WoW

This is something that has taken the fancy of Aruna. Well WoW stands for Women on Wanderlust. These guys, rather gals arrange trips for women alone as a group and pander to the wanderlust wishes of women. She has been goading Krithi to join her and she has already vicariously traveled as far as Egypt now.

Actually it is SOS time for me in reality. On many fronts! I am tempted to find out whether there is a inner meaning for wanderlust. Is it just about visiting places far from the confines of family trappings? Is it wandering away from men in reality? Or wandering towards men in reality, albeit different men! Everyone is bit by wanderlust. Whether it is men or women, that dream is there.

I always wanted to go somewhere on my own. I was wondering what do I go away from or go towards. Maybe the first thing that hits me as a great bonus is that I don’t need to do anything that I normally do. I don’t have to plan, I don’t have to keep timings and I don’t have to look behind my shoulders to do the certain things that I normally do. My beers won’t be counted. And I can practice my belief of using beer as a thirst quencher. Then I need not be worried about what others want to do, whether the kids are hungry etc. Maybe the same stuff applies for women also. Just plainly freak out!

But let’s come back to why I call it as SOS time for me. On two fronts! SOS stands for Sisters on Shopping-lust. That’s what it will be. In fact I have a deep suspicion that it is an alien conspiracy that makes all new launches let be known to these guys exclusively. Even before a shop is conceived to be launched they will come to know of it. It is a different story that the conception itself happens only because the investor is aware of the existence of these two.

If there is 30 minutes that goes by without anything to worry, Aruna will get stressed up. And the next minute she will call Krithi. Asking her to come for a de-stressing trip! And she is always more than ready. My suspicion there is, she would be waiting in her parked car at my gate and the moment the call lands she would be there and before you say Jack Robinson, they both will be out. There is not a single shop whose inventory they don’t know. In fact they get too busy around 31st March, because for stock-taking the shop keepers need to know about the inventory situation and they can’t call anyone else but these two people.

I don’t know what they shop really. But they will keep shopping and sometimes the shopkeepers will beg them to leave because he has a home to go. This could be for themselves or for each other. Alternatively even this can happen. While they are walking in the streets, if they hear the word shopping, they will be stopping. They would probably accompany them. It could be a stranger also; they will just introduce themselves, give them all kinds of dope about where you get what and take them along. The fact that they would end up buying more while they were supposed to play guide is my own sorry story. Let us not dwell into that.

So much so that I have suggested that they can make this as a career. Like what Kamal Haasan says, if your passion is going to be your job too, then there can never be a better life. In the process they can earn some money. I would not mind if it is in kind also. Like getting the n’th pair of sandals as that day’s fee!

Alternatively, they can do one thing as a pair. Krithi can convert her own wardrobe as a shop. Because it has more inventory than the biggest textile showroom! Aruna can then take someone along there and shop. And then having made money out of the sale, they can then go out on a shopping binge themselves. Inventory gets replenished. Money is not wasted. The shopping lust is fulfilled. So many things in a single stroke!

These guys also have some mysterious planning. My daughter Teju is now almost as big as a woman. So when Krithi buys something, to kill her guilt, she shops in the pretext of buying it for Teju. But then she knows she can flick it from her whenever she wants because she can get into the clothes with ease.

Have you ever heard of any guy paying EMI favoring textile shops? Well, I am that guy. This is apart from what they can buy out of their own earnings. There is a strong rumor floating, that one of Krithi’s friends collapsed out of heart attack once because she saw her in a dress that was once seen worn by her 3 years back. It was so unlike her to repeat, so I can understand the shock of her friend. Apparently the grapevine is that Krithi is contemplating to do some construction work at her home, which is to extend the balcony into some kind of a cantilever, because she needs more storage space for her dress. As far as Aruna is concerned there is no such problem. Not because the quantity is less, it is just that she won’t be too worried on where she keeps them.

A third member of the clan is now being indoctrinated that is Teju. What it would be if not for SOS time, when you start wearing slips to office instead of vests!!!

Biting Truths

My house is becoming a veritable comedy show. As it comes in the Jim Carrey movie ‘The Truman Show’, if someone plants a TV camera at my place and airs a reality show, I am certain that folks will have laughs of their life.

For starters, what will call you a place that has more toothbrushes than the number of teeth itself in the household? And we have 3.5 people at home. Every morning starts with the challenge of finding your toothbrush. Maybe that is the reason I am so sharp in my brain, because I start the day with the challenge. Being color blind, my ordeal is doubled. I am lucky if I get up as the last guy amongst the 4, so that I can feel the wetness of the bristles and figure out which is not my brush. It still doesn’t solve the purpose of finding my own. But atleast I eliminated three brushes. After a sincere attempt, I proceed to brush with one of the leftovers, which need not necessarily be mine.

