Accident p0rn

--
Written a little while back.
If it wasnt so tragic, it would be funny.

--
I find myself sitting in my odd spot with a bandage around my left thumb. Not much of a difference. I use the thumb for the space bar and nothing more, so it's not so hard to type.
Gone are the days perhaps where the thumb was the important tool for warriors and poets. How to hold a bow and arrow or a pen? Ha, times have changed, we modern day warriors and poets can manage without our thumbs. The forefingers pull the trigger, and well, we type. Even it's use as the ancient phallic symbol has been replaced with the middle finger. Tom Robbins wrote an entire chapter about the importance of thumbs. I can't seem to remember any of it, except what I would perhaps not be able to do without my left thumb, is hitchhike in the commonwealth countries.

The friendly doc told me to ensure the nasty fella stays dry. I told him I am a veteran in this department. I get loyalty bonus points from dressing companies. I even know the latest fashion.

--
Cut to late march 2009.
I woke up that morning trying to open a carton to find something. Someone had left a swiss knife on the dining table (to open a bottle of wine, of course), the blade of which went into my palm. It bled a little, not much to merit panic. Two days later, the whole thing was full of goo and stuff, and it was impossible to move my hand. I was in pain, hallucinating, screaming, threatening to write my will . An incision and drainage had to be performed, under general anaesthesia. The last memory was that of laughing gas. I woke up from the stupor the next morning to get it dressed and discovered a hole in the middle of my palm. The resurrection happened on easter, I kid you not. Did I ever have any doubts about me being the child of God?

But a few days before the bandages came off -

And a few days after I was given the laughing gas -

I tripped and fell and landed up with a gash on my forehead. It has left a lightning shaped scar right above the left eyebrow. And not some itsybitsy clipartsy scar, but a real lightning shaped scar, which seems to turn red and throb every time I drink red wine. I feel it's a message, but and yet to decipher it. May be it's morsecode.

Of course, true to myself, not to be defeated, I still decided to run the JPM corporate challenge - a 5.6km run through the heart of the city, the central business district. Ever so popular with the cutthroatmanager type people, who lack civil behaviour. One of them gave me the elbow, so I jumped off the pavement and stepped on a discarded bottle, twisted my ankle and fell, skinning my left knee. I was left with running only 1 km, and I had no choice but to limp the rest of the way.

It was only april, the cruelest month.

By this time, the horoscope came chasing my back to indicate, that the dosha (flaw) found last december was making me accident prone (that's the topic of another post)

So then, after a few inconsequential cuts and bruises, A was made to sit through a 4+ hour pooja to reduce the impact on my behalf, because women, as you would perhaps not know, have no rights to pray for themselves (or so I assume). I dutifully sat through it, touching his right shoulder, hoping the faith would heal and protect.

Soon after I got back, both of us were in a bike crash. Though safe, we landed up with major skinning of all body parts, which took a while to heal and completed the match-muched set of scars. Of course, after the initial shock, my immediate response to sink into terrible self pity, assuming I brought it upon him, and losing faith on the dosha vendors.

I will not get to the story of the crashes and tsunami warnings and the close calls, which actually are entertaining and sound adventurous, and will take the tragedy out of this story while I need your sympathy.

Now the thumb - a little kitchen accident which happens, happens to the best of us. It understandably made me hyperreact and run to the doctor and feed myself three years worth of antibiotics.

My body is a war zone, full of land mines, scars and pits and spots, all ugly on a grown woman. When I was all of three it was a big deal to have a band aid on the knee, now, I wonder if men still find it enviable.

The jokes arent tiring, the advice is. This includes: not venturing out of home evvaar (though half the accidents have happened while I was, in fact, home), realigning the feng shui of this house, and getting pregnant (don't ask.)

But I wish people would say some encouraging words, because I seem to have lost all confidence. That doesn't stop me from doing anything, but it has become a hassle to lose confidence in something seemingly innocuous, like peeling potatoes, and this constant thing that keeps running at the back of my head that I am accident prone, and so I am waiting for the next disaster to happen.

