautiful in every single photograph. You were beautiful when the early morning sun sifted in through the striated window of the ‘perumal room’ of your birth home and lit up your face. You were beautiful when you looked coyly at daddy, in your spotted yellow salwar kameez, in our house in Chidambaramswamy Koil Street. You were beautiful when you held me bundled up in your arms, eyes dancing with delight. You were beautiful when you gazed into a distance oblivious to everything but the moment you were experiencing in your mind. You were beautiful when you stared resolutely into the camera; eyebrows arched to perfection, your diamond nose stud no match for your inner radiance. You were beautiful when you looked into Velvet, our first dog’s eyes sharing a silent secret. You were beautiful when you were surrounded by people; you were the life of the party. You were beautiful in solitude; you were a flare of fresh fire. You were a free spirit.
You were a free spirit. You wouldn’t be tied down. You didn’t want to leave, but you did. You were meant to be a free spirit; being tied down just wasn’t your style. You left me crying, you left me lost, you left me dazed, you left me shocked.
But you left me with love.
I have always been forthcoming with you about how much you were my world. I told you every day that I loved you. I hugged you every morning. I showered you with kisses just so you would break into your big smile. I linked my hands in yours whenever we went out. However, the last few weeks that you were alive, I was so anxious for you to get better that I forgot to kiss you. To hug you. To hold your hands. To tell you that I love you. The day you went away, that morning, before I left your bedside, something made me stop at the door. I turned back and told you, ‘Ma I love you’. You said, ‘I too love you so much baby girl.’ That would be the last thing you ever told me.
You left me with your love ma. And despite all the sadness I feel and all the tears that flow unchecked behind closed doors every single day, I feel lucky. The most beautiful woman in my world left the world knowing her daughter loved her to bits. I feel lucky that I made you happy. Making you happy is, was, will be, EVERYTHING to me. I feel lucky.
Today is Mother’s Day. I had to go to the cemetery to see you and wish you. I didn’t feel so lucky then. I wished I could’ve seen your face and wished you and kissed you and hugged you and held your hands. I don’t feel so lucky.
I went to the church with daddy today, despite having no faith at all in the institution, you know. But we went anyway because you would’ve loved to see us there. There, the priest said, ‘A family without a mother ceases to be a family.’ I caught poor daddy, now my full family, standing in the corner. I wanted to smock the priest in his face. I wanted to look sideways at you and roll my eyes. I left the church immediately. I won’t go there anymore ma. Ok, I’ll do it till the 41st day of your death. But I won’t go there anymore ma. My heart isn’t there. But I believe in you. I believe you’re up there. That’s more than enough. That’s more than all the divine intervention I can possibly need. You are divine.
Oh and also, when the choir sang the eternally-beautiful Mother of Mine, did you hear me sing in my heart? The choir sang it with a jarring piano sound. But in my heart, there was only an acoustic guitar and my pitch-imperfect voice. And you. I hope you liked it ma.
You loved the black acoustic guitar I bought you three years back. Yet, you never started learning how to play it. You always said, ‘Wait, wait. I’ll do it.’ Now I’m looking at the unused guitar sitting in my room. The cover is off. I’m going to learn how to play it ma. Then next year, my rendition of Mother of Mine will be so much better.
Oh and while we’re discussing new beginnings, I hope you absolutely adore my new haircut! Yes, as you said, the day before you left, I do look very young, but you know what, people say I look more like you than I ever did. You know how happy that makes me? You were beautiful.
You were more than beautiful. You were a beauty with brains with loads of energy. When you were physically alive, you did almost everything for me- right from making sure my mobile bill was paid to ensuring I had all my basic needs met. I’m not letting you off so easy now ma. There are a couple of things I want you to do. More of that in detail later. But to start with, please teach me to be less ‘selfish’ and more ‘selfless’. You know I basically have my heart in the right place; just in a slightly lethargic place. You made people smile. I want to do that too.
While I am rambling on, I know you are constantly worrying about me. Well don’t. Daddy is down but doing you proud. We still do have our arguments, but I guess that’s just his ‘daddy side’. He can’t be wholly ‘mummy’, can he? Mohana and Pattu perima call me a zillion times every day and I call them too. Yes they are fine. Sangeetha and Vidhya call me every day; send them a little magic health potion if you can! Krishna anna and Baby perima too are in touch. Venita aunty has been handling the food and health department very efficiently and making sure I eat, with calls and reminders. She tears over even now for you. Pee kutty is a sweetheart as usual, being there for me 24/7, along with all my other friends. So you see, I’m pretty much well-taken care of.
But I don’t know if you’ve felt this way; when the whole world is at your beck and call and you still feel lonely and absolutely desolate at times? That’s how I feel ma. Especially on Mother’s Day, when all my friends had a mother to wish. And I didn’t.
I love you to pieces,
Anusha
Wednesday 14 April 2010
you lose some, you gain marina
They say, you lose some you gain some!
I recently lost my sanity and guess what I got in return? Maria Thomas! Which basically means, I lost my sanity and got in return some more insanity!
When we were young(er)…Maria Thomas was…
The girl with a boy cut who had a cycle rickshaw accident in junior school. The girl who ate her lunch, my lunch and everyone else’s lunch. The girl who drove that green Ladybird cycle. The girl who I dropped near Kodambakkam bridge after school. The girl who came for a random lunch party to my house and gave me a birthday gift for no reason. The girl who wore the longest frock I’ve seen and called it a mini dress. The girl who waved and said hi to random porikis in Kishkintha. The girl who studied 5 answers per exam and still got top marks. The girl who served the volleyball onto her teammates head as opposed to over the net and asked, “Annie, valikaradha?’. The girl who searched for the ball which had by now rolled off somewhere after bouncing off Annie’s head and said, “Ball engae ponadhu?” The girl who lied to her parents and came for the movie Boys and cried when one of the dumb boys died. The girl who maintained the legendary ‘thak chik chik chik’ notebook of Tamil film song lyrics. The girl who laughed 5 minutes after the joke was told, even then not understanding it entirely. That girl was my friend.
And then we all grew up.
Then Maria Thomas became…
The girl who went to Bangalore. The girl who built a happy life for herself in Bangalore. The girl who was no more under parental supervision. The girl who tasted freedom like never before and enjoyed every minute. The girl who called once in a blue moon and said Anu, Hi! The girl whose house we gate crashed and had one of the wildest times of our lives. The girl with whom I walked to the nearby grocery shop when highly happy. The girl who I watched cutting her legs with a razor …in her happiness. The girl who stunned us all with her awesomeness in a miniskirt (a real one). The girl with whom I could share my happiness. She was my good friend.
And then, in October 2009, Maria Thomas landed in the same boat as me. Same boat with different names…go figure!
