83

I read from somewhere that at any given point of time we all have 83 issues in our lives. If one issue get solved another one comes up in place so its always up there at 83. Did someone really sit down and list out their issues and find out that they had 83 problems? And once they did that did they then go ahead and research everyone else and get them to list out their issues and figure out that they too had 83?
  If this is the magic number, I am sure I too must have 83 problems in my life right now. Counting down from one to five would send me to the depths of despair. I am sure I would not make it past five without abandoning the entire attempt. Its bad enough that at times when I am watching TV or reading some random thought sets me thinking about my joblessness or the pressure of being married and not having kids. I have a tough time pushing away these thoughts and focussing on the happy things in life. But on days like today, no matter whatever I do, however loud I play the music or how many ever TV shows I watch the mind just gets stubbornly stuck on how much my life is frustrating.

PS this was written yesterday, in the depths of despair. Today I ve bounced back and I am in no mood to add, edit or re write this. If only yesterday I had thought that today will be so free of worries, I wouldnt have minded yesterday so much. :)

Adventures of a sandy kind.

Right about the time when your milk teeth have just popped out, you are bound to do something which is either too cute for words or downright funny. My cute moments have been photographed and the funny incidents are too often repeated and laughed over again and again. The most often repeated story about me is how I would cross a room to get to the other side. 

My sister in her boundless enthusiasm would run across hardly caring whether she fell whereas I would hug the walls and circumnavigate the room rather than cross it without support. I guess I was born with the risk taking gene malfunctioning. Consequently, I have rarely fallen, nor have I have ever got any broken bones or sprains. All I have is a faint discolouration on the knee which I think was a result of me tripping accidently and hitting the same spot twice.

With just minor bumps and bruises and the occasional milk tooth falling out, childhood passed without any major aches or pains. Fast forward to a couple of weeks back. I had finally attempted my first major roller coaster at the age of 27 and fared better than I expected. 

But now a new challenge lay before me. Sand dunes in all their bumpy splendour.

We had gone on a weekend trip to Oregon and we had planned a day at the dunes. We were supposed to ride these All terrain vehicles (ATV) which is a cross between a motor bike and a car on the sand dunes. I had misgivings about this adventure trip right from the beginning.  Initially we had decided on taking one which could seat two, but the price for renting a two seater was way too high. So there was no way out. I had to go solo.

I fitted myself a dusty helmet, a dirty pair of gloves, and a huge pair of goggles. The ATV's were lined up outside in two rows waiting for us.My heart started hammering, and my fingers were icy cold. 

I hung around at the back delaying sitting on the vehicle. Pretty soon there was only one vehicle left for me to climb on. The guys had kindly left me an RTV right next to Reni who was sitting in front of the line. So I climbed on and instantly clutched the handle bars for dear life.

I let go for a few seconds for the ceremonial thumbs up at the beginning before clutching the bars again.

Right about then my instructor yells, pointing at me "Your going to go first!". By some insane twist of fate my line would move out first with me leading. I was prepared to be the last or maybe even a non starter. Mind blank, I turned the ignition and accelerated.  I felt like Nemo (the fish) peering through a glass bowl with bulging eyes. Luckily I was off without any major glitches. I relaxed a minuscule amount.

The vehicle was very inconvenient to handle as it kept going off in every wrong direction. But I was slowly getting the hang of it. The ATV was open, a first for me since I have never driven a motorbike. The dirt roads

were bumpy and the vehicle noisy. But I thought I did better than some of the other guys. Soon enough we were on the dunes with vehicles zooming in every direction. Our group soon scattered and I rode around a bit on flat ground getting a hang of the vehicle while the others zoomed on hills and valleys. Reni would come up to me time to time to check if I was alright. I would nod and he would nod, our conversation

limited by the helmets and the noise from the engine of the ATV and then he would head off again. The second time he came up to me and said something which I couldn't catch and he turned and sped up over a dune. Our pact had been that we would stick together. I thought he had said follow me and therefore I followed.

Thumb on accelerator, eyes focused on Reni I started on my first high speed uphill. Next thing I know I am hitting the ground. I have no recollection of how exactly my feet or my arms left the vehicle, 

but I do believe several of Newtons laws of motion combined forces against me and pushed me over. I looked at the vehicle in a daze as it kind of circled all by itself back to my starting position at the bottom of the dune. Then I looked over my shoulder over the hill, where I had last seen my husband. Only the sand dune stared back mocking me.My first major fall. My left arm was hurting badly and there was sand in my mouth which I couldn't spit out since I was wearing the helmet. As I struggled to get up my first clear thought was that I shouldn't waste fuel. So I got up and switched off my ATV. Since I was still alone , I decided I might as well I would sit on the ATV and wait for someone to show up.

