It turns half full. half empty. It turns whitish pink, from blood red.

Drip.drip.drip.

More blood. The blood itself changes the colour. It turns dark brown. It turns black. The heart is now white, with a slight, faint pink colour. A trail that the red blood left behind. The veins could be seen, branching out in all directions, millions and millions of little squiggly branches, thread like.Then from a corner, you see a black spot. It was spreading, like a drop of black ink on a blotting paper. It started spreading,first rapidly, then slowing down.The veins turned black. Black. Thick, dark fluid was spreading,replacing the faint reds. The lights went out. The heart was black. 

It was not throbbing,pounding,beating. It was now still, and black.

She loved chocolates. The way her eyes lit up each time he surprised her with a bar of chocolate, such occasions were few and far in between, sent him into raptures of joy, and for once made him feel truly contented and free from all trials and tribulations life threw his way, and life was certainly very liberal in that respect, a village barber struggling to sustain his own offspring, his bundle of joy, problems were aplenty. He barely scraped through each month, and then it was a whole new month of uncertainty, toil and frustration. There were times he felt glad that his wife had died off during childbirth, though he chastised himself severely each time that thought crossed his mind… One stomach less to feed.

His daughter was all he had, the only proof of his existence on this cursed planet, his only hope, the only thing that gave him a sense of purpose. He wanted to see her escape the filthy, claustrophobic environs that passed off as home. She was not meant to fight out an existence in this dingy, squalid slum cluster, she was not meant to be yet another addition to the list of poor, a mere statistic. His raasathi was destined for greatness, and he was doing what he could to make that happen: send her to school.

***

30 rupees. Well, he would have to really tighten his spending for the rest of the month. But it did not bother him at all. He was walking along the dusty road that led to her school, cycle in tow, in another world, playing out her response when she saw the Chocolate.

He woke up from his reverie to a flurry of activity all around him. There were a lot of cars all around him. Vip cars,with those lights on them. MLA’s. They were probably in school for some new mid-day meal scheme. What they got for lunch was as good as rubbish. She used to tell him about her friends getting dead insects in their meals and other horror stories. But he had no choice. He could not let her starve,and it was free. He never liked politicians. They had this sickening self-important air about them,and that infuriating grin and fake concern they put on while canvassing for votes really got him all worked up. He never voted,the only time he made an exception to it was when he was given a colour tv,with free cable. He was mad at himself for accepting the set,but then she could watch all those cartoons. That settled the issue.

There was this commotion that was growing louder as he approached the school. And people were just moving around aimlessly,there was this look of disbelief on their faces. And the number of cars just multiplied. He could hear the wail of a siren somewhere,and just then,an ambulance whizzed past him. More people. More chaos. Deafening din. TV cameras. People screaming into them. More cars. He just kept on walking,not quite sure as to what to make out of all this,and it never occurred to him to ask someone. It never occurred to him that something could have happened at school. It never occurred to him that she might be in trouble.

Based on the Kumbakonam fire tragedy of 2004

**an oldblighter-vanwinkle production of a totalliemeh post

Hello. This is a guest Post. I repeat, This is a guest post. after years and years..ok, months and months of bullying and threatening, our..your dear oldblighter  finally came up with a guest post. although I had full right and green light to go ahead and edit it, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to. This isn’t his best, no, THIS is his best. I express my sincere gratitude to..*blinks* I meant..”Yo, PUG, here is to your freedom of  expression”

Something  about  the poster. (?)

The profound influence of his pragmatic nature is right now slowly getting on my nerves, as we speak.”

My lovely li’l bro. manja kinju kaalulla chakki poochaykk..guest post ezhuthan ullil mohamudichallo.

Then it began to blur. Boundaries. All sorts of boundaries and my very first taste of the realisation of the non-existence of a boundary was when I was doing my post-graduation- “mastering” the subject, they say. And I was amazed at how my subject’s boundaries just dissolved and all the science as I knew them merged into one, borrowing from one another, and inadvertently reminding me that nature never intended it to be different from another. Although I hated it, later I discovered that things which had a name, which had a label, which was easy to explain and uncomplicated had a certain feeling of security to it, owing to the certainity, but the unexplained things were also beautiful, they were in fact painfully beautiful, that it gave a sense of being out of this world, and it fought every effort everyone made to put them into one of those drawers. So here I am, mixing up the drawers in my blog to tell you about something which may or may not make any sense.