I am the next disaster waiting to happen.

Life, on the move

The fifteen year old calls. She tells me she is now obsessing over apocalyptic events. I don't have to try hard to find the correlation between that and her impending board exams.

A little while later -

I fly out to this beautiful city. The ride from the airport to the heart of the city warms the cockles of mine. A glimpse of a lot of spots from the past. This is where she lived. That is where we stopped that day. Pronouns infest my mind, my eyes resolve the anaphora. I will perhaps never fall out of love with this city. Never.

A little while later -

Children of brothers and sisters unite in a violin shaped Hall. All share muffled laughs as kids crack jokes decidedly adult.
"Didn't you find the botox joke funny?"
"No sweetheart, at my age you don't."

Two angels, now grown up, and the coolest aunt plan a sleepover. They plan to giggle through the night. "Gimme gossip, yo"
"D and N are going out."
"Since when?"
"Sixth grade. Can you believe they were seen making out in McD's? McD's of all places."
"Oh wow", I say, dealing subconsciously with the facts of life, and trying to get rid of the mental image of a six year old D with a water bottle hung around his neck asking for a kids meal at McD's. Of all places.

I wake up to see her hair beaded with red thread, and my nails painted an apocalyptic purple. Work of the devil or the work of a 13-year old. I don't have to try hard to find the correlation between that and the fact that she played the lawyer the night before. Yes, on that stage.

A little while later -
Shamelessly flaunting these badges of honour, I trudge to meet an old partner in crime. He makes me wait at the wrong mall where Lush smellscapes and jobless people surround me.
I run to the right mall braving the traffic. One could make a movie out of that little ordeal of mine.
One eats lunch and then one hunts for coffee.
Some seemingly tone-deaf DJs loop MJ.
A stack of spoons falls in a loud protest.
I laugh.
He talks.
I suppress an accidental yawn.
He curses.
I explain, "Coffee makes me sleepy. That's why I have so much of it"
He doesn't buy the argument. Who would? (But it's true.)

A little while later -

I go to the town tucked away on one side of the world. I drive through the lines joining points on the landscape: End Point, Endless Point, Peacock point so on and so forth.. Things have changed. A garden rests where end of the world used to be. A building has come up where the road used to be. A university has come up where peacocks used to be. On that odd drive, I spot a house painted apocalyptic purple, oddly named "John Corner".

A little while later -

Clouds turn an ominous shade of grey, it could be Day after Tomorrow. The skies unfold. The rains I had prayed for, so earnestly, land up in the middle of my vacation.

--
Edited to add: Since you asked, the person who gives wrong directions to restorants, is this guy, someone we fondly address as Punmaster t9

Life, suspended

The word "auto" never ceases to amaze me. Autorickshaw. Auto, the self, inspires a sense of freedom that one can't explain while taking any other mode of paid transport. A taxi seems very upmarket - like you would walk out of a mall holding a gazillion paperbags and wave for one. Calling it a cab is even more deprave. To be honest, when I first started calling it a cab, I just couldn't stop - "Cab" "Flag a cab" "Call a cab" etc.

An Auto on the other hand free, open, odd-wheeled and stands for that: the self, the independence.

--

One has broken the terms of the house arrest and ventured out in an auto. Fwee. But that was in the evening. Before that -

One little boy, in the house behind ours, refuses to get out of the shower. Squeals of protest.

One little boy, in the other house behind ours, annoys the hell out of his mother, and gets it from her. Squeals of fear.

One little boy in the house facing ours, a year and a half old, figures the doorbell out. Ting Tong Ting Tong tingtongtingtongtingtong.. Squeals of joy.

They all squeal in tandem.

One speaks to a friend, tells him about the unbearable heatwave which has claimed lives and ones brain in the process. One even manages an apology for whininess in the midst of profuse sweating.

"What's the weather like?"

"40 degrees, and it's only 10:30 am."

"That is nothing, 45 degrees here"

Okay, yours is bigger than mine. One is sorry, for having told you that one has air-conditioning at home.

