What is it about her...???

I see her through our kitchen window- she is there everyday, unchanging, doing the same things she does everyday, going about her work-oblivious of the world around her. As I peer out again, I see her standing in a violet saree and a yellow blouse. As she crouches her saree moves a few notches up her slim legs. She brushes away a lock of hair that falls across her face and carries on like everyday.

It is then that I see more carefully and see that beneath that wrinkled skin and the poker face is a strange and almost mystical sadness. Sometimes as she is engrossed in her chores, she senses somebody’s gaze on her and she looks up sharply and for a brief instant we lock eyes-enough to make me recoil feeling guilty and mortified. Her withered body speaks of times of hardship. She lives in the house opposite, with the owners and does the work around the house. She must be about 65-70 years old and I have seen mom talk to her.

What draws me to her is that it seems as if she has almost come to terms with her loneliness and inexplicably, that scares me and yet paradoxically, also entices me.

Ouch! Just burnt my hand on the non-stick pan. Damn!!!

Thought for the day..

Clay, of which God, who didn't exist, made man who did. Such was the paradox of human life: its creator was fictional but life itself was a fact.

- The Fury, Salman Rusdie

What’s their story??

Have you ever walked on the road and suddenly stopped to look around yourself. We see a multitude of people, different colours, odours, shapes and sizes. Ever stopped and wondered- “What is their story?”

Why is the boy of four sitting forlornly? Is he thinking about why his parent’s attention suddenly seems to be focused on his new born sibling or is he thinking about how he is going to tell his mother about the new pencil box that he lost.

What is the dutiful house-wife thinking about? Maybe she is thinking about the callousness with which her husband dismissed her wish to furnish her kitchen last night and regretting that if she had studied further and made something more out of her life, she would not have had to ask her husband today.

What is the old lady sitting on a charpoy in front of her house thinking about? Is she thinking about how bold the women of today have become or is she thinking about an era by-gone and a beauty that she once was.

What is that young girl gazing into the horizon, thinking about? Is she pining for a loved one or is she looking towards the future with hope-filled eyes or maybe she is worried that her parents will get her married before she finishes studying or maybe she is just sighing contentedly that everything has worked out the way it should have

What is the middle-aged software engineer thinking about? Maybe he is thinking about how the absence of a B. E degree seems to have become a roadblock in his career and how his experience of 6 years counts for only so much and it leads to frustration that leads him nowhere.

Every one has a story and however similar it may sound or seem, each one is distinct and unique and that is what makes one ask-"What is your story?".

Pics...

Here they are...just a small peek into Biloxi Blues.
There are three more shows this weekend

Venue: Sivagami Petachi Auditorium, Alwarpet
Date: 17th,18th september
Time: 7:15 pm on 11th and a 2 pm and 7:15 pm show on 17th.

For more pics, click here.

Biloxi Blues

Well here we go...its the start of a new run of shows of the Biloxi Blues- a play about so many things, about growing up and about identifying yourself. So if you are in town and are reading this, do drop in and watch the show.

Venue: Sivagami Petachi Auditorium, Alwarpet
Date: 10th,11th,17th,18th,24th,25th september
Time: 7:15 pm on 10th and 17th and a 2 pm and 7:15 pm show on 11th and 17th at Sivagami and 7:15 pm on 24th and 25th september at Chinmaya Heritage Centre, Harrington Road

Have a nice time.

Oh forgot to mention, I am in it too...

Sticky issue

An observation that I have always made or should I say, I didn’t have a choice but to make is that every time I eat rajma, a piece of the jacket of the rajma always sticks itself to my upper right second molar. It’s strange because it happens every time I eat it. Again, it so happens that rajma is my favorite dish and so I eat it often enough to understand that this is not a one-off incident. After having observed this phenomenon for the last six months which is when I started noticing it, its left me flummoxed. There are two very specific things that are of interest to me-

1.Its always one piece of the jacket of a rajma that gets stuck. In one sitting I probably eat about 100 pieces of rajma. So why not two pieces or thirty or sixty-seven for that matter. Why is it always one?

2. Another is that it is always the upper right second molar. You are probably asking yourself-second molar if you count from the inside or the outside. Hmm…after having carefully explored the interiors of my mouth with my finger, it seems like the upper right second molar when you count from the inside.

This phenomenon has also lead me to a very interesting problem on probability which I could conceive but did not attempt to solve it (for obvious reasons!!)

Now what is the probability that a person (in this case me) eating 100 rajmas a day has 1 rajma stuck in his upper right second molar when counted from the inside.

It is also imperative that I give you some miscellaneous information, which would be vital to solve this problem.

1.Lets assume that I have been eating rajma for the last 17 years and over this period, say I ate rajma twice a week.

2. I have 28 teeth as my wisdom teeth have a ‘mind’ of their own and seem to operate on their own whims and fancies and so I have banished them from the premises.

Just looking at this problem makes me feel I would be better off sticking to the simple dal-roti.