Dead and Not Loving It.

I'm very down and out today.

I don't know what it is that makes me feel this way. It might be the fortnight-old cold that just doesn't seem to cure. It might be the fact that S and I are off to catch 'Aisha' today but without Ko, whose grandpa's down with malaria. It might be because my friend's marriage is on the rocks. It might be because I have so little time for myself nowadays that I don't know what to do with my leisure any more. It might be because I want to blog but not to rant and yet that is what I'm only upto right at the moment. It might be because the brand new sharodiya 'Anandamela' is lying on the bed but I don't feel like reading it. It might be because there's so much of household work all around that I'm sick of my very existence. It might be because I feel the girl in me is wasting away, careful always to not tread on anyone's toes. It might be because my life seems all too predictable right now and that's the last thing the Gemini like me would wish for.

There's so much yet left to do : learn a language, test my interior designing skills, write a book, complete my anthology (long overdue), have a child, build my own house, visit new places (so many !!!), become famous...

But nothing seems to matter now...

Am I dying ?

Not literally, of course. That might have been better.

Spinning Yarns

I learned knitting way back in school, in MHS, in class VII. I remember picking up the nuances of the craft quite easily and enthusiastically. A little too enthusiastic perhaps. We were all asked to knit a set of clothes for a newborn baby, as per instructions, to create a sleeveless woollen vest (the sleeveless part has always struck me as absurd), a bonnet and a pair of booties (socks). Mine eventually translated into one that when cheerfully displayed to our needlework teacher, Mrs Srivastav, struck her speechless with amusement. After her recovery from a bout of inane toothing, she managed a benign grin and said she was quite pleased with my performance but I needn't really have exerted myself to such an extent. Apparently, my creations were big enough to apparel a six-month old baby quite effortlessly. I packed my bags after the class, hurling imprecations against the world in general for not having offered me any opportunity to develop the slightest idea of the relative difference in size between a newborn and a six-month old baby. No wonder Siddhant struck me as miniscule in terms of magnitude a few months back.


There was a particular reason for my disgust. Salt Lake was almost an island in those days, in terms of transportation options. It did not help that my father is a doctor by profession, too busy to lavish much attention on our arts-and-crafts-related (and therefore entirely optional and futile, according to him) needs. Ma, though extremely street-smart and intelligent, was only courageous enough to venture bravely into the New Market shopping territory. Salt Lake itself suffered from a gigantic dearth of shopping destinations. Hence, procuring all needlework etc related raw materials was really an issue of sorts. After several sharp reprimands in needlework classes for my failure to produce the necessary knitting paraphernalia, I ultimately effected a showdown back home, threatening to boycott education until my needlework needs were taken seriously. Results were prompt. After considerable gnashing of teeth and directing of choice expletives against my hallowed academic environs, Baba took a trip to Gauranga Bastralaya in Gariahat and returned with wool in the brightest, gaudiest shade of chrome yellow imaginable. Even now I shudder when I care to imagine any newborn or even six-months' old baby being attired in clothes of that colour. I wouldn't want this type of misfortune to befall even the child of my worst detractor.


Well. That is my point. Baba excused his colour-blindness by citing the inability to procure so many yarns of such a ply simultaneously at the aforementioned store except in this garish hue. Mrs Srivastav's matter-of-factness therefore had every potential of triggering off any latent hysteria in me. To undergo such histrionics for all that knitting and then its being considered as superfluous. Well, no wonder I've been short tempered since.


Why return to knitting at such a belated stage of life, you're obviously wondering, when it's evident I've unresolved neuroses regarding this area in my unconscious. Turns out Tanima inspired me to re-tread dreaded territory with a very sacred purpose to fulfil this time. Namely, a muffler for K. I wished to gift him something that incorporated my signature and which, he would therefore, treasure for years to come. Maybe he'd show it to our children some day with a glow in his eye, reflecting all the warmth that it bestowed on him and the sense of his worth it distilled. So, though with quite some trepidation, I did buy some wool at Walmart and left him to shortlist the multicoloured yarn he wanted spun into a muffler. It wasn't the typical Libran indecision that he battled this time. The place does offer you exquisite colour combinations and left to me, I might have ended up purchasing more than what figured on my initial agenda. I called up Tanima and verified that I was getting the right raw materials. The needles did scare me a bit, being miles long (not literally, silly) and of Christmas tree ball hues: gold, purple and deep blue. I settled on purple (predictably).


