Gasp wheeze cough!

Ok, so there is always an excuse. For not updating a blog, that is. But this time it is a genuine one, with due apologies and many sad noises attached.
About two weeks ago, I was wondering why life was not as it should be. Not philosophically speaking, but existentially so. Everything seemed to be falling apart. Work projects were coming to an end – or so I thought, more fool me – my mobile phone, the beloved instrument that I cherished for almost five years, was starting to hiccup miserably and my legs hurt more than my gym trainer’s toughness warranted. I was tired, dragging and feeling unwontedly tearful, with nothing to justify it, not PMS, not any fight with Father, no weepy movie on the telly…nothing. And then it all hit the fan.

My mobile phone died. I had bought it almost five years ago after falling instantly in love with it at the shop. It was a design statement, it was small, it was fabulously comfortable to hold and functionally more efficient than my own sense of organization. And it had been with me, doing its job magnificently, through one of the worst periods in my personal history. But it was old, not made any more and un-fixable. It is not in the great mobile phone department in the sky, far away from me, never to be used again. Of course, at that stage, the eternal debate was reopened: Should I get a new one, should I use an old one that did its job but satisfied none of my aesthetic requirements, or should I just do without, in a sort of anti-established-norm-of-society kind of way? The jury is still out on that one, though I have appropriated my father’s handset for the time being. Of course, my family being the sort it is, a new phone has been scoped out and is being argued over. Whether I do buy it or not depends entirely on what life brings me over the next few days.

But worse than that, I decided that I would have a minor breakdown in my system on the same day as my mobile phone went to the shop. It started out with aching legs, which could not be explained by a gym routine or a disturbed night of sleeplessness. The ache spread to the head and the back and generally diffused all over. Classic symptoms of influenza. The fever came, stayed for a while and then settled nicely in my chest to give me a bad case of bronchitis. I coughed, I gasped, I wheezed, I hacked and raled and generally was more miserable than anyone deserves to be. I stayed at home for a whole week, not even going out into the lobby outside my front door. And my trainer called at regular intervals to find out what was going on, my mobile phone never rang to bother me – of course, it was as sick as I was! – and I slept a great deal, tottered about having small arguments with Father and Small Cat and felt like I had been run through the super-spin cycle of a washing machine and hung out, limp and exhausted, to drip dry.

Unfortunate as it may sound, things have been improving. I am finally getting back to routine, with gentle gym regimens and the will to do more gaining ground every day. So I still am not especially interested in food, and neither do I want to do very much, but at least I do not feel limp and washed out, however I may look to my own eyes as I peep furtively into the mirror. When I get back my usual level of need to devour dark chocolate fudge or feel like whirling about doing sixty-four things at the same time, I will be completely over this bug. But, in all this misery, not once did I say “Oink!”, I tell my concerned friends cheerfully!

The waiting game

I have always hated waiting. Which is why I have a rather interesting bruise on my leg now. Being the impatient type, I pulled a weight off a bar at the gym a couple of days ago but forgot the cardinal rule of such actions: always watch what you are doing. But, as always, I was in a hurry, yanked at the heavy ring, got distracted by a lovely BMW edging into its parking space downstairs and did not see that there was a minor weight blocking the way of the heavier weight I was after. Et voila! It shaved past my leg, narrowly missed my littlest toe and bumped to the floor with a loudish thud that attracted more attention to my silliness than I would have liked. I got yelled at by my trainer, who had stopped for a moment to correct someone’s position and wanted to know why I was in such a rush; I got yelled at by another trainer who normally takes my measurements once a month who pulled me away from the rapidly descending weight; and I got yelled at by the muscle in my mid-calf which is now turning a delightful shade of deep blue.

But that is not why I am gently complaining. Bumps, bruises and aches have been a part of my life ever since I learned how to walk and probably during that process as well. What I am really grouching about is the fact that I seem to spend a great deal of my time waiting. Which I hate doing. As a result, I run madly from hither to yon and further afield trying to catch up with myself and rarely taking time off to smell the…well…roses, except that in this weather and in Mumbai, roses are found more in florist shops than in gardens. And even if I do pause to take a deep sniff, I am usually en route to doing something else, which means that there is a deadline and a definite time frame for it all.

