Flamenco Season is Here Again!

Flamenco season is here again.

No, I’m not taking up dance lessons. Nor am I planning to fly to Spain to watch blonde-haired Jesus Cortes in action at the Patio Andaluz in Barcelona.

My life is nowhere near half as exciting.

With temperatures spiking, I have been gearing up for the latest season of the Lizards are Coming. It’s not a new horror show on Netflix. More like a live performance. The reptiles will be crawling out of the woodwork, in shades of brown, speckled, black and grey. 

Still, if they stayed put on the walls, I could have tolerated them. Thought of them as installation art on my walls. Jamini Roy. Lizard. Bernard Hoyes. Lizard. You get the drift. But when the damn creatures decide to go all pedestrian, “oooh let’s walk on the floor and all that” -- that’s when the problem starts. One minute, you are walking barefoot to get a drink of water from the kitchen in the middle of the night. Next minute there is a wet ssplishsquidge under your feet. Ughhh. 

The instant Gurgaon starts getting warmer, I steal furtive glances all over the place -- at the bathroom walls, behind the electrical appliances and under the beds. Any sign of movement and the frantic foot-tapping and hand-clapping begins. Instead of castanets, I have armed myself with Hit Spray.

I will do anything to get the damn lizards out of the apartment.

Though while I’m at it, I might as well get myself a red frilly dress and some exotic headgear. Make some money while I do pest control doesn’t seem like a bad idea after all. Oh and don’t worry, I will be careful with the Hit Spray. My eyesight is not that bad.

Tap Tap Tap

Spray Spray Spray

Stop right there
Don't you dare say Olé!

Clean-Up Quandary!

I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. I’m normally not a melancholic person. But I’ve been writing and reading some really dark stuff so there’s been a cloud hanging over me. That aside, some of this ruminating has been triggered off by a curious thing that happened the other day.

A man I knew briefly (we had exchanged a few emails relating to work and were connected on social media) seems to have died a few years ago and I had no clue. His updates and tweets (possibly auto-generated) had continued over the years. How on earth was I to know? A few days back when I was online on a business networking platform, I noticed an update from him on my newsfeed and beside his name, there was a line mentioning that he had passed on. I couldn’t believe it. I zoomed in and read the fine print again. It wasn’t a mistake. He was dead.

Since then, every time I spot a tweet or an automatic newsletter from his handle, I get a jolt. It’s odd when someone who isn’t around anymore sends you a notification. Gives you a turn, doesn’t it?

That’s when I started thinking. We leave the physical world when we breathe our last. What about the digital world? Do we ever leave it? Our profile, auto tweets and other random things we might have set up for business or pleasure go on forever (giving our friends and acquaintances) the jitters every now and then. 

I mean, imagine if I died and you got a reminder from FB to wish me on my birthday? Or got an automatic newsletter from me with the best news of the day. How would that make you feel? Even if you didn’t actually know me, had never ever laid eyes on me and were only a virtual acquaintance. Even then, it would give you quite a shock, wouldn’t it?

With everyone so protective of their privacy, passwords are not casually bandied about either. So my near and dear ones may not have a clue how to set things right. Not that I’d want them to. It would be the equivalent of going through my clothes and books and giving them away. I couldn’t have them go through the trauma of sorting through my digital rubbish.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the poor man and I hope wherever he is, he is at peace. I wouldn’t have been able to rest knowing I had left such a mess behind for people to clean. My house is bad enough. 

It’s time I cleaned up my digital act. As Queen had famously NOT sung,

Who wants to live forever?

physically or digitally? 

So better now than never! 

Clean up your act today.

Not on your Boat!

I am extremely wary of the sea. That I haven’t inherited my late father's seafaring qualities might have something to do with the fact that my earliest memory of him (and one I remember vividly) was going to see a movie called Poseidon Adventure when I was three. It was about a ship that was overturned by a tidal wave and almost everyone on board perished.

Now my father (whose ship had been run aground by a tidal wave in Hachinohe on the northeast coast of Japan in 1968, he survived by the grace of God) thought it would be a fabulous educational experience for his children. 

It wasn’t. 

It scared the living daylights out of me. And since then, I have kept a respectful distance from the sea. Ships and boats make me quite uneasy. Even slightly queasy.

