What the F?

It all started when I went home for my annual holiday. Thirty uninterrupted days of not doing anything, not worrying about the rent, or about how well stocked your fridge is, or about how far behind you are in paying the electricity bills resulted in the scale tilting a bit to the right. Everyone remarked how plump I’d become, and I happily laughed along because being thin never really suits anyone, or so I believed.

Wait. I take back my words. It all started before I went home, but another month of inactivity resulted in it being blown out of proportion. Literally. Cheeks, arms, thighs, tummy, even the ankles, everything got blown up. And it is not funny at all.

Changing your clothes ten times every morning is not funny. People thinking you are the mother of your 22 year old niece is enough to send the most jovial of persons into a deep depression from which one can never recover. Discovering your favourite pair of jeans now feels a little too tight can almost make you swear to wear only wraparound skirts, which by the way you think is the world’s ugliest piece of clothing, and roam the earth like someone stuck in the 70s.

I wish I was one of those brave souls who could laugh and just shrug it off and say “This means there’s more of me to love!” I wish I was one of those energetic individuals who get up an hour early and tie up their running shoes and go jogging in the middle of the night. I envy those happy people who accept their extra tyres and heavy forearms and do not care about the additional layers of fat they carry around.

I know, I know, I sound like a whiner, an unhappy unaccepting un-selfloving person. Give me some time, will you? Let me get used to living with my chubby body and fat ankles and triple chin. Let me stop automatically comparing myself with every fat person I see. Let those feelings of happiness stop washing over me when I see someone fatter. Let me slowly learn to love and embrace this F word. Maybe the sun will then shine on me once again.

Thank God my shoes still fit.

A Tale of Two Sisters

Once upon a time there were two sisters. They had many other siblings but this tale is about the two sisters, so let’s be happy and forget about the other children their parents procreated.

So we have these two sisters, one elder, the other younger. (Obviously, because no mother can give birth to twins at exactly the same time. But wait what about those born via a Caesarean? What is the extracting procedure for twins? Does the doctor just pull out the first baby he sees? How do they decide who is older?)

Okay, so we have two sisters. In fact, if it was a hundred years earlier they would be princesses. Because their mother was a princess, a very beautiful one with skin the colour of ivory and hair like finely spun spider’s web. Our two sisters grew up as ordinary people, and worked ordinary jobs. The elder one married and became a housewife. Her husband was a relatively successful businessman, and they built a house at one of the best locations in town. They were quite well off, and when television arrived in Mizoram they were among the first to get one. I remember their house used to be very crowded, with the whole locality coming to watch any program that was showing. My mother often talked about watching the ’82 World Cup at their place, at a time when Rossi and Zico ruled the football world.

The younger sister got a government job, and was always posted in some far-off town. She bore three children, two boys followed by a girl, but never got married. The girl was slightly older than me, and was great friends with me and my sister. Because of her mother’s job she was always in one boarding school or the other, and we used to write each other, in English, and we thought ourselves very sophisticated because we wrote in English, even though it was never anything more than “How are you I am fine School is fine”.

Fortune didn’t smile on the elder sister, and she and her husband didn’t have any children. So they adopted (informally) the eldest son of the younger sister. They were very good to us (my siblings and I) too. We lived in adjacent houses, and she would, until this day, talk about the days when I was so small I couldn’t cross a small drain that was between our two houses, a drain whose width was no more than a few centimetres.

So the eldest boy lived with his aunt and uncle, and they spoiled him rotten. Gave him whatever he wanted. He had a happy childhood. Then he grew up, and he started mixing with rich boys and developed bad habits. It was the late 80s, and the rich kids had discovered drugs. Our boy too got trapped, badly, and it was very sad to see him decline like that. How his parents must have suffered!

One fine day he brought a wife home. She too was from the rich crowd, a girl who had never worked in her life. His parents were very happy, maybe they were secretly hoping he would mend his ways and settle down. They spoiled the wife, never let her lift a finger and never allowed her to do anything in the house.