On Monday, after K left for office, I downloaded a couple of DIY (Do It Yourself) knitting videos on YouTube and set about charging my knitting batteries. It took me a day to gain courage and finally embark on the decided project. When I did, I don't mind confessing that I had to unravel the entire thing thrice. The first time, I took too many stitches and then realised that I wanted a muffler, not a shawl. The second mishap was occasioned by my discovery that I was not doing the 'purl' correctly, forgetting to bring the yarn towards the front every time I changed from 'knit' to 'purl'. The third (and fortunately the final) setback was owing to my flipping through a couple of webpages and determining that what I actually wanted was the ribbed look for the muffler. Happily, I still had enough motivation to allow me to proceed. Even after all these unhappy incidents. Only goes to show how badly I wanted to get this gift going. For our sake.


Here's how it looks at this moment. Wish me luck (and no more mishaps) with the rest of it !



P.S. Here is the link to the 2 knitting videos that caused me to sally forth on this voyage, in case you too are stranded in deep waters and need immediate aid.

Btw, I discovered I'm not alone in knitting related fears. Check out this one, if you don't believe me.

Daylight saving causes confusion !

Daylight saving was supposed to end on Nov 2,2008. I forgot as usual and woke up, extremely perplexed yesterday morning to find my alarm ringing at 8.30 am when I could have sworn I had set it for 9.30 am. Any sharp sound in the morning wakes me up promptly, so it was no use trying to get back to sleep. The damage had been done, I thought. So I grumpily left a very loudly and peacefully snoring K hidden in the depths of the comforter and went to complete my daily bathroom rituals. Preparations for tea and breakfast complete, I was bugged to find that K showed no signs of stirring. Not intending to do double duty for breakfast on a Sunday morning, I tried to make myself (well, 'my muscles' would be a more precise choice of words perhaps) useful by doing some pranayam and freehand exercises. Meanwhile, the grumblings and growlings in my stomach seemed to be getting louder and more insistent although I tried my best to ignore them. I finally decided I had had enough of a patient wait and would at least make tea for myself so that I could have a couple of biscuits at least in order to survive. Playing somewhere at the back of my mind, I secretly have often thought, may also be the fear of reactivating my gastric ulcer symptoms, which landed me in a horrible predicament during my H.S. exams, way back in 2000, but scared me sufficiently to make me never venture out of my home post-that-mishap without at least a small pack of biscuits in my handbag.

Anyways, I had just let the milk boil and was a bit preoccupied with putting sandwich buns to toast in the oven when the sound of blinds being raised made me realise that K had finally had the mercy to wake up and I could now eat. May he snore in peace forever. I took a quick glance at the battery operated alarm clock we had brought from India and noted that it was 11.30 am. Hello, I thought startled, hadn't I seen the wristwatch showing me 10.30 am? I checked and found that my eyes were functioning properly after all. Flummoxed, I pondered. And then realised that it was 2nd Nov today !

Tanima and I have displayed extreme dullness of comprehension by not being able to master the concept of daylight savings, Rony and K assure us. However, I've luckily managed to locate a site or two that is more enlightening in its explanation of the event compared to their obscure outlines of this unnatural state of affairs. Here they are :

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/daylight_time.php

http://geography.about.com/cs/daylightsavings/a/dst.htm

However, if you are more concerned and curious about how the process of setting clocks ahead of the usual time in summer and putting them back in winter affects the difference in time throughout the rest of the world, I refer you to the following link, which is comprehensive in its data line-up :

http://www.worldtimezone.com/daylight.html

And if my understanding wasn't poor enough already, I had a tough time elaborately enlightening my much-more-obtuse-family-members regarding this whole abstract (to me, for sure !) concept. It all runs in the genes, I suppose. To think that I was supposed to be 'intelligent' when I was young. Sigh !!!

Cosmetics confusion !

