Everything
has a price
Yes
even the words that I utter. For instance, if I tell my wife
casually, Looks
like I have gotten over my sneezing problem, the
next moment a virulent variety uproots my system to assert that it is
dormant, not disappeared. So last time when I got relief from a
self-inflicted knee-pain while trying to outpace the guy in the
morning walk, I didn't announce it to her, I just whispered into her
ears. Discretion is the best part of valour.
The
other day I wrote to my apartment-complex Yahoogroups in Bangalore
that in USA we live with our son in Scottsdale, popularly known as
Retirees'
Paradise. (It
will be a few decades before he earns that status, though.) It is
located on the foothills of a long stretch of mountains. Hardly had
I clicked the "Send" button to joyfully share with them the
finer aspects of life over here when a circular landed from Home
Owners Association here that a mountain-lion and bob-cat have been
spotted in the vicinity, and alerting residents to be watchful. In
any case, not to let children step out unaccompanied. My
grandchildren clarified, fighting with the customary me
first gusto,
that a mountain-lion is the 'younger' brother of a forest lion, and
a bob-cat, that of a wild cat.
Since
then, we avoided the park-route for our morning walks. It has far too
many hedges and hideouts for these wild animals to wait in ambush -
for an Indian vegetarian delicacy, tenderly nurtured over decades
with sambar,
curd rice and
chappati.
So we now cross the busy Raintree Road to go for the walk. Two days
later however
I
persuaded my wife to switch to our original park-route, with the
chauvinistic reassurance, Main
Hoon Na.
Strictly speaking it was no chauvinism, just a ploy. I weighed the
chances of being mauled by the animals against getting under a wheel
with her unshakable commitment to zig-zag her way through the rush
hour traffic in blatant disregard to signals. For certain things my
wife is still in India.
This
came about hardly a few days after another episode when our son
rushed back home two minutes after he left for office early morning.
Probably
last night's restaurant dinner has not gone well with him,
I guessed. No, he had seen a herd of coyotes (also called prairie
wolves) howling merrily in the park. He had come back just to warn us
to avoid the park. Yes, the coyotes visit the park for an early
morning breakfast of bunny rabbits that have unsuspectingly migrated
en
masse from
the foothills to the residential bushes for safety.
Until
a few years an envious landscape in front was, among the residents,
the yardstick to keep up with the Joneses. They have moved on. It is
now car wars. Ideally you should drive a German BMW, Mercedes, or a
high-end American Cadillac, Lincoln, or a British (sorry, now
Indian-owned) Jaguar. No Japanese cars whatsoever, Lexus included.
The city is already jam-packed with them. My son still holds on to
his Toyota Camry. But, I did hear him collect details from a Jaguar
dealer.
There
is a price even to be with grandchildren. Instead of allowing me to
get on with my library collection - Divine
Justice
by David Baldacci, Best
Friends
by Debbie Macomber, or A
Walk to Remember
by Nicholas Sparks - the kids insist I read theirs: Charlotte's
Web or
The Trumpet of the Swan. And
I oblige them - whenever I am not consulting in private the Tell
Me Why to
answer their volley of questions fired during breakfast, at AK47
speed. (Precisely why these days I delay my breakfast for their
departure to school.) For want of a spot answer, I normally evade
saying, I
am busy now, I will tell you later, and
make a mental note of them. Happily here , however, it is not a price
I pay, but a benefit I reap - teaching for better learning.
-------
One
for the road: My younger son rang up early
this week to wish us happy marriage anniversary. To sound modest I
said, "Yes, nice of Amma to have put up with me all these 40
years." "Not just her, all of us, Appa," he reassured.
