Happily ever after!

'Mom, call me… need to talk to you ASAP', my daughter had sent me a message few weeks ago. Between the time I saw the mail and managed to get to a phone, my mind had assumed its favorite 'Sivaji ganesan' role and overacted as usual. Even as I dialed with shaky hands, I imagined her lying helpless and pale in bed at her college dorm burning up in fever yearning for her mom to be at her side.

Like I said, my mind over(e)acts at times. Being the only active part of my body, I think it tries to balance the scales every now and then by going in to overdrive. When my daughter picked up the phone at the first ring, I pounced with 'A, are you okay? Are you in pain? Don't worry, Appa and I will come and get you soon. Take a couple of advil and lie down until we get there.' Next to seedless green grapes, Advil is the most popped/prescribed item in my diet.

While I stopped to gulp air, A interjected with a puzzled 'Amma, who said I was sick?' Apparently, all she wanted was to discuss her course selection for the next semester with me. Really A?? You couldn't say that in your email?? How many more grey hairs would you have me 'henna-rinse' each month? As it is, the petition to increase my beautician budget from 3 months ago is still pending with her Dad. Anyway, I was glad she was okay.

Also, she was not completely without worries. Driven by a goal to finish her degree early, she has been cramming her semesters with tons of gruesome science courses and has been juggling her time between her classes, labs, homework and volunteering. I have never seen anyone with such clarity of mind in setting goals but knowing where you have to go doesn't automatically make your path easier, I guess.

Sometimes I wonder how the kids of this generation handle so much pressure without falling apart. If I have to live their lives for a day, I will take up my Dad's offer from childhood without blinking where he had often offered to buy me 4 cows and 4 sheep to shepherd as an alternative to going to school. Cattle will stomp on Chemistry any day, if you go by Sheldon Cooper's 'Rock, paper, scissors, lizard and spock' logic. What puzzles me most is how these kids dress up. How come they all wear their underwear inside their pants and not outside like Superman? Then how will this world recognize them for what they truly are? You would think all their fancy education would tell them how to dress the part. Duh!

I cannot recall a single day from my childhood when I had worried about life after college, about paying off college loans, landing internships or finding part-time jobs to fund further education. Life was much simpler for us. We were the 21^st century version of Jane Austen's Bennett family.

My sisters and I were raised lovingly by a large joint family whose collective aspiration was to get us all married as soon we graduated. My mother aka Mrs. Bennett's visits to the local temples fetched her not only divine blessings but also information about families with eligible bachelors in the 20 mile radius. I don't recall her stepping out of our house without our horoscopes in her purse. Next to the 'sundal' prasadam, our horoscopes were the most popular item distributed in the temples those days.

In anticipation of someone knocking on our door to check on our availability in the marriage mart, my Dad and Uncle were forever in a 'ready' state to prostrate at their feet for that favor. My Uncle loved us as his own so much so that he handwrote our 'assets' painstakingly on the back of our horoscopes before they were distributed around town – 'Fair complexion, docile (a small lie never hurts anyone, he believed), sings well, can put 'kolam'/rangoli and excellent cook'. His love for us knew no bounds really.

Coming back to our stress-free childhood, my wise sister attributes it to a 'lack of expectation' from us. All we had to do was graduate and get ready to pick our wedding clothes. I am happy to say that my sisters and I rose to the occasion and completed the task set for us with flying colors. We, the Bennetts, lived happily ever after and never had occasion to wear our underwear on top of our pants.

How about you?

Meet Bob!

Many months ago, I walked into a store and met Bob and my life has not been the same ever since.  Thanks to Bob, I find myself looking at life these days through a pair of slow-motion spectacles where all frantic movements have trickled down to mere frame-by-frame motion sequences.  

Bob was one of the two sales people in that store that day.  He had a sweet smile and kind eyes so naturally I picked him over the other salesman.  Wearing an answering smile myself, I walked towards Bob and asked to see a few products in the store.  What followed was the longest 2 hours of my life.

It is important to mention here that I dragged my kids in to that store with me after assuring them that I will get them both an ice cream cone as soon as we got out of there.  ‘Just a few minutes’ I promised my kids.  I didn’t know that Fate was holding its jiggling tummy and laughing at me right at that moment.

Watching Bob go to work was a revelation.  I learned that Bob did not believe in rushing things.  Have you ever watched words take a slow tumble out of someone’s mouth, letter by letter?  I did.  I almost cupped my hands in front of his mouth at one point to catch those precious words but luckily caught myself in time. 

Our conversation mirrored a chess game between a chess master and an amateur.  My mouth opened, hurled out the words and shut itself while Bob had to think deep and hard before he would allow a word to form in his mind.  I felt tears of joy burning at the back of my eyes every time we were treated to a full sentence.  My daughters had to pinch my sides to keep those tears under check.  It has been many months now but the fading pinch marks in my side still brings dear Bob to my mind.