Imagine walking along a road, a road which had nothing of beauty to its name, a very ordinary or even dirty road, but which was made special by that person walking beside you. And you see something, something comical, and something very extra ordinary and unusual, something cute, and you both acknowledge that sight with a casual nod of the head, suddenly growing up and feeling childlike again at the same time. A third person, a soul, brought into your world that instant, which was an absolute photograph moment, and your mental camera captures it, tapes it and you play and replay it in your head, when passing by that street alone..

Imagine that last goodbye, which felt like ripping your tiny heart apart, from your best friend, that final hug and the strength you muster up to let go and see the person walking away. It can’t be an entirely painful memory, coz it was sweet, sweetened by the mystery, but it was also heart wrenching, it is instantaneous, and had absolutely no logic or reason attached to it.

Imagine fighting with a person so dear to you, saying stuff you never meant and momentarily realising you cannot tolerate each other anymore, and then meet up with that person the very next day, and feel the rush of affection and realising the strength of the bond you share..

Imagine someone way younger than you, but in many ways older than you, guiding you through every phase of life, steadily and loyally, from miles away, from another part of the world, but giving you an impression of always being there, a constant, a fixture in space and time which you can go back to whenever you felt like it..

People . Those in my life, those in other people’s lives which brushed my life with their warmth and uniqueness. People I met, and people I found out.

Things, things I picked up from here and there, a fragment of a blue balloon, a railway platform ticket, a book, a tissue paper with a chocolate smudge and a million dollar lyrics on it.

Memories- of a cold dark night of power cut you spent laughing till your stomachs hurt, with a bong chick, a modern chick, a naadan chick and an irritating chick. Memories of standing on a sideway ice cream place, with a vulgar name, singing old Hindi songs aloud. Memories of walking along the road talking and hi-fiving, hitting each other, making train sounds, conch sounds, through a highway, out of breath, carrying a balloon, the best birthday ever.

A blog which has seen your worst, which has stored your insane thoughts in the drafts folder, carefully hidden and waiting patiently for you to come into terms with the memories and then delete it or publish it. A blog which actually gave me everything I now put in the drawer “Unlabelled”

For my c.o.f.rs. this post, keeping up with my promise that I’ll keep blogging.

For a task of unlabelling.

For me. A post.

Oh come on, that is not going to work with any of the teachers, starting from the elementary school ones to your PhD thesis guide. so what is he saying, I already know how to solve the Hydrogen atom problem, but I still need to go through the torture that is college to know I know it already?

What?

It’s not going to work anymore. It is very cruel, to instill this..this contorted idea into my little brain that I already know all this crap, am just, being blissfully ignorant to enjoy the whole process of unraveling the mystery behind it, bask in the pure essence of discovery and maybe indulge in some running-through-the-street-nudity.

Exams are all the pressure I need to cook up a post. See, I don’t need a point for my post. I don’t have an incentive to come up with this post which makes any sense. Also if I truly believed that, i wouldn’t be adding this paragraph which is suspiciously looking like a disclaimer.

I hate exams. It is like what my friend once told me, that it is like almost as if I don’t deserve it, asking me to work for it. (What, Calvin IS my friend!) One might think, and I will definitely like to think so myself, that am studying. am working my you know, off on equations and mathematical theorems and this post is the work of an artist, a physicist who has set very high standards for herself and is unsatisfied because she can’t meet her own expectations, while in real she is, infact, doing a great job.

Oh. books and feel good movies and the nerd in your class has ruined your imagination, if you think the above paragraph is true.

