In the name of the Bartender. Amen
For Shruthi :oD
In the name of the Bartender. Amen
On the eight day
the Bartender created
a bubble.
Warm and fizzy.
The bubble gurgled its way up
and detonated with a cheery bang
that escalated you into the fifth dimension.
On sunup of the ninth day
crawl out from under the table
feeling like a just-born Giraffe.
Now repeat after me:
I will never spike my ninth Vodka with Rum and ketchup with my left toe on my right ear and my right toe Heaven-knows-where at 3:27 a.m.
The Karmic Bartender knows best.
Om.
i know i'm infinitely screwed when i start posting academic writing on my blog but i could'nt resist after all that talk about abysarika and vipralaptha on my scrap page!
The Ashta Nayika’s in Classical Indian Literature and Performance Spaces in the specialized context of Jayadeva’s ‘Gita Govindam’.
Somewhere in timelessness a dancer whirls, caught in a hypnotic trance. She, like a marionette in the hands of some unnamable sutradar is in the hold of some ethereal deluge of emotions that transport her into another realm. In a space of around two hours she takes her audience through an entire lifetime’s reactions. Such is the authority of the rasa in Indian performance traditions and the woman who masters the nuances is the nayika, an intellectualization of a state of being.
The naiyika or heroine of Indian performance and literature is a woman separated from her beloved. In most cases the beloved is a metaphor for divinity and the nayika becomes the jeevathma or soul yearning for the paramathma or the universal animator. On the other hand it is imperative for one to realize that most Indian art and literature is essentially erotic in nature. Eroticism does not mean sleaze and c grade pornography; Indian literary theories celebrate sexuality and the body as hallowed space for union with a higher spiritual energy. Indian traditionalists classify these heroines into eight. The ashta (eight) nayika’s are the sentient force behind most classical Indian art and literary practices.
The Gita Govindam is an eighth century poetic work by the poet saint Jayadeva, a contemporary of the Oriya ruler Lakshmanasena celebrating Lord Krishna the embodiment of love in various moods. Radha, the nayika of the treatise is regarded as the mahabhava or personification of all moods and emotions in perfect tandem and harmony, in short inspired perfection. Taken in context it is very possible to attempt a deconstruction of Jayadeva’a Radha using the nayika tradition.
Beautiful Radha, jasmine-bosomed Radha,
All in the spring-time waited by the wood
For Krishna fair, Krishna the all-forgetful, --
Krishna with earthly love’s false fire consuming—
And some one of her maidens sang this song:--
The first nayika is Vasakasajja, who like Radha in this verse waits ready to receive her beloved, oblivious to his gallivanting around town with other women. She adorns herself with painstaking love and ever has her gaze fixed on the threshold of her dwelling searching for signs of his arrival. She is the nayika of excitement and young passion, of longing and hope.
A padam (dance piece) which goes “Dari tzutzu tsunadi nidu priya” (watching for your arrival your beloved with the quivering eyes, the young maiden waits. With attar of roses she sprinkles the bed and decorates it with flowers.) in Telugu centers around Vasakasajja.
Say that I -- Radha – in my bower languish
All windowed, till he find the way to me;
Say that mine eyes are dim, my breast all anguish,
Until with gentle murmured shame I see
His steps come near, his anxious pleading face
Bend for my pardoning grace.
Next comes Virahotkanthita, the distressed. Radha suffers by being estranged from Krishna and is disturbed in her loneliness by thoughts of him. Every waking moment is distressing as it reiterates the absence of Krishna. She is anxious and sends messengers pleading him to return. A traditional portrayal of this nayika shows her as being exhausted, discontented, trembling with grief and tearful.
A Tamil padam “Netru varen enru nayamizha peshi acar, ennalum varakanene” (He said he would come, speaking honeyed words he left, but he still hasn’t come) is another excellent example of this nayika.
O angel of my hope! O my heart’s home!
My fear is lost in love, my love in fear;
This bids me trust my burning with its memories, drawing near:
Lift up thy look, and let the thing it saith
End fear with grace, or darken love to death.
In the last canto of the Gita Govindam Krishna sings these lines to Radha. Radha here is the third nayika Svadhinabhartruka, a woman whose beloved it completely enamored by her. Her lover is ever at her side showing complete subjection to her will. She is the nayika residing in an enchanted state of newly in love bliss and is the object of every other nayika’s jealousy. This nayika speaks with all the freedom and assurance of one who holds unconditional power over her ‘lord’.
