I once had lovely hair and then I shampooed

It always happens with me, that diva-like feel of freshly cut and blow dried hair only lasts till the next shampoo and later some (on really disastrous days most) of the locks refuse to stay put and start going haywire....its like a very disturbing version of flash mob cropping up in different parts of a city. Why o why? What is it with these keratin extensions that can make or break anyone's day??  

You see, I didn't care much about my hair initially. I used to see different hair styles on TV and think well they get paid to look that good. But after moving to this part of the world I saw those styles coming out of the TV sets and walking on streets, boarding a bus, doing grocery shopping....Rachel and Rapunzel were not fictional characters they were walking among us...no wait I, with my humble pony tail, was walking among them!

I remember watching one of those ruthless style check shows on TV once where this woman who supposedly knew all about the style (according to the producers of the show or was she the producer??) said that even if you are dressed in rags, if your hair looks like a million bucks you don't have to bother. That quote stayed in my mind and has come back to bite my behind when my scalp is witnessing its own version of Spring uprising.

Few years back when people would ask me did you just get a hair cut, I'd wear my "i-don't-care-much-about-my-hair" smile and reply "no i just shampooed", would do my secret victory dance and thank my genes! But that was then, now people's puzzled looks almost always get the reply "its the hormones! Having baby does that to you" (Ah the blessed hormones! From PMS ones to pregnancy ones, you can get away with almost everything by throwing them) This reply is brilliant!! Women who have had babies will empathize with you and women who haven't will sympathize. I have intentionally kept all the men out because they are incapable of noticing (keeping obviously S as reference) and if there are men who do notice I'll just pretend that I don't know them. 

But is it really about hormones?? A carefully tucked-away and conveniently ignored part of me says that it has something to do with the "nature vs nurture" debate. It tells me that my hair are not weeds, they need a lot of TLC which has been missing in their lives from quite sometime. All those people with lovely manes give a lot of time to their hair (and those who say that they don't, are lying). TIME, that ever-elusive rascal, will I ever get it?? Probably not so moral of the story is Time is not only money its lovely hair, make-up, ummm a good movie, nice read, looooong bath, window shopping....and the list goes on :)

Slumberama

"Sleeping is a waste of time!" The first time when I heard this from a friend my disbelief was almost like a knee-jerk reaction; how can someone say this, may be he is insomniac and doesn't know it poor thing!! 

But this was eon years back and I am a changed woman now; I totally believe this (and I am no insomniac for sure!!) This shift in my world view was lurking in the background when Aanya arrived but the tipping point reached when a certain modification occurred in my location. From living with an entourage to going solo; the two extremes of the spectrum comes with a set of similar reactions as well; let's just say that "sigh" is a double-meaning word for me now!


When I started working, I learnt the fact that no matter how "cool" or "relaxed" the job is, I will always have a "To-do" list. As my "bandwidth expanded" (corporate lingo hangover alert and I didn't want to write "as I grew older") the number of items started increasing. To my amazement and S's relief, a "to cook (read learn to)" section was added in the list and that was the start of its diversification. Over the years the list has had its period of highs and lows and gaps as well. But of late I am getting a feeling that the list is becoming more like an Excel worksheet (someone please tell me that I have quit my job  and am far away from Excel!!) You know that nagging feeling of having to call back a friend/relative/acquaintance but you don't really feel like? That's how each entry makes me feel; funnily enough this "list" is all in my head so you can imagine how crowded that space must have become. The more I sleep the more nagging the list will become so today's note to self (again in my head but in some other corner) "reduce your sleep time". 


That sorted, I start to wonder "how". I remember being bedazzled by this TV series called X-Files. (This was the time when I had discovered the word "forensic" and wanted to make a career in that field; had fallen in love with Scully's "business suits" and had the audacity to get one stitched and wear it in a cousin's weddings!! Those were the days :-)) Anyway coming back, one of the X-Files episodes showed how US had conducted experiments on its soldiers so that they don't feel sleepy, may be I should enrol into that programme and when  I come out triumphant I'll become the "the woman who doesn't sleep" or I may end up being an inspiration of another episode of a sci-fi series! Watch this space to know what happens...(calling Dana Scully and Fox Mulder)      

Babu...

Cleaning the study is a mammoth task in my house and a day to be noted because this the day when this item jumps out of S's looong to-do list and sees the light of the day! (You see no one is allowed to touch the study except for him!) Last weekend I was also involved (read forced to get involved) in the task and I must thank him for this! Reason? You'll have to read the post a little further...(I can sense you thinking that she is purposely doing this!)

So there we were categorizing every note, letter, statement and mundane document into not-so important, important, and very important. (we are talking 1 engineer plus MBA and one MBA here, what do you expect!) Sifting through the documents, I got to the stack of thin brown envelopes of registered posts with stamps from Varanasi PO and that characteristic handwriting...letters to me from babu. There aren't many...some are one pagers (mostly from Ma), some one-liners and there are a handful that stretched to more than 3 pages. But reading through those letters brought back so many memories! There were letters that talked about his academic achievements, letters that talked about his numerous trips, letters in which he advised me to save money either by quoting someone or using his signature terse sentences, letters in English in which he wrote the meaning of the words (that he thought I wouldn't understand) in parenthesis and letters in Hindi with his typical words like "kehne ka matlab yeh", "aanand raha"...I like his letters in Hindi more than the English ones...may be because Hindi made them more personal!

There is a constant flow of these letters through out the 2 years when I was studying...through them I re-visited the times when a cousin's wedding was being fixed, when Ma was attending seminars and conferences, when he was "helping" people to write their thesis, when Didi had come home with the kids, when his stories were being published...I could imagine him sitting at his desk, his fountain pen in his hand, one eyebrow slightly higher than the other and writing away effortlessly in that unbreakable concentration! That was one remarkable thing about Babu...his concentration...You would always find him working on tedious subjects, referring to the fattest dictionaries and frailest old books and writing pages and pages of translations in that unbearable heat of Banaras! (Anyone who has been to that part of the world knows that power-cuts are a part of life.) Distractions for him were very limited!

For me there will always be two versions of him; V1 was angry, scarily quiet and unapproachable and V2 was a friendly, chilled-out, music-buff who could give you advice on many things (sometimes advice on things that you wouldn't want to discuss with your dad :-)) The versions depended on which part of the day it was....evenings were mostly V2 and that's when I think he wrote these letters :-)

While I was reading those letters I was a naive, young woman in a big city and Babu's bachauaa (that's what he used to call me) once again! I was not a mom or a wife...it was just him and me! Now I know why he always preferred writing letters and not calling...I hope to write letters to Anna too so that she can also understand the worth and beauty of written words.

He taught me so many things...singing the beats and rhythms in a song, cursing with full passion, writing...here is one more to the list....the art of letter-writing!! Cheers to you Babu...I know you are up there somewhere sipping ur favourite scotch and discussing Manto, Begum Akhtar, Dickens, Bhimsen Joshi...the list is endless!!