Tootsie

No, I'm not talking about the film at all. I was just reading Terri's latest tail, and it triggered off memories from long ago. My older son must have been around nine or ten. He came home in tears after playing one evening, because one of the stray dogs in the neighbourhood had been in an accident, and seemed to be half paralysed. She had probably been struck by a scooter, and seemed to have a spinal injury, as she was only able to drag her hind legs along. He wished that we had a gun and could put her out of her misery. He wanted to call the SPCA, but I don't think there was a satisfactory response. We were feeling as helpless and miserable as the poor dog was, but our son was not one to give up.
He didn't want the poor animal to starve, so for weeks on end he would give her bread and milk both in the morning before going to school, and in the evening as well. Since she seemed so broken, so " tooti-phooti" in Hindi, she was named Tootsie. At times we wondered if the boy was prolonging her agony by keeping her alive. Tootsie lived in the park next to ours, a few hundred yards away from our house. Not only did she stay alive, she slowly and steadily recovered. I remember my son coming home completely and utterly overjoyed when he found that Tootsie was able to use her hind legs a bit. Slowly and steadily she did recover fully, and the next spring she had delivered a litter of healthy puppies.
One little boy with a compassionate heart, one stray brown dog with a fighting spirit.
It feels good to remember them both!

Trying to forget

the pain I saw you undergo,
that I have been clinging onto for the past few months
that has distorted my thoughts, my sleep, my dreams
with nightmares about your future

Let me shake you off, pain.
You have been growing in my heart
and taking up a lot of space there
leaving no room for anything else

for forgiveness, for kindness, for an open heart
and mind, for the ability to be reached
by those who need me, somewhere, all has been locked out
by the pain you shared with me, the pain I must forget

The five best things

about the spouse, also known as the Sometimes Resident Engineer (the famous SRE ).
The Maid in Malaysia has given me this challenging task, so challenging that the teenage son was most amused, and the spouse himself gave me some wonderful sins of omission as his good points. According to him, he is a great spouse because he no longer smokes or drinks, and has no girlfriends, and hands over his entire pay package to me. (He doesn't, it goes to the bank, and I only make the routine withdrawals, and execute the investments as per his guidelines, but this is why he thinks he's a good spouse.)

According to me, he is an amazing husband because:
a) he keeps me mentally alert at all times!
By which I mean I have to constantly balance two very strangely dissonant concepts in my mind: one of him as an extremely intelligent, competent and capable person, and the other of him as totally inept, challenged by many many simple things like light switches and taps.
He almost put orange squash in the deepam he lights each morning as he couldn't follow my directions to the new oil bottle in the kitchen cupboard!

b) He makes me feel indispensable, perhaps because he is too lazy to do anything for himself.

I have to be the navigator if we are going out without the driver, even if it's a brand new city that I hardly know! In Kolkata, he states with great pride, he can reach the following locations from our house, without help- his office, his club, Forum Mall, South City Mall, our son's college, the airport, and Howrah Railway station.( He inevitably gets confused on the way back via Vidyasagar Setu, but then I do too, sometimes.)

I have also been thoroughly demoralised by his constant refrain of "I don't know where I am" when we were returning from a concert.(The driver had left us there, and I did know the way home!)

I am also planning to retire from 'nagivation', since the time we were going to his cousin's place, following the exact same route we were told, only to be intercepted by a traffic cop for trying to enter a one-way street! We did sweet talk our way our of that, but the man was most upset with me!

I am now training him to take his medicines himself. He has been known to have them served nicely to him with his breakfast, and then marching off to work without ingesting them. Gah.


c) He is a warm-hearted person, as welcoming to the kids' friends as to our own. My parents have been with us for about four years now, off and on, and he has never ever made me feel that it is at all a big deal for him.
He will always have a kind word for everyone, whether it is our ancient dhobi or the maid or the car cleaner, or any random soul he happens to interact with.

d) The man does not gossip, and doesn't encourage gossip either.
This can get frustrating sometimes when I'm dying to bitch about someone, but I do appreciate this as A Good Quality.

e) He is great fun to be with, even though he can drive you mad by singing mismatched words and tunes, or by acting totally deaf when he feels like it. He speaks well, and is original and often thought provoking.

I guess I lucked out!

Edited to add: I was supposed to write a list of the five best things the husband has done for me
specifically so I've rather cheekily told MiM that
1) he married me, and
2-5) Gave me four mostly nice/great kids.

As a bonus, let me tell you that he has given me bedpans when required, and has ordered in when I'm not up to cooking, and has never interfered with my sense of autonomy.