I was using a different technique altogether. It stemmed from my habits. I apply huge pressure if I am using my right hand, even in writing. So much so that you can see the imprint some 10 leaves away in the notebook. The same was true with brushing also. In its 3rd week of existence, my toothbrush appears as if it hasn’t seen oil & shampoo for a hundred years. So that was identification that it is my brush. But, in the 4th week I was almost brushing with the brush handle than the bristles, so started changing them every month. So once again they appear so very new and similar. The technique is no more in use.

With all this, you are tempted to think that we should have the cleanest set of teeth in the universe. Sorry, that’s not the way it is really. Because my elder daughter takes exactly .01 second to brush her teeth, so much so I seriously think that she just applies paste on the brush and washes it off, without coming anywhere near her teeth. So, the brush actually is more sparkling white. The younger one is not that bad. She likes the taste of paste, so takes it to her mouth and eats it. So her timing is around 10 seconds. Maybe she has sparkling white intestines.

So, as you would know by now, the stand in which brushes are kept broke down one day unable to hold the weight of all of them. Now they are in a container type standee. So, even if you succeed in spotting your own brush, extricating it is another challenge. Invariably they all come as a bunch. Pretty social folks they are. And sometimes or most of the times, the standee becomes a sleepee and all brushes fall down.

Guess, I am going to make stickers with our names on it and also start keeping them in our wardrobes. After all each one of us have separate wardrobes and the brushes can’t get mixed up, unless the servant maid ( who is an interminable source of comedy herself ) picks them and give for ironing. That way they will get mixed up again or really get pressed that I start using the handle again for brushing.

Never realized that marriage can bite me like this!! But then the smiles of the kids, whether yellow or disorderly, are worth having a yellow set yourself.

Shame on you Houdini

If Harry Houdini was alive today, he should be living in penury. I am certain about it. How can he make money by acts of disappearing & extrication now? No, nothing has changed as far as the bewilderment that is associated with such acts even today. The reason is pretty simple.

Our household would be more popular than him and he would have lost his market to us. Because, we are even superior to him!! We simply make inanimate things disappear, which he cannot do. And we are also masters in extrication. Let me elaborate.

In a normal household, what do you think can be lost? A few handy things that you keep can be misplaced? Yes, you are right. Only such stuff gets lost in the maze of a household. Then would you not call bigger things disappearing as a Houdini Act then? That’s what we are masters at.

Since yesterday morning I am looking for the remotes of my TV & Set top Box. There is not a trace of them anywhere. All possible and impossible places have been searched and they are still absconding. I was tempted to release an advertisement in the newspaper this morning to get them back. Then I consoled myself that if both of them are missing together, it should be a case of consensual eloping. After all they lived together always and can’t function without each other. So they might have decided to run off somewhere just to escape my younger daughter.

OK, if that was a mystery, what do you call the disappearance of shirts, handkerchiefs, one sock of a pair, all the combs, sewing needle, Vicks Vaporub, weekly magazines, footwear’s, watches and everything that you need urgently!!

And we guys don’t help the cause either. If I could be the culprit of misplacing the TV remote somewhere, my wife is capable of misplacing the TV itself. And my daughters are out of the world. You cannot find one book of theirs when they have to study and if at all you do, you need to enlist the services of some detectives to ascertain the cause of death of those books.

And similarly when it is time for studying, my elder one can extricate herself beating Houdini, only to be toppled my by younger one at the time of hitting the bed or eating. They will simply evaporate. As if they are made of liquid nitrogen.

There should be something really mysterious with the house. I named it as the Spooky House this morning. Because there has never been an occasion when something has been found when it is required. Simply impossible! One day it happened that I found the comb which I was looking for and then it was my turn to disappear. To the ICU!! Where else you go if you have a heart attack.

I am now convinced that my folks are not to be blamed. Actually this place could be the perfect story material for Manoj Night Shyamalan. The events are definitely paranormal. No I am not being over dramatic here at all.

In fact I say this with a very heavy heart. The stuff which I humorously kept complaining about getting lost are inanimate things all said and done. You never really have an attachment built with them. You are not going to sit and cry if a comb is lost reminiscing about the great days you had with the comb ( you can read this as the great days when I had hair in my head also ). It is true with all the objects. All of them are replaceable. You can buy them again.

But this morning I found out that one of my fishes, a very beautiful one at that, is missing. This has got to be paranormal stuff! How else you will describe a fish missing from the aquarium? :(

Divine Retribution

I have some wretched luck with the air conditioners. In fact I don’t think air conditioner is the right name for this machine. It just doesn’t condition any damn thing.

I had this old AC that was without a remote. And it was definitely not an intelligent machine. Either it made me freeze or sweat. So I used to set it at some medium chillness and wait for it to freeze me and then get up, switch it off and sleep. And after a couple of hours will wake up again and repeat the rigmarole.

