I love You Too, Ma!

“Can’t you at least pretend to be a nice girl,” lashed my mother. I was deeply hurt, I was almost pouting. I’d taken it upon myself that very moment that I’ll make her regret saying it. What was nice afterall? A four-letter word with absolute no impact. I knew better four-letter words that have made people wince and look hopeful (depending on that persons then state-of-mind).

“So, mommy, what exactly do you mean by ‘nice’? Lets see what nice means. Holy cow, there are so many different interpretations to it. Why don’t you sit down with me and tell me exactly what degree of nice you want me to practice?”

My mother is too naïve, and I am glad she doesn’t’ realise it. She’d just started digging her own grave.

1. Pleasing and agreeable in nature: to 90% of the jerks you introduce me to?
2. Having a pleasant or attractive appearance: Mommy, you should know better than this. How am I to work on this?
3. Exhibiting courtesy and politeness: Ahem, Ahem…I believe the definitions of these words are subject to change…so…Mommy?? Mom…hellooo…where did she go?
4. Of good character and reputation: Gee…does anybody have the balls to tell you that I don’t have a good character and repustation??? :D
5. Overdelicate or fastidious: Lady make up your mind, you want me to be fussy or not??? Just this morning when I said I wanted skimmed milk you asked me to be not so fussy and think abut the kids in some god-forsaken place.
6. Showing or requiring great precision or sensitive discernment: I am sensitive, you know that, don’t’ ya? I didn’t jump with glee (in spite of the fact that my true intentions were something else) when I told our 3-year-old neighbour about her dead parakeet??? I couldn’t really help the glint in my eyes…you do remember the five times that it caught hold of my doll’s hair and chewed on it like it was some lifeless piece of toy. Hmpphh!
7. Done with delicacy and skill: Er…was I Ma???

For some reason, my mother has unofficially stopped associating herself with me. I wonder why?

Whimsical fairy...

He called her a whimsical fairy. “To live with you, the person needs to be a lot, lot patient baby,” Sam used to say. Sam was nothing like a friend philosopher guide to her. At the same time, he was all of it and much more than that. Somebody she could swear at for no fault of his. He never yelled back at her…at least, he didn’t yell back at her for the way she sweared at him. Most often than not, he was the first person she thought of every time something good or bad happened. The only person she completely trusted. Not that she used to walk around doubting the so-called well-wisher's advice…. just that she knew Sam would never let her down. After all he was there for her whenever she needed him the most.

That morning when she saw an anonymous number flashing on her mobile, she grinned since she knew it was him. She wondered how he knew that she had a bad dream early that morning and was restless through out. But then, that was Sam. She didn’t wait for him to greet her…just went on and on about how big the monster was and how she kept on tossing and turning. He didn’t respond. That was so not like her Sam she thought. “Sam…you bugger, you weren’t even listening, were you?” screamed Nina as ever. That eerie silence still followed. She wanted to believe that it was just one of his many pranks but then why did that little voice in her head say that something was wrong? “Nina, I’m Sam’s room-mate. He met with an accident last night and... early this morning….”

A zillion questions zoomed through her whimsical head. Whimsical? She thought to herself if she was ever as whimsical in front of anybody beyond Sam. He took all her tantrums, all her whims and fancies, treated her like a 4-year-old regressing back to being a toddler. He spoiled her rotten. She had to measure her words before popping it in front of him, for he could sense the slightest amount of sadness.

Just that morning when she told him about her paper IV results, he’d grinned and said, “keep getting low marks…you make me proud baby…!” She actually wanted to make him proud.

She wanted to cry out to him, tell him that she’d lost her best friend in some freaky accident. She wanted to tell him that she is going to miss him bad. She wanted to plonk herself on the floor and flap her legs and hands like a 3-year-old screaming at the top of her voice for she just lost her favourite toy, the toy that made her laugh.

She knew she could no longer be a whimsical fairy. All she could manage was a meek, “when are they getting him down to India?”

Deflated Expectations

She couldn’t get any bluer. She wanted to believe that it is just one of those days when nothing seems to be going right…nothing seems to be moving at all.
She did get these constant bouts of feeling worthless. On such occasions she would turn to her friends just hoping for a listening ear. Again, she was quite aware of the fact that she’s been taking up whining almost like a pastime thing to do. Only difference was, she knew that wasn’t the case.

The fact that she made no difference to anybody’s life bothered her. The fact that her walking into the sea one fine morning would probably call for a couple of days of mourning, that too amongst a select few. Even this thought was dreadful for her, for she was never too sure if they would mourn out of genuine hurt or because it is the done thing in the society. She couldn’t really blame them for their dependence on the social norms for even she went all ‘tch tch’ whenever she heard about some stranger who is remotely related to her friend’s sister’s brother-in-law. “Poor thing, so young he was…, “she would sigh. She too did belong to the society after all. And being a hypocrite was also a done thing.
Coming back to our suffering-heroines story…she was just running away from expectations.

What she didn’t realise was it was not her problem that people had high expectations of her. All she could see, magnified under the microscopic gaze of all her relatives, was that she was just letting them down.
What she didn’t realise was it was to her moral-social responsibility to please one and all.

Her issue was, she could not please any one.
Now, if I was to give her a pep talk I would give her the stock –“it is all about pleasing yourself, hun”. I have a good mind not to do that to her though. I knew her. For her, a few people mattered, and she couldn’t even please them. There! That was the end of the story.

She decided to walk out. Walk out of everybody’s life. Though not walk into the sea. She was scared of the waves, of height and of lizards. She was also beginning to get scared of people. Even when she held her cousins baby-girl, she thought she saw disappointment in that baby’s eyes. “Hold me properly you over-grown imbecile. You are giving me a pain in the neck, “ the 28-day-old seemed to say.

...and it drilled on!

I wish I did not whine so much in life. Has it happened to you that you went on and on just because the other person was not rolling his/her eyes and after a while it just hit you that probably they were dying to do so and the only possible thing that stopped them from doing the same was their civility? Did I just see you wince? Ah… I know how it feels. The feeling of imposing yourself on the other person without realizing because you were busy playing the suffering hero is not new for me.
I just realized it today (like I did a million other times a zillion other days) that since whining doesn’t really give me a solution/way out from the issue in hand, I might as well not whine. And how exactly do I vent my frustration? I’d read somewhere that it doesn’t really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist’s chair or let your hands lie on your lap. The drill drills on. I don’t know if it really is applicable here but somewhere I do see a point in this line. What fat help would getting frustrated be? Except premature balding, I don’t really see a big difference in anything.So why don’t I just let my hands lie loose on my lap as ……(shudder)….the drill drills on.

A lil' something to make you grin on the bluest of days...

http://uffen.org/calvin/index.htm