Another example from Gita Govindam goes to further reinforce her teasing control. “Paint again these long lashes of my eyes with collyrium darker than bees.”
Wind of the Indian stream!
A little – oh! A little – breathe once more
The fragrance like his mouth’s! blow from they shore
One last word as he fades into a dream;
Bodiless Lord of Love!
Show him once more to me a minute’s space,
My Krishna, with the love-look in his face,
And then I come to my own place above;
Kaldhantarita is the nayika who rebukes and sends her lover away in a fit of rage and then is filled with remorse. Radha after admonishing Krishna for his infidelity sends him away. No sooner than his back recedes out of her view she is filled with compunction, awash with yearning and desire.
“Ela tiruga pommomti namma televi okari soma” (Alas, why did I tell him to be gone? Why am I so thoughtless?) a Telugu padam articulates the state her state of being.
But wilt thou plead, when. Like a love-verse printed
On the smooth polish of an emerald,
I see the marks she stamped, the kisses dinted
Large-lettered by her lips?
The while they very lips are dare to teeth
With the dye that from her lids and lashes came,
Left on the mouth I touched.
Khandita is enraged and offended by her debauched lover who comes to her bearing marks of another woman’s caresses on his person. Radha addresses Krishna thus when he comes back to her in the morning, having been away all night long on some fabricated pretext. Tradition shows her as being restless, acerbic, sorrowful and insecure. This nayikas’ every word drips sarcasm and sharp double entendres.
“Ethukanum indha shathurya varthaigal inge nadavathu pome,pomaiya,” (Why these deceitful words? This will not do! Go, please go away.) a Tamil padam showcases the attitude of this nayika.
‘Tis too heavy, lacking him;
Like a broken flower I am –
Necklaces, jewels, what are ye?
Yami he kam sharanam!
Yami he kam sharanam!
The sky is still, the forest sleeps;
Krishna forgets – he loves no more;
He fails in faith, and Radha weeps.
After her comes Vipralaptha bearing like a pregnant rain cloud whiffs of disappointment and disillusionment. Unlike the mordant, caustic Khandita she is gentle and tearful, given to sighing and swooning. Radha’s pining after Krishna and his love is probably the most oft quoted example of this nayika in Indian performance.
“Valli kanavan perai” a tamil padam where the Nyaka is lord Muruga and the Nayika is a nameless young waif in love with him is a four strophe song of adoration describing the intensity of her love and his prowess before culminating in “ kattu kodi padarndha karu ooru kaatu kulle vittu pirindhanadi kiliye, Khandan ennum perondai, kiliye.” (In the middle of a dark, sinister forest my lord Muruga deserted me). Even as she talks about something as heinous as this Vipralaptha nayika is incapable of vengeful vocabulary.
The last two classifications, Proshitapriya and Abhisarika are inapplicable to Jeyadeva’s Radha as he does not fix her in the necessary context. Proshitapriya is the naiyika whose husband has gone abroad. She is emaciated, neglectful of her appearance and counts the days for her return. A Telugu padam “Emani telu pudu nelagu taludu” (What can I say and how can I bear this separation?) is an address by this nayika. Abhisarika is the woman who boldly sets out to meet her lover braving all. She is the nayika of “Valli kanavan perai” who sets out to meet Muruga who is already wedded to Valli in the middle of a scary forest.
The nayikas are not literary conceptualizations divorced from a routine human context claiming essentialist specifics to aesthetics and literature. Rather this tradition draws from a vast repertoire of human emotions, psychology, physicality, sanctified sexuality and the warmth of human flesh and blood. The naiyika’s are isolations and representations of emotional states that every woman goes through. What is interesting is the fact that the ashta nayika’s occupy an unprecedented place in world literature as being totally in control of the texts that feature them. All the padam’s that have been cited in this paper are female-centric with the naiyika and her moods being pivotal. As the dancers chalangai (anklets) rings in synthesized concord with the cadences of a divinely touched music the nayika travels the world of human affections and elevates it to quasi-divinity and a tradition breathes on.
Chocolate sun simmers
trickles syrupy
dark sticky sweet chocolate
on a marshmallow spring yellow pink
butterscotch flowers and jam tart lips.
Bleeds liqueurs bitter warm
dripping stillness into the eyes
of a mad old dog with liquid brown eyes
like molten chocolate cream.
