This one was one of the early Pages from September '16
It somehow never found its way to the collection of Pages re-invented as posts on this space in '18. It seems like there's no time like now to bring this one into its own. This is for the ones who find my haphazardness and moody musings a fun ride. There are more coming up from the early days and I will pop them out in a random order. Stay and play!
26/9/16 - Pre Puja
The pages have been delayed thanks to my tucking into a
massive coconut Uthappam from Anuradha. I am breaking the over-3-week
abstinence from outside food, to risk it. I hope the remaining 20% of the hand-under-recovery
will take it well.*1
I am a person who has a reasonable amount of stuff outside and it just doesn’t work out for me if I am forced to stop it altogether.
Part of the motivation to haul myself out into a sweaty pre-evening was the desire to sweat – yes that sounds funny but I have been struggling for so long with a dry skin that I felt it might just be the remedy to help my skin breathe and recover. Well I forgot that I had moisturized during the day and when I got back from my wanderings I was actually a slippery, dripping mess. A few minutes in the shower after drying out the sweat helped cool me down and I attacked the oothappam. On my walk home I was actually writing this post in my head.
My purpose in heading out was twin. I wanted to check out the progress of the pandals. I was deeply disappointed.
I am a person who has a reasonable amount of stuff outside and it just doesn’t work out for me if I am forced to stop it altogether.
Part of the motivation to haul myself out into a sweaty pre-evening was the desire to sweat – yes that sounds funny but I have been struggling for so long with a dry skin that I felt it might just be the remedy to help my skin breathe and recover. Well I forgot that I had moisturized during the day and when I got back from my wanderings I was actually a slippery, dripping mess. A few minutes in the shower after drying out the sweat helped cool me down and I attacked the oothappam. On my walk home I was actually writing this post in my head.
My purpose in heading out was twin. I wanted to check out the progress of the pandals. I was deeply disappointed.
The roads are a shabby mess. Tree branches lie felled around
the trees (some kind of meaningless routine to get them out of the way of
electric lines and a disaster each time it repeats) and people are piling trash
atop those heaps of drying wood. It isn’t raining and these could mean a fire
hazard. Mahalaya is two days away but the roads are more pot holed than ever.
A bored looking man is walking – yes walking – his hen on the vast field on which a team in blue pretending to be Team India are playing some form of cricket. Meanwhile a team of workmen are dodging them and trying to assemble the grand roller coaster whose pictures and videos were on CTT last year . A few bored looking men are fiddling around with nondescript strips of board in anemic white, being used to assemble a gateway of sorts to a box like pandal that appears nothing more than a rudimentary structure - some kind of framework with plastic sheets draped all over it. It has a four sided peaked roof. I have no idea what miracles they plan to work in the seven days they have in hand to deliver a finished products. On being questioned the men shake their heads and say they have no idea what they are helping build. “I suppose it will emerge as we work” says one of them. They look weary and not welcoming in the least. I move on thinking the clumsy mess of wood and fiber is hardly photoworthy. I move past to check out another pandal that looks sad and tired but somewhat more aesthetic.
I wonder what my fair city is coming to. It hasn’t even rained. I dread to think of what will happen if it comes down.
So I leg it back home, swinging the uthuppam along in my shopping bag, purloined from Parameshwar’s Moti. He fetches these goodies for me which she rarely keeps count of. As I approach the post office, dodging stones and rubble and a pesky mail van, I come across a sight for sore eyes. Yes it’s a pooch sleeping on a jeep. I get ahead of the mail van but it just keeps tailing me like a monster and I am forced to quickly skirt around the jeep. Meanwhile pooch has stirred and I curse at the lost opportunity to click him. Guess what I see as I get in front of the jeep and turn around to get my bearings. His Poochness has dodged the disturbance from the van’s honking and revving, to jump on to the roof of the jeep and promptly fall asleep. Well that wasn’t a jeep at all but I couldn’t find a better word for that thingy – one of those non descript SUVs. A jeep had personality. My mom learnt driving in one!
Writing this has diverted me from the uthappam but fortunately coconut uthappams from Anuradha taste good cold. And their heavyweight chutney even better when fried – yes fried!!
Signing out at 6:32 and attempting for the 10th time to send the pooch from the phone.
Whew – loaded! Chloe can be such a pest.