I hereby tag
Wordjunkie
Nitya
Nino's Mom
Kiran
Kbpm
Choxbox
Era

Things I've Never Been Able to Understand-V

What is a vegetarian supposed to look like? Whenever, in my far away youth, I declared that I was a vegetarian, the statement was met with the incredulous response," You don't look like a vegetarian".

What on earth is a vegetarian supposed to look like? A vegetable? (All shapes and sizes and colours of veggies exist, so the generic term won't make sense anyway!)

Why did it rain?

Well, of course there were many wishes, good thoughts and prayers and virtual rain dances across the blogosphere. Choice renderings of various malhars and meghs, kajris and jhoolas were played on various music systems. All of these would definitely have added up to an awesome application for rain. Our accurate Sue had also predicted rain on Wednesday( comment no. 9:- https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6089956061483501286&postID=3351159718975733532).
The clincher, however, was the Ultimate Rain Commanding Act, for which I take all the credit.
(Debit is more likely, though, in cash terms).
After waffling through thoughts of buying an air conditioner for my kitchen, which the SRE actually encouraged, I finally did what I should have done ages and ages ago. I went and bought a small table fan for the kitchen. I buy the fan on Monday, and the rain gods process this information on Tuesday, happy that finally some lucre has been sacrificed to them by the Big Drip herself, and being somewhat bureaucratic by nature (these are Indian rain gods, after all) Kolkata has a good forty minutes of rain on Wednesday afternoon. And a wee bit on Thursday afternoon, and good showers early this morning.
I didn't know that the rain gods actually required bribes to pass the clouds' marching (raining) orders. As long as the bribe is effective I don't really care- we finally have had some rain. (The fan isn't really useful- I haven't yet worked out a sensible place for it- so either the gas flame gets blown upon, or one side of me drips while the other dries off, and I also have to bear the annoying hum of the fan.)
I have a feeling though, that once I invest the relatively large sum of money that an air conditioner costs, I just might never need to use it! One lives in hope.

A tiny bit of magic!

I stepped out into our lane this morning, rather intrigued by what looked like a broad sun beam halfway down the road. A closer look revealed that the road was carpeted by the tiny yellow flowers from the kadamb tree's laddoo like inflorescence. A strong wind had blown a little magic into our lives. Thank you, wind. ( Of course I'll be even more grateful when you blow some rain clouds and actual rain our way!)

Weather I like it or not....

the weather is what it is.
I don't want to even think about it, but it commands my attention every waking moment.
I had guests last week, who were most upset at the sight of me dripping around the house, especially each time I entered the kitchen. I'd even taken to hanging a small towel over my shoulder, like the time honoured gamchcha, so that I wouldn't drip onto whatever I was cooking.

There is much to love about summer- beautiful flowering trees, starting with the brilliant crimson of the flame of the forest (palash- Butea monosperma) as early as March, when we first hear the koel's plaintive cry, and the brief but brilliant flowering of the trumpet tree (Tabebuia aurea), going on to the amaltas ( Cassia fistula), the copperpods (Peltophorum pterocarpum) and the gulmohars( Delonix regia), the Pride of India ( Lagerstroemia speciosa), the laddoo like flowers of the kadamb (Neolamarckia cadamba), the fluffy powder puff like flowers of the rain trees(Samanea saman). Such awe inspiring beauty all around us.
And what delicious fruit as well, along with a paucity of vegetables. (The summer vegetables are all very well, but if they become even a little over-ripe, the seeds in them harden and my poor father doesn't enjoy them at all.) Mangoes of all varieties, each variety taking its turn as summer marches on, litchis, musk melons, water melons, cherries, plums and peaches- the hotter the summer, the sweeter the fruit. And late summer brings that most strange and wonderful fruit- the jamun!


This year, though, I can't treat the weather with my customary nonchalance. The humidity seems to be sucking the energy out of us all, leaving us all reeling under its impact. I drink gallons of water, and feel bloated, but the thirst is rarely relieved. We had some rain a few nights ago, but by the next morning we were back to sweltering. There is talk of yet another week's delay in the monsoon.

I am seriously thinking of installing an air conditioner in the kitchen. Then perhaps I will be a cool cook. Right now I think we should all live on chilled liquids only, those too prepared by someone else.

How about a virtual rain dance on the blogosphere? It might work. And I'd better start playing all my Megh and Malhar recordings- they should do the trick.

Garjat barsat saawan aayo re......

Megh shyam ghan shyam, shyam rang ghan chaayo,
Baadal ke roop shyam, prem rang barsaayo.

Umad ghumad ghan garjo re....

I'm feeling cooler already!