Okay so I haven't written anything in a long while...but so much has happened. The leap to mother-in-law has happened but hey it really doesn't feel different!And my husband has opted for retirement from his job but hey it doesn't feel different!And the world is all set to make the great transition into the fifth dimension, but hey even that doesn't feel different....Hoo Boy do I need the Maggi H'n'S...
Discovered just now that I had a post in an earlier avatar which kind of adheres to my promise of recounting early days in my life. Pcube has read it and commented but I want to share those experiences with you too..so here it is(before I became ooffifty)
Have been reading a few blogs lately. I thought they would provide the impetus to write but surprisingly what I feel is diffident. The young ones today are so lucid, they infuse such dynamism into ordinary humdrum lives that my 'extraordinary' life seems pale.And what, you will enquire,if you have the time, have been the salient features of my extraordinary life? Oh things like flying kites on Makar Sankranti with my brothers and cousins on our rooftop and being Machiavellian about consequences(imagine!), wreaking revenge on poor Gulshan for biting my favourite cousin.....what a satanic mix of chilli sauce-pepper(fresh ground)-salt-dettol(we were imitating good samaritans!) we applied on the poor biter. I am sure she lost her nascent-cannibalist tendencies forever!(all's well that ends well?)To continue with the extraordinary features...going on a shikar with my brand new brother-in-law.He was the SDO in a district in southern Orissa and they had declared an RBT maneater since the beast had mangled/scratched/bitten/eaten a few tribals.I was all of 8 years old and had been despatched from home to keep my sister(cousin)company...BIL thought that he should not expose me to any danger so I was supposed to be in the care of the caretaker at some forest rest-house while the bravehearts went on a survey trip. Poor BIL had not reckoned about a CITY-bred precocious SIL.The 8 year old screamed and threw a tantrum.BIL then decided to include her in the posse.So the jeep arrived.Driver,my tender self, sister and Braveheart in the front,in that order.The rear had the spotter, the gunman and a shikari(fine distinction,that!). We drove along the ghat road, the spotter waving his lights into the deep dark forests on the right.We spotted deer, sambhar, mouse-deer,rabbits(their eyes gleam green)and then leopards,civet cats and ,hold your breath,the RBT(the eyes gleam red)... our shikari team member exhorted us to stop breathing!Those menacing red eyes retreated and BIL relaxed(ManekaG would have medalled him!) but just then old YogiB meandered across the road.Alladin's genie had a serious rival in BIL...in the twinkling of an eye I was physically hoisted from my safe haven next to the driver and placed right-most where braveheart originally was.Fortunately the shikari loved YogiB comics and did not want to harm kin so YB-kin ambled across to the nearest bee-hive and enjoyed a variation of the early bird getting the worm...So sweet....Oh and then the time when we decided to "verify" if dogs were indeed "natural" swimmers...our mongrel had fathered a litter. We picked the strongest and dumped him into our pond. The little chap floundered but waded to safety ultimately. Then we threw him a little further.Same result.So our sadist brains told us to tie a weight around its neck.Did that but even then puppy reached shore.So like true researchers we increased the weight to a brick. He drowned.So b-a-d..Then lets skip a few years and its a trip to Nandan Kanan with my Rotaract group....most of my friends chew paan with tobacco.I am all of 17 and insist that I be given a special paan. To the credit of my friends, all of them married and doing very well profesionallynow, tried to dissuade me.But in the face of my resoluteness I was given a "dada special"....the world spun, I wobbled,my friend who I thought looked like a frog was ACTUALLY a frog and my surdee friend's army-disposal jeep was an advanced time machine...HGW's vehicle took us to Pipli where we had the divinest tea and pakoras...Lets cut to my marriage. 1981. Great style..Rahim the Chef had to prove a point. His biryani, singapori prawns and vegetable navratna are the stuff of lore today.Oh and Subudhi's Ice-creams....27 years on and folks talk about it!Advantage of pioneers?
