I went out shopping for something special on the first day of the month in which no one buys anything special for I don’t know what reasons exactly but probably religious ones, and I promptly came down with a fever and cold out of the blue. I feel miserable. It’s alleviated a bit every time I look down at my hand where my brand new possession twinkles in its merry way at me but all too soon the stuffy nose and blocked sinuses force themselves on my attention. At least the fever is gone… thank God for small mercies.

***

My auntie bought a little gold flute for the lord at Guruvayoor. Ten years ago when she was reading the Gita or maybe it was the Mahabharata, she came across this passage in which little Krishna is teasing his father for a flute. Apparently she just said, “Oh, I’ll get you one!” Its been a long time in the coming thanks to all her financial troubles, but now that they’ve been sorted out, the first thing she did was head out to the jewelers and buy him one.

It’s very pretty but she’s a little apprehensive too. They say Krishna with a flute is a dangerous god, he likes to make people dance to his tune. And here she is giving him one. But a promise is a promise after all. I found it a bit funny coz this is the same woman who one day sneaked into my grandma’s garden and whisked the flute out of Krishna’s hands as he stood in front of his little tulsi shrine for fear that he was playing the lot of us.

This intense relationship so many people have with Krishna is one that fascinates me endlessly. You never find someone saying, “I’ve always adored Brahma” or that “Shiva and I have a strong relationship”. One can grateful to other gods, one can thank them, one can worship them but one doesn’t love them the way one loves Krishna even if he is the most capricious god of all.

***

This is the month of Ramayana. After grandmother died and Auntie S passed from our lives, I don’t know anyone who listens to the radio anymore, so I was surprised to read in the paper today that everyday at 6 a.m. AIR [or the local chapter anyway] has a reading of the Ramayana for those families too lazy to do their own readings or those who prefer to listen to their epics rather than read them out.

In our house, the readings have begun and Ma and the aunts are constantly quizzing each other where each has reached in their reading. I’m beginning to wonder if I should start reading too. But the thing is I’ll have to do it in Sanskrit coz I don’t read my mother tongue and I’m not a huge fan of Sanskrit.

I mean I like it in a general manner of speaking and I don’t mind it for the odd word or phrase but I don’t know if I want to brush up on my Sanskrit enough to read the whole Ramayana in it. Sigh. I guess I’ll get one in Hindi or English. Isn’t it a good thing God doesn’t have a vernacular bias?

***

My eardrums hurt. Well, no… my left eardrum hurts. And I think that mysterious yellow pill my mom gave me is making me as high as a kite. Hmmm.

***

So Sangs got married. Saw her before she left for her honeymoon [Switzerland, the lucky bum] and we went to get a pizza – all of us were that sick of home food. Actually her husband VB and I were sick of it, I think Sangs would eat rice and sambar all her life everyday and be perfectly content. Yuck.

Only one pizza joint in town and that’s Pizza Hut. Normally I cant stand them but any port in a storm and we went in and ordered a pepperoni pizza. I was a bit surprised coz I didn’t think Sangs would eat pork. She barely eats chicken after all. VB said it was his favorite and that too was surprising coz he’d grown up in the UAE and I didn’t think they’d allow pepperoni there. Still, they wanted to eat what I wanted to eat so I gave a mental shrug and placed the order. VB didn’t even want to see the menu, he was that sure of what he wanted to eat.

The pie arrived and I began to tuck in when I heard him say something-or-the-other-‘chicken’. I looked up.

“Um, this is pork – you know that right?” I asked.

“What?” screamed Sangs.

“No!” said VB, shocked. “This is chicken! Chicken pepperoni!”

“Um, no,” I said apologetically. “Its pork. It might be chicken in the UAE coz it’s a Muslim country but here its pork.”

Both of them stared at me chewing away at my slice in horror.

“Oh, yuck!” moaned Sangs. “I can’t eat pork! I think I just lost my appetite. And is it my imagination or does this thing stink?!”

I was laughing too hard to chew as VB got up to reconfirm with the waiter, who helpfully opened up the menu to the relevant page and showed him the place where it was clearly printed ‘100% imported pork’.

Lol!!!

VB at that point would have said, screw it and tucked in nevertheless but he couldn’t with his nai-naveli dulhan sitting in judgment by his side. He made faces at me and mouthed, “I eat pork” while Sangs huffed and puffed next to him. He’s in for a rough time if he’s gonna live his life by her likes and dislikes, which are manifold. I kept on laughing and offered him a slice but he refused immediately and even said he wasn’t hungry when Sangs said she didn’t feel like eating after that episode.

Finally they ordered a chicken supreme and Sangs not only held up her end but made inroads into VB’s portion too. So much for her lack of appetite! Heheheheh.