Time went on, grandchildren came, everyone became old, and one day the elder sister’s husband died. Everything changed after that. The daughter-in-law declared herself the head of the house, and started treating her mother-in-law like a servant. Well, servant is too strong a word, let’s just say she was barely civil to her. The poor husband never said a word, because his wife was that kind of woman you don’t argue with.

Our elder sister, now almost 80, cooks and washes the dishes every day. Sometimes she would eat after everyone else. Poor thing, she had nowhere to go, and the person she called her son was too scared of his wife to come to her rescue. At an age when she should be enjoying the waning years of her life with grandchildren around her, she spends her days feeling like an unwanted person, an uninvited guest.

The other day my sister went to her house. It seemed she walked into a family argument, and it was very uncomfortable, so she told me. Sis walked in just in time to hear Elder Sister say she wouldn’t allow her bed to be dismantled / removed because it was the bed in which their grandfather had slept. Turned out the family had converted her room into a TV room and she had to sleep in another room.

I feel so disappointed with the human race when I hear things like this. True, no one is perfect and we all have faults and failings and eccentricities, but isn’t respect to elders something we’ve been taught all our life? In fact, it’s something that our common sense, our conscience should be telling us, without anyone having to drum it into our heads.

I don’t know how this story will end. And it is unlikely that a Sydney Carton will come to the elder sister’s rescue. I wish and pray for better happier days for her for the rest of her life.

Pawnfen

Puanfen an ti emawni, a enge dik zawk chu ka hre lem law. A dik ve ve ah lo ngai phawt teh ang.

Hmanni chu inti nù tawkin office ah pawnfen ka va feng ve ngei a. A hma pawhin fen chu ka tum ve tawh thin, mahse kal dawn tepah hian ka inthlak leh rup rup zel. Chuan ka va feng ve ta a, inthlakna awm ta lo kha chu nileng chu ka daih ve mai a. Mahse ka pawnfen fen berkher kha a lining na nal deuh mai hi a nia, chair ah hian ka tawlh zuk zuk reng mai a, khup chen chauh a nih avang khan uluk taka thut kha a lo ngai lehzel nen, ka hah khawp mai!

Chutia han inhmeh lo em em bik ka nih pawh ka hre lo a, chawnlian ve tak chu ni mah ila ka zahpui lem lo a, bawp te pawh tawi ve terh tawrh hle mahse ngalsang pui pui zingah ka inthlahrung chuang hauh lo. Mahse ka ti mi lo ve tawp.

Pawnfen feng ngai lo chu ka ni bik miahlo ania aw, naupan lai leh tleirawl tirh te kha chuan feng ve nasa alawm. Kekawr hak tuh reng ai hi chuan a nalh zawk pawh ka ti, a nù zaih mai a. Sang deuh slim deuh zeih zawih in an han fen phei hi chuan a mawi lehzual ka ti. Ka chak ve thei lutuk.

Tunlai phei hi chuan Mizoramah lamah te an uar khawp mai lehnghal a, thiante tawi ve teng tawng deuh te pawn an lo feng lawp lawp han hmuh takah chuan ka'n lei ve ringawt a. Feng leh chuang lem hlei lo a, dul lamah harsatna lo thleng ve lehzel bawk nen. Pakhat phei chu thingrem mawngah nalh deuhin ka thlep than. Khaw eng hmuh ni te chu a la nei ve mahna.

Vai ho in a salwar kameez an lo hak nachhan hi ka hre ta. Khawlum deuh ah pawnfen chhing i feng ve tawh em? Chawn vel hi a sa hut hut mai a, khawlaiah phei chuan rei deuh han kalpui ngam hi a ni lo reng reng. An salwar kameez hak hi a lo remchang khawp mai a (hak chu ka ha chuang hauh lo a), nù bawk si, chetvel khawr tut si lo, zahawm lo bawk si lo, a remchang vel vek tawp.

