days of sloth and aimlessness

this is officially 'time off', and i like it. the house is finally settled and it sparkles just about as much as i like it to.
so how do i spend all my time, you may wonder...
well, i wake up early to let my new 'bai' in who thankfully does not bring any entourage with her. i am practising my tamil with her.
for some reason the only fluent tamil i can speak is with my parents and brother, i get totally tongue tied if i have to speak this language with anybody else...
i stammer and forget simple words and get all flushed.
i make my cup of coffee, wake the husband with 'bed-horlicks' (snigger).
make breakfast. and then hang around and wait for the husband to leave for work, then i potter around the house doing odd bits of work.
make another cup of coffee and do the times crossword, stand in the balcony and look at the bustle that goes on in the street below.

the most fascinating people live in this street.
two very old paatis (grannys) and a young girl, who live next to the facing compound wall. all their belongings are stacked in huddles and heaps on a shelf made of flat cemented stones that are stacked high.
mornings, all the women on the street line up at the water tap with plastic kodams (water pots). they gossip and chat, while they wait for their turn.
the pots are first scrubbed clean before they are filled with water. the tap splutters and spews a thin trickle of water.
then come the next batch of women folk, sometime in the afternoon, dragging some very unwilling children to the tap.
i spent a whole hour watching a thin, young woman bathe her three daughters, the other day.
she brought lotas of water and filled a big pot, collected bits of wood that was lying around, left over from the construction work, lit a fire under the pot and went about sharply slapping her daughters, getting them to undress for their baths. all of them had neat pigtails tied into curves with black ribbons. as she undid their pigtails, their hair came tumbling out in big, brown raggedy heaps.
they sat patiently, one by one, after a few initial squeals and surrendered to being scrubbed and shampooed.

i like watching these people. it is surprising that they never look up at me. their life perhaps is all that is immediate and what is right in front of them. or maybe they just have too much to do. or maybe looking up at something only gives you a crick in the neck!

going back to the not so interesting times in my life... apart from looking into other people's lives and homes, i flop about and read, listen to music, bake once in a while, catch as many snoozes as i like.
i have been catching up on films that i have missed. watched 'the blue umbrella', 'cheeni kum', 'the good german' and 'knocked up' so far (apart from trikaal, a wedding, mash, dial m for murder and ek ruka hua faisla from my own collection).
cheeni kum was rather nice, except for the sudden burst of emotional, bollywood, hyper drama for the last 30 minutes.
the blue umbrella is a must watch, pankaj kapoor has excelled himself, the film does falter and stretch towards the middle-end, but the idea is refreshing to start with.
the good german is a cross between a quasi schindler's list and casablanca, without doing much justice to either... but nevertheless a good watch for its treatment.
knocked up can be avoided like the plague.

once the husband is home in the evening, i make hot samosas and chai for him ( ha! ha! got you there! didnt i?).
we go out to get a film, get a cup of coffee, or meet up with friends. the boys-log sit and watch football or cricket, talk greek, latin and farsi about these games, while i pretend to be watching the game and listening to them. or we are at home, cooking some experimental dinner, curling up with a book or watching a film.

as you can see, i have been doing a remarkably good imitation of some dopey elephant seals...but i can say that i am beginning to understand what i would like to be doing for a living.
while that idea emerges, i like this period of calm and lull. i have had this after many, many years and i like the time warp that i am in.
i like to wake up and not have to hurry. i like it when i dont watch any TV, though i have all the time to. i like the quiet. i like the purposelessness.