What's cooking?

The folks in the flat upstairs are definitely involved in something shady.

For the last month or so, as soon as I lay me down to sleep, I hear noises.

Bump …. thud … bump

 

The first night I thought they were rearranging furniture.

 

But every single night?

 

The bizarre medley of noises include the sound of running feet, a series of muffled thuds, random chairs being dragged, pressure cooker whistles and vigorous mortar pestle grinding.  Now these are normal household sounds, you would argue. You are right. Of course they are. But who cooks at midnight?

 

Some days, it feels as though the ceiling will come crashing down on my head from all that running and thud-ing. Given the recent unfortunate happenings in Gurgaon, I’m not taking any chances. I have started going to bed wearing my Sunday best. Freshly laundered.

 

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the folks upstairs were disposing of a body. But unless they were part of some crime syndicate (Gurgaon Gangsters Alliance?), I can’t think of why they would need to dispose of a body every night. Perhaps I read too much crime fiction but a pressure cooker going off in the middle of the night is a red signal for sure. What or who are they cooking?

 

I’d watched a movie in my teens called The ‘Burbs and the scenario is uncannily similar. There’s definitely something cooking if you know what I mean *wink wink*

 

Perhaps I should call up the RWA and tell them about my plight instead of letting my imagination wander. But my brains are all muddled up from lack of sleep and I have no clue what to say.

 

Any ideas?

Things that go BLEAT in the night!

The silence was punctuated by a series of unearthly sounds.

Aaaa eeeee ooooo aaa eee oooo aaa eee oooo

 

I dropped the bowl of ice cream in fright and dashed out of my room to investigate.

 

It was nearly midnight and everyone should have been asleep. I stress on the word should since the pandemic (and Netflix) has messed up our sleep cycles. I stood in the corridor of our flat trying to ascertain where the odd sounds were coming from. The door to the teen’s room was ajar. What on earth was she up to?

 

My first thought was that she was holding a séance. That would explain the peculiar noises. When we were teenagers, we’d often play around with home-made Ouija boards (more about that later) so I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was doing something similar. I took a deep breath and peeped in cautiously.

 

The room was dark with fairy lights twinkling like stars near the window.

 

She was in front of her laptop, making weird sounds.

 

Aaaa eeeee ooooo aaa eee oooo aaa eee oooo

 

“What in god’s name are you up to?” I yelled at her. “Have you seen the bloody time?”

 

She grinned sheepishly and gestured for me to pipe down as she was on a call with a friend. Turns out the two girls were doing an online quiz and one of the clues involved figuring out what a mountain goat does. Hence the Alpine yodelling in the middle of the night!

 

The pandemic has messed with our brains, some of us more than the others. Now I’m not sure whether I'm shocked or relieved that she wasn’t invoking spirits from the other world. The house is cramped enough as is. Not sure we have space to accommodate more souls. Hopefully, now that things are coming back to normal, she can go outside and be a regular (masked) teenager again. I will tell her to refrain from bleating when she’s outside though. Not sure the goats of Gurugram will take kindly to cultural appropriation.

Monkey Business!

Where have all the monkeys gone?

 

No, I’m not improvising on the lyrics of the Pete Seeger song, silly! This is a genuine question. 

 

The monkeys that have been part and (hairy) parcel of my existence over the 21 odd years that I’ve lived in Gurgaon seem to have disappeared during the pandemic. You might think it strange that I’m missing a monkey of all things but the truth is, I’d gotten used to watching them as they wreaked havoc on my balcony, trampling my plants and breaking my ceramic planters. A watered-down version of Planet of the Apes if you will. 

 

Yes, one of them did pee all over my nasturtiums. Nasty business that was.

 

Every year, the monkeys would pay me a visit once or twice around this time. They’d come alone or they’d bring their entire families along. Their arrival would be announced by a bloodcurdling shriek (from the person who had spotted them) followed by doors and windows banging shut and the metallic clang of the rails as the primates jumped from one balcony to the next. If the monkeys had nothing better to do, they’d stare at us, rubbing their noses against the glass windowpanes. I guess it’s fair to say that there was curiosity on both sides of the glass.

 

I’d have expected them to return in greater numbers during this period. After all, wasn’t nature healing and all that? There was some talk about relocating them to Ferozepur Jhirka in neighbouring Nuh but the environmental activists were putting up a fight. According to them, the authorities do not have the equipment – either trained handlers, rescue ambulances and veterinary doctors - that can take care of the relocation exercise safely. Most of the time, the authorities rely on private catchers who trap the monkeys using langurs and then, after a couple of days, release them somewhere else. According to official estimates, Gurgaon has around 30,000 monkeys. That is a whole lot of monkeys that need to be treated with care.

