post 11-Some Nuggets

Date not clear: 2006. Some nuggets
This week I am sharing two bits I found floating around from a writing pad!
As many of you know she loved the inversion of her name and that’s how she signed. She also loved playing on the sound of words spellings and Sudoku. In Tamizh ‘pethal’ means nonsense and Suku considered herself an ace pathologist along with all her cousins.
A piece of pethology
(Found on the back cover of a writing pad)
This book belongs to me. The ‘me’ being Gowri ≠ irwog, where Gowri is my name and irwog is far from the same. How far? The exact distance is currently a matter being discussed and disputed. However the displacement is 1/∞ the distance is zero. Hence though Gowri and irwog may be =, they may also be unequal and the probabilities and possibilities stretch on in never ending elasticity. So while Gowri could be irwog, it could also not be irwog. Also while I could be sane I could also be insane.
So if Gowri =irwog when Gowri ≠ irwog, they are fictitious and so do not exist at all. So if Gowri and irwog do not exist who am I? One thing is certain, I’m not Spider man.

And A Short Story- not titled.
Barunta Khalifa sat on the roof of the pump house that summer afternoon, her hands wrapped around her knees. She loved to sit there like that all day long on top of the pump house amidst paddy fields. Now and then someone or other would stop by for a chat asking her why she sat there or telling her that it was dangerous or sometimes telling her that snakes would slither up. She enjoyed these conversations and love3d the well meaning advice even if it sometimes did irritate her. In the evenings her cousins would come and the goofy dog Ramu would trail behind them and bark excitedly and try to jump on to the roof when he saw Barunta perched on it.

They would switch on the motor and make the preparation for irrigation and jump into the pool for their evening bath. They’d ask her to leave saying they were now grown men and cousin or not her presence embarrassed them. She insisted that the pump house was hers and she’d turn the other way and enjoy the beauty of the sunset which sometimes reflected off the watery paddy fields.
She sat there watching a little kingfisher trying to fish in the little pond right in front of her. The peace, the quiet, the harmony –how nice she felt sitting on the rooftop. She had no duties no obligations, no chores, no responsibilities, no daily plans. She didn’t have to do anything. She was free to do as she pleased with her time and nobody would ask her a thing. There was a freedom here she found nowhere else. She could fly she could just jump off the roof and into the pool anytime she pleased. The thought made her want to jump. She was soon happily swimming in the pool in blissful solitude.
Then somehow she had enough of it and she decided she’d go back home. She walked through the fields. Her clothes dried against her in the scorching heat. She quietly went into the guest room where her suitcase was and began packing. That was it! How long could she go on, escaping reality? She’d have to pack up and go back home to Mumbai that overcrowded city with apace of life faster than the speed of light.
They asked her why? No explanations, nothing! They asked her to stay awhile longer. To no avail. So well, they all walked her to the station. Ramu trailed behind as usual, trying to chew her skirts. A tear filled farewell. The train rolled in. She got in. Ramu jumped in after her barking goodbye to his family. Everyone was surprised. She tried carrying him and passing him over to Zaheer bhai. It was no use. The goofy dog had made up his goofy mind that he was going with her. Nobody could change that. Somehow she was glad that she couldn’t change that.
The train rolled out of the station. More tears, more goodbyes. She looked out of the window scratching Ramu’s ears for him. A passenger came. Ramu was at his sociable best. And tried to jump on to him and lick him a warm welcome. She had a tough time controlling the goofy brute who wanted to embrace every passer by. Soon the train filled up and everyone glare at her once in awhile to show that they disapproved of the canine presence. It wasn’t too tough to ignore them. That evening she saw the sun set from her train window. She thought of her cousins shouting, fighting, screaming, jumping bathing splashing-as they did every evening forgetting Ramu, forgetting her. Probably her absence would make them feel less embarrassed, though they had exhibited no signs of embarrassment except in words.

The next morning they were in Mumbai. She got the train with her suitcase in one hand and Ramu in the other, pushing her way through the crowd.
She’d have to go back to her empty haunted flat and begin job hunting once again. Why? Why this self inflicted torture? She wondered what was wrong with her! Why had she decided to comeback to this filthy crowded hurried cluttered life instead of living happily blissfully peacefully in the pure clean beautiful countryside? Why?
A yelp shook her out of her self obsession. Poor Ramu! He was having tough time taking in the scale of the place the crowds jostling everywhere, the smoke the pollution the buildings the automobiles and the noise. The poor dog needed comforting. She tried to comfort him as best as she could and soon managed to find them a taxi. They drove home. It was Ramu's first taxi ride.