I sit writing tonight with a very badly blocked ear.The smirk every one gets just hearing it doesnt amuse me.Because I am in terrible discomfort.Theres no pain as such.But I feel a sort of numbness on the right side of my facial terrain.
Haven't been to the doctor yet.As always i would wait for it to worsen enough to make a hurried visit to the urgent care centre in an odd hour of the day/night.G and I are renouned for never having to use our primary physician's (PP)services.Until a few hours back I sat reading all the ailments that could be associated with the symptoms.And boy am I flustered.
The first thing to do after waking up tomorrow would be to call my PP.Not that I was exasperated enough ,I brought more onto myself.Tried talking to S about what i just read.The pleasantries barged on me better not be discussed.Branded the super irresponsible human being who doesn't take care of herself i desperately sought refuge somewhere.I decided to do another grave mistake "call my mom".
How bad can a phone call be?The last part of our conversations would be me bleating 'reassurances' and she 'warnings'.By the time I am done with the call I so start to feel like the most irresponsible mom of this world.How can I be careless???...I have a young and thankfully not growing family to take care of.
Thinking back in the day I have also had my share of suggestions put forward by my ever so helpful neighbours.A and I sat discussing M di's symptoms.M di has been successfully operated on a benign brain tumour.A ,perhaps closest to being my prototype, is bogged down herself with an unknown headache and dizziness.So we both sat comforting each other and hoping nothing's serious.And yet again we conclude that we have such young children.T arrived from work in between all these discussion and threw up her hands in despair and left to tend her pre schoolers.Probably she is tired of our sickness related platitudes.She said she really pities both the S's(the husbands').
P,the newest entrant to the group,with her heavily spanish accented english suggests that it could be vertigo I am suffering from.I too think that it is surely a possibility.I retrace back to the heavily coerced ride I had taken with my eyes tightly shut and my heart jumping out of my chest at the County fair.The ride was called 1001 nachts(german for nights).I got off the ride nauseous and had to hold on to S to regain my balance.Little G and S thoroughly enjoyed the ride.And probably this is what left me with the blocked ear.Further on however we moved towards the kid's park and G took all the kiddie rides by herself.
I can see S has sought peace in one of the newly arrived red packs from Netflix.And yea it is one of my favorites.Sylvestor Stalone(SS) yet again.And Rambo it is.S and I hold the record of lazing around in the couch and watching Rocky (I to VI) in the span of one weekend.SS is a hot item in our houshold.In this context the new flick "Kambhakt Ishq"(wasted a good 5o dollars for it at the theatre)has no substance but quite deliciously topped with liberal portions of SS here and there.Probably the movie is the perfect thing for me right now to lend whatever left of my ear to before I lose my coherence.Until then...Cuidate(thats spanish for take care---P's lesson of the evening).
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Remembering You...Baba
For most part of the day today I was glued to the TV. Being a tuesday it spared me the ordeal of dropping and picking G(daughter) from ABACUS,the mental math class she has joined for the summer.And I am happy I did it.Had it not been so I would have missed some remakable moments from MJ's funeral which will be etched in my heart till I leave this world.
I remember the release of “Dangerous”.It was all over.I was probably in seventh standard then.Growing up in Shillong with its pop entwined culture had its advantages.I loved the song "Remember the time" and kept on playing it over and over and getting on to my Ma's nerves.Baba was always patient about it or didn't say anything about it.
On the evening of the cursed thursday MJ passed S(husband) and I sat discussing him for sometime,spent some time on Youtube looking up his videos.That should have been all.This celebrity death too would have wandered off into some untreaded realms of my not so remarkable memory.
But the last couple of minutes of the Jackson memorial service today took me right back to a hospital lobby 8 years back.It was MJ' s 11 year old daughter's tearful eulogy which had tears welling up in my eyes too.My baba died 8 years back.True, for a couple of years it was hard to manage the pain.The thing about pain is either you manage it yourself or you seek help in managing it.Thereafter I got married and life took a new turn and the pain dulled.
There does not go a single day when I do not think of baba.The sense of loss that day and today is no less or no more.I remember sitting in a catatonic state that day in the hospital.Tears too had dried up.At that point that day i couldn't imagine how life could go on without him.I sat there remebering every single thing I did with Him and which was part of my daily routine.
I grew up waiting in the evenings for the door bell to ring and running to the door to have baba back from work.The evening rituals of tea,snacks and the incessant narration of the day's activities first by me and then by him.Poor ma never had anything exciting to share except the excerpts of the not so brief phone conversations she had with dida(grandma),masis(maternal aunts),pisis(paternal aunts) and the likes.During school years, later part of the evenings would be spent in him continiously trying to help me in my studies.And in even younger years probably in kindergarten his job was to sit and draw with me to keep me from disturbing my sister who was in high school by then.The years before his demise when I was well in my post graduation ,the evening chats could be about anything and everything,from boyfriends to global warming.
