Wednesday, June 20, 2007

When life hands you lemons... (2)

Wts scary is that on reading this.. I remebered occasions (in the last 2 months) when I have sounded somewhat like the second chicken in the strip....

Damn I need to escape from this corporate whoreship!! :-P

currently reading- Wizard of Oz
currently listening- Trouble Sleeping- The Perishers, World Hold on- Bob Sinclair

When life hands you lemons...

Surfing around the net today in office, i come across something incredibly entertaining and mildly relevant...Laugh away! http://www.irrelativity.com/lemons.html

"When life hands you lemons, make lemonade."So the saying goes. But why settle for making lemonade when there are so many more possibilities?When life hands you lemons...

* Cut them in half and squeeze the stinging, citrus pulp into the eyes of those who would dare to mock, threaten or oppose you.

* Just as life hands them to you, quickly toss them back. Yell, "You touched 'em last!" Then run away.* Say, "Lemons? For me? Cool. Can I have some more?" Life will comply, as it is eager to give you lemons. When it does, exclaim, "Hey, everybody, look at all these lemons! I'm the luckiest man alive!" Life will eventually become bored with its game of handing you lemons, since you obviously aren't going to play along, and will go off to find someone else to mess with.

* Stick shards of broken, colored glass in them, douse them with a bodily fluid of your choice and suspend them from lengths of rusty chain. Give each newly-altered lemon a different title, like "Conscience Resolution," or "The Indifference of the Soul." Hire a PR firm to get them displayed in a Soho art gallery. Take the art world by storm.

* Juggle.

* Go online to www.citrus-sex.com and check out pictures of people doing things you never even imagined to themselves, and each other, with lemons. Do these things to yourself and others. Bless this time we live in.

* Make lemonade. Add vodka. Drink. Declare that "life ishn't scho bad after all."

* Use them, along with some household white glue, to construct a medium-sized pyramid. Form a religion based around this structure and its inspirational and healing powers, with yourself as the charismatic leader. Draft a doctrine which places an emphasis on the redeeming qualities of giving and selflessness. Enjoy your tax-free status.

* Lemon fight!

* Simply refuse to sign for them. Life's lemons can't be delivered without an authorized signature.

* Pretend to "accidentally" drop one of them. When life bends over to pick it up, give life a major wedgie. Run away (without the lemons, of course.)

* Pack them around a postal shipment whose smell you wish to disguise.

* Accept them graciously, so as not to cause life to suspect you of anything. Then stick one in life's exhaust pipe while it's in the grocery store picking up more lemons.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Remembering her....

Wrote this last friday on small scraps of paper fished out from my bag....for reasons obvious after u read this post, I just got time to post it...

A thousand words and thoughts are swimming in my head and the urge to put some of them down has never been stronger. And yet strangely , I am struggling.

No matter how much you try to dress up a hospital's waiting room, its purpose or rather its cause, always manages to tone it down, make it seem grim and cheerless. And so it is, with this one that I am sitting in. Blue-grey chairs all lined up, a sleeping man almost slipping out of his chair trying to find comfort in a chair that has none to offer, groups of relatives huddled up together- some cheery, some glum but all sharing the same look of anxiety and a similar rythm in looking at the entry door expectedly. The TV in the corner buzzes to life, trying desperately hard to add momentary cheer to the worried faces but manages to elicit nothing but a perfunctory glance. A solitary mosquito darts in and out between the people and the chairs, its buzzing drowned by the hum of the AC. I am in the waiting room at Fortis Hospital in Delhi. And I suddenly burst into a short mirthless laugh, which wakes up the sleeping man who decides to give up trying to sleep and busies himself with his phone.

The irony of the name 'waiting room' just hit me; for that's what we have been doing for the past few hours, past few days, past few weeks. Waiting, watching and hoping that my dadima would get better, that she would show signs of the possibility of coming back home with us.

And here I am now, standing with dad n bua, while they try to decide and finalize the arrangements for dadima's last rites.

My mind keeps trying to organise its emotions, to identify them. This is not grief (its not nearly extreme enough), its not sadness (much as that may sound wierd) for like birth, death too should be venerated (for it's the beginning of another journey). This what I am feeling is simply a deep sense of loss.

Snippets of my memories of her keep coming to my head. The earliest one, being one, when because I was playing with her chunni she was running behind me shouting 'agar meri chunni phat jayegi toh mujhe nayi kaun leke dege' to which my standard reply was 'papa hai na!'

I remember all the time I would run to her knitting needles and a ball of wool in hand- 'Dadima sikhao na' 'Dadima dekho theek se nahi ho raha'. And no matter how busy or unwilling she was she would always help me.

Everytime I got lice in my hair (which was more than once), dadima would sit with me out on the verandah, a fine toothed comb in hand and patiently wage war on the lice.

I remeber her recounting to me her days as a little girl in Pakistan and my subsequent promise to her that I would take her back there with the salary of my first job. And I realise with a pang now that, that promise will never be.

And now that I had come down to Delhi, every weekend when I would come over she would make and get all that I liked to eat. I remember with fondness having the most surprising conversation with her about love, marriage, life and everything in between.

Yes, She was my dadi of awesome love (and ghee)-filled parathas, my dadi of sarson da saag and kaale gajar ki kaanji, my dadi of khatta aam achar, my dadi of 'bhajans on diwali', my dadi of 'koyi nayi galla kar'.

Yes. She was my dadi and I will miss her so so much.

currently listening- Hemorrhage-Fuel, music by Holly Brook, Breathe me (Mylo remix)- Sia