The Inheritance of Loss 2: Tragic encounter with cops shatters myth about magic of numerical codes

I have to and have to and have to, just have to get that phone back. Need my phone, need my phone want my phone want my phone WANT MY PHONE.....

So after a lot of tears, cursing, lamenting, searching and bemoaning my luck Beverly and I went to the Police Station 2 days later to file an FIR and submit the magical IMEI number that would help trace my darling cell phone and bring it back to me.  As we got out of the rickshaw we were in we spent some time ogling at the building that was the Police Station. We looked at each other and then started walking towards the station compound. We climbed up a few stairs before finally stepping into the part of the structure that actually housed the cops. I wanted to snigger. Uncontrollably.

What would people say? Girls from good families never even skirt the boundaries of a Police Station, let alone step inside one. Cops are not to be trusted; half the rapists and killers and smugglers in the city are policemen. Police stations are filthy and unsafe.

While my head was swimming with voices yelling out all the stereotypes attached to Police Stations and Policemen my common sense was stating superfluous facts blithely.

 Looks like the outpatient section of a hospital with linoleum flooring and off white walls, no smell, no lock ups in view {what a letdown...} no cops in sight either....Why do they have a foyer? An empty one at that too. Oh, there’s another room to the left. I spy cops. What do we do now?

“What do we do now Bev?”          

“Ask someone what we should exactly do?”  Bev and I, we have a penchant for rhetoric.

“Madam, what are you looking for? {On second thoughts} How can I help you?”

“We needed to lodge a complaint regarding a lost cell phone.....”

“Please enter the room to your left and let Inspector Mhatre know what your problem is.”

Oh yes, yes! I remember Inspector Mhatre... His kid was in kindergarten with me.{Rolling eyes}

Bored cop looks at our bemused faces and then on an impulse decides to rephrase his sentence, “The policeman in the cubicle on the left end of the room, Maam”

We ‘Thank You’d’ in tandem and walked to meet Inspector Mhatre. He was busy on the phone talking nineteen  to the dozen in Marathi: a language Beverly can come to terms with after grappling with a sentence or two per second and a language that is as alien to me as being overweight is to a model. Inspector Mhatre smiled at us mouthed ‘cell phone’ and then gestured us to the other end of the long rectangular room. He smiled once again, held the phone a few inches away from his ear and yelled out loudly

“Shinde, Ya  Madamcha mobile missing ahey. Tyachi complaint londavaychi ahey” {Ma’am has lost her phone. Lodge her complaint}

Constable Shinde escorted us to the far end of the room and sat us down on two identical, thankfully not battered plastic lawn chairs. He removed huge horn-rimmed glasses from his breast-pocket and fixed them onto the bridge of his nose. I felt like we were in an eighties Bollywood movie; the aggrieved female leads about to file a complaint and cops who weren’t the least interested about what we had to say. But I was wrong, they were interested.

“Where do you live? Are you working or are you a student? When exactly did this happen? Where did the phone get lost?”

“I don’t know  exactly where.....I came home and realised that my phone was missing. I travel to and fro from home to college by train. I can’t precisely remember where I last used it or when it went missing.”

“So did it go missing in the train?” Questioned the constable, “Because if it did then you’ll have to go to the Railway police and file a complaint. So I’ll write that you lost it in the bus while travelling from the station to your house, right?” His eyebrows were raised quizzically, a conspiratorial look in the eyes.

Policemen 101: They make you run from pillar to post. He’s doing the opposite and helping us....Surprise Surprise

“When did it exactly go missing?”

“On the 17^th of February, Sir. Most probably in the afternoon.”

“Well it’s 19^th evening today......”

I know that, didn't I just confirm my occupation as a student?

“I’ll lodge a complaint for the 18^th..... You lost it on the 18^th, right?”

Bev and I look at each other, both our eyes mirroring the same expression: amazement , “Yes, Sir”

Policemen 101: Cops are sticklers for facts if it aides in harassing the public. False.

