Pra – nun – si - yay - shun.

I had tuned into one of the western music frequencies on radio yesterday. The RJ was chirpy and all that jazz, and the playlist was something that I could use to flavour my cuppa. Just then, the RJ decided to get democratic, and introduced a request section in his show. Someone requested for Greenday, and the RJ consents gladly, and announces through ether, “Up next, we have Greendayyy with booolivart of brookin dreemzz. What a song, the booolivart of brookin dreeemzzzz.” Cant help wondering whether the dude had actually listened to the song. Attempting to sport an accent is alright, but that doesn’t give one the liberty to go retching over a word like boulevard.
I ,for one, have waged a losing battle against the vagaries of pronunciation that characterize the English language. Being a South Indian, and having been brought up in a household where a word in English is uttered only when one runs out of expletives in the native language, much of my vocabulary originated from books and other such reading material. The dictionary with its encoded pronunciation guidelines was seldom used, semantic guessing games, adding more fun for dear old lazy bones. Indisposed to watching movies and TV shows (baring a few light sitcoms), the opportunity for me to hear the spoken language, was reduced to Spartan levels.
This reminds me of an incident that took place sometime back in college. There was this lady, who happened to hail from an affluent background, and was a very cosmopolitan, globe-trotter. An avid reader herself, we had the opportunity to have a few extra-curricular interactions, (despite the obvious mis-match of our backgrounds) due to the fact that our names were adjacent on the roll. (That’s the best thing about college, people from different strata can jam in.., although differences still remain).. On one such occasion, fully engrossed in the conversation, I happened to say something which made her go gaga with laughter. And mind you, this girl had a very high pitched and shrill laugh, which came out in bursts and peals. A sizeable crowd had gathered to join in the merry making, leaving me confused and flabbergasted. When she had finally calmed down, and was able to speak again, she asked me to repeat my self. Nervously, I obliged. “ I used to be a fan of detective novels and stories of yes-pi-yo-nay-jjj. And Lo!, another shot of laughing gas went up her system. I was almost on the verge of tears. Then she explained herself. And showed me how to pronounce espionage with a franco-greeko-latino tint to the na`and the ge… I didn’t bother to check it up in the dictionary and took her well traveled and worldly wise expertise as a reliable reference.
But the maxim, once bitten twice shy finds an exception in me. I still venture out with tongue twisting words, which I still don’t bother to learn how to pronounce, and still end up in embarrassing situations. But the espionage incident taught me a valuable lesson in life. A mistake made is always a lesson learnt.
So folks, keep making mistakes and learning more valuable lessons in the year to come. Happy New Year!

SOS from Space.

Day 1:
Hit the sack @ 1.00 am
Rose and shone @ 6.00 am.

Day 2:
Zzzz time: when the clock chimed a dozen in the dark
Brrred awake by Banglore chill : 5.30 am.

Day 3:
Curtains down by half an hour beyond midnight.
Up and shivering by half past six.

Day 4:
Slipped into slumber land at 11.45 pm
Migrated to a transcendental stupor at 6.00 am

Location: Office

9.00 am: Winked, sorry worked at a document with eyelids half mast .
9.05 am: Found this piece of alien Morse code to have materialized* mysteriously in my document.
Hjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjh
9.30 am: Hard at work trying to figure out what the hapless Extra terrestrial tried to communicate. If any one can crack it, please let me know ASAP. A poor soul is in distress, albeit alien.



* : Key boards make very lousy head rests.

The Interpreter

Come March, the mercury soars. Having lost its Garden-city status, Bangalore is no exception to the searing heat that rules the roost in the South of India.
The rising temperature might keep us humans indoors, but the reptilian community of the city seems to find it prudent to venture out. Discomfited by the heat, one particular denizen of our house’s hidden nooks, sought refuge in our bathroom door one fine Friday night.
This lizard, henceforth referred to as liz, (for we* have christened it Elizabeth if female and Lister if male.. And we have absolutely no desire to find out which one is appropriate.) became the sole object of our attention that weekend.