Baked dog with a bald patch
brown and crusted over with sugar crumbs
shuffles on candy cane legs
melting in the heat of flaming chocolate
leaving camouflaged paw prints on black licorice tar
howling in crazed silences
waiting for the white chocolate moon to congeal.
* Just done reading Desiree… (Don’t know how to get accents working on a comp)…Napoleons first love. The very idea is so poignant and poetic that I makes me want to sit and stare at a grey wall for the better part of an hour and let it play itself out on the walls…
* thinking about Baricco. About to read City. Hoping City will end what silk began. Or take off where Silk left me and I think I need to take a long walk…
* appas first train jounrney in 30 yrs. Looking forward to an old timers tales of trains in the good old days and probably remind him of the time he sole,nly resolved not to tcommute by trains again. Hehee. Toyota has managed what my mother couldn’t.
* “you are and idiot. You don’t know nice guys when they’re handed to you on a platter” was it really 3years ago? I’m learning. Takes time…these things…
* is there a fundamental problem that is being disregarded when one decided to read Lolita for the 5th time?
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo.Lee.Ta.”
I was a very precocious child as far as my reading goes. I read Lolita at 13 when most kids my age were content with pulp fiction. Perhaps I too would’ve grown up very differently if I has read sweet valleys then…possibility that life might have been a tad easier and I wouldn’t be where I am today…
* I’m home. With 2 dirty jeans and 3 shirts. Don’t know how I’m going to manage coimbatore and kerala on that. Well I do. I’ve done worse. Appa’ll probably impose a life ban on me if I insist on getting into his car in my dirty jeans…hey it’s not like I’m doing a fourteen day trip on less than that! Trust me. I’ve done it. He refuses to be consoled by the fact that I have plently of clean underwear…
* I read too much…..
* must must must must must learn to brew coffee…
* Innova…green…mum wanted blue…Qualis….red…appa wanted silver…
it’s funny how that always happens…hehee
* spent the last hour or so sitting with appa and deciding on accessories for the car. It’s amazing how many important policy decisions in the family have happened that way…from deciding against rear spoilers to painting my room pink. Yes! I’ve managed to...eerr….convince Suru. Hahaa.
*Strangely of late I don’t feel an incessant need to incinerate kids in industrial size furnaces anymore…feel quite kindly towards them actually. Think I quite like them…not a patch on dogs of course, but not too bad in the reckoning.
*this cow that I bumped into…don’t know his name; we were regrettably not formally acquainted, looked like he could be related to mixy! It wouldn’t be very surprising if mixy were a cow himself…but mixy is my youngest dog…
*think it’s time for dinner….
*the redemptive power of orange boxers with white polka dots is grossly underrated.
*ginger says hi. Ginger is my stuffed raccoon. He has a fat striped tail.
Tatha
I finished reading ‘Monsignor Quixote’ by Graham Greene last night and it’s a fabulous eponymous account of a Catholic priests’ travels in the company of a Marxist mayor… and it got me in some nebulous way thinking about my paternal grandfather who died last feb. I’m often wont to think that my obsessive reading habits are part of a larger genetic inheritance or possibly a hand me down tradition from my grandparents. Graham Greene got me thinking about this tatha because I suspect that if he ever wrote his writing would have read pretty much like Greenes’, light and profound. It’s taken me a little more than a year to write about him, anything about him really, my last attempt to think on paper left me with surreal reams on nothing palpable…
The death of a grandparent is especially raw as it not only physically ends an association but also leaves truncates pieces of the past, cordoning them off forever. Memories that can be revisited, seen through diaphanous knots of translucent mist trails but never re lived. When grandparents die they take with them an entire way of life, something I for one grew up taking for granted, lulled by the ostensible permanency of a childishly tacit wish. It means among a lot of other things that the next time I have a fight with my parents I can’t run to tatha for support. I can’t push him off the sofa anymore or try putting little coloured clips on his balding grey head. I can’t slide down his ‘easy chair’ pretending I’m a dog in the park or pilfer his book collection. I can’t go back to him and feel like I’m three years old again. Its only after he died that I quite realized that I’m never ever going to trust in anybody else with all the faith of a three year old like I did in him.