And I always believed that my daughters have better luck with their AC. Their room is so very pleasant to enter. I was trying to figure out the reason. Initially I thought it could be because of the fact, there were a million living things in that room and a temperature of 18 degrees was shared by the 120 lizards, 1504 ants, a few cockroaches, million bacteria ( a few lacs of them hitherto unknown to the microbiologists ) and these two kids. And then I made a very honest assessment. That way my bedroom should have all those living things barring a few which my daughters create in the lab conditions of their room.

I zeroed in at the brand being the reason and changed the machine. And the new one seems to suffer from dyscalculia. It is zilch in numerical skills. Can’t understand a basic thing like 16 means 16 and it comes after 15 and before 17. And it is completely disobedient as a pair. Never does anything the remote says. If the remote says 16, it will display 25. And blow some hot air. They just don’t go along well at all as a pair. Maybe they are already divorced in a court of law and by some quirk of fate landed in the same box again and chose my bedroom as a battlefield.

It has some 10000 buttons and none of them are useful in any sense because even the machine does not know what it is supposed to do if some button is pressed. All I get to see is some colorful display but the lack of cooperation is pretty standard. It does what it wants to do anyway.

After some solid disagreement, me and the machine reach some kind of a truce and try to settle down. But that’s when the chinks in your marriage surface. My wife has this huge disorder of misplacing things. Now that is something common you may say. I am talking about misplacing things like TV and stuff. She would carry the television and put in some place and the entire household will get into a hunt ( ok, I needed to use the TV as example to really describe my plight, she isn’t that bad, she only misplaces everything that is movable )

So, if she hasn’t slept before me, then there is every possibility that the remote could be misplaced and I will suffer when the truce breaks. In the event of that not happening, I place the remote on my side and sleep. That creates a whole new issue. She turns back and sleeps on the remote and that changes the temperature setting. Now, this is where the irony starts. The hitherto disobedient & dyscalculic AC puts up its best behavior and promptly changes the temperature. The other day I was cursing the bad cooling and chose to walk out to the living room and sleep. And it was amazingly pleasant. Actually the bedroom temperature was higher than the normal room temperature.

Now I am trying to do a research on this instruction manual, but more than that I simply hope that it is just a resettling issue for my AC and it will start behaving in a while on its own.

But I am convinced about one thing. I and AC are not made for each other. In the office, they have made me sit right under the vent and sometimes I feel I am sitting in the rain, it literally pours. And as if I am suffering from incontinence, I go to the loo every 30 minutes. And I don’t know what else folks at office would be thinking of me. Same luck with the car also. It freezes you sometimes that the fingers go rigid and you can’t turn the steering wheel properly. Else, by the time it cools I reach home. Or sometimes it completely fogs my spectacles when I get out and I walk around like a blind man to reach wherever I want to.

I need to do some detective work about my ancestors. I am certain that atleast one was a AC scrap dealer in his vocation. He would have smashed all the AC’s without mercy. What else but divine retribution would cause this kind of luck? :(

Fishy Stuff

I have been always a character who came across as someone who held some intrigue. That’s for people who don’t know me really. The closer folks know that there is no secret in my life and am as open as they come across. So there is actually nothing fishy that I am going to write about. This one is different.

I had always been fascinated by pets. And when I say pets, I don’t have any bias. Anything that knows it should not bite the master will qualify as a pet for me. Though not to the extent of Steve Irwin, I have always fancied myself to be closer to animals than the Homo Sapiens! I have never feared them. On the contrary my dream job as I claim is to be a zoo-keeper. Live with the animals day in and day out! Maybe because they don’t talk back! They give one look at you, sometimes if they are feeling friendly, may offer a gesture that you can presume as a smile, or most times they ignore you and mind their business. And I see it pretty close to my character. And amongst accepted peer groups, friends and families, they are as friendly as anyone can be.

I am mad about dogs. I think I can understand what they express without fail always. A dog Dr Dolittle!! And more often than not, I had been right in my guessing and with Gabriela I lived a charmed life. She is a very funny character. I sometimes called her as MRP, standing for Mentally Retarded Pet. But, a fiercely determined one! No one can express as much as her and here I include the human beings too. Maybe we had a common language, which mostly could have been love and hence there was never a need for words. When she died, it was a very bad loss. But I thought that it could be repaired. Had another couple of dogs, Anbu & Maggie, but both of them never turned out to be Gaby. And there were more difference of opinions than agreements and I felt very tired having them. Luckily for them, they found a good home for themselves and are having a fabulous time.

My destiny with pets, I guessed was at wit’s end. Kept dreaming about getting into a villa and have a pack of dogs and maybe find another Gaby in that somehow. When the desire got the better of me and I make a feeble attempt to bring another pup home, I face fierce resistance from stronger species. And then it happened. Our servant maid’s son landed up with a fish tank and left it at my place.

