Crashed - diet?

They say ‘be careful what you wish for’ for you never know when your wish might come true. But unfortunately, by the time I heard what they said, it was too late – the wish had already been made. Once upon a time, long, long ago, when we still woke up by chanting ‘karagre vasate lakshmi, karamadhye saraswati, karamule sthitao gauri, prabhate kar darshanam’ and not ‘karagre vasate whatsapp, karamadhye facebook, karamule sthitao instagram, prabhate mobile darshanam’, I weighed about 49 kilos. Umpteen chocolates and fattening food later, the scales stayed put at 49. I struggled crossing the 50 mark and no matter what I did, I couldn’t.

Well, I was reed thin and then I made the ‘wish’, that I now wish I had never made. I wished I’d put on a few kilos more so that I’d look a bit more, errr...how do you say it? Rounded? Curvy? Well chubby, maybe. And suddenly the wishes were horses and beggars were riding, and how! And what do I know, the scales not only tipped the 50 mark it kept going, and wouldn’t stop. The pointer was just about to touch 70, but I managed to get the needle to stop at 69.9. How? Ahem...well...I’d rather not say it here!

There’s this famous poem, ‘As a rule, man is a fool, when it’s hot, he wants it cool, when it’s cool, he wants it hot, always wanting what is not.’ Why did I think I’d be any exception? Now that I had gained weight that I had been desperately craving to gain since long, I wished I’d be back to the original size! There!

Damage already done, I needed some motivation to lose weight which was not until our trip to Munnar. That trip I must say was pretty ‘Moti-weight-ing’ and thus began a journey of a 1000 miles with a single elephant ride! They say, where there’s a will, there are relatives, no, I meant there’s a way, and groggily I found my way that went round or rather square in circles, (wait, is that even possible?) in the park near my house. Thirty minutes of walk, dripping in sweet sweat wasn’t doing much to the waistline, except making me sleep more in the afternoons. 

Like a god-send, a friends group on FB started a new fitness group which I enthusiastically joined. To keep us motivated there was this diet and activity chart that we needed to fill out every day.

When I logged in, I had already had a tall glass of lemon juice in warm water with honey at 6am and then a tall glass of milk at 7am, followed by a bowl of oats at 9am, a bowl of salad at 10.30am and 3 phulkas with vegetable at 1pm. I filled in my entry and skimmed through what the others had filled in. Lunch: 1 phulka, said one entry. How does one survive on 1 phulka? I mean, that’s like two bites, right? But maybe that was the trick to losing weight. I made a mental note to eat just one phulka at night. But the mere thought of starving at night was making me hungry again, and it wasn’t even an hour since my last meal. I gulped down water to make the hunger go away, but it wouldn’t go away. My kids don’t listen to me these days, why would hunger? Well, after wondering what to eat next, I settled with a bowl of cornflakes without any milk. Maybe I’d keep munching on it as I worked I thought. It was gone before I could spell c-o-r-n-f-l-a-k-e-s. A couple of hours later, the tummy was grumbling again. Walnuts went in, followed by a bowl of papaya, and green tea, and by the time it was 5pm, I thought I would die of hunger. I was too embarrassed to log in and fill up the rest of the diet sheet.

Why was I indefinitely hungry? Was I possessed by the food monster? As I marched back into the kitchen, my eyes fell on the pressure cooker, and like Archimedes, I suddenly knew the answer to my question – Rice, eureka! I am so accustomed to rice that nothing else feels like lunch. I can eat rice in the morning and stay full until dinner time. Skipping rice was my nemesis. The brain never registered that I had had my meal.  

Giving in to the temptation, I quietly open the lid and poured some steaming rice into my plate with a generous helping of tangy, spicy, rasam, a miserly dollop of ghee and some fried potato palya (vegetable) on the side. Heaven! One whiff of the food on my plate and half my hunger was already gone. As I mixed the rice and rasam, I felt the rice make gentle love to my fingers and then proceed to pleasure my mouth. As the rasam-rice touched my tongue, it almost felt orgasmic. I closed my eyes, yielding to the pleasure, letting the food satiate my hunger. (What? Literally guys!) Needless to add, I wasn’t hungry again until dinner and I could manage with a single phulka at night.