Lizzie Day 1:

Soliloquist comes back to the room late, after a hard day at work (!!) to find S.J cocooned under her quilt. S.J had left work earlier that evening with a fever fiercely competing with the ambient temperature. Soliloquist wants to wash her face and hit the sack, so stumbles her way to the bathroom to be rudely shocked by Lady Liz ( I am assuming that its female, cos I stay in a women’s P.G**) relaxing on the anvil.
Soliloquist is petrified in her tracks, and turns to S.J for help. S.J mumbles something beyond Soliloquist’s intelligence in her infirmed state. Soliloquist tries all sort of antics to scare Liz. Liz is unmoving. Soliloquist calls her chum for advice. He raises her fears by saying that Liz might ve been dead for hours.
Soliloquist turns desperate. Goes down to the landlady for help and assistance. Manages to communicate her anxiety in her broken kanmil ( kannada+tamil). Aunty (that’s what we call her) comes up armed with a broom and prods Liz. Liz spurs to action and moves behind the curtains. Soliloquist is happy . Washes face and snores away to oblivion.

Lizzie Day 2:

Soliloquist plans to work on weekends to make up her lethargy during the week. Double checks for Liz along the bathroom door’s perimeter and steps in the bathroom, at ungodly hours ( i.e on Saturday terms). And scoots off to work. S.J is still asleep under her over-sized quilt.
Soliloquist returns back that evening to find S.J staring at the ceiling lost in thought. Soliloquist surprised to see S.J so pensive and follows her gaze to end up staring in unison at the unfair reptilian beauty of Lady Liz. Soliloquist gets into action on a war footing. Calls an urgent counsel of all her able P.G mates. Everyone seems to have a lizzie tale of their own. An entire family seems to be residing in parallel for free.

End of meeting: Soliloquist more alarmed than usual, S.J looking unusually meditative.


That night.......:


S.J and Soliloquist follow the movements of Lady Liz like shadows. They get on the defensive. (Offense requiring more courage than both of them could ever muster).
The beds are moved to the center of the room. Soliloquist fights valiantly with sleep, having gotten up so early on a Saturday morning. The ever resourceful S.J picks up and M & B from V.N’s *** bed and is soon lost in pinky mush. Soliloquist tries to ape S.J and picks another M & B ( Both our stocks of books being too strenuous to be read in a sleepy state) . Soliloquist soon learns her lesson, the pink and red getting to her head, drops the book and resigns to her fate of keeping watch. Soliloquist is so impressed with herself, she even toys with the idea of being a sentry as if her profession gets any more unrewarding than it already is. A summer storm brews outside, with thunder clapping in applause to Soliloquist’s dedication.
The clock strikes one. The lights go off. Cursing the wretched transformer, Soliloquist and S.J fumble around the menagerie of cosmetics to find the candle on the shelves. Soliloquist resumes her sentry watch, joined by S.J, now having finally given up on M&B owing to poor lighting. Neither talks. The silence speaks volumes. Liz holds them enthralled with her maneuvers. Liz goes and hides behind the lampshade . S.J and and Soliloquist in a quandary. They wait with concentration for Liz to emerge from her hiding. Some thing bright flickers….
AAAAaaaaaagh!!.. Soliloquist screams..
Aaaaaaagh!!! S.J Choruses after a slight phase delay.
S.J stops to think. Soliloquist continues her siren. S.J shakes some sense into Soliloquist. Soliloquist gapes in new found wonder at Edison’s inventions.. The lights have come back… Liz too, scared by the two sopranos wriggles off to some remote corner.. Soliloquist says her wise thing for the day (her quota of one wise thing for the day still being unused) “Out of sight, out of mind”. And slumps down in a heap to snore her lungs away. S.J, still skeptical, plods on with her M&B.

Lizzie Day 3:

Liz is nowhere to be seen. S.J and Solioquist rejoice and thank the heavens. The even celebrate by shopping (!!) in lizzie’s honor. To be better safe than sorry, they lodge a complaint with the landlord. To their dismay, they discover he is as scared as them when it comes to Lady Liz. But as a solace, he offers to send his 2 year old toddler , Madam P , who happens to be an expert exterminator, specializing in Lizards. Soliloquist and S.J stay downstairs for most of the evening watching a deluge of dumb shows on the tube.
S.J finally gathers the guts and goes upstairs. Soliloquist follows with Madam P tagging along, lured by the snacks that S.J stocks up in the room.

Soliloquist is struck with déjà vu. Soliloquist catches S.J in the same pensive posture as on Lizzie Day 2. Both of them turn to Madam P for deliverance, eyes filled with hope. Madam P, oblivious, starts with her usual chime “S.J, Chips Chips chips..” “Chips, give me”..(A literal translation that she makes from kannada, to enhance our comprehension, her own and definitely not mine).