Then Maria Thomas became…
The girl who said, ‘You know what Anu….’ The girl who said, ‘It’s ok. We’re growing up late I guess’. The girl who gave me stern expert advice. The girl who would call me up the next day and say, ‘You know what Anu.’ The girl who would call me very very happy and utter unintelligible nonsense. The girl on whose 23rd birthday I had one of the best times of my life and the worst headaches too. The girl who I called almost everyday to confess to my day’s bad deeds. The girl who would make me feel better by saying, ‘You know what Anu.’ The girl who broke hearts like tea glasses and attempted to teach me to do the same…in vain. The girl who kept my chin up despite everything going on. The girl who let me drive her car when I was at my happiest. The girl who cheered me on from the sidelines as I raced to the finish line. The girl who was disappointed when I started running backwards every time I was almost there. The girl who would call me up the very next day and say, ‘You know what Anu’. The girl who then started getting exasperated and said, ‘Anusha Vincent, what did I tell you?!’ every time I clambered back into the boat stealthily. The girl who sheepishly called me the next day and said, ‘You know what Anu’. The girl who was brave enough to go off to another country all alone. The girl who I’d speak to at 11, 12, 1….discussing the same topic. The girl with whom I analysed a problem from every possible angle and came to no proper conclusion. The girl with whom I could discuss things I have never talked about with anyone else. The girl who has been my moral support through the boat issues. The girl who I have come to respect immensely. The girl who I have come to adore. The girl who I know will never judge me, ever. She became my soulmate.
Till the boat came along, our lives were pretty much stable. But when it came and we got in unknowingly, our lives became all about the sea sickness, the euphoria of the vast ocean and the constant turbulence. In the midst of it all, I lost my sanity, but then I got some badly needed insanity in return.
You lose some you gain some. And never mind the choppy waters that trouble my boat, I’m glad for it all, if nothing, only because Maria Thomas the crack/ nut/ loose/ bulb is now my soulmate!
Cheers, sister!
I recently lost my sanity and guess what I got in return? Maria Thomas! Which basically means, I lost my sanity and got in return some more insanity!
When we were young(er)…Maria Thomas was…
The girl with a boy cut who had a cycle rickshaw accident in junior school. The girl who ate her lunch, my lunch and everyone else’s lunch. The girl who drove that green Ladybird cycle. The girl who I dropped near Kodambakkam bridge after school. The girl who came for a random lunch party to my house and gave me a birthday gift for no reason. The girl who wore the longest frock I’ve seen and called it a mini dress. The girl who waved and said hi to random porikis in Kishkintha. The girl who studied 5 answers per exam and still got top marks. The girl who served the volleyball onto her teammates head as opposed to over the net and asked, “Annie, valikaradha?’. The girl who searched for the ball which had by now rolled off somewhere after bouncing off Annie’s head and said, “Ball engae ponadhu?” The girl who lied to her parents and came for the movie Boys and cried when one of the dumb boys died. The girl who maintained the legendary ‘thak chik chik chik’ notebook of Tamil film song lyrics. The girl who laughed 5 minutes after the joke was told, even then not understanding it entirely. That girl was my friend.
And then we all grew up.
Then Maria Thomas became…
The girl who went to Bangalore. The girl who built a happy life for herself in Bangalore. The girl who was no more under parental supervision. The girl who tasted freedom like never before and enjoyed every minute. The girl who called once in a blue moon and said Anu, Hi! The girl whose house we gate crashed and had one of the wildest times of our lives. The girl with whom I walked to the nearby grocery shop when highly happy. The girl who I watched cutting her legs with a razor …in her happiness. The girl who stunned us all with her awesomeness in a miniskirt (a real one). The girl with whom I could share my happiness. She was my good friend.
And then, in October 2009, Maria Thomas landed in the same boat as me. Same boat with different names…go figure!
Then Maria Thomas became…
The girl who said, ‘You know what Anu….’ The girl who said, ‘It’s ok. We’re growing up late I guess’. The girl who gave me stern expert advice. The girl who would call me up the next day and say, ‘You know what Anu.’ The girl who would call me very very happy and utter unintelligible nonsense. The girl on whose 23rd birthday I had one of the best times of my life and the worst headaches too. The girl who I called almost everyday to confess to my day’s bad deeds. The girl who would make me feel better by saying, ‘You know what Anu.’ The girl who broke hearts like tea glasses and attempted to teach me to do the same…in vain. The girl who kept my chin up despite everything going on. The girl who let me drive her car when I was at my happiest. The girl who cheered me on from the sidelines as I raced to the finish line. The girl who was disappointed when I started running backwards every time I was almost there. The girl who would call me up the very next day and say, ‘You know what Anu’. The girl who then started getting exasperated and said, ‘Anusha Vincent, what did I tell you?!’ every time I clambered back into the boat stealthily. The girl who sheepishly called me the next day and said, ‘You know what Anu’. The girl who was brave enough to go off to another country all alone. The girl who I’d speak to at 11, 12, 1….discussing the same topic. The girl with whom I analysed a problem from every possible angle and came to no proper conclusion. The girl with whom I could discuss things I have never talked about with anyone else. The girl who has been my moral support through the boat issues. The girl who I have come to respect immensely. The girl who I have come to adore. The girl who I know will never judge me, ever. She became my soulmate.
Till the boat came along, our lives were pretty much stable. But when it came and we got in unknowingly, our lives became all about the sea sickness, the euphoria of the vast ocean and the constant turbulence. In the midst of it all, I lost my sanity, but then I got some badly needed insanity in return.
You lose some you gain some. And never mind the choppy waters that trouble my boat, I’m glad for it all, if nothing, only because Maria Thomas the crack/ nut/ loose/ bulb is now my soulmate!
Cheers, sister!
Monday 29 March 2010
That fated gift of karma- a best friend
Friendship is never a constant. You discover something new every day. It’s really like life on a ship. One day you’re out in the sun, enjoying all its golden benefits, another day you stumble into a hidden crevice and get yourself all dirty, only to find a gold ring clinging to your shirt sleeve as you clamber out, the next day you want to throw up because you feel nauseated.
What I recently discovered helped me understand why even the biggest of criminals has a best friend. Why even Hitler had a best friend.
My best friend Nisha wrote in my slam book in 12th grade that, of all the people she knew and loved, she was proudest of me because, I was one of the few who thought with their head and not heart.
However, some nights back, on the phone, torn between deep exasperation, annoyance and helplessness, she asked me why I had become exactly the kind of girl we both hated and purposefully turned our noses up on. In all the fourteen odd years we have known each other, Nisha has hardly ever questioned my actions. She always believed that I knew what I was doing, even when I myself was in doubt. Even when I was in the US fighting with half the world to come back, Nisha sent me several mails asking me what the problem was, never once suggesting I go against my will.
And yet, some nights back, the girl vehemented strongly against my actions. She called me brainless, she called me cheap, she called me shameless, she called me dumb. She called me everything she hated most in a person.
My best friend is extremely snobbish when it comes to girls who are brainless, cheap, shameless and dumb. She hates them with a vengeance. In fact, she will staunchly refuse to partake of a conversation involving characters with the aforementioned traits. And yet Nisha continues to love me.
Nisha and I had great plans for the future. When in school we both wanted to be pilots. When that idea was shot down, we decided we would study in the same college. That didn’t happen. We decided we would do our Masters in the same university. Didn’t happen either. The day she left for Singapore, I cried like a baby, in front of several of my friends. And then I came back, and then she came back. A dubious commonality to have, other might have thought. But we knew we were tougher than all other girls put together, for taking that step. We prided ourselves on never compromising on our dignity. We took perverse pleasure in our bloated egos.
I respect Nisha immensely. So much that in the past I often hid things from her, so she wouldn’t judge me. But as I discovered a few nights back, this girl wasn’t going to give up on me. Ever. I could be the personification of everything she hated and she would still love me. After all, I was that fated gift of karma- a best friend.
