The thing about mid life crisis is that it can hit you at any age. Because no one grows old anymore. So mid life has taken on a spectacularly broad range, from 30 to whatever . You know you have MLC when....
a)You leave your job, for no apparent reason but because of a vague believe that you are meant for higher , better things. In your mind you can just see yourself hosting one of those ' Alaska in My Pajama' type shows on TLC.
b)You suddenly believe that you are immensely talented or athletic, and therefore pull out whatever stringed instrument you did not play in college, the theatrical masks, the bronzed with age dumbells, the old cult book you never read. Of course MLC makes everyone a great yakkidy-yaka storyteller/author/poet,movie maker. Tales of betrayal, lust and all the awesome things which never happened just flood your imagination, dont they?
c)You have an affair. You realise your life has rushed past .The love of your life, is probably married to you..and that means sex on national holidays and birthday's. Your children sometimes think.. but they don't necessarily think about you . So you rush off into the freshly waxed /pumped arms of another MLC patient.
d)You buy a really expensive bike . You think you would be happy that you suffer from a great Monday morning excuse called Bad Back, but NO, some red , silver, olive sheet of metal twists your heat into little pellets of Rosy love .And life seems meaningless unless the Big Baby gets his Roadie.
e)The female equivalent gets botox followed by liposuction ,a gay parade hair cut , a soap cougar personality and an evil tatto. When MLC wacks you across the many layers of your carefully acquired jingling tiers , you suffer sister, and you sincerely believe that if you change the way you look, life's gotta give. No comments, women never learn from their mother's do they?
f)MLC also finances a significant amount of the adventure touism industry. Honeymooners can salivate over their luxury hotel packages, but it is the MLC protagonist who wants to stomp the length of Antartica and width of Africa ...it is She/He who is solely responsible for all those crazy spikes on the road less travelled.
g)Our grandparents coped with MLC through religion , newspapers and frequent changes in their Wills which threatened to cut off all those children , friends and relatives who were out of favour at the current moment. But man did our parents show them how it was done. A friend's dad went off , one new year's evening to get a bottle from the corner store. He now lives in South America and is known as Ra The Lama on Facebook.
h)So here we are, getting older , filled with angst and lack of definition. Getting really pissed off with all the time that has slipped away without gathering a single rosebud. What do we do?
i) I say if we are going to do this, let's do this right..Lets get organised ...
Let's Get Started with some group discounts on motorcycles, wine ,botox, and adventure travels.
Let's start a ,MLC social networking site to exchange tips about rare recipes, installation art and of course the three most original ways to help us script/produce our Magnum Opus.
Let's get a, MLC channel which hosts progams like ' How i hate your mother,' and ' MLC Idol' , and ' How to become a Supermodel@ 40' .A channel which will guide us towards making the 'correct' wacky mistakes.
I would personally like to be an MLC Oprah...takers any one?
Monday, May 23, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Mea's Story : The Day They Came
It was a cold creaky night. The wooden boards of the verandah sighed, as though stricken from a bad bout of gout.
Mea crouched on the steps of the small verandah, nursing a smoking cup of hot chocolate.
She could feel Little Bozo trying to get his sticky hands into her pocket .
‘Mea are you sleeping?'
Mariamma’s check chant bounced off the stone walls, every fifteen minutes. Closeted in her warm kitchen she talked to her rosary and her God.
Mea nudged Bozo.
‘Ssssh, or she will come checking'
Bozo inched closer to her, put a grubby finger on his lips and smiled at his elder sister.
Hand in sticky hand, the brother sister duo sat and looked for the gate at the end of the garden. The cold night fog had hidden it completely. Sometime soon , the gate would open. A flicker from a lit cigarette would pierce the fog. The cement walkway would dance with the music from mama’s clackers. Then the gate would go swing-click-shut and papa would cough.
That would be their signal to leap into bed.
The waited silently. They counted five Mariamma calls . The chocolate was licked clean from the tip cup, but the gate did not swing. Suddenly, as though called for another urgent appointment, the fog vanished, leaving behind a night with a thousand stars.
‘Mea shall we go up, to the roof of the world?’
‘We can’t, that wicked witch locks it every night and eats the key up.’
Bozo smiled beatifically, reached for his pocket and pulled out the misshaped bronze key.
