In Memoriam*

No, I can’t say I know how they feel. Their grief is probably like an overflowing river, an unrelenting storm, a bottomless crevasse, a towering inferno, a gaping wound.

When I myself - who haven't seen the family since they left town seven years ago - feel like shaking a fist at the heavens and crying, “It’s not fair!” how would they feel, and what would they give to see him smile again; to hear his giggle; to ruffle his hair; to hug him; to wake him every morning; to gaze into his eyes; to coax him to finish eating; to tell him to turn the television off for the 100th time; to watch him play with his brother; to feel his warm breath; to touch his soft skin as he sleeps at night?

How do you explain to a child that his brother is never coming back; how do you put away your firstborn’s clothes, bed, shoes, car seat, books, favorite toys, his toothbrush?

How do you box seven years’ worth of memories?

I don't ever want to know.

* In memory of Ankit Rangan, November 1998 – April 2006.

A Woman of Many Talents

Mom couldn’t wipe the smile off her face as she drove in to work this morning.

“Good morning!” she genially greeted the security guards at the front desk. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“I love your shoes!” she said to the first woman who passed by.

“Your children are adorable!” she said next to her surly neighbor, the one who’s been sitting next to her for the last six months and hasn’t made eye contact even once. “And what a cute iguana!” she gushed, her gaze falling on the family and pet photographs lining his cluttered desk.

Mom spent the rest of the morning throwing random compliments at passers-by, her smile firmly in place. Feeling rather buoyant and social, she toyed with the idea of reaching out to certain family members she hadn’t bothered to call in the last 10 years. “Maybe I should throw a dinner party this weekend and invite the 12 couples, 19.5 children and 1 bachelor I know,” she enthused, in her current state of bliss.

The warm, sunny day outside reflected her mood. Nothing was going to dampen her day - not even the impatient guy who honked at her and showed her his middle finger as she pulled in to work.

The woman was on top of the world. You see, dad had paid her a compliment. That’s an occurrence that’s rarer than a blue moon; more precious than all the jewels of Arabia; more exhilarating than being on despipundit; certainly much more newsworthy than the birth of Baby Suri.

“Sometimes you never see it coming,” thought mom, shaking her head perkily like Meg Ryan. The day had started off in a routine fashion as she rushed about to get the kids ready, comb her hair, pack everybody’s lunch, find her car keys and get the family out the door in five minutes flat.

“I’m late,” she yelled, as her sleepy little princess threw her matinal “I-want-a pink-shirt-not-a-boo/lello/wed/owange-shirt” tantrum.

"The kids really need to go to bed a lot sooner,” observed dad, standing by the door jiggling his car keys. “You should make them sleep by 9.”

Mom brought it to dad’s attention that she usually has a full schedule what with making dinner, feeding the children, loading the dishwasher, walking the dog, bathing the kids and putting them to bed.

“The only way I can get the kids to bed five minutes earlier is if I skip dinner,” said mom, flushing indignantly.

Dad paused at the doorway and turned around. The mild rays of the morning sun fell on mom’s brown hair and framed her delicate face. Her limpid-pool eyes and rosebud mouth quivered under his gaze, while her soft bosom rose gently beneath her gauzy shirt.

Dad took a slow step toward mom. She held her breath in anticipation.

“You know, you’re really good at making excuses,” he said, turning around and heading out the door.

Peekaboo

Laundry procrastination found mom in a familiar dilemma as she dressed for work one morning. Already late, mom opened her undergarment drawer to discover that all her brassieres were in the wash, lost somewhere in the dirty laundry pile in the corner that was beginning to resemble Nanga Parbat.

Mom was faced with two choices … um, make that three ….

1. Fish out used bras from dirty hamper and pick one that passes the sniff test.
2. Choose tank top with built-in bra. Wear jacket, despite 90 degree weather, to make ensemble look chic and professional.
3. Use special occasion bra stuffed in corner of drawer.

Now, normally, one would expect special occasion underwear to be a lacy, wispy, barely-there number. Lingerie so expensive that you bring it out only on certain occasions, like when you wear that dress with a plunging neckline for a party, and artfully lean over, so that your friend’s bad-boy husband, the one whose smile gives you goose bumps, can get a good look at what he cannot have.

In mom’s case, however, the special occasion bra is one reserved strictly for emergencies - a bra so past its prime that it has lost its elasticity and rides up to the nape of her neck; a bra that has been through the wringer so many times that the little rose bud in front has fallen off and the second hook in the back is missing; a bra that even grandma, who never throws out anything, would have discarded without a moment’s hesitation.

For reasons best known to herself, mom picked no. 3 and rushed out the door.

Later that day, at the pediatrician’s office, mom was idly flipping through a magazine while Kuki amused herself by jumping on and off mom’s lap, prating and smiling shyly at a portly, bespectacled Telugu gentleman waiting with his son.

Suddenly, without warning, Kuki pulled mom’s blouse down to her nether region and loudly asked, “You wearing a braaaaaaaaaa, Amma?”

Time stood still - newborns stopped crying, the nurse’s jaw dropped, children stopped fidgeting, the Telugu gentleman forgot to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” mom wanted to say to them, as she struggled to gather whatever little dignity she had left. “I didn't have much of a choice."

Practice Safe Eating - Always Use Condiments

Instead of heading straight to the freezer for a bowl of mocha almond fudge, as you and I would, Gauri, mom spent the whole week moping inwardly and pondering on the meaning of her goal-less life. (She usually mopes outwardly to get dad’s attention, but he was out of town.)

“Why was I born?” she wondered. “What is my true identity against the backdrop of this temporal existence? How do I make rational decisions despite living in an irrational universe? Does existence precede essence or essence precede existence? What do deconstruction and postmodern linguistics mean, anyway?”