In her desperation to get me out of a tricky situation, the girl who sleeps at 9 pm, stayed up till almost 12 to drive the drivel out of my head. Nisha is an impatient girl and I listened almost amused as she incredulously repeated the same things over and over, not quite believing I could be so daft.
Sometimes I am sad, because Nisha is no longer all mine. She belongs to the world now, with several other boys and girls clamouring for her company. But yet, deep within I know when it comes to something that really matters, really really matters, she will call me. She will call me first. She will call only me.
I am ashamed because sometimes I do things knowing it will hurt her. Because I hate it that she’s no longer all mine. I publicly declared I had no best friend. She retaliated in her own way, in a similar way. Another dubious commonality.
But deep, deep within, I know that she knows. That one day, when she too has pathetic things to say about herself, she will turn to me. She knows I will call her cheap, dumb, brainless, shameless. But she knows I will still love her. She could be a drug-pedaling mafia, with a history of murder and manslaughter for all I care and I’d still love her.
After all, she is that fated gift of karma. A best friend.
What I recently discovered helped me understand why even the biggest of criminals has a best friend. Why even Hitler had a best friend.
My best friend Nisha wrote in my slam book in 12th grade that, of all the people she knew and loved, she was proudest of me because, I was one of the few who thought with their head and not heart.
However, some nights back, on the phone, torn between deep exasperation, annoyance and helplessness, she asked me why I had become exactly the kind of girl we both hated and purposefully turned our noses up on. In all the fourteen odd years we have known each other, Nisha has hardly ever questioned my actions. She always believed that I knew what I was doing, even when I myself was in doubt. Even when I was in the US fighting with half the world to come back, Nisha sent me several mails asking me what the problem was, never once suggesting I go against my will.
And yet, some nights back, the girl vehemented strongly against my actions. She called me brainless, she called me cheap, she called me shameless, she called me dumb. She called me everything she hated most in a person.
My best friend is extremely snobbish when it comes to girls who are brainless, cheap, shameless and dumb. She hates them with a vengeance. In fact, she will staunchly refuse to partake of a conversation involving characters with the aforementioned traits. And yet Nisha continues to love me.
Nisha and I had great plans for the future. When in school we both wanted to be pilots. When that idea was shot down, we decided we would study in the same college. That didn’t happen. We decided we would do our Masters in the same university. Didn’t happen either. The day she left for Singapore, I cried like a baby, in front of several of my friends. And then I came back, and then she came back. A dubious commonality to have, other might have thought. But we knew we were tougher than all other girls put together, for taking that step. We prided ourselves on never compromising on our dignity. We took perverse pleasure in our bloated egos.
I respect Nisha immensely. So much that in the past I often hid things from her, so she wouldn’t judge me. But as I discovered a few nights back, this girl wasn’t going to give up on me. Ever. I could be the personification of everything she hated and she would still love me. After all, I was that fated gift of karma- a best friend.
In her desperation to get me out of a tricky situation, the girl who sleeps at 9 pm, stayed up till almost 12 to drive the drivel out of my head. Nisha is an impatient girl and I listened almost amused as she incredulously repeated the same things over and over, not quite believing I could be so daft.
Sometimes I am sad, because Nisha is no longer all mine. She belongs to the world now, with several other boys and girls clamouring for her company. But yet, deep within I know when it comes to something that really matters, really really matters, she will call me. She will call me first. She will call only me.
I am ashamed because sometimes I do things knowing it will hurt her. Because I hate it that she’s no longer all mine. I publicly declared I had no best friend. She retaliated in her own way, in a similar way. Another dubious commonality.
But deep, deep within, I know that she knows. That one day, when she too has pathetic things to say about herself, she will turn to me. She knows I will call her cheap, dumb, brainless, shameless. But she knows I will still love her. She could be a drug-pedaling mafia, with a history of murder and manslaughter for all I care and I’d still love her.
After all, she is that fated gift of karma. A best friend.
Tuesday 23 March 2010
a walk to remember
I am a self-flagellist and I have a great many grouses about myself. And the one grouse that unfailingly breaks my heart at 9 o clock every morning is my walk.
That shop is my cause of grief; the new one with the shiny glass. The glass; that terrible sheet of truth. Every morning, I park my car in a side lane and walk towards my office. Halfway through, the glass teases me; it uses the sun’s glint to get me to turn even when I staunchly tell myself not to. And so I turn.
There I see her. Anusha Vincent, the sloth-bear/duck hybrid. She walks as though an invisible Panda bear resides on her back. Like she has webs for feet. Like she’s fresh out of zombie training camp. Anusha Vincent’s walk is worthy of a mighty mock, giant gawk and a big balk. I turn away upset.
I don’t claim to have too many life goals, but of those I have, giving competition to the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s plod isn’t one. I blame it all on those who I grew up around in my formative years. I blame my parents, my aunts, my teachers, my older cousins. They taught me ameobal locomotion, but they did not teach me to walk. They made me read about the majestically cantering Black Beauty but they didn’t teach me how to walk. They helped me solve ‘a man walks from point A to point B’ problems in Math but they didn’t teach me to walk. Alright, so they did help me take my first steps, but when they took all those pains to mould my character, why couldn’t they have taken some time to give my walk some character?
I love reading books. Books are replete with women, each one of them better than the other, in one way or the other. I read about hot-blooded Latinas swaying and sashaying down the golden pavement, prim and proper ladies gliding past effortlessly, cool girls sauntering in and out of coffee shops, uptight ballerinas pirouetting around, rocker babes swaggering about.
Then at 9 am the next morning, I see Anusha Vincent walk.
The thing is, I have come to attach much to the walk. I think it defines the person in a way that nothing else can. A giant with a puny gait is no giant. A dwarf with head held high is no dwarf.
Just the other day, at the railway station, a puny girl strolled past me with a walk that added a magnificent padding to her scrawny person. On the other platform, a bear of a boy scurried about like a church mouse. The girl was probably top of her class; the boy right at the bottom… my mind had given its verdict. Two people defined by their walks and not their physical facades. I couldn’t be the only one judging people by their walks… it also couldn’t be that I myself wasn’t being judged for my walk, for every uncertain step.
A walk maketh a person? Vetoed. But, a walk sure defineth a person.
First things first. Identify the problem.
I decided to ask around and reach a consensus on what people made of my walk. My aunts said point blank that I walked like a hip-swaying monkey. My friends said that I walked as though I was devoid of life. My mom said I walked like a school kid with a bag on her shoulders. An old classmate said that I looked like I was perennially scared of tripping. Worst of all, one of my best friends had to think for a good 5 billion minutes before telling me, ‘Uh, I’ve never really noticed your walk.’
Quite daunting. Time to introspect.
Hip- swaying monkey- do I have simian tendencies? Have I ever showed a proclivity towards Shakira videos? Nix and nil.
Devoid of life- last checked, still breathing. Lack of interest in day-to-day activities? Possible. Take note.
School kid with bag on shoulders- just checked my certificates. In the clear.
Perennially scared of tripping- am I insecure? Nervous? Not confident? Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. Point taken.
Uh, I’ve never really noticed your walk- extremely worrying. Lack of character? Hope not. Lack of charisma? Maybe.
