Pieces of the Puzzle

I tried to put if off, I managed to shut them up, I frivolously avoided any allusion to the very topic all these years after my marriage. This time the parental pressure just got the better of me. I had to forfeit my cool image and finally agree to achieve the maami/aunty status, which I avoided like plague. I have become the reluctant owner of the most notable South Indian kitchen accessory after the ubiquitous coffee filter- the Ultra wet-grinder.

Now my parents and in-laws must be living in ultimate peace assured that I am not starving of idlies and dosas anymore. Any amount of convincing them that the Sumeet mixie (1/10^th the size of the grinder) was doing the job, was frowned upon. ‘Yes, you can use the mixie to make chutneys, not dosa batter. And you can never ever make soft idlies with that.’

‘But ma, I can live without idlies. My friends love my dosas. Ask Patrix. He licked his plate clean too. And…I don’t know if I’ll do justice to the grinder.And.. I have no place in the kitchen. ’

My mom was quick to retort, ‘Patrix must be a dosa starved north Indian. They can’t tell the difference. You’ll make more now that you have the ease of the grinder and keep it in the computer desk if your kitchen is too small. Its so convenient. Try it’

So it was bought and neon-orange colored nylon ropes were tied around the shiny box with the picture of the grinder surrounded by plates of dosas, vadas and idlies and a cool caption- Better Batter. (Almost reminded me of our Betty who bought the bitter butter).

The flight back home was filled with students starting a new exciting life in a country so far away from home, trying to achieve their dreams of making it big. I was accosted by many- ’Which college?’

"Oh college?! Ermm.. hehe" *shyly blushing, pulling out mirror and applying anti-wrinkle cream and adjusting T-shirt that says- Teenage Rocks* ‘No actually, I am working and I got there 5 years ago. Started out like you onlee..hehe.’

I wait for them to swoon and say ’Wow, you look so young’.

But she says, ‘Maam, can you give us some ideas for housing around the UIC area?’

Ma’am???????" No more being truthful! Harishchandra in me can go hang.

Time for baggage claim. Bulky suitcases covered with huge address labels move around on the carousel and remind me of my student days. I look around. Many apprehensive faces hoping that they would make good friends in this alien land. Some look at me, I smile a reassuring studenty smile. A smile of someone they could relate to, not some confident woman of 28 who has been around for a while. I still could pass off as a student, you see.

There comes my grinder. I almost forgot about it. It comes closer. I panic. That’s a dead give-away. I let it go for a few rounds till I feel safe to pick it up. I cover it with my jacket and suitcase and roll it out of the airport.

‘What is that and why is it covered?’ the customs officer stops me.

‘Oh, it’s a grinder.’ I reply demurely now getting all flustered.

‘Coffee grinder?’ He is amused now. He wants to see the thing opened. Right there, in front of all the students walking by. Darn!

uufff! Let me open the window and let this unsettled heavy air outta here. We’ll bring it back later when things get too frivolous.

From Filter coffee to Starbucks. From hair oil to gel. I am back to the land of microwavable popcorn from the land of roadside butta. There are obviously lot of advantages living in India other than being close to family. The first thing that pops into my head is auto.

1. Its quite a feeling to be walking on the road minding your own business when you get stalked by an auto-driver driving slowly at 3 centimeters parallel to your path of travel. Taken aback, I look at him questioningly. "Maam, auto maam" he rattles hopeful. I shake my head and proceed to walk when I’m accosted by three others. Now, how can anyone feel lonely in a country of autos.

2. Every house you walk into has food and this is not the ‘run around the corner chips and dip’ kinda food. My Mil has this uncanny habit of parading me around to all her friend’s houses whenever I visit. The Mil’s friend is not prepared for my arrival (no calls are given to warn her of this impending guest), but she seems all excited and welcoming. Makes steaming pakoras, idlis and kesari baath in 5 minutes and also gifts me a blouse bit with a mango on top. ‘I know you won’t use the blouse bit,’ she said apologetically. But she still gave it to me and it was quite neat that I got a camisole stitched out of it by our friendly neighborhood tailor, who has a sewing machine set up in the footpath. He charged me a measly sum, but my mom yelled ’35 ruppes?! What in the name of Lord Ramachandra?! Babuuuuu!!! What is this, I believe you took 35 rupees to stitch this funny looking blouse.. why, it doesn’t even have sleeves.' "Ma, its Ok! I only told.." I tried to explain. She ignored me and went on. 'You might as well do the hem of this pant also.’ She threw the pant from the balcony for him to catch.