Unknown to me , Reni was coaching someone else under the impression that it was me. But he soon figured out he was talking to the wrong person and started looking for me. He saw me sitting all alone on my ATV apparently unmoving. And as he approached me that's when the tears started sliding down my cheeks.

If I thought on the sand dunes was the end of my adventure I was proved wrong. Getting out of the sand dunes was also a great adventure given the fact that I couldn't drive. It was a sheep, wolf, hay and a river crossing situation. I couldn't drive and I couldn't be left alone. Reni had to drive his own vehicle and we both couldn't drive on one. Fortunately I managed to get back on level ground with some help from others. There ended my adventure on the sand dunes.

************************************************************

 I got my first X ray taken. I don't remember if I have ever been X ray ed before. A swollen tissue is all what I have, though the ache is still there even now two weeks later. I am never again riding any vehicle that does not have doors or seat belts. If I had the power I would go back and level those sand dunes! I prefer a room with a wall for support any day!

Bitten!

I ve been bitten and contaminated by the virus! The craft virus! And I have all the classic symptoms -
My fingers are all covered in glue, there's paint eveywhere and paper scraps that stubbornly cling to the carpet!

I am lost in dreams most of the time, wondering how my creations will turn out. And at the rate that I am going, its going to be a long long while before I de-glue my fingers and come back to this space...
And with snaps of my creations as well... Who ever knew childrens crafts would be so easy! :)

Meanwhile, Rahet Fateh Ali Khan is coming to Seattle. Unfortunately the seats that are available right now are probably equipped with binoculars to be able to view the stage. Took me a couple of days to convince the right kind of people. :( Well with pretended glee and a couple of back flips I will now drag myself to the Malayalam concert which is the week after that. I wouldnt mind the binocular seat for that show! The darker the corner the better!

[Its an unwritten rule in married folks world that where ever you go we go together. I am hoping for a waiver in a couple of months!]

photographs!

A superstition I read - its unlucky to leave photo frames empty. We now have two frames lying around unused. I suppose for the next decade or so I need not enter myself in any raffle draw with hopes of winning the grand prize. Madam luck has all but packed her bags and proclaimed her departure. She is just hanging on by the last centimeter of my severed sixth finger. But in spite of this I know that the picture frames will remain empty far into the unseen future.

Its not for lack of photographs that the frames are gathering dust. The simple problem is that I hate looking at myself in photos. Till the age of five or six I suppose I liked myself, all my baby pictures are cute and more importantly I seem to have enjoyed smiling in those days. After six years of existence my photos stopped smiling. I suppose a couple of strategical missing tooth might have been the reason for the general funeral demeanor. My tooth did grow back, but not my smile as by then it was not prudent to smile anymore. My teeth outdid themselves in comparison with my lack of growth length or height wise. But of my teeth saga we will digress later.

So I progressed unsmiling wading my way through portraits and landscapes at times solo, at times lost in a large group. Beaches, parks I posed everywhere smiling rarely. Each time I could not bear to look at the snap for more than a second before I pushed the picture away. I would regularly hide away my passport snaps and get new ones in the hope that the next dozen reproductions of my features will turn out to be better than the countless previous ones. But how ever much I comb my hair, powder my face, smile or not smile I would run out the photo shop covering my head in shame. And it continues like so to this day.

 Someone who hates looking at her pictures by natural conclusion should not like look at herself in the mirror as well. But as far back as I can remember whenever I look in the mirror I see only a part of my face. And I am more than happy with small dissected  portions of my face. The whole perimeter of my face never registers. More often than not I tuck a wayward strand of hair behind my ear, flatten my misshapen eyebrows if they are unruly and I walk away happy with myself.

 All of photography nightmares exploded on my wedding day. In search of creativity(not mine) my very expensive photographer had me hugging a coconut tree and gazing dreamily into a distance. No visions of a happily married future life lit up my eyes as he envisioned. I can still recollect the amused smile of a scooter walah passing by. I suffered miserably that day and later when he happily delivered a full page close up version of me hugging the tree as part of my wedding album. If there was an foot of earth that I could call mine, I would have buried my album then and there. But there isn't and I do the next best thing, ignore it. My friends ask for my wedding pictures and I assure them I will send them the link by mail as the album is at home, but it never gets sent.