When I was growing up he was always around. Even after we moved away I saw him almost everyday. After shifting to madras there were always holidays and paati’s elai vadam to go back to. One of my most enduring recollections of early childhood is of sitting on tathas lap officiously trying to read his book, reiterating my position as favourite grandchild won after arduous combat with Suru. :o) I also remember the music teacher I used to hate! Now, its almost customary that Brahm kids learnt paatu and dance, dance I quite likes but paatu class was a different deal altogether. The fact that I did not particularly like my paatu teachers face did not aid matters, as a kid I was eeerr…hypersensitive to auras and things ;o) and unerringly, five to six minutes after the initial ‘saa paa saa’ I could be relied upon to feign a stomachache, if the frequency and concentration of my aches were anything to go by the pakatathu maamis hypothesis that I seemed to have a worm factory in my stomach would have been an understatement. Point here being, after stimulating the dying throes of a duck in pain I would crawl to tatha and start sniffing pathetically with the haggard paathu teacher crawling behind me in vain hopes of saving herself from my mums and paatis exasperation. Tatha defended my cause as regularly as my stomachaches and nobody could say anything after that. Paatu classes always ended on an amicable note with Suru turning pretty shades of red and purple from suppressed passions and me sitting at the other end of the hall making faces at her. I mildly deduce that tatha found the paatu teacher a tad odious himself.
I don’t think I can ever go back to his house, the house that Suru and I grew up in without feeling a petrifying sense of being alone. Maybe this is what it means to grow up, to feel the transitivity and fragility of life succumbing to the oppressive weight of human association. If only one could forget…negate eighteen years of what must have been indulgence. Forget that ‘I’ am today because of all that has transpired, all that has been learnt, all the cuts that have been bandaged and all the evil music teachers who have been driven away. Forget myself.
La scum ces't moi....
Maami: Oh my god!!! Look at how much the kids have grown. (Well yes…like Topsy growed.) Suru must be around 20 now. What is she doing?
Beaming mother: she’s leaving this fall for a PhD. (At this point one has to note that Surabi is a traditionalists dream come true. She dances (classical of course!). Can hold a note without pawning identities with a frog choking on saw dust. Can speak without yelling or resorting to profanities. Doesn’t hold the general opinion that kids ought to be incinerated in an industrial size furnace. Socializes with Mylapore élan. Is refined. Is at no time reprehensibly attired. Can cook. Is very clever and pretty. And most significantly studied HUMAN GENETICS. And uses punctuation. The maternal cup slurpeth over.)
Maami: that is fabulous Seetha! My son is 25 and he moved to Seattle last month, he just finished his PhD from boresville u.s.a. (With a smile so loaded that she’s in flagrant danger of over turning under all that weight. And of course it’s imperative that the world sees you’re son is twenty five! Did you ever stop to think about the possibility of him being in love with his flat mate? Male.) and aaru? What is she upto? (as an after thought of course.)
Mildly distressed mother: eeerr...Aaru is going into her their year b.a. Literature….
Maami: (oh she didn’t flunk 10th math!) oh you poor dear. Its ok. These things happen. Not all kids can take the pressure…some kids are…well differently talented I’m sure…(yes I was born with fifteen feet and an extra large ear in the middle of my forehead. Oh and did I mention I can grow horns at will? Extraordinarily talented. And of course the usual dawn chorus of twenty five Asses braying in orchestrated cacophony heralded my nativity…. and I have pink hair, acid green skin and teeth a particularly volatile shade of electric orange)
I realize I’m at a very precarious turnpike in life’s post modernist meta-narrative. I don’t know what’s for lunch tomorrow…
Person 1: so what next?
Moi: (with all the enthusiasm of late childhood. Last week to be precise.) Dance and write.
P 1: no I meant what do you want to do next? Like professionally…(euphemistically and politely articulated how do you propose to occupy yourself the couple of years from now to when your family manages to con an intelligent brahm boy into marrying you. Shouldn’t be too difficult if they manage to keep you from talking art and poetry and ban those dinner table conversations where you end up saying things like… ‘I think it’s crucial to recognize the rights of a third gender’. )
Moi: well, to begin with, an m.a in performing arts and writing, and then a phd in dance perhaps…by which time I hope to publish.
P 1: what? Anyways you’re a girl. Guess you can get away with doing nothing. (Really now. thank you. I feel so much better!! Will you marry me? Bloody patriarchal bigot. Go drown in a drum of idly batter.)
