2013! The year of change is here!

Wishing all of you a hap-hap-happy new year!

I'm having a not so good start of the new year here with Kats, we are travelling to the great city where Kats studies, thousands and i-don't-know-how-many miles away from Here. We took the early early morning flight. Had to get up at four in the morning! Who gets up at four in the morning and takes a bath in winter? Don't you worry there are plenty of crazy adults like Kats who do so!

Hope this year makes Kats listen to me a little more. The whole early morning flight idea was Madam Kats's by-the-way. She has oh-so-many things to do, and since her classes begin from tomorrow she wants to be all-set before hand. :| I know, first day of the new year, who leaves home to the hostel. But I must admit, I am liking travelling.

I have often wondered how easy life would have been had dragons been real. No need to stand in a queue/go online and book tickets, all you need to do is fix you mind, wear woolens and explain the route map to your dragon using google maps I guess. Woolens are needed I think, no its not the Kats syndrome that has got to me, but its supposed to be really really cold up there.

So imagine this, instead of coming out of Here, getting ready early in the morning, going through crazy queues of booking your luggage and all, me and Kats could have happily got up at 8:00 am. Had a nice crisp dosa made by mummy, bathed at our pace, pulled our lugage to the football ground tie it around the dragon and just sit on. As for the route map, our dragon woud have been driven nuts by repeated discussions and description of the route map with a print out by Kats dearest, weeks, no lets be realistic, MONTHS in advance. And once all set to travel we would have one woosh into the air. First the large houses would have become a littel smaller like the ones in the park where we used to play. Then as the dragon raises higher the whole twon would have looked like a lego town. When the dragon goes a lot more higher we would have crossed the layers of clouds to almost cruise over an ocean of clouds. Well thats how it is when we travel by the jet plane.

What I am not sure of is whether one does get wet when one passes through a screen of clouds, after all 'clouds are condensed water masses' as Kats told me.

The crusing on top of the clouds is the best thing of travelling by the sky I guess. Its like you are floating on a sea of white cotton candy and if its sunset or sunrise time, the sky has so many wonderful colours to show. And the rainbow Kats tells me won't we visible if we are above the clouds, so when it rains not too many colours above the clouds. :(

Clouds reminds me of another thin apart from white cotton candy, friends. Friends are like clouds, when the sun is too angry and has too much heat to give away, the clouds cover it; friends too help you keep the heat of so many things like crazy competition,stress away. They cry with you sometimes, sometimes for you; sometimes when you need to soak in a little warmth they move away. Some friends get anry quickly like the thundering clouds, some are like the sheep-shaped cloud that floats around in the sky on a normal day, and if you are bored and alone asks you to paly tag with it. Clouds can never stay with you forever, you can't pin it down or close it in a jar take it with you where you want. The winds decided where the clouds go,but you can simply not live without clouds. When one set of clouds leave, there would be a clear sky but you can't forget where your favourite cloud stood; you can't forget the clouds.

Sometimes ou really want to keep a cloud in your jar forever, but if you try to do so I think you'll never have a cloud in the jar all you have is water(cause Kats says clouds are masses of condensed water you see). And water in a jar you won't like it either, because it isn't the same as the cloud, it isn't freely floatinglike in the sky but just takes the shape of what you push it into. It obeys you and doesn't talk to you...

Chulibuli feels sad for Dadu

The door bell rang once, but we were too busy with Lego to rush and pay attention to it. Also it was an odd time when it rang, it couldn't have been mummy, daddy and Kats's friends normally don't come to visit her. The bell rang again and the door 's latch was used to knock. It was then that I understood that it was Dadu.