At this rate, however, I doubt I’ll be able to lose any weight. And if I manage to do that, I’ll be back with a ‘The journey from fat to fit’ post or else this might be the precursor to a post titled, ‘And this why I never managed to lose weight.’

So long, Ciao!   

  

And that's why I decided to go on a diet!

I decided to go on a diet. I guess the trip to Munnar did it for me.

As we drove along the winding Mattupetty road feasting our eyes on the luscious green Kannan Devan Hills, feeling the nip in the air, allowing the cool breeze to caress our faces, and enjoying the fog that would suddenly appear and disappear, we reached a place with an unusually high level of exuberance in the atmosphere - the elephant park. Getting down from the car we saw people screaming in excitement (the thrill was only half the reason as we found out later, the other half was in fear!) perched atop majestic (and kind of smelly) elephants swaying from side to side, herded by bored looking mahouts - probably making the nth trip since morning, and probably also wondering in amusement how a little trip mounted on a pachyderm could elicit such a feeling of exhilaration!

I shouldn’t say more about ‘those people’ since we belonged to that breed too, jumping with joy in anticipation of our rambling session. The trip paid for, including a photographer who would click candid shots of us screaming along our way, we settled on the machan-like waiting board. Ten elephants, ten groups and about 30 excited faces with token numbers held in sweaty palms, lingered in the limited enclosure like we were readying ourselves for a trip to the outer space! Ours was token no 1 and the excitement as you can imagine was palpable. I wanted a front view and volunteered to sit first - a decision, I little knew, I would soon regret!

The first elephant strode in, the passengers on it disembarked on a similar machan on the opposite side and the beast sashayed towards us like a model on a ramp.  The mahout looked at us and in local vernacular said to the guide who stood with us, ‘Aavaradille anne...Hari yethikum.’ Roughly translated, my elephant (wait....hold your breath) ‘cannot’ take this weight, Hari (presumably another elephant), will be able to take them.

What??? The elephant just rejected us? Were we seriously overweight? The husband and I exchanged looks which cannot really be described using an adjective. Perhaps, you could call it the ‘its-your-fault-you-have-put-on-so-much-weight’ look! Anyways, there was hardly anything we could do...we just moved a step behind to let the people next to us board ‘our’ elephant which was no longer ours, by the way. Next came Hari, (I think), and even as I thought excitedly, ‘this is it’ and lifted a leg to put it around Hari, the mahout, nodded his head, ‘Nextu madam.’

‘Huh?’ I asked.

“Elephant weight not taking, bigger elephant coming. You waiting.’

Seriously? We needed a bigger elephant? I really hoped he was kidding, but looking at his face it was apparent that he was anything but joking!

We took one step back again, allowing the next family to board Hari.

With Hari gone, the third one swayed along, but we hardly had any enthusiasm this time. To my eyes, he looked smaller than the previous two or maybe it was my mind playing tricks with me. Our minds have strange ways of dealing with disappointment, don’t they? They know how to trick you into believing something is not for you, irrespective of whether it is or not, so that you should not feel let down should that thing actually not be for you!

This time, before the elephant could reject us, the guide broke the news to us, but we weren’t as disappointed. He told us we were to board the next elephant - he was the biggest and he should be able to carry us. That, I guess, was a polite way of telling us to let the third family board this elephant which we did with an embarrassed face and heavy heart. If there was a bucket of water somewhere, I’d have gladly drowned myself in it! And if the fourth elephant that was expected to carry us also couldn’t, then a handful of water would have sufficed.

‘This elephant madam, you all taking,’ the guide said with a wide grin, showing us his beedi stained teeth, and apparently more enthused that he finally found the right elephant for us or perhaps relived that we could finally be sent on our joy ride without him having to refund the fees that we had already paid! I secretly guess it was the latter.    