The fishes were so tiny that I needed an electron microscope to see them. And they were such boring creatures. The ones in that tank was dull colored and generally floated around almost looking forward to their date of death. I started wondering about my philosophy of managing my life with any animal species, because these guys didn’t even acknowledge my presence and they were swimming in my home. But anyway I was curious about them. Out of the 4, one fish ended belly up one morning. The second one disappeared without a trace. Broke my head on finding that Houdini fish and gave up! Maybe it committed suicide by jumping out or just didn’t bother to come back to the tank when the cleaning happened.

And suddenly, I announced that I will have an aquarium at home. Wanted to provide the best of the environments for the fishes to live! I never knew that setting up one could be so costly, but having decided there was no going back. It was one big learning process. What all goes into an aquarium, the fishes & the works. Blowing a fortune, I have now built one. Got about 5 pairs initially, as the fish doctor advised! I really wanted some 20 pairs because the aquarium could hold all the fishes in the Pacific Ocean, but the fish guy wasn’t too keen. He warned against two things. One is the adaptability of fishes and second is their peaceful coexistence.

The naming ceremony was big fun, they are called

Manjula & Jaldi Haldi,
Neelambari, Sigappi, Azhukki & Dirty Harry
Kallan & Kullan
Karuppasami and Mundakanni

And then my understanding about them changed. These fishes are amazing. Never knew that they had a mind on their own. My perception about fishes was limited to what you get at the restaurants. But 10 days with them now, I realize they could be real good pets. Each one has its own idiosyncrasy. The mean black sharks display maximum cowardice. They are scared about people’s voices. How come they are going to survive in a veritable zoo my home is, I don’t know. The yellow ones are extremely social and they can’t stand any fish being morose. They keep poking the out of mood fishes and encourage them to join the mainstream. The other bunch which the fish guy claimed to be friendly is living up to the name. Jumping at each other and generally swimming around as a school, they make the entire aquarium colorful.

The sad story is about the other pair, Kallan & Kullan. Third day on arrival, one of them died and I will spare the graphic details. And for the next 7 days, the other one has mourned for it, just staying at the same place only breathing. Never knew that they were so sensitive. And all of a sudden, I have started seeing them as real pets, the ones with real heart and care.

Now, I am worried. About the welfare of them! And going by the trend at home, it won’t be too long before a fish doctor is spotted and keeps visiting for maintenance. And we go thin because these tiny creatures don’t eat. :(

Shock of my Life

Electricity is a dangerous thing. We have heard it many times. I, in particular am so scared of getting a shock. So much so, while I was in college in the EE Lab, I used to switch off the mains every time I changed circuits. One professor was watching this with amusement and asked me politely what was I trying to do. When I explained, he retorted, why didn’t you think about going to the sub station and switch off the mains there.

OK, I once again got a big shock yesterday. That was not because of any indiscretion from my part. It was the bill !! It was 4440 bucks. I didn’t know how we missed out the 4 in the tens unit !! Could have been a great number then, 4444! Apart from this there was nothing funny about it. Can you imagine, your bill running so high? For a moment I thought maybe Sun has taken a holiday only at our place.

Then I knew! It was the daughters! My suspicion is that these guys eat electricity and am going to crosscheck the provision bill for the month. That should be lesser. Afterall there is only so much kids can eat and they can't eat both electricity and normal stuff. My younger one walks into the house after a long 3 Hr school straight into her room, switches on the TV and AC. Then it is on all the time. So much so, that when I enter their room in the night to say Good night, I feel I am in Siberia and maybe think of taking visa next time. How on next morning these kids wake up soft is a mystery. They should actually be frozen and on tripping they should break. Maybe one day we will create history by getting frostbites in a place like Chennai.

If that was one piece of the puzzle, the other is our AC. My guess is that the machine should be older than Julius Caesar. It drones and drones. It actually doubles up as an anti-theft burglary alarm also. That’s why I haven’t thrown it off still. It makes more noise than it cools, that anyone attempting to break in will think that everybody is awake and there is a huge war happening and out of sheer safety compulsions, he would not attempt the task. Now, can you ill-treat a machine which does something beyond it’s brief? Where is compassion then? Anyway, my conscience working this way surely adds up to the bill though. Point is that, this grand old AC sucks up life from all other appliances also. The rest of them, dim and start moaning and one by one start dying soon I am sure.

And, my folks are a funny lot. The kitchen faces the sea at my house ( that’s another story unto itself, the builder for want of maintaining the vasthu has tucked the bedroom in one remote corner of the house and provided a great view of the sea from the kitchen. ). This means that the Sun is right up there in the morning coming into the kitchen. You know what these guys did? Since it was so hot, they covered the windows with a dark sunscreen and keep it closed. So, the light & heat is cut off. To have it in the ideal level, they then employ the fan and lights.