That day at the hospital I sat there dreading the vacuum I am inheriting for life.I was seriously thinking how to manage Ma whose routine of life was so sequenced with that of baba's that I feared that she would be lost forever.But today in retrospect , she was way stronger than I was.The next two years until my marriage we (Ma and I) developed a bond which never existed when baba was there.
The day I got married to S(whose details i very coyly first shared with none other than Baba),I felt his absence the most.He was not there to give me off.I cried a lot.Was it his absence or the guilt of leaving Ma all by herself,I dont know.When he left us he was 58 and I was 24.I always felt He went too soon.To this day when I see friends' parents visiting them here in the US ,I sit thinking what it would have been like to have had both my parents here.Wishful thinking...huh.
Baba never got to see G.This is again something which brings back all the poignant 'if this' and 'then what' thoughts.Its sad indeed.But not having Baba around has most definitely made me strong.I grew strong not by choice but it helps to be strong.
I have a loving family and his absence has made me appreciate this more than ever.I have made some difficult choices in my life to be with my family.I want to live a long and happy life and be with G just like Baba did with me,only longer.I want to live on in her,just like the way baba lives on in me.
11 year old Paris's unrehearsed feelings for her Daddy gave the Jackson memorial the dimension which people are going to remember for years.I guess it doesn't matter who you are and where you are ,losing your father gives one the same kind of pain.I am happy that MJ's legacy will live on in his three kids.I pray to God that MJ finds peace.But more so I pray for his children.
I remember the release of “Dangerous”.It was all over.I was probably in seventh standard then.Growing up in Shillong with its pop entwined culture had its advantages.I loved the song "Remember the time" and kept on playing it over and over and getting on to my Ma's nerves.Baba was always patient about it or didn't say anything about it.
On the evening of the cursed thursday MJ passed S(husband) and I sat discussing him for sometime,spent some time on Youtube looking up his videos.That should have been all.This celebrity death too would have wandered off into some untreaded realms of my not so remarkable memory.
But the last couple of minutes of the Jackson memorial service today took me right back to a hospital lobby 8 years back.It was MJ' s 11 year old daughter's tearful eulogy which had tears welling up in my eyes too.My baba died 8 years back.True, for a couple of years it was hard to manage the pain.The thing about pain is either you manage it yourself or you seek help in managing it.Thereafter I got married and life took a new turn and the pain dulled.
There does not go a single day when I do not think of baba.The sense of loss that day and today is no less or no more.I remember sitting in a catatonic state that day in the hospital.Tears too had dried up.At that point that day i couldn't imagine how life could go on without him.I sat there remebering every single thing I did with Him and which was part of my daily routine.
I grew up waiting in the evenings for the door bell to ring and running to the door to have baba back from work.The evening rituals of tea,snacks and the incessant narration of the day's activities first by me and then by him.Poor ma never had anything exciting to share except the excerpts of the not so brief phone conversations she had with dida(grandma),masis(maternal aunts),pisis(paternal aunts) and the likes.During school years, later part of the evenings would be spent in him continiously trying to help me in my studies.And in even younger years probably in kindergarten his job was to sit and draw with me to keep me from disturbing my sister who was in high school by then.The years before his demise when I was well in my post graduation ,the evening chats could be about anything and everything,from boyfriends to global warming.
That day at the hospital I sat there dreading the vacuum I am inheriting for life.I was seriously thinking how to manage Ma whose routine of life was so sequenced with that of baba's that I feared that she would be lost forever.But today in retrospect , she was way stronger than I was.The next two years until my marriage we (Ma and I) developed a bond which never existed when baba was there.
The day I got married to S(whose details i very coyly first shared with none other than Baba),I felt his absence the most.He was not there to give me off.I cried a lot.Was it his absence or the guilt of leaving Ma all by herself,I dont know.When he left us he was 58 and I was 24.I always felt He went too soon.To this day when I see friends' parents visiting them here in the US ,I sit thinking what it would have been like to have had both my parents here.Wishful thinking...huh.
Baba never got to see G.This is again something which brings back all the poignant 'if this' and 'then what' thoughts.Its sad indeed.But not having Baba around has most definitely made me strong.I grew strong not by choice but it helps to be strong.
I have a loving family and his absence has made me appreciate this more than ever.I have made some difficult choices in my life to be with my family.I want to live a long and happy life and be with G just like Baba did with me,only longer.I want to live on in her,just like the way baba lives on in me.
11 year old Paris's unrehearsed feelings for her Daddy gave the Jackson memorial the dimension which people are going to remember for years.I guess it doesn't matter who you are and where you are ,losing your father gives one the same kind of pain.I am happy that MJ's legacy will live on in his three kids.I pray to God that MJ finds peace.But more so I pray for his children.
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