Inference: A walk is not just a physical phenomenon. It is an emotional bearing. It is a state of mind. So does that mean my state of mind is that of a hip-swaying monkey? Or a zombie? Or of NO ONE?
Problems identified, I start working on them. My walk gets better, I feel better about it. There’s this other thing I’ve realized about working on your walk. I mean, apart from addressing the internal issues that might be weighing down on it, you need to consciously include some style too. Just to give it that extra edge.
Shoulders square, chest a little bit out there, a gentle sway of the hips, medium strides, hands dangling happily by the sides, feet comfortably pointed. But most importantly, with head held high.
I am a woman of the world. Anusha Vincent walks her talk with her head held high, mind without fear.
And into that heaven of freedom my father, let my consciousness awake.
That shop is my cause of grief; the new one with the shiny glass. The glass; that terrible sheet of truth. Every morning, I park my car in a side lane and walk towards my office. Halfway through, the glass teases me; it uses the sun’s glint to get me to turn even when I staunchly tell myself not to. And so I turn.
There I see her. Anusha Vincent, the sloth-bear/duck hybrid. She walks as though an invisible Panda bear resides on her back. Like she has webs for feet. Like she’s fresh out of zombie training camp. Anusha Vincent’s walk is worthy of a mighty mock, giant gawk and a big balk. I turn away upset.
I don’t claim to have too many life goals, but of those I have, giving competition to the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s plod isn’t one. I blame it all on those who I grew up around in my formative years. I blame my parents, my aunts, my teachers, my older cousins. They taught me ameobal locomotion, but they did not teach me to walk. They made me read about the majestically cantering Black Beauty but they didn’t teach me how to walk. They helped me solve ‘a man walks from point A to point B’ problems in Math but they didn’t teach me to walk. Alright, so they did help me take my first steps, but when they took all those pains to mould my character, why couldn’t they have taken some time to give my walk some character?
I love reading books. Books are replete with women, each one of them better than the other, in one way or the other. I read about hot-blooded Latinas swaying and sashaying down the golden pavement, prim and proper ladies gliding past effortlessly, cool girls sauntering in and out of coffee shops, uptight ballerinas pirouetting around, rocker babes swaggering about.
Then at 9 am the next morning, I see Anusha Vincent walk.
The thing is, I have come to attach much to the walk. I think it defines the person in a way that nothing else can. A giant with a puny gait is no giant. A dwarf with head held high is no dwarf.
Just the other day, at the railway station, a puny girl strolled past me with a walk that added a magnificent padding to her scrawny person. On the other platform, a bear of a boy scurried about like a church mouse. The girl was probably top of her class; the boy right at the bottom… my mind had given its verdict. Two people defined by their walks and not their physical facades. I couldn’t be the only one judging people by their walks… it also couldn’t be that I myself wasn’t being judged for my walk, for every uncertain step.
A walk maketh a person? Vetoed. But, a walk sure defineth a person.
First things first. Identify the problem.
I decided to ask around and reach a consensus on what people made of my walk. My aunts said point blank that I walked like a hip-swaying monkey. My friends said that I walked as though I was devoid of life. My mom said I walked like a school kid with a bag on her shoulders. An old classmate said that I looked like I was perennially scared of tripping. Worst of all, one of my best friends had to think for a good 5 billion minutes before telling me, ‘Uh, I’ve never really noticed your walk.’
Quite daunting. Time to introspect.
Hip- swaying monkey- do I have simian tendencies? Have I ever showed a proclivity towards Shakira videos? Nix and nil.
Devoid of life- last checked, still breathing. Lack of interest in day-to-day activities? Possible. Take note.
School kid with bag on shoulders- just checked my certificates. In the clear.
Perennially scared of tripping- am I insecure? Nervous? Not confident? Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. Point taken.
Uh, I’ve never really noticed your walk- extremely worrying. Lack of character? Hope not. Lack of charisma? Maybe.
Inference: A walk is not just a physical phenomenon. It is an emotional bearing. It is a state of mind. So does that mean my state of mind is that of a hip-swaying monkey? Or a zombie? Or of NO ONE?
Problems identified, I start working on them. My walk gets better, I feel better about it. There’s this other thing I’ve realized about working on your walk. I mean, apart from addressing the internal issues that might be weighing down on it, you need to consciously include some style too. Just to give it that extra edge.
Shoulders square, chest a little bit out there, a gentle sway of the hips, medium strides, hands dangling happily by the sides, feet comfortably pointed. But most importantly, with head held high.
I am a woman of the world. Anusha Vincent walks her talk with her head held high, mind without fear.
And into that heaven of freedom my father, let my consciousness awake.
Monday 15 March 2010
mutation
Is it possible that one strong experience can change you for good and mutate your personality out of recognition? Can one strong stimulus or a couple of them administered steadily over a period alter you as a person?
For sure. And I suspect theories like ‘learn from past experience’ are offshoots of this concentrated theory.
My true calling might have come from elsewhere, but when in college I was passionate about Biotechnology. A subject that dealt with life and how it could be engineered.
Day after day we’d shuffle into our lab for a new set of experiments. On the first day of microbiology lab, our professor told us that the first step was the most important and that our test results would be based on the efficiency of its execution.
Sterilization was the first step. We flamed the apparatus, pressured the glassware and topped it all off with a generous flourish of methanol. We thought we were microbe-free. The thing about Biotech is you know you’ve messed up only when you get the final result. And the result of my first experiment was clouded by contamination. (Those dratted colonies of fungi I shall never forgive.) Anyway, there came a point when my sterilization skills finally became decent. But I still observed minor contamination. Annoyed, I demanded an explanation from my professor. He finally admitted it could be mutation. That the unwanted microbes might have got acclimatized to high temperatures, pressures and dehydrants. That one of their little DNA fragments might have mutated to make them resistant to my extreme subjections. So I watched dismayed as batch after batch of carefully cultured baby E Coli got killed by those damned mutated monsters.
Fast-forward some years. Early this morning, an annoyed friend of mine sent me a particularly caustic mail saying that she had had it with all my depressed/ depressing status messages and that I’d darned well start cleaning up my act. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an act I could clean up. It wasn’t even an act. I really had become that person. The person who was perennially whiny/ moody/ angry/ disillusioned/ directionless. Exactly the kind of person I would’ve turned my nose up on some months back.
It all started several months back when something I believed in was shattered. The next month, yet another huge blow presented itself. And yet another. And again. Four strong stimulus and consequent months of avoiding it resolutely, instead of dealing with it, changed me. Every day was a bad day, even the good ones. I forgot how to be happy, I was out of practice and seemed to have unlearned the art of happiness. I wanted nothing more than to sit at home away from all life.
People from all corners reached out to me, wanting to help. I was impermeable. I had become resistant to external stimuli. Positivity bounced off me like a ping pong ball.
And that’s not even the worse part. I became a weed. I depressed the living daylights out of those around me. The mutated me was selfish and terrible.
Thankfully these mutations are reversible. A strong dose of good mutangen was what I needed. And this morning, when my friend lambasted me it really hit me. That was my good mutagen. I started cleaning up right away.