And this is precisely why I find myself respecting and sticking to people who do their own thing despite all odds. Like D for instance. Now D is single, somewhere on the
other side of 30 and just settling into his first ‘job’. He’s spent more than a decade doing what he’s great at. Theatre. And he continues doing that. I think his family disowned him when he was 16. Hehe!!
Intelligent person 1: awesome!! I think what you want to do sounds incredible!! What kind of papers will you be doing?
Moi: stuff like the Foucault and the body in performance…history of art….culture studies…dance techniques….blah blah blah..
Intel 1: brillo! Sorry to be such a wet rag, but who’s funding?
Moi: (Very brightly) daddy!!! And also this aarabi welfare trust thing into which each earning member in the family and a select few friends will deposit money every month towards my creative up keeping.
Intl 1: or marry a rich investment banker.
Moi: to begin with lets not get carried away. No rich investment banker with a modicum of sense will marry me. And he is not staying rich too long if he marries me. It’s a vicious circle of sorts.
Intl 1: anyways you look like the kind of person who will have issues with marrying for money.
Moi: yeah, absolutely. Have ideological issues with most things really. I’d rather marry a german bartender. He’ll be immensely talented atleast. Anyways I plan to live in a commune.
Intl 2: no bumble…actually he would because you’ll be a personal statement. Investment bankers aspiring to page 3 acceptance and ‘cool’ness will want to marry us! We’ll be radical yet pedigreed accoutrements to social ladder hopping. (Yes. Just stick a price tag on us and don’t forget the branding iron boys!)
I’m quite convinced that after all her non conformist extreme ideologically issued painful adolescence aaru will quietly settle down and live happily ever after…hahahaaaa. FINE. DREAM ON DARLINGS!
Sharing my rung, which is the scummiest, tiniest and last one way down the ladder is the family's resident art historian S.
Civilian: So what do u propose to do after this phd?
S: I really don’t know..teach…
Civilian: (blithely ignoring it) get married…
S: why thank you? That’s been my only agenda in life. The sole purpose of my creation. Express marriage and brewing a mug of filter coffee. Where oh where is my confounded iyengar software engineer?
I leave myself with langston hughes and visions of harlem. Keeping the dream alive…
Gather out of star-dust,
Earth-dust,
Cloud-dust,
Storm-dust,
And splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust
Not for sale.
om
Adi again
This is my 2nd Adi story written for the British council college level writers prize. It made it into the top 7, but didn't place. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day though. The very ability to write is in my eyes a huge blessing...and yeah the story had to begin with 'there was no possiblity of taking a walk that day'.
Adi (for lack of a better title!)
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. Not because it was raining or a whole horde of Assyrians were stampeding down the lane or anything, but owing to the indelible fact that I was locked up in a something by something room with a couple of comic books, one old teddy bear that everybody thought I had thrown away and a conspicuously glowering dog regarding me with brown doggy eyes full of mild menace. Wimp. I didn’t really see what his issue could be. He needed a haircut anyway and he got it done for free. Some creatures are so unappreciative that it infuriates me. Well, it was a beautiful evening, the sun had set as it usually does but only that day it went about its business with a pinker glow than usual, like really pinky-orangey. I stuck my hand out of the window and watched it turn a stunning pinky-orange, and as I watched it turned darkish and purple the first star started twinkling in the northern sky.
I looked out the window thinking of all that I could have been doing right then if I had been intelligent enough to have learnt to pick locks. I could have walked down the road all the way to the park and back with my arms around M’s shoulder. Aww…maybe not shoulder lets make it waist. That’s infinitely more romantic apart from camouflaging a slight technical hitch. I can’t reach her shoulders; she’s taller than me. The dog was thawing a bit now. His ominous mien was being replaced by a slightly sympathetic, patronizing look that seemed to say, ‘Dude you blew it. Kabalooey!’ I know dog. Trust me, I do! All that could go wrong in the life of an eleven year old, look- into-yourself (I forget what they are called) type of boy had very docilely and obligingly gone so.
