A Fate to Fade...

Barring that illegible doctor’s scrawl in the prescription, I can’t think of too many handwritings I get to see these days.

Save perhaps my Mum’s printed handwriting in one of her letters.

Or hastily scribbled forms.

Or neatly signed cheques.

But such cases are less and far in between.

Of course there was the much-publicized hand-written letter by Barrack Obama in May this year, to the openly gayelle army soldier in Missouri, pledging the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) law. But then, such letters fall again in the category of exception than the general rule.

After all, who does handwrite letters anymore today, you’d think?

Some years back though, the scene was quite different. At any given moment of time, when a person would be stepping out of his house, his mental check-list would have looked somewhat like this:

Home keys – check
Car keys – check
Phone (if he had one) – check
Wallet – check
Pen – check

As compared to now, where the last item invariably sees an unceremonious knock-off.

Even kids these days, would possibly raise their eyebrows questioningly in a ‘you-don’t-really-mean-that, do-you?’ stare if you were to even suggest a module in cursive writing.

In all fairness, I don’t blame them - writing could indeed be messy and time-consuming, as compared to the easier texting on a mobile phone or shooting off a few sentences in a snap of a finger (for which we have the World Wide Web to thank)). No smudging, no dipping fountain-pen-in-ink routine, no looking for pencil sharpeners / erasers, heck - not even rummaging the drawer for a refill!

And now with technologies like fingerless gloves and electrical pattern-recognized algorithms being discussed as future realities, the art of handwriting looks set to fizzle out completely.

It is poignant – this ebbing, fading trend, a trend on its way to a definite extinction…

Especially for the school / college same girl who would use pens of all makes and colors to pen down her thoughts in her distinctive, loopy handwriting, doing-up her ‘i’s’ in fancy little circles, and who has now resorted to the more ‘convenient,’ no-fuss texting in getting a thought across as quickly as possible...

As usual practicality prevails over the channel adopted…

In Memoriam: Nani Ma (1924 - 04 September 2009)

One look at my petite grandmother, and it would have perhaps been difficult to imagine that her fragile structure once housed a remarkable, razor mind, but which life had debilitated.

And now, fate has taken her away.

Nani Ma, as we fondly referred to her – ensured that on our annual winter vacations, my brother and I were sunny-tempered children – a stark contrast to the grumpy / bratty sorts back home in Dehradun. She was the reason why a certain steel chest beneath her queen-sized bed, provided the only means to quieten us down / soothe our ruffled feathers. We never saw her deposit anything – yet it housed all that our young hearts desired – toys, sticky sugar-boiled sweets, imitation mint-sugar cigarettes, comics by the dozen, chocolates, fizzy drinks, crayons and colouring material etc. Sometimes, the ‘resourceful’ twit I was, I would will my cheeks to get drenched with streaming tears – just so that she would dip into the chest and hand me a delightful treat (much to the irritation of those cousins whose lachrymal glands were sorely out of their control).

Her lap was a fortress – if you were in it, nothing could touch you – no one’s temper (no matter how justified), no silly sibling’s slapping spree (Whoa – my alliteration sure is getting better by the day), no thunderstorm, not even Mum’s stern gaze for not finishing ‘em horrid green veggies or that acutely nauseating glass of milk.

Sometimes, the same lap was also our Godsend when we didn’t want to bathe.

A hug from her, and you would be enveloped in the same delicate fragrance as her – sandalwood / rose incense, Pond’s Cold Cream, betel nut leaves, and her patented lightly scented Keo Karpin.

Her ability to cause us to break into peals of laughter, was extraordinary, to say the least. And she didn’t even have to resort to tickling!

I remember our long walks inside tea estates – me clutching her index finger trustingly, trying to fog any shiny surface with the mist from my mouth. Sometimes I would loll my tongue out in mock-exhaustion, and the very next minute would find myself perched atop someone’s shoulders. Her story-telling half hour at bedtime was a ritual on those cold nights, and once back home, I would badger my parents to continue the practice, much to their exasperation.

I guess I am no different from other grandchildren who think their grandparents will live forever.

And in the next few years, get proven wrong.

R.I.P. Nani Ma.

Our world will not be the same without you.

My (Missing) Streak of Luck

A good friend won a spanking new car yesterday.

In a lucky draw, no less.

I, on the other hand, am the current promoter of the ‘I’ll-never-win-anything-at-the-lottery/raffle/lucky-draw-club.' Come to think of it, I probably will land up as chairing it too, considering my dry spell.

People try to console me that they haven’t won anything super-cool themselves. But what can explain this good friend in another city who has a home filled with consumer durables? So what, you may ask? Heck – all these durables are items she has won in raffles and lucky draws...

So while I religiously scribble out my digits onto some random form at some dim, red-lanterned Chinese restobar, glug the occasional ‘clear’ soft drink, or the lime and lemony variation, buy ice creams by the dozen, think where all I would roam if I were to win the sleek SUV they showed in the promos, look longingly at the fun destinations that are a slogan away, scratch my talons on some scratch card, the only thing I end up with are a hundred mini-explosions in my head – as my mind has roamed a tad too far.

I do have those two moments of living vicariously through some person who I feel, got cherry picked, for some serendipitous prize, or worse a fun getaway. But the feeling subsides all too soon, and gets replaced by a ‘Why-couldn’t-it-have-been-me’ melancholy. Of course, the very next lucky dip ‘draws’ me soon, and all is forgotten, giving way to a sense of perky euphoria.

There are some times when I do win the occasional Housie / Bingo, a couple of hundreds making their way into my pocket, but the greedy lil’ pig I am, I’d probably toss my hair and wrinkle up my nose at anything less than winning at the Vegas Wheel of Fortune slot machines.

That is me.

Willing to be proven otherwise that it is not my cosmic lot in life to be unlucky...