the bane inane

WHY do people ask certain questions?

what is it that drives people to inquire solicitously of you when you drip your way inside from the pelting rain oh, you got wet? is it raining? when you are too damp all over to clarify not at all. just felt like practicing the butterfly stroke.

or are you having lunch? when you have your mouth too stuffed to reply not really. just licking it before i spit it out.

or are you reading? when you have your eyeballs stuck to a page, and are dying to say, no,no,no. gasp! no. never. just trying to think of ways to use this to scare away stalkers.



i am going to cultivate a ruthless expression. one that shouts i-hate-questions-especially-the-inane-variety. i have already mastered the half grimace. only the nose-hair is left.

the fourth fairy

B's day to be glowing bride. a more matter-of-fact and cheerfully optimistic bride i've yet to see.


i tried out the new tooth. not half bad.

blood and gore

the receipt for B's wedding gift lists 'one neckless' bought and paid for, and our DTH service proclaims 'the service may be temporarily unavailable due to a mechanical or weather condition at your end'.
my end? which one? the one that is struggling with helpless incomprehension or the one that is painted black at the tips? someone educate me.

no quick-fix

cracks never fully mend, i find. grime has a way of finding itself into the most carefully held-together spaces and lodges there. being whole again is just an illusion; shattered easily at sudden moments.

dental agony

there are times when i really wish i were a damsel in some exotic tribe that required women to cover the lower halves of their faces -or else!- even when they ate tricky things like spaghetti. i live in fear of mirrors, spoons and other shiny surfaces. my life has changed. i shall smile with innocent abandon no more. i take recourse in modest smiles and quivers-of-lip-ends. i am the next mona lisa.

my broken front tooth was to me what his moustache was to poirot, buffaloes to laloo, mummies to ancient egyptians and rats to cats. too dear to part with, serious claim to fame, glamor quotient and source of pride and glory.

it had served me well. on childhood playgrounds, one carefully administered bite with the nicely pointed edge had rendered helpless many a worthy -if villainous- opponent prostrate with fear and pain. on growing up to be a flower of young indian womanhood, it added charm (if friends and admirers are to be believed - and i choose to believe. i am a believer) to my already charming smile, paralyzing many an admirer (or so i am told. reasons for the paralysis to be discussed later) with admiration (or so i am told. again.)

now it is gone.

the small man with the wicked looking tools with support from my traitorous mother took advantage of my helpless fascination with the gleaming thing descending towards my agape mouth and stuck on the rest. half-toothed no more.

now i am like the rest of the mortals that walk this earth.

the right to education is finally a fundamental right. so long delayed.

green and gold

it would be good to be a blade of grass. to look up at sunlit trees. to take root and stay and never move house.

mobius

objective detachment; carefully held wisps of dreams. both absolute when they come. both unbidden. twisted, separate, yet the same. too many differently shaped bits. some fit together so well. yet the ones that get left out form pictures too. fragmented ones, near-complete except for the few missing bits. loop going into loop going into loop.

nothing and everything makes sense. depends from where i look inside.

people are only people afterall.