The adipose has been coming , slowly, surely and inevitably like tomorrow , settling down comfortably at what once used to be a waist line and creeping ominously towards the belly .While on the one hand Ms.Aishwariya Rai Bachhan ( we passed school the same year) is at her lissome best, waving hands at Iafa awards I am juggling with EMIs .She has actually married the same month and year that I did too , and all said and done , my hubby is a hero in his own right .So you see, there are similarities, one cannot deny . But the conversion of self into a grey haired, bespectacled ( from birth actually and contact lens less currently ) , harassed, big sized professional is something that I do not like .So I have a list of things to do ,the technical term is a makeover , of self and life at large -expensive , time consuming , and would you believe it hard work. But as usual we are digressing, I was talking about my marriage anniversary .The first one at that , with a situation like this at home Parents are visiting. Great thing, but for two and a half month s???!!! a slight hitch there , a very cranky husband at home , between jobs , chin pulled down to knees in depression (generated by the clash of the generations and Bong Tam culture), intermittently unimaginably foul temper and a date which calls for celebration .This time I know, the Davidoff s and the watches will not do the trick .I have to be more imaginative than that.So Brandy Kuty came home .In a orange plastic shopping basket, wedged between knees over a bike ride through Bangalore . She was about 8 inches, 30 days old, mongrel-ish , and shivering , and as I handed her over to my husband I fell in love with her .She has changed our life- completely.In this couple of months she has bitten every thing bite -able, our limbs in particular, slept with us in our bed, under it, over various body parts, she has wagged her tail at seeing me return from work,so hard that I felt maybe it will come off , licked our face , has barked into my ear every single dawn at five .In genera been the most infernal nuisance.But she is amazing .She makes me happy, and want as I may to throttle somebody at work when I see her smiling face the feeling just evaporates.I thought she was going to be our pet, but there is no chance in light years of this happening .It is the other way round. At 5 o’clock in the evening , I wonder what she is upto , 6 ish I get fidgety to have her in my lap .At 8 when I reach home she jumps upto me and scratches me all over as I hug her, and then we play tug of war with an old much chewed belt/She actually knows the word sit, shreds newspapers into noodles, refuses to be toilet trained outside the house because she is of the opinion that gardens are not for morning ablutions, and eats a carrot everyday sitting on my husbands lap as her dessert for the night.She makes me run all over the house and the grounds, like a lunatic and the adipose might just go .My husband thinks that she is the lucky charm who landed him his dream job .Our caretaker Seema teaches her Bengali songs..So what has Brandy done to all of us? she has brought in the meaningless joy of living , which existence robs off you , she is teaching us unconditional love and shameless pranks of childhood , making children of sour adults .Please give a dog a home, and discover yourself anew .Life is at it again, teaching me small truths at strange times
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Drizzle
After combating the sadist in the yellow t shirt at 6 in the morning (that would be my gym instructor) I am ready to take on the world .Honestly, what will you do?- if you have communicated to the guy in language, rolling of eyes, panting and unsophisticated grunts that the leg wont go up any further, he keeps a dead pan face, stitches up his smile, tucks his lips into his face like a formal shirt into trousers- and says 40 more counts.
You cannot do any thing really – expect do the 40 counts and curse
So, given the fact that the sky was slate gray and the rain was nagging I was going to go to office- going to splash the world with colours , and smile at strangers. I embarked on the road, attired like a macaw, blue jacket, red tshirt ,yellow undershirt , determined to make a better day of the one that awaited me.
Richard was waiting for me, just beyond the flyover with his bike. All I had to do was to cross the rail track and hop on and feel the patter of the rain on my back .I love crossing the rail track, because it reminds me of childhood, the cackling of kids with backpacks who cross with me, because it is not the right thing to do to jump unmanned rail tracks, and because finally I am always running late and it is a good thing to take a shortcut.
There was slush all around, my sneakers sank in the soft mud , a frog jumped up nearly to my pocket , I ducked and then, I saw him .
He was lying on an elevation, in a bed of rocks, where perhaps the mud was a little less .He had spread out a tattered green cloth which was held in place by small pebbles .The cloth was completely wet, and he laid on top of it, his frail body twisted into a comma, a transparent plastic sheet covering him, stretched as best as it could by arms, fingerless , his head resting on a pink carry bag where perhaps all his worldly possession was stuffed.
