Sincere Apologies


              It was one of those slapstick moments of life when my husband’s aunt pulled out the chair on which I was about to park myself, from right underneath my bottom. Swish! Plop! A crash landing right on the floor.We both were lost in our respective conversations to different people, when I thought to sit and chat comfortably and simultaneously our aunt felt that it would be better to grab a chair to get a better look at all of us ‘seated’ around the table. My gleeful husband lent me a hand & at the same time congratulated me heartily on this achievement.
On taking a 180o  sweep of the surroundings I could see that our cousins were also trying hard to suppress their bubbling laughter. I rose up from the other end of the table, with my picture-perfect 32-teeth grin and a crushed bum, with a highly apologetic aunt hovering over me, apologizing profusely and trying to pull me up even after I was back on my two feet.I tried to calm her down, telling her that it was a highly amusing way to end the year and that I didn’t feel bad about it at all. Laughing along with our cousins and giving a very
meaningful ‘loving-glare’ to my better half,I offered everyone bribes of kappalandi mittai to keep the crash-landing totally hush-hush.

From time to time I could see our aunt looking at me from various angles to see if I had really forgiven her, or whether I was merely pretending to laugh and joke. As I was visiting their house for the very first time, she took me through the entire house, showing me around the place. At the end of every paragraph about a room or a corner she would add; “You know right, that I didn't really mean to make you fall down? “ When she repeated this after showing one of the brand new bathrooms of the house to me, I caught hold of her shoulders, shook her up and convinced her that I really really had not taken it to heart and that it was one of the best comedies that had happened to me all year. To round it up I also thanked her for such a funny incident that broke the entire monotony of an otherwise regular formal visit.
                        The year ended in all its many-hued magnificence and ushered in renewed days of unending possibilities… of laughter and tears…of happiness and sorrow…of life and living…of deaths and remembrances. A professor of languages, well-known to all in the area where we lived, breathed his last during the dawn of the new year and my husband’s father had gone to pay his last respects to the departed soul. Upon returning from the scene of sorrow I handed him a cup of tea. Tea always succeeded in reviving one from the gravest of mental stresses. This was my philosophy. After taking a sip, unexpectedly, he asked me to take a seat beside him. I could see that he looked very unhappy about something. Of course funerals always brought to the surface of one’s mind, life’s deepest unanswered questions. It’s natural to be unhappy after such an experience. I waited for him to speak. He let out a sigh. And when he spoke, he said so. “I had met my sister Ratna at the funeral. She told me all about what had happened to you because of her pulling the chair from under you that day. She profusely apologized again and again and wanted me to convey her sincere apologies to you.” He also added, “I had no clue as to what she was trying to tell me at first. Once she narrated the entire episode to us, everything was crystal clear.” 
                           His lips were twitching seeing the hapless expression on my face. I could imagine his plight of being subjected to hear such a piece of information and that too at a funeral. He burst out laughing all at once and I could not control too. The knowledge that my supposedly clandestine bum-crash is now actively circulating in public places in the form of a sincere apology has inspired me to take the drastic step of spreading the good-news here as well. So now I know why all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn't put Humpty together again! Cheers!!!


Kappalandi Mittai – a locally made sweet containing peanuts and melted jaggery.
Pic Courtesy : http://tomspetter.com/work/humpty-dumpty-the-real-story/


Comments

  1. Nishanth19 January 2014 at 17:05

    Congrats for becoming the fist blogged in our Family. Well ! its time to rechristen your Blog's Name, What abt.... Paining / painful Thoughts... LOL

    Please don't feel bad, just because I'm blunt.... I really like the poem, the master strokes were evident. Rest all are very trivial subjects....... why don't you come up with something meaningful .. BTW who is this so called " Professor of many languages" and the anglicized " Ratna", they are very much locals, like ME. Oh perhaps their real skin avatar won't be appealing for the elites, hence the tweaking ? We Mallu's are worlds biggest hypocrites, and the major chunk are from the new age affluent IT professionals like us.

    because of her pulling the chair FROM under you that day

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Amogha Rejeesh21 January 2014 at 23:25

      Lol....Nishanth. Bitter as ever. Thank you so much for the critical appraisal. Points noted...but as a cautionary warning I must say that, here you can always expect to discover spells of absurdity and triviality interspersed with occasional spurts of meaningfulness, as I see this blog as a window for me to unwind and just be me... and I happen to be a combination of sorts :) and Yeah! I usually don't let people escape like that especially if they have pulled out the chair FROM under me just like that! But just b'coz its our "RATNA" aunty....i'm somewhat fine with it.

      and the re-christening part....bad idea. Let it just rain.... ;)

      Delete
  2. Ranjini25 June 2014 at 00:08

    I am at lunch (at work) and I'm laughing loudly at your narration. I am pretty sure my co-workers think I've lost my marbles. Thank YOU for this. I was having a pretty sucky day and this helped.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amogha Rejeesh27 June 2014 at 02:15

    Glad you liked it. And, gladder that it made you laugh! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let the show begin!

Image
 A fond farewell to the old, as a bold 2022 unfolds. Power naps are super productive! It’s after one such snooze that I woke up to the impulsive, yet intense resolve to publish my first book. I don’t think I ever foresaw myself accomplishing the mission until that moment, when the thought almost exploded in my head like a supernova.  If 2020 was about surviving the colossal disorientation, 2021 was all about re-building the bridges & re-connecting with the self (that seemingly had been paused), as well as, with others. It was also about giving in to the now unpaused otherworldly biddings of the brain – in my case, resulting in Earth Sky – my first book of poems. The burning desire within, finally transformed into reality.  2021 made us work hard, & hope harder! The Cabin fever state-of-mind apprehensively gave way to a sneak peek of the mountains, the rivers and the back waters too - perks of working remote from God’s own country for a whole year! The post-pandemic (if there’s
Continue reading here... »

Colossal Contemplations

Image
I just sensed quite a few female subconscious minds flash yellow & black upon reading the post title this time. Well…the subconscious somehow always senses it right. Read on... The word ‘colossal’ used to draw images of the Colosseum in Rome or the Colossus of Barletta until a few years ago for the female population in the country, and that was precisely until the day Colossal Kajal from Maybelline New York hit the shelves, creating a furore in the beauty markets of India in 2011. Like the millions of ‘colossal’ fans all over the country I too lost no time in going loco over this yellow magic pen that gave your eyes the bold & beautiful look. How much ever bankrupt I became towards the end of the month I would always keep aside an emergency Colossal kajal fund just in case I ran out of this piece of 'sheer necessity' ;) In fact my husband thinks that all this is a tad too much for a lady who had never even bothered to use any form of make-up including kajal befo
Continue reading here... »

Summer on wheels!

Image
            It was that particular epoch of existence, when my life revolved around Salman Khan & roller skates. I’m talking about the pre-historic 3rd Std. goer - me - of the 90s surviving through childhood and its vagaries back in time when Salman Khan wore clothes and sported a gap in the middle of his front teeth and appeared to be as seemingly innocent as those darling Kabootars he was seen fondling lovingly from scene to scene in Maine Pyar Kiya .              Days used to dawn way earlier then, say as early as 6 A.M.! Did I just perceive gasps of gastroenteric shock from diverse quarters? (Well… hold your gastrics ye merry pre-dawn souls, we’re dealing with a late a.m. birdie here). So I was saying… I was passing through one of the most thrilling phases of my moppet life. I’d sit quivering with excitement like a bullet waiting to be released on Achan’s trembling Yezdi until we reached the Museum grounds, which would've already become dotted with the pre-dawn types
Continue reading here... »