Which got me thinking, if several lethal doses of bad mutagen could be reversed by one strong dose of good mutagen, then perhaps we can immunize ourselves against bad stimuli altogether by being exposed to the good ones. By surrounding ourselves with positive people, by smiling more often, by doing good to others, by putting in our best in whatever we do, by reaching out to others as often as we reach within ourselves in the quest for peace, by finding joy even in the thinnest of silver linings.
Ultimately, mutation too is a choice. You can choose to use it how you please. You take what you want to survive and become stronger. The bacteria took what it needed to battle the odds. So did I.
You need strength to resist the bad mutations though, they are always that bit more menacing. That’s where your friends and family come in. They form a wall around you, protecting you.
On hindsight, mutations are a good thing. A particle of dust underwent repeated mutations and several centuries later the first human baby was born (sorry, I don’t buy into the Adam theory). Mutation led to evolution. And I dare say mutation of the personality too leads to its evolution. You either grow or depreciate with each mutation. You evolve.
When you die you die evolved.
I know how I want to be when I die.
For sure. And I suspect theories like ‘learn from past experience’ are offshoots of this concentrated theory.
My true calling might have come from elsewhere, but when in college I was passionate about Biotechnology. A subject that dealt with life and how it could be engineered.
Day after day we’d shuffle into our lab for a new set of experiments. On the first day of microbiology lab, our professor told us that the first step was the most important and that our test results would be based on the efficiency of its execution.
Sterilization was the first step. We flamed the apparatus, pressured the glassware and topped it all off with a generous flourish of methanol. We thought we were microbe-free. The thing about Biotech is you know you’ve messed up only when you get the final result. And the result of my first experiment was clouded by contamination. (Those dratted colonies of fungi I shall never forgive.) Anyway, there came a point when my sterilization skills finally became decent. But I still observed minor contamination. Annoyed, I demanded an explanation from my professor. He finally admitted it could be mutation. That the unwanted microbes might have got acclimatized to high temperatures, pressures and dehydrants. That one of their little DNA fragments might have mutated to make them resistant to my extreme subjections. So I watched dismayed as batch after batch of carefully cultured baby E Coli got killed by those damned mutated monsters.
Fast-forward some years. Early this morning, an annoyed friend of mine sent me a particularly caustic mail saying that she had had it with all my depressed/ depressing status messages and that I’d darned well start cleaning up my act. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an act I could clean up. It wasn’t even an act. I really had become that person. The person who was perennially whiny/ moody/ angry/ disillusioned/ directionless. Exactly the kind of person I would’ve turned my nose up on some months back.
It all started several months back when something I believed in was shattered. The next month, yet another huge blow presented itself. And yet another. And again. Four strong stimulus and consequent months of avoiding it resolutely, instead of dealing with it, changed me. Every day was a bad day, even the good ones. I forgot how to be happy, I was out of practice and seemed to have unlearned the art of happiness. I wanted nothing more than to sit at home away from all life.
People from all corners reached out to me, wanting to help. I was impermeable. I had become resistant to external stimuli. Positivity bounced off me like a ping pong ball.
And that’s not even the worse part. I became a weed. I depressed the living daylights out of those around me. The mutated me was selfish and terrible.
Thankfully these mutations are reversible. A strong dose of good mutangen was what I needed. And this morning, when my friend lambasted me it really hit me. That was my good mutagen. I started cleaning up right away.
Which got me thinking, if several lethal doses of bad mutagen could be reversed by one strong dose of good mutagen, then perhaps we can immunize ourselves against bad stimuli altogether by being exposed to the good ones. By surrounding ourselves with positive people, by smiling more often, by doing good to others, by putting in our best in whatever we do, by reaching out to others as often as we reach within ourselves in the quest for peace, by finding joy even in the thinnest of silver linings.
Ultimately, mutation too is a choice. You can choose to use it how you please. You take what you want to survive and become stronger. The bacteria took what it needed to battle the odds. So did I.
You need strength to resist the bad mutations though, they are always that bit more menacing. That’s where your friends and family come in. They form a wall around you, protecting you.
On hindsight, mutations are a good thing. A particle of dust underwent repeated mutations and several centuries later the first human baby was born (sorry, I don’t buy into the Adam theory). Mutation led to evolution. And I dare say mutation of the personality too leads to its evolution. You either grow or depreciate with each mutation. You evolve.
When you die you die evolved.
I know how I want to be when I die.
Sunday 7 March 2010
Daddy invinciblest
Twenty two years ago, amidst the milling early morning crowd at the magical Marina Beach, something beautiful conspired. A family sat on a picnic blanket. A mother, so beautiful, the father couldn't stop beaming with pride as she gazed into the sea, against the dewy, salty breeze. A father so affectionate, the mother sat simply smiling at her good fortune. A little baby thrown up in the air, looking up to the skies, dressed in swathes of yellow and white, giggling toothlessly, not bothering to contain her rapture. And as she came down, she looked down sideways and saw love like she would never see in all her life. Love that refused to be filtered unlike the early morning sun’s rays. The grains of sand from her tiny feet reaching for his magnetic persona, with the lazy sun making a halo for him, made it look like magic dust was descending on her father. Magic dust that caressed his brown face as he looked skywards challenging the Gods with his invincible smile.
This is how I will always remember him, the man whose blood runs through my sluggish veins, my father.
Twenty two years onwards, I sit in my room, isolted, ashamed thinking about the Magic Dust God who becomes more of a mortal being to me with every passing year, as he exposes his vulnerabilties in front of me. Fearlessly in front of me. My father, the mortal, seems more beautiful than the Magic Dust God as I drown in a sea of Ave Maria and Moonflower. He seems so fragile, so strong, so brave, so exposed.
Sundays were glorious. Summer time mangoes glugged down my elbows, winter dew settled on my bulbous nose like a moist bandage, yellow autumn leaves hid themselves in my black hair. Seasons came and went, but at the stroke of 2 pm, without fail, Daddy marched me away for my English lesson. An hour of reviewing lessons, asking me questions, a severe spelling bee where nothing but 13/15 would do. This would be followed by him giving me a story book to read, he let me choose what I wanted on our weekly expeditions to the bookstore. He reviewed each book with me. I loved Rapunzel the best. He even did mathematical tables with me, when Ma grew tired of my playful nature.
When my Magic Dust God wasn’t rebuking me for making mistakes in English and Math, he was busy buying me the best of clothes, treating my ears to the best of music, taking me to the most amusing of amusement parks, shielding me from Ma’s glowers, cheering on from the sidelines as I played a match of tennis. He taught me to keep my mind as open as my mouth, to the joys of food. To lose myself in music. To immerse myself in books.
Pampering makes a single child a raw nightmare. Didn’t anyone ever tell my father that? Why did he pamper me so? It would be his undoing. My undoing. I became a raw nightmare. I made him sad. I made him disappointed. I made him lose faith in me. I made him a man with no daughter to be proud of. I made him a man who needed to knock on his daughter’s door everyday just so he could look at her ungrateful face. I made him a man who looked as though there was no joy left is his life. My Magic Dust God now looked up to the sky Gods, hoping for some good to descend upon him, almost sorry for challenging them years back.
And while my father keeps the flatscreen TV spurting nonsensical political news company, squinting through a nascent cataract, all I want to do is hug him and tell him I am sorry for being such a disappointment. Yet, all that comes out is, ‘I am going out for dinner.’