And of course the TV! One day when the younger one wasn’t there, I was completely restless. Then realized that without the voice of Popeye, Johnny Bravo, squeaking of Jerry, Bob the Builder and the Ninja Turtles, I am a goner. These guys actually own the living room. And one day I am certain they all would be sitting on the dining table with my kids.

Leave the washing machine that eats our money more than cleans, the refrigerator that is completely stuffed all the time, but does not produce one decent thing for you to eat when you want, the PC that suffers from a delusion of working on a 24 Hrs shift. These are the side cast.

It looks like it may cost me lesser if I pay 50 bucks everyday to the EB lineman to switch off the fuse in the post that carries the supply to my house. But then I would be searching the light of my life perennially then!!

Rocket Science

The famous refrain in sales meetings is this statement ‘It is not rocket science’. Well, guess I have become adept in that science too. These are not real rockets though, but paper arrows.

I never had to worry about the raw material for these rockets. There is a steady supply of them anyway on all days. I am talking about paper inserts that poor souls like me distribute after considerable expense of brain & money. Originally I have never been a strong proponent of this kind of communication exercise. I always complain that they are useless and they fall in the toilet ( if you are someone like me who can’t crap unless you see the typeset of ‘The Hindu’ ). So I have argued against using this mode for reaching out to prospective customers. However, at some point of time I also had to swim by the tide.

But the child in me, or the hardcore consumer in me never changed. Every Sunday the favorite pastime at my home along with my two daughters is making paper rockets out of these inserts and fly them. This is going on for quite some years that as of now I am a certified expert in making them and determining flight paths and also a good trainer in teaching others to fly these rockets.

I will tell you, nothing can match experience. By now, I know which company’s insert is good for rockets. It depends on the thickness of the insert. 90 GSM can’t fly far. While it takes off with considerable promise it invariably loses steam and crash-lands. 120 GSM is ideal for rockets. It can traverse the entire distance of my living room. And has this grace while flying. But best is art paper, though it has a weight problem. If the weight is not spread, sometimes the aerodynamics gets screwed up. Like this morning: when it landed on my cook’s eye ( don’t ask me about the expenses in treating that, when you are innovating there are bound to be some unforeseen expense and damage ). I remember a time when my rocket crossed the sit-out of my house and with ultimate precision got stuck into the hairdo of a passerby.

The guys at IIHT would win hands down anytime in providing the best raw material. Their inserts make the best rockets. The Pizza companies come a close second, but the offers that accompany, saves them from becoming a rocket most times. Hathway is the worst of all. And the cheap ones like your local plumbing works etc is pretty moody!! Could be good sometimes, could be disastrous some other time. All in all its great fun on a Sunday morning! With daughters making abortive attempts to fly rockets and me teaching them, it is quite a nice ice breaking and camaraderie creating session.

But I should agree on one thing. This does not happen without a small heartburn, when I realize that whatever paper insert exercise I do with my limited marketing budget could also meet this fate in someone else’s hands. It is not funny at all to imagine your money flying. Not funny at all :(

Risk

Read somewhere as a joke. As what earns you points with women. But, I can’t help but amaze at the profoundness and also the practical wisdom the joke carried. OK, now I know that I tread into dangerous waters. Maybe, there will be a retort, gentle or violent or maybe lots of lots of minus points. But then, men by nature take risks. Don’t they?

Well the joke starts like this.

“In the world, one single rule applies for men. Make the woman happy. Do something she likes you get points! Do something she dislikes your points get subtracted! You do something she expects, you don’t get any points. Sorry mate, that’s how the system works”

I have skipped the guide for the rating system. That’s purely subjective I guess. But this is how my list would go, only about coming home in time. If I touch upon everything then Google guys might jump at me for using up all their server space.

• Come Home early – 5 Points
  
• Come Home late – Minus 100 Points
  
• Come Home after a few beers – Minus Million Points
  
• Come Home late and still offer a drive for eating out – 10 Points
  
• Come Home early and read a book without talking – Minus 100 points
  
• Come Home early and tell that you want to eat and what is available is not something you want – Minus 1000 points
  
• Come Home early and want to have sometime for yourself – Minus 1000 Points
  
• Come Home late and sleep fitfully – Minus points for a lifetime which compounds everyday.
  
• Come Home early and be too very chirpy and play with children – Minus 1000 Points ( There I got you, you would have thought what is wrong in that , buddy please understand that Daddies spoil kids , they make them indiscipline and hog the only time they will study and so on… )
  
• Come Home early and just behave – No Points

OK, now you see, you can utmost scrap some 15 plus points in a day by one action that has the potential to incarcerate you in a dungeon for a lifetime. Which is better, come home early and get 15 points or just avoid the risk totally? No wonder I am late to home everyday. I am a very wise guy.