‘Where did you get that from?’
‘When she kissed me goodnight, I took it from her neck.’
Mea , spontaneously reached forward to twist his deceitful little ear but Bozo was already running towards the stairs.
The roof of the old wooden house , was bare except for some cans of paint.
In the distance, the black night had swallowed the brown mountains, the river had turned silver and the fields lay bare, shorn of everything but small, silent paddy.
Bozo saw them first.
‘Look Mea , by the river , look.’
Shattering the stillness of the night , a herd of wild white horses came galloping.
Their manes flying in the air, their grunts echoing through the night like cymbals.
‘Mea, they exist, papa told me a story about them, but I didn’t believe him. Mea they are real.’
Bozo was leaping from one side of the roof to another. Mea stood transfixed.
The pack moved with a single rhythm, as though choreographed for some grand carnival.
Their hooves played the bass in the night air, leaving behind little whirlpools of white dust.
The young foals in the middle, the larger horses at the front and the rear.
They streaked across the cold valley , proud , free, fearless.
Suddenly the fog descended again and they moved into darkness.
That was the day, Mariamma’s God was very naughty.
Mea spent her entire life, searching for the beauty of that single moment. When she was twenty one, she announced to the world that she was a free spirit. Her life post this declaration, followed the psychedelic yellow brick road to innumerable rehabs. The one addiction she could not be cured of ,was her need to fornicate with men who resembled horses.
Bozo spent his life, searching for the divinity of that single moment. He joined several orders, missions, the Peace Corps. He was last seen vanishing into the mountains of Afghanistan, at the rear end of a straggly group of defeated Al Quaeda soldiers.
There is probably a reason why Mariamma’s God doesn’t share the raw beauty of the naked universe with little children. They don’t handle it very well, do they?
Mea crouched on the steps of the small verandah, nursing a smoking cup of hot chocolate.
She could feel Little Bozo trying to get his sticky hands into her pocket .
‘Mea are you sleeping?'
Mariamma’s check chant bounced off the stone walls, every fifteen minutes. Closeted in her warm kitchen she talked to her rosary and her God.
Mea nudged Bozo.
‘Ssssh, or she will come checking'
Bozo inched closer to her, put a grubby finger on his lips and smiled at his elder sister.
Hand in sticky hand, the brother sister duo sat and looked for the gate at the end of the garden. The cold night fog had hidden it completely. Sometime soon , the gate would open. A flicker from a lit cigarette would pierce the fog. The cement walkway would dance with the music from mama’s clackers. Then the gate would go swing-click-shut and papa would cough.
That would be their signal to leap into bed.
The waited silently. They counted five Mariamma calls . The chocolate was licked clean from the tip cup, but the gate did not swing. Suddenly, as though called for another urgent appointment, the fog vanished, leaving behind a night with a thousand stars.
‘Mea shall we go up, to the roof of the world?’
‘We can’t, that wicked witch locks it every night and eats the key up.’
Bozo smiled beatifically, reached for his pocket and pulled out the misshaped bronze key.
‘Where did you get that from?’
‘When she kissed me goodnight, I took it from her neck.’
Mea , spontaneously reached forward to twist his deceitful little ear but Bozo was already running towards the stairs.
The roof of the old wooden house , was bare except for some cans of paint.
In the distance, the black night had swallowed the brown mountains, the river had turned silver and the fields lay bare, shorn of everything but small, silent paddy.
Bozo saw them first.
‘Look Mea , by the river , look.’
Shattering the stillness of the night , a herd of wild white horses came galloping.
Their manes flying in the air, their grunts echoing through the night like cymbals.
‘Mea, they exist, papa told me a story about them, but I didn’t believe him. Mea they are real.’
Bozo was leaping from one side of the roof to another. Mea stood transfixed.
The pack moved with a single rhythm, as though choreographed for some grand carnival.
Their hooves played the bass in the night air, leaving behind little whirlpools of white dust.
The young foals in the middle, the larger horses at the front and the rear.
They streaked across the cold valley , proud , free, fearless.
Suddenly the fog descended again and they moved into darkness.
That was the day, Mariamma’s God was very naughty.
