The girl had no name

She had bright, big, shiny eyes.
Maybe 2-3 months old.
We used to meet almost every morning when Alex and I went for our walk.
She was a bit weary of Alex in the beginning but got over her fear with time.
With me she was always in a mood for a chat and I talked her up, teased her whenever we met.
Her coat was a mix of black and brown with a white patch here and there. She was small, with cute drooping ears. Must have had a daschund somewhere in her ancestors.
I had contemplated adopting her a couple of weeks back but with the upcoming summer break I postponed it.
Met her today morning around 6:30 and she was in good spirits and walked behind us for a bit. I came back on the reverse loop of the walk after hardly 10-15 mins and I saw what seemed like a bundle of cloth in the middle of the road where we had met.
She was no more.
It broke my heart. Such is life and such is fate.
She might not have a name, but she will never be forgotten.

Path of the Grimreaper

 "The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living."

Last night while dropping Indira mausi to her home, she was reminiscing about her youngest sister who died of breast cancer in her early 20s. This was around 5 decades ago. Vijay mausa was posted in Jammu then. She said that she never dreams, but the night Tunnu mausi passed away she got up with a start when she saw a sheet covered body lying on the floor in her dream. The next morning mausi got a call from Lucknow about the death of her sister the previous night. Till the time she hadn't seen Tunnu mausi in her dream she wasn't even aware that in Hindus they keep the dead on the floor, she said. My aunt had been sent back from Bombay to Lucknow after the doctors realised that the cancer had spread. Every 15 days she used to get medicines for her cancer from Tata Memorial Hospital. The time when she passed away the postal department had gone on strike and the medicines weren't delivered. There used to be no courier service in those days and Tunnu mausi passed away in KGMC as her medicine couldn't reach on time.
This news of yesteryears affected me  and made me think about all the other dramatic deaths and life events I had heard about from the maternal side of my family.
My maternal grandfather had a son from his first wife. She died during childbirth while delivering her second kid. A daughter. Her husband, my grandfather went into such a shock from her untimely death that he went straight to the cremation ground from the hospital, did her final rituals there and left the place. He never went back for the baby. All this he had told to my brother and I came to know this way after his death. He had always been a very upright officer and a gentleman, a self made man, an exemplary engineer,  a disciplinarian father (he had 3 sons and 4 daughters). The fact that I have an aunt, maybe first cousins, nieces and nephews around me who I have no clue of, haunts me to this day.
In my grandfathers defense all I could say is that death affects one in different ways. He had a rough, traumatic childhood and a close encounter with death. Once when he was very young he got high fever. It got worse over days and eventually he lost conscious. He had no clue for how long he had passed out. When he finally regained consciousness he realised that except for his father his whole family had been wiped away by the small pox epidemic. His mother, siblings, everyone. Everyone. One moment you have your whole family around you, you pass out, the next moment when you regain your senses,  they have gone forever. No final goodbyes, no closures.
The things we read about in textbooks of medicine and pathology, the images we see in movies of epidemics and disasters, the pathos which are described, he had been through them, and survived.
I had a bad night and woke up with a slight headache today. I even woke up at night, sat upright on my bed and was calling someone before going back to sleep. The dreams were emotive and impressionable, and there were two people in it, though I cant remember them in detail. If I am able to recollect I will describe them here.

B/721

Last night I was in the house of my birth. My maternal grandparents home in Lucknow.

It has been sold and demolished now and a new house had come in its place which also has been demolished. Something new might be coming up there.

In my dream the original house had been reconstructed in just as it was all those years back. My grandparents were not there but the house more or less stood as it had then. The walls now were cream instead of white. The few changes that I noticed were that there was a wall between the drawing  and dining room now with a door leading to it, the window facing the school in the last bedroom was not there and there was a passage from the gallery to my Nani's prayer room next to the front bedroom. There was a lush green grass on the front and the side of the house.

Some doctor was planning to buy it for 21 or 22 crores and turn it into a nursing home in my dream and I was wondering if I could occupy it and prevent the sale. Kirti was there and she was discussing what the size of the plot would be and how much it must cost. So in a way the dream was pretty much entrenched to my present life though with a bit of a twist.

This dream obviously wasn’t something related to my past life as I was still me as I am today but maybe it could have been something from a parallel universe where things were a bit different but still the same in the broader sense.

Khushila

I met a young girl, standing at the McDs takeaway selling bubble maker.
Started chatting with her after buying a bubble maker while waiting for our order.
She must have been around 6-7 years old but was not sure and said that she was 4. Very sharp and lively with bright eyes and beautiful teeth. I asked her about studies (she didn't), timings (9 to 1), family (her mom and sister also did the same thing and father was a bus driver, or so she said), residence (near Amity university) and how much she earns in a day (she had 5 bubble makers and had sold 2, in which she reminded that one was bought by me!).
What charmed me was not the conversation, which the way I have put it, sounds pretty mundane, but her spunk and joie-de-vivre were a sight to behold! I even went to the extent of asking Jai, my son, if we could adopt her :)
I regretted not ordering anything for her from the counter so gave her our pack of French fries when they were delivered at the take out.
She looked at them with suspicion and asked what is it? I said potato sabzi. She took a bite and totally approved of it. As we moved away I could see her running with the packet to the pavement outside the mall where her sister and mom were sitting. Mom was breast feeding a baby.
I was so touched by her gesture. She could have had the fries on her own without anyone knowing, she had been standing in the sun since morning and must have been hungry, but the minute she got something to share she ran towards her family.
Someone had very wisely named her Khushila - "the one who brings joy!"