A diabolical gleam flashes across S.J’s eyes. “Madam P, you chase that lizzie away and I shall give your Chips chips chips..”. Soliloquist is bowled over by this master stroke.. Soliloquist filled with awe and admiration for S.J. Makes a mental note to pick up some pointers from S.J sometime later. Madam P marches across the beds to Lady Liz’s lair. And shrieks in her baby voice “Palli, Go”.. She repeats her cry with more vehemence and swings both her tiny arms to emphasize her point. And Lo!, , Palli (Lizard in kannada) obeys her command and does her bidding…

S.J and soliloquist heave a sigh of relief. Soliloquist utters her wise thing for the day “ Ahh, now I get it.. the Lizard was a kannada speaking one.. It didn’t understand our language.. All we needed was an interpreter”. They handsomely reward Madam P for her services, with “Chips, chips, chips”…




***** :
We*: S.J and Soliloquist
P.G**: Paying Guests
V.N***: Another roomie, who is fond of M&Bs and who was out of town for the weekend.

****: the astrixes are part of a novel strategy to reduce my talking in brackets.

A Kiss

Shrieking Still
Dark Night
Trial of will
And all his might

Frantic paces
Burning torture
His mind races
Heart in rapture

The stray twirl
The soft glance
Set him in a whirl
An eternal trance

She lay awake
Beads of sweat
A lot at stake
Desires whet

This is the moment
Of gain and loss
No time to lament
Fate’s own toss

He waits
She alights
Wolf cries
In the woods

He calls
She responds
A kiss






“Goodnight Papa”
She lies on her bed
A kiss
On her forehead

Dreams caress
Palls of slumber
Ruffling tresses
Sleep drowns her




The silent night
Wolf cries
In the woods
And he waits……

- The Lunatic Bard

Dental Drama (Trauma?!!)

Let me begin with by saying, that when I plan to fail, I really don’t fail to plan. Having led a directionless life in the double decade and odd period for which I had known Mother Earth, it so appeared to me that it was high time I took charge of things. I gave my resolve a jump-start by planning a lot many things for the 4 days long holiday that I was to spend at home. High on the itinerary was an appointment with the dentist, which had been long pending. It was a follow-up visit for the treatment necessitated by an accident coupla months back. (If anyone cares to know about the mishap, do rummage through my earlier posts, to find an account filled with all the more-than-necessary-for-the-world-to-exist details. (Frankly speaking, I myself don’t have the patience to do so... (But that’s a secret between you and me ... (mums the word! (and yes, I am back to writing within brackets))))).
Now, if you are out of the brackets finally, let me come to the point. This follow up visit turned out to be blessed with immense procreation of its own kind. The follow up visit was followed by a follow-up for the follow-up visit, and that was succeeded by its own follow-up. The crux of the issue is, that I had complained of some faint pain in one of my affected teeth, (that was just to sound serious, because I really didn’t have any big complaints to report.) which made the dentist take an X-ray and discover a crack in some bone, which had stubbornly refused to heal. This induced the proliferation follow-ups, each one being more ridiculous than the previous, the nurse forgetting to replenish the stock of some pain-alleviating drug during one of those, and making things difficult for the rest of humanity. My mother, who would be waiting outside, would give a perpetually woeful look each time, once going to the extent of forcing the Doc explain the rationale behind all the excavation work going on inside my oral cavity. It is a very funny thing, finding yourself in a hapless condition, jaw wide open, all sorts of heinous instruments flashing their malicious metallic grin, the cacophony of the drill, and you left to salivate like a dog, with a vacuum pump sucking out the fluid and leaving u, not high but dry. The pain and the ignominy reach their pinnacle, only when the Doc says: “That’s it, we just have 10 more minutes to go, its going to hurt just a little bit”.. In this respect, the Dentist resembles God, timing the hardest blow perfectly when our spirits are soaring sky high...
I still have one more follow-up to go, but that has been safely pushed into the middle of February. But till then, whether or not I like it, mush is going to be my mantra. Perhaps, not for the heart, but unavoidably for the mouth.
Something out of my 10th Standard English book just floated into my head – a poem by
Ogden Nash. I have pasted it below. In case, you liked my post so far, you might like the poem as well, for our tastes may concur. Even if you didn’t, read it anyway, for all of us have teeth, and have to visit the one-who-must-be-feared someday or the other.