Okay. So, this is something all bloggers had been doing from time immemorial. venting out their frustration. Heck, I have done it before, yes, on one of my blogs at least.  It is a ritual. It is something you have got to do. This is exactly why I never ridicule any of those religious get togethers and self help books reading, and followers of Man-Gods or eat all you can buffet lovers. We all have a system, a mechanism, to make ourselves calm down, be happy, and you know, feel good about yourselves. For me it is my blog.

I have to tell you this one point which came up rather suddenly, I think I m an atheist now. No. Altruist. damn, I meant Agnostic. I keep confusing those words, but i think am being Altruistic by being an agnostic.

Sad state of affairs as I loved being a believer.

Ok. My coffee is cold. *

*check tag.

What??Nobody is perfect! Jerry Seinfeld** was lactose intolerant!

Noone likes to hear about other people’s ailments. Even I don’t. House owner auntie is that common specimen of womenfolk who loves to talk about every sneeze she ever produced. She is the local authority on who is a quack, and who is not. Holistic healing, you want? She knows the place. Homoeo? She knows the place. Ayurveda? Allopathy? She’s been there, done that, sire. Any disease auntie hasn’t heard of, is not worth having.

But this post is not about her. sorry, But I am too self involved to be blogging about someone else on my own blog, you know.

Lactose intolerancy is the reason why I can’t have a nice cup of steaming, milky creamy coffee. The little workers lining the stomach walls are so angry at the molecules of lactose, you’d think lactose molecules slept with their wives. The animosity is ..(after spending a good 5 mins on what coming up with what animosity was, i gave up). There is animosity.

The olfactory lining is happy with  creamy coffee.

It is almost shameless*** the way the taste buds flirt with the c.c.

the throat lining is on first name basis with c c.

Then why is that my stomach hates these creamy stuff??

Apparently they can’t digest lactose molecules.

I wish they lacked the enzymes to digest..say, Broccoli. or Brinjal.  Why am I intolerant to the one thing I am happy to tolerate??

See what all stuff I am allergic to-?

Paneer butter masala. Even when I was half unconscious from all the vomiting, I could still remember how heavenly it tasted. Sigh.

All good things were given to my sis, and all the things she considered trash were given to me. Then later, like a very dear friend of mine (whom I disowned while I was writing this post) used to say, I proceeded to give an acknowledging nod to these ailments, and started having all those stuff I was intolerant to, while carrying a small replica of a medical shop with me wherever I went. The entire purpose of this post can be summed up like this.

1. I was desperate to get back into the blogosphere.

2. I was having a nice rich creamy tasty sugary coffee, giving the fever I now have, the finger.

3. I wanted to remind you all of dinner time.

So to sum up the summary I am having a nice rich hot coffee now.

Ambulance. Now. Call.

*I believe in giving catchy titles even if they have little to do with the post

**I don’t like seinfeld

***Shoutout to all those who got the reference.

I am yet to decide whether I like her or not. It is very hard for my insanely jealous and inferior nature to like someone almost as perfect as my roomie.  But she reminds me of my barbie doll back at my home showcase, which was something you gazed at, wondered about, but never actually playing with it, or knowing it any further.

As far as first impressions go, I think her impression of me was far more deep than my impression of hers. Suppose you are a person who is all happy to welcome a new roommate, and also very apprehensive about the fact that you both speak different languages. It might’ve been a really shock when this new girl starts reading off swear words from her mobile in your language, with a straight earnest face. If I were her, I would’ve- meh, well, shrugged it off, laughed and welcomed the roomie with a nice friendly pat on back.

She stared at me. No other reaction was registered.

days went by. Even English, when spoken by people from different states sounds like an entirely new language, and in between us, scissors became seizures, and life sherrikkum became laife.

She seemed to be completely alien to the concept of cleanliness. She seemed perfectly okay living in filth, and everytime I looked at her side of the table, my heart bled, my hands trembled, I was on the verge of begging her to let me tidy up her table, when a miracle called navaratri happened.

I cried, when she dutifully set out to tidy her table, and as I watched the hour-long process, I had this feeling, which can only be explained as ” Eni enikku chathallum vendilla ente bhagwane!!!!!!”.