 

Could the plan to relocate them have already begun? If not, where on earth are they?

If you have news of the missing monkeys, do share. NO rewards are being offered at this point of time.

 

 

 

 

 

A Shot in the Arm!

 

84 days.

 

I could have circumnavigated the world in this time - like Phileas Fogg. Instead I stayed locked up in a poky apartment waiting for an injection. Well, not just any ordinary injection but one that will keep the horrid coronavirus at bay. At least I hope it will. From what I hear, the sneaky Delta variant is giving all the vaccines a run for their money. So we have to get our shots, keep our masks on and carry on social distancing till kingdom come.

 

Sigh.

 

I have a list of things I want to do when I get the shot in my arm. I want to hop over to my favourite café – stuff my face with my favourite chocolate, almond and orange cake (under my mask of course) and stare at folks within safe distance. It’s been years (literally) that I have sat at a public space and eavesdropped on conversations. I want to go grocery shopping and run my fingers along the spines of books at a bookstore. Online shopping is no fun at all!

 

I haven’t been this excited about anything in a long while. I keep telling myself it’s only an injection when it feels more like a magic potion. Hopefully soon, when we have all been vaccinated, the world will become safe to navigate again. 

 

With masks on.

 

To Market, To Market!

“Where would you like to go when the pandemic is over?” my friend asked me the other day. She had been regaling me with her plans to fly to Europe with her partner as soon as the ban on international flights was lifted. “To the grocery store next door,” I mumbled, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden. 

 

The phone line went suspiciously silent for the next couple of seconds.

 

I know I sounded terribly pedestrian. There she was waxing eloquent about the French Riviera while I just wanted to go to the market next door. But the truth of the matter is I’ve been fantasizing about that trip for over a year now. To walk down the aisles, pushing my shopping cart, the sound of the wheels as they skid over the shiny floors like music to my ears. The stacks of colourful cartons lined neatly on the shop shelves, cereals, biscuits, chocolates, masalas and what have yous. The cold storage section a few steps down where slabs of meat and fish with glazed eyes lay in glass boxes waiting to be sliced and sold. The fresh greens (and yellows and reds) and the delicious smelling loaves of bread. Better than a trip to Saint-Tropez any day. 

 

Okay, maybe not. But I’ve been locked up at home for a year and I miss being inside a real store. It’s not the same, being on an app, looking at pictures and swiping. I can’t read the fine print, check the expiry dates, poke and prod to check the freshness of the produce. My heart sinks each time I see battered boxes and wilting vegetables at the lobby of our condo. I can’t wait to go back and stand in line once more, throwing murderous glares at errant Gurgaon men and women who want to jump the queue. Cannot wait.

 

My friend clears her throat. “Babes, I think you’ve been locked up for too long. The pandemic is playing havoc with your head.” “And my vegetables too,” I retort indignantly. “I got a sack load of rotten potatoes today. Can you believe it? It’s daylight robbery!”

 

She sighs and I hear a click of the phone being disconnected. I guess she won’t be calling me for a while!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mughal E Azam 2.0 - Brick in the Wall

When I decided to write a modern-day fictional adaptation of Mughal-e-Azam a couple of years back (still writing it BTW), I didn’t realize my art (if you can call it that) was going to imitate life. Cut to the present. April 2021 - the condominium in which I live, is inching close to being sealed by the authorities in Gurgaon as we have had a significant outbreak of coronavirus infections. 

Now I truly understand what Anarkali must have felt like when that first brick was laid. 

Okay, I guess I’m being slightly dramatic here. I’m not being walled in. One of our gates has just been sealed and residents have been asked to clamp down on visitors and domestic help. Not just that, there are a couple of Plods manning the main gates and several inside the condo making sure folks don’t break rules. So if you are out without a mask or two, gossiping in a group or trying to sneak out after curfew hours for a drink with your buddies, you will be marched to prison. Do not pass go. Or collect the 200 dollars. Straight to prison I expect. Or worse, the entire condominium will be sealed off from the world at large. 

 

Mughal E Azam 2.0. Except my Salim is sitting beside me, balding and spectacled, completely zoned out from being on zoom calls with clients. On my part, I’m jumping around from one room to the next like a cat on hot bricks. I don’t think that qualifies as dancing.

 

I’ve been told our condo is a containment zone. That’s what they call places that have a huge spike in infections. By policing it, the authorities hope to bring down the cases. A few of my friends whisper conspiratorially (over the phone) that they are in Large Outbreak Regions. All of these sound like names out of a dystopian novel -- so you have to excuse me for hyperventilating a wee bit.

 

Breathe in, breathe out.