Ma calls one for the nth odd meal of the day. One brilliantly stuffs themselves.

Dad calls, asks "Tell me, what's happening?"

"Breaking news: The milk got spoilt."

He changes the topic, "Is it raining?"

"Yes", one says, "Two drops fell."

"It's a sparrow crying."

One then gets back to hobnob the loverchild, the mac, which crashes for the 10th time. It perhaps rebels. One had decided to call it Macartney, but now thinks Macavity suits it better. Evil evil. Too much thought. Brain collapses under the pressure.

One then takes a break, guzzles water.

Ma uses the opportunity, the gap in one's mind, to ask if one is hungry. Considering how much she hates being even in the vicinity of the kitchen, even the question is a valiant effort.

One calls a zillion people. Or chats. Or emails. Or uses telepathy.

One speaks to another friend. He calls one a girl and a tube-light, in no necessary order of preference. That's a bad exit strategy in a conversation. One has never pretended to know all, then why is one being drowned in conversations involving undecipherable jargon, and then being judged for it? If you were that smart you would be able to explain it, instead of calling one a tube-light.

Brillig.

Meanwhile, one forces Ma to watch the Blue Umbrella. Halfway through, she promises never to watch another movie with Pankaj Kapur in it, if he is the one who has indeed stolen the umbrella. Fine, let's wait. She lusts after the umbrella too, "When you go to Japan.."

We are a dramatic family.

Dad calls again, with a more oddball question than ever "If a ball is thrown up in the air, when it reaches the ground what will be it's velocity?" One answers, to the best of their abilities. "And the force?" "Mass times g, no?"

It is the evening - one finds their way to a small DTP store to print five sheets of paper out. Five, no more. He prints. "This is the best I can do." Two people walk in requesting for help with download. One little gigs, two little gigs.

One flags an auto. Negotiates. Refuses. Walks off. One plays games in which noone loses. He chases, agrees. So does one.

One then rides with the wind, two little sparrows cry, dusk settles like dust.

That auto-ride smells of humus in the soil, of hope of rainfall in the air, of the little rebellion in the sky and more importantly, of all pervasive freedom.

Fwee.

--

PS: Bits of fiction.

Heatstruck

When life gives you lemons, make a lemonade. Or wing it right back and add lemons of your own. That is not too difficult, since lemons grow all year round. Mangoes, on the other hand, choose summers. One must suffer to enjoy the fruit. We are but slaves to the king of fruits.

I'm sitting in the middle of a heatwave. Home, and virtually under house arrest. You know snowstorms in movies - same situation, less fur. I am such a weatherwhiner. Leave me in any situation and I will complain about the weather, save for the fragile season of fall -- I'll never complain about the fall. Or mangoes.

So yes, it is 40 degrees. Clothes stick to you. Dust finds it's way to the table top. The milk gets spoilt. The kids don't play on the street. The schools are closed. I haven't written a word for two days. People have been visiting. People have been visited. I have watched enough bad movies to put me off bad movies for a lifetime. This firangi apple is getting baked. My brain is getting fried, my wit has melted. I'm just a bundle of reflexes.

Thankfully there is homefood. And mangoes.
--
Edited to add: Thankies to youth icon Manu for the first line.

Popping bubble wrap...

...is about the only fun bit of a pack and move.

Moving usually is an exhausting process , both physically and emotionally. Pickling in your own sweat, nails chipped as you try and locate the damn end of the packing tape, you hit the great realization that the first thing to go inside the box was the pair of scissors. You think of how you could possibly manage to organize and compartmentalize life and times into little boxes? Not to mention the battles with the skeletons in the closet and monsters that lurk under the bed.

Stubbing your toe for the four hundredth time, you resist the urge to thwack someone on the head as he sneers at you. Really, how did you ever manage to have a godzillion cartons labeled "Books"?

