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A day with my new personal trainer, Mammootty

This is a new series in Freekick where you see popular characters from life and fiction walking across my only life, without anyone particular around me seeing their trailing glory. We sat glumly in our chairs, seething, boiling, wishing intently that a freak bolt of lightning might fall upon the other. Nothing of the sort happened. We just glummed for nothing. Actor or boxer, one must pick rudimentary lessons in behaviour if one ever wants to be something, especially a personal trainer. Shashi. … Continue reading

Why I hate cats? The long and undocumented history of our enmity.

There is a standoff, I agree. As an impartial visitor to my locality the first thing you notice is something sinister, something bizarre, something secretive going on between us, seeing the manner in which we pass each other in the street, contempt writ large on our faces.  Cats, I hate them. Our hostility goes a long way back.  Those were the days of my inquisitive childhood when I was busy disturbing little bugs and insects that came my way. Boys did that at an … Continue reading

A minister for an uncle

I divided the rice into two heaps. “Uncle, this is my great great grandmother and that,” pointing to the heap of rice on my plantain leaf, but towards his side, “is your grandmother.” Too ungrandmotherly a shape, he could only nod at the heap of rice I pushed towards him. “This. My grandmother.”  “Yes! Your grandmother.” With that settled, I was now busy delineating relations with the rest of the rice. From the corner of my eyes I could see Divya sitting at the far … Continue reading

Leaving my mother in another planet

I got stuck in that sliver of a memory for eternity. Wherever I turn, however hard I try, I pick the same note from the hoary distance, see the same old nagging visual in the periphery, that of my helpless mother, across whose wan face a pair of iron gates collapsed shut, its definiteness as loud and final as death. Alas, if I had arms long enough to reach some forty years back to heave open the doors of that elevator for her once! We were at … Continue reading