After all…

Rafael Nadal came back after a losing spree, to win the French open and the Wimbledon 2010, I was happy. Could be because, he proved that hard work surely pays off and similarly was happy for Saina Nehwal when she got her World ranking no: 2. Spain won the FIFA world cup, I was happy again.

Michael Jackson died, I was very very sad. Could be because, for a lot of people like me he epitomized English music, or rephrasing it, his was the only western music that I knew about, when I was a teen. I still find myself wishing that if he did have to go, at least he could have had his concert and then maybe… The Bhopal gas tragedy never fails to evoke sadness. My blood boils with anger just seeing terrorists make a mockery of us.

Laughing with the characters in movies or even serials when they are happy and crying with them when they are sad is not new. Not only movies or sports, just about any good thing I see happening to others I feel good and feel sad when I see something bad happening to them.

These people are not me or my family. They don’t belong to my circle of friends. I don’t know these people. Just seen them on TV right? And I am 10001% sure that they don’t even know I exist. Then why??? I was discussing this with my mother and she said simply,” After all we are human beings, so we care for other humans too”. Now that would have been enough to satisfy me had I not extended the discussion.

I asked her, “Then why is it that we feel upset when our neighbour buys the latest TV or car? Why is it that we are angry when the fuse goes off only in our house and satisfied when there is a power cut in the whole area? Why did my favourite cake taste bitter when my colleague gave it as a treat for the promotion and raise that I wanted? I know these people, they know me. We practically see them everyday. So, if your logic is right, as humans, should we not be happy for them when they are and be sad for them when they are?"

Again my mother had a very simple answer. One- “After all we are humans and logic for everything is something that we don't need. Two-I don’t have vetti time (time to waste) like you, so let me work”, and she got busy making my favourite parathas...

Though all of it doesn’t make sense to me still, the only inference I gathered from this discussion is that anything and everything happening in this world either has a very simple explanation or we don't need to explain anything after all. So, from murders, bombings to pollution, corruption you name it and justify it with these words, “After all we are humans." Thereby it becomes our right as humans to be the way we are now, ain't it? And for the vetti time that I was chided for, I have the right, don’t I? After all I am human too (No doubting that, please!!!)

Truly Madly Deeply

“Love you”, “love you”, “love you” is what I repeatedly told the guy.

I didn’t have to muster the strength or courage or think about it. It came from the deepest part of my being, very sincere and complete with 'just love'. I didn’t know what his answer would be, nor did I care.

When I watched people declaring their love every time on screen I always found it very phony and whenever people I knew or saw followed the same culture I always wondered whether they actually loved each other. According to them love might be just a great feeling but for me love is totally abandoning yourself, being yourself and not having to care as to what the other person might think of you. Love is also the biggest effort we can take on our part for the other person. (yeah jumping hostel walls could be counted!)

And, yes! I did things for him not knowing or caring whether he felt the same way about me. I have been myself and I have listened to him, spoken to him with all my heart. He taught me the purest form of love. No give and take policy. Even though I didn’t know whether he would answer , he did give me one though- eventually. That one word was enough for me to take him in my arms and swear my love again, loudly this time. And he was busy holding my dupattah with one hand and picking his nose with the other and uttering his only limited vocabulary of words with full force,”grrrhhhhh”, and “drrrrhhhhhh”. These two words I will cherish all my life, always. My two month old darling nephew - He taught me a lot these three weeks he was at home.

Every time I saw a kid the first thought that came to my mind was that they were cute. I have found kids in diaper ads cute but I have never “felt” anything before. But this time while changing nappies and diapers (which I have never done for any other kid in my life) I felt good and happy. I could get up at any time of the night and check on him and talk to him (yeah the “grrrhhhhh’s” and “drrhhhh’s”) if he was awake. (He talks to me the most). No problems that he wet my bed. No regrets for losing my sleep, just plain happiness. Every time he cried I found tears in my eyes and anguish- yes i felt very upset. (too emotional eh?) Felt the same when he left today to Vellore. The house feels empty. Almost got up to check on him now when I heard the sound of a baby crying somewhere else.

