The Art of Aping

I was at the Art Institute of Chicago recently to watch the Picasso exhibits.  Apart from being completely blown over by the genius of the artist, something else caught my attention.  The institute was pretty crowded that day, and it was hard to pay attention to any particular face or keep track of anybody.  The crowd was moving along like a stream of water, pausing at every painting briefly.  But there was one little boy who I couldn't help notice.

He had come to see the paintings with his mother and younger sister, and they were standing right next to me.  I figured he must be around eight years old.  He was wearing these Harry Potter glasses and looked rather contemplative.  Very soon I realized that I had an admirer.  This kid was trying to imitate my behavior at the institute.  He paused at a painting for exactly the same amount of time, and focused in exactly the same areas of the painting as I did.  If I read the description of the painting, he would read it too, else ignore it.  He folded his hands when I folded mine, and when I stepped away from a painting, he followed suit, constantly casting glances at me to make sure his imitation was perfect.  His younger sister on the other hand was far too young for Picasso I guess.  She looked bored and kept trying to distract her brother, but in vain.  This went on for a really long time.  I should say I was really amused by his behavior, even feeling proud at some point that this kid was imitating me and not his mother.  :D

But, on my way back home, my amusement turned into serious contemplation.  I was transported back to my childhood days, when I tried very hard to look and behave like an adult.  I don't know if I really wanted to be an adult, but I tried to imitate them nonetheless.  I watched my parents, other grown-ups, even older siblings very carefully.  When our family watched a movie on TV, I would watch my mother every time there was a funny scene, to see if she was laughing.  If she laughed, I would laugh.  If she didn't find it funny, then it wasn't worth laughing.  I tried to chew food the way grown-ups did.  Yes, I thought grown-ups chewed food differently from kids.  I've draped myself in my mom's sari several times and admired myself in the mirror.  I felt really good when I was in the middle of grown-ups having serious conversations, or when the seniors in school knew my name.  I imagined how I'd behave, how I'd eat, how I'd laugh and how I'd talk when I grew up.

And then, I thought about all the times in my adult years, when I've wished I were a child again.  I've wished I could go back to my school days, when life was much simpler, when everything was taken care of, and all I had to do was study and write exams, and wait for the holidays.  Days when I was so young I didn't think so much.  My only biggest worry then was how 1st standard was going to be when compared with kindergarten.  Days when I cried my heart out when my necklace of pink beads broke, spilling the beads onto the earth, and that was the most painful thing that could happen.  I still remember the tightness in my chest.  And then I wondered, if I were to become a kid again, if I were to get that pink necklace back, would I hold onto my dear childhood, not wanting to let go?  Or, will I reach for that sari again?

Paradise

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach so
She ran away in her sleep
And dreamed of paradise
Every time she closed her eyes.*

I wonder sometimes - am I in paradise and having a really bad dream?  Or is this for real and paradise just a dream?  Do such dreams come true?  Or should I just not open my eyes?

*Verses not mine, of course.  Source: Coldplay - Paradise

The vending machine

Some things are unforgettable. There is this vending machine in the building where I work - the vending machine that acts as a savior when I am losing it in lab and really want some sugar down my throat. It was one of those days, one of those long and tiring ones in lab, when I walked down those silent corridors towards the vending machine. On my way down there, I was trying to decide between a bar of snickers and a more healthy option. The first three items from the left are healthier options, says the vending machine, I remember. But very rarely have I risked having the healthier option, I have always been disappointed, either by the taste or the meager quantity. I hadn't made up my mind yet, but I was already in the room. And lo! The machine wasn't there!

Have I arrived at the wrong room? Did I take a wrong turn somewhere lost in my thoughts? I stepped out of the room, looked around. No, I am in the right place. There is even a coke vending machine nearby, where it always used to be. This has to be the room. But now, there was only a dark patch on the floor where the vending machine used to sit. What did they do with it? Didn't they realize that someone was heavily dependent on it? Didn't they see stuff vanishing from there? (Of course, I fed the machine the required number of quarters every time.)

Very disappointed, I went back to lab, unable to focus on work. Why would anybody want to remove the vending machine? Why didn't they leave a note saying when it would be back? Did they move it some place else? Where was it? Will it be back?  I was very very sad. Things don't end here. Worse is when you walk down those corridors again, on another long and tiring day, when there is no other option available for you to get a snack, and you find the same dark patch.

