True Blue Baby

Took a color personality test online. Now I know why blue features prominently in my wardrobe. Here's the diagnosis...

Your true colour is blue!

You're blue -- the most soothing shade of the spectrum. The colour of a clear summer sky or a deep, reflective ocean, blue has traditionally symbolised trust, solitude, and loyalty. Most likely a thoughtful person who values spending some time on your own, you'd rather connect deeply with a few people than have a group of slight acquaintances. Luckily, making close friends isn't that hard, since people are naturally attracted to you – they're soothed by your calming presence. Cool and collected, you rarely overreact. Instead, you think things through before coming to a decision. That level-headed, thoughtful approach to life is patently blue -- and patently you!

Hangar Harangue

"Maggi, Nitin's here," yells mom. "Ok, why don't you take the brat by hand and walk out first? I'll follow you with the bags. Oh, and please ask Nitin to help me with the heavier suitcases," I call out. Who needs a car with a chauffeur when you can ride in Nitin's taxi anytime you fancy? It sure does help when one's mother is a teacher and her former students have become taxi owners/drivers. Whew! I've maxed out on the number of check-in bags I can take with me. There're four humongous softcases, two of which supposedly belong to the brat. The fact that they're packed to the brim with my things is a secret known only to me. Gone are the days when I could travel across oceans armed with only a backpack and one tiny VIP suitcase.
After a hot bumpy ride on BMC's "flyovers" we finally reach the airport. I'm relieved to see that the bags Nitin has strapped on top of his taxicab are still very much intact, pitted asphalt notwithstanding.
I hate goodbyes. So, with a quick nod in the general direction where my parents're standing, I bustle off into the cool confines of Mumbai's international airport. It is a chore to push the heavily loaded luggage cart with one hand while trying to control a rambunctious 6-year-old and her assortment of dolls with the other. Young Marathi dudes with spiffy haircuts usher us to the correct security check line. Our bags make it through the screening area and everything is handed back to me bound and tagged with tape that has "Air India" stamped all over it. We finally make it to the check-in counter. "Hi Natasha! How are you this evening?" I ask the uniformed beauty at the counter. She looks young enough to be a high school senior. "How do you know my name?" is the response. "Oh, you helped me file the missing luggage report when I flew in three weeks ago," I tell her. "Ah!" she smiles. "I see that your bags did make it, Ms. M," she beams. "Yes, the bags did make it. Many of the things that were inside those bags didn't," I'm tempted to tell her. However, I merely nod in assent. What's the point of rehashing my troubles.
Check-in process completed I wander towards the general area of the gate. It's past midnight. There're not many shops open at this time. I'm hungry. So is the brat. "Let's try the sandwich bar inside the coffee shop" I suggest. "Not that yucky disgusting place. Remember how you forced me to eat a sandwich there and I ended up with diarrhoea during our last trip?" she accuses. I'd better listen to her this time. I certainly do not want to repeat history. Out comes the methi theplas mom so thoughtfully packed us this time around.
I look around the deserted waiting lounge. Not many people to watch, except for the families stretched out on the dirty torn fake leather chairs. All the television sets in the lounge are tuned to Star News. Some village locals seem to be pretty displeased about some bus that has plunged into some ravine in the Chambal valley. Apparently the bus was filled with school kids on a field trip. I'm about to doze off into a drone induced slumber from the monotonous pitch of the anchor's voice. "Yikes! I'll be darned...if it isn't Maggi. After all these years!!" shrieks some woman in the foreground. I'm jarred awake. Did someone call out my name? I look around bewildered. For a moment I'm lost. I can't recall where I am. Then it all comes back.
"You'd better not have forgotten me," shrieks the female. "I know you recognize me, so I won't bother with the hope-you-remember-me line," she continues. Omigod! It's Snigdha, a friend from my days in the convent. It's been 17 years since I saw her last. "Of course I know you," I shriek back. "I'm older now, but not senile yet," I smile. We hug each other like the long lost buddies that we are. "Guess what! Meenu's here too. She's flying back to Canada, it seems," says Snigdha. "Really? I haven't seen her in 10 years."
I can't quite believe the swift turn of events. The dull three hour wait for my flight was turning out to be the crowning glory of my trip. The hours zip by. All too soon, it's time for goodbyes again. A stern looking Air India employee is shaking his head at me. They've apparently paged me three times already. I've supposedly been holding up the flight.
I guess I should apologize for my lapse. However, I'm not really filled with remorse at all. Instead, I bend down and touch the employee's feet. "Thank you for giving me this opportunity to meet my long-lost buddies," I tell the astonished man. "Let the plane wait. I want to spend some more time here," I plead still clinging to his polished Bata shoes. "What nonsense!" cries the man while using his walkie-talkie to radio some backup. "Snigdha, don't make me go. Tell the man we're meeting after 17 years," I look at my friend. She and Meenu squirm with embarrassment.
Security officials come rushing towards me. I let go of the death grip on the AI guy's feet only to grab the calf of the biggest guard. Several hands try to pry me away. "No, no" I cry out. "Please let me be!" I thrash my legs and shake my head to no avail. Suddenly, I realize how ridiculous my behavior must seem to everyone present. What had come over me? Why was I holding on to some stranger's feet? That too when he was merely a much-hated airport official?
I sober down and my arms hang loose beside me once again. Strong arms grab and shake me. I come to my senses. I see mom's worried face. I look around confused and disoriented. How come I'm home? Where's the airport? Where are the stern officials? Where's Snigdha?
Then, the lightbulbs go off in my brain. Yay! I can dream again. Yes, the stress is definitely wearing off. Apparently, so is the insomnia.