In walks top cop Inspector Kadam and seats himself on the chair before us. He starts interrogating me in Marathi and I stare at him dumbfounded. The Inspector looks from the constable to Beverly. I know what he’s thinking. Is she slow or what?

“She doesn’t understand Marathi, Sir”, Bev supplied in Hindi. Inspector resorts to displaying expressions of mock hurt and insult. The man’s regional spirit has been crushed with my lack of knowledge of his mother tongue is what he’s implying.

Marathi  yeth nahi ka?! Mumbai mein reh ke Marathi aana chahiye na? {You don't know Marathi, is it? When you live in Mumbai you should know Marathi!}

If after living here for only four years you feel this distraught imagine how the Arabs are feeling ........

“Umar kya hai apki? Age Age....” he adds in English for my benefit.

I said don’t understand Marathi but Hindi I do, so please quit the subtitles.....

“Unnees saal , Sir. Hum SYBA students hai” {We are 19 year old SYBA students} I said. I was bored of playing scared, big-eyed, innocent alien. We threw in the prestigious name of our college for added measure, snobs that we are. Plus we wanted them to believe that we were serious about what we came and weren’t passing time. As I was rattling off all of my personal details, including my name age, address, surname, place of birth, father’s name, college and phone number a group of petty criminals who were cowering on the floor near us looking around listlessly were overhearing our conversation with the cops. Bev drew her chair sideways trying to appear unperturbed while making a conscious attempt to distance herself from the scruffy looking convicts.

We had one of our many telepathic conversations

What if they memorize my details and hunt me down? How smart are these cops?

C’mon Lucky, they don’t look bright enough to memorize all that AND act upon it.

Point noted Bevy.

Also note: you’re plain paranoid.

Iyeah! Ha! I drew the chair away didn’t I?

It’s called hygienic concerns.

Hmph...

Hmphh right back at you.

Inspector Kadam boomed, “Accha, Ok, Shinde tila lost certificate denyat yawe” {Please issue a lost certificate with the details to Ma'am}.  And after barking his command with practised flourish the Inspector went to wherever it was he had come from.

After furnishing all the details they wanted I handed them the magical IMEI number.

Fingers crossed, C’mon numbers work your magic. Prove your worth. Break my losing streak.

Constable  Shinde looked at me and said ,“Ahhhh , We’ve heard about this, but we don’t understand the technology and neither do we have it.”

"But Sir...."

Policemen 101: 5 year olds are technologically more competent than cops. These words resonate with nothing but the truth.

“Even though it’s not of much use I will mention it here in your lost certificate.” And saying so he wrote it down on the sheet of paper they had the gall to call a certificate. 

The lost certificate was for me to keep, in case I needed to claim my phone or check the status of my complaint. The FIR; the official version of the lost certificate that the cops kept with them had no mention of the IMEI number whatsoever.  There isn’t any mind-boggling rocket science involved with regards to the IMEI number. The cops just have to note it down call up the different service providers in the city and inform them that any new Sim Card that operates with this IMEI should be reported to the cops immediately and the co-ordinates of that Sim Card have to be provided to the IT section of the police department. Technologically incompetent moi knows that.

“Now what Sir?”

“Now nothing, we will wait and see if someone hands it over. Usually they don’t but just in case you know....”

Oh so basically after changing 2 buses and coming this far all you guys are going to do is wait for some public spirited citizen to hand it over? Classic......

“How costly was it? When you tried calling what happened?”

“I don’t know how costly it was Sir, but it was more than Rs 10,000 and when I tried calling my number I got the ‘switched off’ message even though the battery was fully charged in the morning.”

Who cares about the money {I do of course!} but the pictures of my family, school friends, videos from the JB concert, videos of my baby cousins and Bev’s first time on stage, my songs, messages , my things to do list, reminders...........Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

“Then it’s gone for sure. Either ways here’s you certificate. We will inform you if something crops up.”

They went back to watching the cricket world cup on the TV installed in an inner ‘cops only sanctum’.