Tête-à-Tête with Sujatha

What happens when something that you always desired, but never seriously attempted falls on your lap? All our lives, we keep chasing things that we think are priority, but there are a few things closer to our heart and the sheer distance of them makes it more and more special.

My date with luck was like that. I happened to meet my most favorite writer. He according to me is arguably the best Tamizh writer, when it comes to simple language and the honesty to write for readers, than establishing his own mastery over language and what he knows. And he is singularly responsible for making my Tamizh reading a habit. As a youngster who did not study Tamizh at school, my initiation into big books in the language was just because of his style, content and the grip he had over readers.



And what a journey it has been for all his readers and himself, as he made good use of his captive audience to introduce science, religion, IT and many other things that normally is beyond the realm of them. And at the end, you feel like having learnt as much you enjoyed what he wrote.

So, when I went in, I did not know what exactly to speak with him. First few minutes was spent like a kid in a sweet shop, wanting to hog everything that’s available. And then we started talking. Again, it was just unbelievable that I could sit across him and blabber about his writing, other books, cinema, God, religion. And my most recent favorite subject ‘Sivaji’ which he wrote! ( dialogue ). About his reading habits, his idea about how the movie has shaped up, and my verbatim repeating of a few of his old articles! At the end he appeared to be shocked to see such a fanatic. He just coolly said that I would recruit anyone in the place I work, if I knew they read his books. Such was his acknowledgement and again when we talking about buying one old books of his, he made 3 calls to publishers and realized only then that it is out of print for 13 years. And then he said very nonchalantly to Krithi, that if I could not find the book, maybe no one else could. And I had the special privilege of reading his translation of reading a small poem that may appear in print sometime.

I keep recounting those minutes for the past 3 days and still am in a state of awe. And suddenly I recall one sentence that I spoke but forgot to tell and so on. The man is 70 plus, and pretty energetic and youthful in thoughts and his article on aging and waiting to die created such furore in the fan community. But when I met him, I knew he would live forever. As much in his works, as physically!

A Toast to all your tomorrows

Of puppy love
And love of puppies

Of cleaning OCD’s
And throwing diaries

Of little madurai surprises
And biiig golden surprises

Of himsai arasis
And “A”himsai arakkan

Of impromptu long drives
And pasha with bi-pasha

Of oft repeated songs in the car
And ennai katrika with IBF krithika

Of designing clothes
And yet loving cute pooch

Of standing by through thick and thin( nooooooo. I’m not talking ‘bout weight here)
And being there always for friends

Of a rebel marriage
And forever love

Ganth Ma and Runa Laila,
Yours is an all-season friendship of fun laughter and togetherness.

Here’s a toast to your 17 years and all your tomorrows!

Surprises, Surprises...

Receiving surprise gifts is always a thrill. But giving surprises seems to give an even bigger thrill to some. Some do it for good cause. Some do it inadvertently by sheer lack of sensitivity, like what comes in the Naukri advertisement, shrinking you in size at the time of annual appraisal.

This is not about the second type. I have no energy left for this type and have become adept in taking disappointments, so much so that the so-called surprises are not surprises any more. I just expect them to happen. And manage not to get shrunk.

Back to the first type, not many can qualify in that group. Unless it is someone who cares for you a lot and a great friend! These are the people who have elevated “giving surprises” to an art form, like Krithi who happens to be our great friend. On my daughter’s birthday, the surprises from Krithi started pouring in by around 7 pm on the previous day. The fun began with blindfolding my daughter to take her to best friend’s place by exactly 12 in the night and cutting the birthday cake. And it did not just stop there. There were atleast 8 gift packages given at periodic intervals till the next day evening, not letting my daughter to even comprehend the previous bundle of joy fully. Such was the pace. And she was absolutely delirious. The manner in which the gifts were given at the most unexpected of times and style floored her totally.

Then came our wedding anniversary. She acted as if she had run out of ideas and pretended she didn’t even have time to shop properly. But she did manage to squeeze some time somehow and we received beautiful gifts along with an ode written in toast of us. The next week on her anniversary, we tried to copy her style and did a bad job. All we could do was, space the gifts for half an hour and then plainly stared at her. I had convinced myself that I would not be attempting such daredevilry in future.And left it at that.

And then this event happened. I was suddenly pulled out a meeting one day, with a gun almost in my head saying I need to drive her to some place. I bought her pretext and went along. We stopped at an office and I was wondering what’s happening.

And then came the biggest surprise of my lifetime. She managed to take an appointment with my favorite writer and has arranged a tête-à-tête with him for me. I could not simply believe my luck. Initially I was simply awestruck and pinching myself to ensure that it wasn’t a dream. Then when I knew it was for real, I started rapping. And he did give an unbelievable 45 minutes for us. What I spoke & what I heard is still being recollected, as I am yet to come out of that daze. So that’s for another blog.