I have seen him before, and always stopped by to drop a coin .He speaks a language I don't , but begging has a voice , penury a silent cry which spears fortress walls, helplessness a heartbreaking hollowness which one knows. He lied there, coins strewed around him.
My feet turned into lead, I fished in my bag found twenty rupees, gave it to him, and trudged along .I turned once, and another kind college goer was giving him a tenner. But , strangely I was getting a sense of violation. The next to cross him was a small boy swinging a school bag, and inadvertently a large blob of mud flung from his shoes right onto the plastic sheet.
I stopped.
I walked back , reached him and spoke in Tamil , that is the only southindian language I speak fluently.
"Get up Appa " I said .
Richard was calling me .I was getting very late.
He did not budge, and I was down, mud on my jeans sitting beside him in a minute .Pulling his leprosied arm, "Get up , NOW"
There was shock, only and resignation in his bleary grey eyes .The shock perhaps of being touched by another human being in years, of being called father in a homeless world. He moved up slowly…
I opened my wallet, gave him a hundred rupee note and said –" Get up and go from here".
He closed his eyes, empty in pain I think and raised the remnant of his palm to my head in silent blessing .He began to gather his things, and I began to run.- through pebbles through the track towards the other end – faraway there was a sound of an approaching train .I did not turn back , I could not- because I never cry anywhere other than my bathroom.
My green cup has steaming coffee. It is a day of endless cups of tea, pakora, a long drive through a highway , of begging in the rain
There is a drizzle in Bangalore.
You cannot do any thing really – expect do the 40 counts and curse
So, given the fact that the sky was slate gray and the rain was nagging I was going to go to office- going to splash the world with colours , and smile at strangers. I embarked on the road, attired like a macaw, blue jacket, red tshirt ,yellow undershirt , determined to make a better day of the one that awaited me.
Richard was waiting for me, just beyond the flyover with his bike. All I had to do was to cross the rail track and hop on and feel the patter of the rain on my back .I love crossing the rail track, because it reminds me of childhood, the cackling of kids with backpacks who cross with me, because it is not the right thing to do to jump unmanned rail tracks, and because finally I am always running late and it is a good thing to take a shortcut.
There was slush all around, my sneakers sank in the soft mud , a frog jumped up nearly to my pocket , I ducked and then, I saw him .
He was lying on an elevation, in a bed of rocks, where perhaps the mud was a little less .He had spread out a tattered green cloth which was held in place by small pebbles .The cloth was completely wet, and he laid on top of it, his frail body twisted into a comma, a transparent plastic sheet covering him, stretched as best as it could by arms, fingerless , his head resting on a pink carry bag where perhaps all his worldly possession was stuffed.
I have seen him before, and always stopped by to drop a coin .He speaks a language I don't , but begging has a voice , penury a silent cry which spears fortress walls, helplessness a heartbreaking hollowness which one knows. He lied there, coins strewed around him.
My feet turned into lead, I fished in my bag found twenty rupees, gave it to him, and trudged along .I turned once, and another kind college goer was giving him a tenner. But , strangely I was getting a sense of violation. The next to cross him was a small boy swinging a school bag, and inadvertently a large blob of mud flung from his shoes right onto the plastic sheet.
I stopped.
I walked back , reached him and spoke in Tamil , that is the only southindian language I speak fluently.
"Get up Appa " I said .
Richard was calling me .I was getting very late.
He did not budge, and I was down, mud on my jeans sitting beside him in a minute .Pulling his leprosied arm, "Get up , NOW"
There was shock, only and resignation in his bleary grey eyes .The shock perhaps of being touched by another human being in years, of being called father in a homeless world. He moved up slowly…
I opened my wallet, gave him a hundred rupee note and said –" Get up and go from here".
He closed his eyes, empty in pain I think and raised the remnant of his palm to my head in silent blessing .He began to gather his things, and I began to run.- through pebbles through the track towards the other end – faraway there was a sound of an approaching train .I did not turn back , I could not- because I never cry anywhere other than my bathroom.
My green cup has steaming coffee. It is a day of endless cups of tea, pakora, a long drive through a highway , of begging in the rain
There is a drizzle in Bangalore.
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