Thanks for the extra helping of positivity. Wonder why it tastes bitter.

As we were walking out of the precinct Bev and I spoke out at the same time,

“What a waste of time and energy!”

“Although they were sweet and nice”

“Yeah they weren’t manner less boors.”

“We know most cops DO have potbellies and paunches”

“You bet”

“Look at the bright side, we know how a Police Station functions and we’ve been inside one! “

"Yeah! We were brave enough to go and deal with the cops on our own without any adult help Bev!"

"We ARE technically adults, you know......"

"Oh yeah..... I tend to forget that sometimes."

"Well, at least we tried"

"Yeah, we tried."

I’ve tried everything possible to locate my phone. Apart from obsessing over it and suffering from anxiety attacks there isn’t much I can do. So I sleep at night dreaming of my pretty little touch screen hoping that somehow, someday soon it will turn up flashing it’s backlight and notification lights cheekily at me.

The nut who stole it even stole the phone’s sassy red cover :(

Falak

 PS: If the Marathi translations are any good just letting you know that they are the handiwork of my friend Madhuri :) If they're faulty please give the brickbats to her too :P Special thanks to Kalyani for providing me with typical Marathi policemen surnames :) Yes, those aren't the real names of the cops I interacted with. Whatever made you think I'm going to risk my neck doing that???

The Inheritance of Loss

It all started with the wallet. A pretty thing in blue denim gifted to me by my friend Shruti on my 17^th birthday. I had preserved it for almost two years, intact with the box and the gift wrapper it came in. Two years later exactly after my 19^th birthday when the wallet I was using started disintegrating into shreds of leather and cloth I decided it was time to bring out the denim wallet. It was smaller, compact and easy to lose. In the giant handbag I carry to college, perpetually stuffed with books, files and occasionally with a stole to protect myself from the winter chill and the summer sun anything could go missing for a few minutes and initiate an anxiety attack lasting a few minutes before the object of concern turned up dandy and fine. I guess my possessions are of the opinion that once in a while a little extra pumping of the heart, increase in pulse rate, palpitations and hyperventilation does me good.

I had to renew my railway pass that day so I had carried around Rs 1000 with me. On reaching the ticket counter I realised that my usual train would leave in a matter of 3 minutes. I urged the lazy official at the booking counter to get my pass made quickly and sprinted towards the train clutching the remaining Rs 200 or so I received as change in my hand. I’m usually very meticulous when it comes to keeping things in their proper places. But that day for some inexplicable reason I decided to stuff the money into my pencil pouch which was the first thing that I could lay my hands on in the cavern I call my handbag. I didn’t even bother to transfer the money from my pouch to the wallet despite opening the pouch a gazillion times to remove my writing implements. In the train, returning home I noticed a lady selling safety pins and remembered my Grandmother asking me to get her some if one of the travelling hawkers in the train were selling them. I opened my bag for the wallet and started the ritualistic rummaging I engage in every time I needed something found. It had to be inside a book or under the file or concealed in the folds of the stole. Out came books, lunch-box, mobile phone, pencil pouch, stole, library book, hair band, sunglasses, reading glasses {both intact in their cases}, ID card, water bottle but no wallet. NO WALLET.

"Madhuri, I don’t seem to find my wallet........"

"It’s got to be there somewhere in your bag. Give me your books, must be stuck inside one of them."

"I guess yeah....." OH MY GOD..... I’VE LOST IT...IT’S GONE....GONE

"What are you doing, Luck?"

"Searching for the wallet, what else does it look like?"

 "Inside your lunch-box?"

There’s a saying in Malayalam that when roughly translated means, ‘When you lose your fishing rod you should search for it even inside an earthen pot’. What it basically tries to get across is that no matter how ridiculous it may seem, leave no stone unturned during your search for lost items. That’s a rule of thumb I always adhere to while hunting for my things.

IT HAS TO BE SOMEWHERE ANYWHERE NOOOOOOOO PLEASE LET IT BE THERE GOD PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.....  I CAN’T LOSE THINGS! I NEVER EVER MISPLACE ANYTHING!

