This was the coldest season at my life. At 3 degrees centigrade ( As S would like to say, he is at 3 degrees as well, but denomination is in Fahrenheit...No its not THAT cold here ), I deliberately chose not to keep a room heater, I somehow love that bone chilling sensation that comes seeping through my feet when I put it on the floor. But more than that it was the fog that lasted while it did. To know zero visibility means to sit in a car and have all eyes and ears tuned to the idea of guessing what comes next. And even in the rear, I got the first taste of paranoia when I shouted at Dr A to drive slowly, and even to stop the car in the middle of the road ' waiting for the fog to clear' so we could come back from our now ritualized dinner programme every saturday night...me, Vicks, Payal and the Boss, Dr A.
I will put up some pictures of Rohtak Campus in the fog, and trust me it was twice the fog than comes through in the pics. My camera is unnecessarily sharp eyed in this context and I did not edit the pictures. The best moments were when actually walking through the fog to the Ward you accidentally find people popping in through the thick haze...The fog isn't here anymore, but next time its here, I will have them captured.
The thing that I most want to do in an evening like this is to just go on walking. For the lack of a good companion, this is the time when I am the happiest and loneliest. I usually hum to Pink Floyd or Hotel California. At my saddest and loneliest best, I finally picked up Dr P to to take a walk along with. Trouble is the days I get free mean an emergency to her and as a second year, shes gotta do the stuff in the casualty. We are basically a very odd pair, this one notedly antisocial but very eager to live life if someone gives her a chance..Sadly, it cannot be put across even subtlely to these great minds residing here...thats P for you, gem of a person, if someone looks below her defenses.... And me...well...hmmm...not much to say. But in any case we hit it off okay even with limited spectrum of conversation. But as my Professor has saddled me with 5 special ward patients that i have to paste a smile to visit...even as I had planned to take a walk today evening, I got free at 9 45 pm.
Plus the fog was not there. Sometimes you want to tear the sky.
These are times when I miss talking...miss scratching all the wounds and scabs till they bleed raw and begin to heal. Its almost a paradox that these desires clash with the numbing effect this winter has on my hands and legs. Plus Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb further deadens the picture. Until what you have is me, having a sister's marriage that would have otherwise pushed my hormones and tempers into the Stratosphere had I lived in Cuttack, but here I am, not even missing quite what or who I perhaps should miss..not quite enjoying what or how I perhaps should enjoy...Or I don't know.
Somehow, I have grown Comfortably Numb....
Smiles.....
..........................................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................................
I fail to understand why North India has to be so narrow minded...Sure they are sharp, good looking, rich, have fertile soils, nice climate, no Heat strokes, or cyclones or mosquitoes pregnant with Falciparum maggots to bring them down, but you notice a subtle shift, a moment's pause in which they evaluate, calculate and then decide what to do or say to you in the next step. Perhaps because they easily guess I am not one of them, I don't know exactly where it begins. And men are unusually conceited when it comes to women. If its the same with the rest of the country, it is closedly so. Here its out in the open, and no one makes a pretense of it. I am not exactly sure if I choose the covert over the overt, but the idea of women staying mum over some matters of the most immediate consequence and subsequence to them is alarming. Like somehow women accept its just their lot to get slim, fair and beautiful, get an education and to marry a rich guy. Even if the education means to get a MBBS, it has no relation to how much integrity and honesty they put to it. It becomes just another degree to add to the marriage matrimonial CV.
No comments:
Post a Comment