Chutiang bawkin kawrfual te pawh. Hak loh hian an lo thing leh thin. Engpawhnise, zawite chuan kal dem dem dawn chuang lo mah ila, pawnfen fen te, kawrfual hak te hi uar ve deuh tum tawh tur a ni.

Wuthering Heights

It was with a lot of difficulty that I was able to finish this book last month. I had earlier deduced that I would need one hour every day to read a book in a month. Well, things never go as planned; so there were days when I stayed away from all printed material, and days when I woke up early and sat on the balcony and read. Anyway, I finished the book within the stipulated time, and I'm happy. All’s well that ends well, the ends justify the means, and all that rot.

I am not going to narrate the plot, I'm just assuming you have read it, and if you haven’t, well that’s just too bad. I wanted to put down in writing my views on the book, no I wouldn’t call it a review, let’s just say it’s an opinion.

I've heard a lot about this book, and most of them were about Heathcliff and Catherine and their great romance. I must admit I expected some grand romance of epic proportions, something in the lines of rich-girl-poor-boy-defy-their-parents, a tale about two people overcoming all odds and love being triumphant in the end. I had envisioned Heathcliff to be this tall dark handsome hero with a strong character with strong convictions and an even stronger love for his lady love, and Catherine to be a passionate but defiant daughter who chose to follow her heart.

Turns out the book isn’t about love at all. Sure there is love, but it is unrequited, it is forced, it is scheming, and it develops out of having no one else to love. Although the book ends on a somewhat happy note, it doesn’t leave you with that happy contented afterglow. You wonder if such a character as Heathcliff can ever exist in real life, whose only purpose in life is revenge and who doesn’t appear to have a kind bone in his body. But I don’t hate him at all. He has been wronged his whole life, right from his childhood, and the only person he ever loved chose to marry another man, supposedly for his (Heathcliff’s) benefit. I completely understand his wanting to exact revenge on Hindley Earnshaw. I mean who could endure such humiliation and abuse without thoughts of revenge forming in one’s mind? Add to that the loss of one love’s when the words of love and promise had barely left her lips. If you are the self pitying kind you might wallow in misery and sadness all your life, but Heathcliff decides to take matters in his hands. It was to his favour that Hindley turned out to be such a drunken bum who couldn’t control his estate and was in perpetual need of cash.

But why all the cruelty? I agree you cannot crush your enemies by being gentle and lenient, but where is the need to take out that anger on to your wife, your son, and to the world in general? I often wondered if Heathcliff isn’t insane. Digging up Catherine’s grave, seeing her ghost all the time, refusing to eat for four days, and the way he dies just gives me the chills. Insane or not, I think he is the kind of person who, whatever he feels, feels it very strongly, and does not restrain himself from showing it. At times I hate his cruelty and evilness, but at times I pity him. His life was full of sorrow and injustice and his only reason for living was taken away from him twice, first in marriage and then in death.

Catherine was no saint either. She loved Heathcliff, but still went and married Edgar Linton so that “Heathcliff can have a better life”. Maybe she just wanted to escape from Wuthering Heights and lead a normal life, or maybe she was afraid of being ostracized if she married an orphan like Heathcliff who had no money, no property, and most importantly no social standing. She was also quite the drama queen, once locking herself up in her room for three days without eating. I couldn’t sympathise with her at all. She fancied herself a puppet master who controlled the people around her, playing with their emotions to suit her needs.

Tragedy after tragedy follows, and I turned each page hoping for something happy to happen. It never did, except at the last few pages where we learn that Catherine Linton Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw had fallen into some kind of love and had regained their inheritance. I pitied all the characters who were the victims of Heathcliff’s revenge; poor misled Isabella, her sickly son Linton, nurse Nelly Dean who watches her loved ones die one after the other, and the unfortunate Hareton who through no fault of his own was raised an ignorant illiterate person.

Will I read the book again? Not in the near future. Mark Twain was absolutely right when he said “A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read”.