deviousways

Make your bed, every day. It'll keep you happier, healthier. That's what self-help books and articles tell me. Actually that is true--making my bed, leaves my mind clutter-free. Something about straightening out crinkles, smoothing out rumpled sheets and seeing the final product, is extremely soothing. And doing housework, occasionally, makes me healthier (all that bending, squatting, dusting, sweeping, swabbing!). Something to do with proactive action and it's positive after-effects, I suspect. On an everyday basis, I hate housework. It's boring, repetitive and takes up so much of my time and energy. I'd rather pay someone else to do it. Though for a long time, I felt like a lazy person because I had a cook and a maid. Because I know of many women, including my own sister, who do both. Then author Alexander McCall Smith, creator of one of my favourite heroines, Precious Ramotswe, came to my rescue. In one of his Botswana-based books (featuring Ramotswe), his he...

Two friends and I were walking in the park one evening. We all live in the neighbourhood so it's fun to catch up with them, listen to stories of everyday encounters, who said what, when, where. And more. Richard's Park has narrow pathways, so it's difficult to walk in threes. Invariably I'm running to keep up with the other two. This, in turn, involves dodging other walkers, overtaking the slow-strollers, and speedily skirting various objects located by the side of the pathways. Anyway, what all this means is that all of us walk pretty fast--which of course is great exercise. Gossip and fast talk, it's an amazing combination! So I was doing my regular intricate stepping-around dance after my friends, when we came upon a man moving very slowly. He was coming in the opposite direction so I could see that he walked with a hand pressed to his right side. Initially I thought he had hurt himself. Then I realised he had a physical deformity--his leg was slightly twiste...

An ex sent me a 'friend' request on Facebook recently. It left me in a quandry. He and I shared an intense relationship. I was young when I met him--21 or 22. He was ten years older. He was my first 'serious' love. We fell hard for each other. He seemed everything I'd wanted--macho, mature (or so I thought) and of course I was madly in love. I was ready to do anything for him. And I did, actually. I hurt a very dear friend, to go out with this man. So, having grown up on Mills&Boon romances, I assumed we'd be together forever. My first serious love and lover. How naive I was. Well, he got engaged. Apparently, his mother threatened to kill herself or do something drastic, if he had persisted in wanting to marry me. Well, that's what he told me. Foolishly, I believed him. We continued to profess undying love for each other. Till he actually got married. And even then, on his honeymoon, he called me, to tell me again, how much he loved me. That he was...

What are memories made of? Ask your nose. Our senses take us back to sights and sounds long forgotten. And truly, there's nothing like a smell, an aroma, to bring back the past. Every night, when I pour boiling water into our coffee filter, the heady aroma of the bubbling coffee takes me back years--to when I was a little girl in Calicut (Kerala). I used to wake up at dawn just to savour the coffee my mother made. It had that subtly sweet flavour of jaggery. And something about sipping a steaming cup at that early morning hour, made the experience more special somehow. Another enduring memory is of my cousins and I sipping instant coffee on cold mornings in Ketti Valley, a small forested area that lies between Ooty and Wellington in the Nilgiris. My aunt used to teach at the Laidlaw Memorial Residential School and she had a cottage in the valley. During my 'study holidays' I'd go stay with her and my cousins. I always loved going there. The cottage my aunt was g...