...is here. And how ! It seems only yesterday I was complaining about the delay.
It is never really monsoon in this part of the world unless there has been a cyclone or two, with wind uprooting trees, schools shutting down, our campus lake breaching ..so on and so forth, but the general feeling is already there, thanks to the periodic whoosh of dense precipitation as the weatherman says, and the damp and smelly clothes that won't dry. Right now I don't have a sizable problem, as sitting in the varandah with a book, rosogolla and a comfortable chair, watching the kid dancing in the rain outside (and occasionally joining in) is soulful enough, but once all the clothes in the cupboard turn equally mouldy, and critters and worms start taking shelter in the confines of our nest, the expletives may start pouring with the rain.
That said, I never fail to feel the slight tinge of guilt in looking forward to monsoon from the safe confines of my solid roof when there are thousands on the street, homeless, huddled under jute sacks. As with all righteous guilts, I conveniently push it into the dark recesses of sub-consciousness, and gear up to enjoy the rest of the monsoon.
..until I have dry clothes to wear, that is.
"If you don't finish up your Dosai, no karate class for you".
"If you don't clean up the room, no more books for you".
"If you don't finish up your lunch in school, no more lunch for you"
"If you don't braid your hair, it will fall off".
"If you don't drink up your milk, you are going to end up with osteoporosis like kollu paati".
All of the above within a span of 20 minutes. I am well on my way to becoming a professional blackmailer. Anyone need my services? Charges nominal.
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Soon-to-be-six: "If you tell a lie, God will dance in your brain and you will get irritated"
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Neighbour: What do you want to be when you grow up?
Soon-to-be-six: A big girl.
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Soon-to-be-six: "I don't like boys. They are rash".
Mom ruminating: "I'd like to hear that in ten years. ummm..on second thoughts, I don't think so."
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Soon-to-be-six: They show Tom&Jerry and Mr. Bean on TV during AV period in school. I don't like it. I want to read my book.
Mom ruminating"YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS".
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Been a hectic few days, and unusually, not on the professional front as much as the home front. Been pretty lax with Vox, but I guess the tide comes and goes all the time here. My next work deadline is a fortnight hence and I am anticipating a nightmarish period during then, for all my colleagues are away on personal crisis situations, and the burden of the deadline is pretty much on the onion.
I need a break. And what's more..I am getting it. Taking an impromptu, mid-semester, mid-term, mid-deadline vacation this following weekend, thanks to the spontaniety of a certain dude. To Srirangam. All three of us deserve it, we have been working hard and if we need to continue this pace of industry further, we need a change.
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What's up with the weather, I say. Where is the trusted N.E. Monsoon that lashes our side of the world about now? The sun god has shown no mercy on us this year, and every day is just as infernal as the previous, with no respite in sight. If there are no rains in November as well, we are in for a tough summer next year, with water scarcity that can wreck havoc on our city. It has happened before, and the memory of that period makes me dread what is to come. Oh heaven, open up already.
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Met two of my grand aunts this week. Both in their nineties. Both dynamic women in the past, rag dolls now. One of them, the widow of the erstwhile GM of Southern Railways, who lived in a mansion in an arterial road, now lives in a tiny one bed room apartment with daughter's family, confined to a boxy room with no ventilation. Repeats statements, very confused about people, senile, in short, but manganimous as ever. Gifted me Rs. 100, despite her dependence on her meagre pension. But beyond the gift, what I would treasure is the affection with which she held in her bony, wrinkled ghost of a hand, mine.
The other grand aunt, an enterprising businesswoman in her heyday; in an era where the woman's place in the house was the kitchen, is a broken old woman now, with paid servents to keep her company and home. The tasteful, expensive teak wood furniture she adorned her home with , now gathering dust in every corner. She can't hear too well, but her memory is sharp. Her eyes clouded when I took leave of her, and she beseeched me to visit her more often.
Maybe I won't see them again, maybe I will. They probably won't remember my visit. But I made them happy for the time I was there.
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End of ramble.
தீபாவளி நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள். வாழ்வில் ஒளி பெருகட்டும்.
Wish you a happy and safe Deepavali.
What's the biggest frustration in your life right now?
That neither less than 7 hours of sleep nor more number of hours/day are possible.
As part of Shaastra 2009, there was, like last year, a laser show. Due to rain god's threat, the event was held in a closed auditorium, rather than the open air theater.
See last year's laser show post here. Most of what was written there holds true except -
THE BLESSED SHOW STARTED ON TIME.
On time. BANG on time. Not a moment earlier, not a moment later, but at the very moment advertised.
And, it was shorter than last year's show.
Kudos, students. And a special thank you from parents of little children. Our wards enjoyed the show that started on time instead of getting tired and cranky like they did last year after having waited one-and-half hours for the program to begin.
PS 1: The complaint of decibels continues....
PS 2: Is it even legal or safe to burst fire-crackers inside a closed auditorium?
"Live simply that others may simply live." said a mad man who wore a hand spun loin cloth through the better part of his life because many of his fellow citizens could not afford even that.
The 11.39 lakh Gandhi pen set
On one side of the room was a vintage wooden writing table where the Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition 241 pen set was placed under a spotlight. It was surrounded by a pair of resplendent gold Gandhi spectacles, some antique-looking fountain pens cased in wood and an oblong shaped small bottle of flaming red ink that contained, what was labelled, the Mahatma Gandhi ink [...] This exclusive pen set, which ateliers in Hamburg painfully crafted (according to Bethge) with gold and rhodium, was launched in India. The 241 limited edition set costs Rs11.39 lakh.
I am sorry, Mahatma. What more can I say?
in a graph.
I could replace "vacation" with "my typical day" and it would be just as true.
- Excellent plot
- Great screenplay
- Wonderful cast. Kamal, Mohanlal don't act. They live. Even the mallu accent is endearing and adds to the cast value. Ganesh Venkatram all set to become the next Kollywood heart-throb.
- No songs. No running around trees. No kissing behind dancing belles. (really).
- Less gore than you'd expect in a terrorism-based movie.
- Less than two hours.
- Realistic dialog
Right after a deadline got out of the way at noon, I packed my bag and set out on my sojourn to the homes of all the people who had invited me to their Navarathri kolu. Finished four so far. Impressive for three hours, with each house in opposite ends of town, what ?
Here is the catch. I have harped many times here and elsewhere that I am, what is called, a "sweets" person. But perhaps I over-stated my palatal preference. The moment people saw my head on the horizon, they loaded their plates with sweets of all colours, flavours and kind.Ghee-dropping fruit halwa, chocolate burfi, milk Kowa, rosogolla, coconut bufi. Each, on its own, would have made me drool from now to eternity, but one after the other within three hours, most of which spent within the closed confines of a car, especially on a day after a rather sleepless night working on a deadline, is NOT good news. And topping the whole corunucopia of sucrose overload with a cup of instant coffee is pretty much the icing on the cake, so to speak.
Now the stomach is on a hyperdrive, somersaulting and threatening to spill its unpleasant content one way or the other.
I have four more houses to visit this evening. I sincerely hope, for their own good, that none of them dares even mention the "S" word within my earshot.