I have never experienced anything like this and for that I will always be grateful to him. I know that I can never equal or even come close to what his mother does for him but still he will always have a special place in my heart and will be the first guy to whom I declared my love. “Grrrrhhhh”!!!

I am an aunt!

“Hey marumagan porandirukan di unakku” announced my mother who picked up the call before I could get to it. After almost 14 hours of wait, these were the sweetest words I could hear. “A healthy baby boy, looks like his aunt” was what my brother - the proud daddy, told us. At this point it made me really angry that the time machine is yet to be invented. Even the “choomandrakali” would have helped. One mantram and “whoosh……” I’d be there in CMC Vellore right near my nephew. Well, had to wait till next day in spite of all this wishful thinking.


The next afternoon saw all three of us near my brother, sis-in-law and my nephew. “My” nephew, mine – feels nice, very nice. He was sleeping like a doll. Fully covered up except his face, we had to wait and wait to see him wake up. It was evening and it was time to leave but we were still waiting. And then as if he felt sorry for us he opened his eyes and saw us all for the first time in his life. “Child is the father of the man” so we all turned into kids –cooing and making faces just as he did. It was very late when we left, as nobody wanted to place him back in his crib.


After returning, we got an update every hour on what the mother and child were doing. “Ma he is crying now and we don’t know why”, “Yeah she is sleeping”, “Ma he didn’t sleep a wink at all last night and neither did we!”, “Ma, did I also bother u like this?” these were some of the questions my brother asked my mother. The latest news from him was, “Ma he was given an injection, he cried a little but my eyes welled up with tears”, and so were my mother’s as she put the phone down and said, “Now he knows”. All this talk made me realize a few things.

As a child is born he/she brings happiness to the family. It is a rebirth for the mother, they say but I see a new awakening of love and respect in the eyes of both the new mother and father for their own parents. From the teen age words like “it’s your duty to raise us”, “you didn’t sleep to take care of us, so? Every one does that. What’s new?” to the understanding that yes, it must have been difficult to raise me well and make my life worthy- indeed a great journey of thoughts. So "this" is what we call the cycle of life!!! Interesting!!! The joy of becoming grandparents is not only that there is an addition to the family tree, but also that the things that they could never make their children understand as they were growing up–the love, affection, feelings, fear for their safety, etc… now their kids would understand on their own. And that makes life worth the while. Isn’t it?


I remember reading about a grandma who bought water guns for her grandchildren. Her son asked her, “Why ma, why did u buy them these guns? Don’t you remember how we drove you crazy with these?” for which she just grinned and said,”Yes I remember”.

Emotional Baggage

It’s been a week since I posted anything. After my secret desire of CSK winning the IPL 2010 coming true yesterday, I wanted to blog about it, but thought it best to leave it to my expert friends Vasant and Rajesh. So now having a lot of different options, I thought of taking a leaf out of my old book. This was something I wrote a few months back (Don’t ask y!). I don’t know how I wrote it. The words just came, and surprisingly I finished it within an hour or so (with a few small changes the next day). I have tried writing something to this effect for a many number of times since then, but couldn’t. And now I have stopped trying after realizing that this was just a rush of words contributing to my feelings. This was more emotion than anything else (like talent?).

When I think about it now, I am able to imagine the same old sari hanging outside Tulsi silks for almost 2 years, a rusty Fiat car standing outside the garage shop, all those cars left in parking lots, even people who are still waiting for prmotions and appraisals, to name a few, crying out for help with these words. So without further ado, after tossing coins and tossing the idea in my head a number of times (believe me you!) whether to share it or not, here it is.

I AM THAT THING ON THE SHELF

I will wait.
I will wait, till someone comes, and hope that someone will like me.
Want me, have a need for me in his life.
Someone I see who will appreciate my beauty and sense of style.
Though I haven’t much I have enough for the right “one”.

People come, see me, like me but want something else.
I am too good for some and some are no good for me.
I am too costly and worthy to the deserving and worthless to the undeserving.

Oh god! Give me a sign - but you give me those.
Show me a path – but you show me many.
Then, what more could I possibly want?
What more could I possibly expect?