Clearly, the woman needed a goal - something that would give her a sense of achievement and restore her spirits before dad returned.

Finally, on Thursday, somewhere between rahu kalam and yama gandam, enlightenment hit mom the way it did Cary Grant in the climax scene of Charade. Resisting the urge to shout, “Eureka!” mom snapped her fingers instead, grabbed the closest pen and started writing furiously in her Franklin planner. As she voided her thoughts on paper, a strange sense of inner peace and relief transcended her, much the same way one feels upon finding a dry restroom - with toilet paper - in India.

My resourceful human had planned the weeknight dinner menu for the next four weeks!
(Disclaimer – Please note that the below list is not an open invitation to dinner. It’s just an illustration to show that mom’s somewhat smarter than she looks.)

WEEK 1
Onion adai w/vegetable kurma
Roti w/mushroom sabji
Veggie quesadilla
Mor keerai and roast potatoes
Roti w/paneer jalfrezi


WEEK 2
Mor kozhambu w/beans paruppu usili
Roti w/chole
Penne pasta
Palak parantha w/tadka dal and salad
Dosai w/sambar and bhindi


WEEK 3
Mexican lasagna
Punjabi kadhi w/gobhi – mattar
Methi parantha w/dal makhani
Vazhakai kootu and rasam
Roti w/aloo dum


WEEK 4
Roti w/rajma and salad
Chow chow dal w/rasam
Veggie burrito
Dosai w/aviyal
Roti w/palak paneer

Feeling rather pleased with herself, mom set off to the grocery store, armed with her weekly menu and a new resolve to not wander down each and every aisle like she normally does and throw random produce into her cart that would eventually rot in her crisper.

Buying only what she needed for the week (with the exception of those chocolate doughnuts as a pat-on-the-back treat), mom headed home Friday night, eager to start her project the following morning.

Circumstances beyond her control, however, like baseball practice, play dates, a sick child, phone calls to all and sundry to tell them about her plan and a long-overdue DVD, delayed the undertaking until late Sunday night. When dad and Anu returned home from tennis in the evening, the smell of sambar powder and slightly singed red chilies assailed their nostrils as soon as they opened the garage door.

“Why are you cooking now?” frowned dad, as he rushed to open the patio door for ventilation, allowing the hovering moths outside to fly right into the kitchen. “Turn the vent on,” he said, in a tone that implied that it was somehow mom’s fault that Indian spices were so pungent and made one want to sneeze.

“Yuck! What’s this?” Anu muttered, eyeing the mushroom curry and mor keerai lying next to the adai batter. “Why can’t we just have pizza every day?”

“I want igly,” whined Kuki, when clearly idlis were not on the weekly menu.

The revving ventilator drowned further grumbles and protests, and mom diligently continued cooking, until she had crossed off every item on her list.

It was close to midnight by the time mom gently lowered herself into bed, reeking of onions and ginger-garlic paste. As dad turned on his side in a huff and pulled the covers over his head, mom realized that while dhana-jeeru and garam masala can titillate one’s taste buds, the spices do precious little to lift one's libido.

Paging Dr. Phil

Anybody take the FranklinCovey Time Management course? It’s geared toward people who claim they have no time to even breathe, let alone take an all-day time management course.

Mom likes to think she’s in the former category, but went ahead and enrolled in the class anyway, because:

• She's actually heard of FranklinCovey courses. (It's another story that she thought Franklin Covey was really one person.)
• She thought taking the course might help her uncover an extra hour in the day that she could spend on herself.
• She likes to be “out of office” as much as possible.
• It was free! With breakfast and lunch included! (It doesn’t take much to motivate my human.)

Of course, mom had to arrive late as always, even for a time management course. As she settled down with a tall glass of O.J. and a carrot muffin, mom listened to the perky instructor reassure the class that by the end of the day, they would all be “dangerously organized.”

“Cool,” thought mom. “Maybe I can do the laundry, vacuum the house, do the dishes, make dinner, walk Terri, feed the kids, return phone calls, open my mail, bathe/read to the kids, pack tomorrow’s lunch, answer e-mails and still find time to actually iron my work clothes. Maybe I’ll have time to iron the kids’ clothes, too. Ooh, maybe I’ll even be able to comb my hair more than once a day!”

“Focus!” stressed the instructor, urging the class to stop wasting time over Q-IV activities, like spending four hours at blogspot.com clicking on random blogs, wondering if that cute guy in the second cubicle on the right is single, and listening to American Idol water cooler talk and realizing you’re the only soul in America who hasn’t watched the show.

“It’s very important for you to set goals for yourself,” said the instructor. “We all have goals, right?” she continued. “Some of you may want to retire in the next five years; some of you may want to buy a house; travel to Africa; become a literacy volunteer ....”

As she watched the others nod their heads in assent, mom realized, with a sinking feeling, that she was probably the only one in class without a goal in life. She didn’t want to climb Mt. Everest; didn't want to become Madhuri Dixit; didn’t want to retire to an ashram in the Himalayas to rediscover herself; was probably not going back to school anytime soon; did not want to open a flower shop; or enter politics.

The woman’s only immediate goal, as far as I can tell, is to somehow get through the week and move closer to Friday.

“I'm a loser,” thought mom dejectedly, berating herself for being so content with life and not aspiring after a higher plane.

She left the classroom with a thick Franklin planner that she's required to tote everywhere, and will supposedly transform her into a supra-organized goddess.

Back at her desk, renewed with a sense of purpose, mom flipped the planner to the "Goals" section and determinedly scribbled, “Buy larger purse within the next three months to fit Franklin planner.”