And so after having been rejected by three pachyderms, we finally got to put our weight, err, ourselves on the one that gladly (I hope) agreed to seat us!  

The leg that I lifted with so much aplomb refused to go around the mammal, so wide was its girth! After much struggle, I managed to seat myself, little knowing that it is not as fun to sit on an animal’s collarbone, especially a huge one at that, and get walked around on a hilly terrain! No wonder people screamed and we did too, once the four of us were ready to be hauled! With every step that it took, I thought that either I was going to fall off and be trampled under 5000kg of grey flesh or worried if our combined weight on its shoulders was going to make it angry enough to shake us off its back and trample me under all of its 5000kg anyway!   

It took quite some time to adjust to the meteoric rise and fall of the giant’s footsteps, but by the time it happened, we were almost at the end of our journey!  

And oh, did I mention that our pachy took two breaks in between and wouldn’t budge from its place for long! Apparently, it decided to unload its gut contents midway. Anyways that was the only thing in its control, for it couldn’t apparently unload us. Imagine sitting on an elephant that is busy making dung and emptying its bladder at its own leisurely pace while you squirm in displeasure!

As for the kids, they had a swell time enveloped between the two of us, shouting in joy, singing songs and discussing what the elephant could have had for lunch looking at the contents it so graciously spilled on the jungle floor!

No, don't let the smile fool you, it was purely for the camera!

When we alighted, I tried not to look into the elephant’s eyes, but I did, and I think in those tiny brown eyes, so disproportionate to its size, was a silent plea asking me to lose weight. That pretty much started me up on a diet, but what happened later is another story altogether! Will hold that for another day. 

Run...when you see these kinds!!

There are some people who make life worthwhile and then...there are some who make you want to run miles – away from them….! They can be your family, friends, colleagues, or people you just know. But they can be a pain in all the wrong places, and make you wonder why you bothered with them in the first place! Here are 5 types of people, whom if you happen to spot- Run…just run and don’t turn back….later don’t tell me that I didn’t warn you!

1.The agree-me-nots- 

These are the people who will never agree with what you say. Anything you opine will elicit an equal and opposite opinion from them. They love to contradict, and whether they actually agree with you in their hearts, at least sometimes, you will never know. It is like a game to them. They will differ on every subject you breach, and it will make you wonder if they just do it to put you off! From the mundane to the exquisite, they will have an opinion on everything and will do their best to make you feel like you know nothing! These people consider themselves to be God’s greatest gift to mankind, and presumably have very high opinions of themselves. 

2.The Photo Negatives- 

I call them the photo negatives because their colours, like those in a negative, are inverted. These people will find a problem in every solution. You just cannot convince them, they have a counter argument to every argument and a negative view to every positive one, and prefer to see the world as black. You cannot even offer them a glass of water, without them telling you, how water makes them feel bloated. Every advise or solution you give will be met with, Oh no, I cannot do that because.." They will give you the impression that the world is out to get them and will suffocate you with reasons why they are in such deep shit.

3.The Sugar Coated Pills- 

They will kill you with their smiles and later with their statements. While you have been fooled into thinking that they have your best interests in mind, they will quickly take out their sharp and pointed daggers and lunge it into your heart. You must remain alert at all times, because you never know when they will turn an entire conversation against you. You will have to learn to look beyond their deceptive smiles and their double meaning words and double edged swords. 

4.The leaking taps- 

Nothing stays in their leaking mouths. Every word you utter will be passed on with salt and spices to the next living thing they meet. You will soon find casual utterances turning explosive, or find yourself being misquoted every now and then. They love to bite behind your back, and you will have to learn to keep your mouth shut at all times when they are around, if you don’t want to get into trouble.

5.The Poor Souls-

These are the people who think God always hands them a raw deal. They will make you stall all your work, and give them a patient hearing, and ask for your opinions. Once they have your sympathy and your ear, they will hound you at all times with their problems, without boundaries on time and people and even get upset if you don’t make space for them in your life. They will accuse you of being "like all other people". They pity themselves so much that they make themselves seem like the most unfortunate people in the Universe.