I think that is where the problem is. I seem to be on that perennial watch-the clock runabout, causing me to fall up stairs, bash various parts of my anatomy on whatever hurdle happens to be in my path and generally be more self-destructive than I need to be. And even that is not the problem. The real problem here is that I rarely find anyone else on the same kind of deadline-run mode as I am. Which means that while I have it all planned, those plans hardly ever fit in with anyone else’s, which leads me back to where I started – waiting. Right now, it is for someone to send me an important email. Most of the time, it is for people to call back when they say they will, which they never do. And some of the time it is for the milk to boil, the maid to arrive, the courier to ring the bell, the vet to call, the dentist to switch on the gizmo that makes your whole jaw rattle in that horrible way, the tailor to finish that blouse, the lead story for the edit page to be approved, the article for the cover to be sent…it is that endless cycle that makes my teeth clench and my nerves start their inevitable frazzle.

And for some reason, I never can fit in with deadlines that I do not set. If someone says ten minutes, I look for that ten minute interval to be over. If someone says next week, I expect next week to happen – which it will, though whatever is to happen that next week rarely does. If someone says ‘soon’, I get terribly wound up into a tight knot, never knowing when the soon will come, but knowing that I will, invariably, inevtibly, have to wait for it.

The waiting game

I have always hated waiting. Which is why I have a rather interesting bruise on my leg now. Being the impatient type, I pulled a weight off a bar at the gym a couple of days ago but forgot the cardinal rule of such actions: always watch what you are doing. But, as always, I was in a hurry, yanked at the heavy ring, got distracted by a lovely BMW edging into its parking space downstairs and did not see that there was a minor weight blocking the way of the heavier weight I was after. Et voila! It shaved past my leg, narrowly missed my littlest toe and bumped to the floor with a loudish thud that attracted more attention to my silliness than I would have liked. I got yelled at by my trainer, who had stopped for a moment to correct someone’s position and wanted to know why I was in such a rush; I got yelled at by another trainer who normally takes my measurements once a month who pulled me away from the rapidly descending weight; and I got yelled at by the muscle in my mid-calf which is now turning a delightful shade of deep blue.

But that is not why I am gently complaining. Bumps, bruises and aches have been a part of my life ever since I learned how to walk and probably during that process as well. What I am really grouching about is the fact that I seem to spend a great deal of my time waiting. Which I hate doing. As a result, I run madly from hither to yon and further afield trying to catch up with myself and rarely taking time off to smell the…well…roses, except that in this weather and in Mumbai, roses are found more in florist shops than in gardens. And even if I do pause to take a deep sniff, I am usually en route to doing something else, which means that there is a deadline and a definite time frame for it all.

I think that is where the problem is. I seem to be on that perennial watch-the clock runabout, causing me to fall up stairs, bash various parts of my anatomy on whatever hurdle happens to be in my path and generally be more self-destructive than I need to be. And even that is not the problem. The real problem here is that I rarely find anyone else on the same kind of deadline-run mode as I am. Which means that while I have it all planned, those plans hardly ever fit in with anyone else’s, which leads me back to where I started – waiting. Right now, it is for someone to send me an important email. Most of the time, it is for people to call back when they say they will, which they never do. And some of the time it is for the milk to boil, the maid to arrive, the courier to ring the bell, the vet to call, the dentist to switch on the gizmo that makes your whole jaw rattle in that horrible way, the tailor to finish that blouse, the lead story for the edit page to be approved, the article for the cover to be sent…it is that endless cycle that makes my teeth clench and my nerves start their inevitable frazzle.

And for some reason, I never can fit in with deadlines that I do not set. If someone says ten minutes, I look for that ten minute interval to be over. If someone says next week, I expect next week to happen – which it will, though whatever is to happen that next week rarely does. If someone says ‘soon’, I get terribly wound up into a tight knot, never knowing when the soon will come, but knowing that I will, invariably, inevtibly, have to wait for it.