"Maybe I left it in class......"

" Did you remove it to buy anything from the canteen today?" 

"Nope.... I got lunch from home."

"When did you last use it?"

" To pay for the pass..."

"Is that the last time you saw it?"

"I actually can’t remember when the last time I saw it was."

I spent the next three to four days searching for that wallet in the classrooms, the lost and found department, every nook and cranny of every place I possibly was at on that day, retracing my steps and actions but that wallet was GONE. I was kind of okay with the fact that I lost it because the only thing of import it held was change for bus worth Rs 30 and a few 100 used bus tickets that I had saved up for my friend Manasa who collects them. Fortunately the Rs 200 remained in the pouch all day. Sometimes laziness pays off. Sometimes you feel lazy for a reason.

But I’ve always wondered how and where exactly it went missing...  The bag is always glued to my arm or lap, the only other people I left it with are my gang of friends. We came to the conclusion that the only possible place it could have fallen out would be at the station as I was yanking my worthless stole out of my bag while getting off the train. I decided it was a much needed lesson for me to not be overconfident about being ‘the person who never lost stuff’.

I was much more careful than before, indulging in regulated checks of my bag at a 50 minute interval and everything was fine and under control.

Until I lost my mobile a month later. 

Falak

Introducing Me

I realised recently that even though this blog belongs to me it doesn’t talk a lot about me.  I won’t lie saying that it’s an accidental occurrence, the truth being that when I started off with the blog I consciously chose not to write about myself. There’s something about revealing one’s personal side to strangers that is intriguing and at the same time intimidating. When you have elders at home constantly harping about psychopaths and stalkers you learn to be wary no matter how tempting pouring your heart and soul out to people who don't know enough about you to judge you seems. Another fact is that majority of my readers are my buddies and family:  people who either live with me , have lived with me or those I see every single day of the week. It never really came to mind to give a background about myself and my surroundings.

This, I have recently realised, tends to be a major impediment to my writing. Most of the time I have to go off tangent and give lengthy descriptions so that the new readers I’ve acquired who aren’t family and friends {I’m gloating as I write this :D } aren’t lost. 

So to both old and new, family and strangers welcome to my world of pixelated  thoughts.

 I’m Falak, a 19 year old girl studying in Mumbai, India. I’m a student of political science, English and French literature. I can speak decent enough French but I’m sure that in Paris I’ll be an outcast if I open my blessed mouth. I have no political opinions. None at all. Although I think living in a democracy invariably gives me the right to criticize the working of my country and I never miss a chance to do so whether in speech or writing because that’s the only possible way I can rectify things; by letting people know about it. I love English, the language of course, which I intend to major in. It happened almost a decade ago when my mother inculcated the love for reading books in me. It’s like being in love with your best friend: you’ve liked him and been with him for so long, loving him is a habit you’re unaware of unless someone draws your attention to it. Which is exactly what my friends Bev, Jo, Mads and Yo did. That’s how this blog came about, for more info read Writer's blog . 

I was born and brought up and completed my schooling up till the 10^th in UAE and moved to India for my higher studies. Since the last four years I’ve been living away from my parents, here, in Mumbai but still entertain my frenemy homesickness. You can often see me whine about the people and things I miss. I currently live with my gran and younger brother who will feature more often on this blog from now on than they have in the past. I have a strapping, huge, extended maternal family who I lived with until last year and many a times this blog serves as the perfect platform for me to moan about the idiosyncrasies and peculiarities of my myriad of grand aunts, grand uncles, aunts, uncles and cousins who are all of the opinion that they possess the divine right to correct, criticize, judge and love me. I love reading but never limit myself to a particular author or genre. The same goes for movies and music. 
My bookshelf holds The Harry Potter series, Wuthering heights, Mills and Boon, P.G Woodehouse, Cecilia Ahern, Jeffery Archer, Arundhati Roy, Harlan Coben, Marry Higgins Clarke, Nora Roberts and The Twilight Saga on the very same rack. If you can write I’ll read it. I love poetry. I love poetry and dabble in some myself but am still in the process of exploring its many wonders in my lit classes in college. If you haven’t closed the web page yet after the bit about poetry then I enjoy cooking. From what I've been telling my near and dear ones I am supposed to hate travelling but I secretly enjoy it because the people I meet,the insights and experiences I gain during my daily 1 hour local train travels to and from college and my flights to UAE are blog worthy. I enjoy reminiscing; it’s maybe because I’m some kind of a masochist who doesn’t mind taking a trip through memories that evoke painful symptoms of nostalgia and homesickness if it means I can find some shadow of happiness lurking there.