In brief...

No, no...This post is not about people wearing short clothes. I have nothing to say about the clothing preferences of people, however brief they might be. Who am I to judge anyone but myself? There are already enough people shooting their mouths off and giving the world their well researched 'gyan' on what people should wear and what they should not wear, and what catastrophe will befall the world should their prophetic words be unheeded!  I’m not that learned and hence you get to be spared of my sermon. 

(Breathing a sigh of relief, are you? Not so soon, people… *lets out an evil laugh… Buhahahaha…)

Well, coming back to the post, this is also not about those briefs that managers give their subordinates and expect them to dish out an extraordinary performance merely on the motivation obtained from those brief words! I have been subjected to many such briefings in the span of my corporate life. In between a gloating, self pompous, all-knowing manager (obviously, with a puffed chest, soaking in the thought of himself being the best, the most inspirational and motivational speaker since Zig Ziglar) at one end and a sleepy employee (trying his best to put up a moronic smile and nod on his face) at another, is a brief, which by the way, is anything but brief, telling you what a cakewalk it would be to achieve your monthly budgets should you follow their briefings to the ‘T’. How foolish of  you to think your effort had any part in achieving those demonic numbers!

But anyways, this post is not about that too. I guess, the beginning should have kind of set you up for what is to follow.

The point that I'm referring to is a kind of disability that people like me face on account of their inability to talk in brief. I guess the term nineteen to a dozen was coined just for me! I cannot even 'think' in brief. How in the world am I supposed to talk or write in brief? I was a child wonder if you can call me that. Some kids become dancing masters at a very young age, some become cricketers or turn out to be exceptionally high IQ kids. I turned out to have the gift of the gab. I was one of those kids who got full marks in essays- something that was totally unheard of. But I ensured that I compensated for the high score by scoring a zero in précis writing! 

I belong to that tribe who painstakingly types out every letter of every word checking for grammar even as I type out a message on Whatsapp or Messenger. I am not a grammar Nazi but it disturbs me greatly when people type something like, ‘wud u lyk 2 jn m 4 lnch tmrw.’ What? Is it a fad to swallow your vowels? So hungry, eh? A conversation with a younger cousin had me thinking if I was indeed growing old, or was I plain stupid!

What are you doing? I typed.

Cousin: ‘ATM LMBO

Me: What?

Cousin: At the moment, laughing my butt off

Me: Why?  

He forwarded me some joke I couldn’t really comprehend.

Me: What’s so funny?

Cousin: NM

Me: Huh?

Cousin: Never mind. (And then…) BRB

Me: What?

Cousin: Be right back…

Me: Sure

Cousin: K

I didn’t want to ask him what K meant, but he replied back instantly,

Cousin: Okay :-P

By the way, the ‘K’ is a part of almost all conversations. Any question can have ‘K’ as the answer or reply. It is like that ubiquitous aaloo (potato) that can find its way into almost any cuisine. Conversations like these make me imagine a mason building a house, who lays every fourth brick and leaves the gaps in between unfilled. So much for conversations!

The only abbreviations I remember using is “etc” and yea, maybe, 'ok'. And then I learnt LOL and ROFL. But the list just seems to be growing longer each day and I’m not sure I can keep up with it any longer! 

Thankfully I knew what it meant!

By the way, if you haven't seen it yet, the "about me" page on this blog also looks like a complete blog post!! Someone puhleeese teach me the art of brevity!! My husband often jokes that my Facebook status updates look like a complete blog post by themselves! Well, maybe that explains why I couldn’t embrace Twitter thus far. 140 characters? Really? Not even 140 words…just characters! What am I supposed to say in so few alphabets? 

It is like telling a person to just put the key in the ignition, start your car but not drive it! Or just ordering the appetizers and forgetting about the rest of the meal. It is this insatiable appetite that makes me hungry for more and forget all about brevity. 