3. Entertainment in your mother tongue in your city. My dad and mom needed a change from staring at the walls of the house and getting bugged by me. I also wanted them to relax. So I took them to a S.Ve.Shekar’s play at Narada Gana Sabha. S.Ve.Shekar has always been a favorite and his comedy mostly refreshing. Its been a decade since I last heard of him. I smiled when I saw his huge frame running behind the sheer curtains taking care of the props before the play started. He must be over forty but he still insists on acting like the hero who has damsels falling in love with him. We had fun and laughed a lot, though there were times when I felt the humor could have been slightly polished. Looking around the auditorium, I think I was the only one in my age group. There were old people and older people. The hall was only half full, a surprising fact for a popular artiste. I felt disheartened. With the onset on cable TV and pop culture, it sure must have been a big blow to these theatre companies. But I am glad that places like Madras still respect and honor these people and that there are still a lot of loyal patrons.

4. Real love from all over. Hugging me, my little cousins pester me to play with them. I am delighted. I run to pull out the dusty Pictionary from the topmost shelf of my old closet, when I see them all posed with remotes (joy stick?, game pad?) in front of the video game maneuvering the car somewhere in San Francisco. ‘Hey! I walked on that bridge’, I exclaim. They are not impressed. ‘Ok, I made it in 3 minutes 46 seconds. Now your turn.’ I crash before I even started, coz my Beetle started going backwards. They decide to let their archaic cousin get back to chatting with their mom.

There's more of course..but some other time. Now that I'm back in Chicago, one thing I am glad about this place is- easily accessible high-speed internet. So I can blog. Blogging/checking email/surfing from India required immense patience, yoga, courage and calm thoughts. Some drastic stuff has happened while I was away. Pi enjoyed life like he would never have (hmm..). As much as I would like to take credit, I had nothing to do with Jivha’s exit. He’ll be back as soon as my goons have taken his photo and have made him autograph it. Yogi seems to be totally back, but is obviously blogging in some language I find difficult to comprehend. No, no.. not like Patrix (Patrix’s is ‘fail’ to comprehend-dil pe mat le yaar). Some Maya has done some magic on him. We need to de-Yogize him. Wait till my goons get back.

Life is back to normal; the way it should be. I have so much to say (as usual). I hope God gives me bonus time to blog for every minute spent working.

My dad has recovered well. Thanks for all your wishes. Though he may never completely get back to being his 20 year old self again, he is fine. He even came to the airport to receive me. "The doctors have sent me on parole to see you," he smiled when he detected my shock on seeing him there. His hands were swollen with all the IV injections and color from his face had drained. He had lost a lot of weight. But I could only feel grateful that he had some strength left in him and hadn’t really given up on life. He kept telling me that I shouldn’t have made this trip in a hurry and that he had just seen me two months ago, but deep down I knew he didn’t mean a word of it. More than anything, its me who wanted to see him and make sure things were alright.

He got discharged just after my arrival and the mysterious fever just left as mysteriously as it came. All my relatives gave me undue credit. "It’s all because of you that he has become alright. He was really upset that both his children were so far away at a time like this". I regretted that I had left my country. My masters, my job, my future, everything seemed insignificant and petty. By giving us the best education we could ask for and by encouraging us to follow our dreams, my dad and mom have trampled their own hopes. The longing to be with their children in old age without having to travel across the world has become an illusion. ‘My daughter is doing very well in Chicago. My son had graduated with a 4.0 GPA and has joined Microsoft’ says my proud father to all his acquaintances. But on closer observation, the wrinkled brows and the tired eyes are aching for us being around him forever, even if we are nobodies.