There goes by not a day when I hear of a classmate, a colleague, a friend, losing/ close to losing her father. And every time I hear this, the wind gets knocked out of me. I feel faint. I want to know how my Magic Dust God is doing. I call up my Ma urgently and ask her. She says all is well…and why don’t I just call him up and speak to him? I don’t know Ma. When you disappoint someone you love, you never want to show face ever again, you never want to hurt them ever again. The man doesn’t deserve to go through life trying to make a right of a wrong. Trying to make a right out of me.
I will never forgive myself for not being there when his father, Chachan died. When his mother, Ammachi died. When Tin Tin, his son, died. I will never forgive myself for not being there when all he clearly needed was a daughter. For not living out my dream. For letting his nieces make tea for him while I sat in my room. For making him lose his soulful smile.
There is a part of me that shivers at the very thought that Magic Dust God is now a mere mortal. That he can no longer protect me with a swish of his muscular arm. That he is just as vulnerable as I am. That every car that passes his path is just as prone to colliding with him. That every thought that passes his mind is just as capable of messing with his heart.
And yet when I hear my friend telling me that my father dug a grave for his canine son, with his own hands, I know the Magic Dust God hasn’t died. I look up and smile and glance sideways to see my father , still so glorious, so pure, so strong.
This is how I will always remember him, the man whose blood runs through my sluggish veins, my father.
Twenty two years onwards, I sit in my room, isolted, ashamed thinking about the Magic Dust God who becomes more of a mortal being to me with every passing year, as he exposes his vulnerabilties in front of me. Fearlessly in front of me. My father, the mortal, seems more beautiful than the Magic Dust God as I drown in a sea of Ave Maria and Moonflower. He seems so fragile, so strong, so brave, so exposed.
Sundays were glorious. Summer time mangoes glugged down my elbows, winter dew settled on my bulbous nose like a moist bandage, yellow autumn leaves hid themselves in my black hair. Seasons came and went, but at the stroke of 2 pm, without fail, Daddy marched me away for my English lesson. An hour of reviewing lessons, asking me questions, a severe spelling bee where nothing but 13/15 would do. This would be followed by him giving me a story book to read, he let me choose what I wanted on our weekly expeditions to the bookstore. He reviewed each book with me. I loved Rapunzel the best. He even did mathematical tables with me, when Ma grew tired of my playful nature.
When my Magic Dust God wasn’t rebuking me for making mistakes in English and Math, he was busy buying me the best of clothes, treating my ears to the best of music, taking me to the most amusing of amusement parks, shielding me from Ma’s glowers, cheering on from the sidelines as I played a match of tennis. He taught me to keep my mind as open as my mouth, to the joys of food. To lose myself in music. To immerse myself in books.
Pampering makes a single child a raw nightmare. Didn’t anyone ever tell my father that? Why did he pamper me so? It would be his undoing. My undoing. I became a raw nightmare. I made him sad. I made him disappointed. I made him lose faith in me. I made him a man with no daughter to be proud of. I made him a man who needed to knock on his daughter’s door everyday just so he could look at her ungrateful face. I made him a man who looked as though there was no joy left is his life. My Magic Dust God now looked up to the sky Gods, hoping for some good to descend upon him, almost sorry for challenging them years back.
And while my father keeps the flatscreen TV spurting nonsensical political news company, squinting through a nascent cataract, all I want to do is hug him and tell him I am sorry for being such a disappointment. Yet, all that comes out is, ‘I am going out for dinner.’
There goes by not a day when I hear of a classmate, a colleague, a friend, losing/ close to losing her father. And every time I hear this, the wind gets knocked out of me. I feel faint. I want to know how my Magic Dust God is doing. I call up my Ma urgently and ask her. She says all is well…and why don’t I just call him up and speak to him? I don’t know Ma. When you disappoint someone you love, you never want to show face ever again, you never want to hurt them ever again. The man doesn’t deserve to go through life trying to make a right of a wrong. Trying to make a right out of me.
I will never forgive myself for not being there when his father, Chachan died. When his mother, Ammachi died. When Tin Tin, his son, died. I will never forgive myself for not being there when all he clearly needed was a daughter. For not living out my dream. For letting his nieces make tea for him while I sat in my room. For making him lose his soulful smile.
There is a part of me that shivers at the very thought that Magic Dust God is now a mere mortal. That he can no longer protect me with a swish of his muscular arm. That he is just as vulnerable as I am. That every car that passes his path is just as prone to colliding with him. That every thought that passes his mind is just as capable of messing with his heart.
And yet when I hear my friend telling me that my father dug a grave for his canine son, with his own hands, I know the Magic Dust God hasn’t died. I look up and smile and glance sideways to see my father , still so glorious, so pure, so strong.
Lead Opram: For Saj
Together the li'l rabbits sat
Arguing about who was fat
They looked almost the same
And it did shoot them to some fame
They went to classes together
Talking mostly about the 'weather'
Ocassionally they did discuss physics
Actually, more about the master's antics
In a short time they became quite close
To break that bond, was needed a strong force
Life took its toll on the bond
But Saj, of you I'll be forever fond
Arguing about who was fat
They looked almost the same
And it did shoot them to some fame
They went to classes together
Talking mostly about the 'weather'
Ocassionally they did discuss physics
Actually, more about the master's antics
In a short time they became quite close
To break that bond, was needed a strong force
Life took its toll on the bond
But Saj, of you I'll be forever fond
Luck it!
What is the deal with luck?
Well, at least for me, this is how it was.When I was a little girl, seven years old or so, I was on the phone with my friend the evening before the much-feared Math exam. I chirped a 'Best of luck' before hanging up. And almost immediately, my father was upon me. Telling me why, 'All the best' was a better alternative. Why one must never depend on luck. Why luck as a concept was for those who didn't have faith in themselves. Alright Daddy, taken. Any place luck had in my life was vanquished by good sense. And so litte Noosh grew up to be this girl who would henceforth always cautiously avoid phrases like, 'best of luck', 'what a terrible stroke of luck', 'luckily for me' and the like. I invariably end up cutting my nails on a Tuesday night, much to my perima's chagrin and in college, I was the girl who had this uncanny habit of turning up in black at the start of every semester (much against my mom's plead. If luck is impossible, me changing twice at 6.30 in the morning is laughable).
Well, dear Noosh, luck does exist.
My father dropped the bomb on me today. My little dog having died, I was talking about getting a companion for Lola, our other dog. And my dad, shook his head pensively and said, 'Never again. We just don't have luck with dogs. First it was Velvet (who met with an accident, became a quardiplegic and had to be put to sleep after 4 years of suffering) and now Tin Tin. The luck is just not right.' But Daddy... 'No'
So is luck subject to time? Nay, nay. Luck is completely subject to one's convenience. When everything goes your way and every wispy strand of hair is firmly in its place, luck can take a hike. But one bad thing, and, 'what terrible luck.' Really? Is this how fickle-minded we are? Do we really need to blame an external source, whether or not it really exists, for our inadequacies? For our lack of courage? For lacking the strength to accept reality and move on? For our inefficiencies? For our imperfections? For our very existance? Well, I may not be a lot of things, but one thing I am. I am a person who takes responsibility for her actions and their (often) dire consequences. I may not be efficient, perfect or brave but I sleep better at night knowing that the problem lies with me. That the problem can be rectified because it is in my hands. Blaming luck would mean surrendering my life to the whims and fancies of something that I have never seen substantiated. It is just a crazy man's tangential stupidity.
