Me bags spot!

I was tormented by unsettling dreams all of last night.

I finally have the Book, all 600 odd pages of it. I am strenuously reading page after page of it and not a word sinks in. I am dying to understand, but I might as well have the Russian copy for all the good it does me.

As if this isn’t hell enough, I am being constantly disturbed, phone calls, old friends popping in and asking for addresses of tailors, people asking for their house keys, Mauzwala, and anybody with the slightest pretext walks in. The night is aging in and my eyelids are drooping…still got half-way to go…panic…the morrow will bring spoilers in the form of howlers and I have to finish tonight…

All in all not very pleasant, but of course we don’t need Dr Freud for this one. The thing about not getting the book is from my inability to focus on my revision; my concentration is shot, because with three days to go I am too excited to sit still, leave alone be able to painstakingly pick through for Jo’s randomly strewn clues.

Also there are other important arrangements to be made. In-house security to be tightened, Father to be warned hourly about the importance of keeping mum and scanning the papers for potential spoilers and warning us in advance. Arranging for a stream of nibbles to arrive on said Day so as to provide sustenance without requiring both hands of sustainee.

Also one needs to provide oneself with the Spot. The perfect spot to plant one’s bottom, providing light, air, privacy and atmosphere. My sister being the smarter one of us bagged hers before I had a chance to say Expelliarmus.

So I went scouting for my own. I haven’t done too badly I think, only it will be nice if the day is a bit cloudy so I wont have to wear a cap all day.

What do you reckon? Magic enough?

Hands of my family

It is commonly agreed that my father has the most interesting hands. The father can be regularly heard protesting that he has no concept of beauty and that he is tone deaf and all art to him is unfathomable mystery, but this doesn’t stop people from regularly attributing all sorts of artistic virtues to him. That is mostly because of his hands. If truth be told I myself have a few not-so-secret ambitions for him. I am constantly dropping random hints about late bloomers, and gifting him art supplies (which are gathering dust among old Ananda vigadans and lecture material) and always finding some secret merit in his telephone and bedside doodlings. What’s to say I won’t be rewarded yet?

Father's hand in drama (actually he was just impatient to get to his mosaranna, because there was a power-cut and only two measly candles were guarding the rice in the kitchen against the creatures of the night)

I cannot be objective about my mother’s hands. I doubt if people can. I never could apply the usual standards to them, because of course, to me, they are unique. And so how to present them? I’ve been a wee bit sly and cut out a picture from a larger one to present her hand in a very well known avatar- the hand that wields the power. Here the remote is only a symbol of power because to be factually correct, the lady is not terribly fond of the remote unless it’s sporting season.

My sister has my father’s hands and his feet. Which we all think is a good thing. This picture is out of a slightly crazy-lazy half-hour one afternoon, when we were trying to freak ourselves out. Hands, I mean hands without a context are such weird unnatural things…
I have chosen the most normal looking of the lot because I don’t fancy a very lethal Mottekai the self same hand can deliver.

That leaves my hands. For some reason (I don’t know if this happens to all children) I was really fond of my hands when I was a child. They had identities separate from, individual of each other. I always considered my right hand to be the bully, and I remember rooting for the underdog. But now I am just glad to have them (godkeep). Grateful and glad. I am genuinely content when I work with my hands or even when I am just watching somebody use their's well. I like things made by the hand. They seem alive. My happiest memories are associated with busy hands and aching back. So then presenting - Happy Hands!