She sleeps at odd hours, around 2 : 30 or so. in the morning. I pretended it wasn’t a problem at first, but I couldn’t keep up the pretense for long.  Only I never had the guts to tell her to actually turn the lights off. One look at her pretty face and I will go all “heck, what’s a bit of a light?”

Her hair is something I will kill for. Long straight her. which she mercilessly cuts and which mercifully grows back in a few days. It has been, it still is a torture for me to live with her, one look at her hair and my heart bleeds. How can people have such perfect hair? I hate people with perfect hair.

Hair.

She got me a cake on my b’day, was the first to wish me on my b’day, and more or less ignores me and leaves me to my work, or in other words, pretends am not here. Extreme reactions. Also, I now think rapid bengali is scary. V ery scary. When pretty girls are talking in rapid bengali, you feel like hiding under the bed covers.

Thats it. what, you wanted some mushy , a “inspite of all this, I love her” sorta ending? What? You watch too many movies. This is all that is there to my room mate. She is a girl with perfect hair, and doesn’t keep her table and bed neat. Thats all.

Sheesh.

Stop being all Cheery!! Festive cheer gives me gag reflexes. WHy the hell are you so boring and non existent and gloomy over the rest of the days of the year and suddenly all cheery and mush mush on certain selected days?? Don’t you see that the media and the history are manipulating your feelings and telling you that you GOT to be happy on these selected days?? Don’t you see you are being exploited as a consumer? don’t you see you are being taken advantage of? don’t you see they are actually advertising gluttony? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA how much calories you are gaining? (Mom’s adapradhaman was an OD of jaggery)

I want the uneventful, message-offer-still-valid,without random-people-you-haven’t-spoken-to-in-a-year-messaging-you-goofy-hard-to-read-malayalam-messages days back. Seriously.

Seriously.

And cut the mush.

# for certain people who wants me to be miserable inorder for me to be happy, I will rather be happy leading to misery.

That means something, although am not sure what.

Back to the topic. In less than 10 days, I leave Kochi, and in less than 10 days, I leave my college. I will no longer be a student there, and I cannot say with 100 % surety that I will be a “pass out”, I can say that I will definitely be an “out”.

Many of you..maybe I shouldn’t use plural here. Assuming that many of you are reading this, and most of you are wondering if this is a post about bidding adieu to my college with mush thrown in, and a song at the end which goes something like “Am really gonna miss this place, I miss my college days” and crap, well, DON”T YOU KNOW ME AT ALL?

Nope, I am not particularly going to miss my college, I have never missed anything of the sort starting from the school days,I’ve always been happy with the change and this time is no exception. Though I did have some fun here. And yes, I am going to miss my library. I meant college library of course, and that is not without reason.

Volley.

Now, I guess only T will understand the significance of that word, and he will probably close the window and go write a code or something. To the rest of you peepal, I give you, Volley.

Being a post graduate student in a college means your prospects of finding someone to have a crush on and secretly admire are limited to the 7-8 numbers of guys doing their PGs because of- well, actually liking the subject and thereby being nerds. But barring the small disadvantage of never getting to actually show the crush on your crush, we nurtured secret crushes on our juniors.

Blasphemy, you might say, but the art of womako* -ing brings a certain pleasure, which isn’t perverse in nature at all, it is about and only about showing admiration in a very genuine heartfelt manner, and true womako-ans never discriminate on gender or species. Or age.

The object of my affection was a very tall, handsome, tall, economics major, a very tall (did I mention the object of my affection was very tall, unnaturally tall?) junior of mine, on seeing whom my heart does this:-

lub-dub-lub-dub-lubdublubdublubLUBDUBLUBDUB……..SCREEEEEECH!!!!!!!!!!! halt.

He is a volleyball player, or he is supposed to be one, he is in the team, but I’ve never seen him play, apparently he is what sports people call a reserve. Having been to almost all the games and all the practice sessions (unlimited unquestioned opportunity to stare at him) I have realised that being a volley ball player is not why I like him.