I thought I'd go for a walk about noon today, since sitting in a warm and cosy room, however comfortable it is in terms of sensation, also breeds discontent and monotony. Well, honestly speaking, I also had a specific goal in mind. They've been planting slim red-leaved plants along the kerb. (Trying to make it look picturesque I suppose, at a time when halloween might mean festivity to people here but bodes ill to most of us, as the spectre of a long and dreary winter looms large on the mental horizons of us aliens here, born to appreciate lush evergreen tropical foliage.) And naturally, they immediately came up with a makeshift 'No Parking: Somerville Police' signs here and there along the entire stretch of the East Cliff Street Brookside Gardens complex. Poor K had a tough time this morning, having overlooked those signs and therefore, startled and perplexed to see a mini-crane in gardening mode bang in front of our car just as he was about to get into Ajay's car (Ajay, FYI, is a generous colleague who patiently awaits his gobbling-breakfast-and-grabbing-bag routine every morning en route office). He immediately deposited his bags and rushed back home, where I was already at the windows, armed with the necessary weapon...er, I mean the car keys. The dearth of parking slots nearby caused him to park our new car a long way off, near Gaston Bakery.

Naturally, he called me up later in the morning and wanted me to 'go have a look' to check whether it was still there or not. I forgot to ask him the natural question. What on earth did he suppose might occur to it within such a short interval? I don't suppose a car can be abducted or robbed in stark daylight, could it? Anyway, one can't expect the possessor-of-a-new-car to patiently provide rational responses to all these highly impertinent enquiries. One just accepts them and moves on. To humor his nightmares and reassure him that they are unwarranted. In any case, I needed some sunlight to resolve my dandruff problems and this was a highly agreeable opportunity for me to go air myself (and my hair).

I set off after a shampoo, appropriately attired in turtleneck top, jeans, sneakers and of course, a woollen jacket with a hood that comes in extremely handy on such days like today, when the wind can wreak havoc on your hair and treat it as rudely and roughly as if it were hay.

Well, the car was fine, though a trifle dusty, it occurred to me, from some distance. I was actually more interested in my environs where various fall colours jostled for attention and impressed me with a favourable view of my impromptu outing on the whole. I considered walking on a little bit further to RiteAid Pharmacy to check out the latest seasonal discounts. No sooner thought than done.

K is always it seems, in a hurry, whenever we have to buy a few things at any store. There is so much in these American stores that is new and enchanting to me, but I hardly ever have the luxury of indulging my interest in the same. Today, I was a happy person as I walked the length and breadth of the store, strolling in a leisurely fashion through the aisles and pausing, whenever something caught my fancy, to examine it more closely.

There was enough to keep me engaged and engrossed for the better part of an hour. There seem to be numerous cosmetics products here, ready to make you gasp with wonder if you are a perceptive writer and groan with exasperation if you actually intend to buy something as simple as a lip balm or a face cream. For the variety and range and categories are, to put it bluntly yet politely, chaotic. Quite literally.

For starters, I spotted a huge aisle that provided only hair products. Well, I suppose most of us would comprehend hair oil, shampoo, conditioner and the daring amongst us would perhaps be familiar with terminology like hair gel and hair serum. I was born under a lucky star, I guess. I have seen hair salads, hair creams, hair root tonics, curl holding fluids, straightening washes, mousse, volumisers, solutions for damaged hair, hydrating lotions for dry hair, countless varieties of hair machinery (sorry, couldn't resist using the term) ranging from hair brushes of a plethora of shapes and sizes, straighteners, curlers, tongs etc etc. Pheeeeeeeeew.

Let's move on to lip care products. There is the quintessential vaseline lip guard, neighboured by lip balms (cherry tinted, extra-moisturising, rejuvenating), chapsticks, moisturising lipsticks, medicated lip creams, lip balms with sunscreen, lip gliders etc etc. Wow, I actually remember all those names. Now that's an accomplishment for sure.

And don't even mention creams, bodywashes, deodorants, moisturisers and sunscreens. I've had quite a lot of them for a month or so, thank you. And to think that I've just explored the cosmetics section today. That too, in one of the smaller ones among the entire RiteAid chain of stores !

I have a gut feeling that K knew the feelings of revolt that such miscellaneous and myriad products might engender within me. No wonder he's always in a hurry to head home.