Sunday, May 30, 2010

Mishmash

Friday night - went to bed with the most terrible headache ever known to man. You know the kind, it starts from your eyes, slowly moves up to your forehead before winding its way to the back of your head, right at the spot where your neck meets the skull, can you feel that little groove there? yes, right there. That’s the spot that hurts the most. You have this throbbing pain that feels like someone had planted a bomb in there and it is going off repeatedly, sending painwaves all over your head, the deadly tentacles reaching to every cell in your body. You can feel a stinging pain in your eyes, not just your ordinary eyeball-hurting kind of pain, but actual physical pain that feels like someone had pinched the inside of your eyelids. You feel dizzy and weak, like you are going to throw up any minute but you don’t have the strength to get up and walk to the bathroom. I thought I was having a migraine attack. I’ve been plagued with headache all my life, but all the doctors I've consulted always assured me it wasn’t migraine. Take rest, pop a few pills and you’ll be okay.

Saturday morning – woke up hoping to feel refreshed and clearheaded but to my dismay found that traces of headache still lingered. Got up, took the newspaper inside and went back to sleep until noon. Got up again, but was too lazy to do anything, ate lunch, and decided to read in bed. I know reading is not the best solution, but there was nothing else to do. Opened the latest Chetan Bhagat but before I could read a sentence closed my eyes and found myself drifting off…. Ouch!! That could only be an ant stinging my leg. I reached down and found the offender and crushed him. Is that something crawling on my stomach? Another ant, no doubt. Groped a bit, caught the scoundrel before he could make his escape and sent him packing to ant hell. Or heaven. I don’t know if he was a good ant or bad ant in his lifetime, so he could go either way. Another miscreant stung me on the arm, and I found myself committing another murder. Sleeping was out of the question now.

Got up, removed the bed sheets, and started The Hunt. The best way to go about hunting is clean your room inside out, crawl on your knees and inspect all the corners, making sure all squatters are evicted. And when you are finished the room smells of insect spray, a far cry from your regular room fresheners, but you are alone in the room again and that was the goal, wasn’t it?

Speaking of ants, have you noticed that they are most active in the summer? Makes me think of the story of the ant and the grasshopper. You know, the ant working in the summer while the grasshopper sings away and in the end the ant was the guy with all the food while the poor grasshopper could only watch with envy and a hungry stomach. No, I think he died. Make hay while the sun shines and all that rot. But if it was today’s world the grasshopper would be the richer guy (and with a fuller stomach) because we all know how much money a good voice could bring. If you are still unmarried I would strongly recommend you find someone who could sing, thus ensuring children with beautiful voices and their future taken care of, purely because of their heritage. But if they end up with your voice you could only pray that they are smart and good in studies. But still, there’s a 50% chance of them being born with a good singing voice. Life (and marriage) is all about taking chances.

And when is this temperature planning to go down? Of all the hot summers I've lived through, this year seems to be the worst. Met officials say monsoon will hit Kerala on May 3l, that’s tomorrow, but I'm not living in a fishing boat in the backwaters of God’s Own Country, am I? So it’s probably another two weeks before the much awaited rains, showers of blessings, so to speak. Then maybe I could write about happier stuff.

12 comments:

  1. LOLLzzzz, mishmash it is all right. Those chalk things really work well when trying to oust ants. I draw lovely squiggly lines all over my wall and the ants have retreated since. The monsoon is here in Aizawl, and though I miss the smell of sun-dried clothes, I'm really not complaining. It feels sooo good to sleep with lightning and thunder crashing outside.

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  2. kuku - Our ants are so smart and so tough they skilfully jump over the chalk lines, best thing is to spray them until they fall down dead.
    Monsoon in Aizawl... flooded, muddy streets,damp clothes, landslides, lost umbrellas, bleak cold wet days, endless rain for hours and hours... wish I was there :P

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  3. A va pawi ve,lo dam vat rawh.
    Hmeichhia leh 'na' hi in inhmeh lutuk.!!

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  4. aweeee.... and damn, you describe so well that I am feeling really sick and unwell right now!!! Get well soon, hugz.

    And about the ant and grasshopper, didn't you read the other version? Grasshopper sued the ant and he ended up rotting in jail. Based on actual reality. Its somewhere there on google search. Dark humor indeed. :(

    Ps. Maybe you should stop reading Chetan Bhagat. He gives me a headache too :D

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  5. i suggest you to consult an Eye Doctor my Dear.. i think you've got problem with your eyes.. :)

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  6. daniel - Ka dam tawh e. Hmeichhia te chu damlo mah ila a la awm deuh alawm, mipa sek tung in ka na ka na ti reng ta ula in inhmeh dawnlo em asin.

    Kima - Thanks for the concern. So who went to jail? The ant? For singing, or for making fun of others? If I was the judge I would send the grasshopper to the remotest gulag. I hate lazy people.
    And speaking of Chetan Bhagat, have you noticed how smart this guy is? His books are not that great, yet he sold hundreds of thousands. I think it's mainly because his stories are so identifiable and there are some funny moments. You think "hey this also happened to me" and that makes you read the next book. You may hate the book but you keep on reading it. At least I do.

    Varte - Yes my eyes are the cause of all evil... I mean headache. Recently consulted a doctor who gave me pills that will strengthen the eyes. Let's see how it works.

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  8. (post tha leh lawks)

    'm a doctor and I have diagnosed your headache to be one of the symptoms of pre-menopause. Sorry. You are growing old. :D

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  9. Doc Mos - I went for a second opinion and guess what? We are all growing old. Sorry, but nobody's growing any younger :P

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  10. ..pills that will strengthen the eyes.. hehe... reminds me of the old Thangkura movie where he gets up in the morning and performs exercises for his eyes, also his nose, ears etc.. :P
    Hope it starts raining soon there, Pune had 2 days of rain, but now its startin' to get humid again. But I'm glad summer is finally gettin' over.

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  11. Well, many of us get bad headaches but i suppose it takes aduhi to describe it so well. Hope you're okay now. And ants--i too murder them left and right if i can catch them.

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  12. blackestred - That's what the doctor said "pills to strengthen the eyes", or something like that. But I don't know if it's working, my eyes are always overworked, either I am reading or in front of the computer. Maybe I am expecting too much too soon.
    And the weather.. ahh the weather, everyone's favourite subject. Today's paper said it may start raining on the 10th, another week to go.

    mesjay - I am all right now, but like I said, my poor eyes are overworked. Maybe I need to take a break from all this.

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