Imagine my horror when I receive a gaudily designed whatsapp invite to a Titanic-themed Valentine's Day party in the condominium from my neighbour Mrs X a few days back. Once my eyes were able to focus on the rest of the card (after being temporarily blinded by the shining red hearts that filled up my mobile screen), I noticed a picture of Rose and Jack, hands spread out on the deck of the ship. The text said: enjoy a special evening with your loved one, dancing the night away on board the Titanic. Charges: Rs 500 plus taxes for dinner. A sumptuous fare of kali dal, paneer, chicken tikkas and biryani will be served. Booze unlimited.

Now, I am not sure why anyone would want to spend Valentine's Day on board an ill-fated boat that sank in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. That isn't remotely romantic, it is a recipe for disaster. I certainly wasn't going to. 

So I sent a polite message saying I was busy.

It should have ended there but the woman just wouldn’t take no for an answer. She sent me a message back saying “Why you are being anti-social?” She wrote that I should come with the hubby. He would enjoy it. They would be playing songs like Gallan Goodiyaan from Dil Dhadakne Do (a number I really love) and there was going to be red vaalvet cake for dessert.

Woman, even if you fly down Leonardo DiCaprio all the way from the US, I still wouldn’t go! No amount of chicken tikka and red vaalvet is going to convince me. I will listen to Gallan Goodiyan on YouTube and do a little jig at home. Perhaps if my father hadn’t taken me to see Poseidon Adventure all those years ago, I might have turned out differently.

So no, thank you. I'll pass.

In fact, the only boat I’m likely to set foot on is an ark should the world come to an end.

The End.

The Aquaman in my Life!

I have an Aquaman in my life but he is nothing like Jason Momoa. So, if you are thinking tall, hot bod and a heart-stopping grin, I’d have to disappoint you. 

My Aquaman is rake-thin and goes by the name of Roopesssss with an extra hiss at the end.  Like Arthur Curry, he is a man of few words. “Madamji, Roopesssss this side” is enough to make me swoon. His superhero costume is not shiny green and gold. It’s a rather tame pale blue shirt paired with navy blue trousers. And instead of the trident, he carries a black backpack that holds all manner of magical bits and bobs and rides a black Scooty. A seahorse couldn’t deal with Gurugram’s potholes and given the current political situation, a trident-carrying man might get frowned on.

Hold on a minute, I can see you frowning. I know what you are thinking.

You want to know what his superpower is, don’t you?

Well I’ll give you a hint. It has something to do with water! What else would it be? Duh.

There is a blue-and-white box suspended from the wall of my kitchen. That box contains the lifeline of my household. Every morning, the box spills out sparkling clean water, free of germs and sludge accompanied by the opening bars of Für Elise. We collect that water into bottles neatly lined up on the counter and drink it. It helps us stay healthy. Thanks to the magical box, we are not plagued by the runs. In fact most days we feel so fine, we can go for a run ourselves (Whether we do or not in reality is another matter altogether).

One night all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. I thought the Lord had finally sent the floods to wipe from the face of the earth the human race he had created. I cursed my luck (and my laziness) in dilly dallying with the ark. But then I realised that it wasn’t the Lord’s wrath but the pipes in my kitchen that had burst. Day and night, I pleaded with the plumber to repair the pipes so that we could put away our scuba diving gear. But the poor fellow would stare at me helplessly like a lost Nemo. Glub. Glub. Glub. That was all he could say. Till Aquaman came to the rescue and wielded his magic spanner. “The machine has malfunctioned Madamji,” he said. 

The box’s wrath turned out to be worse than the Lord’s.

Since then, twice a year, Aquaman emerges from where it is that he emerges from and makes sure the box is working properly and his minions are not plagued by floods or tsunamis. He vanquishes germs, kicks out the dirt and once more, there is peace in the Kingdom of Pure Water.

Then, he makes me sign on a pink slip that says service has been completed satisfactorily and jets off into the sunset amidst clouds of black smoke. I must remind him to get a PUC certificate next time he visits or his toxic seahorse .. erm ... scooty will be confiscated. The Gurugram traffic police are very strict. No allowances for superheros.