 The icing on the cake was that one day in Trivandrum when I went to get my passport photo taken. I was ushered in and asked to freshen up if needed. I took great pains and straightened my eyebrows so that they resembled each other and sat facing the camera. The guy fiddled with his cam for a while, made me tilt my head an infinitesimally small millimeter and clicked. Nothing happened. No flash, no click no nothing. Before I could position my head back to my comfortable tilt he said lets try once more and clicked again. No response from the camera forthcoming, he removed the cam and started trying to figure out what was wrong. A couple of adjustments and he was ready again but the camera wouldn't budge. Each time he failed I lost a little more of  the good humor that I stock up when I go have my picture taken. I sat there as a guinea pig for his seven failed attempts when finally at the eighth attempt his camera flashed and one week later I found myself looking into a packet of a dozen very angry looking Lakshmi's with one eyebrow raised. I stuck those pictures on all my forms anyways.

 And so amongst empty walls and dusty picture frames I live happily ever after.

Hope,Want,Wish or Pray

In the middle of the ocean
I long for the desert
Lost in constant waves of motion
To escape unhurt

Stranded in the endless rain
I pray for the sun
There is plenty I have to gain
Plenty left undone

Crowd of voices and smiling faces
I yearn to get away
And when of love there are no traces
Tears run down in dismay

Give me today all my wishes but few
Tomorrow I need to wish anew.

Of bananas and me

There is something about the banana/pazham that is so appealing. Maybe its the colour, or the smell or the fact that if you put out your foot out in all likelihood you would stumble on the million zillion ways we Malayalees use the vazha. When it literally rains bananas you cannot help loving them. I adore the poovans and the all other varities of small bananas. I dont care much for the big nendra pazham but drool over pazha baji and pazham and pappadam. The cousin of the banana called "chiquita" here was my only link to the bananas back home. They were not great, but they werent bad either. But one day Chiquita and I had a quarrel and this is how it started.

I was standing on a ferry, looking out into the ocean and warming my hands already numb with cold when I happened to hear a seemingly innocent conversation. A couple of guys and girls were talking 

Guy1 - I am hungry...

Guy2 - yeah, I could eat anything... I think maybe I have a banana in my bag.

Girl 1 - A banana?? yuck!

Guy1 - Why? dont you like bananas?

Girl 2 - No I dont, I cant stand their smell. Horrible...!

At this point I look around to see that the girl has covered her nose up with her stole and is vigorously shaking her head in disgust over the smell of the imagined banana.

The conversation continues branching off into banana world -

Guy1 - So what about banana bread? 

Guy2 - There must be tons of stuff with bananas in them. Do you mean to say that you dont like any of them?? 

Girl - I am fine with banana bread and all the other stuff with bananas in them. Its just that I don't like to eat a banana on its own. It makes me wanna puke.

Guy1 - So what if your boyfriend had a banana and then he kissed you? 

Girl - I probably wouldn't kiss him!

They exhausted their topic and they moved off. Outwardly nothing had changed but I was never the same again. From that moment on I was not able to eat a banana. Every week Reni regularly tried to convince me to share half of a ripened banana with him. Yet how much ever he tried to coax me I couldn't bring myself to eat one. Everytime I thought of a banana, the image of that girl with her nose all covered up would come into my mind and however hungry I was, my hands never reached out for the banana.

What bothered me the most about this was that I was so easily influenced. Someone just had to vividly describe why she didn't like banana and I was conquered! At first I thought maybe time would help me forget, but some memories cling to you like glue. I was angry at myself for being such a walk over but the damage could not be undone. Lately I have begun to think that all through time, there have been several instances of people being easily influenced by personalities like Hitler and Osama and they have resulted in world wars! I merely stopped eating bananas, no major world history changing event. 

A couple of weeks back during his routinely cry for help to finish off an over ripe banana, I relented to Reni's coaxing and ate half. I neither liked the smell nor the taste and I gulped it down quickly and painfully.

 

But hold on, there is a happy ending to this story. Unknown to me, there was a plantain in the fridge which was once green but had since then become a brownish yellow. Unwilling to throw it away, I peeled it and immediately stood arrested by the familiar nendhra pazham smell. Old taste buds watered in delight and forgetting everything else I made finger licking pazha bajji that day which tasted remotely like the ones back home.

So now I spend my time between prowling for the exact brownish blackish plantain and waiting for that day when a banana crusader whispers in my ear on how delightful bananas are so that I can start eating them again.

whatever

This new year promises
To be what the previous years have been
A hope, a wish
And a silent prayer
That the next year will go easier on me.

I have lost the height on my jumps,
And the width of my smile
The path behind seems long
And the road ahead longer still.

I am walking a tightrope
Of life never ending,
Wobbling and unsteady
Pulled and pushed on all sides
By those whom I call mine.