I present to you... the Family!

Cast of characters:
Amma - the grandmother
Papa - the father
Mamma - the mother
Baba - the grandfather
Maid: the... well, maid.

* * * * *

Amma: Machine theek se nai chalri.
Papa: Kaunsi machine?
Mamma: Machine MaCHIne!
Papa: Washing machine?
Mamma: Nahi ji. Seene ki machine.
(Too many machines around...)

* * * * *

Baba leisurely takes off his running shoes (which he doesn't use for running, thank God!) after coming back from wherever he's been, then looks at them and back at his feet in amazement.
Baba: I didn't wear socks in them.
Papa: It's a little late to wonder about that, don't you think?
Mamma and I start giggling.
Baba: They're laughing at me. I say I didn't wear socks and they laugh at me!
(I think he's caught my alzy. Maybe even the dramatizing.)

* * * * *

Papa, while talking his daily cup of coffee from the maid: Did you make it with water?
Maid: No, diet milk.
Papa: I told you to put half a cup of water. We're fat.
Mamma: Just give him a glassfull of water from tomorrow.
(She's very conscious about diet - ours)

* * * * *

They're very entertaining sometimes.

Profound What-Ifs Crashing into Consciousness at Inconsequential Moments

A recent (religious) discussion had me examining my beliefs while I was brushing my teeth this morning (actually, the morning was more of an afternoon). Now, going through my beliefs is something which is not very comfortable at the best of times, and while brushing teeth, well, I wouldn't recommend it. Nevertheless, it happened. The thoughts that ran through my head in the approx. ten minutes that it takes to brush...

- What if you all aren't real. You all. I'm real enough but what if everybody else is just something that my mind has made up. What if I'm living in a world which I've made up in it's entirety. What if there's no reality outside of my mind, but only within it. What if I'm totally and unreservedly believing my imagination and I'm the only person there ever was and ever will be.

- What if there's no heaven or hell but the real place we're going to end up in after we die is a creepy laughing house of those crazy mirrors in a carnival and there's going to be a deranged, murderous clown in the funhouse.

- What if the whole world exists in a big bubble and the time we're here is just a second or two in all of Time... and as soon as the fragile world bubble bursts, we're all going to get washed down a huge cosmic drain and drown. What if the last thing I'm ever going to see is a huge living being staring curiously down at me through the holes of the drain-cap while I am sucked away by the pressure, shouting and screaming. And he'll frown and wonder what I was.

And what if all of the three scenarios above are true at the same time.

This really happened. Yes. Sometimes, I manage to scare even myself. Maybe I'm slowly going insane. But then again, maybe it's just time to change my toothbrush.

Analysing the verb, or, verbalysing that which is anal

It has always amused me the way my British-curriculum-schooled Bahrain cousins said they were going to 'make' kakka. Kakka - that's the babyname for the more solid of the biological human wastes. Or, to put it bluntly, for shit. Now my point is that one doesn't make shit. We make other things. Like Nargisi Koftas, for example. I do concede that there's a bit of a similarity between the two, particularly in terms of colour... but the shape... well, if we could only lay it out in rounded strips instead of rolling them into balls, maybe there'd be a case here... but, and this is a huge but, the similarity ends there. There's the taste to think of. And the smell. And one goes in one end, the other comes out the other. Perhaps we could put it this way - Some shit was once nargisi kofta. But that's very rare. One doesn't have nargisi kofta all that frequently. Anyhow, now that we have the relationship somewhat hammered out, let's get on with it.

Coming back to what I was saying, we do not make kakka. We do it. The correct verb, people, is do. For I do not see us actually making the stuff. Nor would I want to really, and I do suppose something inside us does make it, not out of thin air, but then what is made out of thin air anyway? Well, mirages are, now that I think of it, but you can't really count those as they aren't really real. You know what I mean? Anyway, here, the point is that somehere inside you, the stuff is made, sure, but when you're saying you're about to go to the toilet and, well, do your stuff, you're not actually making it in there at that moment, are you? You're just getting rid of the alreadymade stuff. Alreadymade - that's a new word I invented just now. And I quite like it too. Therefore, coming back to the point, what you're supposed to say is, I'm going to do shit.

Which doesn't sound quite right either. Drat the language! Hmmm... ok, what you can do is, you can say you're going to shit. Yes. Shit, apart from being a noun, is also a verb. Of course, it's also an exclamation (Shit! What happened to your hair?!), and lots of other things, but we'll leave that for another day. So the correct expression here is, I'm going to shit.

Which might be quite okay with the less evolved among us, but I can see how that phrase is going to give little old ladies apoplexy at the least and instant heart attacks if it comes to the worst. Let's face it, it's not very socially correct to announce that you're going to shit. Actually, at this point, I'm wondering why you're announcing it in the first place. I mean, you can just go and do your thing, but just for argument's sake, let's say you do have to let people know of your absence, we would like to determine what's the best thing to say in such circumstances. And I vote for - Excuse me. I need to go to the washroom.

Which is exactly what civilized people say when they need to 'make kakka'. Learn, Bahrain cousins. Learn! That sentence is correct and socially mature and vague enough. There is no way anyone is going to nitpick about it. Certainly not me. And if anyone else does, well, at least they're not going to rant about it to this extent.Therefore, it's safe enough to use. Whew!

Now... I also wonder why they say they'll take a shower. What exactly are they 'taking' in there...?

Made-up Reality

He had always believed, after all, that happiness was simply a matter of choice. You could either wallow in regret, even drown in it, or you could choose not to. But he had underestimated the power of habit. Because once you'd started wallowing, pretty soon that's all you were fit for. You grew fins and webbed feet so you could wallow even better. Hell, maybe you even got to enjoy it a little. And then when you thought that was enough and it was time to haul yourself out and go walking on dry land again, you found you couldn't. You had evolved into some wretched swamp-dwelling creature that had forgotten how to do it.

- Nicholas Evans

The Smoke Jumper, pg. 387.

Of course it works the other way round too. Make a habit of happiness. It's rarely ever what life gives to you that makes you happy or unhappy. That's just an excuse to be that way. Sounds too far-fetched? Isn't really. I remember this time I told Taz that the mind is a very powerful thing. How, she asked me. Well, I struggled to explain, it's like this... whatever you think, is. She didn't get it. I started gathering an explanation out of the drizzle around us. You see, I said, this rain falling on us now... it's cold, right? She nodded. But it doesn't affect you if you don't let it, I continued. You can feel cold and shiver like you're doing right now, or you can put mind over matter and feel the warmth if you think about it. She frowned. Close your eyes, I said, imagine you're warm. Feel you're warm. Let the liquid warmth run in your veins. Feel it minutely... give yourself up to it. Believe it, and it is. She tried. She really did for a couple of minutes. Na-uh, I still feel cold, she said. I wished I had a sweater.

Maybe I'm no good with explanations. The theory still stands though.