Broken

My grandmother's house is divided officially now. It all started just before my grandmother's death when my cousins who stayed there started started misbehaving with the money. After my grandmother and my youngest uncle's death, multiple rounds of fights(verbal, of course), reconciliations, back-channel negotiations happened finally resulting in court battle between the older uncles and the nephews. Yesterday it was all done with - the property is divided into two parts as of now - one for my youngest uncle's family and the other for the remaining siblings. Now everybody is waiting to see how the spendthrift boys will manage with the reduced income. I don't think I can ever go to the dear place again. Another part of my fairy tale has vanished.

Election heat is soring just like the outside temperature. I'm the only one supporting Congress in our house, our family or may be among my friends also. They can't imagine why I should be so foolish. I may be. I'm a loyalist who believes there are many good guys still out there and one day they may do a good job.

On a sweeter(hopefully) note, we finally bought an oven and the pressure is mounting on me to put it to good use. I'm nervous but I hope it's just the starting trouble. I'm going to be a pro in making eggless delicacies soon! 

Out of Place

After six days of staying at home, I'm reluctant to join the office back. I had a great time all these days, though it was very hectic. Children were very happy, as they always are when I stay at home, for more than one reason. I'm not a disciplinarian like my mother, may be because I'm not very disciplined myself. We listened to music, we watched a movie, we went for walks, we played games and we went to the terrace every evening and just sat there watching the evening sky. And I made them happier by making something everyday out of my limited stock of 'special dishes'.

Meanwhile I fell in love with Sunil Dutt. I think nobody looks better than him in dhoti and kurta. They don't come like that anymore, romancing through their eyes. Nowadays it's only banter. I went crazy and watched his three movies in two days. May be I chose the wrong movies because I felt he was playing second fiddle everywhere to the heroine. May be because heroine had more dialogues and more voice-space and I'm conditioned to think that's more important. It was as if he just stood there with a smile on his face listening to the girl giving vent to her passion....I was wondering about who else I felt like that before and then I realized it was Cary Grant. Watching Philadelphia Story and Notorious, I had thought just the same. Do they look similar too or is it just the black and white movies?

Going Musical

We are bitten by the music bug I suppose. We are at it all the time, listening to it of course, old Kannada songs, Hindi songs, Marathi songs, Bony M, Ghulam Ali ghazals, Hariprasad Chourasia, Zakir Hussain and anything else we find interesting on the internet. Right now my absolute favourite is Ghulam Ali and the kids love Bony M. I'm smitten by Mastana Piye Ja and have to resist the temptation of listening to it non-stop lest I make it lose its charm. Sometimes I think about that queen who left her husband and went to live with the wretched stable-boy who used to sing beautifully. I'm glad I don't have anyone like that nearby.

Raining Thoughts

My head is a mess. At this age, I can't afford to loose a screw like this and I've got to find it and repair myself quickly. But sometimes it's really difficult to get myself under control and I'm hoping something will happen, like in the past, which will leave me with no choice. I have a sabbatical coming up of about 2 weeks and I hope that will restore some order.

One jeep knocked me down some days ago and though I survived with only minor bruises, I'm a little jittery while crossing the road etc now. I'm not so fearless while walking, especially in the night, though my accident was in the daytime. I still enjoy walking within the campus of our tech park, though. It's the season of flowers again.

Both the kids love Tangled and we've kind of settled down to watching it once a month. Only thing that upsets Rishi is the kissing part. He thinks it's weird that they should kiss like that though they are not 'relatives'! Anu wants to watch it everyday. I told her it would spoil her eyes and she says, "Let's get a new eye then!"! She thinks she will get two things when she grows up - toe-rings and spectacles and she's baffled that some of us are not wearing spectacles yet.

The other day Rajani and I were talking about our respective colleges and when she said their hostel faced a hill, I told her about our sea. Had a guy not interrupted us, I would've told her about our rainy-night adventure also. I'm going to miss her!

We had women's week celebrations last week and in spite of all the 'discouragement' from the men around, we went for a mid-week movie show. It was Shaadi ke Side Effects and only problem was that I was sitting next to a spinster and while she occasionally smiled, I was feeling a little awkward to laugh at some of the scenes. But it was a good experience to have the whole screen for ourselves and we even threw out a guy who somehow strayed in after the interval.

Will AAP do well in Loksabha elections? I think it will eat into anti-incumbency votes.