new feelings

I am domesticating. This occurred to me just after a glass – newly washed ,wet with water — slipped and crashed at my feet. This was just after I had decided I must stop drinking out of juice cartons . It was uncool, uncouth and unsafe. Only recently had father emailed about someone dying after having drunk straight out of the carton — many a rat or a lizard has at some point at some Inland Container Depot made a carton its home was the general drift. 

So when the wet slippery glass left my fingers and took less than one tenth of a second to shatter into tiny shards, my first thought was: well, thats new. I have never dropped a glass before. Unlike previous instances of spilling milk, dropping heavier items like telephones, Internet modems, mobile phones and televisions, this time there was no one chastising or calling the pot, a black or kettle or anything – just an odd sort of a ringing silence – the glass many very well have rung the temple bell. 

Yes I love it, getting used to it, even if I am sometimes afraid I could get habituated to this — this silence, the golden hue of it and the ringing peals of it. I feel like a fearless woodpecker building my nest, cluttering it up with pillow cases, breaking glass, making beds, clearing up, paying the help and newspapers, killing cockroaches and even getting my own food, sometimes maybe cooking it. 

Who do you live with, wherever you live, people ask and I shrug and say, oh I don’t think i can do the whole PG thing any more ( but I’m doing the roosting thing, I think) or when young curly office colleague expresses wonder and awe at the death a cockroach, fat, flying and the first at my hands — just a week after pastagirl and I shrieked the house down ( it was my other friend who got blood on her hands for killing that cockroach) it dawns on me, this is domesticating – if that’s even a word. These are the moments when I can actually see time moving – not just a second hand and another after that but time moving like how a particle of matter moves in space. These are the moments when I feel life slipping or changing and thats when I hear someone singing– SO How Does It Feeeeaaal? To be on your own, no direction no, like a complete unknown. But the rolling stone, me, is domesticating, for lack of a better word.

Last night was fun. Ranj and Ranj ( peh. cheap thrills. sriranj and ranj, actually) went to watch Mallika Sarabhai dance and Pandit Jasraj sing. from 8.30 pm to 1.30 am. Free of cost. beat that.

Besides the fact that we were starving ( having ignored food after lunch) and let down by the indoor auditorium ( we were expecting open  air and nice chills, we had even taken shawls) — it was heavenly.

I have never seen mallika perform before. I would have loved to hear her speak. Pandit Jasraj and Sanjeev Abhyankar would have cost us a fortune elsewhere in other circumstances. Shamefully, I fell asleep last night in the middle of the concert. It was a long day, but the music was soothing and tipped me over to relax mode. I was dreaming music nevertheless.

Aah, and i should probably mention how we got the passes, but guilt itches. some other time, perhaps.

Strange things happen between alertness and highness — in a state of semi drunkenness. In between drinks and strains of bad music. Between the paneer and the tongue. Being the salami or the buttered side in a photo-op. Or when waiting in the lounge for the boarding call. Moments of almost bonding can be nice.

Happiness is in new friendship. It is the strange feeling of ‘wish I’d talked to them before’, knowing very well that I might not have liked them had I bonded before now, but the possibilities of a ‘perhaps’ can be like the rising rum against the coke in the aorta.

Introducing Squirrelhood

Mip and I have been doing this gig for a month now. Each time we want to scare innocent people on the road, we talk about the GDP to sound very smart and then once we’ve crossed them, we go OUI OUI in our shrill, loud voices. The day before yesterday , we actually got a reasponse. A fellow in his bike, I cannot describe because I didn’t notice, squeaked ‘wee wee’. WE might have to accept him in our squirrel club if he applies; that ofcourse is subject to a unanimous decision in the club, which right now has two members — Mip and I ( me?).

We had Sparky — flashing her white, straight, some places uneven teeth— two steps behind us gauging the response of our victims. She claims to have been embarrassed. Her true feelings towards our dignified club will never be known. Sparky is generally not known to endorse clubs that parody the GDP.

Anyway today, I was kind of spaced out ( or maybe desolate, depressed) because of lack of sufficient employment when Mip decided to chip in with some nut and cheer. She convinced me that one of us would get a job soon and then they would have to hire the other ‘cos they can’t hire one squirrel without the other, the union won’t allow it’. So I think we must get our union registered, just in case, companies did not recognise un-registered unions, but ofcourse this is subject to a unanimous decision in the squirrelhood club.

I should probably explain more about squirrelhood to everyone reading here. We are generally happy people. We espouse feminist and squirrelist causes. We are nature friendly, like you didn’t get that. We love love ice cream. We love adventure and tree hopping. We love travelling, and not just from one branch to another. We like to believe that the sky can be touched, that the world was made for us, that we can get anything if only we tried, that it is always better to move, even if it’s one millimeter at a time, than to stay still. We believe in progress of not just in distance or in promotions but also of the mind. We also love giving unsolicited advice. We like funny people. If you are one and believe in all of the above, we might consider you in the squirrelhood club, but only if the decision is unanimous ofcourse ( by now, you might have figured it out.)

OK then . Keek. Keek. We are rather busy these days owing to some theorising, but you may contact us on our keek phones.