Dadu is a really old man, who sells eggs, agarbattis, chanchur/mixture, and buys old paper from us. One of his eyes have almost become completely white and poor Dadu can see properly only form the other eye. he had told us once about his grand daughter, she was in school, and wanted some of Kats's old note books for her to write. I remember spontaneously making Kats ask about her granddaughter's Daddy and mummy, and he was silent. It was a strange silence, Dadu seemed very sad then. Dadu as much as we have known him has exactly 3 pairs of clothes and a sleeveless sweater and a brown full sleeves sweater. When it is a little cold he wear the sleeveless sweater and colder the full sleeves one and the coldest both together.  His slippers have been the same for the last so many years that we have seen him. But unlike other adults he smiles a lot. When he smiles I think he forgets that he has lost so many teeth. I often wonder how difficult it must be for Dadu to brush, because with such huge gaps between his teeth insects would find it very easy to enter his mouth.

Dadu's son has vanished, Dadu is very old and he still works. I remember making Kats ask mummy once that when one is old one usually shouldn't work, but why is that Dadu is working. Mummy said to me, "Normally when one is old, one expects ones children to look after and do no work. Dadu's children are not there. Dadu has a little grand daughter to take care of. And isn't it a good thing that he is working? Instead of sitting at home all day long, all lone he goes around, sees the world, meets people of all kinds. He can tell better stories to his grand daughter. " so true, the more people you meet, the more places you see the better stories you can tell. But why do children vanish when their mummy-daddy grow older? I always had that question, but somehow could never ask anyone yet.

It is good that Dadu gets to meet so many people and tell better stories, but sometimes when it is too cold or too hot and his legs ache too much to ride his cycle with the box of eggs on his carrier and the bags of agarbattis and chanchur/mixture hung along his cycle's handle he still comes.  And it is then that Chulbuli feels sad for Dadu.

Chulbuli sang with Arial! and another thing Kats doesn't know

I have been having so much fun that I almost forgot to share it with you all!

If  someone asks me from now on my favorite month I shall surely say December, because the first week has been nothing short of total fun. Cold mornings under warm blanket, getting up when I want, bathing when I want, eating what I want and what I like. Its like how it used to be when I was in control of Kats. And Now I think it is so. MUHAHAHA ! the adult finally listens to the child.

Everyday is a fun-day, everyday is a Sunday! We get up with no plans, we follow no timetable. We read what we like and play as much as we want. Oh I must tell you! We fold colorful paper into beautiful things and fly like birdies without wings.

We have watched so many nice movies over the last week or more I think (I have stopped counting days and seeing the calender you see, after all they are just numbers) Harry potter and the deathly hallows both parts, Sound of Music and the Little Mermaid. The first few ones were nice, but the Little mermaid was nicer, no maybe nicest of them all. Why you may ask? Because it is about Arial who just won't stop listening to what her heart says, she is not always in control like Kats, she is like the on the hill top, she just flows, nothing can stop her from what she wants. She does get into tiny-winy bit of trouble, when she does I really did get scared, but her Daddy, King of the Sea saves her. But does someone always come to save one when one is in trouble?

I remember this song which I sang with Ariel, Part of that world. Ariel says in that she wants to be a part of our world, walk with legs, and dance with them, and watch fire burn, all of what we find so-normal she finds it special. Maybe everything is special, but for those who don't have it? Because I feel what Ariel has is very special, a tail, a fish friend, and a crab friend, and so many more fishes of all colours around her, you don't find so many people or animals or different colours staying together here. I remember asking this to Kats that why is that I feel Ariel is special and she feels that we are special and she smiled strangely while replying, "Remember the song Under the sea that Sebastian sings? The first line he says that the sea weed is always greener in somebody else's lake. He means to say that to you it'll seem that the other person and his or her things are always better than yours." And I asked her, "Who is really special then?" And she said, "I don't know Chulbuli."

There you go Kats another thing you don't know. I am making a list of things that Kats doesn't know, because all these older people have an answer for everything, they think they know everything, and when they say they don't know its worth playing the flute and dancing around like an elf.