***This Is Going T o Hurt Just A Little Bit***

One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair with
my mouth wide open.

And that I will never have to do it again is a hope that I am against
hope hopen.

Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,
But the one that is both is dental.
It is hard to be self-possessed
With your jaw digging into your chest.

So hard to retain your calm
When your fingernails are making serious alterations in your life line
or love line or some other important line in your palm;

So hard to give your usual effect of cheery benignity
When you know your position is one of the two or three in life
most lacking in dignity.

And your mouth is like a section of road that is being worked on.
And it is all cluttered up with stone crushers and concrete mixers and
drills and steam rollers and there isn't a nerve in your head that
you aren't being irked on.

Oh, some people are unfortunate enough to be strung up by thumbs.
And others have things done to their gums,
And your teeth are supposed to be being polished,
But you have reason to believe they are being demolished.
And the circumstance that adds most to your terror
Is that it's all done with a mirror,
Because the dentist may be a bear, or as the Romans used to say, only
they were referring to a feminine bear when they said it, an ursa,
But all the same how can you be sure when he takes his crowbar in one
hand and mirror in the other he won't get mixed up, the way you
do when you try to tie a bow tie with the aid of a mirror, and forget
that left is right and vice versa?

And then at last he says That will be all; but it isn't because he then
coats your mouth from cellar to roof
With something that I suspect is generally used to put a shine on a
horse's hoof.

And you totter to your feet and think. Well it's all over now and after
all it was only this once.
And he says come back in three monce.

And this, O Fate, is I think the most vicious circle that thou ever sentest,
That Man has to go continually to the dentist to keep his teeth in good
condition when the chief reason he wants his teeth in good condition
is so that he won't have to go to the dentist.

Written By: OGDEN NASH.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Forget what is bitter
Make the future sweeter
Take the best of the past
So pleasures may last
Keep your dreams high
Let them scale the sky
Taste the joy of victories
& the wisdom of failures
Cherish the moments
That you have lived
Cherish the moments
You still have to live!!

Happy New Year 2006!

Luv and Cheers,
The Lunatic Bard

Shades of Similarity…

Buildings mushroom overnight in the IT capital of India. One such edifice was taking shape in the street where I live. The construction activity was in full swing, contract laborers being hired from the neighboring border villages. Temporary settlements had sprung up for accommodating these people and their families. Most of them speak a dialect of my mother tongue, Tamil, coming from the villages near Hosur, on the Karnataka – Tamil Nadu state border. Yearning to hear the twang of Tamil isn’t something strange when you live amidst people who either don’t speak the language or prefer the Anglican medium of the corporate world to express themselves. I generally satiate my hunger for my mother tongue by gaping at those who happen to speak it. Listening to a stray conversation in your mother tongue in an alien land, can be an exhilarating experience. That being a separate issue let me get to the point. These new tenements and their inhabitants presently revealed some very intriguing ironies. I have tried putting them down in a certain format...

1. Enjoy the great outdoors.. Barbeque bonanza.. Cook your cuisine in the open…

Read all this in one of the hoardings on the infamous Hosur road, forced to memorize them as a pastime in the no-one-can-escape-me jams. A nice way to plan a weekend to savor the world outside your cubicle...

That very evening I chanced upon my lingual compatriots cooking a delicious smelling kozhambu in an open pan on the streets, the scent of the boiling broth wafting through the chilly evening air, a heavenly delight... Urchins laying a dinner table, under the star spangled firmament... A teenage twosome having a moon light dinner… Who needs candle light to romanticize the air when the biggest candle in the Universe shines upon your loved one’s head...

2. Streak your hair, Great hair color for that great new look... Do away with dull boring black hair…

Had the kismet of following a hip young woman with copper streaked straight hair walking like a trapeze artist atop a high heeled shoe.. Another identical head bobs up and down beside her, with almost the same coloration.. Probably hued bronze instead of copper… Pestering our red riding hood, sorry red riding head, to adorn her locks with a few fragrant jasmines… Losing interest in the peddling and the rebuttals, I fixed my attention on the craniums of the two females.. The shorter form fascinated me, achieving the same hairdo at a lesser price.., in fact no price at all… it’s the lack of funds for hair care products, vis-à-vis a decent shampoo and some ounces of coconut oil that worked the magic… Hair dressers of the world should marvel at this master stroke woven by scarcity!!..

