art – The Behenji

Killing mosquitoes gives me the biggest high. I know a lot of you will cringe at that statement, take a look at my room-then you’ll truly be disgusted. It’s like a dead zone with mosquitoes slapped against the walls, smudged on the ground.

And just as I typed that I saw one meander past my screen. Operation Dead Wings now comes into effect. I switch off my fan/air conditioner-anything that can cause movement of air particles, because then the mosquito can just get pushed out of the way just as you try to smack it. The best method is to push the mosquito downwards or against a wall. Then Smack! You may use your slipper, a book you’re reading, or a ruler-like my mom did the other day. Anything with a flat surface.

Some people think this is really cruel. They say things like “But what makes you think you have the power to kill a living being?!” The thing is, that if I don’t make my move first, it will instead- when I’m asleep, that too on my face. And just look at the stats for malaria cases in the city this season. A website said :’ just like every mosquito doesn’t have malaria-every guy’s not a cheater’. Well come to south Delhi, then we’ll talk. Every guy is a bozo and every mosquito is a blood sucking malariaite.

This week has been tough. Mainly because there are so many changes happening. Finishing undergrad (I don’t care if I sound like a broken record) is momentous and the little cricks and turns of relationships only makes it more memorable. Suddenly everyone is their own selves and unanswerable to others. Those days of having a coffee salted with tears over what so-and-so said, sitting in depressive silence due to some universal hormonal wave-and then suddenly bursting out with laughter, has all come to an end. You don’t send text messages asking what your friends are doing more than once a week-that’s ‘old and overbearing’ now. You don’t have to share each and every episode of your life, we’re a little too busy with our own stuff. If you’re feeling low and being poop-faced about it, go do something with yourself. And that’s how one chapter ends and another starts.

Now all that’s left to do to tie up the lose ends, is to study for the finals. To pine over work that simply doesn’t have any intrinsic worth anymore.

I’m going to kill that bloody mosquito

From a visit to my grand-aunt, after her husband passed away. He was a charming man who lived past 85, and had the kindest soul in the family. When we visited his now widowed wife, all she cried about was her maid not turning up to clean the kitchen. Her tears paused as she even told us about how another maid was kicked out, because she was pregnant and was of no use. She didn’t want to put her up at her house anymore.
My grand-aunt’s husband was arranged to marry her. She resembled a “pretty doll” in her youth. I always wondered if he loved her and almost asked him last winter when I was going through his old photo-album. I saw pictures of him, so young, dancing with full figured women who had curled up hair and wore tight 50’s frocks. He had such a bright face.
I wondered, but I never asked.