pain-pain-go-away-with-P’s-story

Oh I feel terrible for having skipped a day of blogging. Life caught up yet again. Odd hours of radio in the morning are taxing on mental sanity. Earlier, I was just struggling with my sanity, now there is no hope for it to be maintained. hehe Plus my ‘injury’ slightly resurfaced, had work-work to take care of, have a family member over to visit, and have a terrible wisdom tooth-gum pain. I was told by a dentist to get my wisdom teeth extracted in 2002 and I am told the same every time I visit a dentist but I never bothered. I figured that since they didn’t really bother me except once or twice a year, it was pointless getting a dentist to drill holes in my mouth. Hey, aNyThInG to avoid a dentist!!! P has to get some work done too due to a doc that screwed his teeth back in India but he is putting it off too. Dentists are people we seldom can love. I don’t know how I’d continue to have a loving relationship with my sister once she graduates from dental school hee hee. Anyway, so yes, the gum on one side is hurting pretty darn bad. It will be two years since it last hurt this bad in May. My solution to the pain? I put black pepper on the swollen gum. :p That is supposed to help. It always helped in the past. Don’t know the science behind it but it works, mate! :D I still won’t get it extracted ….

argh I should though and get over with these revisitations of pain.

Anywayy, to the highlight of the post …. after P’s 55-er, here comes the full version:

“Can I pick up this bottle, sir?” someone said. The voice was loud, louder than the waves crashing into the beach. I mechanically said yes and let him pick up my empty beer bottle that I had just finished. He put it in a plastic bag with other bottles. “How much do you earn?” I asked him watching a young family playing in the water. “One rupee a bottle” he said. “Ten” He counted for most probably the tenth time. He looked not older than 8-9 years.

“What will you do with the money” I asked. “A rather stupid question” I thought. “I am saving to buy a cricket bat”, he said most likely imagining himself in the blue uniform sending off a ball from a Pakistani bowler to deep six on a warm winter afernoon in Eden garden before a 1,00,000 spectaors. A slight smile apeeared on his lips.

I have a cricket bat at home, with chipped edges, a worn out bicycle tube as the handle grip, and with dabs of red paint of countless cheap balls.

“Do you like playing cricket?” I asked. He was now watching the family too: a mum, a dad, a kid of same age as my friend – the beer bottle collector – and a girl couple of years younger than the boy. The dad was wading in the shallow waters with his daughter perched on his shoulders. Mum was holding back the boy who was uncontrollable and wanted to follow his dad into the water. The little girl was shrieking in pure delight.

“I love the sea” I announced. “My dad drowned in this sea”, the kid replied with his gaze fixed on the father and the shrieking girl.

“He went fishing one day and never came back” he said without any emotion, rolling up his torn jeans. “Can you get me five fried batterd peppers?” I said giving him a ten rupees note. “Keep the change” I yelled as he was walking towards a stall a hundred meters away. He started sprinting. I continued to stare at the joyous family.

I suppose five minutes must have passed. “If only..” I was brooding while enjoying the family. “Saaar” a lady interrupted my thought. She was dark and tall, wearing a bright yellow saree and flowers in her oiled and braided hair. She looked like a local fisherwoman.

I looked up and acknowledged her pesence. “You alone?” she asked sitting down by my side. I nodded “yes”. I didn’t have any time to react to say anything else. “I charge hundred rupees for an hour”, she said looking longingly at the family. The lady of the family was looking suspiciously at us. “No”, I wanted to say, but something in me stopped me from saying it. I smiled sheepishly instead. She smiled as well and continued watching the family. Did I see tears in her eyes; is she crying or is it the salt in the air?

“Here are your Bajjis”, my kid friend screamed running back from the stall. He was being chased by few of his freinds. The lady turned too to see him. Her face turned stern as she looked the boy. “What are you doing here?” she yelled at the kid, “You are supposed to be with your sister. She is sick. I told you not to leave her bed side”.

The little girl on her fathers shoulders screamed with joy as a big wave crashed into her and wet her hair.