3. Work out.. Sweat your self out at the Gym.. For those great muscles.. Flex your biceps for the chicks to flock…

I have this habit of looking at my feet trying to count the cells of the cuticles when I walk alone on the street.. On one such occasion, I happened to look up… Was confronted with sight of three tall, dark well built men, in overalls smeared with distemper..

Was tempted to wolf whistle when they rolled up their sleeves to pick up a ladder…
Man, these guys get paid for working out!! Lucky souls!!.. Don’t have to dish out the bucks from their wallet for sweating their hearts out.. Don’t have to schedule and re-schedule work to fit the gym slot in… Glorious muscles are all in a day’s work for these fellas… What a perk to enjoy with your job…


Disclaimer:
My attempt at putting forth the paradox may have been slightly blunt and out of punch, because right now I am kind of grappling with a perennially pre-occupied mind.. Nevertheless as long as the ironies find their target audience, it is mission accomplished for me.

Just Think About It!!

What if we could read each other’s thoughts? Like the thought clouds that top people’s heads in comic strips... A scary and catastrophic line of thought… ahem... pun’s unintended. A funny prospective if taken in a lighter vein...

I was mulling over this after I gave the first conscious artificial smile of my life today. Saw someone and grinned heartily while muttering under my breath “what a jackass!!”...

The corporate world would be one hell of a circus, (not that it’s any better now...) if thought bubbles started emanating from everyone’s head. Cos the work place is where one encounters sweet caramel coated smiles as often as one inhales. And the probability of most of them being genuine is accurately zilch. Take for instance the silent skirmishes between the in-laws of a big family; all hell would break loose if thoughts were to buzz around like mosquitoes… Imagine the tradition worn cushion supported political discussions on coalition conundrums, if the criss-crossing thought arrows did make their mark, wouldn’t it mean chaos manifold, than what it already is?
Masters behind the camera have often toyed with this possibility, movies being made on men reading the thoughts of the fairer sex, and people being able to comprehend the language and thoughts of animals... Invariably they became being hard to resist rib ticklers.

I once had a conversation that was exhausting, literally and metaphorically, with a friend on how everyone’s thoughts travel in the form of waves. These metaphysical undulations send vibes about one’s personality even before the first words come out. The positive aura that surrounds someone, or the inexplicable prejudice you might harbor on someone else, all find a near plausible theorization in this.

There is one fable in ancient India that is an allusion to this hypothesis. There was once a righteous and just king who was of the habit of doing rounds of his Kingdom, masquerading as a commoner, in the shelter of the night. His wise and able minister unfailingly accompanied him on such nocturnal visits. On one such occasion, the King chanced upon a man sitting under a lamp post deep in thought. The King was troubled by incomprehensible ill-feelings for this complete stranger. Disturbed, he confided in his minister. The minister bought some time from the King to investigate into the matter.
The very next day, the minister put forth a proposal to buy a lot of sandalwood furniture and other articles of sandalwood for the Palace. Though baffled by this sudden scheme, the King approved it, out of his inane trust in his aide. A month or so passed. The King again chanced to run into this strange man on his nightly visit. This time, he had equally perplexing tender thoughts about him. Absolutely confused, he sought his minister’s counsel. The minister’s explanation was thus:
“My Lord, the stranger who had vexed you to such an extent, is a sandalwood merchant. When you first set your eyes upon him, his business was in doldrums. He was ardently praying that you should die, so that he could sell his ware to cremate your body. Who else, in this nation would use sandalwood for cremation?? So naturally, his negative thoughts sowed seeds of hatred in your mind. I investigated this, and placed that bulk order for sandal wood in his shop for all the articles we had planned to procure, for the Palace. This caused his business to boost, and not a day passed in this man’s life without singing your praises, and wishing for your longevity, so that he would get more orders from the Palace. And that explains the pleasant thoughts that filled your mind when you chanced upon him the second time.”

Our thoughts are not only ours to claim. They influence our lives as well as others. Agreeable feelings and thoughts not only guarantee our peace, but also make a better place of our surroundings.

My once alarmingly long hate list has now become almost vacant, once I started applying this tenet to my daily life. It does take time and patience to deploy such an utopian stratagem, but it is definitely worth the pains in the long run.

My Sleeping Secrets

More on sleepy matters…

I had the chance to discover the following eccentricities about my sleeping habits.