 

I haven’t had any visitors or domestic help for over a year. From the first week of March 2020 to be precise. I’ve been scrupulously washing my hands using up gallons of liquid soap, wearing an array of masks and staying away from everyone and her aunt. Other than minor episodes of cabin fever, things have been mostly fine. But now, things are getting tricky.

In my version of the story, Anarkali escapes by taking a flight out of Gurgaon. I’m not sure that will be possible in real life. Perhaps I could be a fly on the wall instead?

 

(To be contd)

 

 

 

 

The Perfect Girl

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay 

Ma’s head fell back against the pillow and I heard soft snores. She had finally fallen asleep after tossing and turning in pain for several hours. I stared at the clock mounted on the wall. It was nearly four in the evening. I hadn’t eaten anything in hours and my stomach had begun growling angrily in protest. If I rushed down and grabbed a quick bite at the cafeteria downstairs, I’d be back in time for the doctor’s evening rounds. Picking up my bag, I made sure ma was fast asleep and made my way to the tiny café crammed between the reception and the pharmacy on the ground floor. 

As my rotten luck would have it, the café was jam-packed. People were spilling out of every corner, all the tables were occupied. I walked up to the counter looking back over my shoulder to examine my surroundings once more. Perhaps there was an empty table I’d missed? But no, there wasn’t an ounce of space free anywhere to have a cup of tea and croissant in peace.

“Should I pack it for you?” the boy stared at me expectantly over the counter.

“Why don’t you sit here?” someone called out from amidst a sea of faces. I looked to find a woman sitting by herself at the one of the tables. I hadn’t noticed her before. She pointed towards the empty chair in front of her. “There’s no one with me, you can sit here and eat if you like.”

Now I don’t really like sharing tables or eating meals with strangers. But I was ravenous and there wasn’t much time to spare. Besides I didn’t want to appear rude. So I agreed albeit slightly reluctantly. She seemed pleasant enough. Small with a thin, drawn face and laugh lines around her eyes. Medium length brown hair framing her face. I could see a faint line of vermillion at the parting of her hair and a black-and-gold mangalsutra around her neck.

“You have a patient here?” she enquired as soon as I sat down opposite her. Oh no, what have I done, I thought to myself. I wasn't in the mood to make polite conversation with her. There was too much clutter inside my head. I was worried about my mother, anxious to meet the doctor. Exchanging pleasantries with strangers that one randomly meets at hospital cafes was not something I was prepared for.
I didn’t say anything out loud. I smiled weakly and told her that my mother was admitted and she’d had surgery. She nodded sympathetically. I felt as though I was obliged to return the favour by asking her the same question. So I did. “Are you here to see someone?”

She stared at me for several minutes as though formulating what to say in her mind. Finally, after a longish pause, she said, “I’m here with my husband. He had a biopsy done.”

Over the next fifteen minutes or so, she proceeded to tell me about her husband and how she had noticed a lump in his throat and the family doctor had advised a biopsy to rule out cancer. She told me that they lived in a joint family with her in-laws and no one had a clue that the two of them had come away to get the biopsy done. She didn’t think it right to alarm her husband’s elderly parents. “If cancer is detected, we will have to tell them. Why worry them unnecessarily?”

I nodded. She was right in a way.

The croissant had arrived. But I wasn’t able to eat it. She hadn’t finished talking. Her husband’s biopsy wasn’t the end of her tale. She told me about her husband’s soda bottling plant and her two sons who were gearing up to take over the family business from their father. The eldest chap was ready to get married and she was looking for a bride for him.

“You see,” she said, taking a sip from her coffee cup. “My son is perfect. He doesn’t drink or smoke. He has no bad habits. I can’t find a single girl who matches up to him. Besides we live far away from here, in a village on the outskirts of Gurgaon. I can’t find anyone who is prepared to settle there. All the girls we meet, the young and modern girls of today, want to live in the big city, go to malls, do shopping. I can’t find anyone willing to leave the pleasures of the city and live with us in a village.”

I nodded my head as though I understood. I mean, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t believe that she was telling me all this. After all, I was a complete stranger, sharing a table with her in a hospital cafeteria. Why on earth would anyone blurt out so much about their personal life to a stranger?
I realized that I had to make a quick getaway without hurting her feelings. This was getting way too awkward. I wrapped the croissant in a napkin, drained the contents of my cup and got up quickly. “I have to go now,” I said glancing casually at the clock on the wall. “The doctor will be making his evening rounds and I don’t want to miss him.” It wasn’t a lie.

She looked disappointed and I felt like a heel. “Oh yes, of course. No problem. Take care. I hope your mother gets well soon.”

“I hope your husband is okay too. Don’t worry too much. I’m sure you will find the perfect girl for your son.”

I think about her a lot. I wonder whether she did find that girl after all.