By the way, I hope you are still listening!!

Awards!

People have been always been quite generous with praising me! I find it so admirable that they are able to find so many admirable qualities in me!

I remember that my kindergarten teacher was the first one  to
recognize my hidden (no, not really!) talents and to start with this award thing. At the tender age of four, I was honored with the "Most Talkative girl" award! On the progress card, she wrote in large red letters - "Stands first in class, but very talkative!" You tell me, how many people can yap away to glory at such a tender age and also manage a get a mention of it in their progress cards? See the point?


My mom continued the tradition. It is from her that I got the "Miss Kumbhakarni" award for being able to sleep like a log. Again, that was pretty special. Being able to sleep peacefully, undisturbed, and for the right (okay...for longer) duration needs special talent, doesn't  it?  You need to know how to detach your worries from your head and store them away for later use before you hit that pillow. Needless to say, I could very effortlessly not worry about just about anything. Exams never gave me sleepless nights, neither did anything else! I  peacefully slept through most of my worries!!


Yep...this award was given to me by Hubby dearest! The "Most unorganised person" award. Now THAT is one award I am proud of receiving! I'll tell you why.  I read some kind of study somewhere which says that creative people tend to be a little unorganised. And this award just goes to show that I might have that little creative side to me!! There you know now! So if I'm forever misplacing things and hunting for things thereafter, you'd know that my creative side is trying to burst out of my highly unorganised side!

A friend's husband gave me the "Miss Wikipedia" award. If she's ever stuck with something, he'll casually remark, "Aren't you asking your Google?" I'm not sure if that is meant as a compliment or otherwise, but I believe, awards are awards, and must be treated as one! 

A friend gave me "The Drama Queen" award. And true to the drama queen that I was, I gave this beautiful teak jerking speech afterwards, thanking him for thinking me of being worthy of this award. I also made sure to thank everyone from mummy and daddy, to my kaam wali bai for their unflinching support because of which I got this much-coveted crown! 

 Yet another friend gave me the "Chashmebadoor" award because I wore a huge pair of spectacles back those days (and that makes it sure, he did not know what chashmebadoor meant!) There have been some more awards, but it would be highly inappropriate for me to make a mention of those here! So I'll leave it at that!



By the way, here's another addition to my list of awards- Top 15 short stories Blogs in India. Just when I was beginning to worry if it meant someone thought I can 'spin tall tales', hubby dearest said, 'Eat the mangoes na, why worry about the seeds?!!'

Of Moms and Sons!!

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 54; the fifty-fourth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

                                              ****************************** 

The other day, a friend commented about how I frequently change the pictures on the wall, “You must have a great collection, and even greater patience,” she said.

“No,” I told her plainly,” I’m a mom of two boys!!”

Moms who have only boys will know what I’m talking about. After a while, you just get used to damaged property and replacing and repairing, like that is what you were born to do. A cricket game that ends triumphantly with smashed window panes showering down like a meteor, broken picture frames that hang precariously from the wall begging you to get them off their perch, broken bones and bruises which teach you how you can get blood almost out of anything, patches of greasy palm prints and grafitti all over the walls, which by the way, reflect the sheer wastefulness of getting your home painted; I think you get the drift...yea, that’s what being a mom to only boys is all about. The whole house is their playground, and you will become an expert at ducking before the ball knocks you down...after having been knocked down a few times before! By the time the boys are able to walk about on their own feet, you would know the phone number of the carpenter, mechanic, plumber and any other repair person by heart and they would know your address even as you place your call and say hello!

Toys under the coffee table!

and graffiti on the walls!

You will also learn how to walk without tripping on the umpteen things on wheels that adorn your floor that you so painstakingly just cleaned a few hours ago, and after a few years, cars perched on sofas, trains hanging from the corner of the bed and trucks sitting where the flower vase should have been, no longer seem unusual and cleaning the house does not seems like a necessity anymore! By the way, the flower vase would have by then become past tense and after replacing it for the nth time you will no longer have patience to waste your hard earned money to buy a vase that will soon be broken again.