I still maintain my stance: morbid morbid morbid. :( If you say something three times, it becomes true. :D

Roo’s story first :D

Ya ya, I know you are more excited to see P’s. I still have to edit his … I’d post mine first and his will come within the next 24 hours. Pakka pakka pakka ji. No comparisons though pliss. I am a bad story writer, I admit. :D Anyway, here is an attempt :). 

Title: Double Standards

“I hate this traffic!” he said as he slammed the brakes for the umpteenth time that evening, “Can you try and get off work an hour earlier, Ma? It’s easier for me to pick you up then. We’ll miss this rush hour traffic that way.”

“You know I can’t do that, sweetheart”, her weary voice replied.

“Why don’t you just quit that job, Ma? Who needs you working at McDonald’s? Dad makes enough for us.”

Traffic had started moving.

“Beta, we are doing all this for you, our children, so that you can study well and don’t have to work the jobs that we do.”
“Aight, whatever you say.”
He had lost interest in the conversation and was fiddling with the car stereo with one hand and steering the wheel with the other.

“You should pay attention to driving”, she said to him rubbing lotion on her hands.
“Ma, I’ve told you so many times not to do that in the car. You always make the handlebars greasy.”
She smiled with pride at her grown-up son who was now a responsible adult. It was only last month that he had turned 18.

“Tell me, do you know if your sister is – what do you kids call it – dating someone? Are you keeping an eye on her?” she asked him staring at him keenly to observe changes in his facial expressions.
He squinted his eyes and shook his head as if she had spoken an alien language that he couldn’t comprehend.
“I didn’t understand what you are saying, Ma. Who am I supposed to be keeping an eye on and what for?”
“Your sister!” she retorted.
“What? What do you mean? Which one?? Why?”
He was still squinting his eyes and a look of confusion adorned his face.
“Of course, not the ones who are married”, she scoffed.
“What do you mean ‘am I keeping an eye on her’?”
His voice got louder and audibly agitated.

“As a brother, it is your duty to keep an eye on your sister to ensure that she is not dishonoring the family by dating someone,” she stated obviously disappointed in him, “How do you not know that yet? Have me and your father not taught you well?”

He broke out into a hearty laughter.
“Maaa, it is no longer 1940s in a village in India. We are now in Canada!! It’s 2009!! Times have changed! I am not keeping an eye on anyone. HA keep an eye!!! She’s 5 years older than me and in med school. I am sure she can take care of herself. Quit being old-school, Ma.”

Her heart almost stopped.

This was not what she had raised her son to be. Where had she lost her son who she had prayed for at innumerable temples? Where was her child who was to be a savior of her honor and her family’s honor when time called for it? Where was her son who she had to wait 12 years to conceive and give birth to three girls in the process of getting him? Who had he become? Oh she regretted the thrill that she had felt 20 years ago when her husband had told her that they’d be moving to Canada. Maybe if they were still back home, her son would’ve understood his duties and performed them like a worthy son.

She was lost in her thoughts, teary-eyed, when his cell-phone rang. He answered it cheerfully after glancing at the glowing phone screen.
“Who is it?” she interrupted.
He didn’t answer her.
“I told you to not do anything else when driving,” she said sternly.
“Ok ok, I’ll talk to you later”, he spoke into the phone.
“What, Ma? Why do you keep annoying me?”
“Who was it? You are always on the phone. We have to work hard to pay your huge phone bills, you know.”
“I thought you worked for us, your children, Mother,” he laughed, “It was my girlfriend on the phone.”
“Girlfriend,” she repeated after him as if she had run out of words to say.

He chortled as he swerved into their house’s driveway.
“I am only joking, my darling old woman,” he said to her looking at her endearingly. She smiled back forgetting all the despair that she was feeling moments ago.

“Make sure she is Indian when you get one,” she said to him before stepping out of the car.

“I thought dating was dishonorable, Mata. Wouldn’t me having a girlfriend be dishonorable to our family?” he shouted behind her with a chuckle.

She pretended not to hear and shut the house door behind her.

Pliss to be kind. :)

I win, you lose!

