Tag: Humor

Mystery Spot

I have kept quiet for too long. KQED programs lured me, but I stood firm, and every time a bumper sticker from the cars mocked me, I held my ground. It isn’t for anything that we grew up singing

When temptation comes my way I shall not be moved
When temptation comes my way I shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s standing by the water
I shall not be moved.

Then one day you realize that sometimes temptation is a good thing. Giving in is fine. Like the time you say okay to that piece of milk chocolate. And so it is today.

For the lost-count-of-sightings time, I saw the Mystery Spot bumper sticker gleaming from a navy blue SUV ahead of me and decided to just blog about it.

If you live in California, this menace is pervasive. The blighters are yellow and should blend in with taxis, only they don’t. They stick them on cars. When the father was visiting, it was his dear wish to stick them on our car after we made the mistake of taking him along to mystery spot. In fact, he got 2 of them for surety. I tried subtle hints to dissuade him. At this point, it is prudent to inform you that subtle hints don’t work with the father when it comes to aesthetics. I tore some tissues in my throat and the issue was amicably resolved. The bumper stickers were spared my cars’ butt.

They found another home.

I only found out the next time I visited my home in India where they had taken up residence. They were stuck on the toilet door. So you get the picture. You stand up to go the bathroom, and you see a yellow sticker called ‘Mystery Spot’ gleaming at you from the bathroom door.

Now:
• Folks have wondered what is it people do in there for so long in the mornings. Always a mystery one would agree. Especially when someone else is waiting for the premises, this mystery is a thrilling one.
• Mysterious sounds emanate from the room (both when occupied and not)
• The mind works in its mysterious ways, and produces theories and hypotheses waiting to be unleashed on the world in the mystery spot.

I confronted the mother on why this eyesore was plastered on the bathroom door. She wrings her hand up in the air, muttering something about kitchens not being the mystery spot, and how she takes particular care with all the ingredients she uses, and moves away with a tragic look on her face.

The mystery was solved. I have had cause to comment on this blog, that the father, while gifted with a mind capable of mastering numbers and analyzing stock market indices is particularly challenged in the aesthetics department. I wish to point you to this link about the décor in the house to refresh your memory.

http://nourishncherish.org/2008/03/25/the-colourful-house-by-the-daughter-of-the-colour-blind-father/

So, while he was looking for a place to stick the damn things that had survived 2 customs clearings unnecessarily, and travelled round the globe, he had come upon the kitchen door. He seemed to have cracked a joke or two about the mysteries of cooking. I must tell you that the mother is as gifted with cooking as the father is not with interior decoration, and she took this onslaught on her creative domain personally. Consequently, the mystery spot remains the bathrooms, and every time I throw my mind back to the mysteries of the room, the revelations surprise me.

Drat that genius that came up with free ‘Mystery Spot’ stickers.

Happy Women’s Day

Happy Women’s Day to all you wonderful women out there.

I have been getting lots of mails telling me people are proud of me because I cry when I am sad and laugh when something is funny. Also, my hugs are supposed to be fused with the magical healing touch. Bruises heal themselves. I wonder how I broke the cup the other day with all these abilities I possess. Maybe, I did not hug the shards of the broken cup hard enough.

Apparently, all this makes me a wonderful woman. I also eat when I am hungry – I suppose that makes me more human.

The mails I am receiving also tell me as a woman I don’t quite know my power or capacity – I agree. Once when I was around a decade old, my friend and I had a dosa eating competition to which my sister unwittingly offered to be the dosa maker. I did surprise myself, and lost by a small margin, but my dosa competitor was a year older than I was.  I don’t think the sister has learned to view the dosa tava with the same benevolence since. If I remember right, I groaned all evening clutching my stomach in a wonderful show of feminine bravery.

Which all brings me to the question, do Men have a day dedicated for them?

There is an International Men’s Day. It is celebrated on November 19th, and was started as recently as 1999 – almost a century after their Women counterparts started celebrating themselves.

Frivolous as the content of this post is, I do hope my female brethen are uplifted from the horrors of misogyny inflicted upon them by men and members of their own creed. I’d like to end this post on this note (Seneca)

Dum inter homines sumus, colamus humanitatem

As long as we are human, let us be humane

No Comic Task this

Well…well. It has been a while since I picked up a comic book. The guffawing over Tintin much to the chagrin of the mother who was trying to get a quiet afternoon rattling with the noisy Singer machine, while the rain pounded at the window and the wind whooshed menacingly, is tucked away in the recesses of a past.

Tintins were great. The Thompson and Thomson, Professor Calculus and of course the Captain (“BLISTERING BARNACLES” – I’ve forgotten his name, Harold ? Haddock! Yes!). The point is, I haven’t lost myself in the comic book world for a long time. A friend of mine lent me his book “Persepolis” and I must thank him for it.

The complexity of generations of bumbling in Iranian history, so well presented through the endearing voice of Marjane Satrapi had me lost in the book.

If one is looking to get a glimpse of Iranian culture, this isn’t the book. But to get a perspective of turmoil and how human beings find a way of adapting – this is a good book. Stark contrasting images, the humour and of course the appalling mystery of what humans perpertrate on one another in the name of ruling are etched into my memory.

The book had my eyes stinging in the final page (Caution: my tear ducts are very loosely controlled. I cried for Finding Nemo and Shrek!) But I loved Persepolis and am waiting to read her remaining works.