But Loosh (my scheming alter-ego) asks me. 'So how do you explain how I got the first place in the Bible contest way back in 11th Std, when I hadn't even opened the Bible?' I think, muse, cogitate. Probability, you evil thing, probability! Multiple choice questions...probability, for sure.
Loosh grins at me maliciously. 'Ok Noosh. So explain why you never keep your legs on a pillow? Is it because perima told you long back that if you sat on or kept your legs atop a pillow, your appa wouldn't reach his final destination safe?' Why do you never cross over an elder's leg? Scared of what bad luck it might bring?' Ok, guilty. But not as charged.
There are things you do simply out of habit, and also so you don't end up upsetting anyone else. I attach no importance to these acts.
The bottomline is, I believe in life. I believe that man invented all that he has invented, not by a mere stroke of luck, but by a stroke of genius. I believe that exams are passed or failed not because of luck, but because of the presence or absence of application. I believe that the mess I am in is all because of me. I blame myself entirely. I am to blame. And I have the full power in my hands to change things as I please. I feel liberated.
As for you Daddy, does the 'luck' stop here?
Well, at least for me, this is how it was.When I was a little girl, seven years old or so, I was on the phone with my friend the evening before the much-feared Math exam. I chirped a 'Best of luck' before hanging up. And almost immediately, my father was upon me. Telling me why, 'All the best' was a better alternative. Why one must never depend on luck. Why luck as a concept was for those who didn't have faith in themselves. Alright Daddy, taken. Any place luck had in my life was vanquished by good sense. And so litte Noosh grew up to be this girl who would henceforth always cautiously avoid phrases like, 'best of luck', 'what a terrible stroke of luck', 'luckily for me' and the like. I invariably end up cutting my nails on a Tuesday night, much to my perima's chagrin and in college, I was the girl who had this uncanny habit of turning up in black at the start of every semester (much against my mom's plead. If luck is impossible, me changing twice at 6.30 in the morning is laughable).
Well, dear Noosh, luck does exist.
My father dropped the bomb on me today. My little dog having died, I was talking about getting a companion for Lola, our other dog. And my dad, shook his head pensively and said, 'Never again. We just don't have luck with dogs. First it was Velvet (who met with an accident, became a quardiplegic and had to be put to sleep after 4 years of suffering) and now Tin Tin. The luck is just not right.' But Daddy... 'No'
So is luck subject to time? Nay, nay. Luck is completely subject to one's convenience. When everything goes your way and every wispy strand of hair is firmly in its place, luck can take a hike. But one bad thing, and, 'what terrible luck.' Really? Is this how fickle-minded we are? Do we really need to blame an external source, whether or not it really exists, for our inadequacies? For our lack of courage? For lacking the strength to accept reality and move on? For our inefficiencies? For our imperfections? For our very existance? Well, I may not be a lot of things, but one thing I am. I am a person who takes responsibility for her actions and their (often) dire consequences. I may not be efficient, perfect or brave but I sleep better at night knowing that the problem lies with me. That the problem can be rectified because it is in my hands. Blaming luck would mean surrendering my life to the whims and fancies of something that I have never seen substantiated. It is just a crazy man's tangential stupidity.
But Loosh (my scheming alter-ego) asks me. 'So how do you explain how I got the first place in the Bible contest way back in 11th Std, when I hadn't even opened the Bible?' I think, muse, cogitate. Probability, you evil thing, probability! Multiple choice questions...probability, for sure.
Loosh grins at me maliciously. 'Ok Noosh. So explain why you never keep your legs on a pillow? Is it because perima told you long back that if you sat on or kept your legs atop a pillow, your appa wouldn't reach his final destination safe?' Why do you never cross over an elder's leg? Scared of what bad luck it might bring?' Ok, guilty. But not as charged.
There are things you do simply out of habit, and also so you don't end up upsetting anyone else. I attach no importance to these acts.
The bottomline is, I believe in life. I believe that man invented all that he has invented, not by a mere stroke of luck, but by a stroke of genius. I believe that exams are passed or failed not because of luck, but because of the presence or absence of application. I believe that the mess I am in is all because of me. I blame myself entirely. I am to blame. And I have the full power in my hands to change things as I please. I feel liberated.
As for you Daddy, does the 'luck' stop here?
Saturday 6 March 2010
interpretation of beethoven's 6th symphony
I think of you when divine dawn filters in through my curtain
When the vulnerable smell of morning dew wafts in uncertain
When the guileless grasshopper wakes from his strident slumber
When the time on my clock is still just a nebulous number
I miss you when the glorious afternoon sun beats down on me
When in between hectic chapters everything but you ceases to be
When the riotous flowers soak up the sun in summer embrace
When the lazy grains of pollen float away into silent space
I long for you when dusk turns the sky a star-studded black
When the owl takes his first flight with ocular knack
When the brusque nip in the air makes my nose grow pink
When the unkind quandaries of the day finally sink
I love you between every comatose second that passes by
Between every listless blink of my doleful eye
Between every torturous tang that settles on my tongue’s bed
Between every langourous note that my ears are forcefed
I live for you because every snow flake reminds me of your free-falling fervour
Because every whiff of wind abounds with your familiar flavour
Because no fire warms my heart the way your crinkly eyes do
Because every grain of sand falls to the earth much like my soul reaches for you
When the vulnerable smell of morning dew wafts in uncertain
When the guileless grasshopper wakes from his strident slumber
When the time on my clock is still just a nebulous number
I miss you when the glorious afternoon sun beats down on me
When in between hectic chapters everything but you ceases to be
When the riotous flowers soak up the sun in summer embrace
When the lazy grains of pollen float away into silent space
I long for you when dusk turns the sky a star-studded black
When the owl takes his first flight with ocular knack
When the brusque nip in the air makes my nose grow pink
When the unkind quandaries of the day finally sink
I love you between every comatose second that passes by
Between every listless blink of my doleful eye
Between every torturous tang that settles on my tongue’s bed
Between every langourous note that my ears are forcefed
I live for you because every snow flake reminds me of your free-falling fervour
Because every whiff of wind abounds with your familiar flavour
Because no fire warms my heart the way your crinkly eyes do
Because every grain of sand falls to the earth much like my soul reaches for you
that thing
You are the thought of morning love that wakes me
The voice of beseeching reason that makes me see
The tender touch that draws me in and lets me go
The trusting smile that extends and lets me flow
You are first line in my virgin book of love
The recurring syllable in my little head above
The rhyme that sings in my meandering mind all day
The full stop that keeps my taunting troubles at bay
You are the reflection behind my formidable fear
The fear behind my searching scream
The scream behind my elated ecstasy
The ecstasy behind my lulled life
The voice of beseeching reason that makes me see
The tender touch that draws me in and lets me go
The trusting smile that extends and lets me flow
You are first line in my virgin book of love
The recurring syllable in my little head above
The rhyme that sings in my meandering mind all day
The full stop that keeps my taunting troubles at bay
You are the reflection behind my formidable fear
The fear behind my searching scream
The scream behind my elated ecstasy
The ecstasy behind my lulled life
particle in a box
I am the particle in a box, I glide and soar as I please
My movement is like a swaggering sweet symphony
My dance, like the tangential thought of lucid lyrics
My limbs undulate with psychedelic sepsis
My eyes dart around like a memorising melody
I am the particle in a box, I am redolent of colour
Smell my heart; you will sense the fuchsia of freedom
Smell my lips for a whiff of pink passion
Smell my skin and feel the lilac song of love
Smell my mind to get a taste of tealy triumph
I am the particle in a box, I decide my destiny
I impinge the walls of fate with haughty hate
I shrug off my horoscope with head-strong hope
I do not believe in providence, I have better sense
I go not by the whims of luck… herein stops the buck
My movement is like a swaggering sweet symphony
My dance, like the tangential thought of lucid lyrics
My limbs undulate with psychedelic sepsis
My eyes dart around like a memorising melody
I am the particle in a box, I am redolent of colour
Smell my heart; you will sense the fuchsia of freedom
Smell my lips for a whiff of pink passion
Smell my skin and feel the lilac song of love
Smell my mind to get a taste of tealy triumph
I am the particle in a box, I decide my destiny
I impinge the walls of fate with haughty hate
I shrug off my horoscope with head-strong hope
I do not believe in providence, I have better sense
I go not by the whims of luck… herein stops the buck
no friendly matter, this
It would be the easy thing to do- to say, Ma was right all along, I should've just listened to her. No, but that would be the easy thing to do, not to mention delusional.