You will also learn how powerless you become when the cricket and football seasons arrive.  You will have practically no control over the remote, with the boys ganging up on you 3:1. And added to that, they will be perennially hungry, and you will spend most of your time stuck to the stove.

 ‘How do I look’, will always be met with a stony silence and a stare as if it was the most stupid question to ask. Men anyway have no idea how to answer that question, whatever their age! There is never a comment on what kind of makeup looks good on me or what clothes I look good in. The answer will always a ‘hmmm…’ whatever that means!

These are the times I sorely miss having a daughter; a daughter with whom I could share my makeup and jewelry and clothes. Without her, all my years of experience as a girl and woman seem so wasted! My sister’s daughter, all of 8 years, has already laid claim to large part of her mom’s inheritance she tells me, and I look at all the stuff that I have been collecting over the years and worry what will become of them?!

All the stuffed toys that I brought in expectation of having a daughter lie untouched, gathering dust. The teddy bear(s) that should have been cuddled up in the arms of my kids sit high up in the attic! You will learn early on that boys have this fascination for cars and anything that moves on wheels, right from the moment they are born! That and video games. Whatever their age!

But all said and done, I wouldn't trade my boys for anything or anyone in the world. Because some relationships are forever. Can any feeling compare to the way the younger one buries his head into me as he sleeps or the way the elder one curls up on my lap after a tiring day out? The little hands that lock into mine and the shiny eyes that smile at me, the animated non-stop chatter, and the palms that cradle my cheeks, are priceless. And to top that, you get all the attention that only boys can shower you with! 

Ah! the perks of being a mother! 

That's how he sleeps with his face buried into me!!

And those little palms are forever on my cheeks!

Being a mom is forever!!

                                                  ****************************

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. Participation Count: 10

Free advice!

The little one has become really naughty. He makes me run around in circles  as I try to feed him, makes me dance to his whims trying to get him to finish his homework and do endless crunches clearing up the mess he makes. While people close to me are marveling (or maybe even getting envious) of how fit I look and how I have lost so much weight, I am having a tough time convincing them that there is no diet to thank nor a strict fitness regime.

They do not believe me when I tell them my 5 year old is the reason for my fitness! “Oh, so you don’t want to tell us?” they smirk.  How can you be so selfish? they ask, looking wide eyed.  Some people have even offered to bribe me, “You tell me and I’ll get you any book of your choice.” Ah, yea, people kind of know what can tempt me. That’s how predictable I have become! 

I’m tempted to say something, anything, just to please them, and get all those titles I’ve been waiting to pick up. The whole world is minting money with advices, so why not me? Write out some random diet plan, which is mostly ghaas-phoos and some walking and exercise and bingo! They have their plan and I get my new book. And I know that once this ‘New Year resolution’ craze is over, they are least likely to follow the plan and I will not be blamed if the plan fails. And if some half crazed friend happens to follow the plan, I am sure all those weeks of exercise and chewing cud will reflect in the pristine figures that they will beget!

People love asking for advice as much as some people love dishing them out. The friendly neighborhood aunty will always peep into your house should she see you coughing or get to know that your child is down with fever. Arre, take a decoction of tulsi leaves, ginger and pepper, she will advice you and then go on to tell you how she makes it for her family each time they cough, and how well it works, which by the way will be a big lie!

Saas bahu problems? No issues! Someone will always have some brilliant advice on how to tackle the saas and make life miserable for her. And god forbid, if you are gullible enough to take that advice, you are sure turn your own life miserable, whether you achieve that victory goal against your saas or not!

Child problems? Hubby problems ?Boss problems? Pimple problems? Heart break problem? People have a solution to everything!

