He’s given his sister an iPod and as he gets out of the car, loads his humungous suitcases (full of pieces of America that he will share with everybody he knows) on an airport trolley, he tells her, “This is not a time for understanding—there will be a lot of noise. So fill your life with music instead.” His sister drives off after a quick wave and a lump in her throat. She turns on the iPod to drown the tears that threaten her eyes and this is what she hears…
“Sail on Silver girl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine.
All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine.
And If you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.”*
*Bridge over Troubled Water, Paul Simon
Sunday, September 9, 2007
The World in Pink
You can see the world in a grain of sand or through rose tinted glasses. You can view it with your jaundiced best yellow, but have you ever seen the world in pink? Not that Pink is a favorite with me—a bete noire rather. Probably because of the stereotyping associated with it to format little girls from birth into sugar and spice and all things nice…yada, yada, yada.
Then you open your eyes on a rare cheerful Monday morning (because you met your deadlines on Friday…yeah!) and you find that your kid can’t open hers. They are stuck. You splash water, use a hot compress to pry them open and what finally look back at you are slits of pink that are anything but your child’s clear, bright, ‘why-why’ eyes! It can’t be—yes it is—she’s got the Pink Eye! The first few moments you try and retrace the steps of how it happened…a best pal got it; best pal’s mother got it before that. She’s a school teacher and must have had the little tykes around her sneezing and coughing on her face. “What can I do? They even feel that the sole purpose of my dupatta is for them to blow their noses on…I suddenly hear weird noises and turn to see my little ones trumpeting into it.” The cause has been established and now it’s time for damage control. Call to the doctor, drive to four medicine shops who don’t have the necessary eye drops. There is an epidemic on, I guess. The fifth—a dark dingy germ infested one does—beggars can’t be choosers so you buy it, along with a mild ‘preventive’ eye drop for yourself and bottle of sanitizer. You stand kid in a corner, hand her a pair of dark glasses and explain that you will have to play a game of dodge with her as you cannot possibly contract this color at all—you simply do not like pink. She looks on like a forlorn, nine-year old James Bond in dark glasses as you delineate the required rules of segregation—family later accuses you of apartheid but you don’t want to see in pink and would rather risk them seeing red.
Your colleagues definitely wouldn’t want you at work with traces of the pink hanging over you and thank god for a boss who is woman enough to understand the working mom. So you log on from home, only to have your kid walk up to your desk and ask, “What do I do?” Go and read a book which has a big enough print. 45 minutes later, “What do I do now?” Play something—go and pretend that you are Pinky the Pirate, off on a mission with Capt. Jack Sparrow or something like that. You asked for it. Out comes a Yankee Doodle with dark glasses and a wide brimmed straw hat, galloping on a badminton racquet singing, yes, you guessed it—‘Yankee Doodle’! It is sung in various permutations and combinations and at varied tempos. So inspired is she that she even thinks of setting up Yankee Doodle communities. After an hour, she comes up and suggests that you have worked enough and that now you should play with her. You remind her that its the way you earn to pay rent and buy the antibiotic eye drops that are due in her eyes now. She runs and hides the bottle. You find it and drag kid from under bed and do the necessary evil of dropping the medicine in her eyes to her shouts of “It stings!” Well, that’s what the pink eye brings.
Once back at your desk you get a half an hour of peace that the drops buy you and then she’s back. This time the suggestion is, “Just sit at the desk and work like you are doing right now and play ‘Koffee with Karan’ with me—you can pretend to be any film star you want to be and I’ll interview you”. Can I be a Count Dracula, I think with a very cold, chilling stare. “Or from the icy cold look in your eyes, Mimi, we could call the program ‘Sorbet with Sujata’, she says with a chuckle (she knows she is safe because I am maintaining a distance with the pink). At least she has a way with words. Finally, I give in to a game of ‘I Spy’. The only difference being that she begins with, “I spy with my little pink eye…” We spy as much as we can, sitting in the balcony and move on to reading the clouds. We actually spot a smile in the sky. What you are smiling at, I wonder—I have to be homed in, and live in fear of this little pink eye. Or may be it’s a sign I won’t get it, I hope.
Three days and I’m still safe. The domestic help walks in with pink puffed eyes—I unceremoniously walk her out and use generous amounts of sanitizer on the door knob and broomsticks. I’ve played dodge very well so far. I have been using the ‘preventive’ eye drops, kept all the pink-eyed ones at a distance and even slept with sunglasses on. Once her eyes are wide open and clear, kid goes back to school, relieved that she can now be in the more entertaining company of her peers. As I wake up, I am relieved that I haven’t got the pink slip yet considering I’ve been working from home and then…I can’t open my eyes! “Time to play dodge with you, Mimi?” grins the wide, why-why eyed kid. “You are the reason”, I sms in retaliation to the friend who started it all and she calls back on her way to work saying, “Think of it as an Annual Maintenance Program for your eyes.” Sister of friend calls with an I-told-you-she-is-the-reason subject line and informs me that all and sundry are seeing pink, even those who talked to her over the phone and live in other states—may be even other countries. I’m beginning to actually get a feeling that if you don't pass it on, it doesn't get cured…kind of like a chain email you hem and haw about deleting because of the bad luck it may bring if you did not pass it on. I got a cheery sms from The Reason asking me how the Annual Eye Maintenance Program was going. I replied “In swollen proportions”. Should have added pink to it.