 I ADORE little children, specially babies, as a result of which I often mention my kiddy and not so kiddy horde of cousins. I relish spicy food, freak out on the colour green. I love laughing out loud with my friends who I write about a lot. These 8  women: 6 from college and my 2 besties from school form my support system and help me weather my mood swings, phases of depression, omnipresent fatigue which is a consequence of being responsible for myself, my ageing grandmother, my rebellious teenage brother and the running of our small household, lack of confidence, constant bouts of anxiety and worrying about nothing in general.  We also love the boy band The Jonas Brothers. I like to think I’m funny, everyone does. I’m an expert at geriatrics, having lived with senior citizens for the last four formative years of my life but am completely and hopelessly socially inept in a teenage sceneJ. My 8 angels are working on it. I talk in Hindi, Malayalam {my mother tongue} and English but think in all three simultaneously and write in English. I meet my parents every 6 months during vacations and living in two countries simultaneously creates a sort of identity crisis for me.

I guess I’ve pretty much mentioned everything that I’d tell about myself to anyone, whether an acquaintance or a stranger. A little more and you might as well not read any other post I put up.

If you’re still reading after the Jonas part you must have deciphered by now why I call this blog Much Ado About Everything. It has nothing to do with being a lit student and enjoying Shakespeare {I have yet to read one of his plays in detail} but everything to do with my obsession with word play and the fact that I worry, whine and can go on and on about trivial things. On the good days I glorify the inconsequential joys of life.

I had a grand old time introducing myself and my muddled up world.  On a concluding note all I have to say to you whether you’re someone who’s been part of my journey finding my own voice this last 1 year or whether you decide to now or whether you’re just a passer-by is:

Enchanted to meet you

Falak

Different Strokes

There is something charming about young children. Or to phrase it better, there is something charming about the practical logic that young children dole out.

My two precocious cousins, a boy and girl both aged that wobbly age of twelve where they are teetering between childhood and adolescence never cease to annoy and surprise me. They are a few months away from the jinxed 13 and I can already see them morphing into monsters. It’s scary when they suddenly snap at me; at an attempt to defy authority or their idea of their freedom being suppressed, when all I might have asked her to do is stop bossing her baby sister and go get her hair brushed. I don’t know whether I should soothe her temper or whack her on the head. Or when I just remind them about how ‘precious’ the books in my library are and that dog ears aren’t tolerated when he’d give me a rejoinder that’d have me reeling head over heels back into the kitchen and hiding under my mother’s apron; if she ever wore one. When I land in UAE I get excited, high pitched calls with a 12 year old girl trying to drown out the giggly questions of a 6 year old girl by increasing the volume of her own; and then there is also the nonchalant call where a 12 year old boy languidly questions me about the details of my short visit in that bored, drawling tone that has me wondering if he’s manoeuvring a car on the PSP with his free hand. And they never decline a chance to torment me mercilessly about my undying love for the Jonas Brothers, {even the 6 year old brat} who according to them I should have given up on before my 18^th birthday. But their revulsion for the JB never stopped them from waiting with bated breath to get the details about my trip to their concert in Abu Dhabi  and the inside info on both the performers and the performance. They yo-yo between being cute and horrible in nanoseconds.