I didn’t budge from home this time around and I held on to every moment spent with them to an extent that my dad asked me if I was such a big loser that I had no friends in Madras. I was glad that he was regaining his old strength and sleeping well. We discussed issues and it led to arguments while my mom pampered me with the best food one can only fathom. ‘Ma, these vadas are unhealthy.. So much oil. I’ll just have one.’ Before I knew it, half a dozen of those same vadas somehow made its way into my stomach without much protest. My mom smiled looking at the empty plate. Aah, the smile that wipes away all my blues. She works around the clock and wouldn't let me help her. How does she do it? All the three of us owe it to her- big time. Two weeks flew by. I didn’t do a thing, just ate and slept and ruminated (not good at all).

Back in the airport, it was goodbye time again. As a policy I don’t encourage crying while parting. It just makes me more miserable. So I was going to make a classy exit when I noticed a mother sending her son away for his Master’s education. She was sobbing uncontrollably and the son kept assuring that he will be back. She nodded helplessly telling us that her elder one had gone away like this and now she has to part with this one. I cried, my mom cried and I looked at my dad. I thought he would launch into another tirade on ‘Another one bites the US dust’, but he just said, ‘Humans shouldn’t be this emotional. Next time don’t come running from Chicago like this for such a trivial thing. Take care of Pi and your career. I’ll let you know when I am on my deathbed.’

At that time I hope I am not in Chicago.

I have to insist that is English- very sleepy English , if you will. Let me decrypt it for you anyway. I haven’t even tried interpreting this.. its just too weird. I'll leave that to Sigmund Freud.

1. I’m in Germany (here I have no money to even go on a trip to see my brother in Florida) in Parmanu’s house. They have twins, which was the big surprise. Congrats guys! The girl resembles Parmanu and the boy looks like his wife (pretty boy). The girl twin (who is 6 months old) is smarter, can walk talk and apparently was washing dishes (prodigy sorts) while I was there (what child-abusers). Whereas the boy was just staring at the teddy-bear, gurgling and peeing (which reinforces my point that a boy child is treated better than a girl-child in Indian households). I later realize that they are not twins and the parents are hiding something (a Robin Cook thriller in the making).

2. I am at Gaythri chiti’s wedding (she has been married for 20 years now). There is a lot of confusion and I am the main cause of it. I jump out of closets on unsuspecting guests (not too far away from reality). My next door neighbors being there was quite surprising to me in my conscious mind; but in my dream, I didn’t seem to mind their presence. I wish I had written more about this because as soon as I brushed my teeth, I forgot everything.

3. This one is just heart rending. I am on a cruise (hopefully in the Caribbean  and not some stupid cruise in Lake Michigan) and my dog (I never had a dog in my life) gets kidnapped (by pirates?). I am supposed to have realized how petty I had been all my life due to this kidnapping act. It would have been interesting to know why and how. But sadly, I couldn’t comprehend the significance of it all. 

My life before marriage was so exciting. I used to be a chronic liar exaggerator with a flair for lying exaggerating in the least deserving situations. Each day was a challenge to outwit the world. Each moment was filled with apprehensive heart-beats. I was caught a million times with my tongue stuck to a trap. I didn’t think of it as a problem till I met Pi. Pi is so truthful that it hurts. So I stopped lying considerably just to save my face than for conscience reasons.

Conversation at a party-

'I wanted to come for your baby's birthday party, but somehow I got stuck volunteering for the old age home.' I manage to atriculately save the situation and wink at Pi.
 
Pi can't take the blatant hint,' What old age home? And why are you winking and stamping my leg?'

‘Sorry we are late. A Stealth Bomber exploded in front of our car.’ I gush trying to wriggle out of the quick-sand.

‘What bullshit! That’s not true, Alpha took long to get ready.’ Says Pi and spoils all my chances of getting away with another mind boggling story. Such a party-pooper! We become the boring couple yet again. So I stick to mundane topics, ‘I had an accident the other day and my passenger side totally caved in.’

‘Not entirely’, he butts in, adjusting his glasses in the most professor-like way ‘Only 4/5^th of the passenger side was affected. I wouldn’t call that caving in. And nothing happened to the interior.’

Now all of a sudden, my accident achievement seems like a piece of cake that happens to everyone. The people who just dropped their jaws are in the process of collecting it from the floor giving me sneers. I have become a non-entity with a boring life! But it feels good as I am under no pressure to be creative (I hope the sarcasm was caught).