Chapter 29 Grand father’s brother and his wife

Right from my child hood, children have loved me unconditionally. My father being the youngest in his family, all my cousins are many years elder to me. So instead of playing with my cousins, I grew up playing with my nephews and nieces. My eldest niece is just one year younger to me and my youngest nephew was born 18 days ago. So now you know what I mean, it is a large family too.

All of them call me chitta which means aunty. Some of them play with me even now, some of them have vague memories of playing with me, some of them gets surprised by the way I play with my other nieces and nephews. But there is one nephew of mine whom I have never seen.

He was born and brought up in London. So I never really got a chance to meet him. Recently he came to my house for the first time. But I was away in college so I couldn’t meet him. But something he said as quoted by my mother impressed me.

When he saw my mom and dad he recognized them and said in English. “Grand pa, isn’t this your brother and his wife?”

I thought that line was one of the most innocent lines I ever heard. When I came to think of it I have heard a couple of other ones as well from my nieces and nephews which are equally innocent or more so.

My young niece was telling my young nephew one day

“Adi, do you know something? Our ammumma (grand mother) is our appoppan’s (grand father’s) wife!

To which adi replied

“hey stop telling such fat lies!”

My little nephew who is born and brought up in the states came to my home. We had a plastic bird at home which would fly in a circle with battery. He was fascinated by the bird and asked me immediately where is its battery.

I was totally impressed. He was just 3 years old and he realized it runs on battery on first sight itself. Another nephew of mine who has been in Kerala all his life had actually gotten so surprised and asked me if the bird is alive when I had showed it to him. So while I was musing on the higher intellectual level of my US born nephew, he asked his next question.

Chiita, does the birds in the sky also run on batteries?

The question touched me. And then I wished he had never seen the US

Chapter 28 Fallen in Love

I know it is a beautiful feeling. But I have always tried to stay away from it. But this one time is special. I have fallen in love.

Many a time I had wondered what is in that twinkling eyes that makes me think about it again and again. Many a time you tried to fool me by closing my eyes from behind. But I knew it was you, I could always feel you around me.

I can see you right in front of me though I know you are miles away from me. The way you used to look at me, with your head tilted sideways with a little smile and the way your eyes used to twinkle.

I wish I could read your mind. I wish I could peep into it and see my own face reflected there. I don’t know what emotion you have for me. But I could feel the love, but it can’t be that as well.

I remember that soft touch on my shoulder and the way you used to pat my cheeks lightly, that was different coz others pull my cheek, I could feel the difference in it.

I remember that smile of yours that only I could see, when I expressed my doubts about a theory you were proving in class. What was the meaning of it? I could feel that smile, I could see that smile I could feel it in my heart, I wish I knew what is in your heart.

The naughty smile you used to reserve only for me, those little chit chats we had about our nostalgic memories, those went on for hours, but I thought time just flew away.

I remember how we became friends, how can I forget that one? But only we will know about it, to keep it safe in our locked hearts, to carry it to our graves…

Others know about it, but they don’t know its importance!

I want that photo we took together; unfortunately I don’t remember who took it, for I was too nervous. But I remember many of our friends took it when they saw us posing…

I remember that stupid quote my friends keep saying, that all good men are either taken or gay… I know you are taken… but are you really???

Can I dream a little dream of my own? Can I see you coming to meet me after many years? I don’t know. I don’t know what those twinkling eyes meant! I don’t know what those soft smiles meant, I don’t know what those days meant, when you would come up to me, sit with me for a long time and chat with me for anything and everything. I knew there was always a hug there, hiding between us. I don’t know why it never came to us if there was nothing between us.

I love you…

Chapter 27 - BFs and GFs, Keep your troubles to yourselves!!!

To all the boy friends and girl friends in this World,

This i s an open letter, addressed to you guys.

I want to ask you a simple question, why don't you keep your troubles to yourself? Don't you think I have a point?