When I started blogging, slowly and steadily I let some of my family know about it, including the kids. On my last visit home during a family reunion one weekend my aunts got to questioning me about the blog and talking about it in general. That was when my sister butt in; in that honestly frank manner she used to tell her mom as a kid that the dish she painstakingly made was yucky, she told me “ Chechi (elder sister), Your blog is really dumb. I can’t understand what you write and it’s too confusing. I was too dumbfounded to reply, so I decided that the magazine I was hiding behind was my best bet to hide my disappointment. The little girl to whom I was a goddess, I who could never go wrong, had just deemed something really important to me as rubbish.

I might have spent almost 15 minutes staring at the same page when I decided to get myself a box of readymade chocolate pudding that I gorge on when I’m home to pep me up. As I was about to get a spoon, my cousin apparated before me with one. He had been walking up and down the house incessantly, his heels making thudding sounds and driving the household insane. It’s his way of staying occupied and working out his excess energy. He put on his I’m –such a –wise-old-guy face and asked me very seriously, just like as a kid he’d ask me if finishing school meant now that I’d get married and have babies . “If she finds what you write difficult, isn’t it good for you?” “Why?” I mumbled with my mouth full of chocolate, my spoon strategically left hanging midair about to drip chocolate.  He questioned “ Do you think Shakespeare is confusing? His writing, the language you know?”  “ Ummm, Yes.”  I replied a little reluctantly, but honestly wondering what he’d have to say about that since he knew I’m a literature student. “Well most people do” he says brisk walking around the dining table “but it’s supposed to be great, what he writes. And I think you’re good, although I have to read what you write twice whenever I do to understand it.” He resumed scurrying about aimlessly.

While I was simultaneously digesting this gyaan (knowledge) and the chocolate pudding my cousin yelled from the bedroom! “I love the bracelet you got me! The colour combo is so cooolll! I love you.”
It  looks like I am still sister numero uno in the dressing up department at least.

May the logic of children help you adopt a refreshing outlook on old things this New Year although I know I’m  23 days late J

Falak

Road.Rage.Rules

“Watch where you’re going YOU FOOL!”

“Zipping away like he’s riding a DUCATI on an empty runway!”

We tried to move another step ahead but quickly recoiled back to the safety of that half of the single lane road that was occupied by double parked cars.

“I know an ophthalmologist. Need the number?”

It’s called a Zebra parking, see the white stripes? They didn’t paint it for your wedding. Oh! But how would you, who haven’t seen a horse, KNOW WHAT A ZEBRA IS??????”

“You’re supposed to stop when you see pedestrians at the crossing, ie people like us who have been waiting for the last 15 minutes trying to cross a measly 4 feet road. Oh yes! You stop even if there isn’t A SIGNAL! YEAH, THAT COLOURFUL CONTRAPTION YOU DON’T PAY HEED TO.”

“You know what Bev? Let’s just cross even if it means running the risk of being hit, at least that way we can put them in jail because we crossed at a pedestrian crossing.”

At that precise moment the injured muscle of my right leg from the auto accident gave a painful throb warning me otherwise and to add to that Bev gave me her ‘Shut up and wait woman’ look.

Finally we flagged down a giant SUV, the driver bemused, at seeing two college going girls who looked capable of murder. Luckily for the motorists we didn’t have to spend an eternity perched on the median but crossed the other half of the so called dual-carriageway road in two minutes. To irk us further Sonya had already crossed both the lanes and was waiting on the footpath tapping her feat and beating a tattoo on the dial of her watch indicating how long it took us to reach her. Like we didn’t know already. The Dare-Devil had dashed across the road earlier: irreverent of traffic or death. She has previously been at the receiving end of caresses from buses, autos, cars and a train too! According to her only a plane is left.

As we were dodging vendors selling kerchiefs, toys, lemonade, fake Ray-Ban glares {and wares than I can go describing in humorous detail for months} on the footpath or something that resembled it we were fuming. On a sunny winter afternoon Bev had smoke shooting out from her ears and Sonya and I were doling out endearments I can’t mention in print; she, with a ghost of a smile as always and I, the way they should be.