It has been several weeks, perhaps months, I have lost track.  I want to know if the vending machine is back. I want to find out, but I don't want to make that trip down to the little room in the corner. What if it isn't there? I know I cannot handle it. Not again.

Is anybody listening?

Greener pastures

This was a post I had written a long time ago, found it in my drafts today. 

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Today was again one of those days when I was wondering if I was on the right career path, rather wondering what my career path was.  I was sitting at a friend’s desk staring at all the cute little things she had on display on her pin board, wondering if I would have enjoyed being in her place, doing her job, instead of being where I am right now.  As I sat there imagining how different my life would have been, this one particular cartoon on the board caught my eye. 

A toothbrush says to his friend, “Mine is the most disrespectful job on earth.” 

“Yeah, right”, goes the friend, who happens to be a roll of toilet-paper! :D

To each his own!

Spring...

I was on a bus.  I saw this girl sitting across from me eating her burger.  I don't know why, but I was studying her.  I could see immense pain in her eyes, brimming with tears.  Those eyes tried to avoid the tears, avoid my gaze.  She shut her eyelids, hoping to engulf those tears.  But the drop trickled down and fell on her arm.  She wiped it away, slightly embarrassed, and looked out through the window.  The bus stopped briefly.  There was a row of tulips by the sidewalk, cheerful red and pink, dancing in the sun.  I saw a smile escape her lips.  It was spring, it will see her through.

Mitsuwa

On a tired Saturday evening, a phone call from a lab-mate brought some excitement. There was a plan to drive to Mitsuwa, the Japanese super-market in the outskirts of the city. After a little contemplation, I said yes and I don't regret it. :)

I remember, way back in school, I had this chapter in one of my Hindi text-books about the Japanese and their culture. I remember two distinct characteristics about the Japanese from that lesson - their hardworking nature and their penchant for order and cleanliness. I got a glimpse of it at Mitsuwa. It was quite a big store selling many different kinds of seafood but everything was so neatly organized and there was no odour of any sort emanating from any corner of the store. The store seemed like a busy market in a cute, clean little town. Polite shopkeepers, smiling cooks at the fast-food stalls, and the ever-so courteous women at the check-out counters, just leave you with a desire to stay put and admire the happenings. I was slightly disappointed by the fact that they did not have English translations for a lot of their commodities. But, that was not a problem as I had my Japanese friends to help me out.

While I was lazily scanning the different kinds of fish, this kid, a boy about 13 years old, walked up to me at a hurried pace with an eager excitement on his face. I thought he wanted to get past me to the other end of the aisle, so I moved my cart aside making way for him. He walked around the cart, came close to me and held me by both my hands. I was initially taken aback by the 'audacity' of that act. But, he held me so affectionately, and looked into my eyes with such a soft and loving smile, that I couldn't help smiling back at him. Ah! What I felt then is indescribable in words. Was it a mother's feeling when her child comes running to her at the end of a long day in school? Or was it the joy of finding a long lost friend? My friends stood there quite perplexed by what was going on.

It was a fleeting moment, but felt like ages. The boy's mother came running up to us and dragged the boy away by his arm. She screwed her son's ears very gently and said something to him in Japanese, which seemed like rebuke for his behaviour. She apologized to me and walked away with her son. Suddenly, things started to make sense to me. The kid was probably autistic. He was talking in vague sounds to his mother when she pulled him away from me. With his head tilted in quite an uncomfortable angle, he followed his mother as she disappeared into a different section of the store. I couldn't take my eyes off the direction in which they went. My mind was not into the new and interesting things around me anymore. I was yearning to see that little boy again.

Towards the end of our shopping, I saw the mother and the son again. This time, I smiled at the lady but she turned her face away, almost as if in embarrassment. I wanted to tell her that I was not offended by what her son did and that she needn't feel sorry. In fact, that was a lovely moment that I would cherish forever. But, words just wouldn't form in my head. Thoughts remained as thoughts and feelings as feelings, locked into that little corner of the brain that treasures life's most defining moments, moments that stir your soul.