Looks.

he looks so cute. And am gonna miss him. Although (hopefully) unaware of my crush, I am sure he will miss the stalker in me too. I envy all those girls who had the nerve to ask him for help, to get the book from the topmost shelf. Damn. Missed opportunities.

Am going to miss him. very much.

Thats all. I don’t think I will miss anything else. No, there is something else.

There is something else I will miss, and That deserves a separate post. It shall be done, in a few days, I hope. Until we meet then, its totallie meh, signing off.

louvrve. Kish.

*World Malayali Kozhi Organisation

————————————————————————————————————————————–

The heat added to the panic. The sound of the chopper was deafening, and I could feel the land shaking. I thought we all looked like something out of a watercolour picture, on which water was sprayed-fading at the ends, the wind would’ve surely given the impression of the brushstrokes.. The plane took off in 10 minutes. We had to get off this island, and that too fast, inorder to catch that plane, and this chopper was our only hope. Securing the seatbelt,  I took one last look at the island. The helicopter trembled, roared, before it took off slowly and precariously, while my mind did a flash back to the time when I first set my eyes on the island. The last look kept me just as spellbound as the first look, and the short love affair with the sea thus came to an end.

*********************************************************************************

Day 1.

Cochin International airport.

1. Mom

2. Dad

3. Sis

4. Bil

5. Me

6. Mr. R

7. Mrs R.

The trip to Lakshadweep Islands.

As usual, I was hungry. My mother always found this tiring, as this was the way every trip started. Breakfast will always be Bread Butter jam, as her vacation starts from 12 am of the vacation day. Kitchen was and is and will always be a big no no on the Day 1 and Day last. So we all had a grand lunch at The Lotus, but little did we knew, that it was the only proper food we were to have on this vacation. The plane was 2 hours late, and when your plane is two hours late, forcing you to spend the time at the airport, you naturally assume things can get only better from there.

Ha.

Day 1.

Guest house.  Agatti Islands Evening around 4: 30

The ride to the rest house was drowned in the cries of “Nokkamma!! Nokkacha!!” (look mom!! Look dad!) bec

ause we were surrounded by the sea. There was sea to our left, sea to our right, and nothing else. And the moment we dumped our luggage in our rooms we went sightseeing, or in other words, we went to the sea.

This was what I saw. The green water, the cool air, the sun, and the sky.

The kids had their fun picking up shells from the shore, assisted by the native kids, and some kids went to take a dip in the sea, and I took all the photos.

Most of them.

The day was spent in the water, picking up shells and taking photos.

Day 2.

I woke up with a very bad cold. You know what happens when you have very bad colds. My brother in law kept reassuring me life was indeed better without common maladies like colds, but I needed to be brave and fight the viruses and enjoy the moment, not to give up, they were micron size stupid brainless life forms and that I can’t ruin my once in a life time opportunity of being on The LAKSHADWEEP islands, on the most important day of the three day vacation. He went on to say a lot of other stuff, but I was under the blanket blowing my nose making noises like the motor running or speed boats racing, so I couldn’t hear the rest.

Breakfast did get me out of bed, and the lure of a Canon professional camera and the assurance that I will have full access to it if I stop whining, made me get into the car which took us to the private beach resort.

We met Cheriya Koya- the CJM there, And we had a discussion on the ancestory of the abovementioned person, regarding the names. While I argued that his father would’ve been called valiya koya while my amma was of the opinion that it was likely to be his brother. Which made us all wondered what would be his father called then, to which my father replied “Immini valliya Koya”, thus we all paid a tribute to the famous poet and writer, and the viruses were repelled by the PJ, and they went on a short slumber leaving me to enjoy the day.

Someone ought to have told me that it would’ve been really nice to pack a swimsuit especially when you are going to a beach for your vacation. NO. we are not talking of the legendary two piece, FYI, a swimsuit can also mean something water repellent, and they do come in decent sizes. For those who are not blessed with a halle berry body, you see.

So, the morning was spent in me swinging on the …er..swing, with the viruses to keep me company, and I wished I were dead.

Day 2.  Bangaram islands.