“It’s all a matter of rules you know!” I hollered, startling an underwear vendor from his reverie about boxers. He looked reconcilably at me, ready to believe that briefs were the best if that is what I thought. I glared at him, challenging him otherwise.

“Nobody follows rules here, everyone thinks it's their in-laws-place and they can do as they please. Inconsiderate nuts."

“ Luck? You seriously think people do as they like there?”

“Ok Sonz, their daddy’s farmhouse, fine?”

“Ooooh! Now that’s one place I’d be at ease at.” I think something about the colour of my face made Bev decide not to go ahead with the joke.

“They shove rule books in your face at banks, hospitals and government offices where they are least required. A transaction that needs a few clicks on the keyboard takes 100 perambulations around the desks of useless officials.”

“You’re telling me?” Drawled Sonya with an eyebrow raised in derisive amusement at the above said organisations.

“Yeah, I’d rather die of a cold” stated Bev in agreement to which I vehemently said “And I’d rather stash my money under the bed than maintain an account in this country.” {Don’t even bother looking for it there}

We walked in silence for sometime stomping the pot-holed footpath violently.

“Oh how I envy the ease of my cousins’ lives in Bahrain!” burst out Sonya

“I miss the orderliness of UAE!” I exploded, having held in that statement waiting for someone else to say it. I’m always sceptical about comparing my foster country and my country and running the risk of sounding like a hypocrite ex-NRI brat.

“No one gives a damn to rules here.”

“But when the same Indians go elsewhere they follow even the dumbest ones to the T.”

“They chicken out when they have to pay up fines, so they won’t spit, litter or over-speed.” Furnished Bev

“Who’ll fine them here in Mumbai? That pot-bellied corrupt policeman?” Chortled Sonya

“But we have to follow stupid dress codes and attendance policies in college. No one knows where to use rules here.” I muttered in disgust.

“You’re right Sonz. Fools make rules here and fools who can’t understand the difference between Christmas lights and traffic signals inhabit and populate this country. And then they have the audacity to complain about 2G scams??????” I fumed, climbing up the stairs to the railway station two at a time to vent out my frustration.

“Yeah Luck, how true.”

“What’s the 2G scam?”

The walk through the platform was spent explaining to Bev all about the scam that rocked the nation.

Wondering why our country can never reach that state where everyone is carefree like Bev,

Falak

I could really use a wish right now.....

I was one of the few children in school who knew Santa was a myth, he didn’t exist. I lived in a desert where it didn’t snow and none of our houses had exclusive roofs let alone chimneys {we lived in flats}. And to top it all we don’t celebrate Christmas {my family isn't Christian}. But then again, deep down I’ve always liked to believe in things that others thought were balderdash.  I like to make a wish on a fallen eyelash, the first star I see in the sky, hope for good luck if I see two mynahs {starlings}. I waited for a letter from Hogwarts before I turned 11, dreamt that my ancestors had super powers that I inherited after it skipped a few generations or some such romantic claptrap.

I don’t know if magic, miracles or enchantments exist. I secretly like to believe they do but my rational side, measured and cut by experience and polished by dogmatic notions of reality hardly give a sliver of a chance for my esoteric side, rough-hewn as a result of doubt to take lead.

What I’ve always hoped would work is the magic of the smoke from birthday candles when you blow them out. It is almost surreally mesmerizing that something dynamic and consuming like a flame feeds from the depths of a saccharine dish, draws out the sweetness of hope and extinguishes into white-grey wisps of enchantment that twirl and twine around a breath full of wishes and transports it into magical realms. I don’t know if there will be cakes and candles today so I’d not like to allow this special request of mine to be left at the mercy of the vicissitude of birthday plans and decisions.