If I am really sleepy these are what I do, arranged ascending order of probability
1. I get groggy and begin to whine
2. Become extremely rude and uncouth and mouth profanities of the highest order
3. Drop down dead and doze off, with ultimate disregard for my surroundings, snoring sonorously.
Heaven on earth: The satisfaction of a good night’s sleep.



My 5 cents on the best ways to sleep in a moving bus:
1. Sleep to your right, if the left side of your neck develops a crick.
2. Sleep to your left, if there’s a crick in your right side.
3. Sleep with your head down, chin touching your chest, if your neck turns stiff, 270 degrees.
4. Try pushing the seat back, if you figure out how, and if your clothes don’t stick to your back from sweat between your skin and the upholstery.
5. Cushion your head with a pillow made out of your palm. If they hurt from the weight of all the crap inside your head, forget it, cos a surgery to excavate all the crap is too much of a bother.
6. Cross your leg for that stylish and debonair siesta, and if you wanna carry home an awkward limp as a bonus.
Inspiration: A particularly uncomfortable journey to Thirupathi on an AP Tourism board bus.



The semi sleepy state:

1. Have you ever experienced wakeful sleeping? Not the one you drift into when someone goes on and on about something you care a damn about, or the dazed condition afflicting the first benchers of a singularly boring lecture in college. Its something that’s been happening to me on and off.. It’s a state that I drift off to at the snap of someone’s fingers.. Not to be confused with the hypnotic control of a handsome hunk. The activity around you could be something of utmost interest, but still your mind goes blank. A sort of lull creeps in and you simply refuse to think.

2. Another variant of the semi sleepy state, a rather sinister version occurs when I go to bed way past midnight. A few precious hours before daybreak are all you get, and your body attunes itself to make the most out of it. But every time I slip into such a deep slumber, something dreadful happens, I struggle to get up, pushing the air around me, kicking my limbs in all directions, silent screams lost in space.. And I wake up, only to find that I m still struggling to wake up.. And so I battle through the different layers, waging a never ending war against sleep. Then I grow tired and give up the fight, still groping along the saturnine walls of my mind for a wormhole to wakefulness, materializing out of nowhere.. Desperate and mortified, I pray to the heavens above… Chanting the lord’s name.. And that’s when I wake up, gratified to find myself on my bed, the sheets perfectly starched and tucked in, my hands up, fingers securely locked under my head, completely no sign of trouble whatsoever.

In case, anyone’s had similar experiences, this might throw some light::

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

A gist of it:

Hypnagogia (also spelled hypnogogia) and hypnopompia are the names of experiences a person can go through when falling asleep in the case of hypnagogia, or waking up, in the case of hypnopompia. When in a hypnagogic or hypnopompic state a person can have lifelike auditory, visual, or tactile hallucinations (known as hypnagogic hallucinations), perhaps even accompanied by full body paralysis. The individual is aware that these are hallucinations; the frightening part, in many cases, is the inability to react to them, even being unable to make a sound.

Sleepless Beauty

There are some things in life that afflict you every now and then. They go as mysteriously as they come.. One such thing that has been a part of my life is sleeplessness. There are times which garner significance when I look back, but which innocently clothe themselves as ordinary days and nights when they occur. Uncannily these times in my life have unfailingly been characterized by one malady..Insomnia.. It’s when forty winks seem formidable.

Counting up to 1000 and backwards, cooking up racy romantic novels in your head, humming your favorite tunes, chanting, cursing your nemesis under your breath, watching utterly mindless late night shows on TV, listening to Mannade,S.D Burman and other lullabying numbers, trying to snuff yourself up with a pillow pressed on to your face, tossing and turning enough to cause a tectonic imbalance, trying to plan for the next day, working out sudoku and the daily crosswords, meditating… nothing seems to help.
By the time you’re barely asleep, the Sun shines through your window and the hum drum of another day tearing into your blissful state.
Days pass in this manner. Eyes burn, bleary and tired. A chance siesta in the day, can never make up for the lost sleep in the soothing caress of nocturnal darkness. This goes on till you reach a stage where you would start whining like a kid, kicking your limbs around.
And then it all stops..
Yesterday was one such blessed day. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, peering through the dark, blocking all thought from the mind, mesmerized by the whirring sound of the decades old fan, the heavy curtains above my windows to the outside world come down, palling my consciousness, fantastic figures forming inside my mind’s eye…

An eagle, a talisman, an eagle in a talisman, Nnno.. Not an eagle, a pigeon, No.. Not a pigeon a dove.. a dove that flaps its wings and takes off, tearing open the tablet…. Skies.. Blue, white, crimson, beige and mauve… Gold brocade fluttering around the landscape… A hole in the firmament, and me falling upwards, defying terrestrial laws of gravity.
Free wheeling vertically…..