I also asked Kats, while watching the movies, both Sound of music and The little mermaid, "Do you remember how you felt when you were sixteen?" Both Lisel from Sound of Music and Ariel from The little mermaid are sixteen, that is why I asked her. And Kats replied again with an I-don't-know and more,"I don't know Chulbuli. I was sixteen for a year, I can tell you all that happened then, but how does it feel to be sixteen I don't know; or rather, I don't remember." 

Is it that because like an adult I tried to connect a number to feelings she couldn't tell me? Or you simply don't remember how it feels to be of an age after you are older than that? Again the numbers are bothering me!

Numbers, lies, and chaos

Tied up in a corner with thick ropes and duck tape on my mouth, can you imagine Chulbuli like that? Thats what Kats did to me last two years. I realized how Rapunzel might have felt when left to herself in the tall tower with a duck tape on her mouth. Lonely, silent, pale, that is the life of an adult.

Obsessed(I learn it from Kats)with numbers all adults are. Marks, money, weight, height, length, breadth, thickness, everything, everything except for the thing for which they use them to differentiate from other things. Two numbers have been flashing with bright neon lights on Kats's mind from her arrival to this horrible place, weight and her marks in the course. Kats says she wants to study more, and to study more she was telling me once that she needs more marks. But I asked her,"If you want to study more, you can simply study more, how will those numbers decide?" She laughed at me as if I told her that a fruit that looks like an orange is an apple. And I remember the reply she gave to me, "Those numbers tell them how much I know. And only if I know the amount they want, I can know more. Those who know little, can't know more." And I also remember my reply to which she had no answer, "How can what you know be in numbers? Is knowing things countable? And if it is how can you compare two things that you know, that one is larger or smaller, because knowing somethings is easier than knowing some other things. Like knowing that I have ten fingers is easier than knowing how earth revolves around the sun. Or knowing anything is the same? And how can you decide that what is the smallest part of knowing about anything?..." Later that day she told me, that they give questions that she must answer in the time that the people who choose the questions give. But I still wonder how one question can tell whether Kats knows about it or not, what if when she was asked the question she forgot about it, but later she remembered it. Like I know that Barney is purple in colour, but what if I forget how to pronounce the name of the colour, would it mean I don't know about it?

If only knowing and everything to do with it was easy. Till two years back, Kats knew she loved Chemistry, she still does, but she knew she wanted to know more chemistry, but being a REAL scientist that was the lie she started to chant. And it was a whale that swallowed her. She was too scared, too shy to say what she really wanted, she knew what she wanted. But living inside the whale of lies, she forgot about the sun, the moon, the water, the wind. And when the whale opened its mouth a bit, through the cracks she saw it and recalled. And again she was back into the pinkness of the mouth of the whale. And for that time, the thought of the sun, moon and water never came to her. Now, just today, the whale coughed and she was thrown right into the sea. Initially she thought she didn't know anything, not even how to swim. But her hands began to move on their own, and she didn't drown. Now the chaos is all about whether Kats knows what she wanted to be or whether she doesn't?

How many marks for her to answer the question of "what do you want to be?" ? Can the answer to the question really know whether she knows it? Chaos it is.

The home-coming…

After 3 long months the little birdie finally flies back into the nest.3 long months away from home, away from parents with strangers some of whom who become friends,Kats returns…
Travelling alone for the first time away from the newly found home to her actual home. Kats was alone in her journey, she says she always is alone in her journey, I never understood what she meant. After 3 months of boring adult life finally Kats was returning to her good old days of joy and reasonless happiness.


I am so absolutely happy I can’t tell you, I was and am so sick and tried of being surrounded by people of Kats age who behave like adults. I was really happy that she finally was coming back to here, a place of peace, clam and simplicity.

Till Kats boarded the flight to the plane Urbem lætitiæ her homecoming was a doubt.

The day before her journey back home at around 9:30 in the morning Kats listens to the announcement of ‘bandh’ in the city. ‘Bandh’ is again a strange thing that elders do. They go around stopping everything, throwing stones, breaking everything; it is like their way of showing anger, on what I still don’t know….