Then there are those advice that the dime-a-dozen astrologers on television churn out. I happened to see one such baba while surfing channels, and sat through the entire half hour show for the sheer entertainment it provided. Eat dhaniya (coriander) seeds before you go to work today, he advised the “meen rashi walon”(Pisceans), you will get promoted. Wow! How easy! Just pop some coriander seeds and bingo, all Pisceans will get promoted! To hell with appraisals, office politics and even hard work!! And then the all knowing baba also went on tell each rashi walon what color they should wear, who should feed the crows, who should tie pink threads on all four corners of the bed and who should light a lamp of sunflower oil under a peepal tree!!

As I made fun of the guy, a friend gave me a solemn look and said, “See, when you have problems in your life, you will realize the value of his advice.” And then proceeded to tell me how “guru was vakri” (Jupiter was playing havoc!) in her horoscope and causing all the problems in her life!  I am amazed people think I lead a problem free life! “What did he say for kumbh rashi”, she wanted to know.

I have it all figured out now. I can even become a baba (well, a lady baba, which by the way sounds like lady gaga to me, but again, that’s beyond the point!) and tell people the most mundane things and even have my feet kissed.

Ah! So much for free advice!

Serial Killers!

Mom’s keenly watching a daily soap. I haven’t watched one in years, and from the recap that mom has so generously given me, I find it interesting. Looks like a good story line. It’s only half an hour, I tell myself. If that means getting time to chat up with mom, even on a pretty useless topic, why not! So I settle down next to her watching what happens next from where she’s left the story. (and by the way, there was no chatting up during that time, I had almost forgotten that opening my mouth was akin to hara-kiri, especially when mom’s watching those soaps!)

Scene one. Bushy eyebrow. And then, slowly the camera pans to the....the...the other bushy eyebrow. He’s supposed to be that mystery man, right? Hmmm….Someone asks a question and the shot is again on our man…I mean, on his bushy eyebrows….he doesn't speak, his assistant answers for him. Another dialogue…and zoom to the bushy eyebrows….yet another dialogue….zoom again to the bushy eyebrows….imagine having to be just content watching the man’s bushy eyebrows for the entire half hour. Eyebrows that looked like a mountain…sorry, two mountains. Man….! Why couldn’t you trim them a little? Especially when they were to be shown endlessly for half an hour! You could give Kroor Singh a run for his money!! (Kroor Singh, who? Chandrakantha... remember? Yep the same guy) And no, our man does not, as much as, mouth a single dialogue the whole time. The voice could be a giveaway, right? Yeah! The whole world wants to know who the man is…. And people wait with baited breaths….

Aah mistarees!!! The warldh louse tham, doan’th thaeey?

 But no, for today that is all we will get to see. The wait continues to the next day. The next day, we get to see a shot of his majesty’s shoes…. shiny, pointed, and black, with a dotted partition running like a creek from the center to the sides.  Ah! Now you are marveling at my ability to be such a keen observer of accessories, no? Don’t be! As much as I would be liked to be called hawk eyed, I am more like a nursery kid who has been taught to learn by rote! I saw them, the shoes, I mean, for a full 30 minutes!!! They walked back and forth, the heel making a perfect angle before being laid at 180 degrees on the floor. I swear the shoes made exactly the same angle with the floor each time they were lifted! And wow, the sound they made! Crunch...in slow motion….crunch….in slow motion…crunch…in slow motion…they went each time he lifted those heavenly feet and blessed the floor with them! As for the identity of our man….nah...not so soon love…he continues to be a…..mistaree!! If there was a knife nearby, I could have driven it straight into my belly!

Now I wanted to desperately see who that mystery man was. It is said all good things come to those who wait….yeah right!! Because, cut to the next day, and we generously get to see a shot running from the shoes up the trousers, slowly....if an ant were to be climbing up his trouser, I bet we could have traced its path upwards! There’s more….Yay!! I do a mental flip! The shot shows us every crease on his whiter-than-milk trouser and the camera’s going up…yeah, we’re there, almost baby, keep going...keep going…I try to be encouraging. Oh yeah, the tie, beautiful… yellow floral tie, eh? …whatever….but you are doing good, keep going…! Matches with the trouser and the blazer….well not really…but who cares….just keep going….come on you can do it….ah!! I can almost see the nape of his neck!!