Do I want you to guide his hands to me?
Do I expect you to shift those wandering eyes to me?
Do I need you to put that love for me in his heart?

Though I want to say yes, I can’t. Though I want to say “aye” I stop myself.
I have my pride.
Though you made me right you made me wait.
The journey of my life has been slow, tedious and tiring.
What is my achievement?
How many know me?

I have been here from the day of my creation, a layer of dust on me.
People write their name on it, like it, wipe it, and leave me to gather new.
I have been new but now I am old.
I have been in the same place for years.

My master sees me, takes pity on me and lets me be in the same old place.
He has faith in me. Or is it in you? Or is it in the “one”?
I know not.
He carefully takes care of me lest I be hurt.

But one day I will make him proud and be on my way.
Until then I stay here.

Yes, I am that thing on the shelf and I will wait…

Smart Solution!

We had three palm trees in our street and it became our identity inspite of the addresses and plot/door numbers that every house had. From cylinder delivery walahs to postmen, everyone knew of our street as "anda moonu pana maram irukira theru thane ma?” We even gave our addresses to auto rickshaw drivers using them,” Our house is the second one or third one to the left/right of those palm trees”.

But as luck would have it the Panchayat people brought those trees down as they continuously interfered with the power lines. Now the dilemma was that we lost the easy identification to our street. So during the usual conference of all the aunties at 7 pm (the time with no serials on Sun TV) under the lamp post, the agenda was about the very missing dear palm trees. Gone were the scary reminders of snakes hanging from them, one aunty was already missing the "nongu" that we all had during summer , and the other was obviously missing the little shade those trees provided for her husband's bike in the afternoon, when he came for lunch. "Now we will always have to count the number of streets running across and tell everybody so that they would be able to reach our homes, che thalaivali” went one, while the aunty with the longest hair was also thinking on the same lines of how to tell the address from now on.

Just then our neighbour's daughter, a cutie pie, said “Amma why don’t we put a board here saying, “This is the place where there were three palm trees previously” and now we’ll tell our address to everybody using the board, how simple no?” and she ran away clutching her doll humming her favourite actor Vijay’s song from a new movie. "What an idea" said an aunty in the orange sari, "Adra sakkai" went one, but before they all could do “wah wah’s” for the girl someone realized that the time was 8’o clock, the time for one of the favourite serials of everyone present, and so they dispersed with a mental note to meet again tomorrow under another lamp post perhaps, but on the street where there could almost be a board saying, “This is the place where there were three palm trees previously”.

A smart solution hmmm!

Why?

Yep this is the name I've chosen for my first write up- Why? (ஏன் இந்த கேள்வி இங்கு கேட்காத வாழ்கை இல்லை). So, I asked myself the same question –why? And the answer I got was- why not? Therefore, now I must get busy typing.

It’s been half an hour since I typed the first few lines and am still… not… busy… typing.

Another four minutes have passed (Are yaar! I could have prepared my favourite instant noodles and devoured it by this time). Still nothing...

If this is how I am going to be blogging then ho gaya!

Shortest duration of a blog on the net- World record. (Ok, Limca book of records? Alright, at least Coca cola? Thumbs up - yeah that should do it. Thumbs up book of records)

How do you people manage? – I ask those bloggers who blog continuously with sense in every word they write. Hats off, ribbons off and wigs off – as applicable.

So you see, the least I could do was to pick the name right. There would be traces of thought (or thoughts as the name goes) in what I write and if you can pick that up, then you are my “bestest” friend (sounds like one of those forwarded msgs na?)

See, this is why I never started writing because once I start I can never stop and when I get to my point in the end (though I usually never do. Actually... ok ok ...)

So whether the name is right or wrong, or I should have named the blog as “Musings of the confused” or “I am not responsible for you wasting your time” or any other, this is my blog and thank you for reading it, taking your time and loads of patience (though I haven’t much...)

Now I know you would be asking the same question Why? (why did I read this? Why o God why? – now that’s up to you… )

Somehow I am reminded of that dialogue by Chatur in 3 Idiots- “Ek din tum ro oge aur mein hansunga --gi I mean hansungi"… ha ha ha……………………………………………