There’s a loser and then there’s a whiny loser. I am the latter. I hate losing. Especially to P. :( I like to disguise my inability of gracefully accepting defeat as competitiveness but you know the truth now; I am just a sucky loser. :|

As you conjured from the video, we recently bought Nintendo Wii. We used to have it in England as well but sold it before moving to US. In England, I used to kick P’s b@## in tennis in the beginning. Then he got really competitive and practiced regularly until he beat me. Thereafter, I gave up playing with him. :D Now that we had a gap of more than a year since we last played, I figured that he might have lost his moves and I’d overpower him with my raw natural talent of virtual tennis-ball bashing.

Alas!

Sigh.

I was wrong.

He won. The first time. The second time. The third time too. :( By that time, I’d lost all patience. So I whined, pretend-cried, fattened lower lip, did whatever it took to melt P’s heart into LETTING me win. :D :D :D He didn’t really play this time. I served, I hit the ball and he let the ball bounce out of his side of court earning me points. It was an easy win for me and peace was restored in the R&P household. muhahahaha :D

That aside, we did go see a play last night. It was a play written by Sujit Saraf, directed by Yaksha Dutt and the cast was local talent from Shunya theater. The play is called Everybody loves a good tsunami. Both of us loved it! P liked it so much that he wrote to Shunya theater to call him for next auditions. ;p That should be interesting!!! I’d the loudest to clap to see him on stage if that happens. :)))

Awrite, I have to go now. P’s getting impatient. He is waiting for me to play a racing game with him on Wii. Wish me luck!! I don’t really want to resort to pinching and kicking him into letting me win again hehe.

We’re going for Vaisakhi celebrations tonight! More on that later. Racing now. Vrrrooooooooooooooooooooooooom. :)

homemaker roo = blogomaniac too?

Now that we’ve established that Roo is an expert chef (hehe), let’s extend Roo’s portfolio by adding the role of an interior decorator to it too. The walls over here at R & P household had been standing bare for the past year since we’ve moved in. Other aspects of life took precedence as we built up a home together like getting all the electronics in order. Both of us love our gadgets; so obviously, they had to be a priority ;). Howeva, now that they’re all sorted, we found some residual time and brainpower to get our humblest of humble abodes all dolled up.

Our first thought was to fill it up with all the possible greenery that we could but my allergies won’t allow that. Next best thing was to adorn the walls with various knicks and knacks. With what though? Both me and P are not fans of impersonal paintings we can buy from any arts and crafts store. We wanted to make our space as personal as we could. Putting up family pictures everywhere is not our idea of personalizing either. So, we did what any other person with limited creativity would do. We dug into what both of us do best (best is a relative term hehe). P paints; I am a wannabe-photographer … what do you call them? oh yes, amateur photographer ;p. So we took 7 of his paintings and 12 of my photographs and framed ‘em and displayed them all around the house! :D

And whoa! What a change. Roo is happy. We have an entire hallway filled with P’s paintings now. Looks like an art gallery. It’s brilliant! :) And my pictures are undoubtedly fantastic of course hehe joking. I would like to take pictures of the pictures that are hung on the walls to show you but that’d really be redundant and boring. So instead, I welcome you to visit when you can :p … don’t forget to bring some cash donation (as in museums) hehe. Useless gifts, debit cards and credit cards NOT accepted. lol

How is that for self-promotion? :p

This leads me to my next questions. Do we live real life to blog about it? Or do we blog about real life to merely commemorate our life? These questions are a result of Soliloquie’s brilliant post on the disease of blogOmania. :) She writes:

You know that you are suffering from blogOmania or a severe case of blog addiction when

(then she lists many howlarious reasons … and one of them is:)

- on the form where they ask your spouse’s name, you fill in as ‘the other half’, ‘Missus’, ‘Pati’.

Her reason cracked me up cuz I HAVE filled a form where I put P’s name as Pati!!! haha But that’s cuz I call him Pati in real life and it was much before I’d started this blog that I’d done that goof-up on the form.