I have failed to make a single genuine friend in my life. Well, ok, genuine is too strong a word. The thing is, everyone has this one special friend they turn to for everything. Everything. Who will pick the phone at 2 am and hear you out, as opposed to sending a message saying 'Am dead tired. Will talk in the morning'. Who will pull you close when you try to shut yourself out, as opposed to, 'just giving you your space.' Who will rebuke you when you do something stupid, as opposed to saying ,'Well, you know what's right for you.' Who's in touch with you 24/7, as opposed to propogating the philosophy of, 'We don't need to stay in touch all the time to be best friends.' Who will hold your hands when you tell them your dog just died, as opposed to saying, 'Oh sorry da. So did you guys meet up last evening?' Who will fight with you and yet be back the moment they sense you need them, as opposed to blaming their absence on the fight. No, I don't have such friends. I have friends who are all genuine people in their own right. Yes I have my fun times with them. But the thing is, if I were to get stuck in a flood in the middle of the night or meet with an accident, I can't name one friend, not even one, who I would want to call, feel justified in calling, not feel bad calling.
Getting back to what Ma always says. 'Your friends will be there for you as long as you're having fun. The moment life starts getting turbulent, they'll be gone.' Ma, I wish that were true. It's just that, it just isn't.
I look around me, in my own friend's circles, and see I'm alone. Everyone, yes even the guys, has a friend they turn to for everything, a friend who doesn't use them just to go out for a drink when all their other friends have abandoned them. I guess, a best friend is what I am getting at. And the beautiful (too bad for you Noosh) thing is, the more I see my friends, the more convinced I am that the concept of a best friend does exist.
So assuming that I am the problem, what have I done wrong? Is it my selfishness? Is it my horrible directness? Is it my hatred for all things imperfect (one can't really hate oneself)? Is it my sour outlook on life. Is it my moodiness? Is it my temper?
Is it just that I am a bad friend in return?
I have failed to make a single genuine friend in my life. Well, ok, genuine is too strong a word. The thing is, everyone has this one special friend they turn to for everything. Everything. Who will pick the phone at 2 am and hear you out, as opposed to sending a message saying 'Am dead tired. Will talk in the morning'. Who will pull you close when you try to shut yourself out, as opposed to, 'just giving you your space.' Who will rebuke you when you do something stupid, as opposed to saying ,'Well, you know what's right for you.' Who's in touch with you 24/7, as opposed to propogating the philosophy of, 'We don't need to stay in touch all the time to be best friends.' Who will hold your hands when you tell them your dog just died, as opposed to saying, 'Oh sorry da. So did you guys meet up last evening?' Who will fight with you and yet be back the moment they sense you need them, as opposed to blaming their absence on the fight. No, I don't have such friends. I have friends who are all genuine people in their own right. Yes I have my fun times with them. But the thing is, if I were to get stuck in a flood in the middle of the night or meet with an accident, I can't name one friend, not even one, who I would want to call, feel justified in calling, not feel bad calling.
Getting back to what Ma always says. 'Your friends will be there for you as long as you're having fun. The moment life starts getting turbulent, they'll be gone.' Ma, I wish that were true. It's just that, it just isn't.
I look around me, in my own friend's circles, and see I'm alone. Everyone, yes even the guys, has a friend they turn to for everything, a friend who doesn't use them just to go out for a drink when all their other friends have abandoned them. I guess, a best friend is what I am getting at. And the beautiful (too bad for you Noosh) thing is, the more I see my friends, the more convinced I am that the concept of a best friend does exist.
So assuming that I am the problem, what have I done wrong? Is it my selfishness? Is it my horrible directness? Is it my hatred for all things imperfect (one can't really hate oneself)? Is it my sour outlook on life. Is it my moodiness? Is it my temper?
Is it just that I am a bad friend in return?
Tin Tin
My sugar-coated caramel custard honey doll, Tin Tin died today. At a time in my life when nothing is in its place, he was the only one who made me laugh with joy, even without trying. He didn't expect anyting in return. The picky eater that he was, he subsisted on love, air and water. He was my white fluffy, furry ball of life, looney and love. Tinu hated being alone or going anywhere without my mom, dad or me. I hope he won't mind that we can't accopmany him on this last journey of his. The love of his life, Lola will miss him terribly. She knows something is wrong, she's shifting about restlessly and looking into our eyes looking for an explanation, not really wanting to know the truth. Lola, I know how much the truth hurts. The truth is like a spear, a spear that pierces the heart, the head, the tear glands.
Little boy was too young to go, just six years old. It was unexpected, making it harder to handle. For the past five days he was unwell, due to a liver problem, but even yesterday the doctor, after administering fluids, said Tinu should be up and about by this morning. But who am I to question? Who do I reason with? My dog died. I'll miss his prancing. His jumping when I come back home, even if is after stepping out for just two minutes and coming back in. His yelling and yelping. His running around the house like a madcap. His limp-bodied craving for a cuddle. His persistent tug at the leash. I'll miss calling him by his numerous/zany/irrelevant/irreverant pet names. I'll miss the family unit. Mummy, Daddy, Tin Tin, Lola and me. Please take care Tinu.
Little boy was too young to go, just six years old. It was unexpected, making it harder to handle. For the past five days he was unwell, due to a liver problem, but even yesterday the doctor, after administering fluids, said Tinu should be up and about by this morning. But who am I to question? Who do I reason with? My dog died. I'll miss his prancing. His jumping when I come back home, even if is after stepping out for just two minutes and coming back in. His yelling and yelping. His running around the house like a madcap. His limp-bodied craving for a cuddle. His persistent tug at the leash. I'll miss calling him by his numerous/zany/irrelevant/irreverant pet names. I'll miss the family unit. Mummy, Daddy, Tin Tin, Lola and me. Please take care Tinu.
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