NOW, oh yea baby, this IS what the VACATION was ALL about. We took off from the Agatti islands, saying good byes to all the koyas, big and small alike, on a….

HELICOPTER!!!!

Pavan Hans.

Am not putting up the helicopter pics, as Photography was not permitted at the airport, and lets just assume I Did not take photos of the helicopter. Okie?

A picture can speak a thousand words. View from the chopper.

You can see the corals and the reefs…

The world is a BEAUTIFUL place to be in.

We reached the island, and we were left there, without any means of transport, and we had fun.

Abrupt, I know. But the cold prevented me from bathing in the sea, although I did have some kind of a swim, after a serious quarrel with my mom,who came up with lame concerns about my health. I mean, what sort of a mother, that too a doctor will prevent her only younger daughter from bathing in the sea, at Lakshadweep islands? What has a cold got to do with fever and health and fun? Geez, moms I tell you.

It was unbearably hot, the sunscreens evaporated on opening the bottle, so I stayed inside our cozy hut, watching NDTV Good times drooling over Aditya bal on Chakhle India. Ah. Game nite Bites- I want to marry him. Seriously. I do. He is everything I want.

Am  very cynic boring do-not-know-how-to-live-in-the-moment sort of a person, so just save your breath on ridiculing my attitude.

I am no longer fond of the sea. I prefer fresh water.

Sea smells Sea shells on the sea shore.

Food was terrible. I lost 3 kilos.

Day three

More Aditya Bal. More band Baaja Bride, More Good Times.

Am bored of the writing. See, we had lunch, the chopper was late, we ran and made impatient noises, taught the pilots dog history over the deafening noise, caught the plane just in time, said good bye, and landed in Kochi. I Love the mainland. I love freshwater.

Love ya all.

Muah.

“I have dust allergy. I cleaned my room. I have a severe cold and fever now”

Not me.

Then again, I have never been classified as a normal person, not even in the past. I was never abnormal too, mind you. But it was unanimously agreed that there was indeed something very queer about  the dame, and they weren’t talking about the black mole on the right cheek.

This dust allergy worries me to death. Because I am, one of those modern day Monica s, who arrange towels by colour, books by height, clothes by..(I leave clothes alone). So basically a Normal person on the way to becoming a successfully established OCD d girl. I have never applied this theory to my mind, the ol’ attic is cluttered with unwanted thoughts and better forgotten memories, but my room reflected none of these ongoings of the mind. It was spotlessly clean. (The room, I mean).

Infact a li’l cute chweet totallie meh while playing house gave the job of cooking and buying vegetables and paying bills and shopping to her imaginary handsome hunk of a husband, while she did all the cleaning and washing.

MY mother was proud.

Of course, li’l meh ,she could afford to indulge in her hobby of arranging her pens by colour and hair bands by size, and sweep the dust mites off from under the bed and over the cupboard.She had all the time in the world to fall sick.

Not now.

On the first day of my study holidays, determined to write atleast these exams well, I set out to clean my room, just to find out the study materials, tons of photostats and moth eaten textbooks. And here i am,

*cough*

*sneeze**sneeze**sneeze*

Hot.

yea, the room needed all the cleaning it could get. Have I ever mentioned the time when my watch was found from inside my dictionary, my calculator from under the pillow, and ring…you don’t want to know.

So best friends and mother are fully aware of the situation lil meh totallie grew into, they have gained the wisdom and courage to nod their heads in despair and advice the grown up(apparently) meh to look under the bed(for her earrings) to look inside the pillow case(for pens) etc etc..Infact, I’ve made them creative by urging them to think of unlikely places my stuff would be, they are unofficially trained find outters. FBI, CIA- you hiring?

I was wondering, something my mother used to wonder ever since I was this tall..What will I do if I ever get to have a house of my own?

??

Kids running around, taking up the stuff I have thrown here and there, and shouting “Mom, NOT AGAIN!!”

Husband, drinking tea, ” Honey, here is the wedding ring you’ve been looking for, or are you asking to marry me again?”

But I have dust allergy!!!

I can’t clean. I stay away from them dust mites.

I am scared of the future.