Moral of the Story: Pink se panga nahi lene ka.
Then you open your eyes on a rare cheerful Monday morning (because you met your deadlines on Friday…yeah!) and you find that your kid can’t open hers. They are stuck. You splash water, use a hot compress to pry them open and what finally look back at you are slits of pink that are anything but your child’s clear, bright, ‘why-why’ eyes! It can’t be—yes it is—she’s got the Pink Eye! The first few moments you try and retrace the steps of how it happened…a best pal got it; best pal’s mother got it before that. She’s a school teacher and must have had the little tykes around her sneezing and coughing on her face. “What can I do? They even feel that the sole purpose of my dupatta is for them to blow their noses on…I suddenly hear weird noises and turn to see my little ones trumpeting into it.” The cause has been established and now it’s time for damage control. Call to the doctor, drive to four medicine shops who don’t have the necessary eye drops. There is an epidemic on, I guess. The fifth—a dark dingy germ infested one does—beggars can’t be choosers so you buy it, along with a mild ‘preventive’ eye drop for yourself and bottle of sanitizer. You stand kid in a corner, hand her a pair of dark glasses and explain that you will have to play a game of dodge with her as you cannot possibly contract this color at all—you simply do not like pink. She looks on like a forlorn, nine-year old James Bond in dark glasses as you delineate the required rules of segregation—family later accuses you of apartheid but you don’t want to see in pink and would rather risk them seeing red.
Your colleagues definitely wouldn’t want you at work with traces of the pink hanging over you and thank god for a boss who is woman enough to understand the working mom. So you log on from home, only to have your kid walk up to your desk and ask, “What do I do?” Go and read a book which has a big enough print. 45 minutes later, “What do I do now?” Play something—go and pretend that you are Pinky the Pirate, off on a mission with Capt. Jack Sparrow or something like that. You asked for it. Out comes a Yankee Doodle with dark glasses and a wide brimmed straw hat, galloping on a badminton racquet singing, yes, you guessed it—‘Yankee Doodle’! It is sung in various permutations and combinations and at varied tempos. So inspired is she that she even thinks of setting up Yankee Doodle communities. After an hour, she comes up and suggests that you have worked enough and that now you should play with her. You remind her that its the way you earn to pay rent and buy the antibiotic eye drops that are due in her eyes now. She runs and hides the bottle. You find it and drag kid from under bed and do the necessary evil of dropping the medicine in her eyes to her shouts of “It stings!” Well, that’s what the pink eye brings.
Once back at your desk you get a half an hour of peace that the drops buy you and then she’s back. This time the suggestion is, “Just sit at the desk and work like you are doing right now and play ‘Koffee with Karan’ with me—you can pretend to be any film star you want to be and I’ll interview you”. Can I be a Count Dracula, I think with a very cold, chilling stare. “Or from the icy cold look in your eyes, Mimi, we could call the program ‘Sorbet with Sujata’, she says with a chuckle (she knows she is safe because I am maintaining a distance with the pink). At least she has a way with words. Finally, I give in to a game of ‘I Spy’. The only difference being that she begins with, “I spy with my little pink eye…” We spy as much as we can, sitting in the balcony and move on to reading the clouds. We actually spot a smile in the sky. What you are smiling at, I wonder—I have to be homed in, and live in fear of this little pink eye. Or may be it’s a sign I won’t get it, I hope.
Three days and I’m still safe. The domestic help walks in with pink puffed eyes—I unceremoniously walk her out and use generous amounts of sanitizer on the door knob and broomsticks. I’ve played dodge very well so far. I have been using the ‘preventive’ eye drops, kept all the pink-eyed ones at a distance and even slept with sunglasses on. Once her eyes are wide open and clear, kid goes back to school, relieved that she can now be in the more entertaining company of her peers. As I wake up, I am relieved that I haven’t got the pink slip yet considering I’ve been working from home and then…I can’t open my eyes! “Time to play dodge with you, Mimi?” grins the wide, why-why eyed kid. “You are the reason”, I sms in retaliation to the friend who started it all and she calls back on her way to work saying, “Think of it as an Annual Maintenance Program for your eyes.” Sister of friend calls with an I-told-you-she-is-the-reason subject line and informs me that all and sundry are seeing pink, even those who talked to her over the phone and live in other states—may be even other countries. I’m beginning to actually get a feeling that if you don't pass it on, it doesn't get cured…kind of like a chain email you hem and haw about deleting because of the bad luck it may bring if you did not pass it on. I got a cheery sms from The Reason asking me how the Annual Eye Maintenance Program was going. I replied “In swollen proportions”. Should have added pink to it.
Moral of the Story: Pink se panga nahi lene ka.
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