Perfect journey

The perfect journey jumped out of story books and became a real thing on 25th of February of the year Two thousand and nineteen, in other words this Monday.
The cab was available at 4:45 a.m.
The driver was just adjacent and knew exactly where to come.
He got there at the boarding point before I could get there.
He didn't speak a word.
We got to the terminal well in time.
I got the shortest line entering the T1 airport terminal at Delhi.
The luggage drop queue was short and fast
I had my boarding card and the luggage checked in within blink of an eye.
Got the shortest queue of a couple of people, while the other queue appeared a mile long at the security check.
Just breezed in for frisking
For once my baggage wasn't opened up and enquired about at the x-ray.
Got a surprise 25% discount for the take away at Starbucks!
Boarding had started by the time I reached down.
Was the last passenger on the bus to.the aircraft and it moved just as I got in.
Was the first to board the craft from the rear gate.
Had a nice nap on the flight.
Was the last to get on the bus to the terminal at Lucknow and it moved as I got in.
My luggage slid in on the conveyor belt as I entered the terminal.
Jazzed up to my parked car.
Negotiated and got a discount on my parking fee
Sped home unhindered.
Took Alex for a short walk
Got to college well in time.

It can't get more perfect than this!

P.S.: came across a brand new white SUV with Neem Karoli Baba sticker on the windscreen while on my walk with Alex. That guy is famous for such small miracles kind of stuff. So I wondered.....

Bad egg day

The title may sound similar to good hair day but the similarity ends there.
Eggs constitute a major part of my breakfast and they invariably a part in some form. 
I follow the same routine to make them but the results can vary according to conditions still unknown to me. Some days they turn out picture perfect and then there are days like today.
I made 3 today. All the 3 different and all the 3 screwed up.
First one was for Alex which was both over and under cooked at the same time. Then it was for Jai which stuck to the pan despite my taking all precautions. The omelette was supposed to be fluffy but it ended up being a crossover between an omelette and a scrambled.
I was last on the list and I fell back upon my "could-not-go-wrong" recipe of single half fry. It bombed.
The egg stuck to the pan, the yolk was running all over the plate - different egg, different style, different pan. 
Same result. 
It was just not my day.

3 things

3 things defined yesterday i.e. 19th of February 2019, a Tuesday. Raman's B'day.

All the three traveling from the past to the present.
First was the thing about the fish. I was gifted an aquarium around 7-8
years back by Bro Joshi. It was a rather small one but as I was new to
hobby it sufficed. I experimented with a lot of fish, starting from the
ubiquitous gold fish and finally ended with tinfoil which are a very
hardy.and dependable variety of carp. I have had carp now for over 6 years
now.
Yesterday the last of my first lot of tinfoil was all groggy and *grey*. It was
swimming upside down in the morning and scaring the hell out of other fish
plus looking super creepy. I tried to revive it by putting the
antimicrobial medicine in the tank in the morning and left things to fate.

Second was the thing about the car. I took the old nano after quite a while
to college. There was a slight drizzle just before college and as always I
was just running on time. I was a bit fast when I approached the cut for
the side lane which leads to college. Must have been at 80km/hour or so. I
made a slight cut to the left to enter the service lane while hitting the
brakes. Due to the wet road and loose gravel the car started skidding to
the right. Something like you would see in Tokyo Drift. The thought that
came to mind was that the front right tyre is about to hit the sidewalk. As
I am sliding and just inches away from hitting, I disengage the brake and
hit the accelerator. The car whizzes past the sidewalk by a whisker!
More then anything I was amazed with all the thoughts that went through my
head and how composed I was throughout. Very zen like. Though the whole
episode would have been over in a few seconds at the most. Reminded me of a
time 12 years back when I almost died while speeding on Mahesh's Maruti car
while on my way to a party in front of MB Club. Though that night I was
drunk and the car skid a full 180 degrees!

Third was the thing about the moon last night. I was riding my bike on the
way to CA and I was stuck by the enormity of the moon from the CMS flyover. I
was literally forced to stop the bike and click pics by my lunar obsession.
Later on I came to know that it was something called as the Super Snow moon
and would be the biggest full moon of 2019!
Ever since I was a kid I had a thing for the moon. I used to imagine that
it was following us during night travels by car. We used to lie down on the
cot on the roof and stare at the moon. Those days there used to be
minimal street light and traffic so the moon was all the more brighter.

On the whole it was a bit of a Murakami-ish day with slightly strange
events and an overcast moon. The perfect setting for a good short story of magical realism.

P.S.: In the end it was not to be. The tinfoil had grown to a respectable
size of around 6 inches and its time had come.