But the daze is more because of the efforts of Krithi, her style and the joy she gets in seeing us thrilled. ( the toast that she wrote for us, deserves a separate post ). But, here is our family’s toast to you Krithi….

“May Life be brimming up with pleasant surprises for you always”

Worry

This is actually an everyday dialogue at home. I am worried about you!! Could be about anything. Maybe I have a sudden boil erupting in the size only the best of microscopes can identify. Or maybe I woke up once in the middle of the night to pee. Or when I turn to see, I don’t turn the normal way I do.

OK this is real concern. One needs to worry. But what bugs me most is the question ‘why?’ by her. Why is this boil coming? Arre, how will I know, maybe we should ask the boil itself. Maybe I am good host. Maybe I am just the place where the boil wanted to settle in its last days. Maybe the previous boils told the new one that this is a nice retirement haunt. Or maybe it just came, like the million other boils in the world come.

Otherwise it will be, ‘why you are not sleeping properly?’ How will I know again? If I knew, would I not sleep? Could it be because you are tensed? Maybe! Is it because you slept well in the afternoon? Then, why on earth it’s a worry? I had slept well 6 hours back and am now struggling to catch sleep. Why can’t that good thing supercede this bad thing? Sometimes she will wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me why am I sleeping so restlessly. I might have peacefullly slept albiet restlessly if not for this waking up.

Then, it will be ‘Why are you looking like a crow?’ Maybe I always looked like a crow, being stealthy I am. Maybe I sat too much in the terrace and watched crows endlessly that I picked the mannerism. But the deduction would be a sprain in my back that is causing this crow look. Well I should be happy, isn’t it? Afterall a reason was found. But it is not to be. Because the invented reason has more questions as corollaries! How did the sprain come? Is it because of the spondylitis? But you are not riding a bike anyway? Has the car seat become shorter? Is the new Dell computer causing this strain in your back that causes the sprain?

I know one thing for sure. If my wife is going to be asking these questions continuously, the medical profession will go out of work. Either because of the sheer volume of answers they need to provide or because the patient anyway knows what is happening to him/her that the doctors are needed anymore. Like the doctor whom we know regales about his adventures with the patients, who instructs him to give them glucose! He is aghast at their audacity and his prescription being decided by everyone but him.

Honestly, I think it is my forehead that is getting fat. If not by brain atleast by sinus! And that’s the cause of all worries. With 17 years of husband experience I should be finding such answers so easily.

Hey, this is all a joke OK? But if I am admitted in some casualty tomorrow, you all need not ask the question why. It is just simply so very transparent. I would have been beaten to pulp and the doctors would be rearranging me into shape.

Wedding Anniversary

Couple of days from now, I will be celebrating my 18th wedding day. Wait a minute, read it carefully. It is not exactly 18th wedding. It is the 18th year. Should have written 17th anniversary. Guess I was overwhelmed and awestruck with the sheer number of years I am married. That’s why this faux paus.

As I keep telling, on hindsight I thank my job as a sales guy. Kept me touring for half this period. That’s 8 years of these 17 years. And the other half was spent at office with a 9 to 9 job. ( well, I am talking about those days ) That’s another 4.5 years gone. The other half was spent sleeping, which accounted for around 2 years and add to it another .5 years on the phone while being at home. In the balance 2 years, if the kids didn’t eat our head, we would in reality have spent approximately 1.5 years with each other.

In those 1.5 years, half the time she didn’t understand what I spoke and I didn’t understand what she spoke. So effectively we communicated only for about a year. This is just the first wedding anniversary then. No wonder we celebrate it.

First, I intend to award a plaque to her, something like Bharat Ratna or something, for patiently hearing me out all this while. Half the guys who worked with me still hold me in high esteem because they quit the job, unable to withstand me, and then their career flourished. So, I have decided to honor her perseverance. She could not or did not quit her job ( it’s a different thing altogether why she didn’t actively consider that, you always can't count yourself lucky ). Second, just not to sound biased, I would gift myself the same award. Afterall, it takes two to tango.

I keep wondering what magic was there for such a long-standing marriage. Our parents were the key. We strongly believed that if those guys didn’t kill each other, we would also not end up as murderers. And disagreement was taken as norm. When expectations are so low, you always meet them.

Funnily, we never understood what the other one said, so got to do whatever we wanted. I kept telling how organized one could be and she never understood, so stayed as it is. She kept telling me how sanity is a good virtue and I never understood that and I got to stay as it is.

Somehow we contrived to keep our children as human shields and those rabbits were entertaining either one of us in moody times and we suddenly realized that if we could create such wonderful creatures accidentally, real efforts could keep us afloat.

In this historical moment it is apt to thank all the people & things that made the marriage work, so let me thank my job, our parents, our children, our communication gap & our low expectations.