Roses for Valerie

The desert has been unusually cold this winter, and the poor brat is reaping the ill-effects of playing sweaterless in the school yard. The wracking coughs soon gave way to watery eyes and a high fever. A dreaded visit to the doctor confirmed my worst fears -- pneumonia. How come things start falling apart the moment MOH leaves town on work? I was driving to the drugstore to pick up the brat's medicine when I saw that the access road was completely blocked off. There were cops everywhere, and red flares lit up the night sky. Oh no! I knew someone had died. It wasn't until the next morning when I reached work that I realized the fatal car crash had taken place right outside my college. The grapevine had it that the person who had died was not a student at my college. Neither was she an employee. No one seemed to know what she was doing in the parking lot of the college on that cold dark night. It's been a week since the incident. The crash site is now covered with posters, candles, cards and other memorabilia. One of the bigger placards is hand-written and says "Valerie, we miss you!" in beautiful cursive. Groups of teenagers dressed in black surround the spot at all times. Some of them come armed with cameras wanting to pose next to the pictures of their missing friend. I'll probably never know who Valerie was, or what she was doing the night her life was so cruelly taken away. What was the mistake that had cost her so dearly? As I see the distraught teenagers walking up with flower bouquets at all times of the day, I can't help but wonder if Valerie misses her buddies as much as they seem to miss her. Is she looking down from heaven wondering when she'll ever get together with them again? Will she miss spending Valentine's Day with her loved ones? Did she leave behind a boyfriend or husband who will mourn her passing this Wednesday [a week to the day she died]? I can't help but recall Yeats' words "Was it needless death after all?". Valerie's life [and death] has definitely brought on "a terrible beauty" to Valentine's Day this year.

Trodding those Miles

Despite being a voracious reader, I've never been much of a poetry person. I do, however, recall some verses from famous poems the nuns at my school forced us to learn "by heart" for "recitation" exams. One of the few poems that has stayed with me all these years was penned by Robert Frost many moons ago.
Sure enough, buried in the deep recesses of our minds, we all have dreams and desires that we want to accomplish before we pass on. For some of us, it's traveling to different destinations. BH, my ex-boss and mentor, is an example of the traveller. She has a huge world map covering one wall of her office. Every time she visits a new part of the world, she marks the corresponding spot on the map with a white-topped pin. Despite her seasonal meanderings around the globe she does literally have many more miles to go before she can sleep. To this end, however, she has an edge over me. She has already realized a great part of her dream. I'm still at the nascent stages of my jounery.
Unlike BH, [or even my very own MOH] I do not like to travel much [unless it a shopping trip to India]. My journey is more figurative than literal. Two weeks ago, when my parents walked out of the terminal gate and into my extended arms, I was finally able to jab a figurative white pin on my road map to success.
Over the last decade, I've met and befriended several Indian immigrant couples in the US. Many of them are comfortable enough in their adopted country to "bring" their parents over for six-month visits every year or other year. My readers who belong to that category of desis who constantly have a set of parents visiting them may not be able to appreciate why I feel like I have climbed Mt. Everest. Only those close friends who have known my father will truly understand my joy.
Like Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, here is a man who is supremely at ease in his surroundings. I would not be lying if I say that I probably inherited the stay-at-home strand from his gene pool. Set in his ways is an understatement when it comes to my dad. To put it plainly and simply, the man does not like to spend even one night away from his home [and his routine]. To top that, he's also very traditional in thought. "How can I come and live at my son-in-law's house?" he asked incredulously when I first broached the topic of a US visit with him. "Well, I earn quite well, dad. Maybe you can think of it as spending your daughter's money and not MOH's," I argued. We've been going back and forth like this for well over seven years now. I had to finally pitch a real hissy fit and threaten to stop visiting India for good when I visited them last December for him to even consider the option of visiting me. I even threw in the "If you don't come help me with the brat for at least six months, don't expect me to come take care of you when you become old and senile," for good measure. I know. It was a cheap underhanded trick. But the blow found it's mark. He did make the token trip.
I strut around with an idiotic grin on my face these days. None of my friends can fathom the joy I experience when I go out with MOH on a dinner-and-movie-night sans the brat. "Oh! She's busy playing with grandma," I say nonchalantly to the surprised acquaintances. For the first time in 10 years, I don't have to come home to a quiet house. I don't have to cook my own meals. I can actually expect hot sweet chai in bed every morning. Ah! The supreme bliss of living with one's parents again!!