In my heart, I know Bob meant to show us the products before Sun went down the horizon that day.  I have to believe that.  He had no meanness in him, you see but seconds stretched to an hour as Bob walked between the stock room and the sales desk.  He had such gentle movements.  It was like watching a swan gracefully sway through the room.  The carpet heaved a sigh of relief beneath his shoes each time Bob glided over its surface.  Why, you ask?  He left not a single shoe mark, that’s why.

After the 8^th trip back from the stock room, Bob seemed a bit tired.  Sure, who won’t?  I wished the other salesman would bring Bob a glass of water to drink.  After all, he hadn’t moved an inch in the last hour.  Standing in the same place and chatting easily with the 10 or more customers I had seen come in to the store in that hour.  It just didn’t seem fair.  Sure, he sold stuff to those 10 people, but hah, big deal!  .

Glaring at his colleague for his lack of compassion, I suggested to Bob that he take a break to rest his legs for a while before resuming his 9^th trip trying to bring us the product we actually wanted and not the ones that he could find.  He looked at me with such gratitude. 

As the clock ticked by and crossed 90 minutes, Bob managed to walk out at last holding what I was looking for.  If it weren’t for my creaking knees, I would have leapt over the sales desk and kissed him in sheer happiness.  Instead I broke out the 10,000 watts smile that I usually save up just for my husband.  Waking up from their naps in the corner sofa, my kids were now looking hopefully at me.  I smiled at them reassuringly and whipped out my wallet to close the sale and be on my way out.  Not so fast, said Bob. 

Apparently computers puzzled Bob.    It was really sweet the way he looked at the tip of his pointer finger carefully each time he used it to push in a key on the keyboard.  After each push, he would gently lift his eyes to the screen and smile as he saw his hard work translated on the screen.  The whole thing was nothing short of a well-choreographed waltz.  There was a rhythm and a beauty to it.  He was gentle with those keys. Every now and then, the fingers will hang suspended in air while he would look confused at the computer screen.  Fearing the wrath of my daughters who were drilling holes in my back, I decided to step in and move things along.  Gently, I scooted over to the other side, peeked at the computer and walked Bob through the steps of running my credit card and closing the sale.  The sheer joy on his face at the end was well worth the wait, I thought.  My daughters somehow didn’t think so. 

Aren’t you happy you met Bob today? :-)

got tissues?

It is seriously starting to embarrass me.   Just this week alone, it has happened about half a dozen times.  I weep for the weirdest reasons these days. 

I am afraid to go to concerts anymore.  Poor musicians!  After enduring hours of practice, there they are on the stage pouring their hearts out expecting to enthrall their audience and what do I do?  Clap in appreciation like everyone else around me?  Oh no, I don’t.  I sob hard into my ‘dry-clean only’ saree!  At the last concert, the lady next to me took one look at my bawling face and gingerly scooted her chair as far away from me as possible.  Really, who can blame her?  

3 days ago, I had an urge to read ‘Thiruvasagam’ at 5 am in the morning and with an iPad next to my bed table and Lord Googleswara at my fingertips, what is to stop me?  There I was leaning back comfortably on a couple of pillows fluffed up for my morning reading and into the first 10 verses of Sivapuranam, sure enough my eyes started to leak.  My husband woke up in confused concern when I greeted him not with a ‘Good morning Sankar’ like any normal wife but with a weepy ‘Thiruchitrambalam Sankar’.  Poor guy!  His life with me seems to be one endless soap opera.

All this crying is exhausting.  I had to recently switch handbags just to accommodate a bigger Kleenex box.  I run through tissues like there is no tomorrow.  It is bad enough that I bawl in public but to do so without the assistance of a tissue box?  The idea does not bear thinking.  If it weren’t for Costco and its value-priced tissue boxes, I might have been forced to take a second job to dry clean my clothes each week.  I guess it is true what they say about God opening one door when another closes.  Yes, it is true that He gave me a faulty eye faucet but He also gave me tissues to deal with it.  His compassion chokes me right up. 

The saga continued yesterday in my music class.  Two teenage boys were in my classroom doing an exceptional job singing a composition in Hamsanandi ragam.  I closed my eyes in appreciation and seconds later, the tell-tale signs of a brewing Tsunami made themselves known – my lips were trembling, nostrils were flaring and from behind the closed eyelids, tears started to peep out.  All in front of two boys with budding mustaches!  Talk about embarrassment!  It took all my willpower to suck it in and blink it away.  Poor, poor kids!   It is such a tender age to be traumatized this way.  A boy should have the right to sing in front of his teacher and not have her wail and whimper all over him.  And which parent will want to pay for trauma therapy in addition to music lessons?

Either I am getting old or it is payback time for all these years of teasing my Dad for crying alongside the poor women of Tamil TV drama, not to mention, crying in patriotism at the achievements of Indians in the world of Science, Philosophy, Sports and Technology.  My gut feeling says it is the latter.  The only difference is my Dad sobs in to his somewhat-white-looking cotton towel and I sob into my 20^th century pristine white disposable tissues.  Life does come full circle. 

And so, it begins again! 

Till next time, Thiruchitrambalam, my friends! :)