And the wonderful love that we share.

My Mother

My mother left for hometown after a 3-month trip to Chennai, albeit in the most bearable of the times in the hot city. Not that she goes to cooler climes. This piece is not about that. It’s about the time she was here.

I keep asking myself this question every time, whether I do justice whenever she is here. There are obvious discomforts while she is around. She is very orthodox and that means what you think is normal behaviour is absolutely a crime. Starting from wiping the floor you sat and ate; well that’s not wrong, till the point cow-dung is insisted to be used. The only cows I know of this metro is of a different kind. Well that’s for starters, there are many such violations of her rules and I feel I am atleast a few hundred generations away. The rituals that I used to perform every month to remember my father’s death, does not hold any particular reverence to me now and I can see her disappointment at the seemingly flagrant affront to her husband, not withstanding the fact that I am just like her husband in every bit of me, starting from dead finger nails. The fact that I swear by him to run my life after his and there is not a day I have ate a morsel alone, just like him does not matter as much as the wonderful Sanskrit words I need to utter every month.

Ok that explains the difficulty I have while she is around. But these are minor ones because I don’t give up on what I believe as much as her and despite disappointing her I never give into what she wants. I can tell one thing for sure though. She is extremely proud of me and what I am and what I stand for. That she is of course about all the 8 of us. But, me, a special guy, after all I am the last and was made when she was forty. And like her husband, a totally unflustered character who never worried about the future. An innocuous explanation of my dad for having so many kids was a Tamil adage. ‘Maram Vachavan Thanni Oothayama Povan?’. It means that ‘Would a guy who planted a tree, wont water them?’ He was referring to God though and to his credit he himself watered enough and more.

Whenever she is there with me, I keep thinking about why this lady can’t enjoy all the great stuff in life rather than worrying about the silly stuff that does not happen. For example, an adhoc purchase of 2 sari’s costing 4K is not an everyday thing for her, but she was more worried about not getting the matching blouse. She has gone through pain, had 10 children in all, from a rich family, became middle class and now she is come a full circle with all her kids freaking out. But there is something she misses, and I don’t know what it is. If I did, I would get her that.

I never know whether I have told her that I love her, shown in actions many times, never told her once though. We all make the mistake, don’t we??

I was never the one who made the love so very obvious. In fact I used to ask her, how come you could love me the same when I am the 10th, would you not get tired? And for a major part of my life I believed that it was my eldest sister who was my mother and that suited me too. It was only when she got married and left home when I was 5, I started looking at my mother and am sure I was a pain all through. It was my sister who was a pet, the one who would look at mom’s face all through when we sit in a movie. But no one knows that all of us do that. We all always watch our parents. There is more in their face than any movie or life story can ever say. I don’t know whether my kids do that now.

I grew up with the belief that she won’t live long; they didn’t those days. So, in the middle of the night sometimes I used to wake up and see whether she is still breathing and if she did, slept peacefully then onwards.

And now, when every time she leaves, I keep thinking, is this is the last I see of her alive. But these days, its just not about her, I get an odd feeling that it could be either her or me.

Friendship

Once again, back to a translation .... Well not exactly a perfect translation. Maybe we will call plagriased.

Friendship

Gulping food in haste
Catching a crowded bus

Hang on the footboard
Rush to the office

Escaping the growl of the boss and
Pestering of the colleagues

Clarifying a million doubts
For a buxom typist

And slide into the seat
To push pencil .... and

Lunchtime arrived

When I came close to the window
Opened the Lunchbox

Like always, peeped in the Baby squirrel.


The original is fairly old , about 2 decades maybe, wish the poet saw life today. These all are still there, but ... Only no space for the baby squirrel to peep in ...

Her

This was written by me on 08th May 1989. I was 24 , guess good enough to fall in love and write stuff like this. Looks very amateurish now, but I dont have the heart to infuse my intelligence and vocabulary on this now. That wld be unfair. Really, really unfair.

Young age and the ignorance has its own charm and I dont feel one bit ashamed about chasing the butterflies or the ice cream vendor. About this ofcourse I am more than proud.

HER

Hardly ever I've felt like this
This extra phenyl ethyl amine

Someone kisses me in the earlobes I feel
Sending shock waves all through

The most serious offence in my dictionary
Gets a pardon as a verdict

And wasting a minute without thinking about her
Makes the newer offence

Thousand stars smile at me
For only celestial bodies are not envious about me

Relativity is understood now
Walking with her for a while
Is magnified a million times, and
Talks with my boss sounds poetic

Yet God, please freeze them all
Freeze time too

Let relativity be reality

I am looking at the mirror at midnight
Is that what is falling in love
A poetic term for getting schizophrenic

But no one told me that
It will be so pleasant

Will there really be that HER in my life ?