But her post sure made me think. Do I suffer from blogOmania? I wouldn’t like to think so .. cuz, dude, that’d be terribly sad if I did! :! Yes, there have been times when incidents happen when I think that I’ve gotta blog about this … but I don’t ‘create’ incidents to blog, y’kno what I mean. Despite that though, I have no lines of distinction between my real and my blog life. For example, I call P ‘pati’ in real life and I call him ‘pati’ on blog too. Does that mean I include blog life into my real life and make it a part of my real life more than I should? Am I confusing you? ;p

I write about my life as real as I can. Everything that I know about me is here on the blog. Kind of like take it or leave it. I put myself out here … without any holding backs … or fear of judgment … just as I do with my real life … This ‘virtual’ life is as real for me as my real life is. If something happens in blogworld that’s worth a mention in real life, I openly do that … and my real life is all over my blog to witness. It’s really a blend so perfect of the two that I can’t tell them separate …

My question is … do I take blog life too seriously by blending it with real life to the extent I do? Nothing too serious though … just a random question that gripped me. Cuz I think that I take blog life too lightly by not creating rigid distinctions to keep it separate from who I am in real life. But perhaps I’ve had it all wrong all this time … :p. You can help.

Also, thanks to you guys’ my ;p encouragement, P extended his 55er into a full-length short story!!!! :) I will be posting it tomorrow!! So watch this space for a budding talent! :D

karmic-connection (55er)

Everybody’s doing it. I shall do it too! :) Before you go any further, I must tell you that I am terrible at fiction. So, despite much effort to write a fictional 55er, I couldn’t go past “It was a nice day” for more than half an hour at which point I gave up. P, who had started writing his story much later than me, finished it before my half an hour of staring at white screen ended. That was the last stab at my dying creative ego. But I gathered up my courage again and wrote a 55er on a true-life incident!! :) Who says it has to be fiction? Here goes … pliss be gentle:

As she settled herself into a couch with a Skinny Latte at her university Starbucks, a man caught her attention.

“Was it you?” she phoned him later.

“You in pink?”

“But you’ve never seen me!”

“Neither have you!”

Silence.

“….how is that …?”

He smiled in confusion.

She was relieved she wore her favorite pink.

This is me and P’s ‘love-ishtory’ in 55 words. ;) Before we met in person, me and him interacted on the phone several times on a ‘professional’ basis. I was volunteering for a non-profit organization that he was in the management of. I had been in touch with him on the phone and through emails but had never met him … and this was when we met. And how! :)

Also, guys, P also wrote a 55er!! He would need your love and more!! Pliss encourage him? :) Here is his:

“Can I take this empty bottle, sir?” He must not be more than ten. I nodded slowly. “I love the sea”, I announced looking at a joyous family.

Dad was wading in the waters with his shrieking daughter. Mum was holding an uncontrollable son.

“Appa drowned there,” said the boy also looking at the family.

:(

Morbid P.

this is talent

Not even one post today! Oh nooo! :D

Here’s something I found over on Andrew Sullivan’s blog which most of you might’ve seen already. It’s a video compilation of 6000 paintings by an artist named Reza Dolatabadi. It took him two years to paint all of them and produce this 5 minute video. If you pause at any frame in the video, it is a painting! Amazing, isn’t it?

A clearer video here. It is meant to be a psychological thriller in paintings.

Don’t forget to pause the video every now and then to enjoy the art!! Fabulous.

No to Violence

something I wasted/used time doing this morning …

hmm …

bruises do hurt.

Related posts:
After effects of Abuse – 1
After effects of Abuse – 2
(Need I forgive) Abuse – 3

(ps: yep, it’s me in the photo … courtesy LightRoom)

Genetically Talented

My cute little sister (not so little actually … she’s 20 but she is cute ;p) surprized me with an email today. I was surprized because being a new generation kid that she is, she is not the kind to email. Texts and instant messaging are more her style. Instant gratification: her generation’s motto. Surprized as I was to see her name in the From list, I was even more surprized to see ’sketchy’ in the subject line. The email had an attachment! Heart skipped a beat. Did she really pull herself away from the silly TLC shows she watches endlessly on her off days?  Did she actually attempt at something creative? Her? My sister? The ‘4.0 GPA but oh I hate reading any fiction nonsense’ sister? The ‘I can’t believe you enjoy writing’ sister? Excitedly, I clicked to open the email attachment and immediately uttered the words that had to be spoken out loud for their full effect: “Ah! talented genes.” :p Am I gloating? Hey, it is my blog :p. Well, here is what she sent me:

I only view it with sisterly love. Critically, I shall never view it but you are welcome to. :)