Last evening, the telephone rang while my hands were in the sink. Shreya picked it up, and came to me with a puzzled face.
"Ask who it is and say I'll call back," I hissed.
"I can't understand anything," she said.
I took the phone from her and grumbled a hullo.
It was a newsreader's voice on the line. "In the southern Indian city of Ernakulam..." and the rest was garbled. "Hullo?" I shouted.
Deja vu Sept 11, 2001 when we switched on the television, speechless in the middle of a birthday party, to hear, "In New York..."
Yesterday morning, I had heard newscasts of bombs in Bangalore, bombs in Ahmedabad and seen TV grabs of police patrolling the railway platforms of Kochi. I was four hours away and seemingly safe from fear for myself.
Now the electronic voice brought blood stained visions of beloved family and friends in possible targets like Chennai and Ernakulam, trying to let me know what was happening to them...or friends calling to tell me of tragedy, while watching breaking news, words failing them....
A wavering female voice broke in on the newsreader's garble. "This is why I say you must always write it down."
Familiar aunty voice. Where had I heard her?
"Have you written it down?" It was the same insistent voice that woke me up at 7am Saturday to sell dinner tickets to the World Malayali Conference. I had acquiesced to her already. Now what did she want?
"Why are you going this way?" she asked.
One-sided conversation this. I tried to reply, "Aunty? This is me.."
Static crackle ensued.
The poor woman had either sat on her phone or was squeezing her bag to her side and had dialled my number unknowingly.
This was when I should have hung up and given her privacy. But there was something familiar in her tone. She was talking to someone who was not responding. Deja vu again.
Now I was curious.
"We are going to Chacko's house, you know," she ventured.
A guttural male grunt replied.
A minute later, a male voice said at last, "Where is Chacko's house." It was not a question. Heavy mockery underlined the sentence.
"I don't know," she said.
Guttural grunt again. Point made. Wife put in place.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Breach of promise
I've googled out the right term to describe the mess Philo, my friend, has got into. "Breach of Promise" satisfies her. It reassures her that she has been wronged and that it matters in the rest of the world too.
Her "husband"(her word) is missing, which means to me that he doesn't want her. And I'd drown rather than chase someone who doesn't need me. So I'd be kinda glad that he left before he set up home with me.
Philo stands steadfast, determined to fight. Unlike mine, her morality says once fucked, forever chained. Mine says that sex is not immoral.
Philo was last with a man 17 years ago. The ideas of right and wrong in that era abide with her and it's gratifying that she's able to see it in black and white.
Of course, it will hurt her more than someone who's able to view it dispassionately in browns, greys and all the in betweens.
My survival mechanism is practical, hers is the stuff of great stories. Her desire for revenge, her quick mastery of the internet for the purpose...My stories end quickly as I allow no great sorrow to engulf me. One sorrow is replaced quickly by a myriad joys.
Her "husband"(her word) is missing, which means to me that he doesn't want her. And I'd drown rather than chase someone who doesn't need me. So I'd be kinda glad that he left before he set up home with me.
Philo stands steadfast, determined to fight. Unlike mine, her morality says once fucked, forever chained. Mine says that sex is not immoral.
Philo was last with a man 17 years ago. The ideas of right and wrong in that era abide with her and it's gratifying that she's able to see it in black and white.
Of course, it will hurt her more than someone who's able to view it dispassionately in browns, greys and all the in betweens.
My survival mechanism is practical, hers is the stuff of great stories. Her desire for revenge, her quick mastery of the internet for the purpose...My stories end quickly as I allow no great sorrow to engulf me. One sorrow is replaced quickly by a myriad joys.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Rich women who say so
I am rich. There are richer. Kinder. Better.
Never did I want to be rich. This identity is puzzling.
Just being me was the best. And I am still the best - I do need more reminders now.
I preserve one discoloured hair on my head and one above my knee. I am not greying, but browning. It's been eight months since the henna I infused with coffee overnight in my $ 50 cast-iron pan. After half an hour of agony at having my head resemble a Martian nightmare, off went the henna. Two more hours would have got my hair tinted like the iron pan if it were polished and sun-shined.
With my one colourless hair, peacock-yellow kurti, peacock-pink cuffs, dangly ice-pink earrings and ice-pink pendant on a black thread, I go to eat at Poison Ivy and meet the owner of the restaurant, as we are her only customers. She is poison, 59, peppery and woman of the soil(-ed singlet). She is poison to me as my birthday boy-man did not get a compliment from her, but she cooed and darlinged the other two men at my table. Grrr.
He must have been too much man for her.
Two mid-notes here:
Peacocks are not pink, but my pink was as cocky as it could get.
And shouldn't I be glad she did not coo at him? Well, if she were competition, I would be glad.
I listened squirming while she said how much of this miniscule country she had owned until the "Prim and Proper" govt (PAP, as in the smear) bought it at $1 for every square foot. How she did not have to earn her living. How she was president of a sporting group and would soon be the prime minister of Somepore. How she would not go to China as there were too many Chinese, or to India as there were too many Indians.
Obviously. She is neither one or the other, a Singh-Lim. Dagger-carrying frog in an equatorial well-island. Should I blog officially about her on my food site? My poison might show. Not afraid of her dagger. She should not have pointed out that she was wearing it. Some things are impressive when left unspoken.
Never did I want to be rich. This identity is puzzling.
Just being me was the best. And I am still the best - I do need more reminders now.
I preserve one discoloured hair on my head and one above my knee. I am not greying, but browning. It's been eight months since the henna I infused with coffee overnight in my $ 50 cast-iron pan. After half an hour of agony at having my head resemble a Martian nightmare, off went the henna. Two more hours would have got my hair tinted like the iron pan if it were polished and sun-shined.
With my one colourless hair, peacock-yellow kurti, peacock-pink cuffs, dangly ice-pink earrings and ice-pink pendant on a black thread, I go to eat at Poison Ivy and meet the owner of the restaurant, as we are her only customers. She is poison, 59, peppery and woman of the soil(-ed singlet). She is poison to me as my birthday boy-man did not get a compliment from her, but she cooed and darlinged the other two men at my table. Grrr.
He must have been too much man for her.
Two mid-notes here:
Peacocks are not pink, but my pink was as cocky as it could get.
And shouldn't I be glad she did not coo at him? Well, if she were competition, I would be glad.
I listened squirming while she said how much of this miniscule country she had owned until the "Prim and Proper" govt (PAP, as in the smear) bought it at $1 for every square foot. How she did not have to earn her living. How she was president of a sporting group and would soon be the prime minister of Somepore. How she would not go to China as there were too many Chinese, or to India as there were too many Indians.
Obviously. She is neither one or the other, a Singh-Lim. Dagger-carrying frog in an equatorial well-island. Should I blog officially about her on my food site? My poison might show. Not afraid of her dagger. She should not have pointed out that she was wearing it. Some things are impressive when left unspoken.
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