It all began quite pleasantly actually. It wasn’t really the day your dog decided to maul the newsboy, the milkman and plumber all of whom parted with dire threats of dragging your derriere to court. Hey, I didn’t try eating you it was my dog who did. Drag him to court if you can. It was bang in the middle of the summer break and the dog and me were all alone at home. After an hour or so I got tired of watching adult movies on TV and was desperately looking for something productive to do. The dog was curled up next to me on the couch. He’s a hairy dog and he looked uncomfortably hot. So I decided to bail him out, give him a haircut and make him look attractiveish to members of the opposite sex, a veritable canine Beckham. I hunted around for a pair of scissors and finally found one in the kitchen. I was thinking of this cool spiky do like these ultra awesome futuristic comic heroes. So I went snip snip snip in trendy uneven layers, found my moms hair gel and spiked the dog’s hair up. Woaahhh…he looked amazing! Oh hell, something’s missing. Gotcha! I found some red hair colour that belonged to my mom and dyed the ends of the dog’s hair red. Perfect!
I was seriously considering giving myself a similar haircut when by pure accident I noticed the time and realized the conveniently missing paternal and maternal components of our happy family would be back home soon. Super-cali-frajilistic-espiali-docious! Great. I had this sneaky suspicion that they weren’t going to be very pleased with the whole dog affair when ‘bang!’ they arrived right in the middle of my sentence in a thick purple cloud. I tried shoving the dog under the couch but that silly coot had to howl mournfully. Stupid attention seeking git!
All hell broke loose as Captain Adi the Awesome geared up for battle. The evil Mutant Frog Princess who had established her maternity over him was closing in on him, her red eyes goggling and her purple mouth blubbering. Adi looked around for the nearest fire exit but her husband, Captain Underpants, blocked it. All escape roots cut off; our hero braced himself for defense armed with a pair of Jedi style laser scissors. His lethal weapons glinted in the harsh lights of the subterranean dungeon. Swish swoosh, his trusty scissors flew in all directions decimating the ranks of the enemy. He was doing damned well for himself till he paused to wipe his sweaty brows on his shirtsleeves. Just then Captain Underpants swooped down on him and caught him by the scruff of his neck. Captain Adi tried to wriggle free but Underpants’ iron fist held him in tight in its talons. Our hero was caught like a common mouse in a trap with The Frog Princess waggling a red painted claw in front of his face. In one final superhuman effort Captain Adi blindly slashed his weapon across her face. Time seemed to stand still and all nature waited in agony to see what Fate had in store for the valiant captain. All the while Fate stood in a dark corner with a smug smile. Now she laughed sardonically. She didn’t fancy bravery. A lock of The Princess’s poisonous hair fell to the floor. Adi expected her to strike him dead but no, she had this oddly set expression on her face. He at least expected Underpants to strangle him but Underpants spoke in a scarily even voice. ‘That will do Adi. Give me those scissors and go to your room now. Take the dog with you and don’t you dare step out.’ That was that. Adi withdrew with the grace that became a superhero. He knew it when he was licked.
I retired to my room and that’s where my story begins. I was looking out of the window thinking about M. I suspect M is not an ordinary human kind of girl. She surely has to be an angel. She is so terribly attractive that it hurts me to look at her. She’s the girl I want to marry, grow old with, watch sunsets, get drunk on the porch and do all those things old people do with. The dog looked a little pathetic and sorry now. The hair goop was all melting and dripping down his face making him look like a punk rocker whose c.d’s didn’t sell anymore. I think I love M. She is two years older than me. I also think she doesn’t even knows my name. But that’s ok. Ill wait for her to grow up and shed her layers of silly girlfriends and bevy of admirers. Ill wait for her to know my name. I have all the time in the world M…
I knew there was no way I could take a walk that night. Not without my parents flaying me dead at any rate but I decided to give it a shot all the same. I don’t think I walked. I definitely remember soaring through the night dodging errant stars with the light night wrapping me up in its wispy folds. I climbed out of the window, slid down the pear tree. I scraped myself in a few hundred places that night I reckon. I flew all the way to M’s house, hovered under her window and serenaded her. I made up this lovely song completely impromptu. I think it went something like tum-ti-ta-ti-tum la la tum. Nothing happened. Nothing came flying out of the window. Nobody called the cops. Nothing.
Just when I was contemplating slowly slinking away the curtains parted and M’s angel face peeped out. ‘Oh Adi, this is such a surprise. Why don’t you come in for sometime?’ I didn’t care about what Captain Underpants and The Frog Princess will do to me when they realize I have broken out of my room. I didn’t care a fig about my scratches and bruises. It wouldn’t have been too awful if I just dropped dead from some kind of blood infection or if big pus filled zit had erupted on my nose right then. M knew my name and that’s all that mattered.