And then…. almost liked a ruined orgasm….arrrrghhhh…..those stupid bushy eyebrows again! What the…?!! Really? What is he? Monalisa?  Why can’t you just show the bugger’s face?

How much free time do those producers think we have? They really expected us to watch such insanely stupid soaps, while they take their own sweet time (3 full episodes!!) to just show us that mystery man’s face?? And no, the face that will launch a thousand ships has still not been unraveled, mind you!

I throw a scornful this-is-what-you-watch look at mom, and she pretends not to have caught that look….I remember seeing such an insane shot 15 years ago in one of the first ever, longest running daily soaps on television. We haven’t walked a single step in last 15 years, have we? 

How about a story?

The little one, as you all know by now, is a little too smart and quite witty.  So this how last evening turned out to be.

“Mamma, tell me a story,” the little one asked me, settling on my lap and turning my cheek towards him.

I stopped what I was doing to pay attention to him, after all what can be more important than spending quality time with your child? The instant story teller that I pride myself to be, I started with the lion in the jungle that ate all the animals, the story already beginning to take shape in my head.  I had no idea how wrong I was going to be proved in a short while from now.

“There was a bad lion in a bigggg jungle” I started, acting out the part. “He ate any animal that came his way.”

“Which animal?” he wanted to know.

First question already.

“It ate the deer, the…”

 “No mamma, the lion can’t eat the deer…” he said as a matter of fact.

“And why not?”

“The deer lives in the zoo…” he said, with a I’m-surprised-my-mom-didn’t-know-that look!

“No baby, it lives in the jungle, some of them are caught and kept in the zoo…”

“Oh” he seemed satisfied, still pondering over what I said. Then came the next question.

“Did the lion eat the zebra?”

 “Yes baby. The lion ate the zebra and….”

“Giraffe?”

“Yes, he ate the giraffe too and…”

“Buffalo?”

“Yes, the buffalo too.”

“Monkey?”

“Yeah, the monkey, the ….” I paused, thinking of what other animals the lion could eat.

“Hons cow?” he asked.

“What?” I was not sure I understood what animal that is.

“Hons cow?” he stressed again. “Did the lion eat the hons cow?”

“What is a hons cow?” I was beginning to get tired.

He made an imaginary horn with his hands on his head, “hons…”

that's his Hons' cow!!

“Oh!” it dawned on me, and I smiled, “Horns cow?”

“Ya, did the lion eat the horns cow?”

“Yes, it ate the horns cow also…”

Dear god how many more animals did he know? Even as I’m thinking about it, came the next poser.

“No, mamma, the lion can’t eat the horns cow, because it has horns… if the lion tries to eat it, the cow can knock it down with its horns….” He laughed, gently hitting his head with his tiny palm.

“Oh…” I was almost embarrassed. Imagine a mom who doesn’t know this basic fact! THAT was some enlightenment. I must make a mental note of this, next time will be unpleasant if I happen to make this mistake again.

“Ok, it did not eat the horns cow...So this lion…..” I tried to continue.

“Mamma….”

Not again.

“Yes?”

“What does the horns cow eat?”

“Grass?” I asked cautiously. You could never be too sure what his horns cow ate.

“Correct.” He nodded his head, and then, “What colour is grass?”

“You tell me…”

“Green” he smiled.

“Good boy” I smiled back, and then , “What does the horns cow give?” I would regret this question soon.

“Milk” pat came the answer.

“Very good. What colour is milk?” I realized I’m diverting from the story, I’ll get back to it next, I tell myself.

“White”.

“Good, so we’ll go back to the story? So this lion….”

The little one was still thinking and then came the bouncer.

“How does the green grass turn into white milk?”

I really don’t know that. And I could cry, yeah, I wanted to cry. I gave up on the story telling session.

“Baby, why don’t YOU tell me a story today?”