Check List

Thanks for all your comments!

A follow up to Wish List...

A day with my dad where he gets to talk and I get to keep quiet for once

Check

Although it was a very emotional and tired dad who mostly gave me the "life is short, make sure you do this after my time... blah .. blah.." bit and I listened and then gave him a retaliatory lecture on why life is what happens when you play with grandkids at this age.. Yep Sujatha Ramesh was right on the previous comment. I do not stay quiet for long.

A day with my grandpa and grandma, put my head on her lap and sleep for a minute, even if only a minute, just like when I was a small kid, put my ear to grandpas tummy and listen to rumbling noises and giggle
Check

I could not say bye to my grandparents this time. It was too difficult. My grandpa keeps falling down into his imaginary chair and hurts himself one too many times a week. He has good days and bad days. Happened to catch this on one of his good days!

a trip to kapalishwar temple in mylapore with grandparents, share a goli soda with my brother, a paalgoa for each of us with a transluscent paper with the kapali temple on the paper in bright red, some kaara sevai from the ambika appalam depot, a stop at RUBY stores to buy a chandamama or champak, watch grandma bargain with the vegetable vendors

Check check check check .. . hmm lets see.. went with my mum and aunts, uncle , different people, different days and times (10AM, 4AM, 8 AM, 9AM) to see the "utsavam" where they carried the gods on various vahanams. You will get the complete Kabali Kovil Utsavam series over the weekend! here is a sample ..

a trip to the marina with my brother and sister and some soan papdi from the cute bell jar

No beach trip. Did buy some Soan Papdi from grand sweets for Jr. and the little one though

a jackie chan movie at alankar with my brother

Right now the only thing my brother is watching is angio scans on a CD. this has to wait for better times or just wait for time...

So do the next three things. Mom walks and stands enough in hospital waiting rooms. She was sooo tired after the trip to the utsavam on the "ther" day, it was hard to watch.

walking around the srigery mutt temple behind my mom

perform topaz blade surgery on my sisters dolls with my brother as assistant surgeon

watch my dad bargain with an autorickshaw driver for 15 minutes for a trip that might take him only ten

Dad does not have his bargaining voice back yet. He also cannot pull off that brick walk away from the auto with the "if you dont come down to my price, I am walking.." dialogue. My dad almost tangos with the auto driver.. it is a dance and the drivers do the sequence of negotiating in this weird way almost to humor themselves. This time every auto driver in the stand told me "enna saar.. appa-vukku attack vandhudche..avara romba miss pannarom saar!" and I went WTF? he is my appa, you guys talk as though he is yours! Guess the man touches peoples lives in ways I cannot understand.

fold clothes from the clothesline on the terrace and watch the kites

Check . No kites in April. fold clothes I did!

eat pori kadalai from Kapali kadalai Nilayam and savor it one rice grain at a time, and marvel at how some pori tastes a little bland, some a little salty and once in a while that single grain of arisi pori just tastes perfect!

Check. A full post on that later..

etc.

etc.

etc.

Some of these might come true soon in some form or other. The rest will be retreived from permanent memory, savored in otherwise sad times, and be neatly tucked back in, for the sights, sounds and smells of a time long gone are still in the head, with definition better than any blue ray disk can offer, better than any photo or video ever stored.

Life takes you places, but sometimes when it takes you to the same place, there is a certain magic to it!

At one point when the plane was half way across the pacific ocean, it felt like a "trishanku sorgam", neither here nor there, halfway from parents, halfway from kids.. too many words, too many emotions, tears that came from nowhere while sitting in the middle of a sea of people at 35000 feet, tears that could not be put in words or in the right context, because every thought as a parent came with an instant contradiction as a child and it all stopped after letting go of the whole thought process and just giving into the fact that not all questions have good answers. Not everything is right, or wrong.

Some decisions take you far physically, others take you far mentally. Have known people staying in the same house without as much as saying a word to each other for decades and people who care for each other very much living on opposite sides of the globe. All of us make choices and live with them and find brilliant ways to justify our day to day actions, from brushing or not brushing our teeth to deciding to have children to relocating to far off places.. and to everyone and nobodys bewilderment, life does go on.

All said and done, felt the magic. Still feeling it inside.

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