Patterns

I want to live a pattern, not be a Brownian motion. I want to outlive my body. They might remember my pattern when I am gone. Not just any pattern, a pattern someone might like to wear. I need to set my boundary conditions, some rules and live by them. At least I can try.

I can’t expect everybody (for that matter anybody) to like my pattern theory. And I can’t expect anyone to follow it. Probably by not following it they are making their own pattern. “Not being” is after all also being. But I choose to like people who think the way I do. I might like others too. Depends.

So far Away from Me

Something that I wrote a long time ago:

Do you think that through some slow propaganda, some invisible clever people broke all our opportunities to bond? The cell phones have removed all need and desire to meet and see things together. Urban sprawl has increased the radii of our personal spaces so much that it defies all gravitational forces that might have existed between you and me. My ideas of “independence”, work-from-home culture, don’t talk to strangers, fast cars and meager public transport. Overtime fetches more daily wages, don’t wait for me for dinner. My idea of good architecture is probably huge expanses of plazas and piazzas, empty boulevards, massive scales to defy anything even remotely human. I am so individual.

Probably had you and I met and sat for a cup of tea, I would have known how many spoons of sugar you like. Probably we would have discussed recipes; probably I would have learned some words of your language. We could have shared a joke and forgotten our bosses for sometime. But tea never happened and now when I see you in the parking lot, I avoid eye contact, because I am not really sure. Are you then same lady who sits two cubicles across?

The Family Hair-loom

Well, we had our own hair fixations at childhood. My mother liked to split her split ends further till she got two out of one single follicle. My brother would twirl his hair strand with a passion that would put any perm treatment at a hair salon to shame. As for me, I did the most embarrassing thing. Childhood winters brought the dandruff to my hair and I had the habit of brushing it off onto dark surfaces to see the stars shine in a black sky. For the record, I don’t suffer from dandruff anymore (I had this urge to clarify that, female readers will understand)

Well, we don’t know what our dad did during childhood…whether he had any peculiar habits with hair…but it seemed that his detached perspective towards hair back then reflects in his bald head now. Mom does tell stories when he, a thirty three year old, in the monsoon wilderness of Madras had caught leeches to extract a hair rejuvenating oil from them. What happened to the leeches or the oil or the hair still remains a mystery.

Our strong association with hair issues continues. My mom worries about her salt and pepper hair which she skillfully masks in exotic L’Oreal shades. My brother worries about a receding hair line. I am concerned with random hair-fall seasons and count my small blessings that probably being a woman I will not have to confront classic baldness. In the meantime, my dad maintains his nonchalance about his hair and head. To make situations more complex, we worry about each other’s health of hair so that no head feels the lack of attention.

The only one to be blessed with the healthiest, shiny and thick and black hair, fur rather was our dog- Jimmy. His cousin (as we humans understand relations) Roger, boasts of an equally impressive black coat. They have made heads turn and hearts swoon in a heady mix of delight and awe. And they have solely carried the family’s name forward, when it comes to hair. If we average the hair density per capita for my family I am sure we surpass the averages.

Never undermine the importance of the black sheep (read dog) in your family. He might be your saving grace.