Cris’s World

When you are born you don’t have a reason to live – you don’t think if life is worth living. You don’t know anyone or anything and you go on to live. You learn to like the world, the people. When you go to school you are entering another new world – you don’t know what you will face there. And yet you go on to live. You go on to make friends, relationships.

My Orissa post was one of the loudest entries I made in the blog. And Srijith had actually asked me to quit writing humor and switch to politcal issues. I dont have any plans for that. But news in dailies are not changing and every other day things are taking a worse turn. Steadfast towards the wrong direction. Today I read in KT’s blog her concern and then a friend gave the link to a well-worded article from huffingtonpost of Shashi Tharoor. I was quite happy to see someone like him take the initiative to talk about it cause it matters a lot when a person who knew about the world enough to get a lot of respect from among the masses, to whom people were willing to listen to, came out to the forefront and took things up in hands. Added to that I was listening to heal the world a few times and somehow it carried a lot more meaning - today, now. For the children of this world, who knew not where or what they were growing up to.

I heard somewhere recently that it was hard to forget old injuries, of the mind. I find that absolutely true in my case, not that I think its anything appreciable. I wanted to be someone who’d harbor no feelings against the cause of injury - people. Why I write this today is cause I think I have crossed that stage, but then again I am not entirely sure after a fresh new wound.

I am not a religious person. So whatever I am about to say, is absolutely unbiased. I had a conversation with a friend some time back. He started talking about Orissa. Naturally, from his concerned tone, I was expecting him to talk about the mishaps and the killings there. But what seemed to have bothered him was the “unjust way they chose to convert people to Christianity”. Like I say I am not religious so I have nothing for or against that area. But I definitely was concerned about human lives. And so when human life was at stake, I cannot understand how anyone could be concerned about religious problems.

There is a movie of Tom Hanks. Cast Away. I haven’t watched it but heard the story. Bringing that up cause it has got a volley ball. Yeah like that’s the best reason for someone to blog. You see Tom Hanks talks to this volley ball. Aha always knew ol’ Tom was losing something – his head. He is stranded in this island somewhere for years and only has the ball to keep him company. Name, Wilson. Not Hanks’s. I meant the volley ball.

I once blogged about the appropriate questions for first time talks with new acquaintances. Today I was the prey to that when I was asked, besides my family background, my age. Hmm I have never found it an offending question till today. But today on saying it, it produced a series of questions regarding my matrimonial plans. It was not mere questions but seemingly deep concern on my single status in 20 something. Hmm I reflected that there is someone’s feelings entirely missed out in the whole episode. Someone who should be really concerned over the single status, and was not. Namely, me.

Ok I know the title sounds way too melodramatic. But I think I experienced a really minute version of that yesterday. My mother and I were watching TV at 6:45 pm when the bomb scare hit all channels. Last 2 days when I was reading about the Bangalore and Ahmedabad blasts, I wondered what would happen if this came to Kerala. And I got myself the reality bite when all channels were talking about the phone call to a Bangalore TV channel, from someone who claimed to be “Mujahideen” (Indian Mujahideen) announcing the next target to be Kerala and the bombs to go off at 7. Gulp!

The thing I thought I will blog about today was when for an interview, Kavya Madhavan (Malayalam movie actor) said about the old times when young girls had only to worry about kidnappers who in the words of old Grandmothers “kannu kuthi pottikum (poke your eyes)”. And Kavya went on “Not like today, to do these bad things”. She was right. I too had my childhood around the same time. We only feared things like that which happened to Revathy in Kakothikaavile Appoopanthaadikal (Malayalam movie of 80s, where, as a child, she gets kidnapped by a beggar). Not that it was anything holy, but it sounds more human in these days.

Where I come from, this line is heard quite a lot. “Vayassayal mindathe oruconilu naamam japichirkyan paadille?” - Translates to Cant you sit in one corner and recite your prayers when you are old. I never paid attention to these lines because they were mostly in movies or novels and it somehow never reached out to me. But now that I have started seeing it in real life, it’s a lot different.

Two instances took me down the memory path to childhood today. One, a fellow blogger went nostalgic in her post and another, a phone call with an old classmate from 4th grade when we talked about the totally nonsensical activities very importantly undertook, all those years ago.

My friend, I will call him MR, talked about his crushes from age 7. At age 9, when he was in my class, there was this girl who was the class topper. Another of MR’s “recipient of ardent admiration”. MR gladly stopped by-hearting poems knowing the teacher would ask him to sit with the girl and learn from her. MR told me another story of his 6 year old self always feeling comfortable when he had company in receiving corporal punishment. “The only relief when that happens was in knowing my friend was next”.