deviousways

All it takes is a child to make you think, see, differently. Dark colours, he told me, have 'dark' in them, Light colours have summer in them. How beautiful, I thought, to look at life that way. To him, pink isn't fuchsia or orange, ochre. His life is too full of joy and discoveries He doesn't bother with the inanities, the little affectations I dwell on. Take red. Yes, paprika sounds so much more exotic. Calling it that makes me feel so sophisticated, so suave A woman of the world--one who reads her vogue and her elle too. To him red is red, it means stop and danger. And of course, Lightning McQueen. Paprika, what's that?

My mother cares for my father, who has dementia. She is 70 this year. He turns 83, I think. We're not sure, actually, because my dad has never been forthright about his age. "When we got married, there was 12 years between us. But every year, the gap grows smaller," says my mother of the age gap between them. It doesn't matter anymore really because for my father, age is now a state of mind. Older memories feel real, the present is something he cannot comprehend or deal with. Some evenings at 3.30 pm, he tells my mother that I will come home soon. I think at that time in his head, I am still in college and he expects me to open the gate and get home any minute now. Sometimes, at around 2 or 3 am, he wakes my mother up saying he's going to Calicut. Never mind that they live in Calicut. Inside his brain, something tells him he's not home yet. So while my mother watches, he slowly attempts to get out of bed. After a while, he tells her, he'll leave in a bit...

It's a beautiful evening, starlit and quiet. Babe and I are walking, singing silly songs, having fun. We walk past a parked jeep and babe shouts Hi. I laugh.  Why did you do that, I ask him. It's a vehicle, it cannot talk back to you. Then Amma, he shoots back, why do cars talk in cartoons. What can I tell him, really. My all-knowing self is stumped. So I make a glib reply--cartoons are not real life, baby. Our little boy skips on, happy creature that he is. In my heart I quake, marvelling at this child, his insight. In my 35-odd years, such thoughts don't occur to me. Yet, being with this child, I learn something new every day. This is a walk I'll always remember, I think. Such moment are what memories are made of, I tell myself, feeling a warm glow, feeling secure in my role as protector, as mother. We come to a turning. It's particularly empty at this late-evening time. A teenage security guard is standing inside a small gate. Why is he staring fixedly at...

We were going somewhere, I forget where, to Brigade Road or some such place. Stuck in traffic, I did my favourite thing--people watching. Men and and women, grim, scowling, smiling, laughing, joking. Then I spotted a frail body stumbling through the traffic, hand outstretched, supplicating, beseeching. People kept smiling, staring, scowling, laughing...as if this less-than-human being didn't exist. They turned away so they wouldn't see. But who am I to moralise? The minute I spotted that old woman, I felt a sinking in my heart. Oh no, I thought, another beggar. Another grimy hand thrust into the car, carrying God Knows What Infection. What if she accidentally touches my child? What if I touch her? I shrank inside, mentally cowering away from that image. Hoping she would disappear. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the autorickshaw parked beside our big, flashy, shiny car. Three little heads peering out. The auto driver's children. He reached into hi...

A friend killed herself yesterday. I cannot understand why a girl I thought so spunky, gutsy and intelligent would do something like this. It's not like we were great friends or anything. We were colleagues six years ago and well, I didn't even like her when we first met. Because she was pretty rude, stuck-up and well, quite un-ignorable. Then I realised she's as prickly as a hedgehog but quick-witted and fun to be around. And she was a darn good journalist. Wrote descriptive, lively pieces that were a treat to read. Yet, I never really knew her. Because never in my wildest dreams did I imagine she would kill herself. So how much do we know of another person? Or even someone we love? I used to occasionally read this vital young woman's updates on FaceBook and smile. That's it. Now she is no more. I wish I had taken the trouble to keep in touch.