Bandh is a scary thing, anyone can be hurt, there are no buses to travel in,no parks to play in everything is closed (everything is ‘Bandh’).

 

From the colour of a shining white pearl Bacca Urbs turns a grim colour of black-voielt-red on the days of bandh.

 

Both myself and Kats were scared and tensed.

 

The initial ‘plan’ was that Himadrija (Kats’s roommate, friend, classmate, bench mate…the list is never ending) was supposed to drop Kats at the closet fly-o-express
bus stop. Then Kats would travel herself to airport in the fly-o-express from there.

But if there are no busses then how would Hima and Kats go to the fly-o-express bus stop??? Also if they do reach there would fly-o-express come to take Kats to the airport…?

 

SO many questions…so much of confusion…

Kats’s parents had decided to postpone her tickets to a later date after the bandh. But when was again doubt, as the day she was supposed to leave she had her EVS exam in the morning.

Adults and their plans…always confusing…always funny and always tension causing…

This time the couldn’t draw up a plan and that what gave them so much of tension. I don’t understand why should everything be known before hand, why can’t it just happen? Adults are indeed funny people they ‘plan’ ‘adventurous’ holidays….
Crazy Adults….

Finally at 4:30 in the evening when news came that the 'Bandh' was cancelled Kats and her parents drew up another 'Plan'. After the conduct of the exam at 4:30 in the evening the next day Hari Anna,Kats's father's friend's car driver would pick her up and drop her at the airport.The best thing about this part of the plan was the car was huge! I love this car which Kats's father's friend owns,it's huge...the seats are soft and it doesn't smell of some stupid thing called petrol like other cars...

After a 35 minute journey,Kats reaches Bacca Urbs International Airport.It's one fun place to be.
It has everything that I would want...McDonalds , toy stores,trolleys to play on..smoothe floor to glide on,funny seats to sit on,you could even simply sit and watch the planes land and take off..it's soooooooooooo fun!!

After months without even my telling or forcing Kats let me take over her...though she did do what most adults do initially, finish the 'important' things like checking in the  baggage,visiting a book store to buya book,stare at silly jewellery and even more silly dresses...Finally she spent time staring at toys in the toy store,pinched the cheek of the various Winnes the Pooh in the store,played with the Jumbos,stared at the new hair style of Barbie,tried to juggle the balls their but failed badly...also not to forget while picking up a Winne the Pooh She managed to bring all the other around him down :P  What a gala time it was...

Then there was an announcement that the flight that was to carry her home was ready made.She ran really fast to the counter,but had to stand in a huge queue with sooooooooo many more adults.Finally she walked to the tube (adult's call it a chute)the floor was white and on both sides was glass through which she could see the scene  outside the tube.She walks into the aeroplane and a barbie-doll like lady welcomes her with a cold plastic smile.She goes in and settles down on her seat. Right next to her sat a plump aunty.Kats was too happy about going back home that she didn't think much about anything around her.

The aunty next to her share some lovely potato chips with her and she shared the lovely fruit cake that she purchased 'on air'.They were talking about food,obviously Kats's mouth was watering thinking about all the good food as she hadn't had any for the three months....poor girl. 

Finally after flying for 2 hours the plane finally landed in Urbem lætitiæ.
Again without my asking she gave me the opportunity to control her totally. 

I was indeed very restless to go back home.If possible I would have made her literally jump off the plane,but because that can't happen she had to glide down the slide sort of thing they had put.The tin-box like bus had arrived to carry her form the plane to 'arrival lounge'.

Finally after arriving at the arrival lounge,battling through adults of all sizes she managed to pick her suitcase and from behind someone call her by her full name,"KATAYAYINI..."
Kats rushes,rather glide on the smooth airport floor and hugs her mother tight.She kisses her on her forehead,we both felt so happy,warm and at home.She turns to her daddy and hugs him too.We were both sooooooooooo happy...

And then Kats,myself and her parents leave the airport and Urbem lætitiæ behind for here.....awaiting a month of pure reasonless joy....