The waiting game

I have always hated waiting. Which is why I have a rather interesting bruise on my leg now. Being the impatient type, I pulled a weight off a bar at the gym a couple of days ago but forgot the cardinal rule of such actions: always watch what you are doing. But, as always, I was in a hurry, yanked at the heavy ring, got distracted by a lovely BMW edging into its parking space downstairs and did not see that there was a minor weight blocking the way of the heavier weight I was after. Et voila! It shaved past my leg, narrowly missed my littlest toe and bumped to the floor with a loudish thud that attracted more attention to my silliness than I would have liked. I got yelled at by my trainer, who had stopped for a moment to correct someone’s position and wanted to know why I was in such a rush; I got yelled at by another trainer who normally takes my measurements once a month who pulled me away from the rapidly descending weight; and I got yelled at by the muscle in my mid-calf which is now turning a delightful shade of deep blue.

But that is not why I am gently complaining. Bumps, bruises and aches have been a part of my life ever since I learned how to walk and probably during that process as well. What I am really grouching about is the fact that I seem to spend a great deal of my time waiting. Which I hate doing. As a result, I run madly from hither to yon and further afield trying to catch up with myself and rarely taking time off to smell the…well…roses, except that in this weather and in Mumbai, roses are found more in florist shops than in gardens. And even if I do pause to take a deep sniff, I am usually en route to doing something else, which means that there is a deadline and a definite time frame for it all.

I think that is where the problem is. I seem to be on that perennial watch-the clock runabout, causing me to fall up stairs, bash various parts of my anatomy on whatever hurdle happens to be in my path and generally be more self-destructive than I need to be. And even that is not the problem. The real problem here is that I rarely find anyone else on the same kind of deadline-run mode as I am. Which means that while I have it all planned, those plans hardly ever fit in with anyone else’s, which leads me back to where I started – waiting. Right now, it is for someone to send me an important email. Most of the time, it is for people to call back when they say they will, which they never do. And some of the time it is for the milk to boil, the maid to arrive, the courier to ring the bell, the vet to call, the dentist to switch on the gizmo that makes your whole jaw rattle in that horrible way, the tailor to finish that blouse, the lead story for the edit page to be approved, the article for the cover to be sent…it is that endless cycle that makes my teeth clench and my nerves start their inevitable frazzle.

And for some reason, I never can fit in with deadlines that I do not set. If someone says ten minutes, I look for that ten minute interval to be over. If someone says next week, I expect next week to happen – which it will, though whatever is to happen that next week rarely does. If someone says ‘soon’, I get terribly wound up into a tight knot, never knowing when the soon will come, but knowing that I will, invariably, inevtibly, have to wait for it.

Here comes the rain again… NOT!

(Published yesterday...)

They said it would rain; then they said it would not. And it has not. Maybe the plains in Spain are as soggy as we should be right now, who knows. But as we wait – in vain, so far – we can take time off to contemplate the higher things in life. Like the dry skies above, karma and that sheltering canopy over our not-yet-drizzled-on heads: the umbrella.

I feel occasionally a bit like Renuka, wife of the sage Jamadagni, who got into a bit of a contretemps with the sun – she took too long to retrieve his arrows one hot and sunny afternoon and blamed the God Surya and his scorching rays for the delay, the Mahabharata says. Being a rather testy kind of chap, the sage shot an arrow at the sun who, a trifle nervous at an attack of this sort, offered the lady an umbrella. And thus was born that now ubiquitous shelter against sun and rain alike. It is seen through the world as a symbol of honorific or royalty, from the ancient Siam to Egypt, from South America to China, Africa and beyond. Locally, Maharashtrian culture salutes the umbrella, used to endow deserving folks with the honour of royal lineage or god-like qualities, and has the title of Chhatrapati, or Lord of the Umbrella, for the Maratha prices – Shivaji among them.

Many years ago, when I was a mere child, I decided I would play with my mother’s parasol. It had that typical Japanese curve and shaded from the palest cream into a peachy pink. For a small girl, it was fascinatingly pretty, and for a child who took things like clocks and pens apart to see what made them work, it was a surefire magnet. Waiting for Mother to look the other way, I managed to grab the parasol, open it and, to the orchestration of youthful caterwauling, got my hand stuck in its mechanism. There was blood and tears and lots of ice cream, but thenceforth there was also a lifelong aversion to anything that even faintly resembled an umbrella.