There is one path to miracles I’m absolutely sure of. Group prayers. You need not believe in God for this. Just the same little request escaping many lips at the same time creates a vibration of positivity so strong that not even the steely bars of cynical rationality of life can cage and thwart the fulfilment of any wish however itty-bitty it is. So this time around I’d like to ask that come 25^th of December  a fantabulous, strong, optimistic and lovely lady and writer named Erika can sleep peacefully without battling her arch enemies, phlegm and mucus, ever and also that her gorgeous baby Izzy {Izabella} can enjoy every single day without seizures, vomiting and other torments that her little being is subjected to on almost a daily basis. Erika was hoping for Dear Santa {who I’m sceptical about} to hear her out.

I hope every single one of you who is reading/reads this blog and this particular post; { although I know there aren’t many} and decide to don the Santa suit for a day because those two could really use a wish {and many more} right now. After reading this if you feel an urgent need to put my request into action and can't wait for Christ's birthday which is a fortnight away then please go ahead! If you think it takes a birthday to make magic happen then you are in luck, for today is a birthday too. Well, not Jesus Christ's but a 19 year old girl's. Inspite of all this if you've never had childhood fantasies of playing Santa then maybe just be nice and grant a Birthday Girl her wish: that another’s wish comes true.

Wishing I could cast spells,

Falak

Perceive-r-ance

As children my brother and I used to be overjoyed at the sight of stuffed shopping bags strewn all around the house. It spelt HOLIDAY. It promised us a vacation, new clothes and possessions, and the assured company of our parents and Grand mom for more than the prescribed 6 hours we saw them in a day. While shopping, we’d bump into friends, teachers and other families and have a gala time discussing holiday plans. What to buy for whom, choosing sari’s of myriad colours, soaps cakes, powder tins, cream bottles, jewellery and stacking it all away in suitcases, deciding what to assign to which relative were tasks of priority. Most of the time these shopping excursions culminated into eating out at our then favourite restaurant ‘Super’ which was anything but that. Who cared? The waiters knew our family history and we theirs, they had literally seen us grow up in front of them, doted on us, got us that extra dish without charging and we loved the unhealthy fried rice and chilly chicken. We never ordered. The minute one of the ‘uncles’ saw us our special was ready on the table.

I haven’t seen those people in 2 years. That restaurant has been demolished and a new one is coming up. I’m rambling now, going off at completely another tangent. It’s all beside the point I’m trying to make or maybe it really isn’t. I don’t like the sight of shopping bags around my room anymore. It ultimately means I’m leaving my family or they’re leaving me. I truly abhor shopping and hardly visit the mall that’s only a 3 minute drive from my house.  My friends would kill to live there. I don’t desire new clothes, new accessories, footwear, nothing. I don’t fancy passports and tickets especially when it says Mumbai-Dubai. And I’d kill to eat that unhealthy fried rice and chilly chicken every single weekend despite the fact that I’ll be complaining about piling on the pounds and will be even more under-confident in public that I already am. Do I feel at home in UAE? Honestly there are times when I feel like a Martian, completely out of sync with the drastic transformations in the life I once led, my schoolmates, the people I knew and the places I used to haunt. So if ‘Home’ ceases to feel like home; then does Mumbai feel like home? Can’t really say, because it’s difficult to lead two diversely separate lives. I can choose to adopt one and give up the other but I can’t. My UAE life is who I am and was; and my Mumbai life is who I am and will be/can be. Moreover, like my mother very succinctly puts it I’m a hoarder by nature and can’t let go of easily. So I amble from a set of 6 months to another surviving solely on the short holidays that pop up in between like greenery in a desert, compartmentalising friends, clothes, routines, hobbies and food into two sections: Mumbai and UAE.

My perceptions over the years have changed. Bags of joy now herald the advent of bleak-looking six months, life the way I lived it for 15 years has now been broken up into parts and the mention of fried rice and chilly chicken that made me flash a 250 volt smile now creates saline pools in my house. But I’m trying, trying really hard to change that, achieve a state of equilibrium and merge two disparate aspects of me and ameliorate into a whole, complete person. I hope perseverance helps me to perceive differently.

Meanwhile, seriously contemplating burning off those shopping bags,

Falak