Mea spent her entire life, searching for the beauty of that single moment. When she was twenty one, she announced to the world that she was a free spirit. Her life post this declaration, followed the psychedelic yellow brick road to innumerable rehabs. The one addiction she could not be cured of ,was her need to fornicate with men who resembled horses.
Bozo spent his life, searching for the divinity of that single moment. He joined several orders, missions, the Peace Corps. He was last seen vanishing into the mountains of Afghanistan, at the rear end of a straggly group of defeated Al Quaeda soldiers.
There is probably a reason why Mariamma’s God doesn’t share the raw beauty of the naked universe with little children. They don’t handle it very well, do they?
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Holidays i like
Wiki says that the word holiday originates from the phrase Holy Day, a day of special religiosity.
A holiday for me does bear a special religious significance, but that's because a large part of me, lives only for my next break. I like my holidays spectacular, i like my holidays to be so far removed from the normal humdrum of being, that when i look back at them I feel a quite sense of pride,accomplishment and some misplaced glory.
Glorious holidays motivate one to soldier on.
I sometimes keep a screen saver of where i want to go next. Whenever, i tear my hair or gnash my teeth and the phrase 'Why God Why' dances on the roof of my skull with tantric fervour, my screen saver serves up an answer.
Someone had said that the best things in life are not really things , they are rare and beautiful nothings. That certain someone must have been smitten by a random sunrise , sunset , bird call or an insect getting some action on a particularly green leaf.
Unfortunately while i am on the best of terms with God's Blue earth, i like my pillows fluffy, and room service, thank you very much!
When do you enjoy the rain, most?
When your at home with your feet up, sipping a cup of tea or
When you are waddling through drain waters, trying to bribe public transport to on board you.
Similarly
i enjoy trekking across mountains only if it's followed by a massage at a mountain spa.
I love drinking chai from the dhaba , as long as i get my 3 squares with embroidered napkins and a dash of silver wear
I love ancient rocks , as long as it form the wall of the unique heritage hotel at which i am staying .
I love citizens from all over the world , as long as they are behind the counter , look like their promised travel catalogue pictures, don't steal my passport or make random conversation or obscene gestures at me.
And of course i love my fellow companions, as long as they agree or simply fall in line with the above expressed points of view.
I do want to see the world, but i don't want to see it in a grain of sand , a cracked tea cup or a Patel tour.
Is the good Lord listening? Request : I dont want to hitchhike across the galaxy, i dont want to understand the zen of motorcycle maintainance , but i do want money money money, because it's rich man's world.
A holiday for me does bear a special religious significance, but that's because a large part of me, lives only for my next break. I like my holidays spectacular, i like my holidays to be so far removed from the normal humdrum of being, that when i look back at them I feel a quite sense of pride,accomplishment and some misplaced glory.
Glorious holidays motivate one to soldier on.
I sometimes keep a screen saver of where i want to go next. Whenever, i tear my hair or gnash my teeth and the phrase 'Why God Why' dances on the roof of my skull with tantric fervour, my screen saver serves up an answer.
Someone had said that the best things in life are not really things , they are rare and beautiful nothings. That certain someone must have been smitten by a random sunrise , sunset , bird call or an insect getting some action on a particularly green leaf.
Unfortunately while i am on the best of terms with God's Blue earth, i like my pillows fluffy, and room service, thank you very much!
When do you enjoy the rain, most?
When your at home with your feet up, sipping a cup of tea or
When you are waddling through drain waters, trying to bribe public transport to on board you.
Similarly
i enjoy trekking across mountains only if it's followed by a massage at a mountain spa.
I love drinking chai from the dhaba , as long as i get my 3 squares with embroidered napkins and a dash of silver wear
I love ancient rocks , as long as it form the wall of the unique heritage hotel at which i am staying .
I love citizens from all over the world , as long as they are behind the counter , look like their promised travel catalogue pictures, don't steal my passport or make random conversation or obscene gestures at me.
And of course i love my fellow companions, as long as they agree or simply fall in line with the above expressed points of view.
I do want to see the world, but i don't want to see it in a grain of sand , a cracked tea cup or a Patel tour.
Is the good Lord listening? Request : I dont want to hitchhike across the galaxy, i dont want to understand the zen of motorcycle maintainance , but i do want money money money, because it's rich man's world.
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