So when the monsoon threatened to arrive this year, it came time to check the general state of protection in our household. Since I travelled more by car than any-how else and since an umbrella would be more convenient than a raincoat for my morning trek to and from the gym, I had to find one. I found many that were…well…boring. You could take a walk down any street in the rain and see many of these bobbing above your head. The names were familiar – Stag from Ebrahim Currim, Sun, MH International, Shree Datta and more. There were newsprint umbrellas, and candy-striped ones, Disney cartoon characters, clear plastic, polka dots, block colours and an occasional rainbow swirl, all priced between Rs99 and Rs450. I gulped as I gazed at a Burberry classic umbrella for ‘price on request’, which generally means that you would not want to take it out in the pouring rain. I found a neat confection that had a little light inside it that you could switch on to read with – why would you want to read in a rainstorm, I was asked. I dug through the lofts at home to locate a laquered bamboo piece from Japan via Geneva that would probably melt in the rain, but would make a great fashion statement. I even checked out a story about a young woman who custom made umbrellas with unique designs and prints at a feasible price of about Rs500, but she had not set up a sales strategy yet, I learned.

At the neighbourhood department store I saw an elegant shades-of-grey umbrella (Rs495) that would match perfectly with my car; but why would my car need an umbrella, I wondered. I found a long magenta umbrella (Rs295) that made my face look decidedly bilious when I held it over my head. There was even a bright yellow and white one with the silliest smiley faces all over it (Rs560) that made me grin, but didn’t endow me with any vestige of adulthood. So my choice was mass market ‘safe’ blah. I finally picked a folding umbrella that I just knew would collapse pathetically over my head in the first blast of monsoon wind. But at a wonderfully low Rs99, and though made of nastily cheap fabric that showed no signs of being durable or even waterproof, it didn’t matter. It was a bright and almost fluorescent red, made my face glow and my mood lift and the wet that would envelop me didn’t seem at all important.

That movie moment…

Have you ever lived through that short span of time when you feel like you are in a movie that you have seen somewhere, sometime? You know, those few moments when you know you have gone through whatever you are going through at some time in your past, a strong sense of déjà vu that you cannot place but you know exists deep within your psyche? Or even that you have watched at some time, happening to someone, somewhere distant from your own existence? Strangely, most of these tend to be rather scary, like a bad remake of a decent film, with just one aspect blown way out of proportion, making the entire sequence just off kilter enough to be surreal…or happening to someone else while you watch from somewhere above it all.

It happened to me this morning. I was on my usual morning trot over to the gym, swearing gently to myself at the heat and humidity weighing down the air, my head and the neat green gym bag I carry. I walked down the road, said my cheery hi to the little dog who scavenges in the park, doled out the biscuits I carry for it and turned the corner past the auto-rickshaws all parked willy-nilly around the edge of the pavement. I took the straight stretch of wide street at a good clip, crossing at the divide near the idli-dosa stand and walking along the side of the road to the circle. Looking carefully to the right and the left, since so many people here see little difference between the ‘going’ lane and the ‘coming’ one, I navigated the roundabout and dodged a cyclist as I went past the fast food eatery with its accumulated litter of cartons and paper bags. Rounding the next corner, I headed down the ‘one-way’ – or so it is posted, only I ever get caught going the wrong way – to my destination.

And there I came across my movie moment. Just outside the familiar and oft-visited grocery store was a very large and clamorous community of crows. A murder, I corrected myself, enjoying the fact that I not only remembered, but also got a change to use that wonderfully evocative term. They hopped and fluttered and cawed frantically as they pecked up the grain and crumbs tossed there by the storekeepers, since it is considered a virtue – gaining points with God, in a manner of speaking – to feed the birds…or stray dogs or an occasionally beggar. I walked towards the horde, aiming to skirt it and go my way. But somewhere along the route I was taking the perspective shifted ever so slightly. I am not sure if I diverted or the birds did, but it transpired that I walked through the group rather than around it. Which meant that for a small, very scary moment, I had crows flying all around me, too close for my comfort.

It was like Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Birds’, but in sweaty technicolour and a very bad remake of that classic film. There was no house, no windows, no drapes, just me, my widly flying ponytail, my starting-to-flail arms and my few seconds of panic. Before I could register the fright, I had passed through and beyond it, but that little time I spent in the midst of the birds was more than enough. I trotted a little faster, gaining the quiet of the small courtyard that led to the stairs up to the gym with a sense of relief and vague triumph that I had managed to navigate that speedbump without any drama.

But I did think to myself, with a little giggle, “Cor, stone the crows!”