Pieces of the Puzzle

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).

They called me abnormal. They called me adopted. They placed me in the end of the class-line with the boys. I could never sit in the front row without burying my head between my legs. I was always spotted trying to escape classes from under the teacher’s nose. I hunched to be accepted.

As much as you think its enviable to be tall, its a tough life for a tall girl in Indian society.

‘Which college do you go to?’ I would get that once in a while when I was in my 7^th grade.

‘Yes, I remember you,’ said my PT sir when I visited school after 5 years of graduating, ‘You used to be a basketball player.’ Never mind the fact that I can’t tell the difference between a shuttle cock and a basketball. The only useful thing I did with my height was bring down pickle containers from the top shelf and place it back.

‘Sorry madam, we don’t make jeans your size. You sure can get something from the men’s rack. Actually jeans above the knees are trendy these days.’ Offers a helpful salesman. I stuck to tailored pajamas.

My parents were horrified when I didn’t stop growing after 5’7". They panicked, wondering how would I ever get married. "Aiyoo, we are doomed. Someone start hitting her head with a hammer to retard growth." My mom cried, throwing away shoes that had even a centimeter heel.

"Err.. Alpha ke pitaji, The groom is fair, well bred, convent educated and cooks like Sanjeev Kapoor.. and he is 5’6", very tall for some girls. I am so sorry." Sympathized uncles-turned-marriage-brokers.

That’s when I took it upon myself to find Mr. Height. To be in the medium height category, the guy must be at least 5’9", which is just as tall as me. Anyone shorter is too short. Anyone above 6 feet is acceptable.

The guys I date had to be tall. Do not confuse necessity with vanity. I like to stand on my toes to kiss my man. No dumb ideas please. I will not carry a step-ladder for the guy everywhere we go. So that eliminated every Desi guy I knew and could hold conversations with. Moreover, when guys are intimidated by my height, they refuse to stand within a 6 feet radius. My next idea was to buy one of those wheel chairs and move around, never getting up.

Pi is 6’1". Just made the cut. I cut a lot of slack for him in other avenues. If height was the only factor why I got married to him, that would be extremely shallow. He is good at giving gifts too. 

According to Patrix, I got my job because of my height. Wow.. all this while I was thinking it was becoz of that Equal Opportunity thing.