Archive | heart tart RSS feed for this section

Waiting For Ghattu

20 Sep

Ghatotkachh B M is a much-loved baby, by virtue of his very special momma, who, mind you, is my best friend first. Ghattu, as he was named by a friend amid much protesting from his parents (but who listens to parents anyway), is also a lucky baby. To be born to calm, stable, happy parents with only the odd hysterical aunt (stop looking at me!) waiting to chomp on his cheeks is a privilege.

Of course, Ghattu could also very well be a she. Since s/he is taking his/her own sweet time about showing up, we’ll just have to battle our butterflies and wait for the filmi wail. (Although if he’s anything like his mother, he’ll save his breath and begin organizing his bedclothes according to size and color.)

While my peaceful Virgo BFF goes about her days stoically, I’m tying myself into knots in anticipation. I’m not very helpful, I know, calling hopefully and bouncing around Mother Care eyeing: 1. things I think will be Very Useful for Ghattu, 2. things that will actually be Very Useful for Ghattu, 3. things I think look will look pretty scattered around while Ghattu poses for his/her first pictures. I’d list my purchases so far, but the BFF reads this page (I think…. do you, J?) so I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Ack. I think I just did.

While we’re on the subject (don’t ask “what subject?”—I just wrote that because it sounds like an almost-auntie thing to say), does anybody know of any research that proves children’s personalities could possibly be influenced by their mother’s best friend? Two pairs of sensible Virgo eyes raising their brows at me would be a tad unbearable. Right now though, I’ll take my chances, if only to see a tiny version of one of my favoritest people in the whole world.

Please pray Ghattu is among us soon. Safe and healthy and blessed. I’m worried I’ll have to start on my toenails very shortly.

A Scar In The Sty

5 Sep

Little Boy T was a teacher like no other. His first words to me, as I grasped his wrist, were “Fuck you!” Being two decades older than him was cancelled out by the fact that I was brought up in a home where ‘stupid’ is a cuss word. And from that moment on, I learned a few good things:

  • A 3-year-old needs exactly 2 ½ seconds to scoot.
  • If your mamma’s a junkie and she married daddy after he raped her at 14, you’re likely to be more than a little messed up.
  • Your stupid therapist who grew up under a rock will look blankly at you when she hears the word “reefer” (Okay, so in my defense, he pronounced it “weefer”.)
  • It takes time to get used to hugs if you haven’t been given any.
  • But sometimes we grow to love them pretty quickly.
  • We may all pretend to not give a tiny rat’s ass about approval, but we do, do, do.
  • Baby teeth can be deceptively vicious.
  • A mop of sandy hair bobbing at your knees each morning works better than caffeine.
  • One of the inherent qualities of the XY chromosome is the ability to aim.
  • You can tantrum with some people all of the time, with others some of the time, but you can’t be screeching “I hate you, bloody cow!” to your mamma, no sir.
  • When you hear “I’m stared by that noise in the sty” and “Oh, look at that pretty titty!”, it’s funny even the 100th time.
  • Stability is more than a house that won’t collapse in an earthquake.
  • When it comes to who’s helping whom, the lines are often blurred.

Happy Teacher’s Day, T.

Miss OJ can’t get your crinkled eyes out of her head.

OJ Hearts…

28 Jul

…Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight.

Now I don’t claim to be a film critic, connoisseur or even a regular keen watcher of the medium, but in my book, this is one of the best performances–film or stage–I have ever witnessed. So deeply did the actor disappear into the character that, come to think of it, I wouldn’t even call it a performance. Or the role of a lifetime. It was almost as if he lived his last months being The Joker. And a good half year after his tragic demise, I’m heartbroken at having discovered him only now.

But then again, if you’re all the way up there, the only way out is off the ride. Suddenly, people, I feel like the joke’s on us.

Edited to add: Clearly, I’m not the only fan The Joker has. Check out this clown.

My Daddy Strongest

9 Jul

You’re at the hospital as I write this. Lying on a bed, a machine transfusing your blood, unaware of your immediate surroundings because you’re busy cracking up. Benny Hill is clearly too funny to feel any pain. And with those headphones firmly in your ears, you’re guffawing behind drawn curtains, oblivious to the curious stares of newer patients. For the old ones, you’re a familiar sight: cheering them on, on their low days, lending CDs to a yesteryears’ movie star, grumbling when he sends you sugar-free chocolates, joking with the nurses, announcing to each one that all this trouble began in their very own native Kerala, lest they believe that Munnar is merely a hill station.

When the doctor asks, “You’re still alive?” you smilingly tell him, “Only to torment you.” Complications arise and ebb, with the regularity of waves. Perhaps the very same ones that all the patients fight over beds # 5 and 6 for—sea-view, see? Clots and a hugely swollen arm result in grand declarations: “On the one hand, I’m the Great Khali; on the other, Mr. Vakatlan!” you proudly say, vakatlan being the Parsi term for scrawny.

But who will tell of the expansive spirit, greater than any wrestler’s arm, that surmounts the pain, triumphs over failed kidneys and still craves popcorn on the way home?

Happy 62nd, Dad.

I wish you a lifetime’s supply of health and popcorn.

In Your Rainy Memory

5 Jul

I love post-shower drips, I inform him,

watching leaky trees choreograph silver missiles,

and so enamored am I by the perfect roundness of his belly button,

the brownness of the eyes that follow my tongue,

that your shadow slips away unnoticed

and I sleepily type in retrospect

this perfunctory ode to you,

a forgotten love.

Newer Entries →