And I woke up at 12.00 noon today.

Poxy Chicks

Its been a while since I chronicled the ups and downs of my life. Probably they were too mundane, or perhaps a wee bit precious to be open to the public eye. But nevertheless, the recent happenings that would make the headlines of my journal don’t necessarily classify under insipid ramblings.

Without further ado, let me get to the crux of the issue. The thing is , one of my roomies contracted chicken pox over the weekend. Living in Banglore’s tell tale pigeon hole PGs , hasn’t been a matter of consolation for the rest of us. Of the ten in the house, it so happens that I am the only one who hasn’t had a bout of the ailment before. Having spent the crucial 3 days of the disease’s onset with her, worsens my predicament.

Though she was put on a flight back home, it was all hulla bullo in the house. The room was disinfected, we bathed in dettol and margo, the bitter tasting neem soap (taste!!, now when did I start swallowing soap??) , our sheets and blankets given to the Dhobi.
Someone suggests a homeopathic medicine in lieu of a vaccine, and people rush in all directions to procure the same.

Two of us being the immediate contacts of the infected, panicked the most when that howler of an e-mail bearing the bad news came. Trying our luck with the health center in office, and making fools of ourselves with the broken kannada that we know, we thought it prudent to brave the showers and go to a hospital.

Not willing to take risks, we decided it best to visit one of the city’s posh and renowned hospitals. Taken for a ride, literally and metaphorically we reached the hospital, only to be hopelessly mis-directed in the maze of OPDs, DMOs, and Receptionists, enquiry, physicians…. The medical jargon can have you flabbergasted at an hour of need. Frustrated at having done multiple rounds of the humungous edifice, we settled for a scale down. From renowned medical care, we entrusted ourselves to lesser known multi-specialty health service. Waiting for what seemed to be eons, marveling at the mind boggling ineptitude of the receptionists, we finally got to have a tête-à-tête with a youngish looking doctor. I have this prejudice against young doctors, ever since one jammed a needle into my skin that couldn’t be removed without a minor surgery. But this lady seemed courteous. Though she didn’t tell me anything optimistic, one good thing she did was to help me accept my situation and know the facts and be prepared.

Haven’t had such an eventful day in ages.. Although got to know the flip side of things when a particular person with whom I have had a decent enough rapport, curtly refused to have anything to do with me… She just fell short of demanding that I should be quarantined. I do understand her rationale if she was as vulnerable as me, but she has already contracted the disease and developed immunity. Nevertheless, paranoia does make people act strangely.

Having to accept reality and taking it in the stride, enjoying a seemingly bleak situation, I guess all this does have an impact on my outlook to life. I know I should be worried, but however hard I try, I m not able to manage anything more than a stupid-looking brooding countenance. Yesterday I ended up entertaining my colleagues by throwing a tantrum at an imaginary itch and they goaded me to embarrassment with their jibes. Of late, I ve even been planning a long vacation home if at all I contract the pox, which would in all likelihood coincide with the festival holidays up ahead. Right now contemplating about starting all PG (paying guest) band and calling ourselves the “Poxy Chicks”.

Just crossing fingers that I shouldn’t have any scars, at the end of it all, for it would send my mom on an endless lament regarding my value in the marriage market..

As a matter of fact, the whole thing is weirdly exciting, waiting with bated breath for that notorious boil, scrubbing vigorously behind the ears ( which I unfailingly forget to do) while I bathe, touching my forehead every now and then.. I never knew I could amuse myself so much till now…

Not an auspicious thing to start my blog with.. Still, I thought I should write about it all..

So folks, until that 15 day gestation period for the virus is done with, the suspense stays!!
See you all again with a sequel to the Poxy Chicks….







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Blogger Perforce!!

Well.. I already have mulitple blogs, stayin dormant for days.. But, thanks to blogspot, i hav added one more to my kitty.. Forcin me to start one, when i wanted to post a comment in a particularly intrestin blog...

Lets see if this one is doomed to dormancy or not...

Chao.. Bye for now!!