Musafir hoon yaaron

The upside to being unemployed and a home renter, versus being a cubicle prisoner and a home owner, is the ability to pack up and move, either on a whim or after deep thought.

Less than a year ago, when my humans decided to disrupt their children’s lives and move to India, simply because they felt like it, they were both gainfully employed and paying a hefty mortgage.

10 months into their Indian adventure (yes, that’s how mom sees it, as an adventure) with neither a job nor any other form of security blanket, the humans have decided to move again - simply because they feel like it.

“Arrey, you guys just came here. You’re moving already?” asked an acquaintance. “All that packing and unpacking. Oof, baba, I don’t think I can do it,” shuddered the woman.

The school principal handed over the children’s school leaving certificate asking, “Husband getting a transfer aa?”

“Yes,” smiled mom, lying through her teeth.

“Has he at least started looking for a job?” asks grandpa worriedly over the phone. "The cost of living in Chennai is lower; you'll realize it as soon as you move."

The humans know little about the city they’re moving to. As the majority of its inhabitants, my humans will also be outsiders, fighting their way through mind-numbing traffic and communicating in languages other than the local one.

“You said the weather’s nice there, mom,” the children exclaim. “Then how come they have lizards if it’s not hot?”

Can you guess where we’re moving?

Thiruda Thiruda

From what The Hindu reports in the city section, it looks like chain snatching is still the numero uno pastime of petty thieves on bicycles in Indian metros such as Chennai. In fact, the enterprise seems to pay such rich dividends that the more seasoned chain snatchers have now upgraded their getaway vehicles to motorcycles.

On any given day, right alongside murders and sexual assaults, one reads of women being "relieved of" their chains while walking along a busy street in broad daylight. (Standard newspaper jargon usually states that "a woman was relieved of her chain," rarely using words such as snatched or stolen. Does the use of the word "relieved” suggest the chain was a burden to begin with?)

“One can never be too careful these days,” shuddered a buxom aunty at the monthly ladies association meeting. Discussing the gall of a "badava rascal" who snatched her friend's 10-sovereign gold chain, she nervously tucked her thick, rope-like mangalsutra, weighed down by innumerable safety pins, into her ample bosom, and declared, “You just cannot trust anybody.”

“I have two thaalis,” another maami shared. “A regular one, and one I use expressly for my morning walks.”

“See, if you wear a salwar kameez, the chain won’t be so prominent with the dupatta covering your neck,” a third lady chimed in, contributing her two paise to the discussion.

“Er … maamis," said mom, when she could get a word in edgeways. "Why don’t you just leave your thaalis at home? That way you won’t invite trouble, no?”

Shocked silence ensued.

Normally loquacious maamis were rendered speechless, until one of them pointed in the distance and asked, “Isn’t that Karpagambal maami? Let me go ask her when she returned from the U.S.”

Suddenly, all the ladies professed an unusual interest in Karpagambal maami’s U.S. trip and departed like a herd of elephants, leaving mom standing all alone by the watering hole buffet table.

Reaching for a paper towel, she noticed a solitary, plump, golden brown medu vadai left on the tray, looking as forlorn as her. Quickly glancing around, mom pushed the idlis on her plate aside and picked up the crispy vadai.

In a crowded room, in broad daylight, a tray was relieved of its last vadai.

Gastric grief

On occasional mornings, mom wakes up to little gifts I leave for her on the bedroom floor. Gifts that she claims she can do without, such as bodily emissions I cannot hold until morning.

The only reward I get for leaving these gifts is a mild reprimand, for which I have the mosaic flooring in the house to thank. Believe me, the reaction was a lot less gentle when such offerings were discovered in prime carpeted areas.

Given my tendency to ingest what mom calls as “garbage” and I claim as “food going waste,” combined with a slower metabolism due to my advanced age, mom awoke this morning to find the bedroom floor saturated with the entire contents of my stomach and bladder.

“What the …?” was her initial reaction as she rubbed her crusty eyes and surveyed the room, which had not one unsoiled corner. “Terri!” she yelled, turning toward me, arms akimbo. “Out!” she screamed, as I heaved and threw up what little was left in my stomach.

To cut a long story short, and to fast forward several bouts of vomiting through the day, I seem to have an acute case of indigestion.

“It’s normally associated with eating cow dung,” the vet pronounced as she inserted a fat syringe into my leg.

Ever since we moved to India, I’ve discovered a local delicacy found aplenty in our neighborhood. “You’re disgusting, Terri!” sighs mom, yanking my leash when she finds me dipping into this roadside delight, equally flavorful whether it’s freshly laid or baked in the sun.

Disgusting, indeed! What would she know, this woman who picks a plate of steamed Brussels sprouts over spicy buffalo wings?

Mom’s equally indifferent to another neighborhood delicacy I discovered on a recent beach outing – juicy, gelatinous clams washed ashore by the waves. Too impatient to pry the shells apart, I swallowed them whole, ignoring fine sand on my tongue and savoring, instead, the saltiness of the crustaceans.

“Do I not feed this dog enough?” wonders mom in dismay as she watches me scoop up empty milk sachets, bread wrappers, leftover sambhar and chutney bags on the road faster than her brain can instruct her hand to pull me away.

You see, there comes a time in a dog’s life when he tires of eating boiled eggs and spongy bread for breakfast, rice and dal for lunch, Marie biscuits for tiffin and steamed vegetables with rotis for dinner.

The canine body craves variety, which is why mom has taken to ignoring the gleaming, silvery fish with vacant eyes and pieces of juicy bone that my friends, the crows, occasionally drop over our compound wall as they sit on the coconut trees with their catch.

“The next time he gets indigestion like this, just give him some ice cream,” advised the vet, as mom settled the bill for a grand total of Rs. 150.

“Excuse me?” asked mom, still reeling from a $3 bill for medical services rendered.

“Yes, yes, regular ice cream. Try vanilla,” the woman replied.

Give me a few days to recover, and I might start competing with the kids on Friday nights for ice cream. Vanilla, did she say? At this point, I’m ready to try any flavor, as long as it’s not (bleah!) green tea or broccoli.

That's where even a dog, self-respecting or otherwise, would draw the line.

Oh Happy Day

Ask mom about the happiest day of her life, and she'll tell you that it wasn’t the time she stood first in class, won her first prize or became part of the hallowed cool chick clique in school.

Nor was it the day her friend’s handsome older brother made eye contact with her or when the scholarship results were finally announced.

It wasn’t even the day she lay on a birthing table with sweat pouring down her face and squeezed a watermelon-sized baby out of a lemon-sized hole.

Ask mom, and she’ll reply without hesitation that it was the day she woke up at the crack of dawn and sat on stage next to a man who gave her goose pimples by his mere presence.

“Did Appa go down on his knees and ask you to marry him?” her five-year-old Disney/Barbie addict wants to know as she looks through her parents’ wedding album. “Did he kiss you?”

“You don’t kiss in Indian weddings,” replies mom.

“Then I’ll get married in America,” her daughter firmly declares.

Her son’s reaction to the wedding pictures is quite different.

“You have so much makeup on, you look like a clown, mom,” he says quite frankly.


Scintillating Sands
Radiant Rads