--

Our environmentally conscious packer Gary recycles cartons. For packing "loose items", he gave us cartons which have been used by people before. Some of the labels are still stuck and it's much fun to observe how people pack. There is a chaotic packer whose labels go from Assorted-1 to Assorted-11. Two massive cartons are tagged "Daniel's wine and liquor", with FRAGILE written in red, and underlined. Then there are the rich - Third floor Second Room(a house with three floors in this country?), the secretive - "RM 1 - plecatbe", and the sublime - "Kids school bags + Oil". "Kitchen" says one in a kiddie scrawl - an 8- year old trying to help his parents perhaps. But the one that really made me smile was the little note which says, "Relax".

Unable to resist, I decided to be creative. So, if you ever encounter a carton with bits of masking tape which says "How fragile we are!", or "Blue suede shoes", you know who did it.

One of a hundredth of something.

Weekend was people filled and beer filled. No movies to boast of, no reviews unwritten. No new experiments except packing plates and a hundred little things to eat a meal by the poolside. And trying out a hundred shoes, a failed attempt at shoe shopping. And making a list of things to do for a pack and move. And chewing nails as a hundred distant others scream through the exciting Liverpool-ManU match. And witnessing a very boring meeting between two very old friends.

Distracted, one runs through a diminutive list of a hundred words in their head.
A hundred words run right back, causing a bit of a collision.

One intentionally hides their intensity behind the accidental frivolity of wordplay.

The clouds form the comforter, and one hides the dark black skies behind the new monday morning blues.
Just when one is about to find their comfort zone, it raineth, it thundereth.

How dare he?

Was rushing to work this morning, late and stuck in traffic. As usual.
At the traffic light, there was this old man behind us on what I would call a luna/moped/what-do-you-call-them-here.

And he was whistling. A song he liked perhaps. And he was whistling. With ups and downs and vibratos. Like there was no tomorrow.

How dare he? How dare he enjoy the morning rush?

Daffodils

There is a part in the movie The Namesake, where Ashoke's family come to "see" Ashima. And her dad proudly tells them "Our daughter's best subject is English", urging her to recite a poem. She starts - "I wander'd lonely as a cloud.." . Her father-in-law-to-be completes the lines with fervour "A host of golden daffodils", thereby putting his signature of approval. (I don't remember reading this part in the book. And I didn't last the entire movie, just so you know)

Anyway, I don't know if it was intended to be that way, but the importance of that little part is accentuated to me because of my upbringing. Wordsworth's Daffodils was a big part of the education in Bengali (and Oriya) middle class families of those years, the ones who consider themselves culturally superior. How do I put it? It was a sign that you appreciated poetry, you were a step ahead of the standard coursework fare.

My grandmother was one of those culturally elite people: well read, well aware. She knew her Shelley and Wordsworth and Keats and Pope, and refused to drink tea if it wasn't served in a cup with a saucer with a spoon on the side to stir the sugar. And one had to stir it gently. She firmly rejected the use of words such as "fridge" calling them colloquial. But I digress. Why she liked the poem is still a mystery to me, but she recited the poem to me when I was quite young and urged me to memorize it. It is strange, because not only was I was alien to how Daffodils look, I was completely oblivious to the vacant or pensive mood described in the last para.

Anyway, now that I have seen the flowers I can tell you that they are indeed very delightful. They grow in hordes and yet by themselves. Like nobody planted them there. As we drove around, I saw them everywhere. Stretching in never-ending lines. A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. In a place where the landscape changed like a video game, they lent a vague sense of sense of continuity.

And they shone, they really did. Like stars that shine, and twinkle on the milky way. Jumping and joyous in their dance - how else do you describe them? In certain places, where it was still too cold, they were the only reassurance that spring was on its way. They stood there, braving the chilly southerlies, with their silly pouts. Swaying sideways, frantically at times. Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Self absorbed. Vain. Narcissistic.


And my thoughts, if they spill towards the grey skies, the memories of this trip will blot them out. At least for a while.

Been there done that

Taking the plunge.