A bored looking man is walking – yes walking – his hen on the vast field on which a team in blue pretending to be Team India are playing some form of cricket. Meanwhile a team of workmen are dodging them and trying to assemble the grand roller coaster whose pictures and videos were on CTT last year . A few bored looking men are fiddling around with nondescript strips of board in anemic white, being used to assemble a gateway of sorts to a box like pandal that appears nothing more than a rudimentary structure - some kind of framework with plastic sheets draped all over it. It has a four sided peaked roof. I have no idea what miracles they plan to work in the seven days they have in hand to deliver a finished products. On being questioned the men shake their heads and say they have no idea what they are helping build. “I suppose it will emerge as we work” says one of them. They look weary and not welcoming in the least. I move on thinking the clumsy mess of wood and fiber is hardly photoworthy. I move past to check out another pandal that looks sad and tired but somewhat more aesthetic.
I wonder what my fair city is coming to. It hasn’t even rained. I dread to think of what will happen if it comes down.
So I leg it back home, swinging the uthuppam along in my shopping bag, purloined from Parameshwar’s Moti. He fetches these goodies for me which she rarely keeps count of. As I approach the post office, dodging stones and rubble and a pesky mail van, I come across a sight for sore eyes. Yes it’s a pooch sleeping on a jeep. I get ahead of the mail van but it just keeps tailing me like a monster and I am forced to quickly skirt around the jeep. Meanwhile pooch has stirred and I curse at the lost opportunity to click him. Guess what I see as I get in front of the jeep and turn around to get my bearings. His Poochness has dodged the disturbance from the van’s honking and revving, to jump on to the roof of the jeep and promptly fall asleep. Well that wasn’t a jeep at all but I couldn’t find a better word for that thingy – one of those non descript SUVs. A jeep had personality. My mom learnt driving in one!
Writing this has diverted me from the uthappam but fortunately coconut uthappams from Anuradha taste good cold. And their heavyweight chutney even better when fried – yes fried!!
Signing out at 6:32 and attempting for the 10th time to send the pooch from the phone.
Whew – loaded! Chloe can be such a pest.
Edit 7:07 pm
Want to add that the outing was possible also because three days of doing this exercise(Pages) has energized and motivated me. I feel more like my usual self, with my eagerness for life and writing restoring itself. Also I have friends wanting to hang out with me for Puja and that's a good sign. I had just done lamenting my loneliness and even if noone else reads these, I believe the universe is doing so. Now I hope the universe heeds my plea for household help during those Ravi-less days.
Want to add that the outing was possible also because three days of doing this exercise(Pages) has energized and motivated me. I feel more like my usual self, with my eagerness for life and writing restoring itself. Also I have friends wanting to hang out with me for Puja and that's a good sign. I had just done lamenting my loneliness and even if noone else reads these, I believe the universe is doing so. Now I hope the universe heeds my plea for household help during those Ravi-less days.
Am rushing out of here once and for all because every time I enter edit mode, I have a
strong temptation to fix typos and punctuation, not to speak of redundancy in
sentences. But that might defeat the purpose of the exercise. At any rate I
have those basic instincts that drive a writer towards a finished product,
indeed a product with finesse!
*1 Current readers will be over familiar with the dreadful allergies I have been beset with over the past 3 months. The hand I keep referring to had a major outbreak of rash in '16. Looks like '19 has turned out to be a similar year. These hands pop up in almost all my posts as does a phenomenon called The Leak. In the absence of these two monstrosities that have hounded me, I'd probably have written not 51 posts but 5.1 books in the 5 years of Unwritten's lifetime. *1
*1 Current readers will be over familiar with the dreadful allergies I have been beset with over the past 3 months. The hand I keep referring to had a major outbreak of rash in '16. Looks like '19 has turned out to be a similar year. These hands pop up in almost all my posts as does a phenomenon called The Leak. In the absence of these two monstrosities that have hounded me, I'd probably have written not 51 posts but 5.1 books in the 5 years of Unwritten's lifetime. *1
PS1 For those friends who may have missed the intro on my FB profile - "I write, therefore I am" :)
PS2 Parameshwar and Ravi Jr are the two stalwarts who keep this mad hatter's house from actually turning into a madhouse - NOT!
PS3 This has been minimally edited for readability on 20/10/19
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