You fight with him/her, too bad! I, like a good friend sympathise with you and join you to say how mean of him/her to do/say so. You cry, I try to comfort you, you stop crying and you say all bad things about him/her and then asks my opinion and I try very hard to play a diplomat and try to evade that question.(At times I get so wild I agree to you that he/she is indeed a moron). and then you get a call from your boy/girl friend and there it start again, you cry, harder than ever, for two hours you disappear from the scene with your phone and comes back with swollen eyes, problem, not solved but forgiven and forgotten. Ridiculous, if this is all it would last why call him/her names 2 minutes ago and make me call names as well? If you know it is going to be solves why create an issue and cry and make others listen to you. If it happens once in a while, I can understand. But this happens everyday and I believe you guys call up to fight so that you can cry and later forgive the whole damn issue. (In fact there is no damn issue at all in the first place!)

Its just problems, fights, solving it all, and the time you spend on phone is atrocious. the use it can be put to is countless.

Why waste your time in all this nonsense and why waste other's time, by recounting each and every detail of the conversation. You guys get so engrossed in your story, you forget to see my bored eyes and yawns that you cant possible miss!

So I have just one thing to tell you all, please keep your troubles to yourself, if I was interested in trouble, I would have had a boy friend. Isn't it so obvious that I am not interested in this

meaningless activities, by the mere fact that I am single? Please keep your troubles to yourselves.

Chapter 26 - The last one about you...

Having said a lot about you I would like to tell you one last thing.

You changed my life... for good or for bad... I dont know.

You taught me what life is and you taught me to be cautious...

You taught me to trust no one and you taught me to be skeptical, you taught me to hate friendship and you taught me to be indifferent.

You gave me bad experiences and made me believe 'that is the way it is'

You taught me life is bad and taught me to be harsh...

The damages you did were irreparable... you killed the me in me and the new me is unknown to me.

Result?

I hurt people without wanting to hurt them and I struggle with myself when I find me behaving in way most unlike me.

You changed me...

I wouldn't ask you why you did it because that wouldn't help me.

I don't like anyone i dont trust anyone I dont want to be friendly to any one

I don't expect anything from people... and I tell this on their face...

I hurt them, I hurt myself and I hope (I am sorry) I had never met you at all...

Why did I think I could trust you?

Why did you prove me wrong?

Chapter 25 - Love myth!

Only unfulfilled Love is romantic! And there is no such thing called Love in this world. Oh it does exist... in Bollywood movies, and all other wood movies, then in some books. Oh authors are one genre of people who still haven't lost hope of finding this non existing thing in the world. Or are they part of a conspiracy to mislead people into believing it exists in the world? Well I dont know!

She is 22 years old and the latest development in her life is that she has become a vegetarian. Though she doesn't create an issue if there is no non veg in her diet she would have liked to have fish fry or chilly chicken every day in her diet. But that was a month ago. Now she is a strict vegetarian and she doesn't even think of having chicken and as she goes to get food in her hostel the staff has realised that she has become a vegetarian. They mechanically gives her vegetarian food and doesn't look surprised when she stands in the vegetarian queue.

"Oh are you a non veg" he asked

"yes", she replied matter of factlyand looked up.

It was then she looked up into his face and decided to become a veg.

He was looking genuinely disappointed. She was used to the surprise looks. As a habit people assumed her to be a vegetarian. Henca she was used to saying yes with a casual expression on her face.

This was not a surprise. It was disappointment, the face looked sad, oh u betrayed me kind of look. She was taken aback but tried to look defensive. 'So what kind of look' But she knew something happened in her. Deep inside her and though she ate the chicken she had taken she became a veggie immediately afterwards.

She had no feelings for him. She did not love him. She doesn't know if he loved her and even if he did, she would never encourage it and there was no emotional involvement in this. But what she realised is that somebody badly wants her to be a veggie and she cant resist that much of a desire. the flow of energy was too much, she knew she would fail if she resisted.

She became a vegetarian.

"How lame" thought I.-