Yes, that's me taking what seemed like the leap of faith. Feet tied, strapped in a harness, I went through a round of obligatory chickening-out, "I don't want to do this". And Timmy said "Believe me, you do". He was cute, and I didn't want to look uncool. So, I stared at the bridge straight ahead on that chilly spring morning, and jumped. Into Euphoria.

I know Bungy jumping is not fashionable anymore, but hell, I did it, I took that giant leap, so let me show off for a bit.

First, a bit of history, as I have learnt from the little pamphlet I got along with my photos: The people of Vanuatu have been throwing themselves off huge towers with nothing but vines tied to their legs. Some coming-of-age ritual that. In the late 70s, some crazy folks in Oxford university Dangerous Sports club got inspired by this, and they tried out a few test jumps. AJ Hackett saw one of those videos, and teamed up with Henry van Asch, to develop the Bungy into the modern ritual it is today. In June 1987, Hackett jumped off the Eiffel Tower straight into international spotlight.

The Kawarau bridge Bungy, in Queenstown, New Zealand, though not high by any standards (43 m), is still the unique for being the world's first, and is hence styled as "Home of Bungy". The other choices in Queenstown are the Nevis highwire (134 m) and the Ledge where you go up a hill and jump looking at the city below you. I don't have the guts to attempt either of those two.

The feeling of free fall, might not be new to many of you, but for me, a first time jumper, it was like: No no no no no. WTF. Eeeeee. Ah the cord. Stretch stretch strech Touch touch touch. Wooohooooo. In civilized English and in Hackett's words "You will go from nervous to completely elated in five seconds"

Oh yeah, I tried, I really tried to touch the water, but was short by a few feet.

PS: Speaking of childhood dreams, this was one: to do the Bungy jump at the original site. Yay.

Alex

Alex wakes up at 8 in the morning on Saturdays.
And plays soccer. The door of the study is one goal post, and something at the end of the living room is the other.

He is also learning how to play the piano. On Sunday mornings.
His impatient fingers trace an unfamiliar path on the keys.
He can't keep time yet. It will hopefully, sound like music someday.

Alex is all of 4. Or 5? How does it matter? It does. Because he is at the age where being four and half years old is different from being five.

Alex stays in the house above, and screams goodbye to his dad every morning.

Last afternoon, while I was sleeping, I heard him play Ludo, or Snakes and Ladders, or some other board game. He was perhaps playing with an adult.
Every few minutes, the dice would fall and roll on the floor.
And I would hear him make his move. Definitive, like it wasn't a move, but a statement. It was mostly tak tak or tak tak tak. Just that once he moved six places. Tak tak tak tak tak tak. Oh how happy he must have been.

As much as I hate him in the mornings, Alex makes my weekends surreal.

Spring Cleaning

What I perhaps will never learn is how to deal with yesteryears. I don't think I like the feeling of flooding myself with a certain set of memories. And yet, I keep all the stuff, just because I am afraid that if I let them go, I would have nothing left. It would be like losing history of my being.

I have never been able to delete mails from the past. The way I deal with files/photos is even more peculiar - I zip them up, and put them away in a CD or in a folder named "Important". And then one fine day shift-delete or junk the CD. It helps me get rid of the remorse, and doesn't spike my curiosity of why I kept them in the first place.

Clutter. It is almost impossible to classify my clutter between what's truly "junk" and what's really "important".

In comes Ramdeen, who got an unfair share of wisdom at birth, with the recommendation of the cleanup. The experience, he promised, would be cathartic.

So I have cleaned it all up - good, bad, otherwise. Have kept a few priceless treasures, though - one being the first email sent by then-little nieces, one with an intense discussion about the feasibility of the layers of a stack being implemented as different processes, one containing sepia toned pics of awkward teenagers in bright shirts, and one with my favourite little Johnny joke.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Horror-scope

Dear Mo,
Here is your horoscope
for Monday, April 16:

Could it be that you've outgrown this way of life? If that's the case, you need to let this old identity go. Isn't it time you acknowledged how much you've changed, and accept the scope of your recent emotional development?


Somedays, Horoscopes stop giving you hope.